Chapter I: Part 1

CHAMBERS’S JOURNAL

OF

POPULAR

LITERATURE, SCIENCE, AND ART

Fifth Series

ESTABLISHED BY WILLIAM AND ROBERT CHAMBERS, 1832

CONDUCTED BY R. CHAMBERS (SECUNDUS)

NO. 25.—VOL. I. SATURDAY, JUNE 21, 1884. PRICE 1½_d._]

NATURE ON THE ROOF.

BY RICHARD JEFFERIES,

AUTHOR OF THE ‘GAMEKEEPER AT HOME,’ ETC.

Increased activity on the housetop marks the approach of spring and summer exactly as in the woods and hedges, for the roof has its migrants, its semi-migrants, and its residents. When the first dandelion is opening on a sheltered bank, and the pale-blue field veronica flowers in the waste corner, the whistle of the starling comes from his favourite ledge. Day by day it is heard more and more, till, when the first green spray appears on the hawthorn, he visits the roof continually. Besides the roof-tree and the chimney-top, he has his own special place, sometimes under an eave, sometimes between two gables; and as I sit writing, I can see a pair who have a ledge which slightly projects from the wall between the eave and the highest window. This was made by the builder for an ornament; but my two starlings consider it their own particular possession. They alight with a sort of half-scream half-whistle just over the window, flap their wings, and whistle again, run along the ledge to a spot where there is a gable, and with another note, rise up and enter an aperture between the slates and the wall. There their nest will be in a little time, and busy indeed they will be when the young require to be fed, to and fro the fields and the gable the whole day through, the busiest and the most useful of birds, for they destroy thousands upon thousands of insects, and if farmers were wise, they would never have one shot, no matter how the thatch was pulled about.

My pair of starlings were frequently at this ledge last autumn, very late in autumn, and I suspect they had a winter brood there. The starling does rear a brood sometimes in the midst of the winter, contrary as that may seem to our general ideas of natural history. They may be called roof-residents, as they visit it all the year round; they nest in the roof, rearing two and sometimes three broods; and use it as their club and place of meeting. Towards July, the young starlings and those that have for the time at least finished nesting, flock together, and pass the day in the fields, returning now and then to their old home. These flocks gradually increase; the starling is so prolific that the flocks become immense, till in the latter part of the autumn in southern fields it is common to see a great elm-tree black with them, from the highest bough downwards, and the noise of their chattering can be heard a long distance. They roost in firs or in osier-beds. But in the blackest days of winter, when frost binds the ground hard as iron, the starlings return to the roof almost every day; they do not whistle much, but have a peculiar chuckling whistle at the instant of alighting. In very hard weather, especially snow, the starlings find it difficult to obtain a living, and at such times will come to the premises at the rear, and at farmhouses where cattle are in the yards, search about among them for insects.

The whole history of the starling is interesting, but I must here only mention it as a roof-bird. They are very handsome in their full plumage, which gleams bronze and green among the darker shades; quick in their motions and full of spirit; loaded to the muzzle with energy, and never still. I hope none of those who are so good as to read what I have written will ever keep a starling in a cage; the cruelty is extreme. As for shooting pigeons at a trap, it is mercy in comparison.

Even before the starling whistles much, the sparrows begin to chirp; in the dead of winter they are silent; but so soon as the warmer winds blow, if only for a day, they begin to chirp. In January this year I used to listen to the sparrows chirping, the starlings whistling, and the chaffinches’ ‘chink, chink’ about eight o’clock, or earlier, in the morning; the first two on the roof, the latter, which is not a roof-bird, in some garden shrubs. As the spring advances, the sparrows sing—it is a short song, it is true, but still it is singing—perched at the edge of a sunny wall. There is not a place about the house where they will not build—under the eaves, on the roof, anywhere where there is a projection or shelter, deep in the thatch, under the tiles, in old eave-swallows’ nests. The last place I noticed as a favourite one in towns is on the half-bricks left projecting in perpendicular rows at the sides of unfinished houses. Half-a-dozen nests may be counted at the side of a house on these bricks; and like the starlings, they rear several broods, and some are nesting late in the autumn. By degrees as the summer advances they leave the houses for the corn, and gather in vast flocks, rivalling those of the starlings. At this time they desert the roofs, except those who still have nesting duties. In winter and in the beginning of the new year, they gradually return; migration thus goes on under the eyes of those who care to notice it. In London, some who fed sparrows on the roof found that rooks also came for the crumbs placed out. I sometimes see a sparrow chasing a rook, as if angry, and trying to drive it away over the roofs where I live. The thief does not retaliate, but, like a thief, flees from the scene of his guilt. This is not only in the breeding season, when the rook steals eggs, but in winter. Town residents are apt to despise the sparrow, seeing him always black; but in the country the sparrows are as clean as a pink; and in themselves they are the most animated, clever little creatures. They are easily tamed. The Parisians are fond of taming them. At a certain hour in the Tuileries Gardens, you may see a man perfectly surrounded with a crowd of sparrows—some perching on his shoulder; some fluttering in the air immediately before his face; some on the ground like a tribe of followers; and others on the marble seats. He jerks a crumb of bread into the air—a sparrow dexterously seizes it as he would a flying insect; he puts a crumb between his lips—a sparrow takes it out and feeds from his mouth. Meantime they keep up a constant chirping; those that are satisfied still stay by and adjust their feathers. He walks on, giving a little chirp with his mouth, and they follow him along the path—a cloud about his shoulders, and the rest flying from shrub to shrub, perching, and then following again. They are all perfectly clean—a contrast to the London sparrow. I came across one of these sparrow-tamers by chance, and was much amused at the scene, which, to any one not acquainted with birds, appears marvellous; but it is really as simple as possible, and you can repeat it for yourself if you have patience, for they are so sharp they soon understand you. They seem to play at nest-making before they really begin; taking up straws in their beaks, and carrying them half-way to the roof, then letting the straws float away; and the same with stray feathers. Neither of these, starlings nor sparrows, seem to like the dark. Under the roof, between it and the first ceiling, there is a large open space; if the slates or tiles are kept in good order, very little light enters, and this space is nearly dark in daylight. Even if chinks admit a beam of light, they do not like it; they seldom enter or fly about there, though quite accessible to them. But if the roof is in bad order, and this space light, they enter freely. Though nesting in holes, yet they like light. The swallows could easily go in and make nests upon the beams, but they will not, unless the place is well lit. They do not like darkness in the daytime.

