Chapter II (2)

It was long past midnight, when I was awakened from a refreshing sleep by somebody fumbling with a key at the lock of my door. Several bungling attempts were made before the key was fitted into the lock successfully. At last, Balder walked into my room. He presented rather a comical appearance, with his crush-hat on one side of his head like the leaning tower of Pisa, and a short overcoat, with his long tail-coat peeping beneath. His face was flushed, partly with excitement, and he appeared possessed of a burning desire to relate his adventures to somebody. I had been looking at him with one eye; the other, nearest him, I kept tight shut, and did not move, for I had no desire to enter into conversation with him. But my friend was not so easily shaken in his purpose; he came close to my bedside, stepping on my boot-jack, so that it fell over with a terrible noise, and held the lighted candle within a few inches of my nose. It was impossible for even the most shameless shammer of sleep to hold out any longer. I opened my eyes, and said in the sleepiest tone I could assume:

"Enjoyed yourself?"

"Famously, my dear fellow," answered Balder, seating himself on the side of my bed, although I forestalled his intention, and left hardly an inch for him to sit on. Then he entered into a long and not very lucid rigmarole on souls which are destined to come together. The story was rendered all the more difficult to understand from the fact that I kept falling asleep, and dreaming between his rhapsodies; but I gathered that Balder had met with a young Spanish lady at the mask ball, who apparently possessed the soul which he was fated to meet, and that she was the only person on earth who could make him happy. He had spent the whole evening with her, and she had promised to meet him at the next ball. At his request she had lifted her veil for one instant, revealing a face of Madonna-like beauty. It was a simple story, but when a man's brain is fired with love he lingers over it. The words grace, Southern colouring, eyes like a gazelle, etc., must have been repeated very often, for I dreamed later on that I was repeating them to myself.

I bore it all patiently, for hospitality is a sacred duty, and, besides, the state which Balder's mind was in demanded and deserved consideration.

As he went on with his story, he raised his voice, perhaps to rouse my flagging attention. Suddenly, somebody coughed in the next room. It was not a natural cough, but an artificial one, evidently intended by my landlady to serve as a gentle reminder that at two o'clock in the morning all respectable people should be in bed and quiet. My room was only separated from the apartment in which my landlady and her daughter slept by a door, which was hidden on either side by a high wardrobe, through which, in spite of this precaution, voices could be heard very distinctly. I informed Balder of this fact, but, unfortunately, he utterly refused to take my advice and go quietly to bed. He said he could not sleep, and, unhappily, catching sight of my coffee-machine, he added that he would like some coffee.

"Sleep if you can," he said; "I can manage it all for myself." He then removed his coat, dressed himself in the dressing-gown which acted as his mattress, and started to get some water from the kitchen, knocking things down on the way, and opening and shutting all the wrong doors. I became resigned, and made up my mind not to waste my breath on any fresh warnings. Somebody else coughed. It was Fraeulein Lieschen this time, my landlady's daughter. At any other time, Balder himself would have shown more consideration.

Most extraordinary noises proceeded from the water-tap in the kitchen. At last the kitchen door banged, and Balder re-appeared again. I expressed my regret that I had no methylated spirit, but he said it did not matter, and catching hold of a bottle of my expensive brandy, poured a lot into the lamp. Then he sat gazing into the blue flame without blinking.

Crash! went the glass globe, and the boiling water poured all over the table and put out the fire. I sprang out of my bed. "Good gracious!" I exclaimed, "the whole thing will explode." He said nothing, but began to pick up the hot pieces of glass patiently. The coughing in the next room became louder than ever.

"For heaven's sake!" I went on, "try to be quiet if you can. The people in the next room want to go to sleep. _Don't_ you hear them coughing?"

"Well! I never heard of such impudence! That coughing has disturbed me for some time. Anybody would think you'd got into an almshouse for old women--Where is the sugar?"

"Up there, in the cigar-box. But don't knock that rapier down."

Balder climbed up on a cane chair. It gave way. Klirr! The rapier fell on the floor, and Balder with it.

"Confound you, do take care. Didn't I warn you?" An energetic knocking at the door of communication interrupted me.

"Herr Reif, I must really beg you to be quiet," called my landlady's daughter, not by any means in her sweetest tones. "We've been kept awake for the last hour."

"That's nothing to us," said Balder from the floor, where he was groping for the rapier that had rolled under the wardrobe.

"Do be quiet! That is my landlady's daughter, a very respectable girl--"

"Well, is nobody respectable except her? What do you pay rent for?" His face grew red with rage, and, placing his mouth close to the door, he called out, "What do you want with Reif? He's in bed. I only wanted to reach down the sugar, and the old rapier fell on my head--a thing that might happen to anybody! Just lie down quietly and go to sleep. Such a fuss about nothing! Are we in a hospital?"

