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One who has enjoyed long communing wvith Cod, who has fed upon the strong meat of Scripture, who early in life has bravely fought with the enemy-that lion greedy after his prey —such a one is not long detained by false pleasures. For the world-what I mean by the world, is not to be confounded with the gaiety that befits youth, with fresh laughter and innocent meetings, the radiance, the harmony, the frank outbursts of healthily happy hearts.

No; it is frivolity, dissipation with its sad commonplace of paltry jealousies, spiteful comments, over-excited vanity. It is the heart departing from God, saying to the Father, " Give me my portion, that I may enjoy it at my ease far from Thee. The Angel of Death touched her. It was a tedious illness, with unexpected changes for the better, then stdden relapses; yet Rose had again found happiness.

Long weak, then confined to bed; peace shone upon her brow. She went slowly down youth's flowery slopes; she went the way of all the earth, but heaven had opened to her. A little sad at leaving her father and her mother, she had a fund of secret joy in her heart. But this had not been won without some struggles-some efforts to clutch again at life. There were days when earth seemed beautiful, Death ccld,-when that unknown thing, the passage between the two, frightened her. These days came to an end, others rose radiant, when heaven was so near, the hand of Jesus so strong, that the young girl seemed to walk on lightly, modestly, and firmly, as when in former evenings she followed the homeward path, her head crowned with vine branches, and bathed in the glow of sunset.

One night, the last, she asked -she, who would suffer anything rather than wake her father and mother-asked them both to sit up with her. Ever since that Sunday I was unhappy in myself. If I had got well, perhaps I should have gone back with the rest.

Where I am going God will keep me. It is very beautiful there. Do not cry. You will come there, father; you will come there, mother. Rose had never been much of a talker. She was " close," as our villagers call it. When, the night nearly spent, two struck on the old wooden clock; -when the first streak of morning, rather a pallor than a light, glided in the east between the Alps and the sky; when came that shudder of the dawn which detaches so many lives; that dubious hour, when watchers by the sick feel their eyes grow heavy; that mysterious hour when the dying cease to struggle, and the unseen hand cuts the thread, —Rose, with one bound, leapt from her bed.

Then she walked up and down, trembling, supported by her father, who had waked with a start out of his sorrowful sleep. Rose stood still before the window which looked to the east; the earliest blackbirds were beginning to sing in the wood; she saw the reddening horizon; wonder was painted on her face, something of timidity, too; but the prevailing expression was happiness.

Two evenings later, the white dresses were again seen winding through the wood paths, under the oaks. In the farmhouse, on the bed, reposed the most beauti. The young girls entered silently, crowding in at the end of the little room, near the door, looking on with widec opened eyes; the youths stood without. Rose had on her Sunday dress; her first communion veil was thrown over her head, leaving her face bare; the features were marble, the eyes half open, the expression crave, almost austere; only the hand of Jesus had impressed on them the peace of heaven.

Her hands were crossed. Above them, on her breast, God's book, which had consoled her; at her feet, the white crown which her young companions had brought. The mother made no ado, nor the father either. Not but what their anguish was great, but it was God's doing. God ripens and destroys the crops; God gives our bread and takes it away.

He knows why; He is our Father; what have we to say They placed Rose in the coffin; they put the garland on it; the youths carried the bier; the young girls followed; this time without violins, without clarionets, they took the road to the wood. Three Sundays after, on the turf, not far from the churchyard, the young people were dancing.

The first Rose faded, another came. A white rose; one of those roses with a foreign perfume; a hot-house rose that our winters kill. Even as a child she was peculiar; liable to bursts of immoderate mirth and immoderate depression; at both these alike, her father, a discreet, deliberate man, frowned.

Her mother took her part in her father's presence, but secretly she scolded her too. She grew up amidst reprimands; but she preferred her mother's lectures to the tacit discontent of her father, a worthy but austere man, who truly loved her. Her parents were tolerably well off, but still they had to work.

As for working in the fields, this Rose plainly could not do that; tall, slender, pale as she was, with preternaturally large deep eyes, a transparent aquiline nose, the nose of a princess, and fair hair whicllsurrounded her with a golden halo.

They determined to make a lady of her; she was one already. At school she was no better off than at home. She had to learn; she went on dreaming. At last"My girl," said her father, "we have had enough of masters; your portion has been spent on your education; you have lots of learning, gain your bread, my child; you could not, or you would not, do so in the field; take to teaching in your turn.

Very hard the life of a stranger in a strange house! There are mother's kisses, mother's scoldings for the children; there is nothing of the kind for the governess. She is looked at coldly, and if she has faults one remairks them to one's-self, one does not tell her of theim. Rtose suffered less, though, than in her village life.

She was in thle mIidst of the great world of which she had so long dreamed Still hers was an unsocial, reserved nature, with wants tl'at earth does not satisfy. She expected too much from life, when disappointed she shrunk within herself, and silently turned her proud head away. Sometimes she returned to her father's, discontented, taciturn, dressed like a fashionable lady. Her father was cold in manner to her, her mother gave her good advice, and Rose went away again. She had an upright heart, a straightforward mind, the purity of crystal, only there was the secret frown of a constant depression on her brow; telling of a missed vocation, of a wasted life.

One spring she returned ill, but, as her, cheeks were very rosy, and her eyes flashed bright, her father did not take much notice of it. Besides, Rose got soon tired of the village. The forest had nothing to say to her-she had not, as a little child, gathered strawberries in July along its fragrant borders. The meadows were gloomy; she had never with her sisters driven thither in October the red cow, the black, the brindled. The Jura!

Rose, though an invalid, took another flight; she went to a hot climate, which speedily ldlls the delicate. When she returned, December had cast its winding-sheet over the earth. She was taken out of the carriage half dead. This time her father felt how ill she was, and how much he loved her.

They took her into the best room, her mother gave her her own large, green-curtained bed. Rose was colourless, worn out by a hollow cough, but sometimes fever flushed her face; it bloomed as the Alps do at sunset, only to look like them the paler afterwards her large eyes and her abundant hair were all that remained to her. I do not know what was going on in her soul, but I believe that thet e was a great conflict there.

She remained stiff, haughty, reserved. As for visits, Rose cared little for them; besides, her young acquaintance, being afraid of her, kept back. Her father, who had been moved just at first, relapsed into silence; dying, his daughter suited him no better than she had done when well. There was no expansion; there were no caresses.

Rose seemed frozen; a kiss would have dissolved the ice, but she did not offer one, and no one else dared to do so. She laid the blame of her unhappy existence on all around her; on her father, the village, on God, who had made her as she was. As to whether she regretted life or feared to die, no one could say; she listened to the Bible, to prayer, to everything with closed lips, her large eyes flashing out of their sunken orbits.

Only her mother, watching narrowly, sometimes saw great tears suddenly gather there and overflow; then she would clasp her in her arms. Rose only turned her head away, buried her face in the pillows, and answered nothing. Her father murmured: " My daughter, my daughter! No one had dared question her as to her faith. There was an unnatural stillness in the air.

The darkest despairs are the most silent; and it was one of these which the heart of Rose concealed; no disappointed love, no foolish hopes deceived. No; but let her thoughts turn where they would, from her first days to her last, she could not find one happy moment, not one!

And now where was she going? What would be her fate in presence of that God from whom she had asked nothing, had received nothing? In her hours of pride, indeed, she tried to contend with Him, but her daring only left her more desolate,-the darkness thickened, she was appalled at herself. One evening it was getting dark, the wind was driving the snow-showers along the deserted streets; you heard nothing except the wooden shoes of some belated frequenter of the public-house.

It was cold, gloony; the lamp was not yet lighted; the father was musing, his back against the stove; the mother, with her elbow resting on the window, watched the falling flakes, one side of her face whitened by their reflection. Rose was motionless in the large bed, breathing unevenly; she seemed dozing. All at once, " My father, my mother! Half raising herself, Rose was looking at them; oh, never in her best days had she looked at them so; her trembling hand sought theirs!

Father, forgive me. I love you! Oh, what good it does me to tell you so! I could not before I have been a bad daughter, my father, proud, exacting; I have not made you happy Kiss me, mother; my father, my father! Her father and mother wept; her father most; there was a something of remorse, a more intense tenderness wringing his heart. Jesus has found me! Mother, it is sweet to die " What kisses, what forgivenesses were exchanged! Their daughter, so beautiful, so gentle, so dutiful; their daughter, as they had dreamed her, was actually there, their arms were round her, their eyes fed upon her face,and she was about to die.

But as for her, an ineffable rapture filled her heart. Heaven awaited her; earth, before relinquishing, lavished on her all its treasures. In an instant, like one who gleans in haste, her hand snatched all the richest sheaves. A moment is as a thousand years to one about to enter on eternal day.

She had reaped all; she regretted nothing. Of t,h. In this glory she departed. The Lord has sudden unfoldings, such as these, for souls long closed. They had all been working hard: in the meadows getting the hay in; in the vineyard, cutting the leaves; in the fields, tying up the sheaves.

July was drawing to a close. I don't know," said the mother to me, "what ails my Rose. She has fretted too much for the father; she has over-tired herself. It will be no harm though, I am sure. On the morrow, the doctor paid a visit to the little room. One reached it by a wooden staircase outside the house; the window got all the sun, and looked on a small garden.

