"Don't abuse the mother," he
interposed
at last.
Warner - World's Best Literature - v19 - Oli to Phi
Her little heart failed her.
If he would only look up!
But he did not look up; he kept his handsome dark face stu-
diously over the canvas of the Broodhuis. She would have seen
a smile in his eyes if he had lifted them; but he never raised
his lids.
Bébée hesitated: take the stockings she would not; but per-
haps she had refused them too roughly. She wished so that he
would look up and save her speaking first; but he knew what
he was about too warily and well to help her thus.
She waited awhile, then took one little red moss-rosebud that
she had saved all day in a corner of her basket, and held it out
to him frankly, shyly, as a peace-offering.
"Was I rude? I did not mean to be. But I cannot take the
stockings; and why did you tell me that falsehood? "
## p. 10894 (#102) ##########################################
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He took the rosebud and rose too, and smiled; but he did not
meet her eyes.
"Let us forget the whole matter: it is not worth a sou. If
you do not take the box, leave it: it is of no use to me. "
"I cannot take it. "
She knew she was doing right. How was it that he could
make her feel as though she were acting wrongly?
"Leave it then, I say. You are not the first woman, my
dear, who has quarreled with a wish fulfilled. It is a way your
sex has of rewarding gods and men. Here, you old witch-
here is a treasure-trove for you. You can sell it for ten francs
in the town anywhere. "
As he spoke he tossed the casket and the stockings in it to
an old decrepit woman, who was passing by with a baker's cart
drawn by a dog; and not staying to heed her astonishment,
gathered his colors and easel together.
The tears swam in Bébée's eyes as she saw the box whirled
through the air.
She had done right-she was sure she had done right.
HOW TRICOTRIN FOUND VIVA
From Tricotrin>
IT
T WAS autumn; a rich golden autumn of France, with the glow
of burning sunsets, and the scarlet pomp of reddened woods,
and the purple and the yellow of grapes gathered for the
wine-press, and the luscious dreamy odor of overripened fruits
crushed by careless passing feet, upon the orchard mosses. Afar
off, in the full noonday, the winding road was white and hot
with dust; but here in a nook of forest land, in a dell of leafy
growth between the vineyards which encompassed it, the air was
cool and the sunlight broken with shade, while, through its still-
ness where the boughs threw the shadow darkest, a little torrent
leapt and splashed, making music as it went, and washing round.
the base of an old ivy-grown stone tower that had fallen to ruin
in the midst of its green nest.
There was no sound except one, beside that of the bright
tumbling stream, though now and then there came in from the
distance the ring of a convent clock's bells, or the laugh of a
## p. 10895 (#103) ##########################################
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10895
young girl at work among the vines; - no sound except one, and
that was the quick, sharp, gleeful crack of nuts in a monkey's
teeth. There were squirrels by the score there in that solitary
place who had right, hereditary and indisputable they would
have said, to all the nuts that the boughs bore and the grasses
hid: but Mistigri was no recognizer of rights divine; she loved.
nuts, and cared little how she got them, and she sat aloft in her
glory, or swung herself from twig to twig, crushing and eating
and flinging the shells away with all that gleeful self-satisfaction
of which a little black monkey is to the full as capable, after
successful piracy, as any conquering sovereign.
"Mistigri, Mistigri! " said her companion surveying her, "who
could doubt your human affinity who once had seen you pilfer?
Monkey stows away her stolen goods in a visible pouch unblush-
ingly; man smuggles his away unknown in the guise of 'profit'
or 'percentage,' 'commerce' or 'annexation,' the natural ad-
vancement of civilization on the simple and normal thieving.
Increased cranium, increased caution: that's all the difference, eh,
Mistigri ? "
-
Mistigri cocked her head on one side, but would not waste
time in replying: her little shiny black mouth was full of good
kernels.
"Why talk when you can take? " she would have asked.
Her owner did not press for an answer; but sung, carelessly,
snatches of Goethe's Millsong' and of Müller's 'Whisper,' his
voice chiming in with the bubble of the stream while he took
at intervals his noontide meal, classic and uncostly, of Chasselas
grapes and a big brown roll.
He was a man of some forty years, dressed in a linen blouse,
with a knapsack as worn as an African soldier's lying at his
feet, unstrapped, in company with a flask of good wine and a
Straduarius fiddle. He himself was seated on a fallen tree, with
the sun breaking through the foliage above in manifold gleams
and glories, that touched the turning leaves bright red as fire,
and fell on his own head when he tossed it up to fling a word
to Mistigri, or to catch the last summer-song of a blackbird. It
was a beautiful Homeric head: bold, kingly, careless, noble, with
the royalty of the lion in its gallant poise, and the challenge
of the eagle in its upward gesture; -the head which an artist
would have given to his Hector, or his Phoebus, or his God
Lyæus. The features were beautiful too, in their varied mobile
## p. 10896 (#104) ##########################################
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eloquent meanings; with their poet's brows, their reveler's laugh,
their soldier's daring, their student's thought, their many and
conflicting utterances, whose contradictions made one unity-the
unity of genius.
At this moment there was only the enjoyment of a rich and
sunny nature, in an idle moment, written on them, as he ate his
grapes and threw fragments of wit up at Mistigri where she was
perched among the nut boughs. But the brilliant eyes, so blue
in some lights, so black in others, had the lustre and the depths
of infinite meditation in them; and the curling lips that were
hidden under the fullness of their beard had the delicate fine
mockery of the satirist blent with the brighter, franker mirth of
genial sympathies. And his face changed as he cast the crumbs
of his finished meal to some ducks that paddled lower down in
the stream, where it grew stiller around the old tower, and took
up his Straduarius from the ground with the touch of a man
who loves the thing that he touches. The song of the water
that had made the melody to his banquet was in his brain;-
sweet, wild, entangled sounds that he must needs reproduce, with
the selfsame fancy that a painter must catch the fleeting hues of
fair scenes that would haunt him forever unless exorcised thus.
"Quiet, Mistigri! " he said softly, and the monkey sat still
on her hazel bough, eating indeed, but noiselessly. He listened
one moment more to the stream, then drew the bow across the
strings. The music thrilled out upon the silence, catching the
song of the brook in harmony as Goethe caught it in verse,- all
its fresh delicious babble, all its rush of silvery sound, all its cool
and soothing murmur, all its pauses of deep rest. All of which
the woodland torrent told: of the winds that had tossed the
boughs into its foam; of the women-faces its tranquil pools had
mirrored; of the blue burden of forget-me-nots and the snowy
weight of lilies it had borne so lovingly; of the sweet familiar
idyls it had seen, where it had wound its way below quaint mill-
house walls choked up with ivy-growth, where the children and
the pigeons paddled with rosy feet upon the resting wheel; of the
weary sighs that had been breathed over it beneath the gray old
convents where it heard the miserere steal in with its own ripple,
and looked, itself, a thing so full of leaping joy and dancing life
to the sad eyes of girl-recluses, all these of which it told, the
music told again. The strings were touched by an artist's hand;
and all that duller ears heard, but dimly, in the splash and surge
-
## p. 10897 (#105) ##########################################
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10897
of the brown fern-covered stream, he heard in marvelous poems,
and translated into clearer tongue the universal tongue which
has no country and no limit, and in which the musician speaks
alike to sovereign and to savage.
-
There was not a creature there to hear, save the yellow-
winged loriotes, and Mistigri, who was absorbed in nuts: but he
played on to himself an hour or more for love of the theme and
the art; and an old peasant woman, going through the trees at
some yards distance, and seeing nothing of the player for the
screen of leaves, laughed and stroked the hair of a grandchild
who clung to her, afraid of the magical woodland melodies: "The
wood-elves, little one? Bah! that is only Tricotrin! "
Her feet, brushing the fallen leaves with pleasant sound, soon
passed away; he played on and on,- such poetry as Bamboche
drew from his violin, whereat Poussin bowed his head, weeping
with the passion of women, as through his tears he beheld as in
a vision the "Et in Arcadia Ego. "
Then, as suddenly as he had begun, Tricotrin dropped the
bow and ceased, and struck a light and smoked,-a great Arab
pipe of some carved wood, black and polished by long use. On
the silence that succeeded there came a low laugh of delight,—
the laugh of a very young child. He looked up and down and
among the ferns at his feet; the laughter was close beside him,
yet he could see nothing. He smoked on indifferently, watching
the bright eyes of the birds glancing out from the shadow; then
the laugh came again, close at his side, as it sounded; he rose
and pushed aside some branches, and looked over a broken rail
behind him, beyond a tangled growth of reeds and rushes.
There he saw what had aroused him from his smoke-silence:
more than half hidden under the moss and the broad tufted
grasses, stretching her hands out at the gorgeous butterflies that
fluttered above her head, and covered with the wide yellow leaves
of gourds and the white fragrant abundance of traveler's-joy, was
the child whose laughter he had heard. A child between two
and three years old, her face warm with the flush of past sleep,
her eyes smiling against the light, her hair lying like gold-dust
on the moss, her small fair limbs struggling uncovered out of a
rough red cloak that alone was folded about her. The scarlet of
the mantle, the whiteness of the clematis, the yellow hues of
the wild gourds, the color of the winged insects, the head of the
child rising out of the mosses, and the young face that looked
XIX-682
## p. 10898 (#106) ##########################################
10898
OUIDA
like a moss-rosebud just unclosing, made a picture in their own
way; and he who passed no picture by, but had pictures in his
memory surpassing all the collected art of galleries, paused to
survey it with his arms folded on the rail.
Its solitude, its strangeness, did not occur to him; he looked
at it as at some painting of his French brethren's easels,— that
was all. But the child, seeing a human eye regard her, forgot
her butterflies and remembered human wants; she stretched her
hands to him instead of to her playmates of the air. "J'ai
faim! " she cried, with a plaintive self-pity: bread would be bet-
ter than the butterflies.
"Hungry? " he answered, addressing her as he was wont to
do Mistigri. "I have nothing for you. Who brought you there,
you Waif and Stray? Put down there and left, to get rid of
the trouble of you, apparently? Well, D'Alembert was dropped
down in the streets, and found a foster-mother in a milkwoman,
and he did pretty well afterward. Perhaps some dainty De Ten-
cin brought you likewise into the world, and has hidden you like
a bit of smuggled lace, only thinking you nothing so valuable.
Is it so,
eh? "
"J'ai faim! " cried the child afresh: all her history was com-
prised to her in the one fact that she wanted bread,—as it is
comprised to a mob.