"Do be quiet, Balder!" I begged, and my pleading at least had the effect of silencing whatever else was on his tongue. He thought no more of the sugar, but sat at the table and drank his self-brewed coffee without it. When he had finished it he lighted a cigarette, at which he puffed away till the room was full of smoke. As I lay and looked at him, I fell into that peaceful state in which dreaming and reality are so much mixed that it is hard to distinguish between them. And then Balder disappeared in clouds of smoke, and I heard and saw no more. I was awakened again by a light being held near my face. Balder was standing at my bedside with the candle in his hand. "Ah! I'm glad you've been asleep again!" he said, as I half-opened my eyes and looked at him. "I want to make a poem to my Spaniard. Have you got a rhyming dictionary anywhere about?"

"There, on the lowest shelf of the bookcase, but _do_ be quiet."

He got the book without knocking anything down; refilled his coffee-cup, and leant back in his chair, and murmured--

"Where shall I meet thee?
On the Guadelquiver?
"On the Sequara? On the
fair Zucar?
"Or any other far-off
Spanish river....."

Sleep again overpowered me, and I knew nothing till I was awakened by a noisy discussion taking place close to me. Balder stood with his face to the door, engaged in a hot dispute with my neighbours.

"The devil himself couldn't collect his thoughts with that coughing going on," he was saying as I woke up.

"I was coughing to make you quiet, that endless murmuring made me so nervous!" cried Fraeulein Lieschen, her voice trembling with annoyance.

"I'm writing a poem, I tell you, and when one is composing a poem one must murmur. If you can't sleep through it, you can't be healthy. You must have eaten too much supper, or something. You can congratulate yourself that you've got such a lodger as Reif. Do you understand me? If you had me I'd teach you----"

Again and again, in as persuasive a voice as I could assume, I begged the orator at the wardrobe to put an end to the speech he was delivering on his views of a landlady's duties towards her tenants. At length my patience gave way, and, sitting up in bed, I commanded him in a voice of authority to give, over his poetry and recitation, and to blow out the light and get into bed. Balder at length seemed to realise that he was trespassing on my hospitality, and that a certain amount of respect was due to my wishes as his host. He became silent; put his manuscript carefully into my dressing-gown pocket; cast one last fiery glance at the door, and retired to bed.

I do not know if he saw the daughter of sunny Spain, with her gazelle-like eyes in his dreams, but I do know that he snored as if he were dreaming of a saw-mill.

About three hours later, the winter daylight struggled into the room. Balder got up and dressed himself as quietly as a mouse. He seemed as though he was trying to make up for the disturbance he had made in the night, or, rather, in the morning. He excused himself most politely for waking me up, but said that he felt that he could not leave without saying good-bye, and thanking me for my kind hospitality. Then he left the room, closing the door softly behind him. At the same moment, I heard the door of my landlady's room open. Half a minute's dead silence followed, and then Balder fell back into my room like one stunned.

"Who is that girl that came out of the next room?" he asked breathlessly.

"Fraeulein Lieschen, of course, the daughter of my landlady, to whom you were kind enough to deliver a lecture in the middle of the night----"

"She is my Spanish girl!" he gasped, grinding his teeth, and shaking his head disconsolately. He took a long time to recover himself. He sat down again on the side of my bed, as he had done on his return from the ball. But in what a different mood! He made me swear to him that I would never reveal his name to Fraeulein Lieschen, but that I would excuse him without giving any clue to his identity, for the disturbance he had caused in the night. This duty I willingly undertook.

Fraeulein Lieschen, who was a good-natured girl, looked at the matter from the comical side, and readily accepted my unknown friend's apology; and whenever we met on the stairs after that, she would say jokingly, "Please remember me to your funny friend!"

"LIONS IN THEIR DENS."

V.--THE LORD LIEUTENANT AT DUBLIN CASTLE.

BY RAYMOND BLATHWAYT.

(_PHOTOGRAPHS AND ILLUSTRATIONS BY LAFAYETTE, OF DUBLIN, AND BYRNE, OF RICHMOND._)

