Chapter VIII.

Inhabitant of the Moon, Anthropophagian or Hobgoblin?--The Lacedemonian Stew of Madame Dacier--Utile Dulci--Tête-à-tête between Willis and his Pipe--Tobacco versus Birch--Is it for Eating?--Mosquitoes--The Alarm--Toby--The Nocturnal Expedition--We've got him.

Some days passed without anything having occurred to ruffle the tranquil existence of the island families. Every morning the elite of the sea and land forces continued to divide themselves into three squadrons of observation; one of which remained at Rockhouse on some pretext or other, whilst the other two were occupied in exploring the country, or in carrying on the works at Falcon's Nest.

The mysterious stranger, whether shipwrecked seaman, savage, or hobgoblin, who kept all the bearded inhabitants of Rockhouse on the alert, had reappeared in his old quarters, where another litter of leaves had been miraculously strewn exactly in the same place the former had occupied.

Beyond this, however, and sundry gashes here and there--of which Fritz's knife was clearly guilty, but which could not have been perpetrated without an accomplice--nothing had transpired to enable them to arrive at a satisfactory conclusion as to who or what this personage could be.

Though the hypothesis was highly improbable, still Willis persisted in his theory of the shipwreck; he only doubted whether the individual on shore was a marine or the cabin-boy, an officer or a foremast man, and, if the latter, whether it was Bill, Tom, Bob, or Ned.

Ernest rather inclined to think that the invisible stranger was an inhabitant of the moon, who, in consequence of a false step, had tumbled from his own to our planet.

The warlike Fritz was impatient and irritated. He would over and over again have preferred an immediate solution of the affair, even were it bathed in blood, rather than be kept any longer in suspense.

Frank, on the contrary, took a metaphysical view of the case; and, believing that Providence had not entirely dispensed with miracles in dealing with the things of this world, came to the conclusion that it was no earthly visitor they had to deal with; and he even went so far as to hint that prayer was a more efficacious means of solving the mystery than the methods his brothers were pursuing.

Jack, coinciding in some degree with Ernest, shifted his view from an ape to an anthropophagian, and blamed the latter for not coming earlier; when he and his brothers were younger, and consequently more tender, they would have made a better meal, and been more easily digested.

As to what opinion Becker himself entertained, with regard to the occurrence at Falcon's Nest that kept his sons in a feverish state of anxiety, and had awakened all the fears of the Pilot for the safety of his friends on board the Nelson, nothing could be clearly ascertained; in so far as this matter was concerned he kept his own counsel; and, to use an expression of Madame de Sevigne, "had thrown his tongue to the dogs."

The close of the day had, as usual, collected all the members of the family round the domestic hearth; and it may be stated here that Mrs. Wolston, Mary, and Mrs. Becker alternately undertook the preparations of the viands for the diurnal consumption of the community. By this means, uniformity, that palls the appetite, was entirely banished from their dishes. One day they would have the cooked, or rather half-cooked, British joints of Mrs. Wolston and her daughter, varied occasionally, to the great delight of Willis, with a tureen of hotch-potch or cocky-leekie. The next there would be a display of the cosmopolite and somewhat picturesque cookery of Mrs. Becker; there was her famous peccary pie, with ravansara sauce, followed by her delicious preserved mango and seaweed jelly. Nor did she hesitate to draw upon the raw material of the colony now and then for a new hash or soup, taking care, however, to keep in view the maxim that prudence is the mother of safety--an adage that was rather roughly handled by the renowned French linguist, Madame Dacier, who, on one occasion nearly poisoned her husband with a Lacedemonian stew, the receipt for which she had found in Xenophon.

Luckily Becker's wife did not know Greek, consequently he ran no risk of being entertained with a classic dinner; but he was often reminded by his thoughtful partner of Meg Dod's celebrated receipt: before you cook your hare, first--catch it.