"Catch, then! " he replied to the cry, dropping into her hands
from where he leant, a bunch of the Chasselas grapes that still
remained in his pocket. It sufficed: the child was not so much
pained by hunger as by thirst, though she scarcely knew the dif-
ference between her own sensations; her throat was dry, and the
grapes were all she wanted. He, leaning over the lichen-covered
rail, watched her while she enjoyed them one by one.
She was
a very pretty child; the prettier for that rough moss covering,
out of which her delicate fair shoulders and chest rose uncovered,
while the breeze blew about her yellow glossy curls.
"Left there to be got rid of clearly," he murmured to her.
"Any one who picks you up will do you the greatest injury
possible. Die now in the sunshine among the flowers: you will
never have such another chance of a poetical and picturesque
exit. Who was ingenious enough to hide you there? The poor
shirt-stitcher who was at her last sou? or Madame la Marquise
who was at her last scandal? Was it Magdalene who has to
wear sackcloth for having dared to sin without money to buy
## p. 10899 (#107) ##########################################
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10899
absolution? or Messalina who covers ten thousand poisonous
passions with a silver-embroidered robe, and is only discreetly
careful of consequences'? Which was your progenitrix, little
one, eh? »
(
To this question so closely concerning her, the Waif could
give no answer, being gifted with only imperfect speech; but
happy in the grapes, she laughed up in his eyes her unspoken
thanks, shaking a cluster of clematis above her head, as happy in
her couch of flowers and moss as she could have been in any
silver cradle. The question concerned her in nothing yet: the
bar sinister could not stretch across the sunny blue skies, the
butterflies flew above her as familiarly as above the brow of a
child-queen, and the white flowers did not wither sooner in bas-
tard than in legitimate hands.
"How the sun shines on you, as if you were a princess! "
he soliloquized to her. "Ah! Nature is a terrible socialist; what
republicans she would make of men if they listened to her. But
there is no fear for them,- they are not fond enough of her
school! You look very comfortably settled here, and how soon
you will get life over. You are very fortunate. You will suffer
a little bit,-paf! what of that? Everybody suffers that little
bit sooner or later, and it grows sharper the longer it is put off.
Suppose you were picked up by somebody and lived: it would
be very bad for you. You would be a lovely woman, and lovely
women are the devil's aides-de-camp. You would snare men in
your yellow hair, and steal their substance with the breath of
your lips, and dress up lying avarice as love, and make a miser's
greed wear the smile of a cherub. Ah! that you would. And
then would come age, a worse thing for women like
you than
crime or death; and you would suffer an agony with every
wrinkle, and a martyrdom with every whitening lock; and you
would grow hard, and haggard, and painted, and hideous even to
the vilest among men; and you would be hissed off the stage in
hatred by the mouths that once shouted your triumphs, while
you would hear the fresh comers laugh as they rushed on to
be crowned with the roses that once wreathed your own forehead.
And then would come the end,- the hospital and the wooden
shell, and the grave trampled flat to the dust as soon almost
as made, while the world danced on in the sunlight unheeding.
Ah! be wise. Die while you can, among your butterflies and
flowers! "
## p. 10900 (#108) ##########################################
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The child, lying below there in her nest, looked up in his
eyes again and laughed: "Viva! " she cried, while she clasped
her grapes in her two small hands.
"Viva? What do you mean by that? Do you mean, imper-
fectly, to ask to live an Italian? Fie then!
Fie then! That is unphilo-
sophic. Take the advice of two philosophers. Bolingbroke says
there is so much trouble in coming into the world and in going
out of it, that it is barely worth while to be here at all; and I
tell you the same. He had the cakes and ale too, but the one
got stale and the other bitter. What will it be for you who start
with neither cakes nor ale? Life's not worth much to a man.
It is worth just nothing at all to a woman. It is a mistake alto-
gether; and lasts just long enough for all to find that out, but
not long enough for any to remedy it. We always live the time
required to get thoroughly uncomfortable, and as soon as we are
in the track to sift the problem- paf! -out we go like a rush-
light, the very moment we begin to burn brightly. Be persuaded
by me, and don't think of living: you have a golden opportunity
of getting quittance of the whole affair. Don't throw it away! "
The good advice of Experience was, as it always is, thrown
away on the impetuosity of Ignorance. The child laughed still
over her Chasselas bunch, murmuring still over and over again
the nearest approach she knew to a name:—
"Viva - Viva — Viva! »
"The obstinacy of women prematurely developed. Why will
you not know when you are well off? Those whom the gods
love die young. ' If you would just now prefer to have your
mother's love instead of the gods', you are wrong. What have
you before you? You will be marked 'outcast. ' You will have
nothing as your career except to get rich by snaring the foolish;
or to be virtuous and starve on three halfpence a day, having a
pauper's burial as reward for your chastity. If you live, your
hands must be either soiled or empty. I would die among the
clematis if I were you. "
But the child, persistently regardless of wise counsel, only
laughed still, and strove to struggle from her network of blos-
som and of moss.
"Your mind is set upon living,- what a pity! " murmured her
solitary companion. "When your hair is white, how you will
wish you had died when it was yellow; - everybody does, but
while the yellow lasts nobody believes it! You want to live? So
## p. 10901 (#109) ##########################################
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logor
Eve wanted the fruit of fairest colors. ' If I were to help you
to have your own way now, you would turn on me thirty years
hence as your worst enemy. Were you able to understand rea-
son—but your sex would prevent that, let alone your age. Let
us ask Mistigri. Mistigri, is that Waif to live or to die? "
The companion and counselor, who lived in his pocket and
was accustomed to be thus appealed to, had swung herself down
on to the grass, and was now squatted on the rail beside him.
The child, catching sight of the monkey, tried to stretch and
stroke her; and Mistigri, who was always of an affable, and when
she had eaten sufficient herself, of a generous turn of mind,
extended her little black paw, and tendered a nut, as an over-
ture to an acquaintance.
"You vote for life too? " cried Tricotrin. "Bah, Mistigri!
I thought you so sensible-for your sex! When a discerning
mother, above the weakness of womenkind, has arranged every-
thing so neatly, we should be the most miserable sentimentalists
to interfere. "
As he spoke, the little creature, who had been vainly striv-
ing to free herself from her forest-cradle, ceased her efforts and
looked up in piteous mute entreaty, her eyes wet and soft with
glistening tears, her mouth trembling with an unspoken appeal.
He who saw a wounded bird only to help it, and met a lame
dog only to carry it, was unable to resist that pathetic helpless-
He turned and lifted his voice.
ness.
"Grand'mère Virelois, are you there? Here is something in
your way, not in mine. "
In answer to the shout there came out from the low broken
door of the ruined tower an old peasant woman, brown and bent
and very aged, but blithe as a bird, and with her black eyes as
bright as the eyes of a mouse, under the white pent-house of
her high starched cap.
"What is it, good Tricotrin? " she asked, in that sweet, sing-
ing voice that makes the accent of many French peasant women
so lingering and charming on the ear, the voice that has in it
all the contentment of the brave, cheery spirit within.
"A Waif and Stray," answered Tricotrin. "Whether from
Mary Magdalene or Madame la Marquise is unknown; probably
will never be known. Curses go home to roost, but chickens
don't. The Waif is irrational: she thinks a mouthful of black
bread better than easy extinction among the ferns. Claudine de
-
## p. 10902 (#110) ##########################################
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10902
Tencin has left a feminine D'Alembert in a moss-cradle: are you
inclined to play the part of the foster-mother? "
Grand'mère Virelois listened to the harangue, comprehending
it no more than if he had spoken in Hebrew; but she was used
to him, and thought nothing of that.
"What is it I am to see? " she asked again, peering curi-
ously with lively interest among the leaves. Before he could
answer she had caught sight of the child, with vehement amaze
and ecstatic wonder; the speech had been as Hebrew to her, but
the fact was substantial and indisputable. Crossing herself in
her surprise, with a thousand expletives of pity and admiration, she
bent her little withered but still active form beneath the rail, and
stooped and raised the foundling-raised her, but only a little
from the ground.
Holy Virgin! Tricotrin! " she cried, "look here! the child is
fastened. Help me! "
He looked quickly as she called him, and saw that the withes
of osiers and the tendrils of wild vine had been netted so tightly
around the limbs, tied here and there with strong twine, that the
infant could never have escaped from its resting-place; it had
evidently been so fastened that the child might perish there un-
seen. His face darkened as he looked.
"Murder, then! not mere neglect. Ah! this is Madame la
Marquise at work, not Magdalene! " he murmured, as he slashed
the network right and left with his knife, and set the Waif at
liberty; while Grand'mère Virelois went into a woman's raptures
on the young beauty of the "petit Gésu," and a woman's vehe-
ment censures of a sister's sin.
Tricotrin smoked resignedly, while her raptures and her dia-
tribes expended themselves; it was long before either were ex-
hausted.
"Don't abuse the mother," he interposed at last.
"Every-
body gets rid of troublesome consequences when they can.
We've done no good in disturbing her arrangements. We have
only disinterred a living blunder that she wished to bury. "
"For shame, Tricotrin! " cried Grand'mère, quivering with
horror, while she folded the child in her withered arms. "You
can jest on such wickedness! You can excuse such a murder-
ess! "
"Paf! " said Tricotrin, lightly blowing away a smoke ring.
"The whole system of creation is a sliding scale of murders.
## p. 10903 (#111) ##########################################
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10903
All the world over, life is only sustained by life being extin-
guished. "
Grand'mère Virelois, who was a pious little woman, shuddered
and clasped the child nearer.
"Ah-h-h! the vile woman! How will she see Our Lady's
face on the last day? "
"How she will meet the world she lives in is more the ques-
tion with her now, I imagine. An eminently sagacious woman!
and you and I are two sentimentalists to interfere with her ad-
mirably artistic play. So you would live, little one? I wonder
what you will make of what you have got! A Jeremiad if you
are a good silly woman; a Can-can measure if you are a bad
clever one. Which will it be, I wonder? "
"Mon Dieu, it is an angel! " murmured Grand'mère; "such
hair, like silk,—such eyes,—such a rose for a mouth! And left
to die of hunger and cold! Ah, may the Holy Mary find her
out and avenge her crime, the wicked one! "
"The vengeance will come quick if the sinner live in a garret;
it will limp very slowly if she shelter in a palace. Well, since
you take that child in your arms, do you mean to find her the
piece of bread the unphilosophic castaway will want? "
"Will I not! if I go without myself. Oh, the pretty little
child! who could have left you? Wherever the mother dwells,
may the good God hunt her down! "
"Deity as a detective? Not a grand idea that. Yet it is the
heavenly office that looks dearest to man when it is exercised
upon others! Grand'mère, answer me: Are you going to keep
that Waif? »
The bright, brown, wrinkled, homely face of the good old
woman grew perplexed.
