Chapter II (3)

Back from the lake shore the wind was less powerful but more uncertain. It came in gusts which nearly upturned the street cars. Men and women scudded from shelter to shelter, like beleaguered citizens avoiding cannon shots.

"What makes our lake so terrible," said Mason in the car, "is the fact that it has a smooth shore--no indentations, no harbors. There is only one harbor here at Chicago, behind the breakwater, and every vessel in mid-lake must come here. Those flying ships are seeking safety here like birds. The harbor will be full of disabled vessels."

As they left the car, a roaring gust swept around a twenty-story building with such power [that] Rose would have been taken off her feet had not Mason put his arms about her shoulders.

"You're at a disadvantage," he said, "with skirts." He knew she prided herself on her strength, and he took no credit to himself for standing where she fell.

It was precisely as if they were alone together; the storm seemed to wall them in, and his manner was more intimate than ever before. It was in very truth the first time they had been out together, and also it was the only time he had assumed any physical care of her. He had never asserted his greater muscular power and mastery of material things, and she was amazed to see that his lethargy was only a mood. He could be alert and agile at need. It made his cynicism appear to be a mood also; at least, it made her heart wondrously light to think so.

They came upon the lake shore again, near the Auditorium. The refuge behind the breakwater was full of boats, straining at anchor, rolling, pitching, crashing together. Close about the edge of the breakwater, ships were rounding hurriedly, and two broken vessels lay against the shore, threshing up and down in the awful grasp of the breakers. Far down toward the south the water dashed against the spiles, shooting fifty feet above the wall, sailing like smoke, deluging the street, and lashing against the row of buildings across the way.

Mason's keen eye took in the situation:--

"Every vessel that breaks anchor is doomed! Nothing can keep them from going on shore. Doubtless those two schooners lost anchor--that one there is dragging anchor." He said suddenly, "She is shifting position, and see that hulk--"

Rose for a moment could not see it. She lay flat on her side, a two-master, her sails flapping and floating on the waves. Her anchor still held, but she had listed her cargo, careened, and so lay helpless.

"There are men on it!" cried some one. "Three men--don't you see them? The water goes over them every time!"

"Sure enough! I wonder if they are going to let them drown, here in the harbor!"

Rose grew numb with horror. On the rounded side of the floating hulk three men were clinging, looking like pegs of tops. They could only be seen at intervals, for the water broke clear over their heads. It was only when one of them began to move to and fro that the mighty crowd became certainly aware of life still clinging to the hull. It was an awful thing to stand helplessly by and see those brave men battle, but no life-boat or tug could live out there. In the station, men wept and imprecated in their despair; twice they tried to go to the rescue of the beleaguered men, but could not reach them.

Suddenly a flare of yellow spread out on the wave. A cry arose:--

"She's breaking up!"

Rose seized Mason's arm in a frenzy of horror.

"O God! can't somebody help them?"

"They're out of reach!" said Mason solemnly. And then the throng was silent.

"They are building a raft!" shouted a man with a glass, speaking at intervals for the information of all. "One man is tying a rope to planks; ... he is helping the other men; ... he has his little raft nearly ready; ... they are crawling toward him--"

"Oh, see them!" exclaimed Rose. "Oh, the brave men! There! they are gone--the vessel has broken up."

On the wave nothing now lived but a yellow spread of lumber; the glass revealed no living thing.

Mason turned to Rose with a grave and tender look.

"You have seen human beings engulfed like flies--"

"No! no! There they are!" shouted a hundred voices, as if in answer to Mason's thought.

Thereafter the whole great city seemed to be watching those specks of human life, drifting toward almost certain death upon the breakwater of the south shore. For miles the beach was clustered black with people. They stood there, it seemed for hours, watching the slow approach of that tiny raft. Again and again the waves swept over it, and each time that indomitable man rose from the flood and was seen to pull his companions aboard.

Other vessels drifted upon the rocks. Other steamers rolled heavily around the long breakwater, but nothing now distracted the gaze of the multitude from this appalling and amazing struggle against death. Nothing? No; once and only once did the onlookers shift their intent gaze, and that was when a vessel passed the breakwater and went sailing toward the south through the fleet of anchored, straining, agonized ships. At first no one paid much attention to this late-comer till Mason lifted his voice.

"By Heaven, the man is _sailing_!"

It was true; steady, swift, undeviating, the vessel headed through the fleet. She did not drift nor wander nor hesitate. She sailed as if the helmsman, with set teeth, were saying:--

"By God! If I must die on the rocks, I'll go to my death the captain of my vessel!"

And so with wheel in his hand and epic oaths in his mouth, he sailed directly into the long row of spiles, over which the waves ran like hell-hounds; where half a score of wrecks lay already churning into fragments in the awful tumult.

The sailing vessel seemed not to waver, nor seek nor dodge--seemed rather to choose the most deadly battle-place of waves and wall.

"God! but that's magnificent of him!" Mason said to himself.

Rose held her breath, her face white and set with horror.

"Oh, must he die?"

"There is no hope for him. She will strike in a moment--she strikes!--she is gone!"

The vessel entered the gray confusion of the breakers and struck the piles like a battering-ram; the waves buried her from sight; then the recoil flung her back; for the first time she swung broadside to the storm. The work of the helmsman was over. She reeled--resisted an instant, then submitted to her fate, crumbled against the pitiless wall like paper, and thereafter was lost to sight.