A young girl sat there sewing away as fast as she could,a slender form, with a fair, innocent face. Her mothei was standing a little behind her. When the doctor entered, the young girl looked at him in amazement, rose, blushed deeply, then suddenly dropped down again on her chair, in all the bashfulness of sixteen.

She had never left her mother; had never been to dances; never run about the roads in the evenings, hand in hand with other girls, singing rounds as long as the moonlight lasted; not that she was unsociable, or proud, but she knew better things than these; and then she loved her mother, she mourned her father.

But this visit of the doctor wearied her. She sick, indeed! Certainly she felt tired, she did not eat; but wa. I have always thought that the scene, put, just as it was, upon canvas, would have produced one of those touching pictures for which amateurs pay their weight in gold.

The doctor, a man in the prime of life, with lip defined by a delicate moustache, bright brow, keen eye, firm and smiling mouth, was examining the young girl. Rose was seated in the full sunlight, she cast her long-lashed eyelids down; sometimes, though, she raised them, and then her limpid glance was fixed on the doctor without any timidity; her mouth was almost severely grave, only when some sally of his made her mother laugh, a smile, gayer than a sunbeam, passed over her lips, then a deep flush rose to her cheeks; then again she sat stiff and motionless, as though she were about to have her portrait taken.

The visit over, the doctor left. The mother, who was uneasy, followed him into the kitchen. Her soul had the transparency of a crystal; she had its sharp angles too, something which might have been a little hard, but that her native sweetness, and the humility of the Christian softened it down. She only knew the yea, yea, nay, nay, of the gospel, and with that she had so much graceful ingenuousness, cordial affection. Hers was one of those individualities mightily developed by the Bible; uniting all the simplicity of the village, the inexperience of her age, and of her retired way of life, with extremely delicate perceptions, keen discernment, and great knowledge of her own heart.

She shewed sometimes the blank amazement of a bird that has just left the nest; she cast a stupified glance upon what of the world came within her notice; at other times she would utter some deep saying that a master-mind might have gladly claimed. Rose was no maker of speeches, but when one brought her flowers or fruit-for the time soon came when she could not gather any for herself-her face lit up, her pretty teeth sparkled; she would say, with a blush, " It is too much, then look at her mother, and one felt that for such a look one would willingly despoil orchard and garden.

There are hours of fugitive joy, there is an efflorescence of happiness on pale faces, which infuses heavenly felicity into one's heart; how one blesses God when one has been the means of calling these forth! Rose suffered tortures; death had to wrestle with all the strength of sixteen. She did all she could to conceal them, but it was hardly possible; it was as though she were broken on the wheel.

At such times she would clasp both her arms round her mother's neck, and hide her face in her breast; then she would raise herself, and look into her eyes with her clear, confiding glance. Her mother turned away, and wept. It was one of those easily detached lives that the Lord just touches and which fall off like a vestment.

This mother was a widow, this daughter was in all the brilliancy of her first youth, they loved each other, and yet they tranquilly advanced-the one torn to pieces, but submissive; the other a little sad, but composed-towards that turn in the road where they had to bid each other farewell.

It was done simply, without much speaking, without any transports. The daughter saw plainly that she was going to die, the mother had known it long. Rose had asked no questions, her mother had kept nothing back; they walked on side by side, day after day; the last day would come when God pleased. These hidden existences are nearer to heaven than ours.

These lives, which unfold so quietly, are better prepared for a sudden close. They have not so much to leave, they are more accustomed to receive everything, good and bad, directly from the hand of God, the soul's relations with Him are more simple, the habit of obedience more strongly formed.

There was nothing triumphant about the departure of Rose. Some deaths are glorious; hers advanced quiet, modest, a little austere like herself, at times illuminated with rays from above. Neither mother nor daughter troubled themselves about ani earthly future.

Her mother would say"Afterwards, why, I shall be dull enough; but I shall not be alone, nor long in this world. Then the brow of Rose would flush with vivid light, her eyes swim in ecstasy, her heart bound high; you would have taken her for one of Perugino's Madonnas; she had the same pure outline, the same repressed ecstasy, the same fulness of holy love.

Flowers, too, charmed her, and she always had them in profusion; wild flowers, gathered by her former companions, and stuffed into great burly jars; in April the periwinkle, in May the lily of the valley, in June the honeysuckle, in July the sage, the pink, the red poppy, with the corn-flower, the sweetbrier, the mignonette, mixed with a few green ears of corn.

Rose would take them one by one, and look at them long. Last year I used to gather them myself, great aprons full of them. There would come across her images of health, of pleasure, even of those noisy pleasures which she had refused. But this did not last. One day, quite confused, she said, " Could you believe it, mother? I am thinking of my white frock, my first colmmunion frock! I have only worn it once, mother You will put it on me, will you not 2" The mother, with wrung heart and closed lips, stood at the foot of the bed, ardently looking at her child.

The tears ran silently down the''mother's face. The hour struck-it was in the night; with a voice still firm, looking at her young friends gathered'round her bed, sad and aghast: " Give your hearts to Jesus," she said; then let her head fall on her mother's breast. That was all. When the morning came, the village awoke. It was baking day; at dawn the oven-tenders came to call the women, by tapping against the window panes; the oxen went heavily along to the fountains, the mowers betook themselves to the meadows, the children to school; the larks singing deliriously rose into the light of the beautiful sun.

On earth there was nothing changed, only a mother that wept; nor was anything changed in the little room, only a beautiful white crown, framed and glazed, was suspended on the wooden partition close against the becL Page 48 THE TILERY.

This man and his wife make tiles. Their dwelling nestles at the bottom of a little valley by the side of a brook. The tenants of the tilery-for it does not belong to themhave for their solace, on their right, a view of the wood which slopes down to the stream, very thick on the crest of the hill, with oaks that emerge from the rest of the verdure; less dense, towards the low ground, single trees standing out, and plenty of brambles between them.

To the left, our good people, from their deep hollow, may contemplate at their ease ground which rises in great undulations like a natural park; hollowed here, swelling there, devoid of trees, up to an old castellated dwelling which stands on the highest of these rounded slopes, and looks down at them through its few windows.

Beyond, the Jura cuts against the sky, with its lofty dome, black at the base, still clearly defined, but becoming almost ethereal at its summit. A little more to the north, and slightly receding, as if the better to throw out the somlbre hues of the mountain, a wide amphitheatre of rocks opens out in broad, bold masses, with picturesque yellow clefts, and forms an abrupt barrier, crowned through its whole length by an edge of firs, standing out like delicate etchings against the sky.

You may reach the tiler's house either by the valley or by the wood. This morning I take the valley, scarcely knowing why. Have you any time to lose? I have for my part. We shall see the valley by and by, since that is the way we are to go, but we may take our time, there is no hurry. Come first with me up this steep path, and let us walk a little in the wood.

This break-neck path would be the delight of a painter, with its red surface, ravaged by the rains, falling rather than descending from the plains above, with a bristling hedge on one side, on the other a green field. When a shepherd with his flock rears himself up there at the top in seeming gigantic proportions, walking with crook on shoulder, while the air is filled with plaintive bleatings; or again when the sheep, spread out like a white avalanche, with black spots, the picture is complete; one of those exquisite scenes, not taking much in, indeed, not aiming at sublimity, but presenting at a given moment a few of those simple effects, these humble, nay, trivial incidents, over which colour, accuracy, and purity of style throw an ineffable charm.

After the path comes the plain, arid enough, half common, half poor pasture. The valley which opens out below, the one we are going to take by and by, opportunely offers the silken show of its culture to our gaze: the pink spikes of the sainfoin, the golden rape, the purple clover, the waving barley, and meanwhile a keen air, a north wind that has been sifted through the forest, passes through the burning atmosphere, and fans our faces.

Here first we come upon the pines; they grow in clusters, little grassy pathways winding round their stems. They have sown themselves at various heights, and according as they spring from the level where we stand, or rear themselves from the slope which sinks down to the valley, they reveal from root to crown a deep intensity of green which absorbs the sunlight, or they only shew their pointed summit sharply outlined on the landscape. On the other side of the valley, now hidden, now disclosed, you see the cottages of the nearest village ranging themselves along the top of the hill, and with the slender spire standing out against the dark mass of the Jura;-you might almost think they leant up against it, you would say they were a white carving on a black ground,-but for the transparency of the atmosphere, but for a certain aerial perspective, certain limpid vapours, rather air rendered visible than mist, which surround them with light, and convey the impression of a strip of unseen level ground between the village and the mountain.

There are hours, evening hours, when the sun, concealed behind the ridge of the Jura, darts such a glory of rays between its rounded shoulder and the rock battlements; when such streams of light pass though that spacious opeai Page 51 'tITE'ILER Y 51 Ing, when the serrated outlines of the amphitheatre are so royally bright; when that side of the mountain which hides the sun melts into such solemn tones, that the soul remains wellnigh overpowered in presence of one of the grandes spectacles of nature.

But now the sun is in the east; it is rising higher and higher, each tree casting a long far-spreading shadow on the earth. The pines are in flower. Do you know the flower of the pine. I fancy that it was from it that the old gods of Olympus used to extract the odorous resin with which they perfumed their nectar.

