'Sometimes I find much comfort in the saying of a lonely thinker,
"Let us humbly accept from God even our own nature; not that we are
called upon to accept the evil and the disease in us, but let us
accept _ourselves_ in spite of the evil and the disease."

    _'Que vivre est difficile--Ô mon coeur fatigué!'_

CHAPTER XI

By the end of December David Grieve was near breaking down.

Dr. Mildmay insisted brusquely on his going away.

'As far as I can see you will live to be an old man,' he said, 'but
if you go on like this, it will be with shattered powers. You are
driving yourself to death, yet at the present moment you have no
natural driving force. It is all artificial, a matter of will. Do,
for heaven's sake, get away from these skies and these streets, and
leave all work and all social reforms behind. The first business of
the citizen--prate as you like!--is to keep his nerves and his
digestion in going order.'

David laughed and yielded. The advice, in fact, corresponded to an
inward thirst, and had, moreover, a coincidence to back it. In one
of the Manchester papers two or three mornings before he had seen
the advertisement of a farm to let, which had set vibrating all his
passion for and memory of the moorland. It was a farm about half a
mile from Needham Farm, on one of the lower slopes of Kinder Low.
It had belonged to a peasant owner, lately dead. The heirs wished
to sell, but failing a purchaser were willing to let on a short
lease.

It was but a small grazing farm, and the rent was low. David went
to the agent, took it at once, and in a few days, to the amazement
of Reuben and Hannah, to whom he wrote only the night before he
arrived, he and Sandy, and a servant, were established with a
minimum of furniture, but a sufficiency of blankets and coals, in
two or three rooms of the little grey-walled house.

'Well, it caps me, it do!' Hannah said to herself, in her
astonishment as she stood on her own doorstep the day after the
arrival, and watched the figures of David and Sandy disappearing
along the light crisp snow of the nearer fields in the direction of
the Red Brook and the sheep-fold. They had looked in to ask for
Reuben, and had gone in pursuit of him.

What on earth should make a man in the possession of his natural
senses leave a warm town-house in January, and come to camp in 'owd
Ben's' farm, was, indeed, past Hannah's divination. In reality, no
sudden resolve could have been happier. Sandy was a hardy little
fellow, and with the first breath of the moorland wind David felt a
load, which had been growing too heavy to bear, lifting from his
breast. His youth, his manhood, reasserted themselves. The bracing
clearness of what seemed to be the setting-in of a long frost put a
new life into him; winter's 'bright and intricate device' of
ice-fringed stream, of rimy grass, of snow-clad moor, of steel-blue
skies, filled him once more with natural joy, carried him out of
himself. He could not keep himself indoors; he went about with
Reuben or the shepherd, after the sheep; he fed the cattle at
Needham Farm, and brought his old knowledge to bear on the rearing
of a sickly calf; he watched for the grouse, or he carried his
pockets full of bread for the few blackbirds or moor-pippits that
cheered his walks into the fissured solitudes of the great Peak
plateau, walks which no one to whom every inch of the ground was
not familiar dared have ventured, seeing how misleading and
treacherous even light snow-drifts may become in the black bog-land
of these high and lonely moors; or he toiled up the side of the
Scout with Sandy on his back, that he might put the boy on one of
the boulders beside the top of the Downfall, and, holding him fast,
bid him look down at the great icicles which marked its steep and
waterless bed, gleaming in the short-lived sun.

The moral surroundings, too, of the change were cheering. There,
over the brow, in the comfortable little cottage, where he had
long since placed her, with a woman to look after her, was
Margaret--quite childish and out of her mind, but happy and well
cared for. He and Sandy would trudge over from time to time to see
her, he carrying the boy in a plaid slung round his shoulders when
the snow was deep. Once Sandy went to Frimley with the Needham Farm
shepherd, and when David came to fetch him he found the boy and
Margaret playing cat's-cradle together by the fire, and the
eagerness in Sandy's pursed lips, and on the ethereally blanched
and shrunken face of Margaret, brought the tears to David's eyes,
as he stood smiling and looking on. But she did not suffer; for
memory was gone; only the gentle 'imperishable child' remained.

And at Needham Farm he had never known the atmosphere so still.
Reuben was singularly cheerful and placid. Whether by the mere
physical weakening of years, or by some slow softening of the soul,
Hannah and her ways were no longer the daily scourge and perplexity
to her husband they had once been. She was a harsh and tyrannous
woman still, but not now openly viperish or cruel. With the
disappearance of old temptations, the character had, to some
extent, righted itself. Her sins of avarice and oppression towards
Sandy's orphans had raised no Nemesis that could be traced, either
within or without. It is doubtful whether she ever knew what
self-reproach might mean; in word, at any rate, she was to the end
as loudly confident as at the first. Nevertheless it might
certainly be said that at sixty she was a better and more tolerable
human being than she had been at fifty.

'Aye, if yo do but live long enoof, yo get past t' bad bits o' t'
road,' Reuben said one night, with a long breath, to David, and
then checked himself, brought up either by a look at his nephew's
mourning dress, or by a recollection of what David had told him of
Louie the night before.

It troubled Reuben indeed, something in the old fashion, that his
wife would show no concern whatever for Louie when he repeated to
her the details of that disappearance whereof so far he and she had
known only the bare fact.

'Aye, I thowt she'd bin and married soom mak o' rabblement,'
remarked Hannah. 'Yo doant suppose ony decent mon ud put up wi her.
What Davy wants wi lookin for her I doant know. He'll be hard-set
when he's fand her, I should think.'

She was equally impervious and sarcastic with regard to David's
social efforts. Her sharp tongue exercised itself on the 'poor way'
in which he seemed to live, and when Reuben repeated to her, with
some bewilderment, the facts which she had egged him on to get out
of David, her scorn knew no bounds.

'Weel, it's like t' Bible after aw, Hannah,' said Reuben, perplexed
and remonstrating; 'theer's things, yo'll remember, abeawt gien t'
coat off your back, an sellin aw a mon has, an th' loike, 'at fairly
beats me soomtimes.'

'Oh--go long wi yo!' said Hannah in high wrath. 'He an his loike'll
mak a halliblash of us aw soon, wi their silly faddle, an pamperin
o' workin men, wha never wor an never will be noa better nor they
should be. But--thank the Lord--_I_'ll not be theer to see.'

And after this communication she found it very difficult to treat
David civilly.

But to David's son--to Sandy--Hannah Grieve capitulated, for the
first and only time in her life.

On the second and third day after his arrival, Sandy came over with
the servant to ask Hannah's help in some small matter of the new
household. As they neared the farm door, Tim, the aged Tim, who was
slouching behind, was suddenly set upon by a new and ill-tempered
collie of Reuben's, who threatened very soon to shake the life out
of his poor toothless victim. But Sandy, who had a stick, rushed at
him, his cheeks and eyes glowing with passion.

'Get away! you great big dog, you! and leave my middle-sized dog
alone!'

And he belaboured and pulled at the collie, without a thought of
fear, till the farm-man and Hannah came and separated the
combatants,--stalking into the farm kitchen afterwards in a
speechless rage at the cowardly injustice which had been done to
Tim. As he sat in the big rocking-chair, fiercely cuddling Tim and
sucking his thumb, his stormy breath subsiding by degrees, Hannah
thought him, as she confessed to the only female friend she
possessed in the world, 'the pluckiest and bonniest little grig i'
th' coontry side.'

Thenceforward, so far as her queer temper would allow, she became
his nurse and slave, and David, with all the memorials of his own
hard childhood about him, could not believe his eyes, when he found
Sandy established day after day in the Needham Farm kitchen,
sucking his thumb in a corner of the settle, and ordering Hannah
about with the airs of a three-tailed bashaw. She stuffed him with
hot girdle-cakes; she provided for him a store of 'humbugs,' the
indigenous sweet of the district, which she made and baked with her
own hands, and had not made before for forty years; she took him
about with her, 'rootin,' as she expressed it, after the hens and
pigs and the calves; till, Sandy's exactions growing with her
compliance, the common fate of tyrants overtook him. He one day
asked too much and his slave rebelled. David saw him come in one
afternoon, and found him a minute or two after viciously biting the
blind-cord in the parlour, in a black temper. When his father
inquired what was the matter, Sandy broke out in a sudden wail of
tears.

'Why _can't_ she be a Kangawoo when I want her to?'

Whereupon David, with the picture of Hannah's grim figure, cap and
all, before his mind's eye, went into the first fit of side-shaking
laughter that had befallen him for many and many a month.

On a certain gusty afternoon towards the middle of February, David
was standing alone beside the old smithy. The frost, after a
temporary thaw, had set in again, there had been tolerably heavy
snow the night before, and it was evident from the shifting of the
wind and the look of the clouds that were coming up from the
north-east over the Scout that another fall was impending. But the
day had been fine, and the sun, setting over the Cheshire hills,
threw a flood of pale rose into the white bosom of the Scout and on
the heavy clouds piling themselves above it. It was a moment of
exquisite beauty and wildness. The sunlit snow gleamed against the
stormy sky; the icicles lining the steep channel of the Downfall
shone jagged and rough between the white and smoothly rounded banks
of moor, or the snow-wreathed shapes of the grit boulders; to his
left was the murmur of the Red Brook creeping between its frozen
banks; while close beside him about twenty of the moor sheep were
huddling against the southern wall of the smithy in prescience of
the coming storm. Almost within reach of his stick was the pan of
his childish joy, the water left in it by the December rains frozen
hard and white; and in the crevice of the wall he had just
discovered the mouldering remains of a toy-boat.

He stood and looked out over the wide winter world, rejoicing in
its austerity, its solemn beauty. Physically he was conscious of
recovered health; and in the mind also there was a new energy of
life and work. Nature seemed to say to him, "Do but keep thy heart
open to me, and I have a myriad aspects and moods wherewith to
interest and gladden and teach thee to the end;" while, as his eye
wandered to the point where Manchester lay hidden on the horizon,
the world of men, of knowledge, of duty, summoned him back to it
with much of the old magic and power in the call. His grief, his
love, no man should take from him; but he must play his part.