Sophia desired earnestly to have a share in the culinary government; but having shown on her first trial, too decided a leaning towards puddings and pancakes, her second essay was put off till she became more thoroughly penetrated with the value of the eternal precept utile dulci, which signifies that, before dessert it is requisite to have something substantial.

As soon as they had finished their afternoon meal, Willis departed on one of his customary mysterious excursions; and Jack, who, like the birds that no sooner hop upon one branch than they leap upon another, had also disappeared. It was not long, however, before he made his appearance again; he came running in almost out of breath, and cried at the top of his voice,

"I have discovered him!"

"Whom?" exclaimed half a dozen voices.

"The inhabitant of the moon?" inquired Ernest.

"No."

"I know," said Sophia playfully, "your go-cart and my doll."

"No, I have discovered Willis' secret."

"If you have been watching him, it is very wrong."

"No, father; seeing some thin columns of smoke rising out of a thicket, I thought a bush was on fire; but on going nearer, I saw that it was only a tobacco-pipe."

"Was the pipe alone, brother?"

"No, not exactly, it was in Willis' mouth; and there he sat, so completely immersed in ideas and smoke, that he neither heard nor saw me."

"That he does not smoke here," remarked Becker, "I can easily understand; but why conceal it?"

"Ah," replied Mrs. Wolston, "you do not know Willis yet;--beneath that rough exterior there are feelings that would grace a coronet: he is, no doubt, afraid of leading your sons into the habit."

"That is very thoughtful and considerate on his part."

"He was always smoking on board ship, and it must have been a great sacrifice for him to leave it off to the extent he has done lately."

"Then we shall not allow him to punish himself any longer; and as for the danger of contagion from his smoking here, that evil may perhaps be avoided."

"Do not be afraid, father; it will not be necessary to establish either a quarantine or a lazaretto on our account."

"Besides, any of the boys," said Mrs. Becker, "that acquire the habit, will, by so doing, voluntarily banish themselves from my levees."

"It is an extraordinary habit that, smoking," observed Mrs. Wolston.

"Yes," said Becker; "and what makes the habit more singular is, that it holds out no allurements to seduce its votaries. Generally, the path to vice, or to a bad habit, is strewn with roses that hide their thorns, but such is not the case with smoking; in order to acquire this habit, a variety of disagreeable difficulties have to be overcome, and a considerable amount of disgust and sickness must be borne before the stomach is tutored to withstand the nauseous fumes."

"In point of fact," observed Wolston, "if, instead of being made part and parcel of the appliances of a fashionable man, cigars and meershaums were classed in the pharmacopoeia with emetics and cataplasms, there is not a human being but would bemoan his fate if compelled to undergo a dose."

"Just so," added Becker; "the great and sole attraction of tobacco to young people consists in its being to them a forbidden thing; the apple of Eve is of all time--it hangs from every tree, and takes myriads of shapes. If I had the honor of being principal of a college I should no more think of forbidding the pupils to use tobacco than I should think of commanding them not to use the birch for purposes of self-chastisement."

"Perhaps you would be quite right."

"Instead of lecturing them on the pernicious effects of tobacco, I should hang up a pipe of punishment in the class-room, and oblige offending pupils to inhale a fixed number of whiffs proportionate to the gravity of their delinquency."

"An excellent idea," observed Wolston; "for it is often only necessary to show some things in a different light in order to give them a new aspect and value. This puts me in mind of an illustration in point; these two girls, when children, were the parties concerned, and I will relate the circumstance to you."

"In that case," said Mary, "I shall go and feed the fowls."

"And I," said Sophia, "must go and water the flowers."

"Oh, then," cried Jack laughing, "it is another doll story, is it?"

"No, Master Jack, it is not a doll story; and, besides, we girls were no bigger at the time than that."

On saying this Sophia placed her two hands about a foot and a half from the floor and then the two girls vanished.