The Lord Lieutenant's sister, Mrs. Arthur Henniker, who is helping him to do the honours of the Castle, and whom I had known in London, Mr. Fulke Greville, and I, were wandering round the curious old-fashioned buildings and courtyards that constitute the domain of Dublin Castle one bright breezy day in early spring. A military band was playing opposite the principal entrance, whilst the guard was being mounted in precisely the same manner as at the guard mounting at St. James's. The scene was brilliant and inspiriting in the extreme. As we passed through an archway we came somewhat suddenly upon the massive Round Tower, from the top of which floated the Union Jack, and which dates back to a period not later than that of King John. Close to the Round Tower, which bears so curious a resemblance to the still more magnificent tower of the same name at Windsor, is the Chapel Royal. Here we found the guardian, a quaint, and garrulous and most obliging old person, waiting to show us over the handsome, albeit somewhat gloomy, building. Very exact and particular was our _cicerone_ in pointing out to us the old fourteenth century painted windows, the special pews reserved for His Excellency, and the ladies and gentlemen of the court; the coats of arms belonging to the various Governors of Ireland, extending over a period of many hundreds of years--all these, I say, he carefully pointed out, drawing especial attention to one over which, at the moment, a thin ray of golden sunlight was falling, and which, he informed me, was the coat of arms of the Earl of Rochester--poor Rochester, the gay, the witty, the wicked, and the repentant. On quitting the chapel we began to ascend, under the auspices of another guide, a tremendously steep staircase, which is cut inside the fifteen-feet stone wall which leads to the chamber in the Round Tower wherein the Ulster King-at-Arms preserves the ancient records of the Castle. On our pilgrimage up this weary flight of stairs the guide drew our attention to a gloomy little dungeon, cut out of the thickness of the wall, in which there is but little light, and wherein the musty smell of ages is plainly discernible. "This," whispered Mr. Greville in my ear, "reminds me of Mark Twain's 'Innocents Abroad.'" After a glance at the record chamber, which was crammed with documents, we passed, with a sense of relief, into the bright sunny air and the large courtyard, round which are built the handsome lofty stables in which the Castle horses--of which there are an immense number--are kept, and which stables, Colonel Forster, the Master of the Horse, told me, are upwards of two hundred years old.

"And now, Mr. Blathwayt," said Mrs. Henniker, as we passed the two sentries on guard at the entrance to the great hall, and proceeded up a staircase lined with rifles and through long sunlit corridors, "you must come with me to my own special sanctum, and rest yourself, after the object lessons in history which we have been giving you this morning." Here, in a lofty, white-panelled room, with long windows looking down upon the private gardens of the Castle in which His Excellency and Captain Streatfield, one of the A.D.C.'s, were walking up and down, Mrs. Henniker and I sat talking of the past almost more than we did of the actual present. For, though my hostess is quite a young woman, yet as a daughter of the celebrated Richard Monckton Milnes, the first Lord Houghton, she cannot fail to have the most delightful reminiscences of the many celebrities with whom her father was so fond of filling his house.

"But," said she, "proud as I am of my father, I am quite as proud of my grandfather, Richard Pemberton Milnes, for he was only twenty-two years of age when he refused the choice of a seat in the Cabinet, either as Chancellor of the Exchequer or Secretary at War. My grandmother, Mrs. Pemberton Milnes, in her diary for 1809, says that one morning, while we were at breakfast, a king's messenger drove up in a post-chaise and four with a despatch from Mr. Perceval, offering my husband the choice of a seat in the Cabinet. Mr. Milnes immediately said, 'Oh, no, I will not accept either; with my temperament I should be dead in a year.' And nothing could induce him to do so either," continued Mrs. Henniker, "nor could he be induced to accept the Peerage which was offered him by Lord Palmerston in 1856."

"But your father was not so rigid in his views as your grandfather, was he, Mrs. Henniker?" said I.

"No," she replied, "certainly he was not, although I don't think that he quitted the House of Commons, which he always loved, without a pang of real regret. Amongst the many kind congratulations he received--for no man ever had more friends--was a very pretty one from his old friend, Mrs. Proctor, in which she said:

"'He enters from the common air
Into that temple dim;
He learns among those ermined Peers
The diplomatic hymn.
His Peers? Alas! when will they learn
To grow up Peers to him?'"

"You must have met many interesting people at your father's house?" I observed, during the course of our conversation.

"Why, yes," replied she, with an amused smile, "don't you know the ridiculous story that Mr. Wemyss Reid, in his charming biography of my father, tells, and which, indeed, I believe was first told by Sir Henry Taylor, in his autobiography? I will tell it you. You know my father was acquainted with everybody, and his greatest pleasure in life was to introduce the notoriety of the moment to the leading members of English Society. On the particular occasion on which this story was told, it is alleged that somebody asked whether a certain murderer--it was Courvoisier, I think, the valet who killed his master--had been hanged that morning, and my aunt immediately answered, 'I hope so, or Richard will have him to his breakfast party next Thursday.' But this story, Mr. Blathwayt, is really absolutely without foundation. I have here," continued Mrs. Henniker, "a very interesting book of autographs, which I have kept for as far back as I can remember, and in which everybody who came to our house had to write their names," and as she spoke she placed in my hands a large volume, on every page of which was a photograph and an autograph. There was Lecky, the historian; and Trench, the late Archbishop of Dublin; Sir Richard Burton, the traveller; and Owen Meredith, the poet. There was a portrait of Swinburne when quite a young man, together with his autograph. "I have known Mr. Swinburne all my life," remarked Mrs. Henniker. "I used to play croquet with him when I was quite a little girl, and laugh at him because he used to get in such a passion when I won the game." There was John Bright's signature, there was that of Philippe d'Orleans and General Chanzy, and last, but not least, there was that of Charles Dickens.