Yes--he and Sandy must go home--and soon. Yet even as he so
decided, the love of the familiar scene, its freedom, its
loneliness, its unstainedness, rose high within him. He stood lost
in a trance of memory. Here he and Louie had listened to 'Lias';
there, far away amid the boulders of the Downfall, they had waited
for the witch; among those snow-laden bushes yonder Louie had
hidden when she played Jenny Crum for the discomfiture of the
prayer-meeting; and it was on the slope at his feet that she had
pushed the butter-scotch into his mouth, the one and only sign of
affection she had ever given him, that he could remember, in all
their forlorn childhood.

As these things rose before him, the moor, the wind, the rising
voice of the storm became to him so many channels, whereby the
bitter memory of his sister rushed upon him and took possession.
Everything spoke of her, suggested her. Then with inexorable force
his visualising gift carried him on past her childhood to the
scenes of her miserable marriage; and as he thought of her child's
death, the desolation and madness of her flight, the mystery of her
fate, his soul was flooded once more for the hundredth time with
anguish and horror. Here in this place, where their childish lives
had been so closely intertwined, he could not resign himself for
ever to ignorance, to silence; his whole being went out in protest,
in passionate remorseful desire.

The wind was beginning to blow fiercely; the rosy glow was gone;
darkness was already falling. Wild gusts swept from time to time
round the white amphitheatre of moor and crag; the ghostly sounds
of night and storm were on the hills. Suddenly it was to him as
though he heard his name called from a great distance--breathed
shrilly and lingeringly along the face of the Scout.

'_David_!'

It was Louie's voice. The illusion was so strong that, as he raised
his hand to his ear, turning towards the Downfall, whence the sound
seemed to come, he trembled from head to foot.

'_David!_'

Was it the call of some distant boy or shepherd? He could not tell,
could not collect himself. He sank down on one of the grit-boulders
by the snow-wreathed door of the smithy and sat there long,
heedless of the storm and cold, his mind working, a sudden purpose
rising and unfolding, with a mysterious rapidity and excitement.

Early on the following morning he made his way down through the
deep snow to the station, having first asked Hannah to take charge
of Sandy for a day or two; and by the night mail he left London for
Paris.

It was not till he walked into Mr. O'Kelly's office, on the ground
floor of a house in the Rue d'Assas, at about eleven o'clock on the
next day, that he was conscious of any reaction. Then for a
bewildered instant he wondered why he had come, and what he was to
say.

But to his amazement the lawyer rose at once, throwing up his hands
with the gesture of one who notes some singular and unexpected
stroke of good fortune.

'This is _most_ extraordinary, Mr. Grieve! I have not yet
signed the letter on my desk--there it is!--summoning you to Paris.
We have discovered Madame Montjoie! As constantly happens, we have
been pursuing inquiries in all sorts of difficult and remote
quarters, and she is here--at our doors, living for some weeks
past, at any rate, without any disguise, at _Barbizon_, of all
places in the world! Barbizon _pres_ Fontainebleau. You know
it?'

David sat down.

'Yes,' he said, after an instant. 'I know it. Is he--is that man
Brenart there?'

'Certainly. He has taken a miserable studio, and is making, or
pretending to make, some winter studies of the forest. I hear that
Madame Montjoie looks ill and worn; the neighbours say the
_menage_ is a very uncomfortable one, and not likely to last
long. I wish I had better news for you, Mr. Grieve.'

And the lawyer, remembering the handsome hollow-eyed boy of twenty
who had first asked his help, studied with irrepressible curiosity
the man's noble storm-beaten look and fast grizzling hair, as David
sat before him with his head bent and his hat in his hands.

They talked a while longer, and then David said, rising:

'Can I get over there to-night? The snow will be deep in the
forest.'

'I imagine they will keep that main road to Barbizon open in some
fashion,' said the lawyer. 'You may find a sledge. Let me know how
you speed and whether I can assist you. But, I fear, '--he shrugged
his shoulders--'in the end this wild life _gets into the
blood_. I have seen it so often.'

He spoke with the freedom and knowledge of one who had observed
Louie Montjoie with some closeness for eleven years. David said
nothing in answer; but at the door he turned to ask a question.

'You can't tell me anything of the habits of this man--this
Brenart?'

'Stop!' said the lawyer, after a moment's thought; 'I remember this
detail--my agent told me that M. Brenart was engaged in some work
for "D--et Cie"'--he named a great picture-dealing firm on the
Boulevard St. Germain, famous for their illustrated books and
_editions de luxe_.--'He did not hear what it was, but--ah! I
remember,--it has taken him occasionally to Paris, or so he says,
and it has been these absences which have led to some of the worst
scenes between him and your sister. I suppose she put a jealous
woman's interpretation on them. You want to see her alone?--when
this man is out of the way? I have an idea: take my card and your
own to this person--' he wrote out an address--'he is one of the
junior partners in "D--et Cie"; I know him, and I got his firm
the sale of a famous picture. He will do me a good turn. Ask him
what the work is that M. Brenart is doing, and when he expects him
next in Paris. It is possible you may get some useful information.'

David took the card and walked at once to the Boulevard St.
Germain, which was close by. He was civilly received by the man to
whom O'Kelly had sent him, and learned from him that Brenart was
doing for the firm a series of etchings illustrating the forest in
winter, and intended to make part of a great book on Fontainebleau
and the Barbizon school. They were expecting the last batch from
him, were indeed desperately impatient for them. But he was a
difficult fellow to deal with--an exceedingly clever artist, but
totally untrustworthy. In his last letter to them he had spoken of
bringing the final instalment to them, and returning some corrected
proofs by February 16--'to-morrow, I see,' said the speaker,
glancing at an almanac on his office table. 'Well, we may get them,
and we mayn't. If we don't, we shall have to take strong measures.
And now, Monsieur, I think I have told you all I can tell you of
our relations to M. Brenart.'

David bowed and took his leave. He made his way through the great
shop with its picture-covered walls and its floors dotted with
stands on which lay exposed the new etchings and engravings of
the season. In front of him a lady in black was also making her
way to the door and the street. No one was attending her, and
instinctively he hurried forward to open the heavy glass door for
her. As he did so a sudden sharp presentiment shot through him. The
door swung to behind them, and he found himself in the covered
entrance of the shop face to face with Elise Delaunay.

The meeting was so startling that neither could disguise the shock
of it. He took off his hat mechanically; she grew white and leant
against the glass window.

'You!--how can it be you?' she said in a quick whisper, then
recovering herself--'Monsieur Grieve, old associations are painful,
and I am neither strong--nor--nor stoical. Which way are you
walking?'

'Towards the Rue de Seine,' he said, thrown into a bewildering mist
of memory by her gesture, the crisp agitated decision of her
manner. 'And you?'

'I also. We will walk a hundred yards together. What are you in
Paris for?'

'I am here on some business of my sister's,' he said evasively.

She raised her eyes, and looked at him long and sharply. He, on his
side, saw, with painful agitation, that her youth was gone, but not
her grace, not her singular and wiltful charm. The little face
under her black hat was lined and sallow, and she was startlingly
thin. The mouth had lost its colour, and gained instead the hard
shrewdness of a woman left to battle with the world and poverty
alone; but the eyes had their old plaintive trick; the dead gold of
the hair, the rings and curls of it against the white temples, were
still as beautiful as they had ever been; and the light form moved
beside him with the same quick floating gait.

'You have grown much older,' she said abruptly. 'You look as if you
had suffered--but what of that?--_C'est comme tout le monde_.'

She withdrew her look a moment, with a little bitter gesture, then
she resumed, drawn on by a curiosity and emotion she could not
control.

'Are you married?'

'Yes, but my wife is dead.'

She gave a start; the first part of the answer had not prepared her
for the second.

'_Ah, mon Dieu!_' she said, 'always grief--_always_! Is
it long?'

'Eight months. I have a boy. And you?--I heard sad news of you
once--the only time.'

'You might well,' she said, with a half-ironical accent, driving
the point of her umbrella restlessly into the crevices of the
stones, as they slowly crossed a paved street. 'My husband is only a
cripple, confined to his chair,--I am no longer an artist but an
artisan,--I have not painted a _picture_ for years,--but what
I paint sells for a trifle, and there is soup in the pot--of a
sort. For the rest I spend my life in making _tisane_, in
lifting weights too heavy for me, and bargaining for things to eat.'

'But--you are not unhappy!' he said to her boldly, with a change of
tone.

She stopped, struck by the indescribable note in his voice. They
had turned into a side street, whither she had unconsciously led
him. She stood with her eyes on the ground, then she lifted them
once more, and there was in them a faint beautiful gleam, which
transformed the withered and sharpened face.

'You are quite right,' she said, 'if he will only live. He depends
on me for everything. It is like a child, but it consoles. Adieu!'

That night David found himself in the little _auberge_ at
Barbizon. He had discovered a sledge to take him across the forest,
and he and his driver had pushed their way under a sky of lead and
through whirling clouds of fresh sleet past the central beechwood,
where the great boles stood straight and bare amid fantastic masses
of drift; through the rock and fir region, where all was white, and
the trees drooped under their wintry load; and beneath withered and
leaning oaks, throwing gaunt limbs here and there from out the
softening effacing mantle of the snow. Night fell when the journey
was half over, and as the lights of the sledge flashed from side to
side into these lonely fastnesses of cold, how was it possible to
believe that summer and joy had ever tabernacled here?

He was received at the inn, as his driver had brought him--with
astonishment. But Barbizon has been long accustomed, beyond most
places in France, to the eccentricities of the English and American
visitor; and being a home of artists, it understands the hunt for
"impressions," and easily puts up with the unexpected. Before a
couple of hours were over, David was installed in a freezing room,
and was being discussed in the kitchen, where his arrival produced
a certain animation, as the usual English madman in quest of a
sensation, and no doubt ready to pay for it.

There were, however, three other guests in the inn, as he found,
when he descended for dinner. They were all artists--young, noisy,
_bons camarades_, and of a rough and humble social type. To
them the winter at Barbizon was as attractive as anywhere else.
Life at the inn was cheap, and free; they had the digestion of
ostriches, eating anything that was put before them, and drinking
oceans of red wine at ten sous a litre; on bad days they smoked,
fed, worked at their pictures or played coarse practical jokes on
each other and the people of the inn; in fine weather there was
always the forest to be exploited, and the chance of some happy and
profitable inspiration.