This dramatic and terrible scene had held the attention of the onlookers--once more they searched for the tiny raft. It was nearing the lake wall at another furious point of contact. An innumerable crowd spread like a black robe over the shore, waiting to see the tiny float strike.

A hush fell over every voice. Each soul was solemn as if facing the Maker of the world. Out on the point, just where the doomed sailors seemed like to strike, there was a little commotion. A tiny figure was seen perched on one of the spiles. Each wave, as it towered above him, seemed ready to sweep him away, but each time he bowed his head and seemed to sweep through the gray wall. He was a negro, and he held a rope in his hands.

As they comprehended his danger the crowd cheered him, but in the thunder of the surf no human voice could avail. The bold negro could not cry out, he could only motion; but the brave man on the raft saw his purpose--he was alone with the shipwrecked ones.

In they came, lifted and hurled by a prodigious swell. They struck the wall just beneath the negro and disappeared beneath the waves.

All seemed over, and some of the spectators fell weeping; others turned away.

Suddenly the indomitable commander of the raft rose, then his companions, and then it was perceived that he had bound them all to the raft.

The negro flung his rope and one man caught at it, but it was swept out of reach on a backward-leaping billow. Again they came in, their white, strained, set faces and wild eyes turned to the intrepid rescuer. Again they struck, and this time the negro caught and held one of the sailors, held him while the foam fell away, and the succeeding wave swept him over the spiles to safety. Again the resolute man flung his noose and caught the second sailor, whose rope was cut by the leader, the captain, who was last to be saved.

As the negro came back, dragging his third man over the wall, a mighty cry went up, a strange, faint, multitudinous cry, and the negro was swallowed up in the multitude.

Mason turned to Rose and spoke: "Sometimes men seem to be worth while!"

ELIZABETH STEVENSON GASKELL

(1810-1865)

Critics agree in placing the novels of Mrs. Gaskell on a level with the works of Jane Austen and Charlotte Bronte. It is more than probable that future generations will turn to her stories for correct pictures of simple every-day life that must fade in the swift succession of years. She has been compared to a naturalist who knows intimately the flora and fauna of his native heath.

Elizabeth Cleghorn Stevenson was born in Chelsea, England, September 29th, 1810, the daughter of William Stevenson, a literary man, who was keeper of the records of the Treasury. She lived with her aunt at Knutsford in Cheshire, was sent to a private school in Stratford-on-Avon, and visited London and Edinburgh, where her beauty was much admired. In 1832 she was married to the Rev. William Gaskell, minister of a Unitarian chapel in Manchester. Mrs. Gaskell did not begin to write until she had reached middle age, and then chiefly to distract her thoughts after the death of their only son in 1844. Her first book, 'Mary Barton,' published anonymously in 1848, achieved extraordinary success. This was a "novel with a purpose," for Mrs. Gaskell believed that the hostility between employers and employed, which constantly disturbed the manufacturing beehive of Manchester, was caused by mutual ignorance. She therefore set herself the task of depicting faithfully the lives of the people around her. It must be remembered, too, that the social types chosen by her were at that moment peculiarly interesting to a public weary of the novel of fashionable high life. The story provoked much public discussion; and among other critics, the social economist Mr. W. R. Greg, in his 'Essay on Mary Barton,' published in 1849, took the part of the manufacturer. 'Mary Barton' has been translated into French, German, and other languages, including Hungarian and Finnish. The story has for its central theme the gradual degeneration of John Barton, a workman who has a passionate hatred of the classes above him, and who, embittered by poverty and the death of his son and wife, joins the law-breakers of the town, and finally murders Henry Corson, a master manufacturer. 'North and South,' published in 1855, was written from the point of view of the masters, an admirable contrast to Barton being found in Thornton, the hero of this novel.

In 1850, when Dickens was about to establish Household Words, he invited Mrs. Gaskell to contribute. This magazine contained her story 'Lizzie Leigh' and those immortal pictures of village life known as 'Cranford.' Mrs. Gaskell's other novels are: 'Ruth,' the tragical story of a pretty young milliner's apprentice; 'Sylvia's Lovers,' whose scene is Monkhaven (Whitby), at the end of the last century; 'Cousin Phillis,' a simple story of a farmer's daughter, which appeared first in the Cornhill Magazine in 1863-64; and 'Wives and Daughters,' also contributed to the Cornhill, and left unfinished by her death in Manchester, November 12th, 1865. By many persons the last novel is considered her best work, owing to its strength of characterization. Molly Gibson, the heroine; Cynthia, a heartless coquette; Squire Hamley and his sons Roger and Osborne, of Hamley Hall; and the Earl of Cumnor and his family at the Towers,--all are treated with impartial skill. Her famous 'Life of Charlotte Bronte' appeared in 1857. She became acquainted with Miss Bronte in 1850, and they were friends at once.

A collected edition of Mrs. Gaskell's works, published in seven volumes in 1873, includes the short stories 'The Grey Woman,' 'Morton Hall,' 'Mr. Harrison's Confessions,' 'A Dark Night's Work,' 'The Moorland Cottage,' 'Round the Sofa,' 'The Old Nurse's Story,' 'The Well of Pen-Morfa,' 'The Sexton's Hero,' 'Lois the Witch,' and others. Cranford is identified as the town of Knutsford. Its population consists of widows and maiden ladies, in bonds to their ancient gentility. With deft touch Mrs. Gaskell brings out the humor and pathos of these quaint characters, her finest creation being Miss Matty Jenkyns.