The swallows bring us the sunbeams on their wings from Africa to fill the fields with flowers. From the time of the arrival of the first swallow the flowers take heart; the few and scanty plants that had braved the earlier cold are succeeded by a constantly enlarging list, till the banks and lanes are full of them. The chimney-swallow is usually the forerunner of the three house-swallows; and perhaps no fact in natural history has been so much studied as the migration of these tender birds. The commonest things are always the most interesting. In summer there is no bird so common everywhere as the swallow, and for that reason, many overlook it, though they rush to see a ‘white’ elephant. But the deepest thinkers have spent hours and hours in considering the problem of the swallow—its migrations, its flight, its habits; great poets have loved it; great artists and art-writers have curiously studied it. The idea that it is necessary to seek the wilderness or the thickest woods for nature is a total mistake; nature is at home, on the roof, close to every one. Eave-swallows, or house-martins (easily distinguished by the white bar across the tail), build sometimes in the shelter of the porches of old houses. As you go in or out, the swallows visiting or leaving their nests fly so closely as almost to brush the face. Swallow means porch-bird, and for centuries and centuries their nests have been placed in the closest proximity to man. They might be called man’s birds, so attached are they to the human race. I think the greatest ornament a house can have is the nest of an eave-swallow under the eaves—far superior to the most elaborate carving, colouring, or arrangement the architect can devise. There is no ornament like the swallow’s nest; the home of a messenger between man and the blue heavens, between us and the sunlight, and all the promise of the sky. The joy of life, the highest and tenderest feelings, thoughts that soar on the swallow’s wings, come to the round nest under the roof. Not only to-day, not only the hopes of future years, but all the past dwells there. Year after year the generations and descent of the swallow have been associated with our homes, and all the events of successive lives have taken place under their guardianship. The swallow is the genius of good to a house. Let its nest, then, stay; to me it seems the extremity of barbarism, or rather stupidity, to knock it down. I wish I could induce them to build under the eaves of this house; I would if I could discover some means of communicating with them. It is a peculiarity of the swallow that you cannot make it afraid of you; just the reverse of other birds. The swallow does not understand being repulsed, but comes back again. Even knocking the nest down will not drive it away, until the stupid process has been repeated several years. The robin must be coaxed; the sparrow is suspicious, and though easy to tame, quick to notice the least alarming movement. The swallow will not be driven away. He has not the slightest fear of man; he flies to his nest close to the window, under the low eave, or on the beams in the outhouses, no matter if you are looking on or not. Bold as the starlings are, they will seldom do this. But in the swallow, the instinct of suspicion is reversed; an instinct of confidence occupies its place. In addition to the eave-swallow, to which I have chiefly alluded, and the chimney-swallow, there is the swift, also a roof-bird, and making its nest in the slates of houses in the midst of towns. These three are migrants, in the fullest sense, and come to our houses over thousands of miles of land and sea.

Robins frequently visit the roof for insects, especially when it is thatched; so do wrens; and the latter, after they have peered along, have a habit of perching at the extreme angle of a gable, or the extreme edge of a corner, and uttering their song. Finches occasionally fly up to the roofs of country-houses if shrubberies are near, also in pursuit of insects; but they are not truly roof-birds. Wagtails perch on roofs; they often have their nests in the ivy, or creepers trained against walls; they are quite at home, and are frequently seen on the ridges of farmhouses. Tits of several species, particularly the great titmouse and the blue tit, come to thatch for insects both in summer and winter. In some districts where they are common, it is not unusual to see a goatsucker or fern-owl hawk along close to the eaves in the dusk of the evening for moths. The white owl is a roof-bird (though not often of the house), building inside the roof, and sitting there all day in some shaded corner. They do sometimes take up their residence in the roofs of outhouses attached to dwellings, but not often nowadays, though still residing in the roofs of old castles. Jackdaws, again, are roof-birds, building in the roofs of towers. Bats live in roofs, and hang there wrapped up in their membraneous wings till the evening calls them forth. They are residents in the full sense, remaining all the year round, though principally seen in the warmer months; but they are there in the colder, hidden away, and if the temperature rises, will venture out and hawk to and fro in the midst of the winter. Tame pigeons and doves hardly come into this paper, but still it is their habit to use roofs as tree-tops. Rats and mice creep through the crevices of roofs, and in old country-houses hold a sort of nightly carnival, racing to and fro under the roof. Weasels sometimes follow them indoors and up to their roof strongholds.