They stared at David a good deal during the _biftek_, the black
pudding which seemed to be a staple dish of the establishment,
and the _omelette aux fines herbes_, which the landlord's wife
had added in honour of the stranger. One of them, behind the
shelter of his glasses, drew the outline of the Englishman's
head and face on the table-cloth, and showed it to his neighbour.

'Poetical, grand style, _hein_?'

The other nodded carelessly. '_Pourtant--l'hiver lui plaît_,'
he hummed under his breath, having some lines of Hugo's, which he
had chosen as a motto for a picture, running in his head.

After dinner everybody gathered round the great fire, which
the servant had piled with logs, while the flames, and the
wreaths of smoke from the four pipes alternately revealed and
concealed the rough sketches of all sorts--landscape, portrait,
_genre_--legacies of bygone visitors, wherewith the walls of
the _salle à manger_ were covered. David sat in his corner
smoking, ready enough to give an account of his journey across the
forest, and to speak when he was spoken to.

As soon as the strangeness of the new-comer had a little worn off,
the three young fellows plunged into a flood of amusing gossip
about the storm and the blocking of the roads, the scarcity of food
in Barbizon, the place in general, and its inhabitants. David fell
silent after a while, stiffening under a presentiment which was
soon realised. He heard his sister's wretched lot discussed with
shouts of laughter--the chances of Brenart's escape from the
mistress he had already wearied of and deceived--the perils of 'la
Montjoie's' jealousy. _'Il veut bien se debarrasser d'elle--mais
on ne plaisante pas avec une tigresse_!' said one of the
speakers. So long as there was information to be got which might
serve him he sat motionless, withdrawn into the dark, forcing
himself to listen. When the talk became mere scurrility and noise,
he rose and went out.

He passed through the courtyard of the inn, and turned down the
village street. The storm had gone down, and there were a few stars
amid the breaking clouds. Here and there a light shone from the low
houses on either hand; the snow, roughly shovelled from the foot
pavements, lay piled in heaps along the roadway, the white roofs
shone dimly against the wild sky. He passed Madame Pyat's
_maisonnette_, pausing a moment to look over the wall. Not a
sign of life in the dark building, and, between him and it, great
drifts of snow choking up and burying the garden. A little further
on, as he knew, lay the goal of his quest. He easily made out the
house from Mr. O'Kelly's descriptions, and he lingered a minute, on
the footway, under an overhanging roof to look at it. It was just a
labourer's cottage standing back a little from the street, and to
one side rose a high wooden addition which he guessed to be the
studio. Through the torn blind came the light of a lamp, and as he
stood there, himself invisible in his patch of darkness, he heard
voices--an altercation, a woman's high shrill note.

Then he crept back to the inn vibrating through all his being to
the shame of those young fellows' talk, the incredible difficulty
of the whole enterprise. Could he possibly make any impression upon
her whatever? What was done was done; and it would be a crime on
his part to jeopardise in the smallest degree the wholesome
brightness of Sandy's childhood by any rash proposals which it
might be wholly beyond his power to carry out.

He carried up a basket of logs to his room, made them blaze, and
crouched over them till far into the night. But in the end the
doubt and trouble of his mind subsided; his purpose grew clear
again. 'It was my own voice that spoke to me on the moor,' he
thought, 'the voice of my own best life.'

About eight o'clock, with the first light of the morning, he was
roused by bustle and noise under his window. He got up, and,
looking out, saw two sledges standing before the inn, in the cold
grey light. Men were busy harnessing a couple of horses to each,
and there were a few figures, muffled in great coats and carrying
bags and wraps, standing about.

'They are going over to Fontainebleau station,' he thought; 'if that
man keeps his appointment in Paris to-day, he will go with them.'

As the words passed through his mind, a figure came striding
up from the lower end of the street, a young fair-haired man,
in a heavy coat lined with sheepskin. His delicately made
face--naturally merry and _bon enfant_--was flushed and
scowling. He climbed into one of the sledges, complained of the
lateness of the start, swore at the ostler, who made him take
another seat on the plea that the one he had chosen was engaged,
and finally subsided into a moody silence, pulling at his
moustache, and staring out over the snow, till at last the signal
was given, and the sledges flew off on the Fontainebleau road,
under a shower of snowballs which a group of shivering bright-eyed
urchins on their way to school threw after them, as soon as the
great whips were at a safe distance.

David dressed and descended.

'Who was that fair-haired gentleman in the first sledge?' he
casually asked of the landlord who was bringing some smoking hot
coffee into the _salle à manger_.

'That was a M. Brenart, monsieur,' said the landlord, cheerfully,
absorbed all the while in the laying of his table. '_C'est un
drôle de corps, M. Brenart_. I don't take to him much myself;
and as for madame--_qui n'est pas madame!_'

He shrugged his shoulders, saw that there were no fresh rolls, and
departed with concern to fetch them.

David ate and drank. He would give her an hour yet.

When his watch told him that the time was come, he went out slowly,
inquiring on the way if there would be any means of getting to
Paris later in the day. Yes, the landlord thought a conveyance of
some sort could be managed--if monsieur would pay for it!

A few minutes later David knocked at the door of Brenart's house.
He could get no answer at all, and at last he tried the latch. It
yielded to his hand, and he went in.

There was no one in the bare kitchen, but there were the remains of
a fire, and of a meal. Both the crockery on the table and a few
rough chairs and stools the room contained struck him as being in
great disorder. There were two doors at the back. One led into a
back room which was empty, the other down a few steps into a
garden. He descended the steps and saw the long wooden erection of
the studio stretching to his left. There was a door in the centre
of its principal wall, which was ajar. He went up to it and softly
pushed it open. There, at the further end, huddled over an iron
stove, her face buried in her hands, her shoulders shaken with
fierce sobs, was Louie.

He closed the door behind him, and at the sound she turned,
hastily. When she saw who it was she gave a cry, and, sinking back
on her low canvas chair, she lay staring at him, and speechless.
Her eyes were red with weeping; her beauty was a wreck; and in face
of the despair which breathed from her, and from her miserable
surroundings, all doubt, all repulsion, all condemnation fled from
the brother's heart. The iron in his soul melted. He ran up to her,
and, kneeling beside her, he put his arms round her, as he had
never done in his life.

'Oh you poor thing--you poor thing!' he cried, scarcely knowing
what he said. He took her worn, tear-stained face, and, laying it
on his shoulder, he kissed her, breathing incoherent words of pity
and consolation.

She submitted a while, helpless with shock and amazement, and still
shaken with the tempest of her own passion. But there came a moment
when she pushed him away and tried desperately to recover herself.

'I don't know what you want--you're not going to have anything to
do with me now--you can't. Let me alone--it will be over soon--one
way or the other.'

And she sat upright, one hand clenched on her knees, her frowning
brows drawn together, and the tears falling in spite of her intense
effort to drive them back.

He found a painter's stool, and sat down by her, pale and
determined. He told her the history of his search; he implored her
to be guided by him, to let him take her home to England and
Manchester, where her story was unknown, save to Dora and John. He
would make a home for her near his own; he would try to comfort her
for the loss of her child; they would understand each other better,
and the past should be buried.

Louie looked at him askance. Every now and then she ceased to
listen to him at all; while, under the kindling of her own
thoughts, her wild eyes flamed into fresh rage and agony.

'Don't!--leave me alone!' she broke out at last, springing up. 'I don't
want your help, I don't want you; I only want _him_,--and I will have
him, or we shall kill each other.'

She paced to and fro, her hands clasped on her breast, her white
face setting into a ghastly calm. David gazed at her with horror.
This was another note! one which in all their experience of each
other he had never heard on her lips before. _She loved this
man_!--this mean wretch, who had lived upon her and betrayed
her, and, having got from her all she had to give, was probably
just about to cast her off into the abyss which yawns for such
women as Louie. He had thought of her flight to him before as the
frenzy of a nature which must have distraction at any cost from the
unfamiliar and intolerable weight of natural grief.

But this!--one moment it cut the roots from hope, the next it
nerved him to more vigorous action.

'You cannot have him,' he said, steadily and sternly. 'I have
listened to the talk here for your sake--he is already on the point
of deserting you--everyone else in this place knows that he is
tired of you--that he is unfaithful to you.'

She dropped into her chair with a groan. Even her energies were
spent--she was all but fainting--and her miserable heart knew, with
more certainty than David himself did, that all he said was true.

Her unexpected weakness, the collapse of her strained nerves,
filled him with fresh hopes. He came close to her again and
pleaded, by the memory of her child, of their father--that she
would yield, and go away with him at once.

'What should I do'--she broke in passionately, her sense of
opposition of absurdity reviving her, 'when I get to your hateful
Manchester? Go to church and say my prayers! And you? In a week or
two, I tell you, you would be sick of having soiled your hands with
such _mud_ as I am.'

She threw herself back in her chair with a superb gesture, and
folded her arms, looking him defiance.

'Try me,' he said quietly, while his lip trembled. 'I am not as I
was, Louie. There are things one can only learn by going
down--down--into the depths of sorrow. The night before Lucy
died--she could hardly speak--she sent you a message: "I wish I had
been kinder--ask her to come to Manchester when I am gone." I have
not seen her die--not seen her whole life turn to love--through
such unspeakable suffering--for nothing. Oh Louie--when we submit
ourselves to God--when we ask for His life--and give up our
own--then, and then only, there is peace--and strength. We
ourselves are nothing--creatures of passion--miserable--weak--but
in Him and through Him--'

His voice broke. He took her cold hand and pressed it tenderly. She
trembled in spite of herself, and closed her eyes.

'_Don't_--I know all about that--why did the child die? There
is no God--nothing. It's just talk. I told Him what I'd do--I vowed
I'd go to the bad, for good and all--and I have. There--let me
alone!'

But he only held her hand tighter.