OUR SOCIETY

From 'Cranford'

In the first place, Cranford is in possession of the Amazons; all the holders of houses, above a certain rent, are women. If a married couple come to settle in the town, somehow the gentleman disappears; he is either fairly frightened to death by being the only man in the Cranford evening parties, or he is accounted for by being with his regiment, his ship, or closely engaged in business all the week in the great neighboring commercial town of Drumble, distant only twenty miles on a railroad. In short, whatever does become of the gentlemen, they are not at Cranford. What could they do if they were there? The surgeon has his round of thirty miles, and sleeps at Cranford; but every man cannot be a surgeon. For keeping the trim gardens full of choice flowers without a weed to speck them; for frightening away little boys who look wistfully at the said flowers through the railings; for rushing out at the geese that occasionally venture into the gardens if the gates are left open; for deciding all questions of literature and politics without troubling themselves with unnecessary reasons or arguments; for obtaining clear and correct knowledge of everybody's affairs in the parish; for keeping their neat maid-servants in admirable order; for kindness (somewhat dictatorial) to the poor, and real tender good offices to each other whenever they are in distress,--the ladies of Cranford are quite sufficient. "A man," as one of them observed to me once, "is _so_ in the way in the house!" Although the ladies of Cranford know all each other's proceedings, they are exceedingly indifferent to each other's opinions. Indeed, as each has her own individuality, not to say eccentricity, pretty strongly developed, nothing is so easy as verbal retaliation; but somehow, good-will reigns among them to a considerable degree.

The Cranford ladies have only an occasional little quarrel, spurted out in a few peppery words and angry jerks of the heads; just enough to prevent the even tenor of their lives from becoming too flat. Their dress is very independent of fashion: as they observe, "What does it signify how we dress here at Cranford, where everybody knows us?" And if they go from home, their reason is equally cogent: "What does it signify how we dress here, where nobody knows us?" The materials of their clothes are in general good and plain, and most of them are nearly as scrupulous as Miss Tyler of cleanly memory; but I will answer for it, the last gigot, the last tight and scanty petticoat in wear in England, was seen in Cranford--and seen without a smile.

I can testify to a magnificent family red-silk umbrella, under which a gentle little spinster, left alone of many brothers and sisters, used to patter to church on rainy days. Have you any red-silk umbrellas in London? We had a tradition of the first that had ever been seen in Cranford; and the little boys mobbed it, and called it "a stick in petticoats." It might have been the very red-silk one I have described, held by a strong father over a troop of little ones; the poor little lady--the survivor of all--could scarcely carry it.

Then there were rules and regulations for visiting and calls; and they were announced to any young people who might be staying in the town, with all the solemnity with which the old Manx laws were read once a year on the Tinwald Mount.

"Our friends have sent to inquire how you are after your journey to-night, my dear" (fifteen miles in a gentleman's carriage); "they will give you some rest to-morrow, but the next day, I have no doubt, they will call; so be at liberty after twelve--from twelve to three are our calling hours."

Then, after they had called:--

"It is the third day: I daresay your mamma has told you, my dear, never to let more than three days elapse between receiving a call and returning it; and also, that you are never to stay longer than a quarter of an hour."

"But am I to look at my watch? How am I to find out when a quarter of an hour has passed?"

"You must keep thinking about the time, my dear, and not allow yourself to forget it in conversation."

As everybody had this rule in their minds, whether they received or paid a call, of course no absorbing subject was ever spoken about. We kept ourselves to short sentences of small-talk, and were punctual to our time.

I imagine that a few of the gentlefolks of Cranford were poor, and had some difficulty in making both ends meet; but they were like the Spartans, and concealed their smart under a smiling face. We none of us spoke of money, because that subject savored of commerce and trade, and though some might be poor, we were all aristocratic. The Cranfordians had that kindly _esprit de corps_ which made them overlook all deficiencies in success when some among them tried to conceal their poverty. When Mrs. Forrester, for instance, gave a party in her baby-house of a dwelling, and the little maiden disturbed the ladies on the sofa by a request that she might get the tea-tray out from underneath, every one took this novel proceeding as the most natural thing in the world, and talked on about household forms and ceremonies as if we all believed that our hostess had a regular servants' hall, second table, with housekeeper and steward, instead of the one little charity-school maiden, whose short ruddy arms could never have been strong enough to carry the tray up-stairs if she had not been assisted in private by her mistress, who now sat in state, pretending not to know what cakes were sent up, though she knew, and we knew, and she knew that we knew, and we knew that she knew that we knew, she had been busy all the morning making tea-bread and sponge-cakes.

There were one or two consequences arising from this general but unacknowledged poverty and this very much acknowledged gentility, which were not amiss, and which might be introduced into many circles of society to their great improvement. For instance, the inhabitants of Cranford kept early hours, and clattered home in their pattens under the guidance of a lantern-bearer about nine o'clock at night; and the whole town was abed and asleep by half-past ten. Moreover, it was considered "vulgar" (a tremendous word in Cranford) to give anything expensive in the way of eatable or drinkable, at the evening entertainments. Wafer bread and butter and sponge-biscuits were all that the Honorable Mrs. Jamieson gave; and she was sister-in-law to the late Earl of Glenmire, although she did practice such "elegant economy."