"My father," explained Mrs. Henniker, "was a very old friend of Dickens, and, curiously enough, his grandmother was a housekeeper at Crewe Hall, where my mother was born, and I have often heard her say that the greatest treat that could be given her and her brother and sister was an afternoon in the housekeeper's room at Crewe, for Mrs. Dickens was a splendid story-teller, and used to love to gather the children round her and tell them fairy stories. And so it was only natural that my mother should feel a special interest in Charles Dickens, when she came to know him in after life. I believe that the very last time that he ever dined out was at my father's house, when a dinner was specially arranged to enable the Prince of Wales and the King of the Belgians to make his acquaintance. Even at that time, poor man, he was suffering so much from rheumatic gout that he had to remain in the dining room until the guests had assembled, so that he was introduced to the Prince at the dinner table. I might mention that Dean Stanley wrote to my father, asking him to be one of those who should place before him the proposal that Charles Dickens should be buried in the Abbey."

Amongst the many interesting letters and papers that Mrs. Henniker showed me was one from Mr. Gladstone to herself congratulating her on her first novel "Sir George," for Mrs. Henniker, notwithstanding the rather unfortunate fact that she has many social duties to attend to, which must necessarily hinder her in what would otherwise be a brilliant literary career, is a remarkably fine writer of a certain class of fiction, and notably of what may be termed the Society novel. But almost better than her novels, of which she has produced some two or three within the last few years, are her short stories, of which she published one, a singularly able study of lower middle-class life, in an early number of the "Speaker," and which many of the readers of that journal will remember under the title of a "Bank Holiday." With reference to "Sir George," Mr. Gladstone, who is a very old friend of her family, wrote: "My dear Mrs. Henniker,--It is, I admit, with fear and trembling that I commonly open a novel which is presented to me." He then goes on to speak in strong terms of eulogy of the book which she had sent to him. The letter was not without a special interest as giving one a glimpse into the mind of the G.O.M. on what must be one of the most arduous duties of his hardworking life. Referring to the publication of her most recent novel, "Foiled," which is a depiction of Society life as it actually is, and not, as is so frequently the case, of the writer's imagination as to what Society is or should be, I asked Mrs. Henniker if she wrote her stories from life.

"Well," she replied, "of course there is a general idea in my stories which is taken from the life I see around me, but, as a rule, I draw from my own imagination. I am a very quick writer, and I wrote 'Sir George' in one summer holiday. Mr. T. P. O'Connor wanted me to write a novel to start the new edition of his Sunday paper with, but, unfortunately, I had none ready. I find myself that, for character sketching, next to studying people from life, the best thing is to carefully go through the writings of such people as Alfred de Musset, whose little _caprices_ are so delicate. I think that the best Society novelists at present, who write with a real knowledge of the people they are describing, are W. E. Norris, Julian Sturgis, and Rhoda Broughton." We continued in conversation for some time longer, until the time came for afternoon tea, when Mrs. Henniker suggested that we should join the rest of the party in the drawing room.

Here we found a number of the A.D.C.'s engaged in merry conversation; most of them are quite young men, immensely popular in the Dublin Society and on the hunting field, where even in that great sporting country they are usually to be found well in the first flight. We sat talking for a few minutes, when the door suddenly opened, and a tall, singularly handsome, well-groomed young man, in morning dress, entered the room. Upon his appearance, Mrs. Henniker and her sister, Lady Fitzgerald, and the remaining ladies and gentlemen present, rose to their feet, for this was His Excellency the Viceroy of Ireland. It will interest my American readers to learn that, not only do Mrs. Henniker and Lady Fitzgerald always rise upon their brother's entrance into the room, but it is further their custom, as it is the bounden duty of every lady, to curtsey to him profoundly on leaving the luncheon or dinner table. His Excellency at once joined in our conversation. We were discussing parodies at the moment, and somebody had stated--indeed I think it was myself--that a certain parody which had been quoted, and over which we had been laughing very heartily, was by the well-known Cambridge lyrist, C. C. Calverley.

"No," said Lord Houghton, "it is not by Calverley, it is by----. But," said he, "the funniest thing I ever heard was this," and he repeated, with immense humour, and with wonderful vivacity, a set of lines which threw us all into fits of laughter. I regret I am unable to recall them. The conversation drifting to memories of some of his father's celebrated friends, His Excellency told me a delightful story of Carlyle. It appeared that the grim old Chelsea hermit had once, when a child, saved in a teacup three bright halfpence. But a poor old Shetland beggar with a bad arm came to the door one day. Carlyle gave him all his treasure at once. In after life, in referring to the incident, he used to say: "The feeling of happiness was most intense; I would give L100 now to have that feeling for one moment back again."