When the first warm rays of spring sunshine strike against the southern side of the chimney, sparrows perch there and enjoy it; and again in autumn, when the general warmth of the atmosphere is declining, they still find a little pleasant heat there. They make use of the radiation of heat, as the gardener does who trains his fruit-trees to a wall. Before the autumn has thinned the leaves, the swallows gather on the highest ridge of the roof in a row and twitter to each other; they know the time is approaching when they must depart for another climate. In winter, many birds seek the thatched roofs to roost. Wrens, tits, and even blackbirds roost in the holes left by sparrows or starlings.

Every crevice is the home of insects, or used by them for the deposit of their eggs—under the tiles or slates, where mortar has dropped out between the bricks, in the holes of thatch, and on the straws. The number of insects that frequent a large roof must be very great—all the robins, wrens, bats, and so on, can scarcely affect them; nor the spiders, though these, too, are numerous. Then there are the moths, and those creeping creatures that work out of sight, boring their way through the rafters and beams. Sometimes a sparrow may be seen clinging to the bare wall of the house; tits do the same thing—it is surprising how they manage to hold on—they are taking insects from the apertures of the mortar. Where the slates slope to the south, the sunshine soon heats them, and passing butterflies alight on the warm surface, and spread out their wings, as if hovering over the heat. Flies are attracted in crowds sometimes to heated slates and tiles, and wasps will occasionally pause there. Wasps are addicted to haunting houses, and in the autumn, feed on the flies. Floating germs carried by the air must necessarily lodge in numbers against roofs; so do dust and invisible particles; and together, these make the rain-water collected in water-butts after a storm turbid and dark; and it soon becomes full of living organisms.

Lichen and moss grow on the mortar wherever it has become slightly disintegrated; and if any mould, however minute, by any means accumulates between the slates, there, too, they spring up, and even on the slates themselves. Tiles are often coloured yellow by such growths. On some old roofs, which have decayed, and upon which detritus has accumulated, wallflowers may be found; and the house-leek takes capricious root where it fancies. The stonecrop is the finest of roof-plants, sometimes forming a broad patch of brilliant yellow. Birds carry up seeds and grains, and these germinate in moist thatch. Groundsel, for instance, and stray stalks of wheat, thin and drooping for lack of soil, are sometimes seen there, besides grasses. Ivy is familiar as a roof-creeper. Some ferns and the pennywort will grow on the wall close to the roof. Where will not ferns grow? We saw one attached to the under-side of a glass coal-hole cover; its green could be seen through the thick glass on which people stepped daily.

Recently, much attention has been paid to the dust which is found on roofs and ledges at great heights. This meteoric dust, as it is called, consists of minute particles of iron, which are thought to fall from the highest part of the atmosphere, or possibly to be attracted to the earth from space. Lightning usually strikes the roof. The whole subject of lightning-conductors has been re-opened of late years, there being reason to think that mistakes have been made in the manner of their erection. The reason English roofs are high-pitched is not only because of the rain, that it may shoot off quickly, but on account of snow. Once now and then there comes a snow-year, and those who live in houses with flat surfaces anywhere on the roof soon discover how inconvenient they are. The snow is sure to find its way through, damaging ceilings, and doing other mischief. Sometimes, in fine summer weather, people remark how pleasant it would be if the roof were flat, so that it could be used as a terrace, as it is in warmer climates. But the fact is the English roof, although now merely copied and repeated without a thought of the reason of its shape, grew up from experience of severe winters. Of old, great care and ingenuity—what we should now call artistic skill—were employed in constructing the roof. It was not only pleasant to the eye with its gables, but the woodwork was wonderfully well done. Such roofs may still be seen on ancient mansions, having endured for centuries. They are splendid pieces of workmanship, and seen from afar among foliage, are admired by every one who has the least taste. Draughtsmen and painters value them highly. No matter whether reproduced on a large canvas or in a little woodcut, their proportions please. The roof is much neglected in modern houses; it is either conventional, or it is full indeed of gables, but gables that do not agree, as it were, with each other—that are obviously put there on purpose to look artistic, and fail altogether. Now, the ancient roofs were true works of art, consistent, and yet each varied to its particular circumstances, and each impressed with the individuality of the place and of the designer. The finest old roofs were built of oak or chestnut; the beams are black with age, and in that condition, oak is scarcely distinguishable from chestnut.