'No I--never! Your trouble was awful--it might well drive you
mad. But others have suffered, Louie--no less--and yet have
believed--have hoped. It is not beyond our power--for it has been
done again and again!--by the most weak, the most miserable. Oh!
think of that--tear yourself first from the evil life--and you,
too, will know what it is to be consoled--to be strengthened. The
mere effort to come with me--I promise it you!--will bring you
healing and comfort. We make for ourselves the promise of eternal
life, by turning to the good. Then the hope of recovering our dear
ones--which was nothing to us before--rises and roots itself in our
heart. Come with me,--conquer yourself,--let us begin to love each
other truly, give me comfort and yourself--and you will bear to
think again of Cecile and of God--there will be calm and peace
beyond this pain.'

His eyes shone upon her through a mist. She said no more for a
while. She lay exhausted and silent, the tears streaming once more
down her haggard cheeks.

Then, thinking she had consented, he began to speak of arrangements
for the journey--of the possibility of getting across the forest.

Instantly her passion returned. She sprang up and put him away from
her.

'It is ridiculous, I tell you--_ridiculous!_ How can I decide
in such an instant? You must go away and leave me to think.'

'No,' he said firmly, 'my only chance is to stay with you.'

She walked up and down, saying wild incoherent things to herself
under her breath. She wore the red dress she had worn at
Manchester--now a torn and shabby rag--and over it, because of the
cold, a long black cloak, a relic of better days. Her splendid
hair, uncombed and dishevelled, hung almost loose round her head
and neck; and the emaciation of face and figure made her height and
slenderness more abnormal than ever as she swept tempestuously to
and fro.

At last she paused in front of him.

'Well, I dare say I'll go with you,' she said, with the old
reckless note. 'That fiend thinks he has me in his power for good,
he amuses himself with threats of leaving _me_--perhaps I'll
turn the tables.... But you must go--go for an hour. You can
find out about a carriage. There will be an old woman here
presently for the house-work. I'll get her to help me pack. You'll
only be in the way.'

'You'll be ready for me in an hour?' he said, rising reluctantly.

'Well, it don't look, does it, as if there was much to pack in this
hole!' she said with one of her wild laughs.

He looked round for the first time and saw a long bare studio,
containing a table covered with etcher's apparatus and some blocks
for wood engraving. There was besides an easel, and a picture upon
it, with a pretentious historical subject just blocked in, a tall
oak chair and stool of antique pattern, and in one corner a stand
of miscellaneous arms such as many artists affect--an old flintlock
gun or two, some Moorish or Spanish rapiers and daggers. The north
window was half blocked by snow, and the atmosphere of the place,
in spite of the stove, was freezing.

He moved to the door, loth, most loth, to go, yet well aware, by
long experience, of the danger of crossing her temper or her whims.
After all, it would take him some time to make his arrangements
with the landlord, and he would be back to the moment.

She watched him intently with her poor red eyes. She herself opened
the door for him, and to his amazement put a sudden hand on his
arm, and kissed him--roughly, vehemently, with lips that burnt.

'Oh, you fool!' she said, 'you fool!'

'What do you mean?' he said, stopping. 'I believe I _am_ a
fool, Louie, to leave you for a moment.'

'Nonsense! You are a fool to want to take me to Manchester, and I
am a fool to think of going. There:--if I had never been born!--oh!
go, for God's sake, go! and come back in an hour. I _must_
have some time, I tell you--' and she gave a passionate stamp--'to
think a bit, and put my things together.'

She pushed him out, and shut the door. With a great effort he
mastered himself and went.

He made all arrangements for the two-horse sledge that was to take
them to Fontainebleau. He called for his bill, and paid it. Then he
hung about the entrance to the forest, looking with an unseeing eye
at the tricks which the snow had been playing with the trees, at
the gleams which a pale and struggling sun was shedding over the
white world--till his watch told him it was time.

He walked briskly back to the cottage, opened the outer door, was
astonished to hear neither voice nor movement, to see nothing of
the charwoman Louie had spoken of--rushed to the studio and
entered.

She sat in the tall chair, her hands dropping over the arms, her
head hanging forward. The cold snow-light shone on her open and
glazing eyes--on the red and black of her dress, on the life-stream
dripping among the folds, on the sharp curved Algerian dagger at
her feet. She was quite dead. Even in the midst of his words of
hope, the thought of self-destruction--of her mother--had come upon
her and absorbed her. That capacity for sudden intolerable despair
which she had inherited, rose to its full height when she had
driven David from her--guided her mad steps, her unshrinking hand.

He knelt by her--called for help, laid his ear to her heart, her
lips. Then the awfulness of the shock, and of his self-reproach,
the crumbling of all his hopes, became too much to bear.
Consciousness left him, and when the woman of whom Louie had spoken
did actually come in, a few minutes later, she found the brother
lying against the sister's knee, his arms outstretched across her,
while the dead Louie, with fixed and frowning brows, sat staring
beyond him into eternity--a figure of wild fate--freed at last and
for ever from that fierce burden of herself.

EPILOGUE

_Alas!--Alas!_

--But to part from David Grieve under the impression of this scene
of wreck and moral defeat would be to misread and misjudge a life,
destined, notwithstanding the stress of exceptional suffering it
was called upon at one time to pass through, to singularly rich and
fruitful issues. Time, kind inevitable Time, dulled the paralysing
horror of his sister's death, and softened the memory of all that
long torture of publicity, legal investigation, and the like, which
had followed it. The natural healing 'in widest commonalty spread,'
which flows from affection, nature, and the direction of the mind
to high and liberating aims, came to him also as the months and
years passed. His wife's death, his sister's tragedy, left indeed
indelible marks; but, though scarred and changed, he was in the end
neither crippled nor unhappy. The moral experience of life had
built up in him a faith which endured, and the pangs of his own
pity did but bring him at last to rest the more surely on a pity
beyond man's. During the nights of semi-delirium which followed the
scene at Barbizon, John, who watched him, heard him repeat again
and again words which seemed to have a talismanic power over his
restlessness. 'Neither do I condemn thee. Come, and sin no more.'
They were fragments dropped from what was clearly a nightmare of
anguish and struggle; but they testified to a set of character,
they threw light on the hopes and convictions which ultimately
repossessed themselves of the sound man.

Two years passed. It was Christmas Eve. The firm of Grieve & Co. in
Prince's Street was shut for the holiday, and David Grieve, a mile
or two away, was sitting over his study fire with a book. He closed
it presently, and sat thinking.

There was a knock at his door. When he opened it he found Dora
outside. It was Dora, in the quasi-sister's garb she had assumed of
late--serge skirt, long black cloak, and bonnet tied with white
muslin strings under the throat. In her parish visiting among the
worst slums of Ancoats, she had found such a dress useful.

'I brought Sandy's present,' she said, looking round her
cautiously. 'Is his stocking hung up?'

'No! or the rascal would never go to sleep to-night. He is nearly
wild about his presents as it is. Give it to me. It shall go into
my drawer, and I will arrange everything when I go to bed
to-night.'

He looked at the puzzle-map she had brought with a childish
pleasure, and between them they locked it away carefully in a
drawer of the writing-table.

'Do sit down and get warm,' he said to her, pushing forward a
chair.

'Oh no! I must go back to the church. We shall be decorating till
late to-night. But I had to be in Broughton, so I brought this on
my way home.'

Then Sandy and I will escort you, if you will have us. He made me
promise to take him to see the shops. I suppose Market Street is a
sight.'

He went outside to shout to Sandy, who was having his tea, to get
ready, and then came back to Dora. She was standing by the fire
looking at an engagement tablet filled with entries, on the
mantelpiece.

'Father Russell says they have been asking you again to stand for
Parliament,' she said timidly, as he came in.

'Yes, there is a sudden vacancy. Old Jacob Cherritt is dead.'

'And you won't?'

He shook his head.

'No,' he said, after a pause. 'I am not their man; they would be
altogether disappointed in me.'

She understood the sad reverie of the face, and said no more.

No. For new friends, new surroundings, efforts of another type, his
power was now irrevocably gone; he shrank more than ever from the
egotisms of competition. But within the old lines he had recovered
an abundant energy. Among his workmen; amid the details now
fortunate, now untoward of his labours for the solution of certain
problems of industrial ethics; in the working of the remarkable
pamphlet scheme dealing with social and religious fact, which was
fast making his name famous in the ears of the England which thinks
and labours; and in the self-devoted help of the unhappy,--he was
developing more and more the idealist's qualities, and here and
there--inevitably--the idealist's mistakes. His face, as middle
life was beginning to shape it--with its subtle and sensitive
beauty--was at once the index of his strength and his limitations.

He and Dora stood talking a while about certain public schemes that
were in progress for the bettering of Ancoats. Then he said with
sudden emphasis:

_'Ah!_ if one could but jump a hundred years and see what
England will be like! But these northern towns, and this northern
life, on the whole fill one with hope. There is a strong social
spirit and strong individualities to work on.'

Dora was silent. From her Churchwoman's point of view the prospect
was not so bright.

'Well, people seem to think that co-operation is going to do
everything,' she said vaguely.

'We all cry our own nostrums,' he said, laughing; 'what co-operation
has done up here in the north is wonderful! It has been the making
of thousands. But the world is not going to give itself over wholly
to committees. There will be room enough for the one-man-power at
any rate for generations to come. What we want is leaders; but
leaders who will feel themselves "members of one body," instruments
of one social order.'

They stood together a minute in silence; then he went out to the
stairs and called: 'Sandy, you monkey, come along!'

Sandy came shouting and leaping downstairs, as lithe and handsome
as ever, and as much of a compound of the elf and the philosopher.

'I _know_ Auntie Dora's brought me a present,' he said,
looking up into her face,--'but father's locked it up!'

David chased him out of doors with contumely, and they all took the
tram to Victoria Street.

Once there, Sandy was in the seventh heaven. The shops were ablaze
with lights, and gay with every Christmas joy; the pavements were
crowded with a buying and gaping throng. He pulled at his father's
hand, exclaiming here and pointing there, till David, dragged
hither and thither, had caught some of the boy's mirth and
pleasure.