Mrs. Henniker and the Lord Lieutenant and myself drifted into quiet conversation, whilst the general talk buzzed around us. She had told me that her brother had written a prize poem at Harrow, and that his recent publications, "Stray Verses," had all been done in a year.

"His verses are curiously unlike those of my father," she said. "He is very catholic in his tastes; my father's were more poems of reflection--they were full of the sentiment of his day. He was much influenced by Mathew Arnold and his school. My brother's are much more lyrical.

"It is a curious thing," continued Mrs. Henniker, "that one or two of my father's poems, which were thought least of at the time, have really become the most popular and the best known. There is a story concerning one of them which he often used to tell. He was visiting some friends here in Ireland, and the beat of the horses' feet upon the road as he drove to the house seemed to hammer out in his head certain rhythmical ideas which quickly formed themselves into rhyme. As soon as he got to the house he went to his room and wrote the words straight out. It was the well-known song beginning--

"'I wandered by the brookside,'

And having the refrain--

"'But the beating of my own heart
Was all the sound I heard.'

"When he came down to dinner he showed these verses to his friends. They all declared that they were unworthy of him, and advised him to throw them into the fire. However, he did not take their advice; the moment they were published, they caught the ear of the public, they were set to music, and they were to be heard wherever one went. Indeed, a friend of his who was sailing down a river in the Southern States of North America, about a year afterwards, heard the slaves, as they hoed in the plantations, keeping time by singing a parody of the lines which had by then become universally familiar. And one day, in later years, my father was walking in London with a friend; they were passing the end of a street when they heard a man singing--he stopped and listened, and then rushed after the man. He came back a few moments afterwards, bearing a roughly printed paper in his hands."

"'I knew it was my song that he was singing,' he said, and he was perfectly right. He was much delighted.

"'It's a curious fact,' observed the Lord Lieutenant to me, 'and one which Wemyss Reid specially notes in his biography, that my father produced the greater part of his poetry between 1830 and 1840, just when he was going most into Society.'"

"And you've gone in a good deal for writing verses yourself, following in your father's footsteps, have you not, Mrs. Henniker?" said I. "Oh," she replied, "I began writing verses very early in my life, and the most amusing part of it is that, though I was a perfect little imp, I began with writing hymns. In fact," said she, as she showed me a letter which her father had written to a friend when she was seven years of age, "my father had to check my early attempts in that direction." I read with some amusement what Lord Houghton had written about his little daughter, and I transcribe his words the more readily that they appear to me to give a glimpse into the mind of the poet and of his ideas on the origin and making of poetry. He writes:

"The second little girl has developed into a verse writer of a very curious ability. She began theologically and wrote hymns, which I soon checked on observing that she put together words and sentences out of the sacred verse she knew, and set her to write about things she saw and observed. What she now produces is very like the verse of William Blake, and containing many images that she could never have read of. She cannot write, but she dictates them to her elder sister, who is astonished at the phenomenon. We, of course, do not let her see that it is anything surprising, and the chances are that it goes off as she gets older and knows more. The lyrical faculty in many nations seems to belong to a childish condition of mind, and to disappear with experience and knowledge."

The conversation drifted into a discussion on the present system of interviewing, and Mrs. Henniker told me, with much amusement, of a reporter of the _St. Louis Republic_ who called upon her father when he visited America, who, indeed, would not be denied, but forced his way into Lord Houghton's bedroom, where he found him actually in bed, and who, in relating what had passed between them, expressed his pleasure at having seen "a real live lord," and recorded his opinion that he was "as easy and plain as an old shoe!"

Lord Houghton must have been a welcome guest in a country where humour and the capacity for after-dinner speeches are so warmly appreciated as in America. No more brilliant after-dinner speaker ever existed than Richard Monckton Milnes, and the capacity for public speech, which was such a characteristic of the first Lord Houghton, exists no less gracefully in his poetic and now Vice-Regal son; but it was, perhaps, as a humorist that the father specially excelled, and in glancing through the many letters and papers which his daughter showed me I soon discovered this. Writing to his wife many years ago, he said: "Have you heard the last argument in favour of the Deceased Wife's Sister's Bill? It is unanswerable--if you marry two sisters, you've only one mother-in-law." And again, on another occasion, in writing to his sister, he quaintly remarks: "I left Alfred Tennyson in our rooms at the hotel; he is strictly _incognito_, and known by everybody except T., who asked him if he was a Southerner, assuming that he was an American."