So the roof has its natural history, its science, and art; it has its seasons, its migrants and residents, of whom a housetop calendar might be made. The fine old roofs which have just been mentioned are often associated with historic events and the rise of families; and the roof-tree, like the hearth, has a range of proverbs or sayings and ancient lore to itself. More than one great monarch has been slain by a tile thrown from the housetop, and numerous other incidents have occurred in connection with it. The most interesting is the story of the Grecian mother, who with her infant was on the roof, when, in a moment of inattention, the child crept to the edge, and was balanced on the very verge. To call to it, to touch it, would have insured its destruction; but the mother, without a second’s thought, bared her breast, and the child eagerly turning to it, was saved!

BY MEAD AND STREAM.

CHAPTER XXXIV.—JUDGE ME.

Mr Beecham had spoken the words, ‘You must know it all,’ as if they contained a threat, but impulse directed tone and words. He became instantly conscious of his excitement, when he saw the startled expression with which Madge regarded him. His emotion was checked. Mechanically, he gripped the bridle of his passion, and held it down as a strong man restrains a restive horse.

‘Shall I go on?’ he said with almost perfect self-control, although his voice had not yet quite regained its usual softness. ‘I know that you will be pained. I do not like that, and so you see me hesitating, and weakly trying to shift the responsibility from my own shoulders. Shall I go on?’

‘I am not afraid of pain,’ she answered quietly, but with a distant tremor in her voice; ‘and if you think that I should hear what you have to say, say it.’

‘Then I will speak as gently as it is in my power to do; but this subject always stirs the most evil passions that are in me. I want to win your confidence, and that impels me to tell you why I doubt Philip—it is because I know his father to be false.’

‘Oh, you are mistaken!’ she exclaimed, rising at once to the defence of a friend; ‘you do not know how much good he has done!’

‘No; but I do know some of the harm he has done.’ There was a sort of grim humour in voice and look, as if he were trying to subdue his bitterness of heart by smiling at the girl’s innocent trustfulness.

‘Harm!—Mr Hadleigh harm anybody! You judge him wrongly: he may look hard and—and unpleasant; but he has a kind nature, and suffers a great deal.’

‘He should suffer’ (this more gently now—more like himself, and as if he spoke in sorrow rather than in anger). ‘But, all the same he has done harm—cruel, wicked harm.’

‘To whom—to whom?’

‘To me and to your mother.’ A long pause, as if he were drawing breath for the words which at length he uttered in a faltering whisper: ‘_His_ lies separated us.’

Madge stood mute and pale. She remembered what Aunt Hessy had told her: how there had come the rumour first, and then the confident assertion of the treachery of the absent lover—no one able to tell who brought the news which the loss of his letter in the wreck, and consequently apparent silence, seemed to confirm. Then all the sad days of hoping—of faith in the absent, whilst the heart was sickening and growing faint, as the weeks, the months passed, and the unbroken silence of the loved one slowly forced the horrible conviction upon her that the news _must_ be true. He—Austin, whom she had prayed not to go away—had gone without answering that pathetic cry, and had broken his troth.

Poor mother, poor mother! Oh, the agony of it all! Madge could see it—feel it. She could see the woman in her great sorrow dumbly looking across the sea, hoping, still hoping that he would come back, until despair became her master. And now to know that all this misery had been brought about by a Lie! ... and the speaker of the lie had been Philip’s father! Two lives wrecked, two hearts broken by a lie. Was it not the cruelest kind of murder?—the two lives lingering along their weary way, each believing the other faithless.

She sprang into the present again—it was too horrible. She would not believe that any man could be so wicked, and least of all Philip’s father.

‘I will not believe it!’ she exclaimed with a sudden movement of the hands, as if sweeping the sad visions away from her.

Beecham’s brows lowered, but not frowningly, as he looked long at her flushed face, and saw that the bright eyes had become brighter still in the excitement of her indignant repudiation of the charge he made.

‘Do you like the man?’ he asked in a low tone.

The question had never occurred to her before, and in the quick self-survey which it provoked, she was not prepared to say ‘Yes’ or ‘No.’ In the moment, too, she remembered Uncle Dick’s unexplained quarrel with Mr Hadleigh on the market-day, and also that Uncle Dick, who wore his heart upon his sleeve, never much favoured the Master of Ringsford.

‘He is Philip’s father,’ she answered simply; and in giving the answer, she felt that it was enough for her. She _must_ like everybody who belonged to Philip.

‘Is that all?’

‘It is enough,’ she said impatiently.

‘Do not be angry with me; but try to see a little with my eyes. You will do so when you learn how guilty he is.’

‘I will not hear it!’ and she moved.

‘For Philip’s sake,’ he said softly but firmly, ‘if not for that of another, who would tell you it was right that you should hear me.’

Madge stood still, her face towards the wall, so that he could not see her agitation. The bright fire cast the shadow of his profile on the same wall, and the silhouette, grotesquely exaggerated as the outlines were, still suggested suffering rather than anger.

‘Do you know that Hadleigh has good reason for enmity towards me?’

‘No; I never knew or thought that he could have reason for enmity towards any one.’

‘He had towards me.’

‘I believe you are wrong. I am sure of it;’ and she thought that here might be her opportunity to further Philip’s desire to reconcile them.