"Ah, my friend, times are so bad, it is hard work to get a
bit in the pot for one's self; and I stitch, stitch, stitch, and spin,
spin, spin, till I am blind many a time. And yet the pretty
child- with no one to care for it! I do not know,- she must
be brought up hard if she come to me. Not a lentil even to put
in the water and make one fancy it is soup, in some days these
hard times! But do you know nothing more of her than this,
Tricotrin ? »
"Nothing. "
His luminous eyes met hers full and frankly; she knew-
all the nations where he wandered knew-that the affirmative of
Tricotrin was more sure than the truth of most men's oaths.
## p. 10904 (#112) ##########################################
10904
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"Then she must be abandoned here by some wretch to starve
unseen ? »
"It looks like it. "
"Ah! the little angel! What does the barbarous brutal heart
of stone deserve? "
"What it will get if it lodge in the breast that rags and tat-
ters cover; what it will not get if it lodge in the breast that
heaves under silks and laces. "
"True enough! but the good God will smite in his own
time. Oh, little one, how could they ever forsake thee? " cried
Grand'mère, caressing afresh the child, who was laughing and
well content in her friendly and tender hold.
"Then you are going to adopt her? "
"Adopt her? Mother of Jesus! I dare not say that. You
know how I live, Tricotrin,- how hardly, though I try to let
it be cheerfully. If I had a little more she should share it,
and welcome; but as it is not a mouthful of chestnuts, even,
so often; not a drop of oil or a bit of garlic sometimes weeks
together! She would be better off at the Foundling Hospital
than with me. Besides, it is an affair for the mayor of the com-
mune. "
"Certainly it is. But if the most notable mayor can do noth-
ing except send this foundling among the others, would you like
better to keep her? "
Grand'mère Virelois was silent and thoughtful a minute; then
her little bright eyes glanced up at him from under their white
linen roofing, with a gleam in them that was between a smile
and a tear.
"You know how I lost them, Tricotrin. One in Africa, one
at the Barricades, one crushed under a great marble block, build-
ing the Préfet's palace. And then the grandchild too,- the only
little one, so pretty, so frail, so tender, killed that long bitter
winter, because the food was so scarce, like the young birds dead
on the snow! You know, Tricotrin? and what use is it to take
her to perish like him, though in her laughter and her caresses
I might think that he lived again? "
"I know! " said Tricotrin softly, with an infinite balm of
pity, and of the remembrance that was the sweetest sympathy,
in his voice. "Well, if M. le Maire can find none to claim her,
she shall stay with you, Grand'mère: and as for the food, that
shall not trouble you; I will have a care of that. "
"You? Holy Jesus! how good! "
-
## p. 10905 (#113) ##########################################
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10905
"Not in the least. I abetted her in her ignorant and ridicu-
lous desire to exchange a pleasant death among the clematis for
all the toil and turmoil of prolonged existences; I am clearly
responsible for my share in the folly. I cut the meshes that her
sagacious mother had knotted so hardly. I must accept my part
in the onus of such unwarrantable interference. You keep the
Waif; and I will be at the cost of her. "
"But then, Tricotrin, you call yourself poor? »
"So I am.
But one need not be a millionaire to be able to
get a few crumbs for that robin. The creature persisted in liv-
ing, and I humored her caprice. It was mock humanity, paltry
sentiment; Mistigri was partly at fault, but I mostly. We must
accept the results. They will be disastrous probably,—the creat-
ure is feminine,- but such as they are we must make the best
of them. "
"Then you will adopt her? "
"Not in the least. But I will see she has something to eat;
and that you are able to give it her if her parents cannot be
found. Here is a gold bit for the present minute; and when we
know whether she is really and truly a Waif, you shall have
more to keep the pot over your fire full and boiling. Adieu,
Grand'mère. "
With that farewell, he, heedless of the voluble thanks and
praises that the old woman showered after him, and of the out-
cries of the child who called to Mistigri, put his pipe in his
mouth, his violin in his pocket, and throwing his knapsack over
his shoulder, brushed his way through the forest growth.
"Mock sentiment! " he said to himself. "You and I have
done a silly thing, Mistigri. What will come of it? "
THE STEEPLE-CHASE
From 'Under Two Flags
THE
HE bell was clanging and clashing passionately, as Cecil at
last went down to the weights, all his friends of the House-
hold about him, and all standing "crushers" on their cham-
pion; for their stringent esprit de corps was involved, and the
Guards are never backward in putting their gold down, as all
the world knows. In the inclosure, the cynosure of devouring
## p. 10906 (#114) ##########################################
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eyes, stood the King, with the sang froid of a superb gentleman,
amid the clamor raging round him, one delicate ear laid back
now and then, but otherwise indifferent to the din, with his coat
glistening like satin, the beautiful tracery of vein and muscle,
like the veins of vine-leaves, standing out on the glossy, clear-
carved neck that had the arch of Circassia, and his dark, antelope
eyes gazing with a gentle, pensive earnestness on the shouting
crowd.
His rivals too were beyond par in fitness and in condition,
and there were magnificent animals among them. Bay Regent
was a huge raking chestnut, upward of sixteen hands, and enor-
mously powerful, with very fine shoulders, and an all-over-like-
going head; he belonged to a colonel in the Rifles, but was to
be ridden by Jimmy Delmar of the 10th Lancers, whose colors
were violet with orange hoops. Montacute's horse, Pas de Charge,
which carried all the money of the Heavy Cavalry,- Montacute
himself being in the Dragoon Guards,- was of much the same
order: a black hunter with racing blood in him, loins and withers
that assured any amount of force, and no fault but that of a
rather coarse head, traceable to a slur on his 'scutcheon on the
distaff side from a plebeian great-grandmother, who had been
a cart mare,—the only stain in his otherwise faultless pedigree.
However, she had given him her massive shoulders, so that he
was in some sense a gainer by her, after all. Wild Geranium
was a beautiful creature enough,—a bright bay Irish mare, with
that rich red gloss that is like the glow of a horse-chestnut, very
perfect in shape, though a trifle light, perhaps, and with not
quite strength enough in neck or barrel; she would jump the
fences of her own paddock half a dozen times a day for sheer
amusement, and was game to anything. * She was entered by
Cartouche of the Enniskillens, to be ridden by "Baby Grafton,"
of the same corps, a feather-weight, and quite a boy, but with
plenty of science in him. These were the three favorites; Day
Star ran them close, -the property of Durham Vavassour, of
the Scots Grays, and to be ridden by his owner, -a handsome
flea-bitten gray sixteen-hander, with ragged hips, and action that
looked a trifle stringhalty, but noble shoulders, and great force
The portrait of this lady is that of a very esteemed young Irish beauty
of my acquaintance; she this season did seventy-six miles on a warm June
day, and eat her corn and tares afterward as if nothing happened. She is
six years old.
## p. 10907 (#115) ##########################################
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10907
in the loins and withers: the rest of the field, though unusually
excellent, did not find so many "sweet voices" for them, and
were not so much to be feared; each starter was of course
much backed by his party, but the betting was tolerably even
on these four, all famous steeple-chasers,- the King at one time,
and Bay Regent at another, slightly leading in the ring.
Thirty-two starters were hoisted up on the telegraph board,
and as the field got at last under way, uncommonly handsome
they looked, while the silk jackets of all the colors of the rainbow
glittered in the bright noon sun. As Forest King closed in, per-
fectly tranquil still, but beginning to glow and quiver all over
with excitement, knowing as well as his rider the work that was
before him, and longing for it in every muscle and every limb,
while his eyes flashed fire as he pulled at the curb and tossed his
head aloft, there went up a general shout of "Favorite! " His
beauty told on the populace, and even somewhat on the profes-
sionals, though the Legs kept a strong business prejudice against
the working powers of "the Guards' crack. " The ladies began to
lay dozens in gloves on him; not altogether for his points, which
perhaps they hardly appreciated, but for his owner and rider,—
who, in the scarlet and gold with the white sash across his chest,
and a look of serene indifference on his face, they considered the
handsomest man of the field. The Household is usually safe to
win the suffrages of the sex.
In the throng on the course, Rake instantly bonneted an
audacious dealer who had ventured to consider that Forest King
was "light and curby in the 'ock. " "You're a wise 'un, you
are! " retorted the wrathful and ever eloquent Rake: "there's more
strength in his clean fat legs, bless him! than in all the round
thick mile-posts of your half-breeds, that have no more tendon
than a bit of wood, and are just as flabby as a sponge! " Which
hit the dealer home just as his hat was hit over his eyes,-
Rake's arguments being unquestionable in their force.
The thoroughbreds pulled and fretted and swerved in their
impatience; one or two over-contumacious bolted incontinently;
others put their heads between their knees in the endeavor to
draw their riders over their withers; Wild Geranium reared
straight upright, fidgeted all over with longing to be off, passaged
with the prettiest, wickedest grace in the world, and would have
given the world to neigh if she had dared, but she knew it would
be very bad style, so, like an aristocrat as she was, restrained
## p. 10908 (#116) ##########################################
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herself; Bay Regent almost sawed Jimmy Delmar's arms off,
looking like a Titan Bucephalus; while Forest King, with his
nostrils dilated till the scarlet tinge on them glowed in the sun,
his muscles quivering with excitement as intense as the little
Irish mare's, and all his Eastern and English blood on fire for
the fray, stood steady as a statue for all that, under the curb of
a hand light as a woman's, but firm as iron to control, and used
to guide him by the slightest touch.
All eyes were on that throng of the first mounts in the
Service; brilliant glances by the hundred gleamed down behind
hot-house bouquets of their chosen color, eager ones by the thou-
sand stared thirstily from the crowded course, the roar of the
Ring subsided for a second, a breathless attention and suspense
succeeded it; the Guardsmen sat on their drags, or lounged near
the ladies with their race-glasses ready, and their habitual
expression of gentle and resigned weariness in nowise altered
because the Household, all in all, had from sixty to seventy thou
sand on the event, and the Seraph mourned mournfully to his che-
root, "That chestnut's no end fit," strong as his faith was in the
champion of the Brigades.
A moment's good start was caught-the flag dropped-off
they went, sweeping out for the first second like a line of cavalry
about to charge.