We sat talking long, revolving many memories, until the shades of evening darkened down upon the beautiful room, and broke up the party. I joined the A.D.C.'s in their own special sanctum. There are nine on the Staff, of whom two are always on duty. Their names are as follows:--Capt. H. Streatfield, Capt. A. B. Ridley, Capt. M. O. Little, Capt. C. W. M. Fielden, Capt. Hon. H. F. White, Lieut. F. Douglas-Pennant, Lieut. A. P. M. Burke, Lieut. S. J. Meyrick, Lieut. C. P. Foley, and the Hon. C. B. Fulke-Greville. From what they told me I judged that the life at the Castle must be singularly pleasant and interesting. Capt. Streatfield, who is a very _doyen_ among A.D.C.'s, has in that capacity led a life full of interest and variety, for he told me that for some years he was A.D.C. to the Governor-General of Canada, and that later on in life he accompanied the late Duke of Clarence as his A.D.C. in India.

The evening drifted on until it was time to dress for dinner, and we assembled, a large party of men and women, many of whom were in uniform, and some of whom displayed the pale Vice-Regal blue of the household facings in the long drawing room next to that room in which we had had afternoon tea. As His Excellency appeared, preceded by the State Steward, Capt. the Hon. H. White, and followed by Lord Charlemont, the Comptroller, we all passed through the rooms to St. Patrick's Hall, while the band played some well-known tunes. Capt. Streatfield had cleverly sketched for me in the afternoon the curious device formed by the tables, which was originally designed by Lord Charlemont himself, the whole giving the exact effect of a St. Andrew's Cross. Two huge spreading palms, placed in the hollows of the cross, overshadowed the Vice-Regal party, which, together with the beautiful music, the grouped banners upon the lofty walls, and the subdued lights, and the excellent dinner, all went towards the making of a very delightful evening indeed.

A little later on that night--and dinner upon this occasion was specially early--His Excellency held a "Drawing room." The scene upon this occasion was particularly brilliant; the long perspectives, the subdued lighting of the rooms, and the artistic grouping of rare exotics and most exquisite plants and flowers constituting a _tout ensemble_, the beauty of which will never fade from my memory. The ceremony itself was a singularly stately and graceful one. His Excellency, clad in Court dress, stood in the middle of the throne room, surrounded by the great officers of State in their robes of office. The _aides-de-camp_ stood in a semicircle between the doorway and the dais. The first ladies to be presented were His Excellency's own sisters. It was specially interesting to notice the entry of the _debutantes_, many of whom were very beautiful, and almost all of whom were very graceful. Each young girl carried her train, properly arranged, upon her left arm during her progress through the corridor, drawing-room, and ante-room, until she passed the barrier and reached the entrance to the presence chamber; there a slight touch from the first A.D.C. in waiting released it from her arm, and two ushers, who were standing opposite, spread it carefully upon the floor. I noticed that the A.D.C. was careful not to let the ladies follow one another too quickly, which was evidently a trial to some of them. At the right moment he would take the card which each lady bore in her hand, pass it on to the semicircle of _aides_ who stood within the room, who in their turn passed it on to the Chamberlain, who stood at the Lord Lieutenant's right hand. He having received it, then read it aloud, and presented her to the Viceroy. The Viceroy took her by the right hand, which was always ungloved, kissed her lightly on the cheek, whilst the lady curtsied low to him; then, gracefully backing, she retired, always with her face to the dais, from the Vice-Regal presence. The gentlemen attending the drawing room were not, of course, presented. They simply passed through the throne room, several at a time, bowing two or three times to the Viceroy, and so joined their party waiting for them in the long gallery.

At the end of the "Drawing room," the Lord Lieutenant and the ladies and gentlemen of the household, and some of the State officials, formed a procession, and marched with no little grace and stateliness round the magnificent hall of St. Patrick, whilst the strains of the National Anthem re-echoed down the long corridors and out into the star-lit windy night.

THE FEAR OF IT.

BY ROBERT BARR.

ILLUSTRATIONS BY A. S. BOYD.

The sea was done with him. He had struggled manfully for his life, but exhaustion came at last, and, realising the futility of further fighting, he gave up the battle. The tallest wave, the king of that roaring tumultuous procession racing from the wreck to the shore, took him in its relentless grasp, held him towering for a moment against the sky, whirled his heels in the air, dashed him senseless on the sand, and, finally, rolled him over and over, a helpless bundle, high up upon the sandy beach.

Human life seems of little account when we think of the trifles that make towards the extinction or the extension of it. If the wave that bore Stanford had been a little less tall, he would have been drawn back into the sea by one that followed. If, as a helpless bundle, he had been turned over one time more or one less, his mouth would have pressed into the sand, and he would have died. As it was, he lay on his back with arms outstretched on either side, and a handful of dissolving sand in one clinched fist. Succeeding waves sometimes touched him, but he lay there unmolested by the sea with his white face turned to the sky.