But Dora walked apart. Her heart was a little heavy and dull, her
face weary. In reality, though David's deep and tender gratitude
and friendship towards her could not express themselves too richly,
she felt, as the years went on, more and more divided from him and
Sandy. She was horrified at the things which David published, or
said in public; she had long dropped any talk with the child on all
those subjects which she cared for most. Young as he was, the boy
showed a marvellous understanding in some ways of his father's
mind, and there were moments when she felt a strange and dumb
irritation towards them both.

Christmas too, in spite of her Christian fervour, had always its
sadness for her. It reminded her of her father, and of the
loneliness of her personal life.

'How father would have liked all this crowd!' she said once to
David as they passed into Market Street.

David assented with instant sympathy, and they talked a little of
the vanished wanderer as they walked along, she with a yearning
passion which touched him profoundly.

He and Sandy escorted her up the Ancoats High Street, and at last
they turned into her own road. Instantly Dora perceived a little
crowd round her door, and, as soon as she was seen, a waving of
hands, and a Babel of voices.

'What is it?' she cried, paling, and began to run.

David and Sandy followed. She had already flown upstairs; but the
shawled mill-girls, round the door, flushed with excitement,
shouted their news into his ear.

'It's her feyther, sir, as ha coom back after aw these years--an
he's sittin by the fire quite nat'ral like, Mary Styles says--and
they put him in a mad-house in furrin parts, they did--an his
hair's quite white--an oh! sir, yo mun just goo up an look.'

Pushed by eager hands, and still holding Sandy, David, though half
unwilling, climbed the narrow stairs.

The door was half open. And there, in his old chair, sat Daddy, his
snow-white hair falling on his shoulders, a childish excitement and
delight on his blanched face. Dora was kneeling at his feet, her
head on his knees, sobbing.

David took Sandy up in his arms.

'Be quiet, Sandy; don't say a word.'

And he carried him downstairs again, and into the midst of the
eager crowd.

'I think,' he said, addressing them, 'I would go home if I were
you--if you love her.'

They looked at his shining eyes and twitching lips, and understood.

'Aye, sir, aye, sir, yo're abeawt reet--we'st not trouble her, sir.'

He carried his boy home, Sandy raining questions in a tumult of
excitement. Then when the child was put to bed he sat on in his
lonely study, stirred to his sensitive depths by the thought of
Dora's long waiting and sad sudden joy--by the realisation of the
Christmas crowds and merriment--by the sharp memory of his own
dead. Towards midnight, when all was still, he opened the locked
drawer which held for him the few things which symbolised and
summed up his past--a portrait of Lucy, by the river under the
trees, taken by a travelling photographer, not more than six weeks
before her death--a little collection of pictures of Sandy from
babyhood onwards--Louie's breviary--his father's dying letter--a
book which had belonged to Ancrum, his vanished friend. But though
he took thence his wife's picture, communing awhile, in a passion
of yearning, with its weary plaintive eyes, he did not allow
himself to sink for long into the languor of memory and grief. He
knew the perils of his own nature, and there was in him a stern
sense of the difficulty of living aright, and the awfulness of the
claim made by God and man on the strength and will of the
individual. It seemed to him that he had been 'taught of God'
through natural affection, through repentance, through sorrow,
through the constant energies of the intellect. Never had the
Divine voice been clearer to him, or the Divine Fatherhood more
real. Freely he had received--but only that he might freely give.
On this Christmas night he renewed every past vow of the soul, and
in so doing rose once more into that state and temper which is
man's pledge and earnest of immortality--since already, here and
now, it is the eternal life begun.

THE END

End of Project Gutenberg's The History of David Grieve, by Mrs. Humphry Ward


groaning under the oppression of their masters, that the government
could not withstand the popular excitement, and at the opening of
summer rushed into war.

It was a rash step. Servia has less than a million and a half of
souls; and its army is very small, although, by calling out all the
militia, it mustered into the field a hundred thousand men. It hoped
to anticipate success by a rapid movement. A large force at once
crossed the frontier into Turkey, in order to make that country the
battle-ground of the hostile armies. The movement was well planned,
and if carried out by veteran troops, might have been successful. But
the raw Servian levies were no match for the Turkish regular army; and
as soon as the latter could be moved up from Constantinople, the
former were sacrificed. In the series of battles which followed, the
Turks were almost uniformly successful; forcing back the Servians over
the border, and into their own country, where they had every advantage
for resistance; where there were rivers to be crossed, and passes in
the hills, and fortresses that might be defended. But with all these
advantages the Turkish troops pressed on. Their advance was marked by
wasted fields and burning villages, yet nothing could resist their
onward march, and but for the delay caused by the interposition of
other powers, it seemed probable that the campaign would end by the
Turks entering in triumph the capital of Servia and dictating terms of
peace, or rather of submission, within the walls of Belgrade.

This is a terrible disappointment to those sanguine spirits who were
so eager to urge Servia into war, and who apparently thought that her
raw recruits could defeat any Turkish army that could be brought
against them. The result is a lesson to the other discontented
provinces, and a warning to all Europe, that Turkey, though she may be
dying, is not dead, and that she will die hard.

This proof of her remaining vitality will not surprise one who has
seen the Turks at home. Misgoverned and ruined financially as Turkey
is, she is yet a very formidable military power--not, indeed, as
against Russia, or Germany, or Austria, but as against any second-rate
power, and especially as against any of her revolted provinces.

Her troops are not mere militia, they are trained soldiers. Those that
we saw in the streets of Constantinople were men of splendid physique,
powerful and athletic, just the stuff for war. They are capable of
much greater endurance than even English soldiers, who must have their
roast beef and other luxuries of the camp, while the Turks will live
on the coarsest food, sleep on the ground, and march gayly to battle.
Such men are not to be despised in a great conflict. In its raw
material, therefore, the Turkish army is probably equal to any in
Europe. If as well disciplined and as well _commanded_, it might be
equal to the best troops of Germany.

So far as equipment is concerned, it has little to desire. A great
part of the extravagance of the late Sultan was in the purchase of the
most approved weapons of war, which seemed needless, but have now
come into play. His ironclads, no doubt, were a costly folly, but his
Krupp cannon and breech-loading rifles (the greater part made in
America) may turn the scale of battle on many a bloody field.

Further, these men are not only physically strong and brave; not only
are they well disciplined and well armed; but they are inflamed with a
religious zeal that heightens their courage and kindles their
enthusiasm. That such an army should be victorious, however much we
may regret it, cannot be a matter of surprise.

As the result of this campaign, however calamitous, was merely the
fortune of war, gained in honorable battle; whatever sorrow it might
have caused throughout Europe, it could not have created any stronger
feeling, had not events occurred in another province, which kindled a
flame of popular indignation.

Before the war began, indeed before the death of the Sultan, fearing
an outbreak in other provinces, an attempt had been made to strike
terror into the disaffected people. Irregular troops--the Circassians
and Bashi Bazouks--were marched into Bulgaria, and commenced a series
of massacres that have thrilled Europe with horror, as it has not been
since the massacre of Scio in the Greek revolution. The events were
some time in coming to the knowledge of the world, so that weeks
after, when inquiry was made in the British Parliament, Mr. Disraeli
replied that the government had no knowledge of any atrocities; that
probably the reports were exaggerated; that it was a kind of irregular
warfare, in which, no doubt, there were outrages on both sides.

Since then the facts have come to light. Mr. Eugene Schuyler, lately
the American Secretary of Legation at St. Petersburg, and now Consul
in Constantinople, has visited the province, and, as the result of a
careful inquiry, finds that not less than twelve thousand men, women,
and children (he thinks fifteen thousand) have been massacred. Women
have been outraged, villages have been burnt, little children thrown
into the flames. That peaceful province has been laid waste with fire
and slaughter.

The report, coming from such a source, and accompanied by the fullest
evidence, created a profound sensation in England. Meetings were held
in all parts of the country to express the public indignation; and not
only at the brutal Turks, but at their own government for the light
and flippant way in which it had treated such horrors: the more so
that among the powers of Europe, England was the supporter of Turkey,
and thus might be considered as herself guilty, unless she uttered her
indignant protest in the name of humanity and civilization.

But why should the people of Christian England wonder at these things,
or at any act of violence and blood done by such hands? The Turk has
not changed his nature in the four hundred years that he has lived, or
rather _camped_, in Europe. He is still a Tartar and half a savage.
Here and there may be found a noble specimen of the race, in some old
sheik, who rules a tribe, and exercises hospitality in a rude but
generous fashion, and who looks like an ancient patriarch as he sits
at his tent door in the cool of the day. Enthusiastic travellers may
tell us of some grand old Turk who is like "a fine old English
gentleman," but such cases are exceptional. The mass of the people are
Tartars, as much as when they roamed the deserts of Central Asia. The
wild blood is in them still, with every brutal instinct intensified by
religion. All Mussulmans are nursed in such contempt and scorn of the
rest of mankind, that when once their passions are aroused, it is
impossible for them to exercise either justice or mercy. No tie of a
common humanity binds them to the rest of the human race. The
followers of the Prophet are lifted to such a height above those who
are not believers, that the sufferings of others are nothing to them.
If called to "rise and slay," they obey the command without the
slightest feeling of pity or remorse.

With such a people it is impossible to deal as with other nations.
There is no common ground to stand upon. They care no more for
"Christian dogs," nor so much, as they do for the dogs that howl and
yelp in the streets of Constantinople. Their religious fanaticism
extinguishes every feeling of a common nature. Has not Europe a right
to put some restraint on passions so lawless and violent, and thus to
stop such frightful massacres as have this very year deluged her soil
with innocent blood?

The campaign in Servia is now over. An armistice has been agreed upon
for six weeks, and as the winter is at hand, hostilities cannot be
resumed before spring. Meanwhile European diplomacy will be at work to
settle the conflict without another resort to arms. Russia appears as
the protector and supporter of Servia. She asks for a conference of
the six powers--England, France, Italy, Germany, Austria, and
Russia--a conference to decide on the fate of Turkey, yet _from which
Turkey shall be excluded_. Already intimations are given out of the
nature of the terms which Russia will propose. Turkey has promised
reform for the protection and safety of her Christian populations. But
experience has proved that her promises are good for nothing. Either
they are made in bad faith, and are not intended to be kept, or she
has no power to enforce them in the face of a fanatical Mohammedan
population. It is now demanded, in order to secure the Christian
population absolute protection, that these reforms shall be carried
out under the eye of foreign commissioners in the different provinces,
_supported by an armed force_. This is indeed an entering wedge, with
a very sharp edge too, and driven home with tremendous power. If
Turkey grants this, she may as well abdicate her authority over her
revolted provinces. But Europe can be contented with nothing less, for
without this there is absolutely no safety for Christians in any
lands cursed by the rule of the Turk.