Another moment, and they were scattered over the first field;
Forest King, Wild Geranium, and Bay Regent leading for two
lengths, when Montacute, with his habitual "fast burst," sent Pas
de Charge past them like lightning. The Irish mare gave a rush
and got alongside of him; the King would have done the same,
but Cecil checked him, and kept him in that cool swinging canter
which covered the grass-land so lightly; Bay Regent's vast thun-
dering stride was Olympian; but Jimmy Delmar saw his worst foe
in the "Guards' crack," and waited on him warily, riding superbly
himself.
The first fence disposed of half the field; they crossed the
second in the same order, Wild Geranium racing neck to neck
with Pas de Charge; the King was all athirst to join the duello,
but his owner kept him gently back, saving his pace and lifting
him over the jumps as easily as a lapwing. The second fence
proved a cropper to several; some awkward falls took place over
it, and tailing commenced; after the third field, which was heavy
plow, all knocked off but eight, and the real struggle began in
## p. 10909 (#117) ##########################################
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10909
sharp earnest, a good dozen who had shown a splendid stride
over the grass being done up by the terrible work
clods.
on the
-
The five favorites had it all to themselves: Day Star pounding
onward at tremendous speed, Pas de Charge giving slight symp-
toms of distress owing to the madness of his first burst, the Irish
mare literally flying ahead of him, Forest King and the chestnut
waiting on each other.
In the Grand Stand the Seraph's eyes strained after the
Scarlet and White, and he muttered in his mustaches, "Ye gods,
what's up? The world's coming to an end! Beauty's turned
cautious! "
Cautious indeed-with that giant of Pytchley fame running
neck to neck by him; cautious with two-thirds of the course
unrun, and all the yawners yet to come; cautious- with the
blood of Forest King lashing to boiling heat, and the wondrous
greyhound stride stretching out faster and faster beneath him,
ready at a touch to break away and take the lead: but he would
be reckless enough by-and-by; reckless, as his nature was, under
the indolent serenity of habit.
--
Two more fences came, laced high and stiff with the Shire
thorn, and with scarce twenty feet between them, the heavy
plowed land leading to them clotted and black and hard, with
the fresh earthy scent steaming up as the hoofs struck the clods
with a dull thunder. Pas de Charge rose to the first: distressed
too early, his hind feet caught in the thorn, and he came down,
rolling clear of his rider; Montacute picked him up with true
science, but the day was lost to the Heavy Cavalry men. Forest
King went in and out over both like a bird, and led for the first
time; the chestnut was not to be beat at fencing, and ran even
with him: Wild Geranium flew still as fleet as a deer-true to
her sex, she would not bear rivalry; but little Grafton, though
he rode like a professional, was but a young one, and went too
wildly her spirit wanted cooler curb.
And now only, Cecil loosened the King to his full will and
his full speed. Now only, the beautiful Arab head was stretched
like a racer's in the run in for the Derby, and the grand stride
swept out till the hoofs seemed never to touch the dark earth
they skimmed over; neither whip nor spur was needed. Bertie
had only to leave the gallant temper and the generous fire that
were roused in their might to go their way and hold their own.
## p. 10910 (#118) ##########################################
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10910
His hands were low; his head a little back; his face very calm,
-the eyes only had a daring, eager, resolute will lighting in
them: Brixworth lay before him. He knew well what Forest
King could do; but he did not know how great the chestnut
Regent's powers might be.
The water gleamed before them, brown and swollen, and
deepened with the meltings of winter snows a month before; the
brook that has brought so many to grief over its famous banks,
since cavaliers leaped it with their falcon on their wrist, or the
mellow note of the horn rang over the woods in the hunting-
days of Stuart reigns. They knew it well, that long dark line,
shimmering there in the sunlight, the test that all must pass
who go in for the Soldiers' Blue Ribbon. Forest King scented
the water, and went on with his ears pointed and his greyhound
stride lengthening, quickening, gathering up all its force and
its impetus for the leap that was before; then like the rise and
the swoop of a heron he spanned the water, and landing clear,
launched forward with the lunge of a spear darted through air.
Brixworth was passed; the Scarlet and White, a mere gleam of
bright color, a mere speck in the landscape, to the breathless
crowds in the stand, sped on over the brown and level grass-
land: two and a quarter miles done in four minutes and twenty
seconds. Bay Regent was scarcely behind him; the chestnut
abhorred the water, but a finer trained hunter was never sent
over the Shires, and Jimmy Delmar rode like Grimshaw himself.
The giant took the leap in magnificent style, and thundered on
neck and neck with the "Guards' crack. " The Irish mare fol-
lowed, and with miraculous gameness, landed safely; but her hind
legs slipped on the bank, a moment was lost, and "Baby" Graf-
ton scarce knew enough to recover it, though he scoured on,
nothing daunted.
――
Pas de Charge, much behind, refused the yawner: his strength
was not more than his courage, but both had been strained too
severely at first. Montacute struck the spurs into him with a
savage blow over the head: the madness was its own punish-
ment; the poor brute rose blindly to the jump, and missed the
bank with a reel and a crash. Sir Eyre was hurled out into the
brook, and the hope of the Heavies lay there with his breast and
forelegs resting on the ground, his hind quarters in the water,
and his back broken. Pas de Charge would never again see the
starting-flag waved, or hear the music of the hounds, or feel the
## p. 10911 (#119) ##########################################
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10911
gallant life throb and glow through him at the rallying-notes of
the horn. His race was run.
Not knowing or looking or heeding what happened behind,
the trio tore on over the meadow and the plowed land; the two
favorites neck by neck, the game little mare hopelessly behind
through that one fatal moment over Brixworth. The turning-
flags were passed; from the crowds on the course a great hoarse
roar came louder and louder, and the shouts rang, changing every
second, "Forest King wins," "Bay Regent wins," "Scarlet and
White's ahead," "Violet's up with him," "Violet's passed him,”
"Scarlet recovers," "Scarlet beats," "A cracker on the King,"
"Ten to one on the Regent," "Guards are over the fence first,"
"Guards are winning," "Guards are losing," "Guards are beat! "
Were they?
As the shout rose, Cecil's left stirrup-leather snapped and gave
way; at the pace they were going, most men, ay, and good riders
too, would have been hurled out of their saddle by the shock:
he scarcely swerved; a moment to ease the King and to recover
his equilibrium, then he took the pace up again as though noth-
ing had changed. And his comrades of the Household, when they
saw this through their race-glasses, broke through their serenity
and burst into a cheer that echoed over the grass-lands and the
coppices like a clarion, the grand rich voice of the Seraph lead-
ing foremost and loudest,—a cheer that rolled mellow and tri-
umphant down the cold bright air, like the blasts of trumpets,
and thrilled on Bertie's ear where he came down the course a
mile away.
It made his heart beat quicker with a victorious
headlong delight, as his knees pressed closer into Forest King's
flanks, and half stirrupless like the Arabs, he thundered forward
to the greatest riding-feat of his life. His face was very calm
still, but his blood was in tumult: the delirium of pace had got
on him; a minute of life like this was worth a year, and he knew
that he would win or die for it, as the land seemed to fly like a
black sheet under him; and in that killing speed, fence and hedge
and double and water all went by him like a dream, whirling
underneath him as the gray stretched, stomach to earth, over the
level, and rose to leap after leap.
For that instant's pause, when the stirrup broke, threatened to
lose him the race.
He was more than a length behind the Regent, whose hoofs,
as they dashed the ground up, sounded like thunder, and for
## p. 10912 (#120) ##########################################
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whose herculean strength the plow had no terrors; it was more
than the lead to keep now,-there was ground to cover, and the
King was losing like Wild Geranium. Cecil felt drunk with that
strong, keen west wind that blew so strongly in his teeth; a pas-
sionate excitation was in him; every breath of winter air that
rushed in its bracing currents round him seemed to lash him like
a stripe- the Household to look on and see him beaten!
Certain wild blood that lay latent in Cecil, under the tranquil
gentleness of temper and of custom, woke and had the mastery:
he set his teeth hard, and his hands clinched like steel on the
bridle. "O my beauty, my beauty! " he cried, all unconsciously
half aloud as they cleared the thirty-sixth fence, "kill me if you
like, but don't fail me! "
As though Forest King heard the prayer and answered it with
all his hero's heart, the splendid form launched faster out, the
stretching stride stretched further yet with lightning spontaneity,
every fibre strained, every nerve struggled; with a magnificent
bound like an antelope the gray recovered the ground he had
lost, and passed Bay Regent by a quarter-length. It was a neck-
to-neck race once more across the three meadows, with the last
and lower fences that were between them and the final leap of
all: that ditch of artificial water, with the towering double hedge
of oak rails and of blackthorn that was reared black and grim
and well-nigh hopeless just in front of the Grand Stand.
A roar
like the roar of the sea broke up from the thronged course as
the crowd hung breathless on the even race; ten thousand shouts
rang as thrice ten thousand eyes watched the closing contest, as
superb a sight as the Shires ever saw while the two ran together,
-the gigantic chestnut, with every massive sinew swelled and
strained to tension, side by side with the marvelous grace, the
shining flanks, and the Arabian-like head of the Guards' horse.
«The
Louder and wilder the shrieked tumult rose: "The chestnut
beats! " "The gray beats! " "Scarlet's ahead! " "Bay Regent's
caught him! » "Violet's winning, Violet's winning! "
King's neck by neck! " "The King's beating! " "The Guards
will get it! " "The Guards' crack has it! " "Not yet, not yet! "
"Violet will thrash him at the jump! " "Now for it! "
"Scarlet will win! >>
Guards, the Guards, the Guards! "
King has the finish! " "No, no, no, no! »
"The
« The
Sent along at a pace that Epsom flat never eclipsed, sweeping
by the Grand Stand like the flash of electric flame, they ran side
## p. 10913 (#121) ##########################################
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10913
to side one moment more, their foam flung on each other's with-
ers, their breath hot in each other's nostrils, while the dark earth
flew beneath their stride. The blackthorn was in front, behind
five bars of solid oak, the water yawning on its further side, black
and deep, and fenced, twelve feet wide if it was an inch, with
the same thorn wall beyond it; a leap no horse should have been
given, no Steward should have set. Cecil pressed his knees closer
and closer, and worked the gallant hero for the test; the surging
roar of the throng, though so close, was dull on his ear; he heard
nothing, knew nothing, saw nothing but that lean chestnut head
beside him, the dull thud on the turf of the flying gallop, and the
black wall that reared in his face. Forest King had done so
much, could he have stay and strength for this?