"When Mary was about six years old," began Wolston, "a slight rash threatened to develope itself, and the doctor ordered a small blister to be applied to one of her arms. Now, there was likely to be some difficulty about getting her to submit quietly to this operation, so, after an instant's reflection, I called both her and her sister, and told them that the most diligent of the two should have a vesicatory put on her arm at night. 'Oh,' cried both the girls quite delighted, 'it will be me, papa, I shall be so good. Mamma, mamma--such a treat--papa has promised us a vesicatory for to-night!'"

"That was simplicity itself," said Mrs. Becker, laughing till the tears came into her eyes.

"The day passed, the one endeavoring to excel the other in the quantity of leaves they turned over; and, from time to time, I heard the one asking the other in a low voice, 'Have you ever seen a vesicatory? What is it made of? Is it for eating? And each in turn regarded her arms, to judge in advance the effect of the marvellous ornament."

"I should like much to have seen them."

"Night came, and I declared gravely that the eldest was fairly entitled to the prize. The latter jumped about with joy, and Sophia began to cry. 'Don't cry,' said Mary, 'if you are good, papa will, perhaps, give you one to-morrow, too,' Then the joyful patient, turning to me, said, 'On which arm, papa?' and I told her that the ceremony of placing it on must take place when she was in bed. To bed accordingly she went, the ornament was applied, she looked at it, was pleased with it, thanked me for it, and fell asleep as happy as a queen. But, alas! like that of many queens, the felicity did not last long; before morning, I heard her saying to her sister, in a doleful tone, 'Soffy, will you have my vesicatory?' 'Oh, yes, just lend it to me for a tiny moment.' At this I hurried to the spot, and, as you may readily suppose, opposed the transfer."

"Poor Sophia!"

"Yes; she was quite heart-broken, and said, sobbing, 'It is always Mary that gets everything, nobody ever gives anything to me.'"

Next day, Willis laid hold of his sou'-wester, and was starting off on his customary pilgrimage, when Becker stopped him.

"Willis," said he, "have you any objections to state what the engagements are, that require you to leave us at pretty much the same hour every day?"

"I merely go for a walk, Mr. Becker."

"Ah!"

"You see I require to take a turn just after dinner for the sake of my health."

"A habit that you contracted on board ship; eh, Willis?"

"On board ship; yes Mr. Becker, that is to say--"

"Just so," observed Mrs. Wolston; "and by the way, Willis, I regret that you do not smoke now; they say there is plenty of tobacco on the island."

"Smoke!" cried Willis, raising his ears like a war-horse at the sound of the trumpet, "why so, Mrs. Wolston?"

"Because we are dreadfully tormented with those horrid mosquitoes, and you might help us to get rid of them. You smoked at sea, did you not?"

"Yes, madam; but then my constitution--"

"Bah!" said Wolston, "I thought you were as strong as a horse, Willis."

"Well, I have no cause to complain neither; but then they say tobacco would kill even a horse."

"Of course, Willis, your health is a most necessary consideration."

"Still for all that, if the mosquitoes really do annoy Mrs. Wolston, I should have no objection to take a whiff now and then."

"You must not put yourself about though, on our account, Willis."

"About; no, it would not put me about."

"Very good; then it only remains to be seen whether there is a pipe in the colony."

"Ah," said Willis, feeling his pockets, "yes, exactly--here is one."

"Curious how things do turn up, isn't it, Willis?" said Becker; "but the mosquitoes would not be frightened away by the smoke, if applied at long intervals, so you will have to repeat the dose at least two or three times every day, always supposing it does not affect your constitution."

"Sailors, you see," replied Willis, "are like chimneys, they always smoke when you want them, and sometimes a great deal more than you want them," And on turning round, he beheld Sophia holding a light, and a good-sized case of Maryland, which had been preserved from the wreck.

Ever after that time the mosquitoes had a most persevering enemy in Willis; and, notwithstanding his health, his daily walks entirely ceased.