"Elegant economy!" How naturally one falls back into the phraseology of Cranford! There, economy was always "elegant," and money-spending always "vulgar and ostentatious"; a sort of sour-grapeism which made us very peaceful and satisfied. I never shall forget the dismay felt when a certain Captain Brown came to live at Cranford, and openly spoke about his being poor--not in a whisper to an intimate friend, the doors and windows being previously closed, but in the public street! in a loud military voice! alleging his poverty as a reason for not taking a particular house. The ladies of Cranford were already rather moaning over the invasion of their territories by a man and a gentleman. He was a half-pay captain, and had obtained some situation on a neighboring railroad, which had been vehemently petitioned against by the little town; and if in addition to his masculine gender and his connection with the obnoxious railroad, he was so brazen as to talk of being poor--why then indeed he must be sent to Coventry. Death was as true and as common as poverty; yet people never spoke about that, loud out in the streets. It was a word not to be mentioned to ears polite. We had tacitly agreed to ignore that any with whom we associated on terms of visiting equality could ever be prevented by poverty from doing anything that they wished. If we walked to or from a party, it was because the night was _so_ fine, or the air _so_ refreshing; not because sedan-chairs were expensive. If we wore prints instead of summer silks, it was because we preferred a washing material; and so on, till we blinded ourselves to the vulgar fact that we were all of us people of very moderate means. Of course, then, we did not know what to make of a man who could speak of poverty as if it was not a disgrace. Yet somehow Captain Brown made himself respected in Cranford, and was called upon, in spite of all resolutions to the contrary. I was surprised to hear his opinions quoted as authority at a visit which I paid to Cranford about a year after he had settled in the town. My own friends had been among the bitterest opponents of any proposal to visit the captain and his daughters only twelve months before; and now he was even admitted in the tabooed hours before twelve. True, it was to discover the cause of a smoking chimney, before the fire was lighted; but still Captain Brown walked up-stairs, nothing daunted, spoke in a voice too large for the room, and joked quite in the way of a tame man about the house. He had been blind to all the small slights, and omissions of trivial ceremonies, with which he had been received. He had been friendly, though the Cranford ladies had been cool; he had answered small sarcastic compliments in good faith; and with his manly frankness had overpowered all the shrinking which met him as a man who was not ashamed to be poor. And at last his excellent masculine common-sense, and his facility in devising expedients to overcome domestic dilemmas, had gained him an extraordinary place as authority among the Cranford ladies. He himself went on in his course, as unaware of his popularity as he had been of the reverse....

I wondered what the Cranford ladies did with Captain Brown at their parties. We had often rejoiced, in former days, that there was no gentleman to be attended to and to find conversation for, at the card parties. We had congratulated ourselves upon the snugness of the evenings, and in our love for gentility and distaste of mankind we had almost persuaded ourselves that to be a man was to be "vulgar"; so that when I found my friend and hostess Miss Jenkyns was going to have a party in my honor, and that Captain and the Miss Browns were invited, I wondered much what would be the course of the evening. Card tables, with green-baize tops, were set out by daylight, just as usual: it was the third week in November, so the evenings closed in about four. Candles and clean packs of cards were arranged on each table. The fire was made up; the neat maid-servant had received her last directions: and there we stood, dressed in our best, each with a candle-lighter in our hands, ready to dart at the candles as soon as the first knock came. Parties in Cranford were solemn festivities, making the ladies feel gravely elated as they sat together in their best dresses. As soon as three had arrived, we sat down to Preference, I being the unlucky fourth. The next four comers were put down immediately to another table; and presently the tea-trays, which I had seen set out in the store-room as I passed in the morning, were placed each on the middle of a card table. The china was delicate egg-shell; the old-fashioned silver glittered with polishing; but the eatables were of the slightest description.

While the trays were yet on the tables, Captain and the Miss Browns came in; and I could see that, somehow or other, the captain was a favorite with all the ladies present. Ruffled brows were smoothed, sharp voices lowered at his approach. Miss Brown looked ill, and depressed almost to gloom. Miss Jessie smiled as usual, and seemed nearly as popular as her father. He immediately and quietly assumed the man's place in the room; attended to every one's wants, lessened the pretty maid-servant's labor by waiting on empty cups and bread-and-butterless ladies; and yet did it all in so easy and dignified a manner, and so much as if it were a matter of course for the strong to attend to the weak, that he was a true man throughout. He played for threepenny points with as grave an interest as if they had been pounds; and yet in all his attention to strangers he had an eye on his suffering daughter--for suffering I was sure she was, though to many eyes she might only appear to be irritable. Miss Jessie could not play cards, but she talked to the sitters-out, who before her coming had been rather inclined to be cross. She sang, too, to an old cracked piano which I think had been a spinet in its youth. Miss Jessie sang 'Jock o' Hazeldean' a little out of tune; but we were none of us musical, though Miss Jenkyns beat time, out of time, by way of appearing to be so.

It was very good of Miss Jenkyns to do this; for I had seen that, a little before, she had been a good deal annoyed by Miss Jessie Brown's unguarded admission (apropos of Shetland wool) that she had an uncle, her mother's brother, who was a shopkeeper in Edinburgh. Miss Jenkyns tried to drown this confession by a terrible cough--for the Honorable Mrs. Jamieson was sitting at the card table nearest Miss Jessie, and what would she say or think if she found out that she was in the same room with a shopkeeper's niece! But Miss Jessie Brown (who had no tact, as we all agreed the next morning) _would_ repeat the information, and assure Miss Pole she could easily get her the identical Shetland wool required "through my uncle, who has the best assortment of Shetland goods of any one in Edinbro'." It was to take the taste of this out of our mouths, and the sound of this out of our ears, that Miss Jenkyns proposed music: so I say again, it was very good of her to beat time to the song.