If he would only look up!
But he did not look up; he kept his handsome dark face stu-
diously over the canvas of the Broodhuis. She would have seen
a smile in his eyes if he had lifted them; but he never raised
his lids.
Bébée hesitated: take the stockings she would not; but per-
haps she had refused them too roughly. She wished so that he
would look up and save her speaking first; but he knew what
he was about too warily and well to help her thus.
She waited awhile, then took one little red moss-rosebud that
she had saved all day in a corner of her basket, and held it out
to him frankly, shyly, as a peace-offering.
"Was I rude? I did not mean to be. But I cannot take the
stockings; and why did you tell me that falsehood? "
## p. 10894 (#102) ##########################################
10894
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He took the rosebud and rose too, and smiled; but he did not
meet her eyes.
"Let us forget the whole matter: it is not worth a sou. If
you do not take the box, leave it: it is of no use to me. "
"I cannot take it. "
She knew she was doing right. How was it that he could
make her feel as though she were acting wrongly?
"Leave it then, I say. You are not the first woman, my
dear, who has quarreled with a wish fulfilled. It is a way your
sex has of rewarding gods and men. Here, you old witch-
here is a treasure-trove for you. You can sell it for ten francs
in the town anywhere. "
As he spoke he tossed the casket and the stockings in it to
an old decrepit woman, who was passing by with a baker's cart
drawn by a dog; and not staying to heed her astonishment,
gathered his colors and easel together.
The tears swam in Bébée's eyes as she saw the box whirled
through the air.
She had done right-she was sure she had done right.
HOW TRICOTRIN FOUND VIVA
From Tricotrin>
IT
T WAS autumn; a rich golden autumn of France, with the glow
of burning sunsets, and the scarlet pomp of reddened woods,
and the purple and the yellow of grapes gathered for the
wine-press, and the luscious dreamy odor of overripened fruits
crushed by careless passing feet, upon the orchard mosses. Afar
off, in the full noonday, the winding road was white and hot
with dust; but here in a nook of forest land, in a dell of leafy
growth between the vineyards which encompassed it, the air was
cool and the sunlight broken with shade, while, through its still-
ness where the boughs threw the shadow darkest, a little torrent
leapt and splashed, making music as it went, and washing round.
the base of an old ivy-grown stone tower that had fallen to ruin
in the midst of its green nest.
There was no sound except one, beside that of the bright
tumbling stream, though now and then there came in from the
distance the ring of a convent clock's bells, or the laugh of a
## p. 10895 (#103) ##########################################
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10895
young girl at work among the vines; - no sound except one, and
that was the quick, sharp, gleeful crack of nuts in a monkey's
teeth. There were squirrels by the score there in that solitary
place who had right, hereditary and indisputable they would
have said, to all the nuts that the boughs bore and the grasses
hid: but Mistigri was no recognizer of rights divine; she loved.
nuts, and cared little how she got them, and she sat aloft in her
glory, or swung herself from twig to twig, crushing and eating
and flinging the shells away with all that gleeful self-satisfaction
of which a little black monkey is to the full as capable, after
successful piracy, as any conquering sovereign.
"Mistigri, Mistigri! " said her companion surveying her, "who
could doubt your human affinity who once had seen you pilfer?
Monkey stows away her stolen goods in a visible pouch unblush-
ingly; man smuggles his away unknown in the guise of 'profit'
or 'percentage,' 'commerce' or 'annexation,' the natural ad-
vancement of civilization on the simple and normal thieving.
Increased cranium, increased caution: that's all the difference, eh,
Mistigri ? "
-
Mistigri cocked her head on one side, but would not waste
time in replying: her little shiny black mouth was full of good
kernels.
"Why talk when you can take? " she would have asked.
Her owner did not press for an answer; but sung, carelessly,
snatches of Goethe's Millsong' and of Müller's 'Whisper,' his
voice chiming in with the bubble of the stream while he took
at intervals his noontide meal, classic and uncostly, of Chasselas
grapes and a big brown roll.
He was a man of some forty years, dressed in a linen blouse,
with a knapsack as worn as an African soldier's lying at his
feet, unstrapped, in company with a flask of good wine and a
Straduarius fiddle. He himself was seated on a fallen tree, with
the sun breaking through the foliage above in manifold gleams
and glories, that touched the turning leaves bright red as fire,
and fell on his own head when he tossed it up to fling a word
to Mistigri, or to catch the last summer-song of a blackbird. It
was a beautiful Homeric head: bold, kingly, careless, noble, with
the royalty of the lion in its gallant poise, and the challenge
of the eagle in its upward gesture; -the head which an artist
would have given to his Hector, or his Phoebus, or his God
Lyæus. The features were beautiful too, in their varied mobile
## p. 10896 (#104) ##########################################
10896
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eloquent meanings; with their poet's brows, their reveler's laugh,
their soldier's daring, their student's thought, their many and
conflicting utterances, whose contradictions made one unity-the
unity of genius.
At this moment there was only the enjoyment of a rich and
sunny nature, in an idle moment, written on them, as he ate his
grapes and threw fragments of wit up at Mistigri where she was
perched among the nut boughs. But the brilliant eyes, so blue
in some lights, so black in others, had the lustre and the depths
of infinite meditation in them; and the curling lips that were
hidden under the fullness of their beard had the delicate fine
mockery of the satirist blent with the brighter, franker mirth of
genial sympathies. And his face changed as he cast the crumbs
of his finished meal to some ducks that paddled lower down in
the stream, where it grew stiller around the old tower, and took
up his Straduarius from the ground with the touch of a man
who loves the thing that he touches. The song of the water
that had made the melody to his banquet was in his brain;-
sweet, wild, entangled sounds that he must needs reproduce, with
the selfsame fancy that a painter must catch the fleeting hues of
fair scenes that would haunt him forever unless exorcised thus.
"Quiet, Mistigri! " he said softly, and the monkey sat still
on her hazel bough, eating indeed, but noiselessly. He listened
one moment more to the stream, then drew the bow across the
strings. The music thrilled out upon the silence, catching the
song of the brook in harmony as Goethe caught it in verse,- all
its fresh delicious babble, all its rush of silvery sound, all its cool
and soothing murmur, all its pauses of deep rest. All of which
the woodland torrent told: of the winds that had tossed the
boughs into its foam; of the women-faces its tranquil pools had
mirrored; of the blue burden of forget-me-nots and the snowy
weight of lilies it had borne so lovingly; of the sweet familiar
idyls it had seen, where it had wound its way below quaint mill-
house walls choked up with ivy-growth, where the children and
the pigeons paddled with rosy feet upon the resting wheel; of the
weary sighs that had been breathed over it beneath the gray old
convents where it heard the miserere steal in with its own ripple,
and looked, itself, a thing so full of leaping joy and dancing life
to the sad eyes of girl-recluses, all these of which it told, the
music told again. The strings were touched by an artist's hand;
and all that duller ears heard, but dimly, in the splash and surge
-
## p. 10897 (#105) ##########################################
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10897
of the brown fern-covered stream, he heard in marvelous poems,
and translated into clearer tongue the universal tongue which
has no country and no limit, and in which the musician speaks
alike to sovereign and to savage.
-
There was not a creature there to hear, save the yellow-
winged loriotes, and Mistigri, who was absorbed in nuts: but he
played on to himself an hour or more for love of the theme and
the art; and an old peasant woman, going through the trees at
some yards distance, and seeing nothing of the player for the
screen of leaves, laughed and stroked the hair of a grandchild
who clung to her, afraid of the magical woodland melodies: "The
wood-elves, little one? Bah! that is only Tricotrin! "
Her feet, brushing the fallen leaves with pleasant sound, soon
passed away; he played on and on,- such poetry as Bamboche
drew from his violin, whereat Poussin bowed his head, weeping
with the passion of women, as through his tears he beheld as in
a vision the "Et in Arcadia Ego. "
Then, as suddenly as he had begun, Tricotrin dropped the
bow and ceased, and struck a light and smoked,-a great Arab
pipe of some carved wood, black and polished by long use. On
the silence that succeeded there came a low laugh of delight,—
the laugh of a very young child. He looked up and down and
among the ferns at his feet; the laughter was close beside him,
yet he could see nothing. He smoked on indifferently, watching
the bright eyes of the birds glancing out from the shadow; then
the laugh came again, close at his side, as it sounded; he rose
and pushed aside some branches, and looked over a broken rail
behind him, beyond a tangled growth of reeds and rushes.
There he saw what had aroused him from his smoke-silence:
more than half hidden under the moss and the broad tufted
grasses, stretching her hands out at the gorgeous butterflies that
fluttered above her head, and covered with the wide yellow leaves
of gourds and the white fragrant abundance of traveler's-joy, was
the child whose laughter he had heard. A child between two
and three years old, her face warm with the flush of past sleep,
her eyes smiling against the light, her hair lying like gold-dust
on the moss, her small fair limbs struggling uncovered out of a
rough red cloak that alone was folded about her. The scarlet of
the mantle, the whiteness of the clematis, the yellow hues of
the wild gourds, the color of the winged insects, the head of the
child rising out of the mosses, and the young face that looked
XIX-682
## p. 10898 (#106) ##########################################
10898
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like a moss-rosebud just unclosing, made a picture in their own
way; and he who passed no picture by, but had pictures in his
memory surpassing all the collected art of galleries, paused to
survey it with his arms folded on the rail.
Its solitude, its strangeness, did not occur to him; he looked
at it as at some painting of his French brethren's easels,— that
was all. But the child, seeing a human eye regard her, forgot
her butterflies and remembered human wants; she stretched her
hands to him instead of to her playmates of the air. "J'ai
faim! " she cried, with a plaintive self-pity: bread would be bet-
ter than the butterflies.
"Hungry? " he answered, addressing her as he was wont to
do Mistigri. "I have nothing for you. Who brought you there,
you Waif and Stray? Put down there and left, to get rid of
the trouble of you, apparently? Well, D'Alembert was dropped
down in the streets, and found a foster-mother in a milkwoman,
and he did pretty well afterward. Perhaps some dainty De Ten-
cin brought you likewise into the world, and has hidden you like
a bit of smuggled lace, only thinking you nothing so valuable.
Is it so,
eh? "
"J'ai faim! " cried the child afresh: all her history was com-
prised to her in the one fact that she wanted bread,—as it is
comprised to a mob.