‘Should you desire to test what I am about to tell you, say to Hadleigh that you have been told George Laurence was a friend of Philip’s mother. He was my friend too. My poor sister was passionate and, like all passionate people, weak. Hadleigh took her from my friend _for her money_—a pitiful few hundred pounds. I never liked the man; but I hated him then, and hated him still more when Laurence, becoming reckless alike of fortune and life, ruined himself and ... killed himself. But the crime was Hadleigh’s, and it lies heavy on his soul.’

‘Oh, why should you speak so bitterly of what he could neither foresee nor prevent.’

‘I charged him with the murder,’ Beecham continued, without heeding the interruption, ‘and he could not answer me like a man. He spoke soft words, as if I were a boy in a passion; he even attempted to condole with me for the loss of my friend, until I fled from him, lest my hands should obey my wish and not my will. But he had his revenge. He made my sister’s life a torture. She tried to hide it in her letters to me; but I could read her misery in every line. And then, when he discovered that I had gone into the wilds of Africa, without any likelihood of being able to send a message home for many months, he told the lie which destroyed our hopes.’

‘How do you know that it was he who told it?’ she asked, without moving and with some fear of the answer.

‘The man he employed to spread the false report confessed to me what had been done and by whom.’

Madge’s head drooped; there seemed to be no refutation of this proof of Mr Hadleigh’s guilt possible.

Beecham partly understood that slight movement of the head, and his voice had become soft again when he resumed:

‘I did not seek to retaliate. She was lost to me, and it did not much matter what evil influence came between us. I am not seeking to retaliate now. I would have forgotten the man and the evil he had wrought, if it had not been for the cry my sister sent to me from her deathbed. She asked me for some sign that in the future I would try to help and guide her favourite child, Philip. I gave the pledge, and she was only able to answer that I had made her happy. I am here to fulfil that pledge, and it might have been easily done, but for you.’

‘For me!’—Startled, but not looking at him yet.

‘Ay, for you, because I wish to be sure that you will be safe in his keeping; and to be sure of that, I wish him to prove that he has none of his father’s nature in him.’

‘Do you still hate his father so much?’ she said distressfully.

‘I have long ceased to feel hatred; but I still distrust him and all that belongs to him. Now that you know why I stand aside to watch how Philip bears himself, do you still ask me to release you from your promise?’

‘I will not betray your confidence,’ she answered mechanically; ‘but what I ought to do I will do.’

‘I would not desire you to do anything else, my child,’ and all his gentleness of manner had returned. ‘I will not ask you to say at this moment whether or not you think I am acting rightly. I ask only that you will remember whose child you are, and what she was to me, as you have learned what I was to her. Then you will understand and judge me.’

‘I cannot judge, but I will try to understand.’

Then she turned towards him, and he saw that although she had been speaking so quietly, her pain had been great.

‘Forgive me, my poor child, for bringing this sorrow to you; but it may be the means of saving you from a life of misery, or of leading you to one of happiness.’

There was a subdued element of solemnity in this—it was so calm, so earnest, that she remained silent. He imagined that he understood; but he was mistaken. She did not herself yet understand the complicated emotions which had been stirred within her. She had tried to put away those sad visions, but could not: the sorrowful face of the mother was always looking wistfully at her out of the mists. She ought to have been filled with bitterness by the account of the crime—for crime it surely was—which had wrought so much mischief, and the proof of which appeared to be so strong. Instead of that, she felt sorry for Mr Hadleigh. Here was the reason for the gloom in which he lived—remorse lay heavily upon him. Here, too, was the reason for all his kindliness to her, when he was so cold to others. She was sorry for him.

Hope came to her relief, dim at first, but growing brighter as she reflected. Might there not be some error in the counts against him? She saw that in thinking of the misfortunes of his friend Laurence, passion had caused Austin Shield to exaggerate the share Mr Hadleigh had in bringing them about. Might it not be that in a similar way he had exaggerated and misapprehended what he had been told by the man who denounced Mr Hadleigh as the person who had employed him to spread the fatal lie? Whether or not this should prove to be the case, it was clear that until Mr Shield’s mind was disabused of the belief that Philip’s father had been the cause of his sorrow and her mother’s, there was no possibility of effecting a reconciliation between the two men. But if all his charges were well founded—what then?... She was afraid to think of what might be to come after.

Still holding her hand, he made a movement towards the door. Then she spoke:

‘I want you to say again that whilst I keep your secret, you leave me free to speak to Mr Hadleigh about ... about the things you have told me.’

‘Yes, if you still doubt me.’

‘I will speak,’ she said deliberately, ‘not because I doubt you, but because I believe you are mistaken.’

Again that long look of reverent admiration of her trustfulness, and then:

‘Act as your own heart tells you will be wisest and kindest.’

* * * * *

As he passed down the frozen gravel-path, he met Philip. He was in no mood for conversation, and saying only ‘Good-evening,’ passed on. Philip was surprised; although, being wearied himself, he was not sorry to escape a conversation with one who was a comparative stranger.

‘What is the matter with Mr Beecham?’ he inquired carelessly, when he entered the oak parlour and, to his delight, found Madge alone.

‘He is distressed about some family affairs,’ she answered after a little hesitation.