The pines, far as the eye can reach, lift up their little wax candelabras-virgin granulated wax. Each branch bears its own; it seems as though the forest were preparing some marvellous illumination for the fairies, and when a puff of wind comes, and the boughs swing slowly, the golden dust of the pollen floats around in soft clouds, and sinks gently down upon the moss.

But we are still walking on this debatable ground, which has suddenly widened out; on the clayey soil where grow a few sparse cereals bending to the breeze. The forest, the real forest, lies before us. Do you wish for songs? Do you prefer silence, with a vague stir in the air I let us keep below the pines.

First of all then, under the oaks. There, where the grass grows, ind brambles interlace; where the sweet-brier stops up the way, and creeping plants abound; there along that shining track where footsteps have trodden down the vegetation. There it is that you are fairly lost; there that exhale all round nameless perfumes, fresh emanations of the earth, of the old trunks, of the young foliage. Not a breeze, except every now and then indeed a mere puff, you know not whence, which just lifts the branches, wafts here and there still sweeter scents, then dies away, and leaves you half intoxicated with perfume.

What charming mysteries there are in these nooks! Millions of insects, all dowered with intelligence, dressed for a festival, displaying, between the blades of grass, the purple, the ebony, the ultramarine of their elytra, their armour of malachite and gold, delicate antennae, and little feathered crests. There are artizans among them, who lead a hard life, hewing, sawingt storing night and day.

There are idlers who go to and fro, climb to the top of a stalk, look upon the world below, move right and left without any particular purpose; take things as they find them. There are thinkers, too, motionless for hours beneath a sunbeam. There are busybodies who fly in haste, make sudden starts, long journeys, and prompt returns without very well knowing why.

There are musicians who, for hours together, go on repeating their monotonous song. There are swarms of ephemera waving hither and thither in some brilliant spot, neither too high nor too low, seeking no sustenance, in a very ecstasy of life, light, and harmonious motion. It is good to be here. The path glides under the bushes; flowering branches strike against your face.

As you advance, a low cry, a rapid flight, reveal to you nests that your hand sets gently rocking as you divide the branches before you. From every nook burst the brilliant notes of the maestri of the wood. Redbreasts, blackbirds, chaffinches, wrens-all except the nightingale, who finds the cite too wild; except the lark, who prefers the open sky of the filds; except the quail, who hides her brood in the hay; Page 53 TIlE TILERY.

Y3 -all at the top of their voice; all with throats proudly distended, sing, trill, call! It is a glorious fulness of harmony, which affects you like the vibrations of the sunlight. Marvellously fresh is the song of the blackbird. In spring infinitely varied in its tones, it gets shorter as the summer advances, until, by the time his nestlings are hatched, he loses his notes one after the other, and remains cut short, rather quizzical, rather embarrassed, and a good deal amazed that he can go no further.

And while the blackbird whistles at random on the top of a great oak-tree, the redbreast, perclhed below on;some thick bush, throws off a very rain of diamonds and pearls, scatters in the air his crystalline notes all full of light and fancy.

Lower yet, beneath the brilliant concertos and bravura songs, there are murmurs more intimate and charming still; the whispered talk of an enamoured pair; the chirping of the mother to her young brood. The rest is a mere affair of display; here there is soul; here there are endless narrations, little cries of joy, sage counsels, innocent surprises; sometimes, but rarely, bursts of anger; lovers who lose themselves in ineffable repetitions, children who speak all at once, and little melodious beatified sighs, as if a bird's heart was not large enough to hold so much happiness.

And now we reach the clearing-a wide space, twilight; nu more brushwood, only luxuriant grass; here and there an old oak, with rugged trunk and strong knotted branches. A wide dome circles above; all round stands the green wall of the wood; at intervals a stray sunbeam; writhin it a fly passing to and fro; absolute stillness and calml.

We have left the wood-songs in the coppice; the cuckoo's plaint alone is to be heard afar, from-one hiding-place to another; here it comes to us nuffled,-does not trouble the silence. Fit retreat for a philosopher; fit occasion for communing with one's-self.

Commend me to these green studios, these sylvan fortresses, this deep isolation. What enterprises the soul enters on here! If you have a fancy to be king, emperor, great Mogul, or only the first poet of the age,-to be any kind of genius whether in music, painting, rhyme, or reason,-go and sea: yourself a while on the prostrate trunk in the forest glade.

You will see all the glories of the world pass before you; you will engage in terrible battles; you will come in for some rude blows; nothing is to be conquered without trouble; but I know not how it comes to pass, you will always be the hero, always the victor. As for me, inveterate idler that I am, I think of nothing. There are people who dream, and know what about; some idea or other is always running in their head; some image moving before and beckoning them on; for me, nothing of the kind.

I lie at full length under the branches, I inhale the aroma, I look at the lacework of trees against the sky; I admire the mysterious harmony of green with blue; I rise as high as I can into the infinite azure depths; I feel that existence is sweet; my soul floats suspended in ether; I am neither asleep nor awake, only it seems to me that I have some comprehension of the immensity of God. Oh, liberty, liberty! Nay, we are no longer in Eden: we are in a land of pilgrimage; a land of toil, with great clods to break, hollows to fill up, fallow ground to till; by and by will come the rest of evening.

No, we are no longer in Eden; these traces of the axe in the forest glade tell it me too plainly. My tall, beautiful oaks! Have not they been cut over, laid low on the ground, with all their foliage, in the glory of their summer! Have they not had glaring spaces, awkward gaps made il them; have not their secret retreats been profaned, the mysterious hiding-places of the squirrel laid bare When I see these mutilated trunks, this reddened wood from which the sap is flowing; when I see the glade gain upon the wood, the pasture on the glade, the arable land on the pasture, I say to myself, that the time is coming, is at hand, when, in our country, you will seek for the forest in vain.

Despoiled of their woods, of their fruit-trees even-for everything is turned into money —will our valleys and hills, bare as,my hand, lit up by one same sun, washed by one same rain, swept by one same wind, be more beautiful, be worth more? Let wise heads determine; but for may part, I have great confidence in the wisdom of God. No rills without woods, no birds without branches, no music without birds. I do not speak of our harvest devoured by insects.

But is it nothing to have beauty, grace, melody everywhere? What sort of a race will remain to you when you have weanrd it from poetry? Does man live by bread alone? Jesus has said that he does not, that he has need of the Word of God as well. With the exception of the one Book, written by His supreme hand, I know few of such. As for me, these words contain a large part of my life. As a child I followed the steps, now, alas!

These dusky avenues have heard many a cry of joy; many a fine story, lasting as long as we were in the forest, has unfolded itself along these winding paths. What fun it was when all the party chanced boldly to plunge into a swamp! What delight when, the great drops of rain falling one by one, we took refuge under the shelter of the oaks; the earth exhaling its healthy perfume; every opening in the leaves becoming a gutter, then the branches bending, then the shower turning into a cataract; we were wet through, we were, oh, how happy!

The forest is still the same. In the spring the beeorchis displays her velvet robe at the foot of the great pines; in the summer, the pink, with slashed petals of gray hue, balances itself at the end of a slender stalksingular flower whence exhales a perfume that makes the Page 57 THE TILER Y.

B7 very heart faint. The shade is the same, the freshness great as ever,-that rarefied freshness through which floats a passing aroma that soon dies away again, like those wandering notes that rise in wide expanses of country, then suddenly lose themselves without one's knowing whence they rose or where they died away.

Nothing has changed; only I have been going on. B it so; this immutable aspect of nature, the perennial character of seasons, flowers, birds' nests, I like it; it does me good. But some are soured by it, find in it almost an insult to our sorrows. It is no more so than the equable azure of the sky, the star-lamps kindled every night. It is the eternity of. God's goodness, the eternity of youth; the eternal ideal affixed by the Lord's hand on creation's brow. And then are there not children, even while we are young; young lives while ours are declining; strong men rising round when we have to die?.

Is it not well that they should inhale the same flowers, rejoice in the same sunshine, quench their thirst at the same fountains This is why these blows of the axe upon the oaks resound so in my heart. Let us return by the path under the pines. Every soil makes its own tree, every tree makes its own fauna and flora, and, by a wonderful reaction, its own soil too.

Here the ground is swept clean; brown, smooth, covered with dry, needle-like leaves; it is all that a brier can do to grow in open spaces. The stems rise tall and slender, armed at their base With small sharp branches; higher up, with bristling tufts, proudly indenting the sky. The air plays freely round; no deep shade, only the light is softened as it strains through. Sometimes a single pink, lost in the grass, sends out a transient emanation on the breeze.

The walk, I know not why-is it the confirmation of the soil, or have the pines something to do with it? The breeze is keener; the spirits grow more elastic. Behind the colonnade of trees you see the country spread out in different levels; now hollowed into wide valleys, now rising into plateaus, as far as the Alps. At the bottom, through the fields, the high road divides the district by a line that shines in the sun.

It runs straight, then branches into rays, with thin threads, that lose themselves at the horizon. Far away, the Alps rear their frozen ramparts: the thick wood hides the Jura. You only hear the cry of the labourers, who, the moment the hay is got in, break up the ground to prepare it for autumn, their loud voices spreading over the plain; grating, mournful, like the voices of men who lead a hard life. They reach the pines, and break against them into a softened tremulous sound.

Sometimes the bells of some small vehicle trotting along the road scatter little sparks of sound, that mingle with thle trills of the cricket in the clover,that is all. Above the forest you may see some night bird flying heavily along, escorted by all the winged hosts of the wood.