"Catch, then! " he replied to the cry, dropping into her hands
from where he leant, a bunch of the Chasselas grapes that still
remained in his pocket. It sufficed: the child was not so much
pained by hunger as by thirst, though she scarcely knew the dif-
ference between her own sensations; her throat was dry, and the
grapes were all she wanted. He, leaning over the lichen-covered
rail, watched her while she enjoyed them one by one.
She was
a very pretty child; the prettier for that rough moss covering,
out of which her delicate fair shoulders and chest rose uncovered,
while the breeze blew about her yellow glossy curls.
"Left there to be got rid of clearly," he murmured to her.
"Any one who picks you up will do you the greatest injury
possible. Die now in the sunshine among the flowers: you will
never have such another chance of a poetical and picturesque
exit. Who was ingenious enough to hide you there? The poor
shirt-stitcher who was at her last sou? or Madame la Marquise
who was at her last scandal? Was it Magdalene who has to
wear sackcloth for having dared to sin without money to buy
## p. 10899 (#107) ##########################################
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10899
absolution? or Messalina who covers ten thousand poisonous
passions with a silver-embroidered robe, and is only discreetly
careful of consequences'? Which was your progenitrix, little
one, eh? »
(
To this question so closely concerning her, the Waif could
give no answer, being gifted with only imperfect speech; but
happy in the grapes, she laughed up in his eyes her unspoken
thanks, shaking a cluster of clematis above her head, as happy in
her couch of flowers and moss as she could have been in any
silver cradle. The question concerned her in nothing yet: the
bar sinister could not stretch across the sunny blue skies, the
butterflies flew above her as familiarly as above the brow of a
child-queen, and the white flowers did not wither sooner in bas-
tard than in legitimate hands.
"How the sun shines on you, as if you were a princess! "
he soliloquized to her. "Ah! Nature is a terrible socialist; what
republicans she would make of men if they listened to her. But
there is no fear for them,- they are not fond enough of her
school! You look very comfortably settled here, and how soon
you will get life over. You are very fortunate. You will suffer
a little bit,-paf! what of that? Everybody suffers that little
bit sooner or later, and it grows sharper the longer it is put off.
Suppose you were picked up by somebody and lived: it would
be very bad for you. You would be a lovely woman, and lovely
women are the devil's aides-de-camp. You would snare men in
your yellow hair, and steal their substance with the breath of
your lips, and dress up lying avarice as love, and make a miser's
greed wear the smile of a cherub. Ah! that you would. And
then would come age, a worse thing for women like
you than
crime or death; and you would suffer an agony with every
wrinkle, and a martyrdom with every whitening lock; and you
would grow hard, and haggard, and painted, and hideous even to
the vilest among men; and you would be hissed off the stage in
hatred by the mouths that once shouted your triumphs, while
you would hear the fresh comers laugh as they rushed on to
be crowned with the roses that once wreathed your own forehead.
And then would come the end,- the hospital and the wooden
shell, and the grave trampled flat to the dust as soon almost
as made, while the world danced on in the sunlight unheeding.
Ah! be wise. Die while you can, among your butterflies and
flowers! "
## p. 10900 (#108) ##########################################
10900
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The child, lying below there in her nest, looked up in his
eyes again and laughed: "Viva! " she cried, while she clasped
her grapes in her two small hands.
"Viva? What do you mean by that? Do you mean, imper-
fectly, to ask to live an Italian? Fie then!
Fie then! That is unphilo-
sophic. Take the advice of two philosophers. Bolingbroke says
there is so much trouble in coming into the world and in going
out of it, that it is barely worth while to be here at all; and I
tell you the same. He had the cakes and ale too, but the one
got stale and the other bitter. What will it be for you who start
with neither cakes nor ale? Life's not worth much to a man.
It is worth just nothing at all to a woman. It is a mistake alto-
gether; and lasts just long enough for all to find that out, but
not long enough for any to remedy it. We always live the time
required to get thoroughly uncomfortable, and as soon as we are
in the track to sift the problem- paf! -out we go like a rush-
light, the very moment we begin to burn brightly. Be persuaded
by me, and don't think of living: you have a golden opportunity
of getting quittance of the whole affair. Don't throw it away! "
The good advice of Experience was, as it always is, thrown
away on the impetuosity of Ignorance. The child laughed still
over her Chasselas bunch, murmuring still over and over again
the nearest approach she knew to a name:—
"Viva - Viva — Viva! »
"The obstinacy of women prematurely developed. Why will
you not know when you are well off? Those whom the gods
love die young. ' If you would just now prefer to have your
mother's love instead of the gods', you are wrong. What have
you before you? You will be marked 'outcast. ' You will have
nothing as your career except to get rich by snaring the foolish;
or to be virtuous and starve on three halfpence a day, having a
pauper's burial as reward for your chastity. If you live, your
hands must be either soiled or empty. I would die among the
clematis if I were you. "
But the child, persistently regardless of wise counsel, only
laughed still, and strove to struggle from her network of blos-
som and of moss.
"Your mind is set upon living,- what a pity! " murmured her
solitary companion. "When your hair is white, how you will
wish you had died when it was yellow; - everybody does, but
while the yellow lasts nobody believes it! You want to live? So
## p. 10901 (#109) ##########################################
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logor
Eve wanted the fruit of fairest colors. ' If I were to help you
to have your own way now, you would turn on me thirty years
hence as your worst enemy. Were you able to understand rea-
son—but your sex would prevent that, let alone your age. Let
us ask Mistigri. Mistigri, is that Waif to live or to die? "
The companion and counselor, who lived in his pocket and
was accustomed to be thus appealed to, had swung herself down
on to the grass, and was now squatted on the rail beside him.
The child, catching sight of the monkey, tried to stretch and
stroke her; and Mistigri, who was always of an affable, and when
she had eaten sufficient herself, of a generous turn of mind,
extended her little black paw, and tendered a nut, as an over-
ture to an acquaintance.
"You vote for life too? " cried Tricotrin. "Bah, Mistigri!
I thought you so sensible-for your sex! When a discerning
mother, above the weakness of womenkind, has arranged every-
thing so neatly, we should be the most miserable sentimentalists
to interfere. "
As he spoke, the little creature, who had been vainly striv-
ing to free herself from her forest-cradle, ceased her efforts and
looked up in piteous mute entreaty, her eyes wet and soft with
glistening tears, her mouth trembling with an unspoken appeal.
He who saw a wounded bird only to help it, and met a lame
dog only to carry it, was unable to resist that pathetic helpless-
He turned and lifted his voice.
ness.
"Grand'mère Virelois, are you there? Here is something in
your way, not in mine. "
In answer to the shout there came out from the low broken
door of the ruined tower an old peasant woman, brown and bent
and very aged, but blithe as a bird, and with her black eyes as
bright as the eyes of a mouse, under the white pent-house of
her high starched cap.
"What is it, good Tricotrin? " she asked, in that sweet, sing-
ing voice that makes the accent of many French peasant women
so lingering and charming on the ear, the voice that has in it
all the contentment of the brave, cheery spirit within.
"A Waif and Stray," answered Tricotrin. "Whether from
Mary Magdalene or Madame la Marquise is unknown; probably
will never be known. Curses go home to roost, but chickens
don't. The Waif is irrational: she thinks a mouthful of black
bread better than easy extinction among the ferns. Claudine de
-
## p. 10902 (#110) ##########################################
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10902
Tencin has left a feminine D'Alembert in a moss-cradle: are you
inclined to play the part of the foster-mother? "
Grand'mère Virelois listened to the harangue, comprehending
it no more than if he had spoken in Hebrew; but she was used
to him, and thought nothing of that.
"What is it I am to see? " she asked again, peering curi-
ously with lively interest among the leaves. Before he could
answer she had caught sight of the child, with vehement amaze
and ecstatic wonder; the speech had been as Hebrew to her, but
the fact was substantial and indisputable. Crossing herself in
her surprise, with a thousand expletives of pity and admiration, she
bent her little withered but still active form beneath the rail, and
stooped and raised the foundling-raised her, but only a little
from the ground.
Holy Virgin! Tricotrin! " she cried, "look here! the child is
fastened. Help me! "
He looked quickly as she called him, and saw that the withes
of osiers and the tendrils of wild vine had been netted so tightly
around the limbs, tied here and there with strong twine, that the
infant could never have escaped from its resting-place; it had
evidently been so fastened that the child might perish there un-
seen. His face darkened as he looked.
"Murder, then! not mere neglect. Ah! this is Madame la
Marquise at work, not Magdalene! " he murmured, as he slashed
the network right and left with his knife, and set the Waif at
liberty; while Grand'mère Virelois went into a woman's raptures
on the young beauty of the "petit Gésu," and a woman's vehe-
ment censures of a sister's sin.
Tricotrin smoked resignedly, while her raptures and her dia-
tribes expended themselves; it was long before either were ex-
hausted.
"Don't abuse the mother," he interposed at last.
"Every-
body gets rid of troublesome consequences when they can.
We've done no good in disturbing her arrangements. We have
only disinterred a living blunder that she wished to bury. "
"For shame, Tricotrin! " cried Grand'mère, quivering with
horror, while she folded the child in her withered arms. "You
can jest on such wickedness! You can excuse such a murder-
ess! "
"Paf! " said Tricotrin, lightly blowing away a smoke ring.
"The whole system of creation is a sliding scale of murders.
## p. 10903 (#111) ##########################################
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10903
All the world over, life is only sustained by life being extin-
guished. "
Grand'mère Virelois, who was a pious little woman, shuddered
and clasped the child nearer.
"Ah-h-h! the vile woman! How will she see Our Lady's
face on the last day? "
"How she will meet the world she lives in is more the ques-
tion with her now, I imagine. An eminently sagacious woman!
and you and I are two sentimentalists to interfere with her ad-
mirably artistic play. So you would live, little one? I wonder
what you will make of what you have got! A Jeremiad if you
are a good silly woman; a Can-can measure if you are a bad
clever one. Which will it be, I wonder? "
"Mon Dieu, it is an angel! " murmured Grand'mère; "such
hair, like silk,—such eyes,—such a rose for a mouth! And left
to die of hunger and cold! Ah, may the Holy Mary find her
out and avenge her crime, the wicked one! "
"The vengeance will come quick if the sinner live in a garret;
it will limp very slowly if she shelter in a palace. Well, since
you take that child in your arms, do you mean to find her the
piece of bread the unphilosophic castaway will want? "
"Will I not! if I go without myself. Oh, the pretty little
child! who could have left you? Wherever the mother dwells,
may the good God hunt her down! "
"Deity as a detective? Not a grand idea that. Yet it is the
heavenly office that looks dearest to man when it is exercised
upon others! Grand'mère, answer me: Are you going to keep
that Waif? »
The bright, brown, wrinkled, homely face of the good old
woman grew perplexed.