Philip observed the hesitation and, slight as it was, the confusion of her manner.

‘Oh, something more about that affair in which you are his confidant, I suppose, and came to you for comfort. Well, I come upon the same errand—fagged and worried to death. Will you give me a glass of wine?—Stay, I should prefer a little brandy-and-water.—Thank you.’

He had dropped into an armchair, as if physically tired out. She seated herself beside him and rested a hand on his shoulder.

‘You have been disturbed again at the works,’ she said soothingly.

‘Disturbed!—driven to my wits’ end would be more like my present state. Everything is going wrong. The capital has nearly all disappeared, without any sign of a return for it, so that it looks as if I should speedily have to ask Uncle Shield for more.—What has frightened you?’

‘Nothing—it was only a chill—don’t mind it. Have you seen—him?’

‘Came straight from him here. He was rather out of humour, I thought; and as usual, referred me to his lawyers on almost every point. As to more capital, he said there would be no difficulty about that, if he was satisfied that the first money had been prudently invested.’

‘I understood that he was pleased with what you were attempting.’

‘So did I; but it seems to me now as if he was anything but satisfied. However, he would give me no definite answer or advice. He would think about it—he would make inquiries, and then see what was to be done. He is right, of course; and queer as his ways are, he has been kind and generous. But if he pulls up now, the whole thing will go to smash, and—to fail, Madge, to fail, when it only requires another strong effort to make a success!’

‘But you are not to fail, Philip.’

‘At present, things look rather like it. Oh, it will be rare fun for them all!’ he added bitterly.

‘All?’

‘Yes, everybody who predicted that my scheme was a piece of madness and must come to grief. That does not matter so much, though, as finding myself to be a fool. I wish uncle would talk over the matter quietly with me. I am sure he could help me.... Why, you are shivering. Come nearer to the fire.’

She moved her chair as he suggested.

‘But how is it that the money is all gone?’

‘It is not exactly gone, but sunk in the buildings and the machinery; and the disputes with the men have caused a lot of waste. The men are the real trouble; they can’t get the idea into their heads, somehow; and even Caleb is turning rusty now. But that is because he is bothered about Pansy.... Ah, Madge’ (his whole manner changing suddenly as he grasped her hand and gazed fondly into her eyes); ‘although it will be a bitter pill to swallow if this scheme falls through—I was so proud of it, so hopeful of it at the start, and saw such a bright future for it, and believed it would be such a mighty social lever—although that would be bitter, I should get over it. I could never get over any trouble about you, such as that poor chap is in about Pansy.... But that can never be,’ he concluded impulsively.

For the next few minutes he forgot all about the works, the men, and the peril in which his Utopia stood, threatening every day to tumble all to pieces. Madge was glad that his thoughts should be withdrawn for a space from his worry, and was glad to be able to breathe more freely herself in thinking only of their love, for those references to his Uncle Shield troubled her.

‘You are not losing courage altogether, then?’ she said smiling.

‘I shall never lose it altogether so long as you are beside me, although I may halt at times,’ he answered. ‘There; I am better now. Don’t let us talk any more to-night about disagreeable things—they don’t seem half so disagreeable to me as they did when I came in.’

So, as they were not to talk about disagreeable things, they talked about themselves. They did remember Caleb and Pansy, however; and Madge promised to see the latter soon, and endeavour to persuade her to be kind to her swain.

A NORMAN SEASCAPE.

It was on our way from Paris to the sea that we found out Dives; a little town, forgotten now, but once, long ago, holding for four short weeks an urgent place in the foreground of the world’s history. It is a day’s journey distant from Paris, a long summer day’s journey through fair France, fairest of all when one reaches green Normandy, rich in sober old farmhouses, quaint churches, orchards laden with russet fruit ripening to fill the cider-barrels.

The little station near Dives is set in a desert of sand; one white road leads this way, another that. Of the modest town itself you see nothing. Your eye is caught for a moment as you look round you by the gentle undulation of the hills that rise behind it. On these slopes, a nameless battle was once fought and won; but the story of that struggle belongs to the past, and it is the present you have to do with. At this moment your most urgent need is to secure a seat in omnibus or supplement; all the world is going seawards, and even French politeness yields a little before the pressure of necessity; for the crowd is great and the carriages are small. There is infection in the gaiety of our fellow holiday-seekers, whose costumes are devised to hint delicately or more broadly their destination. Their pleasure is expressed with all the _naïveté_ of childhood; so we too, easily enough, catch something of their spirit, and watch eagerly for the first hint of blue on the horizon, for the first crisp, salt breath in the air. Dives, after its spasmodic revival, falls back into silence, and is forgotten. We forget it too, and for the next few days the problem of life at Beuzeval-Houlgate occupies us wholly.