Then wrhat an outburst there is of hooting and screams of derision, till he is conducted into another canton! At your feet a travelling snail or adventurous cricket crosses the path, on his way to visit his relations in the fields. It is not yet tlhe season of grasshoppers. Later, they will leap in thousands wherever your foot treads, green as a July apple, or gray and earth-coloured, or brown with scarlet-lined wings; with their lively expression, their goatlike profile, and their prominent eyes, they will chirp away in the newly-cut grass.

They are a singular race, and full of mystery. There are good and bad among them. I am not speaking of their poisonous properties, but of their outward shape and bearing. Some are delicate, milk-white, planted in circles, as if to mark the spot where fairies danced last night. Others are solitary, blackish, livid, treacherous-looking; planning some crime apart. Those purple, lined with orange, display their magnificent attire in the midst of a crowd of gray knobs, that stand round at respectful distances; pachas in their harems!

These, bright as silver, smooth as silk, a satin dome above, ivory gills below. There are some rainbowcoloured, some of pale gold. Whence do they come; whither do they go! When the mists of autumn hung heavy on the earth, what sun purpled them, painted them sulphur-coloured, gave them their mother-of-pearl iridescence?

Why does the cow who browses the latest plants, and munches up the frost-bitten leaves; why does the sheep wandering under the bare oak-trees, leave these untouched? I do not know why. But the mid-day heat scorches the country; it is getting late, let us go down to the valley, for it is there, indeed, that our way lies, as you already know.

Here we are by the brook. We enter the intense shade cast by rocks, all clothed with wild cherry-trees, mountain ash, maples, and hazels. The flowering bramble hooks itself on to everything; the brook runs on beneath the willows between lichen-covered stones. Down there it is almost dark; a beautiful gloom surrounded by light.

An old pollard bends its stem across. Out of the middle of its crown shoots the young cherry-tree, sowed there last year by the hands of some child at play. The brook leaves the shade, crosses the road, widens in the sunshine. It is here that the young haymakers bathe their bare feet. Next it sets off running through the meadows, sometimes in sight, sometimes concealed beneath arcades of bushes. There is no road through the valley, merely a track. On both sides are steep rocks, to the left clothed with Drushwood, to the right with old oak-trees, flinging down festoons of wild vine, and balmy clematis.

Then the rocks disappear, and the valley throughout its length is enclosed by the wood on the east, by the green rising ground to the west, with the Jura and the rocky amphitheatre closing in the horizon. I do not know any retreat richer in flowers than this. Not a breath of air. The sun darts fiercely down, but the grass keeps green, the murmur of the water, its fresh gurgle, its limpid whispers seem to spread moisture round.

No seed is brought here by the hand of man; the birds, the wind, when it chances to pass by, are the only sowers. There are successive flower-shows here, and each has its own one plant. Blue salvias; columbines, with their lovely hanging bells, that tremble every time a butterfly touches them in his flight; a profusion of yellow coronella, then small red starry pinks; and near the brook, the white feathery fragrant tufts of the meadow-sweet, with some green insect slumbering in their midst.

As soon as a ciaster of alders bends over the water, the honey-suckle throws its night-scented tufts from stem to stem. Here at noon come the village youths, here cries of joy are heard, here the water is thrown up in fountains, falls in sheets, and dripping feet soak the meadow-grass. But at this present hour there is perfect silence; the silence of mid-day in June.

Only, beneath some wild peartree, you may see the mowers stretched at full length, their straw-hats over their faces, or their faces buried in the grass. The fleece of the hemp is swelling, it is excuisitely sweet. The old bridge throws its arch from side to side; one stone has detached itself, perhaps thirty years ago; a willow grows on it, it lies in the water, moss-covered, like an emerald in the sun.

I fall into a dream, the stone changes to an island, the sprigs of moss are palm-trees; I land-I am in the East! Onward still. The ground is wilder, has fewer flowers Reeds rattle; the valley narrows, the swampy soil shakens beneath one's feet. This portion of the forest, only half cleared, still amazed at the broad daylight, exposes its stumps to the sun. It is covered withi tall, large-leaved plants.

The brook glides over a clay bottom, grows wider, has no more sheltered creeks. A sudden turn, here is the tilery seated in its solitude. It consists of little more than a shed, beneath which dry the tiles, a bit of a house opposite, under the same roof,a low window, a door wit-hl a porch-and in front a bare garden, where grow somne cabbage-stalks and some rows of kidney beans.

Not a creature about, the children have run away at our approach. No poultry; the small farmers, to whom the neighbouring fields belong, would not suffer them. In the stable there is a goat, for which the boys go at nightfall to gather young shoots in the wood; there is an old horse, too, half blind, half lame, who gets harnessed to the old cart, and carries the tiles to the customers. We will enter the kitchen; the floor is. A few plates in the rack, a few iron spoons and prongless forks, a dinged saucepan, on the hearth nothing but a broken trivet.

No flitches of bacon, no wreaths of sausages hung in the chimney; only a string of onions, and on the table an earthen tureen, where smokes some thin soup or other, and three pieces of black bread neatly cut. Yet everything is clean: the rush broom has been all round; the bareness is orderly, is not pitiable.

Where destitution has got the upper hand, things are not so well arranged. At the sound we make, the bed-room door opens gently, a man comes out-a puny figure, timid-looking, with a moist, kind eye, a rather slow, quiet manner, and a happy expression. We sent for you. She has been dreadfully ill; just now tings are better. It will be like the others. It is the bed-room, there is no other; bare as the kitchen; barer if possible; only it is very clean, very bright, and it has a boarded floor.

Just at this moment, however, the light is a little obscured. James has hung up some old aprons in the windows. The red-curtained bed leans up against the wall; a walnut-wood cupboard, the family wardrobe, stands opposite; by the two windows are two chairs; no table and that is all. In the bed lie mother and child; she, as robust as her husband is weakly, with an eye as bright as his is subdued.

A strong nature, with a wild light in her glance, something about her unusual, outlandish, like her house. On the very point of death without letting people know! James moulcs the clay, and bakes these tiles. Jane takes them to the houses around; he remains quietly at home, she scours the valley; but she is never long away. Jane is no talker, she walks on in silence by the side of her cart, her eye always a little wild, then she returns to her nest. When there are no orders, weeks pass away without either of them being seen.

Jane's secrets, what she believes, what she hopes, what her soul holds within itself, belongs to her only. Besides, she says little. James came in; his look, when it rested on his wife, had a tenderness about it which stirred my heart. She turned, and their eyes met. In that time Jane might sink. And your children? Then James went on"Look you, ma'am, we do very well.

I have my tiles; she has her horse, her garden, and her spinning-wheel, and then there are the children. Then there is the wood; in spring there is plenty of singing there. People are no good to us. They are such talkers in the villages, and so proud, too.

We are but poor, and they would look down upon us belike. Though as for that, the year goes round, and we get on very well somehow. For him, fireside peace, silence, one day like another, with affection, sufficed. She loved too. She would not on any account have had a James of a different stamp, less gentle, less careful, less quiet. And yet, for her, this solitude included something over and above domestic happiness. Whether she distinctly understood this or not, I cannot say; but she felt it.

Here she breathed fresh free air, that wild poetry which passes through the forests on the wings of the morning wind; here she lived far away from the prose of frequented spots; the jokes, the grievances, the gossip of the village never jarred her. When she walked along by the old cart, and heard the grinding of its old wheels, there was an unconscious music within her heart that cheered her on.

The notes of birds singing in the woods, the sound of distant bells, the merry voices of her children echoing softly from afar; the sweet scent of the meadows; the keen breath of dawn; the warm brefzp, of evening; the mountain, whether in gloom or radiance; the changeless blue of the sky, with its swift battalions of clouds;-all these went to swell that music of which we speak.

Melted into tenderness, proud, and passionately happy, she would not have changed her lot with that of the Queen of England, seated crown on head on a throne of gold. NE night in the month of May, but not therefore a beautiful night-for it rained in torrents- -I I was travelling in a diligence. It was in the year , and there were then no railroads in Switzerland. The diligence, a great house on wheels, with its two coup6s, an interior, a rotonde, cabriolet on the roof, seats here, seats there, rolled along, collecting everything and everybody, and, in its winding, xi.

It rained, I have said, in torrents: There was no place in either of the coupes. The cabriolet was out of the question. I had an aged relative with me, the Barones6 Z. We squeezed ourselves into the interior. Nothing could be clearly seen.

The rain was lashing the glasses; the leathern roof leaked; we could hardly distinguish our companions. I had upon my feet the great feet of a great burgomaster of those parts, with protuberant stomach built up to threefold elevation, and pendent chin of fit proportions hanging down to meet it. He took all things calmly, and with deep bass voice chuckled whenever a drop wf rain from the leaking roof fell upon him.

By his side sat some description of American, not much the gentleman. To the right and left were peasants and citizens lost in the shade: these came and wcent. The burgomaster was immovable; so, too, was the American. In one corner a mtan of lofty stature, and young, so far as I could judge, sat silent. Infernal machines were those old travelling arks, where space and air were both denied to you; where your elbows were driven into your sides; where your legs were wedged fast amidst innumerable packages; where to draw a pocket handkerchief from your pocket was an affair tedious as diplomacy, and a great deal more laborious; where, during twenty-four hours, you had the face of your opposite neighbour, with its inevitably besotted, bewildered expression, jogging there ceaselessly before your eyes with the same idiotic movement.