"Ah, my friend, times are so bad, it is hard work to get a
bit in the pot for one's self; and I stitch, stitch, stitch, and spin,
spin, spin, till I am blind many a time. And yet the pretty
child- with no one to care for it! I do not know,- she must
be brought up hard if she come to me. Not a lentil even to put
in the water and make one fancy it is soup, in some days these
hard times! But do you know nothing more of her than this,
Tricotrin ? »
"Nothing. "
His luminous eyes met hers full and frankly; she knew-
all the nations where he wandered knew-that the affirmative of
Tricotrin was more sure than the truth of most men's oaths.
## p. 10904 (#112) ##########################################
10904
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"Then she must be abandoned here by some wretch to starve
unseen ? »
"It looks like it. "
"Ah! the little angel! What does the barbarous brutal heart
of stone deserve? "
"What it will get if it lodge in the breast that rags and tat-
ters cover; what it will not get if it lodge in the breast that
heaves under silks and laces. "
"True enough! but the good God will smite in his own
time. Oh, little one, how could they ever forsake thee? " cried
Grand'mère, caressing afresh the child, who was laughing and
well content in her friendly and tender hold.
"Then you are going to adopt her? "
"Adopt her? Mother of Jesus! I dare not say that. You
know how I live, Tricotrin,- how hardly, though I try to let
it be cheerfully. If I had a little more she should share it,
and welcome; but as it is not a mouthful of chestnuts, even,
so often; not a drop of oil or a bit of garlic sometimes weeks
together! She would be better off at the Foundling Hospital
than with me. Besides, it is an affair for the mayor of the com-
mune. "
"Certainly it is. But if the most notable mayor can do noth-
ing except send this foundling among the others, would you like
better to keep her? "
Grand'mère Virelois was silent and thoughtful a minute; then
her little bright eyes glanced up at him from under their white
linen roofing, with a gleam in them that was between a smile
and a tear.
"You know how I lost them, Tricotrin. One in Africa, one
at the Barricades, one crushed under a great marble block, build-
ing the Préfet's palace. And then the grandchild too,- the only
little one, so pretty, so frail, so tender, killed that long bitter
winter, because the food was so scarce, like the young birds dead
on the snow! You know, Tricotrin? and what use is it to take
her to perish like him, though in her laughter and her caresses
I might think that he lived again? "
"I know! " said Tricotrin softly, with an infinite balm of
pity, and of the remembrance that was the sweetest sympathy,
in his voice. "Well, if M. le Maire can find none to claim her,
she shall stay with you, Grand'mère: and as for the food, that
shall not trouble you; I will have a care of that. "
"You? Holy Jesus! how good! "
-
## p. 10905 (#113) ##########################################
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10905
"Not in the least. I abetted her in her ignorant and ridicu-
lous desire to exchange a pleasant death among the clematis for
all the toil and turmoil of prolonged existences; I am clearly
responsible for my share in the folly. I cut the meshes that her
sagacious mother had knotted so hardly. I must accept my part
in the onus of such unwarrantable interference. You keep the
Waif; and I will be at the cost of her. "
"But then, Tricotrin, you call yourself poor? »
"So I am.
But one need not be a millionaire to be able to
get a few crumbs for that robin. The creature persisted in liv-
ing, and I humored her caprice. It was mock humanity, paltry
sentiment; Mistigri was partly at fault, but I mostly. We must
accept the results. They will be disastrous probably,—the creat-
ure is feminine,- but such as they are we must make the best
of them. "
"Then you will adopt her? "
"Not in the least. But I will see she has something to eat;
and that you are able to give it her if her parents cannot be
found. Here is a gold bit for the present minute; and when we
know whether she is really and truly a Waif, you shall have
more to keep the pot over your fire full and boiling. Adieu,
Grand'mère. "
With that farewell, he, heedless of the voluble thanks and
praises that the old woman showered after him, and of the out-
cries of the child who called to Mistigri, put his pipe in his
mouth, his violin in his pocket, and throwing his knapsack over
his shoulder, brushed his way through the forest growth.
"Mock sentiment! " he said to himself. "You and I have
done a silly thing, Mistigri. What will come of it? "
THE STEEPLE-CHASE
From 'Under Two Flags
THE
HE bell was clanging and clashing passionately, as Cecil at
last went down to the weights, all his friends of the House-
hold about him, and all standing "crushers" on their cham-
pion; for their stringent esprit de corps was involved, and the
Guards are never backward in putting their gold down, as all
the world knows. In the inclosure, the cynosure of devouring
## p. 10906 (#114) ##########################################
10906
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eyes, stood the King, with the sang froid of a superb gentleman,
amid the clamor raging round him, one delicate ear laid back
now and then, but otherwise indifferent to the din, with his coat
glistening like satin, the beautiful tracery of vein and muscle,
like the veins of vine-leaves, standing out on the glossy, clear-
carved neck that had the arch of Circassia, and his dark, antelope
eyes gazing with a gentle, pensive earnestness on the shouting
crowd.
His rivals too were beyond par in fitness and in condition,
and there were magnificent animals among them. Bay Regent
was a huge raking chestnut, upward of sixteen hands, and enor-
mously powerful, with very fine shoulders, and an all-over-like-
going head; he belonged to a colonel in the Rifles, but was to
be ridden by Jimmy Delmar of the 10th Lancers, whose colors
were violet with orange hoops. Montacute's horse, Pas de Charge,
which carried all the money of the Heavy Cavalry,- Montacute
himself being in the Dragoon Guards,- was of much the same
order: a black hunter with racing blood in him, loins and withers
that assured any amount of force, and no fault but that of a
rather coarse head, traceable to a slur on his 'scutcheon on the
distaff side from a plebeian great-grandmother, who had been
a cart mare,—the only stain in his otherwise faultless pedigree.
However, she had given him her massive shoulders, so that he
was in some sense a gainer by her, after all. Wild Geranium
was a beautiful creature enough,—a bright bay Irish mare, with
that rich red gloss that is like the glow of a horse-chestnut, very
perfect in shape, though a trifle light, perhaps, and with not
quite strength enough in neck or barrel; she would jump the
fences of her own paddock half a dozen times a day for sheer
amusement, and was game to anything. * She was entered by
Cartouche of the Enniskillens, to be ridden by "Baby Grafton,"
of the same corps, a feather-weight, and quite a boy, but with
plenty of science in him. These were the three favorites; Day
Star ran them close, -the property of Durham Vavassour, of
the Scots Grays, and to be ridden by his owner, -a handsome
flea-bitten gray sixteen-hander, with ragged hips, and action that
looked a trifle stringhalty, but noble shoulders, and great force
The portrait of this lady is that of a very esteemed young Irish beauty
of my acquaintance; she this season did seventy-six miles on a warm June
day, and eat her corn and tares afterward as if nothing happened. She is
six years old.
## p. 10907 (#115) ##########################################
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10907
in the loins and withers: the rest of the field, though unusually
excellent, did not find so many "sweet voices" for them, and
were not so much to be feared; each starter was of course
much backed by his party, but the betting was tolerably even
on these four, all famous steeple-chasers,- the King at one time,
and Bay Regent at another, slightly leading in the ring.
Thirty-two starters were hoisted up on the telegraph board,
and as the field got at last under way, uncommonly handsome
they looked, while the silk jackets of all the colors of the rainbow
glittered in the bright noon sun. As Forest King closed in, per-
fectly tranquil still, but beginning to glow and quiver all over
with excitement, knowing as well as his rider the work that was
before him, and longing for it in every muscle and every limb,
while his eyes flashed fire as he pulled at the curb and tossed his
head aloft, there went up a general shout of "Favorite! " His
beauty told on the populace, and even somewhat on the profes-
sionals, though the Legs kept a strong business prejudice against
the working powers of "the Guards' crack. " The ladies began to
lay dozens in gloves on him; not altogether for his points, which
perhaps they hardly appreciated, but for his owner and rider,—
who, in the scarlet and gold with the white sash across his chest,
and a look of serene indifference on his face, they considered the
handsomest man of the field. The Household is usually safe to
win the suffrages of the sex.
In the throng on the course, Rake instantly bonneted an
audacious dealer who had ventured to consider that Forest King
was "light and curby in the 'ock. " "You're a wise 'un, you
are! " retorted the wrathful and ever eloquent Rake: "there's more
strength in his clean fat legs, bless him! than in all the round
thick mile-posts of your half-breeds, that have no more tendon
than a bit of wood, and are just as flabby as a sponge! " Which
hit the dealer home just as his hat was hit over his eyes,-
Rake's arguments being unquestionable in their force.
The thoroughbreds pulled and fretted and swerved in their
impatience; one or two over-contumacious bolted incontinently;
others put their heads between their knees in the endeavor to
draw their riders over their withers; Wild Geranium reared
straight upright, fidgeted all over with longing to be off, passaged
with the prettiest, wickedest grace in the world, and would have
given the world to neigh if she had dared, but she knew it would
be very bad style, so, like an aristocrat as she was, restrained
## p. 10908 (#116) ##########################################
10908
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herself; Bay Regent almost sawed Jimmy Delmar's arms off,
looking like a Titan Bucephalus; while Forest King, with his
nostrils dilated till the scarlet tinge on them glowed in the sun,
his muscles quivering with excitement as intense as the little
Irish mare's, and all his Eastern and English blood on fire for
the fray, stood steady as a statue for all that, under the curb of
a hand light as a woman's, but firm as iron to control, and used
to guide him by the slightest touch.
All eyes were on that throng of the first mounts in the
Service; brilliant glances by the hundred gleamed down behind
hot-house bouquets of their chosen color, eager ones by the thou-
sand stared thirstily from the crowded course, the roar of the
Ring subsided for a second, a breathless attention and suspense
succeeded it; the Guardsmen sat on their drags, or lounged near
the ladies with their race-glasses ready, and their habitual
expression of gentle and resigned weariness in nowise altered
because the Household, all in all, had from sixty to seventy thou
sand on the event, and the Seraph mourned mournfully to his che-
root, "That chestnut's no end fit," strong as his faith was in the
champion of the Brigades.
A moment's good start was caught-the flag dropped-off
they went, sweeping out for the first second like a line of cavalry
about to charge.