When the trays reappeared with biscuits and wine, punctually at a quarter to nine, there was conversation, comparing of cards, and talking over tricks; but by-and-by Captain Brown sported a bit of literature.

"Have you seen any numbers of 'The Pickwick Papers'?" said he. (They were then publishing in parts.) "Capital thing!"

Now, Miss Jenkyns was daughter of a deceased rector of Cranford, and on the strength of a number of manuscript sermons and a pretty good library of divinity considered herself literary, and looked upon any conversation about books as a challenge to her. So she answered and said, "Yes, she had seen them; indeed, she might say she had read them."

"And what do you think of them?" exclaimed Captain Brown. "Aren't they famously good?"

So urged, Miss Jenkyns could not but speak.

"I must say, I don't think they are by any means equal to Dr. Johnson. Still, perhaps, the author is young. Let him persevere, and who knows what he may become if he will take the great Doctor for his model."

This was evidently too much for Captain Brown to take placidly; and I saw the words on the tip of his tongue before Miss Jenkyns had finished her sentence.

"It is quite a different sort of thing, my dear madam," he began.

"I am quite aware of that," returned she; "and I make allowances, Captain Brown."

"Just allow me to read you a scene out of this month's number," pleaded he. "I had it only this morning, and I don't think the company can have read it yet."

"As you please," said she, settling herself with an air of resignation. He read the account of the "swarry" which Sam Weller gave at Bath. Some of us laughed heartily. I did not dare, because I was staying in the house. Miss Jenkyns sat in patient gravity. When it was ended, she turned to me, and said, with mild dignity:--

"Fetch me 'Rasselas,' my dear, out of the book-room."

When I brought it to her, she turned to Captain Brown:--

"Now allow _me_ to read you a scene, and then the present company can judge between your favorite Mr. Boz and Dr. Johnson."

She read one of the conversations between Rasselas and Imlac, in a high-pitched, majestic voice; and when she had ended she said, "I imagine I am now justified in my preference of Dr. Johnson as a writer of fiction." The captain screwed his lips up, and drummed on the table, but he did not speak. She thought she would give a finishing blow or two.

"I consider it vulgar, and below the dignity of literature, to publish in numbers."

"How was The Rambler published, ma'am?" asked Captain Brown, in a low voice, which I think Miss Jenkyns could not have heard.

"Dr. Johnson's style is a model for young beginners. My father recommended it to me when I began to write letters--I have formed my own style upon it; I recommend it to your favorite."

"I should be very sorry for him to exchange his style for any such pompous writing," said Captain Brown.

Miss Jenkyns felt this as a personal affront, in a way of which the captain had not dreamed. Epistolary writing she and her friends considered as her _forte_. Many a copy of many a letter have I seen written and corrected on the slate, before she "seized the half-hour just previous to post-time to assure her friends" of this or that; and Dr. Johnson was, as she said, her model in these compositions. She drew herself up with dignity, and only replied to Captain Brown's last remark by saying, with marked emphasis on every syllable, "I prefer Dr. Johnson to Mr. Boz."

It is said--I won't vouch for the fact--that Captain Brown was heard to say, _sotto voce_, "D----n Dr. Johnson!" If he did, he was penitent afterwards, as he showed by going to stand near Miss Jenkyns's arm-chair, and endeavoring to beguile her into conversation on some more pleasing subject. But she was inexorable.

VISITING

From 'Cranford'

One morning, as Miss Matty and I sat at our work--it was before twelve o'clock, and Miss Matty had not changed the cap with yellow ribbons that had been Miss Jenkyns's best, and which Miss Matty was now wearing out in private, putting on the one made in imitation of Mrs. Jamieson's at all times when she expected to be seen--Martha came up, and asked if Miss Betty Barker might speak to her mistress. Miss Matty assented, and quickly disappeared to change the yellow ribbons while Miss Barker came up-stairs; but as she had forgotten her spectacles, and was rather flurried by the unusual time of the visit, I was not surprised to see her return with one cap on the top of the other. She was quite unconscious of it herself, and looked at us with bland satisfaction. Nor do I think Miss Barker perceived it; for putting aside the little circumstance that she was not so young as she had been, she was very much absorbed in her errand, which she delivered herself of with an oppressive modesty that found vent in endless apologies.

Miss Betty Barker was the daughter of the old clerk at Cranford who had officiated in Mr. Jenkyns's time. She and her sister had had pretty good situations as ladies'-maids, and had saved money enough to set up a milliner's shop, which had been patronized by the ladies in the neighborhood. Lady Arley, for instance, would occasionally give Miss Barkers the pattern of an old cap of hers, which they immediately copied and circulated among the _elite_ of Cranford. I say the _elite_, for Miss Barkers had caught the trick of the place, and piqued themselves upon their "aristocratic connection." They would not sell their caps and ribbons to any one without a pedigree. Many a farmer's wife or daughter turned away huffed from Miss Barkers' select millinery, and went rather to the universal shop, where the profits of brown soap and moist sugar enabled the proprietor to go straight to (Paris, he said, until he found his customers too patriotic and John-Bullish to wear what the Mounseers wore) London, where, as he often told his customers, Queen Adelaide had appeared only the very week before in a cap exactly like the one he showed them, trimmed with yellow and blue ribbons, and had been complimented by King William on the becoming nature of her head-dress.