Infernal machines! The rain poured on incessantly. Impossible to open anything. The moisture from within tarnished the glasses; the mud from without splashed them. There was a sickening odour of stale wine, stale tobacco, old cheese, and old crusts; and there you sat amidst the snoring and the swaying to and fro of heads with great open mouths, which at some sharper jolt than -sual, would suddenly shut themselves up, and then it wals thi turn of the eyes to open on you with their imbecile stare.

We had neither thunder nor lightning; nothing but this incessant deluge. Looking out, one could just distinguish the roofs of houses dripping with rain, and the flooded road that spirted up under our wheels, and the great pools of water formed in the meadows.

The epoch we were in-it was was as cheerless as the scene which nature presented. In France, Socialism was rising into power; in Germany, whither we were travelling, revolutions had taken place, or were hourly expected. My aged companion and relative was in great fear.

I endeavoured to reassure her; but to me also everything looked black as night. I saw, through those gloomy showers, nothing but rising scaffolds; revolutionary scaffolds stood out upon my horizon in every direction. At length the morning came-not with her scarf of gold, nor with roseate fingers; came in very simple robes -gray upon darker gray. Pale as it was, the day had dawned. And see the power of light! In a moment the whole world changed its aspect.

Order was triumphant everywhere, and, after all, a little conflict did no ill. And then it was the month of May, and this shower was falling upon the roofs of pleasant cottages-thatched roofs, where wild flowers grow, and which project kindly over the wall, securing a sheltered space round the house.

The velvet moss, which had taken a new lustre from the rain, enlivened even the dripping thatch; the cottage windows, with their little round panes of glass imbedded in the leadwork, glistened out on us. These windows almost touched each other, and opened upon the well-stacked pile of logs. Further on, one sees the peasant himself, yawningand stretching himself before the barn-door. Even our enemy, the rain, seems to rebound gaily, and to dance upon the clean flag-stones which surround these pleasant homesteads.

In the garden it falls on great globes of apple-blossoms and the gay cones of the lilac, and impresses on them an undulating and graceful movement. The tulips, proud as sultanas, quite unconcernedly let it glide down their gorgeous array; other flowers, with their petals thrown back, laugh as they shake off the petulant shower; the stocks and the wallflower embalm the air at every gust of wind.

Under the roofs the swallows sit motionless, with neck outstretched, upon their nests; or sometimes hazard a rapid zig-zag light, skimming the soil, and, returning perch upon their nests, and there, wt-ith tail close pressed against the wall, chat with their little ones, or fill their open beaks. The sparrows —more aud. They, perched upon the tiles-they choose always the best houses —let the rain rain, and wrangle on: with strong beak and raised head, eating of everything, and eating always, and stunning the neighbourhood with their cries.

And yonder the pigeons coo. They put out their slender heads from the holes of the dovecot; then, with great noise of wing, they pounce down on some clean space in the court below, where, promenading with their little, "timid, rapid steps, they peck here and there at some grains escaped from the sheaf, their necks changing like the opal as they move, and in a moment, scared at nothing, take fliglt again in a body.

Through it all the apple-trees and the pear-trees, in the mnagnificence of their blossom, shed a ray as of victory. The mind, at mere sight of them, fills with hope. I kno not whly, unless it was to catch some sympathy for my own tholught. It did not penetrate to the American, for he was walled up in his cloud of smoke; it glided past the burgomaster, stolid and imperturbable, and passing over sundry sleeping heads, rested in the corner on the youthful figure that I had hitherto rather divined than seen.

All night that figure had remained there enveloped in shade. It had not slept. From hour to hour a clear voice, resonant and firm, had been raised to ask of some one on the roof, or in the rotoncle, or elsewhere, if all went well with them. She could not controvert nor contend. It was indeed a coarse, cheap meal brought to the door by the river, a poverty-cursed home on its fantastic stilts, where they might live only so long as the waters willed, and she was all at once ashamed of it, and of her own compact of rude comfort and quiescence with it.

He paused suddenly with an appalled countenance to extract from his mouth a great spiny section of fishbone, which seemed to have caught on the words. Why, what was I saying? The woman hesitated. Little might they hope to metamorphose the babble of a dreamer into discoveries of value. Jasper Binnhart, on the contrary, was a man of force, of action, the leader, the prime mover, in every scheme that had brought to them some measure of success and gain, and then, too, would she not be present, to aid, to hear, invested with the mystery and controlling its preservation.

She took on the air of retrospective pondering as she sank down in a chair on one side of the table, putting her bare elbows on the cloth and supporting her chin in her hands. Duciehurst was the word. She lifted her head suddenly with the contempt of the uninformed, her lips thickening with a sneer. After the peace some things, here and there, were never found again. He suddenly let down the forelegs of his chair and sat stiff and upright.

I have never seen the river-front of the house. Berridge, incredulously. I wish I could git the chance to hear him talk agin in his sleep. He cast a glance of gruff distaste about the squalid and malodorous place, reeking with the greasy smell of fish, and the sullen lamp.

He thought of the contrast with the carpeted saloon, the glittering chandeliers, the fine pure air, the propinquity of people of high tone and good social station. Indeed, it would seem that no man in his senses would resort instead to this den of thieves and cut-throats. He had come to the time of life when he had no appreciable future. His possibilities were limited to the renewal of his promissory notes secured on his mortgaged lands and the stress to feed the monster debt with its accustomed interest.

Beyond these arid vicissitudes he never looked. The day bounded his scope of view. His life lay in the past, and although the present constrained his waking moments, all the furniture of his dreams had garnished the years come and gone. It was not strange to him, therefore, as he lay asleep in his berth, that he should hear in the shaking of the glass-door of his stateroom that opened on the guards the clanking of sabers.

The sound was loud, assertive in the night. The wind had risen. Now and then the timbers of the boat creaked and groaned and the empty chimneys towering into the gloom of the upper atmosphere sometimes piped forth sonorous blasts. No longer the somber monotony held the sky. Clouds were rolling in tumultuous surges from the south, and the wind fretted the currents into leaping turbulence as it struck upon the waves, directly against the course of the waters.

Low along the horizon pale lightnings flickered. In the fitful illuminations the lace-like summit of the riparian forest would show momentarily against the clouds; the big, inert structure of the boat, and long ghastly stretch of the arid sand-bar, would be suddenly visible an instant, then as suddenly sunken into darkness. He was not a light sleeper, which is usual to old age.

His robust physique was recruited by the sound slumber that might have accorded with a score less years than had whitened his hair. The lightnings, glimmering ever and anon through the glass door and into his placid, aged, sleeping face—that ere long should sleep hardly more placidly and to stir no more—did not rouse him.

The violent vibrations of the glass door would scarcely have impinged upon his consciousness save that the sound suggested the clash of sabers. Colonel Kenwynton, awakened by the sound of his own voice, had pulled himself up on his elbow and was staring in amazement at the dull, opaque black square of the glass door of his stateroom, which might be only discerned because the apartment was partially illumined through the transom of the opposite door, admitting the tempered radiance of the lights burning all night in the saloon within.

He was nettled as with a sense of ridicule. He listened to discern if his wild martial cry had reached other ears. No—the scoffers slept. Peace to their pillows. He grimly wished them rest. He—he was an old man, an old man, and not of much account any more, save at the reunions. Ah, it must have been the associations of the reunion which resurrected that face—the face of a man to whom he owed much, a man but for whom he would scarcely be here now, laying his head down in undisturbed slumber.

Once more the similitude of the clank of sabers. With the thought of the possible ridicule should he again, in his dreaming, audibly refer this noisy tumult to the memory of his battles—fought anew here in the dim midnight, he leaned forward to obviate the repetition of the sound and the renewal of the hallucination.

The river air was dank, but this was on the lee side of the boat, and though he could hear the wind rush by he could only slightly feel its influx here. Still illusions thronged the night. The chimneys piped in trumpet tones to his dreams. The doors of neighboring staterooms clanked faintly; whole squadrons rode by, their sabers unsheathed, and suddenly he became conscious of a presence close at hand that he could not discern in his sleep.

All at once he was stiff, vigilant, expectant, fired by the pulses of a day long dead! Suddenly impressed with the reality of the experience the old man, agitated, almost speechless, breathless, struggled up on his elbow. I have something to say. It must be in private—something to disclose. You can trust me, Colonel—Shoulder to Shoulder! To the death—Shoulder to Shoulder!

Nevertheless he was chilled while he hastily half dressed and emerged into the dank obscurity of the guards. His hand trembled as he laid it on the stair rail. Colonel Kenwynton was born to authority and had had the opportunities of command. But his martial experience had taught him also to obey, and when he had once accepted a mandate he did not hesitate nor even harbor an independent thought.

With his soft, broad felt hat drawn far over his brows, down the stairs thumped his groping old feet, doggedly active. The wind was surging amidst the low clouds which were flying before the blast in illimitable phalanxes in some distraught panic of defeat. There must have been a moon lurking beyond their rack and rout, for the weird night landscape was strangely distinct, the forests that restricted the horizon bowed, and bent, and rose again in definite undulations to the successive gusts.