He who first invented Beuzeval must have had a vivid imagination, a creative genius. What possibilities did he see in that sad reach of endless sand, in that sadder expanse of sea, as we first saw it under a gray summer sky? Yet here, almost with the wave of an Aladdin’s wand, a gay little town sprung into existence—fantastic houses, pseudo-Swiss châlets, very un-English ‘Cottages Anglais;’ ‘Beach’ hotels, ‘Sea’ hotels, ‘Beautiful Sojourn’ hotels lined the shore, and Paris came down and took possession. Houlgate and we are really one, though some barrier, undefinable and not to be grasped by us, divides us. But Houlgate holds itself proudly aloof from us; Houlgate leads the fashions; it is dominated by ‘that ogre, gentility;’ its houses are more fantastic, its costumes more magnificent, its ways more mysterious. At Beuzeval, one is not genteel, one is natural; it is a family-life of simplicity and tranquillity, as the guide-book sets forth in glowing terms. We live in a little house that faces, and is indeed set low upon the beach. There is a strip of garden which produces a gay crop of marigolds and sunflowers growing in a sandy waste—gold against gold. We belong to Mère Jeanne, an ancient lady, who wears a white cotton night-cap of the tasselled order, and who is oftenest seen drawing water at the well. Her vessel is of an antique shape; and she, too, is old. Tradition whispers that she has seen ninety winters come and go, yet her cheeks are rosy as one of her Normandy apples. One feels that life moves slowly and death comes tardily to this sea-village, where the outer world intrudes but once a year, and then but for one brief autumn month alone.

Bathing is the chief occupation of the day, and it is undertaken with a seriousness that is less French than British. Nothing can be funnier than to watch this matter of taking _le bain_. From early morning till noon, all the world is on the beach. Rows of chairs are brought down from the bath-house—all gay at this hour with wind-tossed flags—and are planted firmly in the soft loose sand; here those of us who are spectators sit and watch the show. A paternal government arranges everything for its children. Here one goes by rule. So many hours of the morning and so many hours of the evening must alone be devoted to the salt bath; such and such a space of the wide beach, carefully marked off with fluttering standards, must alone be occupied. Thus bathing is a very social affair; the strip of blue water is for the moment converted into a _salon_, where all the courtesies of life are duly observed. On the other side of the silver streak, business of the same nature is no doubt going on; but French imagination alone could evolve, French genius devise, the strange and wonderful costumes appropriate to the occasion.

Here is a lady habited in scarlet, dainty shoes and stockings to match, and a bewitching cap (none of your hideous oilskin) with falling lace and telling little bows of ribbon. Here another, clad in pale blue, with a becoming hat tied under her chin, and many bangles on her wrists. The shoes alone are a marvel. How do all these intricate knots and lacings, these glancing buckles, survive the rough and sportive usage of the waves? Who but our Gallic sisters could imagine those delicate blendings of dark blue and silver, crimson and brown, those strange stripes and æsthetic olives and drabs? The costume of the gentlemen is necessarily less varied, though here and there one notices an eccentric harlequin, easily distinguishable among the crowd; and again, what Englishman would dream of taking his morning dip with a ruff round his neck, a silken girdle, and a hat to save his complexion from the sun? Two amiable persons dressed in imitation of the British tar, obligingly spend the greater part of the day in the sea. Their business it is to conduct timid ladies from the beach and to assist them in their bath. The braver spirits allow themselves to be plunged under the brine, the more fearful are content to be sprinkled delicately from a tin basin. There is also a rower, whose little boat, furnished with life-saving appliances, plies up and down among the crowd, lest one more venturesome than his neighbours should pass beyond his depth; an almost impossible event, as one might say, seeing with what fondness even the boldest swimmer clings to the shore.

Danger on these summer waters seems a remote contingency. Here is neither ‘bar that thunders’ nor ‘shale that rings.’ It is for the most part a lazy sea, infinitely blue, that comes softly, almost caressingly, shorewards. At first, one is struck with the absence of life which it presents—the human element uncounted. There is no pier, and boating as a pastime is unknown. Occasionally, a fleet of brown-sheeted fishing-smacks rides out from the little port of Dives, each sail slowly unfurled, making a spot of warm colour when the sun shines on the canvas; now and then there is a gleam of white wings on the far horizon. But the glory of the place is its limitless, uninterrupted sea, shore, and sky—endless reaches of golden sand, endless plains of blue water. With so liberal a space of heaven and of ocean, you have naturally room for many subtle effects, countless shades and blendings of colour, most evanescent coming and going of light and shadow. To the left, gay little Cabourg, all big hotels and Parisian finery, runs out to meet the sea; farther still, Luc is outlined against the sky. To the right are the cliffs at Havre, pink at sunset; their position marked when dusk has fallen by the glow of the revolving light. Beyond, _là bas_—that ‘indifferent, supercilious’ French _là bas_—an ‘elsewhere’ of little importance, lies unseen England. When the sun has set, dipping its fireball in haste to cool itself in the waters, there comes sometimes an illusive effect as of land, dim, far off, indistinct; but it is cloud-land, not our sea-island.

The sunsets are a thing to marvel at, never two nights alike. ‘C’est adorable!’ as our old Norman waiting-woman said, with a fervent pressure of the hands, as she looked with us on ‘the crimson splendour when the day had waned.’ Sometimes it is a lingering glory, the rose-light on the pools fading slowly, as if loath to go; sometimes the spectacle is more quickly over, and almost ‘with one stride comes the dark;’ then swiftly in their appointed order the familiar stars. Now and again, it is a great storm—a blue-black sea and an inky sky, rent too frequently by the zigzags of the lightning. There is always the charm of change and novelty; the piquancy of the unexpected.