It is quite probable that the negotiations will issue in some sort of
autonomy for the disaffected provinces. This has been already granted
to Wallachia and Moldavia (which have been united under the name of
Roumania), the result of which has been to bring quietness and peace.
It has been granted to Servia. Their connection with the Porte is only
nominal, being limited to the payment of an annual tribute; while even
this nominal dependence has the good effect of warning off other
powers, such as Austria and Russia, from taking possession. If this
same degree of independence could be extended to Bulgaria and to
Bosnia and Herzegovina, there would be a belt of Christian states,
which would be virtually independent, drawn around Turkey, which would
confine within smaller space the range of Moslem domination in Europe.

And yet even that is not the end, nor will it be the final settlement
of the Eastern question. That will not be reached until some other
power, or joint powers, hold Constantinople. That is the eye of the
East; that is the jewel of the world; and so long as it remains in the
hands of the Turks, it will be an object of envy, of ambition, and of
war.

The late Charles Sumner used to say that "a question is never
_settled_ until it is settled _right_;" and it cannot be right that a
position which is the most central and regal in all the earth should
be held forever by a barbarian power.

There is a saying in the East that "where the Turk comes the grass
never grows." Is it not time that these Tartar hordes, that have so
long held dominion in Europe, should return into the deserts from
which they came, leaving the grass to spring up from under their
departing feet?

But some Christian people and missionaries dread such an issue,
because they think that it is a struggle between the Russian and the
Turk, and that if the Turk goes out the Russian must come in. But is
there no other alternative? Is there not political wisdom enough in
all Europe to make another settlement, and power enough to enforce
their will? England holds Malta and Gibraltar, and France holds
Algeria: cannot both hold Constantinople? Their combined fleets could
sweep every Russian ship out of the Black Sea, as they did in the
Crimean war. Drawn up in the Bosphorus, they could so guard that
strait that no Russian flag should fly on the Seraskier or Galata
towers. Why may not Constantinople be placed under the protection of
all nations for the common benefit of all? But for this, the first
necessity is that the Turk should take himself out of the way.

This, I believe, will come; but it will not come without a struggle.
The Turks are not going to depart out of Europe at the first
invitation of Russia, or of all Europe combined. They have shown that
they are a formidable foe. When this war began, some who had been
looking and longing for the destruction of Turkey thought this was the
beginning of the end; enthusiastic students of prophecy saw in it "the
drying up of the Euphrates." All these had better moderate their
expectations. Admitting that the _final end_ will be the overthrow of
the Mohammedan power in Europe, yet this end may be many years in
coming. "The sick man" is _not dead_, and he will not die quietly and
peacefully, as an old man breathes his last. He will not gather up his
feet into his bed, and turn his face to the wall, and give up the
ghost. He will die on the field of battle, and his death-struggles
will be tremendous. The Turk came into Europe on horseback, waving his
scimitar over his head, and he will not depart like a fugitive, "as
men flee away in battle," but will make his last stand on the shores
of the Bosphorus, and fall fighting to the last. I commend this sober
view to those whose minds may be inflamed by reading of the atrocities
of the present war, and who may anticipate the march of events. The
end will come; but we cannot dictate or even know, the time of its
coming.

That end, I firmly believe, will be the exodus of the Turks from
Europe. Not that the people as a body will depart. There is not likely
to be another national migration. The expulsion of a hundred thousand
of the conquering race of the Osmanlis--or of half that number--may
suffice to remove that imperious element that has so long kept the
rule in Turkey, and by its command of a warlike people, been for
centuries the terror of Europe. But the Turkish power--the power to
oppress and to persecute, to kill and destroy, to perpetrate such
massacres as now thrill the world with horror--must, and _will_, come
to an end.

In expressing this confident opinion, I do not lay claim to any
political wisdom or sagacity. Nor do I attach importance to my
personal observations. But I _do_ give weight to the judgment of those
who have lived in Turkey for years, and who know well the government
and the people: and in what I say I only reflect the opinion of the
whole foreign community in Constantinople. While there I questioned
everybody; I sought information from the best informed, and wisdom
from the wisest; and I heard but one opinion. Not a man expressed the
slightest hope of Turkey, or the slightest confidence in its
professions of reform. One and all--Englishmen and Americans,
Frenchmen and Germans, Spaniards and Italians--agreed that it was past
saving, that it was "appointed to die," and that its removal from the
map of Europe was only a question of time.

So ends the year 1876, leaving Europe in a state of uncertainty and
expectancy--fearing, trembling, and hoping. The curtain falls on a
year of horrors; on what scenes shall the new year rise? We are in the
midst of great events, and may be on the eve of still greater. It may
be that a war is coming on which will be nothing less than a
death-struggle between the two religions which have so long divided
the lands that lie on the borders of Europe and Asia, and one in
which the atrocities now recorded will be but the prelude to more
terrible massacres until the vision of the prophet shall be fulfilled,
that "blood shall come up to the horses' bridles." But looking through
a long vista of years, we cannot doubt the issue as we believe in the
steady progress of civilization--nay, as we believe in the power and
justice of God.

We may not live to see it, and yet we could wish that we might not
taste of death till our eyes behold that final deliverance. Is it mere
imagination, an enthusiastic dream, that anticipates what we desire
should come to pass?

It may be that we are utterly deceived; but as we look forward we
think we see before many years a sadly impressive spectacle. However
the tide of battle may ebb and flow, yet slowly, but steadily, will
the Osmanlis be pushed backward from those Christian provinces which
they have so long desolated and oppressed, till they find themselves
at last on the shores of the Golden Horn, forced to take their
farewell of old Stamboul. Sadly will they enter St. Sophia for the
last time, and turn their faces towards Mecca, and bow their heads
repeating, "God is God, and Mohammed is his prophet." It would not be
strange that they should mourn and weep as they depart. Be it so! They
came into that sacred temple with bloodshed and massacre; let them
depart with wailing and sorrow. They cross the Bosphorus, and linger
under the cypresses of Scutari, to bid adieu to the graves of their
fathers; then bowing, with the fatalism of their creed, to a destiny
which they cannot resist, they turn their horses' heads to the East,
and ride away over the hills of Asia Minor.


float. Then he brought down one end of Jonas's magnet very near the
point of the needle. It attracted it. Then he brought it down very near
the eye of the needle. It attracted the eye too. Then he turned the
magnet, and tried the other end, and he found that that end also would
attract both the eye and the point of the needle.

"Try the magnetized needle, and see if that will attract it too," said
Rollo's mother.

Then Rollo's father took the magnetized needle from the corner again,
and brought the two ends of that, one after another, near to the ends of
the needle upon the float. It attracted them just as Jonas's magnet had
done, only a great deal more feebly.

"So, you see that this needle is really a little magnet, just like
Jonas's great one."

"Only there is no proof that it has the two different kinds of magnetism
in the two ends," said Rollo's mother.

"We can easily show that," said his father. He asked Dorothy to get
another saucer full of water, while he prepared another float. Then he
put the magnetized needle upon the new float, leaving the unmagnetized
one upon the old float. They both looked almost precisely alike, each
upon its own little disc of cork in its saucer of water.

"There," said he, "you cannot see any difference between them; but there
is a great deal of difference between them; for one is only a common
needle of steel, but the other has its two extremities magnetic in
opposite ways."

To prove this, Rollo's father brought one end of the bar to the _point_
of the magnetized needle, and the point was repelled. He brought it then
to the _eye_ of the same needle, and it attracted it. Then he brought
the same end of the bar, first to the point, and then to the eye of the
unmagnetic needle, and it attracted them both; so it was evident that
there was a considerable difference, in reality, between the condition
of the two, though there was no difference in external appearance.

"Now you see, from all this," added Rollo's father, "that when a magnet
touches a piece of steel, like a needle, it immediately makes it a
magnet itself; that is, it makes the two ends magnetic, one having one
kind of magnetism, and the other the other kind; and then, if you take
two magnets, and bring those two poles which have the same magnetism
together, they repel one another; and if you bring those together which
have different magnetisms, they attract each other."

"How do you know that they are the same magnetisms that repel, and
different that attract?" said Rollo's mother.

"I will show you," said his father.

Then he took the needles that he had used off from their floats, and
laid them away. He took next two new needles, exactly of a size, and he
held them together between his thumb and finger, with the eyes
projecting together. Then he rubbed them once or twice upon the end of
Jonas's magnet, saying,

"There, you see I use both of these needles alike. Of course the eyes
have both the same magnetisms. Now you will find that when I put one of
them upon the float, and then bring the eyes together, they will repel
each other; but an eye and a point will attract. So two points will
repel."

"But you have not magnetized the points," said Rollo's mother.

"Yes," said his father. "When we magnetize one end, the other end
becomes magnetized, itself, in the contrary way."

So he put one of the needles upon the float, and then brought the eye of
the other down very near to its eye. It was repelled, as he had said it
would be. He then brought the two points together, and they were
repelled. But if he brought an eye towards a point, or a point towards
an eye, they were attracted.

"This is the end of my lecture," said he, "for to-night."

"O, father," said Rollo, "a little more."

"No more to-night, only to recapitulate," said he.

"Recapitulate? what is that?"

"Why, tell you, briefly, the substance of what I have explained, so that
you may remember it."

"Well, father," said Rollo.

"In the first place, a magnet has a peculiar and mysterious attractive
power for iron, residing in its two extremities, which are called _its
poles;_ and the power which resides in one extremity is, in some way or
other, opposite in its nature to that of the other extremity. Each of
these poles repels a pole like itself, and attracts one different from
itself, in any other magnet."