One might hardly say how the surface of the far spread of water was discerned, dark, vaguely lustrous, with abysmal suggestions, though with never a glimmer, save where the dim lights of the boat pierced the glooms with a dull ray, here and there, or lay along ripples close at hand with a limited, shoaling glister. Accustomed eyes could see how far extended the stabilities of the tow-head and thus differentiate the definite land formation from the element of land transition, that was neither land nor water.

Here the wind made great sport, shrilling along the desolate arid spaces of the pallid sand dunes defenseless against the blast. A wild night, and cold. The tread of his guide was silent—one might almost say secret. He came to a shuddering galvanic pause as he suddenly encountered a watchman, a lantern in his hand. The big, burly Irishman gazed with round, unfriendly, challenging eyes at the foremost of the two advancing figures, then catching sight of the familiar face of the Colonel his whole aspect changed; he beamed with jovial recognition.

This grisly black night seems about the ground floor of hell. Not even a speculation did Colonel Kenwynton allow himself when suddenly his precursor put a foot on the gunwale of the boiler deck and sprang over into the darkness. The unseen water surged about his feet, cold as ice, and at the swiftly flowing, unexpected impact he caught his breath with a gasp. But the guide had forgotten the lapse of time—how old a man, how feeble, was the erstwhile stalwart commander.

He pressed on, the water splashing about his feet, now rising to ankle depth, now even deeper, once surging about his knees. Even Colonel Kenwynton at last had a thought of protest. This was always a good soldier, Captain Treherne, but a bit reckless and disposed to unnecessary risks. Captain Treherne seemed all unconscious of the pallid countenance, the failing breath, the halting step of the old man.

I need your advice. You can wield a paddle, and together we can make the distance. Make the distance! You forget my age—seventy-five, sir; seventy-five years. We have faced that together, you and I, and laughed at both. And I have the secret of the cache, Colonel, I, alone. It must be revealed. I need your help.

This is the crucial crisis of my life. My life—! For they know nothing of their rights. It must be revealed to one who will annul this wrong, this heinous disaster. The old man winced with the pain, but stood firm. Command me. But, my dear boy, this is impracticable.

Only you can do this. I—I—I should not be believed. You are overwrought. Come, halloo the boat. Halloo the boat, and tell the mate to send us a roustabout to paddle. It would frustrate all. The rich are the poor; the right are the wrong; the incompetent sit bridling in the places that the capable have builded; an old paper, an old treasure, lost time out of mind, would reverse some lives, by God!

And I hold the secret, like an omnipotent fate. There must be no miscarriage of justice here, Colonel Kenwynton. His voice had a remonstrant cadence such as one might use in addressing a fractious child. I did so—I did so. Your own thoughts must not revolve about it, lest they grow too familiar and canvass details with which you have no concern. The rheumatism has to give me a sharp pinch to remind me of the fact.

Where in all the world could we be more private? The steamer was absolutely silent, save as a loose chain might clank, swinging in the wind, for at this distance one could not discern the shaking of the transoms in their casings. There was no sight or sound of living creature, until a great bird, driven forth from its roost by the falling of a bough, or evicted by the wind, went screaming overhead. A shrill blast pursued his flight and presumably from the dark distance down the river one could not have distinguished the sounds of the living cry from the skirling of the restless spirit of the air.

In forty years who knows any locality in the course of this deceitful old river? You remember the Ducies? Ducie determined to go to her son Victor at once; she had only one of her children at home then, a twelve-year-old boy named Julian, and she could take him with her. The years had trafficked with Treherne as well as with himself, hard dealings, it seemed.

For they had taken his youth, his spirit, his pervasive cheer; there was something indefinable suggested that savored of deep melancholy. And had these covetous years given him full value in return—learning, in the lessons of life, just judgment, self-control, disciplined purpose, earnest effort, and, last and not least, resignation and calm and restful faith?

Colonel Kenwynton was unwittingly shaking his old white head at the thought in his mind. Time had not dealt honestly by Hugh Treherne. Time had exacted usury and had paid no fair equivalent for the ineffable possession of youth. Colonel Kenwynton realized, however, that his own foible was hasty judgment, and he sought to hold his conclusions in suspension while he listened. Carroll Carriton, who held the mortgage, happened to be in Mississippi at the time and he executed a formal release, and quit claim, signed and witnessed, but, of course, not registered.

You know the chaotic state of courts of law at that time. The release also expressed a formal relinquishment of the promissory notes, secured on the land, for they were not returned; in fact, all the original papers were still out, having been placed for safekeeping in a bank in Nashville, Tennessee, where Carriton then resided, and which was within the Federal lines.

The whole matter of the lifting of the mortgage and the full satisfaction of the debt was thoroughly understood between the principals and the witnesses, although it was a hasty transaction and in a way irregular, owing to the lack of facilities for recording the instruments in the state of war. His mother died in Arkansas, succumbed to pneumonia, contracted on the river that cold night when she crossed it to join her wounded son, and never returned to Duciehurst.

Victor did not die till long afterward, he recovered from his wound and fell at last in the battle before Nashville. Not one of the family was left when the war closed except the youngest son, Julian, and although the suit on the promissory notes, brought by the executors of Carriton, was defended in his behalf, he being a minor at the time, no proof of the satisfaction of the debt could be made, and in default of payment the mortgage was foreclosed, and the magnificent estate of Duciehurst went under the hammer for a mere fraction of its value in the collapsed conditions of those disorganized times.

Then he had a sudden vision of a scene wreathed in the smoke of cannon and the mists of rain; the glitter of dull gray light on the polished, serried, fixed bayonets of an infantry square; the sense of the motion of a mad tumultuous gallop of a charge; the sound of trumpets wildly blowing, pandemonium, yells, shrieks of pain, hoofbeats, a gush of blood suffusing eyes, and all consciousness lost save that this man was helping him to his own horse from under the carcass of the slain charger, humbly holding by the stirrup in their mad precarious escape through the broken square.

Through everything misty, I trust you; I trust you implicitly, Hugh. I know your honorable motives. Tell me anything you will, but through thick and thin I trust you. That is what I want to tell you. We had put Mrs. Ducie and Julian into the skiff, which we rowed ourselves. We landed there, no, there. Now and then he took short, agile runs to and fro, as if he sought a better view in the windy obscurity.

We almost got under the hull of a Yankee gunboat—she was a vessel that had been captured from the Confederates, armored with iron rails, you know—that kind of iron-clad. The look-out on deck never challenged nor heard us. And after we made it to the farm-house, where Victor was lying at the point of death it seemed, we returned to our command according to orders, our leave being expired, for we had already hid the box in the knapsack at Duciehurst.

I often asked, but could never hear a word. But now there were no tears. I can only wonder that I remember anything. They pretend that it was the wound at Franklin—the injury to the medulla substance. Wait, wait, give me your hand, I shall fall, wait, wait. Colonel Kenwynton heard his own name, but he did not respond. He only sought to detain his old comrade in his endearing clasp. The younger man was the stronger.

Treherne wrested himself away, though not without repeated efforts, seized the paddle, pushed off the dug-out, and in a moment was lost in the gloom, for the moon was down, mists were rising from the low-lying borders of a bayou delta, and the frail craft was invisible on the face of the waters.

Colonel Kenwynton was not devoid of a certain kind of policy. He rallied his composure, realizing that the Captain of the steamboat had been alarmed by his absence on this precarious spot which the sound of his voice had betrayed, and before the emissaries sent out to seek him had reached the old man he had determined on his line of conduct. For he was determined to take counsel within himself before he indulged in explanations. He said to himself that he could better afford misconstruction of his conduct as some fantastic freak of drunkenness than run the risk of divulging the interests of another man to his possible detriment,—this man, who had so obviously, so appealingly suffered.

Colonel Kenwynton shall have the best service aboard as long as I have a plank afloat. None of the passengers had any inkling of the incident of the previous night, either as Colonel Kenwynton knew it, or in the interpretation which the Captain had placed upon it. It was necessarily, even in his own estimation, a fantastic expectation to learn from him aught of value concerning the treasure hidden at Duciehurst during the Civil War. If the stranger really had knowledge of the place of its concealment it was not likely that he would divulge it, since this would require the division of the windfall.

But, he argued speciously, the man might need assistance, which probably explained his singular mission to the stranded Cherokee Rose to confer with Colonel Kenwynton. This confirmed the impression of the Berridge family that there was something eccentric, inexplicable about him.

What he needed in such an enterprise was not a man of seventy-five, as soft as an old horse turned out to grass, but a master mechanic, such as himself, indeed, a man accustomed to the use of tools, with the dexterity imparted by constant work and the strength of muscles trained to endurance.

The Colonel! Why he would be as inefficient as a baby. But perhaps only his advice was desired. Binnhart wished again and again that it had chanced that he could have seen the stranger first. It was a pity for Colonel Kenwynton to be let into the secret at all. If the stranger had any right to possess himself of the hidden money he could boldly hire laborers and go to the spot in the open light of day. If his right were complicated or dubious, and this was most likely, or why had it lain so long unasserted, the old Colonel would clamp down on it with both feet.

The Colonel had highflown antiquated ideas, unsuited to the world of to-day; Binnhart had heard him speak in public. He talked about honor, and patriotism, and fair-dealing in politics, and such chestnuts, and, although the people applauded, they were secretly laughing at him in their sleeves.