Miss Barkers, who confined themselves to truth and did not approve of miscellaneous customers, throve notwithstanding. They were self-denying, good people. Many a time have I seen the eldest of them (she that had been maid to Mrs. Jamieson) carrying out some delicate mess to a poor person. They only aped their betters in having "nothing to do" with the class immediately below theirs. And when Miss Barker died, their profits and income were found to be such that Miss Betty was justified in shutting up shop and retiring from business. She also (as I think I have before said) set up her cow,--a mark of respectability in Cranford almost as decided as setting up a gig is among some people. She dressed finer than any lady in Cranford, and we did not wonder at it; for it was understood that she was wearing out all the bonnets and caps and outrageous ribbons which had once formed her stock in trade. It was five or six years since she had given up shop, so in any other place than Cranford her dress might have been considered _passe_.

And now Miss Betty Barker had called to invite Miss Matty to tea at her house on the following Tuesday. She gave me also an impromptu invitation, as I happened to be a visitor--though I could see she had a little fear lest, since my father had gone to live in Drumble, he might have engaged in that "horrid cotton trade," and so dragged his family down out of "aristocratic society." She prefaced this invitation with so many apologies that she quite excited my curiosity. "Her presumption" was to be excused. What had she been doing? She seemed so overpowered by it, I could only think that she had been writing to Queen Adelaide to ask for a receipt for washing lace; but the act which she so characterized was only an invitation she had carried to her sister's former mistress, Mrs. Jamieson. "Her former occupation considered, could Miss Matty excuse the liberty?" Ah! thought I, she has found out that double cap, and is going to rectify Miss Matty's head-dress. No; it was simply to extend her invitation to Miss Matty and to me. Miss Matty bowed acceptance; and I wondered that in the graceful action she did not feel the unusual weight and extraordinary height of her head-dress. But I do not think she did, for she recovered her balance, and went on talking to Miss Betty in a kind, condescending manner, very different from the fidgety way she would have had if she had suspected how singular her appearance was.

"Mrs. Jamieson is coming, I think you said?" asked Miss Matty.

"Yes. Mrs. Jamieson most kindly and condescendingly said she would be happy to come. One little stipulation she made, that she should bring Carlo. I told her that if I had a weakness, it was for dogs."

"And Miss Pole?" questioned Miss Matty, who was thinking of her pool at Preference, in which Carlo would not be available as a partner.

"I am going to ask Miss Pole. Of course, I could not think of asking her until I had asked you, madam--the rector's daughter, madam. Believe me, I do not forget the situation my father held under yours."

"And Mrs. Forrester, of course?"

"And Mrs. Forrester. I thought, in fact, of going to her before I went to Miss Pole. Although her circumstances are changed, madam, she was born a Tyrrell, and we can never forget her alliance to the Bigges of Bigelow Hall."

Miss Matty cared much more for the little circumstance of her being a very good card-player. Miss Barker looked at me with sidelong dignity, as much as to say, although a retired milliner, she was no democrat, and understood the difference of ranks.

"May I beg you to come as near half-past six to my little dwelling as possible, Miss Matilda? Mrs. Jamieson dines at five, but has kindly promised not to delay her visit beyond that time--half-past six." And with a swimming curtsy Miss Betty Barker took her leave....

The spring evenings were getting bright and long, when three or four ladies in calashes met at Miss Barker's door. Do you know what a calash is? It is a covering worn over caps, not unlike the heads fastened on old-fashioned gigs; but sometimes it is not quite so large. This kind of head-gear always made an awful impression on the children in Cranford; and now two or three left off their play in the quiet sunny little street, and gathered in wondering silence round Miss Pole, Miss Matty, and myself. We were silent too, so that we could hear loud suppressed whispers inside Miss Barker's house: "Wait, Peggy! wait till I've run up-stairs and washed my hands. When I cough, open the door; I'll not be a minute."

And true enough, it was not a minute before we heard a noise, between a sneeze and a crow; on which the door flew open. Behind it stood a round-eyed maiden, all aghast at the honorable company of calashes, who marched in without a word. She recovered presence of mind enough to usher us into a small room, which had been a shop, but was now converted into a temporary dressing-room. There we unpinned and shook ourselves, and arranged our features before the glass into a sweet and gracious company face; and then, bowing backwards with "After you, ma'am," we allowed Mrs. Forrester to take precedence up the narrow staircase that led to Miss Barker's drawing-room. There she sat, as stately and composed as though we had never heard that odd-sounding cough, from which her throat must have been even then sore and rough. Kind, gentle, shabbily dressed Mrs. Forrester was immediately conducted to the second place of honor--a seat arranged something like Prince Albert's near the Queen's--good, but not so good. The place of pre-eminence was of course reserved for the Honorable Mrs. Jamieson, who presently came panting up the stairs--Carlo rushing round her on her progress, as if he meant to trip her up.