After the serious business of the bath is over, the lunch-hour has arrived. Being as it were one family, we all take our meals at the same time. Later in the afternoon, Houlgate rides and drives, elegant landaus, carriages with linen umbrellas suspended over them, donkey-carts driven by beautiful young ladies in beautiful Paris gowns. Beuzeval braves the dust, and looks on respectfully at the show; but Beuzeval does not drive much. It takes its little folks to the beach and helps them to build sand-castles. It goes off in bands armed with forks to the exciting chase of the _équilles_. These little fish of the eel tribe, which are savoury eating, burrow in the sand at low tide, and it requires some skill to capture them. Whole families go out shrimping too, looking not unpicturesque as, set against the light on the far sea-margin, they push their nets before them. One afternoon we watched two bearded men amuse themselves for hours with flying a pink kite. Their gesticulations were lively, and their excitement great, when at last it sailed bravely before the breeze. We are very easily amused here; for the most part, we are content to look about us, hospitable to all stray impressions. At such times, one is tempted to the idlest speculations. Why, for instance, are all the draught-horses white? Is it that the blue sheep-skin collar may have the advantage of contrast? Why, in a land of green pastures, where kine abound, is milk at a ransom price, and butter not always eatable? Why, again, in spite of our simplicity, our _vie de famille_, is it necessary to one’s well-being here to have an inexhaustible Fortunatus’s purse? But these things are mysteries; let us cease to meddle with them, and follow Houlgate wider afield, on foot, if you will, to little Dives, too long neglected—Dives, which sends its placid river to swell the sea, but lingers inland itself, hardly on the roughest day within sound of the waves.

It was at Dives that Duke William of Normandy and his host waited for the south wind, that fair wind that was to carry them to England. The harbour, choked now with the shifting sand, and sheltering nothing larger than a fishing-smack—held the fleet which some have numbered in thousands; gallant ships for which Normandy’s noblest forest trees were sacrificed during that long summer of preparation. Finest of them all, riding most proudly on the waves, was William’s own _Mora_, the gift of his Matilda. At its prow there was carved in gold the image of a boy ‘blowing on an ivory horn pointing towards England.’ ‘Stark’ Duke William thus symbolised his conquest before ever he set foot on that alien shore. On the gentle slopes above the little town, where the cattle feed, the great army encamped itself, waiting for that fair wind that never came. Four weeks they lingered, long enough to associate the seaport inseparably with the Conqueror’s name; and brave stories are chronicled of the order he kept among his fierce Gauls, and how the worthy people of Dives learned to look on the strangers without distrust—almost with indifference; to till their fields, to tend their flocks, to gather in the harvest, as if no nation’s fate hung on the caprice of a breeze. Four weeks of this, and then that great company melted away almost with the suddenness of a certain Assyrian host of old—a west wind blew gently—not the longed-for south; but the ships, weary of inaction, spread their wings, and flew away to St Valery, where a narrower band of blue separated them from the desired English haven. And the village folks were left once more to the vast quietude of their country life.

There is an old church, rebuilt since English Edward destroyed it, a noble specimen of Norman architecture, and there they keep recorded on marble the names of the knights who sailed on that famous expedition from the port hard by. The church has its legend, too, of a wondrous effigy of our Lord found by the fishermen who launched their nets in these waters. It bore the print of nails in the hands and feet; but the cross to which it had been fastened was awanting. The village folks gave it reverent sanctuary, and devout hands busied themselves in fashioning a crucifix; but no crucifix—let the workman be ever so skilful—could be made to fit the carven Christ. This one was too short, that too long. Clearly the miracle had been but half wrought; the cross must be sought where the image had already been found. In faith, the fishermen cast their nets again and again into the deep. At last, after long patience on their part, the sea gave up what it had previously denied. The long-lost cross was found; and with the figure nailed to it once more, the sacred symbol was borne to its resting-place. A great feast-day that, for Dives; but only the memory of it lingers. The treasure has vanished, and nothing save a curious picture representing the miracle remains to witness to the event. It hangs in the transept, and there are many who linger to look at it. The outside of this grand building pleased us well; it stands secure and free, with open spaces about it, green woods behind, and the blue sky of France above. A stone’s-throw off there is the market, which is nothing but a wide and deep overhanging roof, supported on pillars of carved wood. Here the sturdy peasants of this white-cotton-night-cap country sell the cheeses that smell so evilly and taste so well.

But the chief interest of Dives centres itself in the Hôtellerie de Guillaume le Conquérant. Heart could not desire a quainter, more out-of-the-world spot in which to pass a summer day. One may take a hundred or two of years from the reputed date—they boast that Duke William was housed here, and they show you the chain by which the _Mora_ was fastened to the shore!—and yet leave the place ancient enough. The famous reception-rooms may have been, and have been, redecorated and renewed after an old pattern; but they contain treasures that can boast a very respectable past. Such black carved oak is seldom to be seen; and there are tattered hangings, brasses, bits of china enough to fill a virtuoso’s heart with envy; a wonderful medley of all tastes and periods.