No, no! Binnhart shook his head once more. If Colonel Kenwynton returned with the stranger there might be trouble. The old man was a hard proposition. He seemed to think himself a Goliath, and would certainly put up a stiff fight on an emergency. Binnhart became apprehensive that he might not discern the tiny craft in the midst of the great river, struggling across its intricate braided currents, and thus the stranger return unaware, or perhaps give him the slip altogether.

He rose and took his way down the successive terraces to the verge of the water. He must needs have heed not to walk into the river, for silent as the grave it flowed through the deep gorge of its channel, and but for some undiscriminated sense of motion in the dark landscape one might never know it was there. Long, long he stood at gaze, watching in the direction of the bar, his ear keenly attentive, aware that he could hear from far the slightest impact of a paddle on that silent surface.

But the wind was rising now; the mists, affrighted, spread their tenuous white wings and flitted away. Presently there lay visible before him, vaguely illumined by the light of a clouded moon, the vast spread of the tossing turmoils of the sky, the dark borders of the opposite bank, the swift swirling of the great river, and the white structure of the steamboat, rising dimly into the air on the sand-bar.

Her lights were faint now, lowered for the night; the vague clanking of the dynamo came athwart the currents; still the surface of the waters showed no gliding craft, and listen as he might he heard no measured dip of paddle. Once more he betook himself back to the shack and found Connover and Jorrocks seated on the outer stair. As the night wore on and naught was developed both had taken up a position on the outer stair and alertly awaited the crisis. Dan Berridge and his father were but poor exemplifications of the sybarite, but the paramount instincts of self-indulgence overpowered their hope of loot, and their doubt of the fair-dealing of their co-conspirators, and in their respective bunks they snored as noisily as if in the sleep of the just.

Jessy Jane alone took note of the fact that, but for their disclosure of the somnolent talk of the stranger, the others would have known naught of the possibility of the discovery of the hidden valuables at Duciehurst and she resented the chance that they would profit to the exclusion of her and hers. She remained in the dark in the back room of the little cabin, but up and dressed, now and again listening intently for any stir of movement or sound of voices.

He had sighted a canoe down the river, which was shining in a rift of the clouds, a mile, nay, two, below the landing for which it was bound. Thus she did not see his wild, silent gesture of discovery, his hand thrown high into the air. A skiff was lying there scarcely discernible in the vague light. It belonged to the shanty-boater, and into it the owner threw himself, grasping the oars, the other two with less practiced feet tumbled into the space left available, and the craft shot out from the land under the swift, strong strokes of the shanty-boater, rowing as if for a purse.

There was a belt of pallor along the horizon. A sense of dreary wistfulness, of sadness, lay on the land, coming reluctantly into view. The clouds hung low and menacing, although the wind still was high. The dawn was near, or even the practiced eyes of the river pirates might not have distinguished the dugout, seeking to cross the great expanse, yet being carried by the strong current further and further down the river from its objective point.

Git a move on ye, Jorrocks, git a move on ye. Will you have a lift? His wide, dark eyes were wild and suspicious. There was something in their expression that sent a chill coursing down the spine of the impressionable Connover, his shaken, exacerbated nerves all on edge from his constant potations, as well as from the excitements of this experience and the strain of his long vigil. The stranger scanned them successively, keeping the canoe in place by an occasional dip of the paddle.

When he spoke his reserved gentlemanly tone struck their attention. For this was a gentleman, however water-soaked, however queer of conduct, whatever project he might have in view. After securing the dug-out as a tow, Binnhart seated himself opposite the stranger, who was given the place of honor in the stern.

He is a leaky-mouthed old chap. What goes in at his ears comes out of his jaws. I spoke of it? His voice was keyed to the cadences of despair. The modulation of those dying falls was scarcely intelligible to Binnhart; he could not have interpreted them nor even the impression they made upon his mind. But some undiscriminated faculty appraised their true intendment and on it fashioned his course. Ah, here was evidently a dilemma. Just set me ashore at the nearest practicable point and I can walk back.

I told you that? What, I publish abroad the secret that I have kept through thick and thin, till after forty years of acute mania I may right the wrong and establish the title. Oh, my God! A shrill scream rent the air. It seemed for one moment as if Captain Treherne himself had made a discovery, so elated were his eyes, so triumphant was his face, changed almost out of recognition in the moment. Agitated as he was he had lost his balance and was swaying to and fro as if he might pitch head-foremost into the river.

The suggestion of Jorrocks was acted upon instantly. The struggle was fierce, and the miscreants were dismayed by the strength the victim put forth. The two could scarcely hold him; over and again he shook off both Binnhart and Connover. The shanty-boater had great ado even with his practiced skill to keep the skiff from overturning altogether, as it listed from side to side as the weight of the combatants shifted.

The stranger fought with a sort of frenzy, striking, kicking, butting with his head, even biting with his strong snapping jaws. Again was the semi-nautical skill of the shanty-boater of avail. He had not an acquaintance with the river front equal to the practical knowledge of the shanty-boater, whose peregrinations made him the familiar of every bogue and bight, of every bar and tow-head for a hundred miles or more.

For a great looming structure had appeared on the bank in the murky atmosphere, that was not so shadowy as night, yet in its obscurity could hardly assume to be day. An imposing mansion of three stories, with a massive cornice and commodious wings, stood well back on the shelving terraces. In the dim light one could hardly discern that there was no glass in the windows, but the black, gaping intervals intimated somehow vacancy and ruin, and Binnhart was quick to notice the dozen great pillars rising to the floor of the third story and supporting the roof of the long broad portico.

Then he gave no further attention to the unwonted surroundings, but fixed his gaze on the face of their prisoner as his helpless bulk was lifted from the boat by the three. He was of no great weight and they bore him easily enough, inert and motionless, along the broad broken stone pavement to the deserted ruin. A ready interpretation had Binnhart, a keen intuition.

The native endowment might have wrought him good service in a better field. As it was it had been the pivotal faculty on which had turned with every wind of opportunity the nefarious successes that the thieves had achieved. He even made shift to turn his head that he might fix his eyes on the eastern side.

Only to the east he looked, and always. Binnhart felt a bounding pulse of prideful discovery that in the east the treasure was hidden, in an eastern pilaster of the portico. There he would learn this all-significant fact, for that there was treasure hidden at Duciehurst all the country-side had been aware for forty years—the question was, where?

They bore Captain Treherne through half a dozen darkling rooms, showing as yet scant illumination from the slow coming day. One of them would remain, as he was assured by Binnhart, who had again adopted a tone of deference suited to the evident station and culture of the victim.

Connover would stay and see to it that he was not molested in any manner whatever during the short absence of the others. Binnhart, making his words as few as possible, took his leave and once more in the boat Jorrocks pulled down the river with every pulse of energy he could command. Captain Treherne had spent forty years of his life in an insane asylum, but the experience had not bereft him in this lucid interval of the appreciation of certain fundamental facts of human nature.

He realized that although he could not use his hands, Connover was in no wise restricted. Perhaps the offer of the funds in his pocket might compass his release if he could find means to intimate this delicate proposition. Before the others were clear of the house Connover had come and stood beside him gazing down at him with a sort of vacant curiosity on his weak, dissipated face, unmeaning and without intention.

But he immediately turned away, and, repairing to a long hall hard by, began to tramp idly back and forth to while away the time of waiting. It was likely to be a considerable time, he began to reflect discontentedly, and he had no particular liking for his commission. The other fellows would get their feed in Caxton, he argued.

Jorrocks would not go without his breakfast for the United States Treasury. They would also get drinks, good and plenty. At this thought he took an empty flask from his pocket and lugubriously smelled it. He was a fool, he said to himself, and perhaps that was the only true word he had spoken that day. But, in his opinion, it applied specifically to his consent to remain here, as if he, too, were bound and gagged.

Once more he sniffed the departed delights of the empty flask. Suddenly Captain Treherne heard no more the regular impact of his steps as he tramped the long length of the vacant hall. The shades of night gradually wore away and the pale gray light of a sunless and melancholy day pervaded the dreary vistas of the bare uninhabited ruin.

Still, he could but look with an accession of interest at Adrian Ducie when he met him at the breakfast table, the passengers of the Cherokee Rose dallying over the meal, prolonging it to the utmost in the dearth of other interest or occupation. Floyd-Rosney fleered.

The queer little roughness he affected was incongruous with the delicate elegance of Mrs. Between the heavy sulking of her husband in the troublous contretemps of the detention of the boat, and the peculiar tone that Adrian Ducie had taken, in which, however, offense was at once untenable and inexplicable, it might seem that Mrs. Floyd-Rosney had much ado to preserve her airy placidity and maintain the poise of the delicate irony of her manner.

She was a bouncing little girl, with liquid black eyes, and dark red hair, long and abundant, plaited on either side of her head and tied up with black ribbon bows of preposterously wide loops. While she was as noisy and as active as a boy, she was evidently constantly beset with the realization that her lot in life was of feminine restrictions, and miserably repented of every alert caper.

She had a most Briarean and centipedal consciousness in Mrs. By way of disposing of one superfluous foot at least she crooked her leg deftly at the knee, placed its foot in the chair and sat down upon it, turning scarlet as she did so, realizing all too late that the maneuver was perfectly obvious, and wondering what Mrs. Floyd-Rosney must think of a girl who sat on her foot. For the opinion of the score of other persons at the tables she had not a thought or a care, doubtless relying on their good nature to condone the attitude, curiously affected and prized by persons of her age and sex.