And now Miss Betty Barker was a proud and happy woman! She stirred the fire, and shut the door, and sat as near to it as she could, quite on the edge of her chair. When Peggy came in, tottering under the weight of the tea-tray, I noticed that Miss Barker was sadly afraid lest Peggy should not keep her distance sufficiently. She and her mistress were on very familiar terms in their every-day intercourse, and Peggy wanted now to make several little confidences to her, which Miss Barker was on thorns to hear, but which she thought it her duty as a lady to repress. So she turned away from all Peggy's asides and signs; but she made one or two very malapropos answers to what was said; and at last, seized with a bright idea, she exclaimed, "Poor sweet Carlo! I'm forgetting him. Come down-stairs with me, poor little doggie, and it shall have its tea, it shall!"

In a few minutes she returned, bland and benignant as before; but I thought she had forgotten to give the "poor little doggie" anything to eat, judging by the avidity with which he swallowed down chance pieces of cake. The tea tray was abundantly laden--I was pleased to see it, I was so hungry; but I was afraid the ladies present might think it vulgarly heaped up. I know they would have done at their own houses; but somehow the heaps disappeared here. I saw Mrs. Jamieson eating seed-cake slowly and considerately, as she did everything; and I was rather surprised, for I knew she had told us on the occasion of her last party that she never had it in her house, it reminded her so much of scented soap. She always gave us Savoy biscuits. However, Mrs. Jamieson, kindly indulgent to Miss Barker's want of knowledge of the customs of high life, and to spare her feelings, ate three large pieces of seed-cake, with a placid, ruminating expression of countenance, not unlike a cow's.

After tea there was some little demur and difficulty. We were six in number; four could play at Preference, and for the other two there was Cribbage. But all except myself (I was rather afraid of the Cranford ladies at cards, for it was the most earnest and serious business they ever engaged in) were anxious to be of the "pool." Even Miss Barker, while declaring she did not know Spadille from Manille, was evidently hankering to take a hand. The dilemma was soon put an end to by a singular kind of noise. If a baron's daughter-in-law could ever be supposed to snore, I should have said Mrs. Jamieson did so then; for overcome by the heat of the room, and inclined to doze by nature, the temptation of that very comfortable arm-chair had been too much for her, and Mrs. Jamieson was nodding. Once or twice she opened her eyes with an effort, and calmly but unconsciously smiled upon us; but by-and-by even her benevolence was not equal to this exertion, and she was sound asleep.

"It is very gratifying to me," whispered Miss Barker at the card table to her three opponents, whom notwithstanding her ignorance of the game she was "basting" most unmercifully--"very gratifying indeed, to see how completely Mrs. Jamieson feels at home in my poor little dwelling; she could not have paid me a greater compliment."

Miss Barker provided me with some literature, in the shape of three or four handsomely bound fashion-books ten or twelve years old; observing, as she put a little table and a candle for my special benefit, that she knew young people liked to look at pictures. Carlo lay and snorted and started at his mistress's feet. He too was quite at home.

The card table was an animated scene to watch: four ladies' heads, with niddle-noddling caps, all nearly meeting over the middle of the table in their eagerness to whisper quick enough and loud enough; and every now and then came Miss Barker's "Hush, ladies! if you please, hush! Mrs. Jamieson is asleep."

It was very difficult to steer clear between Mrs. Forrester's deafness and Mrs. Jamieson's sleepiness. But Miss Barker managed her arduous task well. She repeated the whisper to Mrs. Forrester, distorting her face considerably in order to show by the motions of her lips what was said; and then she smiled kindly all round at us, and murmured to herself, "Very gratifying indeed; I wish my poor sister had been alive to see this day."

Presently the door was thrown wide open; Carlo started to his feet with a loud snapping bark, and Mrs. Jamieson awoke; or perhaps she had not been asleep--as she said almost directly, the room had been so light she had been glad to keep her eyes shut, but had been listening with great interest to all our amusing and agreeable conversation. Peggy came in once more, red with importance. Another tray! "O gentility!" thought I, "can you endure this last shock?" For Miss Barker had ordered (nay, I doubt not prepared, although she did say, "Why! Peggy, what have you brought us?" and looked pleasantly surprised at the unexpected pleasure) all sorts of good things for supper--scalloped oysters, potted lobsters, jelly, a dish called "little Cupids" (which was in great favor with the Cranford ladies, although too expensive to be given except on solemn and state occasions--macaroons sopped in brandy, I should have called it, if I had not known its more refined and classical name). In short, we were evidently to be feasted with all that was sweetest and best; and we thought it better to submit graciously, even at the cost of our gentility--which never ate suppers in general, but which, like most non-supper-eaters, was particularly hungry on all special occasions.

Miss Barker in her former sphere had, I daresay, been made acquainted with the beverage they call cherry brandy. We none of us had ever seen such a thing, and rather shrank back when she proffered it us--"just a little, leetle glass, ladies; after the oysters and lobsters, you know. Shell-fish are sometimes thought not very wholesome." We all shook our heads like female mandarins; but at last Mrs. Jamieson suffered herself to be persuaded, and we followed her lead. It was not exactly unpalatable, though so hot and so strong that we thought ourselves bound to give evidence that we were not accustomed to such things by coughing terribly--almost as strangely as Miss Barker had done, before we were admitted by Peggy.

"It's very strong," said Miss Pole, as she put down her empty glass; "I do believe there's spirit in it."

"Only a little drop--just necessary to make it keep," said Miss Barker. "You know we put brandy paper over preserves to make them keep. I often feel tipsy myself from eating damson tart."