Poor Nathan could not understand this grave, philosophical disquisition
very well, and he began to get pretty sleepy. He had, however, been
somewhat amused, during the greater part of the time, in seeing the
corks float about upon the water, with the needles upon them. So his
father took the needles off, and let him have the two floats in one of
the saucers to play with, a few minutes, while Dorothy put the other
things away. He asked her to put all the things away together, so that
they could get them ready the next evening, and then he said that
perhaps he would give them another lecture.

INTELLECTUAL PHILOSOPHY

Rollo's father gave one or two other lectures upon magnetism, in the
course of which Rollo found out a good deal about the subject; and,
having learned from his father's explanations that any magnet, when
balanced freely, would point to the north and south, that is, one end to
the north and the other to the south, he determined to try the
experiment. He accordingly poised a needle carefully upon a cork, as his
father had done in his lecture, and put it in a basin of water upon the
platform. But he did not succeed very well. The needle would always
swing round, and turn its point towards the garden gate; but Rollo knew
very well that the garden gate was not north from the platform. He
remembered that the North Star was over the barn, for he and Jonas had
noticed it particularly when they had made the dial. The needle,
therefore, ought to have pointed towards the barn, according to his
father's lecture; but it would not. Rollo took up a straw, and pushed
the point of the needle round, and said, "Point there! point there, I
tell you!" But all in vain. The needle would not heed either his pushing
or his commands; but, as soon as he let it go, it would immediately
swing back into its old position, where it pointed towards the garden
gate.

Rollo was just about giving up in despair, when he saw his sister Mary
coming in from the garden gate, with a book under her arm.

"O Mary," said he, "what shall I do? My needle won't point right."

"Why, what is the matter with it?" said Mary.

"It will point over towards the garden," said Rollo; "look."

So Mary came up, and looked at his needle. She saw that it was pointing
towards the garden gate.

"Now I'll push it away," said Rollo, "and you will see that it comes
directly back again."

So he took up his straw, and pushed the point of the needle away. The
cork moved, turning round rapidly, until at length it swung away
towards one side of the basin, and then suddenly drifted up against the
side, and stuck there.

"That's another plague," said Rollo. "It will run up to the side of the
basin, and stick there."

"What makes it?" said Mary.

"I don't know," said Rollo.

Mary sat down upon the platform, and examined the needle and the surface
of the water very carefully. She observed that the water was heaped up a
little against the side of the basin, all around. She asked Rollo to
observe it.

"Yes," said he, "and the needle and cork run right up that ridge of
water."

"And the bubbles too," said Mary.

Mary pointed, when she said this, to several little bubbles which were
adhering closely to the side of the basin, in another place.

She took up a little straw, and pushed away some of the bubbles from the
side of the basin, and then gently moved them back again until they were
pretty near, and observed that they would immediately rush up against
the side again. She did not understand this phenomenon, especially as
the water was raised a little along the edge by the side of the basin,
so that the bubbles and the needle actually appeared to rush up hill.

After examining this for some time, Mary moved the cork float, with the
needle upon it, back into the middle of the basin, and then left it to
itself. It slowly moved around until it pointed to the garden gate, as
it had done before.

"Now what is the reason?" said Rollo; "that isn't north."

Mary looked upon it very attentively for a few minutes in silence, and
then said, suddenly,

"O, I see."

"What?" said Rollo.

She did not answer, but pointed down to the platform by the side of the
basin.

Rollo looked where she pointed, and saw the hammer lying there. He had
had it to play with a short time before, and, when he brought the basin
of water, he had laid it down by his side.

"What?" said Rollo.

"The hammer attracts the needle," replied Mary.

"The hammer?" said Rollo.

"Yes," replied Mary. "Don't you know that iron attracts the needle, and
it will not point to the north if there is any iron near to draw it
away?"

Rollo was just going to take the hammer up, but Mary stopped him,
saying,

"Wait a moment. Let me take it away slowly, and see the effect."

So Mary told Rollo to watch the needle, while she carefully drew the
hammer away.

Rollo did so. He and Mary both watched the needle. It was pointing
pretty nearly toward the hammer, and when Mary gently moved the hammer
away, the needle, released from the influence which the iron exerted
upon it, slowly moved back towards the direction of the barn, that is,
the direction of a north and south line, which is called the meridian.

"It's going back! it's going back!" said Rollo.

Mary said nothing, but watched it carefully. The needle swung beyond the
direction of the meridian a little way, and then came slowly back
again. So it continued vibrating from one side to the other, though to a
less and less distance every time. Finally, it came to a state of rest;
but it was not then, however, exactly in the meridian.

"What makes it swing so, back and forth?" said Rollo.

"I don't know exactly," said Mary. "I suppose the force that it moves
with, carries it a little beyond, and then it is drawn back again, and
that makes the oscillations."

"Oscillations?" said Rollo, inquiringly.

"Yes. They call this swinging back and forth, _oscillating_; and each
movement is an oscillation."

"Is that the name of it?" said Rollo.

"Yes," said Mary. "When you tie a little stone to a string, and hold the
upper end of the string still, and let the stone swing back and forth,
it makes oscillations."

"I mean to try it," said Rollo.

"Yes," said Mary; "and I will help you by and by, after I have studied
my philosophy lesson."

"Your philosophy lesson?" asked Rollo. "Have you got a philosophy lesson
to get?"

"Yes," said Mary, "in that great book."

So Rollo took up Mary's book, which she had laid down upon the platform
near Rollo's apparatus. He found that the title of it was "Intellectual
Philosophy."

"Intellectual Philosophy?" said Rollo; "and what sort of philosophy is
_intellectual_ philosophy?"

"It is the philosophy of the _mind_," replied Mary. "It explains to us
about the thoughts and feelings of our minds."

"Are there any _experiments_ in intellectual philosophy?" asked Rollo.

"Yes," said Mary, "we can try experiments in intellectual philosophy."

"What experiments?" said Rollo.

"Why, there is a question whether we always dream when we are asleep."

"_I_ do," said Rollo, "every night."

"Yes, but perhaps not all night long."

"Yes, I do," said Rollo. "I have good long dreams."

"But," replied Mary, "you may dream several hours in the night, so as to
remember good long dreams in the morning, and yet perhaps you might have
been, for some time, perfectly sound asleep, so as not to have any
dreams in your mind at all. Some persons think we dream all the time
when we are asleep, and others think we don't dream all the time. Now we
might contrive some experiments to decide the question."

"How?" said Rollo.

"Why, you and I might agree to wake each other up several times, from a
sound sleep, and then, if we were dreaming at that time, we should
probably remember it."

"Well," said Rollo, "let us try it."

"That would be an experiment in intellectual philosophy," said Mary.

Rollo determined to try the experiment; and then he took Mary's book,
and asked her where her lesson was that day. She found the place, and
Rollo read a little. He could not understand it very well, and so he
concluded that he would rather have Mary go and study her lesson, and
then come down and help him make the experiments of oscillation.

Mary accordingly took her book and went in, and left Rollo at his play.

OSCILLATIONS.

In about an hour, Mary came down into the yard in pursuit of Rollo, in
order to try the experiments which she had proposed.

When Rollo saw her coming, he left his play, and ran to meet her.

"Well, Mary," said he, "have you come to make the oscillations?"

"Yes," said Mary. "I have brought some thread for strings, and I want
you to get some pebble stones--some large, and some small ones."

Rollo went for the pebble stones, while Mary looked about for a suitable
place for making the experiments. In a corner of the yard there was a
bench under a tree, and the branches came down pretty low. Mary thought
that this would be a good place, for she could tie her strings to these
branches with the pebbles hanging down below; and she and Rollo could
watch the oscillations, while seated upon the bench.

Mary took her station here, and Rollo presently appeared, with the crown
of his cap half filled with pebble stones. Mary said they would do
finely. She poured them out upon the bench by her side, and Rollo put
his cap upon his head again.

"Now, Rollo," said she, "we will study the art of experimenting."

"No," said Rollo, "we are going to study oscillation."

"Yes," replied Mary; "the experiments are to be on oscillations; but
what I want principally to teach you, is, the proper way to make
experiments."

"Well," said Rollo.

Mary said no more, but she proceeded to tie a small pebble to the end of
one of the long threads which she had brought out with her. Then she
tied the other end of the thread to the branch of the tree, which was
over her head. The pebble then hung down before them, so that both Rollo
and herself could plainly see all its motions.

"The first thing," said Mary, "is to get a clear idea of the nature of
the oscillation, for we must know what we are experimenting about."

So saying, Mary carefully took hold of the suspended pebble stone, and
began to draw it off towards one side. She showed Rollo that, as it was
confined by its string above, it must move in a curved line when she
drew it away from its place, rising higher and higher the farther it was
drawn away. And when she had drawn it out to a considerable distance, to
one side, it was at a much higher level, than when it hung down freely
in its natural position.

"Now," said Mary, "you see that if I let it go, it will descend of
course as much as it can, for the earth draws it downwards."

"The earth draws it?" said Rollo.

"Yes," said Mary. "The reason why things fall is that they are
attracted, or drawn down, by the earth. Now the earth draws the pebble.
It _would_ go straight towards it, if it could; but the string confines
it, and so it can only go down in the same way that it came up; that is,
by the curved line."

Mary then held one of her hands open at the place where the pebble had
hung when it had been at liberty, and let go the pebble, which she had
been holding with the other. It fell down in the curved line, or arc, as
Mary had said it would, until it struck her hand, and there it stopped
and remained at rest.

"What did you stop it for?" said Rollo.

"So that we could see and attend to one part of the phenomenon at a
time," said Mary; "that is, the _descent_ of the pebble. You see the
attraction of the earth causes the pebble to go down if it can, and the
confinement of the string prevents its going down in any other way than
in that curve or arc. For the string keeps it always just its own length
from the branch, and so that makes the curved line the arc of a circle."

"Yes," said Rollo, "I understand."

Then Mary drew up the pebble once or twice more, and let Rollo see it
fall against her hand. Rollo observed that it was a very regular arc.

"Now we see," continued Mary, "that I hold my hand so as to stop the
pebble stone at the lowest point to which it can go; for I hold it
exactly under the point where the upper end of the string is fastened to
the tree. Now I will take my hand away, and then let the pebble fall,
and we will see what takes place."