An agile twist had got the foot down to the floor again, and now with restored composure and rebounding spirits her gushing loquacity was reasserted, and she was exchanging matutinal greetings with her traveling companions; her father, a tall, lean, quiet man, who had marked her entrance with raised eyebrows and a concerned air, having resumed his talk on the tariff with his next neighbor at table.

In his contrariety he seemed to have divined Mrs. To her he seemed a man well advanced in years, quite an old bachelor, indeed. How often had she been admonished never to say at table that she disliked any article of diet. Floyd-Rosney, she was sure, must have noticed that lapse. While awaiting its construction I will tell your dreams, and interpret their mystery.

What a nice old man was this Mr. Adrian Ducie! Her blithe young eyes were liquid and brilliant with expectation. Depend wholly on the pistol pockets of the passengers? Now and then, with an absorbed air, she recurred to her tea and toast as if naught were going forward, while her husband ate his breakfast as silently and with as much gruff concentration as a hound with a bone. Their persistent expression of a lack of interest seemed to stimulate Mr.

Ducie to a further absorption of the attention of the company. The Captain seemed to resent it. It is really a ruin, now, and uninhabited, I suppose, but it was good enough in its day. Although the risible muscles and ligaments still held the laughing contour, all the mirth was gone out of it. His face was as if stricken into stone, as if he had suddenly beheld the Gorgon Head of trouble.

He paused with his tea-cup poised in his hand. His deep voice weighed more heavily than usual on the silence. He did not seek to change the subject but to steer it clear of breakers. Carriton let the old mansion go to wreck and ruin, fine old place as there is on the river. Though he rented out the lands the house has always remained untenanted. None of the successive lessees was able or willing to furnish or maintain the mansion in a style suitable to its pretensions, yet they were too proud to live in a corner of it like a mouse in a hole.

Such a man would prefer to live in a neighboring villa or cottage while farming the lands as better suited to his comfort and credit than that vacant wilderness of architecture. And in wintry weather a gleam shows far over the snow. Ducie was glowering down at his spoon as he turned it aimlessly in his empty cup, a deep red flush on his cheek and his eyes on fire. Had he dreamed this thing, this story of family jewels and important papers stowed in a knapsack and hidden on Duciehurst plantation?

He had not had time to think it over, to canvass the strange chance in his mind. Treherne had declared that for forty years he had been an inmate of an insane asylum. Without analyzing his own mental processes Colonel Kenwynton was aware that he had taken it for granted that the story was a vain fabrication of half-distraught faculties, an illusion, a part of the unreasoning adventure that had summoned him forth from his bed in the midnight to stand knee-deep in the marsh to hear a recital of baffled rights and hidden treasure.

In all charity and candor he had begun to wonder that Hugh Treherne should find himself now beyond the bounds of detention. In these corroborative developments, however, his opinion veered and he made a plunge at further elucidation of the mystery. Ducie, I should be glad to know what relation you are to Lieutenant Archibald Ducie, who died of typhoid in a hospital in Vicksburg during the war?

The old man thought himself a strategist of deep, elusive craft. For the sake of his friend, Captain Treherne, and his plaintive disability; for the sake of the implied trust accepted in the fact that he had received this confidence, he must seek to know the truth while he screened the motive. Floyd-Rosney had finished his breakfast and seemed about to rise. The vexation of this discussion was beyond endurance to a proud and pompous man.

But it was not his temperament to give back one inch. He stood his ground and presently he began to affect indifference to the situation, placing an elbow on the table and looking with his imperious composure first at one speaker and then at the other. He was not so absorbed, however, that he did not note how his wife loitered over the waffles before her, spinning out the details of the meal that no point of the conversation might escape her.

Carroll Carriton had deposited them in a bank for safekeeping. But you will please to observe, Colonel Kenwynton, that the executors of the mortgagee, Mr. Carroll Carriton, could not accept this unsupported representation of an executed release of the mortgage.

The executors had the registered mortgage, with no marginal notation of its satisfaction, and they had the promissory notes. They sued the estate of George Blewitt Ducie on the promissory notes and foreclosed on Duciehurst. No papers could be produced by the defendant, and a wild legend of the loss of such documents could not withstand the scrutiny of even the least cautious and strict chancellor. The fact that Carroll Carriton happened to be in Mississippi at that time and that George Blewitt Ducie was known to have aggregated a considerable sum in gold by a successful blockade-running scheme of selling cotton in Liverpool was dwelt upon by the counsel for the Ducie heir as corroborative evidence that the two principals to the transaction met expressly to lift the incumbrance, but this contention was not admitted by the court.

Then he turned directly upon Ducie. Ducie, if you should grudge me my rightful holding, I observe that your brother does not share your view. But, as I understand it, you could not plead that acquiescence, even if it existed, in the event that the release could be found,—take advantage of your own tort in the foreclosure of a mortgage duly paid. Then he rose. Ducie, will be gladly conceded by me. Kindly remember that, if you please.

They were out on the guards when she lifted her eyes to his and laid her hand on his arm. Because it is a lie. The Ducies have not a vestige of a right to it. The Ducies would never seek to maintain a lie. When she looked up again there were vague blue circles beneath her eyes.

The nervous stress of the incident and some unformulated association with the idea were obviously bearing on her heavily. Why, Paula, are you crazy? The whole affair went through the courts forty years ago. But that was mere hearsay, chiefly rumor of the gabble of the men who, it was claimed, had witnessed the execution of the quit-claim, and who took occasion to die immediately thereafter.

How, when, where? We held the promissory notes and the registered deed of trust and the court did not even take the matter under advisement. But at all events we had the promissory notes and the registered mortgage and they had their cock-and-bull story. I cannot bear that we should own what the Ducies claim is theirs, and I feel sure that if it is not theirs in law it is by every moral sanction.

And for such a poor price! How much was the amount for which the executors bought it in? It had not been a pleasant morning, and his imperious temper had been greatly strained. I must say that I did not expect it to last so long or to go so far,—to propose to denude me of my very own, one of the finest properties in Mississippi, and vest him with it! Her eyes flashed. You have broken your promise!

The circumstances forced it. When I promised to marry you I told you frankly that I had been engaged to him, and had never a thought, a hope, a wish, but that I might marry him, until I met you. I have no idea that I should feel so about it if it were any one else. Only then I had not met you. I wish you would deed it all back to him. People would think I was crazy if I did such a mad thing as to deed it back.

I should be unfitted for any part in the business world. No one would trust me for a moment. And apart from my own interest, consider our son. Change is the order of the times. Edward Floyd-Rosney, Junior, may not have a walk over the course as his father did.

He was tired of the subject, and was turning away as he drew forth his cigar-case. He was good to himself, and fostered his taste for personal luxury, even in every minute manner that would not be ridiculously obtrusive as against the canons of good taste. The ring on the third finger of his left hand might seem, to the casual glance of the uninitiated, the ordinary seal so much affected, but a connoisseur would discern in it a priceless intaglio.

His clothes were the masterpieces of a London tailor of the first order, but so decorous and inconspicuous in their fine simplicity that but for their enhancement of his admirable figure and grace of movement their quality and cost might have passed unnoticed.

Paula looked after him with an intent and troubled gaze, her heart pulsing tumultuously, her brain on fire. It would never have been within her spiritual compass to make a conscious sacrifice of self for a point of ethics. She could not have relinquished aught that she craved, or that was significant in its effects. To own Duciehurst would make no item of difference in the luxury of their life,—to give it up could in no way reduce their consequence or splendor of appointment.

To her the acquisition of a hundred thousand dollars, more or less, signified naught in an estate of millions. They were rich, they had every desire of luxury or ostentation gratified,—what would they have more? But that this prosperity should be fostered, aggrandized by the loss of the man whom she had causelessly jilted, wounded her pride. What, indeed, did it signify to her?

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However, with the rise of tempo rogue in the meta recently, I thought that a stealing-themed deck with ethereal peddler as both a five drop and a discount on two or three cards in hand would be quite powerful. Playstyle The play style of this deck would be very similar to traditional tempo rogue, making the best tempo plays to dominate the board. The main twist in the early game is the addition of Burgle. Because it is such a low-tempo play, it should be combined with either Preparation or Ethereal Peddler in the late game.

Upon reaching the late game, ethereal peddler provides excellent value and solid tempo on your next turn when played on-curve with two or three burgled cards. Grand Crusader is a solid late drop that can give you more steam and set up a strong combo with ethereal peddler next turn.

Because it is such a low-tempo play, it should be combined with either Preparation or Ethereal Peddler in the late game. Upon reaching the late game, ethereal peddler provides excellent value and solid tempo on your next turn when played on-curve with two or three burgled cards.

Grand Crusader is a solid late drop that can give you more steam and set up a strong combo with ethereal peddler next turn. Win condition Through board dominance and above-average tempo plays made possible by ethereal peddler and a little RNG, this deck can close games out rather quickly before losing steam.

The burgle aspect gives you a little extra fuel throughout the late game, while the tempo aspect assures board control in the early game. Possible additions A lot of tempo rogue variants like to use Cold Blood as burst to leverage the constant board control as another win condition.