I question whether damson tart would have opened Mrs. Jamieson's heart as the cherry brandy did; but she told us of a coming event, respecting which she had been quite silent till that moment.

"My sister-in-law, Lady Glenmire, is coming to stay with me." There was a chorus of "Indeed!" and then a pause. Each one rapidly reviewed her wardrobe, as to its fitness to appear in the presence of a baron's widow; for of course a series of small festivals were always held in Cranford on the arrival of a visitor at any of our friends' houses. We felt very pleasantly excited on the present occasion.

Not long after this, the maids and the lanterns were announced. Mrs. Jamieson had the sedan-chair, which squeezed itself into Miss Barker's narrow lobby with some difficulty, and most literally "stopped the way." It required some skillful manoeuvring on the part of the old chairmen (shoemakers by day, but when summoned to carry the sedan, dressed up in a strange old livery--long greatcoats with small capes, coeval with the sedan and similar to the dress of the class in Hogarth's pictures) to edge, and back, and try at it again, and finally to succeed in carrying their burden out of Miss Barker's front door. Then we heard their pit-a-pat along the quiet little street, as we put on our calashes and pinned up our gowns; Miss Barker hovering about us with offers of help, which if she had not remembered her former occupation, and wished us to forget it, would have been much more pressing.

THEOPHILE GAUTIER

(1811-1872)

BY ROBERT SANDERSON

Theophile Gautier was born in Tarbes (Department of the Hautes-Pyrenees) in Southern France, August 31st, 1811. Like all French boys, he was sent to the lycee (academy), where he promised to be a brilliant scholar; but his father was really his tutor, and to him Gautier attributed his instruction. Young Theophile showed marked preference for the so-called authors of the Decadence--Claudianus, Martial, Petronius, and others; also for the old French writers, especially Villon and Rabelais, whom he says he knew by heart. This is significant, in view of the young man's strong tendencies, later on, towards the new romantic school. The artistic temperament was very strong in him; and while still carrying on his studies at college he entered the painter Rioult's studio. His introduction to Victor Hugo in 1830 may be considered the decisive point in Gautier's career: from that day he gave up painting and became a fanatic admirer of the romantic leader.

A short time afterwards, the first representation of 'Hernani' took place (February 25th, 1830), an important date in the life of Gautier. It was on this occasion that he put on for the only time that famous red waistcoat, which, with his long black mane streaming down his back, so horrified the staid Parisian bourgeois. This red waistcoat turns out, after all, not to have been a waistcoat at all, but a doublet; nor was it red, but pink. No truer is the legend, according to Gautier, that on this memorable occasion, armed with his two formidable fists, he felled right and left the terrified bourgeois. He says that he was at that time rather delicate, and had not yet developed that prodigious strength which later on enabled him to strike a 520-pound blow on a Turk's-head. In appearance Gautier was a large corpulent man with a leonine countenance, swarthy complexion, long black hair falling over his shoulders, black beard, and brilliant black eyes; an Oriental in looks as well as in some of his tastes. He had a passion for cats. His house was overrun by them, and he seldom wrote without having one on his lap. The privations he underwent during the siege of Paris, doubly hard to a man of Gautier's Gargantuesque appetite, no doubt hastened his death. He died on October 23d, 1872, of hypertrophy of the heart.

Gautier is one of those writers of whom one may say a vast deal of good and a vast deal of harm. His admirers think that justice has not been done him, that his fame will go on rising and his name will live as one of the great writers of France; others think that his name may perhaps not entirely disappear, but that if he is remembered at all it will be solely as the author of 'Emaux et Camees' (Enamels and Cameos). He wrote in his youth a book that did him great harm in the eyes of the public; but he has written something else besides 'Mademoiselle de Maupin,' and both in prose and poetry we shall find a good deal to admire in him. One thing is certain: he is a marvelous stylist. In his earliest poems Gautier already possesses that admirable artistic skill that prompts him to choose his words as a painter his colors, or a jeweler his gems and stones, so as to produce the most brilliant effects: these first compositions also have a grace, a charm, that we shall find lacking later on, for as he proceeds with his work he pays more and more attention to form and finish.

'Albertus, or Soul and Sin,' the closing poem of Gautier's first collection, is a "semi-diabolic, semi-fashionable" legend. An old witch, Veronica, a second Meg Merrilies, transforms herself into a beautiful maiden and makes love to Albertus, a young artist--otherwise Gautier himself. He cares for nothing but his art, but falls a victim to the spell cast over him by the siren. At the stroke of midnight, Veronica, to the young man's horror, from a beautiful woman changes back to the old hag she was, and carries him off to a place where witches, sorcerers, hobgoblins, harpies, ghouls, and other frightful creatures are holding a monstrous saturnalia; at the end of which, Albertus is left for dead in a ditch of the Appian Way with broken back and twisted neck. What does it all mean? the reader may ask. That "the wages of sin is death" seems to be the moral contained in this poem, if indeed any moral is intended at all. Be that as it may, 'Albertus' is a literary gem in its way; a work in which the poet has given free scope to his brilliant imagination, and showered by the handful the gems and jewels in his literary casket. Gautier may be said to have possessed the poetry of Death--some would say its horrors. This sentiment of horror at the repulsive manner of man's total destruction finds most vivid expression in 'The Comedy of Death,' a fantastic poem divided into two parts, 'Death in Life' and 'Life in Death.' The dialogue between the bride and the earth-worm is of a flesh-creeping nature.