Oblivion has no calendar. A moment or an eternity are the same to it. When consciousness slowly returned, he neither knew nor cared how time had fled. He was not quite sure that he was alive, but weakness rather than fear kept him from opening his eyes to find out whether the world they would look upon was the world they had last gazed at. His interest, however, was speedily stimulated by the sound of the English tongue. He was still too much dazed to wonder at it, and to remember that he was cast away on some unknown island in the Southern Seas. But the purport of the words startled him.

"Let us be thankful. He is undoubtedly dead." This was said in a tone of infinite satisfaction.

There seemed to be a murmur of pleasure at the announcement from those who were with the speaker. Stanford slowly opened his eyes, wondering what these savages were who rejoiced in the death of an inoffensive stranger cast upon their shores. He saw a group standing around him, but his attention speedily became concentrated on one face. The owner of it, he judged, was not more than nineteen years of age, and the face--at least so it seemed to Stanford at the time--was the most beautiful he had ever beheld. There was an expression of sweet gladness upon it until her eyes met his, then the joy faded from the face, and a look of dismay took its place. The girl seemed to catch her breath in fear, and tears filled her eyes.

"Oh," she cried, "he is going to live." She covered her face with her hands, and sobbed.

Stanford closed his eyes wearily. "I am evidently insane," he said to himself. Then, losing faith in the reality of things, he lost consciousness as well, and when his senses came to him again he found himself lying on a bed in a clean but scantily furnished room. Through an open window came the roar of the sea, and the thunderous boom of the falling waves brought to his mind the experiences through which he had passed. The wreck and the struggle with the waves he knew to be real, but the episode on the beach he now believed to have been but a vision resulting from his condition.

A door opened noiselessly, and, before he knew of anyone's entrance, a placid-faced nurse stood by his bed and asked him how he was.

"I don't know. I am at least alive."

The nurse sighed, and cast down her eyes. Her lips moved, but she said nothing. Stanford looked at her curiously. A fear crept over him that perhaps he was hopelessly crippled for life, and that death was considered preferable to a maimed existence. He felt wearied, though not in pain, but he knew that sometimes the more desperate the hurt, the less the victim feels it at first.

"Are--are any of my--my bones broken, do you know?" he asked.

"No. You are bruised, but not badly hurt. You will soon recover."

"Ah!" said Stanford, with a sigh of relief. "By the way," he added, with sudden interest, "who was that girl who stood near me as I lay on the beach?"

"There were several."

"No, there was but one. I mean the girl with the beautiful eyes and a halo of hair like a glorified golden crown on her head."

"We speak not of our women in words like those," said the nurse, severely; "you mean Ruth, perhaps, whose hair is plentiful and yellow."

Stanford smiled. "Words matter little," he said.

"We must be temperate in speech," replied the nurse.

"We may be temperate without being teetotal. Plentiful and yellow, indeed! I have had a bad dream concerning those who found me. I thought that they--but it does not matter. She at least is not a myth. Do you happen to know if any others were saved?"

"I am thankful to be able to say that every one was drowned."

Stanford started up with horror in his eyes. The demure nurse, with sympathetic tones, bade him not excite himself. He sank back on his pillow.

"Leave the room," he cried feebly. "Leave me--leave me." He turned his face toward the wall, while the woman left silently as she had entered.

When she was gone Stanford slid from the bed, intending to make his way to the door and fasten it. He feared that these savages, who wished him dead, would take measures to kill him when they saw that he was going to recover. As he leaned against the bed, he noticed that the door had no fastening. There was a rude latch, but neither lock nor bolt. The furniture of the room was of the most meagre description, clumsily made. He staggered to the open window, and looked out. The remnants of the disastrous gale blew in upon him and gave him new life, as it had formerly threatened him with death. He saw that he was in a village of small houses, each cottage standing in its own plot of ground. It was apparently a village of one street, and over the roofs of the houses opposite he saw in the distance the white waves of the sea. What astonished him most was a church with its tapering spire at the end of the street--a wooden church such as he had seen in remote American settlements. The street was deserted, and there were no signs of life in the houses.

"I must have fallen in upon some colony of lunatics," he said to himself. "I wonder to what country these people belong--either to England or the United States, I imagine--yet in all my travels I never heard of such a colony."

There was no mirror in the room, and it was impossible for him to know how he looked. His clothes were dry and powdered with salt. He arranged them as well as he could, and slipped out of the house unnoticed. When he reached the outskirts of the village he saw that the inhabitants, both men and women, were working in the fields some distance away. Coming towards the village was a girl with a water-can in either hand. She was singing as blithely as a lark until she saw Stanford, whereupon she paused both in her walk and in her song. Stanford, never a backward man, advanced, and was about to greet her when she forestalled him by saying:

"I am grieved, indeed, to see that you have recovered."

The young man's speech was frozen on his lip, and a frown settled on his brow. Seeing that he was annoyed, though why she could not guess, Ruth hastened to amend matters by adding:

"Believe me, what I say is true. I am indeed sorry."