So Mary took her hand away, and let the pebble fall freely. It descended
as before through the arc, and then, by the force which it acquired in
moving so far, it was propelled beyond the lowest point, and ascended in
another curve, upon the other side, similar to the first. When the force
was expended, it came back again; and thus it swung to and fro, several
times, and at length came almost to a state of rest.

"There," said Mary, "those are the oscillations we are going to
experiment upon."

"Yes," said Rollo.

"And first," said Mary, "we notice that they are regular."

So she swung the pebble again; and as it moved to and fro, she counted
the oscillations aloud, beating time with her hand, down and up, thus,--

"One,--two,--three,--four," &c. Rollo perceived that they were very
regular.

"Now, first we will endeavor to ascertain by our experiments," said
Mary, "what the _time_ of the vibrations depends upon."

"Well," said Rollo.

"You see," continued Mary, "it swings back and forth with a certain
degree of rapidity. Now we want to know what this rapidity depends
upon, and then we could make a pendulum so that it would oscillate
faster or slower, just as we pleased."

"A pendulum?" asked Rollo.

"Yes," said Mary, "we call it a _pendulum_. Any heavy body hung in this
manner, so as to swing back and forth by its weight, is called a
_pendulum_. So that we are experimenting upon the oscillations of a
pendulum."

"Yes," said Rollo, "I understand."

"Now the question which we are going to examine," said Mary, "is, what
the rapidity of the vibrations depends upon."

"O, it depends upon the bigness of the pebble," said Rollo.

"How do you know?" said Mary.

"Why, of course, a bigger pebble will be heavier, and will fall quicker,
and that will make it vibrate faster."

"That is _reasoning_ about it," said Mary, "and what we want to do, now,
is to _experiment_. Now, in order to decide it by experiment, we must
try two pendulums, one with a small pebble, and the other with a large
one."

"Very well," said Rollo, "we will; and then we shall see that the big
one will vibrate the quickest."

"Let us think, first, what other circumstances there are, that it may
depend upon."

"I can't think of any thing else," said Rollo.

"Why, there is the nature of the body which we suspend. A piece of cork
may oscillate differently from a piece of stone."

"Yes," said Rollo, "it will oscillate slower."

"We must not decide," said Mary, "in our own minds, before we try the
experiment. We must leave our minds free to observe the facts, and wait
until we make the experiment, before we come to any conclusion, or else
we shall not be good experimenters."

"Why not?" said Rollo.

"Because," said Mary, "when persons make up their minds beforehand what
the facts will be, they are very apt not to observe fairly. So good
observers or experimenters always take care to keep their minds free and
unbiassed."

"Well," said Rollo, "and what else is there that the oscillations may
depend upon?"

"The length of the string," replied Mary.

"O yes," said Rollo, "it may depend upon that."

"Let us see," continued Mary. "There are three experiments we have
already proposed; a large and a small pebble; a pebble and a cork; a
long and a short string; and now there is one more,--a long and short
arc."

"How?" said Rollo.

"Why, if I draw up the weight, which forms the pendulum, pretty high, it
will swing back and forth through a long arc. But if I move it only a
little way, it will swing through only a short arc, and _that_ may make
a difference in the length of the vibrations."

"Well," said Rollo, "and now let us try."

"First, let us see whether we have got all the apparatus we want. Here
are strings and pebbles,--only we want a cork."

"I'll go and get one," said Rollo.

So Rollo went off towards the house to get the cork. In a few minutes he
came back, saying,

"I have got the cork. Now how shall we begin?"

"First," replied Mary, "we will try what effect the weight of the pebble
will have upon the oscillations."

"Very well," said Rollo.

"Now, in order to test that," added Mary, "we must take two pebble
stones, of different sizes, and hang them together, by strings of the
same kind, and of the same length; and then we must set them a-going
exactly together, and then watch the oscillations. You see that as they
will be alike in every respect, excepting the size of the pebble stones,
whatever difference there is in the mode of vibration will probably be
caused by the difference in the size of the stones."

"Is that the way they do it?" said Rollo.

"Yes," replied Mary. "Whenever we want to know what effect any one
circumstance produces, in such a case, we always arrange two experiments,
making them very different in respect to the circumstance which we wish
to examine, and as nearly alike as possible in all other respects."

"I think that is a very good way," said Rollo.

"Yes," replied Mary, "I think it is an excellent way."

While Mary was thus explaining her plan to Rollo, she was going on
steadily with preparations, Rollo standing all the time by her side,
looking on with great interest. Mary selected two pebbles. One was as
big as a walnut, and the other about as big as an egg. She tied two of
her threads to these stones, one to each, and then tied the other ends
of these threads to a small branch of the tree which extended
horizontally over their heads. They hung down about two feet. She took
care so to adjust the strings, as to have the centres of the stones as
nearly as possible on a level.

"The big one is twice as large, and so it will go twice as fast," said
Rollo.

"We shall see," said Mary.

She then drew them both carefully out a little way on one side, and
holding them there steadily a moment, she let them go. They immediately
began to swing back and forth, together.

After a few oscillations, however, the large stone began to gain a
little upon the other, and seemed to be moving faster. Presently it had
gained half an oscillation, i. e. when the large one was moving forward,
the small one would be coming back.

"The big one moves the fastest," said Rollo.

"Not much," said Mary.

"No," said Rollo, "not much."

"And I don't think it is owing to the difference in the bigness of the
stones."

"What else can it be?" said Rollo. "They are exactly alike in all other
respects."

"Not exactly," said Mary. "We have made them as nearly alike as we
could, but not exactly. There may be a good many little differences that
we do not observe. But if the size of the stone would cause any
difference in the vibrations, I should think it would make a much
greater difference, for one is twice as big as the other."

"Let us try a _very_ big stone," said Rollo.

"Well," said Mary.

So Rollo got a stone as large as an orange, which was as heavy a one as
Mary thought the thread would hold; and Mary suspended that from the
branch of the tree, and then swung it in company with the two others.
They all went very nearly together at first, though there was evidently
a slight difference, which, in a short time, separated the oscillations,
so that the stones did not keep together; while yet they each swung back
and forth, in nearly the same time. Rollo and Mary both concluded, from
the result of this experiment, that the size of the vibrating body did
not perceptibly affect the rapidity of the vibrations.

"Now," said Mary, "we will try different lengths of string."

So she began to look over Rollo's pebbles, to find two as nearly as
possible alike.

"The pebble stones must be of the same size, this time, for we want the
two pendulums to be alike in all respects, except the length of the
string, for that is the circumstance which we are now going to consider.
We will have one string twice as long as the other."

Mary found two pebbles very nearly equal in size, and similar in shape.
She tied them to two strings, making one string twice as long as the
other. She suspended them as before, and then, taking hold of one with
one hand, and the other with the other, she drew them out to the same
distance on one side, and let them go. The short one began at once to
swing back and forth very quick, while the other followed quite slowly.

"That makes a difference," said Rollo, clapping his hands.

"It goes twice as fast," said Mary.

"More than twice as fast," said Rollo, "I think."

"Let us see," said Mary.

They set them vibrating again; but they did not succeed in ascertaining
whether the short one went more or less than twice as fast as the other.
The two motions, so rapid and so near together, confused them. At
length, Mary proposed that Rollo should count the vibrations of the long
pendulum, while she counted those of the short one, and when she had got
up to twenty, she said they would both stop, and then Rollo could tell
how many he had got in the same time. But this plan, though apparently a
very simple one, they found it somewhat difficult to put into practice.
Mary's pendulum puzzled Rollo's counting, and Rollo, who could not count
very well without at least whispering the numbers, puzzled Mary, and so
pretty soon they gave it up.

Rollo then said that he meant to try a very short pendulum indeed, and
he asked Mary to tie one up for him, not more than an inch in length.
She, however, said that it would not be necessary to tie it to the
branch; but, instead of that, she took hold of the string of one of the
pebbles which was already hanging before them, about an inch above the
pebble itself, and then set the pebble in motion; and they were both
very much interested in observing how quick it vibrated to and fro.

Rollo then wanted to try a very long one, and proposed that he should
climb up into the tree, and tie the end of the string to a high branch.
But Mary was afraid that he would fall; and besides, she said that the
pendulum would not swing clear of the branches below. She, however,
immediately thought of the chamber window, and said that she would try
it there. She accordingly went up into her chamber, taking a large
pebble stone with her, and Rollo remained below to set the pendulum in
motion, when it should be ready. Mary soon appeared at the window, and
Rollo watched her while she tied her pebble to the end of a thread.

"Have you got your thread long enough?" said Rollo. "It will take a
good long thread to reach away down here."

"It is a whole spool of cotton," said Mary. And, so saying, she held up
in her hand the spool, to the thread of which she was tying her pebble
stone.

When it was secured, she slowly let it down, until it reached Rollo's
hand, which was held up from below, ready to receive it. Mary then held
the thread steady above, at a little distance out from the window, while
Rollo took the stone along the side of the house, three or four feet
from the place where it would naturally hang. He then let it go, and it
swung back very slowly.

"O, how slow!" said Rollo.

"Yes," said Mary, "it is very slow, indeed."

"I wish you had gone up to the garret window," said Rollo.

"O, this will do very well," said Mary.

Rollo determined to see how many he could count while the stone made one
oscillation to and fro. He counted sixteen.

Mary then said she was tired of experimenting, and so she should not
come down again. She, however, asked Rollo to set the pendulum
swinging, and that then she would draw the thread in, and he could see
that it would go faster and faster, the farther she drew it up, for that
would make the string grow shorter and shorter.

Rollo did so; and this was the end of the experiments on oscillations.

TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES

The following corrections have been made to the text:

Page 14: She looked on with a good deal{original omitted this word} of
interest

Page 32: "What is satiety, father?"{original had a single quotation mark
instead of the double one}

Page 88: Then he stirred{original had stirrred} it about with his hand

Page 122: he took hold of the flower-pot with both his hands, and slid
it suddenly off of the seat.{the original had a footnote here, See
Frontispiece. The frontispiece however relates to a different chapter
(Pruning) and so the footnote has been removed}

Page 149: and the small end{original had and} of the magnet would draw
the point of the needle