Another moment, and they were scattered over the first field;
Forest King, Wild Geranium, and Bay Regent leading for two
lengths, when Montacute, with his habitual "fast burst," sent Pas
de Charge past them like lightning. The Irish mare gave a rush
and got alongside of him; the King would have done the same,
but Cecil checked him, and kept him in that cool swinging canter
which covered the grass-land so lightly; Bay Regent's vast thun-
dering stride was Olympian; but Jimmy Delmar saw his worst foe
in the "Guards' crack," and waited on him warily, riding superbly
himself.
The first fence disposed of half the field; they crossed the
second in the same order, Wild Geranium racing neck to neck
with Pas de Charge; the King was all athirst to join the duello,
but his owner kept him gently back, saving his pace and lifting
him over the jumps as easily as a lapwing. The second fence
proved a cropper to several; some awkward falls took place over
it, and tailing commenced; after the third field, which was heavy
plow, all knocked off but eight, and the real struggle began in
## p. 10909 (#117) ##########################################
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10909
sharp earnest, a good dozen who had shown a splendid stride
over the grass being done up by the terrible work
clods.
on the
-
The five favorites had it all to themselves: Day Star pounding
onward at tremendous speed, Pas de Charge giving slight symp-
toms of distress owing to the madness of his first burst, the Irish
mare literally flying ahead of him, Forest King and the chestnut
waiting on each other.
In the Grand Stand the Seraph's eyes strained after the
Scarlet and White, and he muttered in his mustaches, "Ye gods,
what's up? The world's coming to an end! Beauty's turned
cautious! "
Cautious indeed-with that giant of Pytchley fame running
neck to neck by him; cautious with two-thirds of the course
unrun, and all the yawners yet to come; cautious- with the
blood of Forest King lashing to boiling heat, and the wondrous
greyhound stride stretching out faster and faster beneath him,
ready at a touch to break away and take the lead: but he would
be reckless enough by-and-by; reckless, as his nature was, under
the indolent serenity of habit.
--
Two more fences came, laced high and stiff with the Shire
thorn, and with scarce twenty feet between them, the heavy
plowed land leading to them clotted and black and hard, with
the fresh earthy scent steaming up as the hoofs struck the clods
with a dull thunder. Pas de Charge rose to the first: distressed
too early, his hind feet caught in the thorn, and he came down,
rolling clear of his rider; Montacute picked him up with true
science, but the day was lost to the Heavy Cavalry men. Forest
King went in and out over both like a bird, and led for the first
time; the chestnut was not to be beat at fencing, and ran even
with him: Wild Geranium flew still as fleet as a deer-true to
her sex, she would not bear rivalry; but little Grafton, though
he rode like a professional, was but a young one, and went too
wildly her spirit wanted cooler curb.
And now only, Cecil loosened the King to his full will and
his full speed. Now only, the beautiful Arab head was stretched
like a racer's in the run in for the Derby, and the grand stride
swept out till the hoofs seemed never to touch the dark earth
they skimmed over; neither whip nor spur was needed. Bertie
had only to leave the gallant temper and the generous fire that
were roused in their might to go their way and hold their own.
## p. 10910 (#118) ##########################################
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10910
His hands were low; his head a little back; his face very calm,
-the eyes only had a daring, eager, resolute will lighting in
them: Brixworth lay before him. He knew well what Forest
King could do; but he did not know how great the chestnut
Regent's powers might be.
The water gleamed before them, brown and swollen, and
deepened with the meltings of winter snows a month before; the
brook that has brought so many to grief over its famous banks,
since cavaliers leaped it with their falcon on their wrist, or the
mellow note of the horn rang over the woods in the hunting-
days of Stuart reigns. They knew it well, that long dark line,
shimmering there in the sunlight, the test that all must pass
who go in for the Soldiers' Blue Ribbon. Forest King scented
the water, and went on with his ears pointed and his greyhound
stride lengthening, quickening, gathering up all its force and
its impetus for the leap that was before; then like the rise and
the swoop of a heron he spanned the water, and landing clear,
launched forward with the lunge of a spear darted through air.
Brixworth was passed; the Scarlet and White, a mere gleam of
bright color, a mere speck in the landscape, to the breathless
crowds in the stand, sped on over the brown and level grass-
land: two and a quarter miles done in four minutes and twenty
seconds. Bay Regent was scarcely behind him; the chestnut
abhorred the water, but a finer trained hunter was never sent
over the Shires, and Jimmy Delmar rode like Grimshaw himself.
The giant took the leap in magnificent style, and thundered on
neck and neck with the "Guards' crack. " The Irish mare fol-
lowed, and with miraculous gameness, landed safely; but her hind
legs slipped on the bank, a moment was lost, and "Baby" Graf-
ton scarce knew enough to recover it, though he scoured on,
nothing daunted.
――
Pas de Charge, much behind, refused the yawner: his strength
was not more than his courage, but both had been strained too
severely at first. Montacute struck the spurs into him with a
savage blow over the head: the madness was its own punish-
ment; the poor brute rose blindly to the jump, and missed the
bank with a reel and a crash. Sir Eyre was hurled out into the
brook, and the hope of the Heavies lay there with his breast and
forelegs resting on the ground, his hind quarters in the water,
and his back broken. Pas de Charge would never again see the
starting-flag waved, or hear the music of the hounds, or feel the
## p. 10911 (#119) ##########################################
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10911
gallant life throb and glow through him at the rallying-notes of
the horn. His race was run.
Not knowing or looking or heeding what happened behind,
the trio tore on over the meadow and the plowed land; the two
favorites neck by neck, the game little mare hopelessly behind
through that one fatal moment over Brixworth. The turning-
flags were passed; from the crowds on the course a great hoarse
roar came louder and louder, and the shouts rang, changing every
second, "Forest King wins," "Bay Regent wins," "Scarlet and
White's ahead," "Violet's up with him," "Violet's passed him,”
"Scarlet recovers," "Scarlet beats," "A cracker on the King,"
"Ten to one on the Regent," "Guards are over the fence first,"
"Guards are winning," "Guards are losing," "Guards are beat! "
Were they?
As the shout rose, Cecil's left stirrup-leather snapped and gave
way; at the pace they were going, most men, ay, and good riders
too, would have been hurled out of their saddle by the shock:
he scarcely swerved; a moment to ease the King and to recover
his equilibrium, then he took the pace up again as though noth-
ing had changed. And his comrades of the Household, when they
saw this through their race-glasses, broke through their serenity
and burst into a cheer that echoed over the grass-lands and the
coppices like a clarion, the grand rich voice of the Seraph lead-
ing foremost and loudest,—a cheer that rolled mellow and tri-
umphant down the cold bright air, like the blasts of trumpets,
and thrilled on Bertie's ear where he came down the course a
mile away.
It made his heart beat quicker with a victorious
headlong delight, as his knees pressed closer into Forest King's
flanks, and half stirrupless like the Arabs, he thundered forward
to the greatest riding-feat of his life. His face was very calm
still, but his blood was in tumult: the delirium of pace had got
on him; a minute of life like this was worth a year, and he knew
that he would win or die for it, as the land seemed to fly like a
black sheet under him; and in that killing speed, fence and hedge
and double and water all went by him like a dream, whirling
underneath him as the gray stretched, stomach to earth, over the
level, and rose to leap after leap.
For that instant's pause, when the stirrup broke, threatened to
lose him the race.
He was more than a length behind the Regent, whose hoofs,
as they dashed the ground up, sounded like thunder, and for
## p. 10912 (#120) ##########################################
10912
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whose herculean strength the plow had no terrors; it was more
than the lead to keep now,-there was ground to cover, and the
King was losing like Wild Geranium. Cecil felt drunk with that
strong, keen west wind that blew so strongly in his teeth; a pas-
sionate excitation was in him; every breath of winter air that
rushed in its bracing currents round him seemed to lash him like
a stripe- the Household to look on and see him beaten!
Certain wild blood that lay latent in Cecil, under the tranquil
gentleness of temper and of custom, woke and had the mastery:
he set his teeth hard, and his hands clinched like steel on the
bridle. "O my beauty, my beauty! " he cried, all unconsciously
half aloud as they cleared the thirty-sixth fence, "kill me if you
like, but don't fail me! "
As though Forest King heard the prayer and answered it with
all his hero's heart, the splendid form launched faster out, the
stretching stride stretched further yet with lightning spontaneity,
every fibre strained, every nerve struggled; with a magnificent
bound like an antelope the gray recovered the ground he had
lost, and passed Bay Regent by a quarter-length. It was a neck-
to-neck race once more across the three meadows, with the last
and lower fences that were between them and the final leap of
all: that ditch of artificial water, with the towering double hedge
of oak rails and of blackthorn that was reared black and grim
and well-nigh hopeless just in front of the Grand Stand.
A roar
like the roar of the sea broke up from the thronged course as
the crowd hung breathless on the even race; ten thousand shouts
rang as thrice ten thousand eyes watched the closing contest, as
superb a sight as the Shires ever saw while the two ran together,
-the gigantic chestnut, with every massive sinew swelled and
strained to tension, side by side with the marvelous grace, the
shining flanks, and the Arabian-like head of the Guards' horse.
«The
Louder and wilder the shrieked tumult rose: "The chestnut
beats! " "The gray beats! " "Scarlet's ahead! " "Bay Regent's
caught him! » "Violet's winning, Violet's winning! "
King's neck by neck! " "The King's beating! " "The Guards
will get it! " "The Guards' crack has it! " "Not yet, not yet! "
"Violet will thrash him at the jump! " "Now for it! "
"Scarlet will win! >>
Guards, the Guards, the Guards! "
King has the finish! " "No, no, no, no! »
"The
« The
Sent along at a pace that Epsom flat never eclipsed, sweeping
by the Grand Stand like the flash of electric flame, they ran side
## p. 10913 (#121) ##########################################
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10913
to side one moment more, their foam flung on each other's with-
ers, their breath hot in each other's nostrils, while the dark earth
flew beneath their stride. The blackthorn was in front, behind
five bars of solid oak, the water yawning on its further side, black
and deep, and fenced, twelve feet wide if it was an inch, with
the same thorn wall beyond it; a leap no horse should have been
given, no Steward should have set. Cecil pressed his knees closer
and closer, and worked the gallant hero for the test; the surging
roar of the throng, though so close, was dull on his ear; he heard
nothing, knew nothing, saw nothing but that lean chestnut head
beside him, the dull thud on the turf of the flying gallop, and the
black wall that reared in his face. Forest King had done so
much, could he have stay and strength for this?