"Sorry that I live?"

"Most heartily am I."

"It is hard to credit such a statement from one so--from you."

"Do not say so. Miriam has already charged me with being glad that you were not drowned. It would pain me deeply if you also believed as she does."

The girl looked at him with swimming eyes, and the young man knew not what to answer. Finally he said:

"There is some horrible mistake. I cannot make it out. Perhaps our words, though apparently the same, have a different meaning. Sit down, Ruth, I want to ask you some questions."

Ruth cast a timorous glance towards the workers, and murmured something about not having much time to spare, but she placed the water-cans on the ground and sank down on the grass. Stanford throwing himself on the sward at her feet, but, seeing that she shrank back, he drew himself further from her, resting where he might gaze upon her face.

Ruth's eyes were downcast, which was necessary, for she occupied herself in pulling blade after blade of grass, sometimes weaving them together. Stanford had said he wished to question her, but he apparently forgot his intention, for he seemed wholly satisfied with merely looking at her. After the silence had lasted for some time, she lifted her eyes for one brief moment, and then asked the first question herself.

"From what land do you come?"

"From England."

"Ah! that also is an island, is it not?"

He laughed at the "also," and remembered that he had some questions to ask.

"Yes, it is an island--also. The sea dashes wrecks on all four sides of it, but there is no village on its shores so heathenish that if a man is cast upon the beach the inhabitants do not rejoice because he has escaped death."

Ruth looked at him with amazement in her eyes.

"Is there, then, no religion in England?"

"Religion? England is the most religious country on the face of the earth. There are more cathedrals, more churches, more places of worship in England than in any other State that I know of. We send missionaries to all heathenish lands. The Government, itself, supports the Church."

"I fear, then, I mistook your meaning. I thought from what you said that the people of England feared death, and did not welcome it or rejoice when one of their number died."

"They do fear death, and they do not rejoice when it comes. Far from it. From the peer to the beggar, everyone fights death as long as he can; the oldest cling to life as eagerly as the youngest. Not a man but will spend his last gold piece to ward off the inevitable even for an hour."

"Gold piece--what is that?"

Stanford plunged his hand into his pocket.

"Ah!" he said, "there are some coins left. Here is a gold piece."

The girl took it, and looked at it with keen interest.

"Isn't it pretty?" she said, holding the yellow coin on her pink palm, and glancing up at him.

"That is the general opinion. To accumulate coins like that, men will lie, and cheat, and steal--yes, and work. Although they will give their last sovereign to prolong their lives, yet will they risk life itself to accumulate gold. Every business in England is formed merely for the gathering together of bits of metal like that in your hand; huge companies of men are formed so that it may be piled up in greater quantities. The man who has most gold has most power, and is generally the most respected; the company which makes most money is the one people are most anxious to belong to."

Ruth listened to him with wonder and dismay in her eyes. As he talked she shuddered, and allowed the yellow coin to slip from her hand to the ground.

"No wonder such a people fears death."

"Do you not fear death?"

"How can we, when we believe in heaven?"

"But would you not be sorry if someone died whom you loved?"

"How could we be so selfish? Would you be sorry if your brother, or someone you loved, became possessed of whatever you value in England--a large quantity of this gold, for instance?"

"Certainly not. But then you see--well, it isn't exactly the same thing. If one you care for dies you are separated from him, and----"

"But only for a short time, and that gives but another reason for welcoming death. It seems impossible that Christian people should fear to enter Heaven. Now I begin to understand why our forefathers left England, and why our teachers will never tell us anything about the people there. I wonder why missionaries are not sent to England to teach them the truth, and try to civilise the people?"

"That would, indeed, be coals to Newcastle. But here comes one of the workers."

"It is my father," cried the girl, rising. "I fear I have been loitering. I never did such a thing before."

The man who approached was stern of countenance.

"Ruth," he said, "the workers are athirst."

The girl, without reply, picked up her pails and departed.

"I have been receiving," said the young man, colouring slightly, "some instruction regarding your belief. I had been puzzled by several remarks I heard, and wished to make inquiries regarding them."

"It is more fitting," said the man, coldly, "that you should receive instruction from me or from some of the elders than from one of the youngest in the community. When you are so far recovered as to be able to listen to an exposition of our views, I hope to be able to put forth such arguments as will convince you that they are the true views. If it should so happen that my arguments are not convincing, then I must request that you will hold no communication with our younger members. They must not be contaminated by the heresies of the outside world."

Stanford looked at Ruth standing beside the village well.

"Sir," he said, "you underrate the argumentative powers of the younger members. There is a text bearing upon the subject which I need not recall to you. I am already convinced."

MEMOIRS OF A FEMALE NIHILIST.

BY SOPHIE WASSILIEFF.

ILLUSTRATIONS BY J. ST. M. FITZ-GERALD.