For some time the Pilot and the four young men passed the night in a tent erected about midway between Rockhouse and the Jackal River. The apparent reason for this modification of their plans was the greater facility it afforded for their all meeting at daybreak, breakfasting together, and setting out for Falcon's Nest before the temperature reached ninety degrees in the shade, which junction could not be so easily effected with one party encamped at Rockhouse and the other bivouacked on Shark's Island, with an arm of the sea between them.

The real motive, however, was that all might be within hail of each other, and prepared for every emergency, in the event of the stranger appearing in a more palpable shape, and assuming a hostile attitude. We say the stranger, because, judging from the indications, there was only one--still that did not prove that there might not be several.

One night, as Fritz was lying with one eye open, he observed Mary's little black terrier suddenly prick up the fragments of its ears, and begin sniffing at the edge of the tent. This shaggy little cur was called Toby; it had accompanied the Wolstons on their voyage, and was Mary's exclusive property; but Fritz had found the way to the animal's heart as usual through its stomach, and Mary was in no way jealous of his attentions to her favorite, but rather the reverse.

Fritz, feeling convinced by the actions of the dog, which was of the true Scotch breed, that something extraordinary was passing outside the tent, seized his rifle, hastened out, and was just in time to distinguish a human figure on the opposite bank of the Jackal River, which, on seeing him, took to its heels and disappeared in the forest.

He was soon joined by the Pilot and his brothers; the dogs leaped about them, and the alarm became general throughout the encampment. Fritz re-established order, enjoined silence, and said,

"I am determined this time to follow the affair up; who will accompany me?"

"I will!" said all the four voices at once.

"Scouting parties ought not to be numerous," said Fritz; "I will, therefore, take Willis, in case this mystification has anything to do with the Nelson."

"And me," said Jack, "to serve as a dessert, in case the individual should turn out to be an anthropophagian."

"Be it so; but no more. Frank and Ernest will remain to tranquilize our parents, in case we should not return before they are up."

"And if so, what shall we say?"

"Tell them the truth. We shall proceed direct to Falcon's Nest; and if the stranger--confiding in our habit of sleeping during the night--be there as usual, we shall do ourselves the honor of helping him to get up."

"Providing he does not nightly change his quarters like Oliver Cromwell--not so much to avoid enemies, as to calm his uneasy conscience."

"Well, we shall be no worse than before; we shall have tried to restore our wonted quietude, and, if we fail, we can say, like Francis I. at Pavia, 'All is lost except our honor.'"

Some minutes after this conversation, three shadows might have been seen stealing through the glades in the direction of Falcon's Nest. Nothing was to be heard but the rustling of the leaves--the deafened beating of the sea upon the rocks--and, to use the words of Lamartine, "those unknown tongues that night and the wind whisper in the air." The trees were mirrored in the rays of the moon, and the ground, at intervals, seemed strewn with monstrous giants; their hearts beat, not with fear, but with that feverish impatience that anticipates decisive results.

When they arrived at the foot of the tree on which the aerial dwelling was situated, Fritz opened the door, and resolutely, but stealthily, ascended.

Willis and Jack followed him with military precision.

They reached the top of the staircase, and held the latch of the door that opened into the apartment.

A train of mice, in the strictest incognito, could not have performed these operations with a greater amount of secretiveness. On opening the door they stood and listened.

Not a sound. Jack fired off a pistol, and the fraudulent occupier of the room instantly started up on his feet. Fritz rushed forward, and clasped him tightly round the body.

"Ho, ho, comrade," said he, "this time you do not get off so easily!"

Chapter IX.

The Chimpanzee--Imperfect Negro, or Perfect Ape--The Harmonies of Nature--A Handful of Paws--A Stone Skin--Seventeen Spectacles on one Nose--Animalculæ--Pelion on Ossa--Ptolemy--Copernicus to Galileo--Metaphysics and Cosmogonies--A live Tiger.

"The chimpanze or chimpanzee," says Buffon, the French naturalist, "is much more sagacious than the ourang outang, with which it has been inaccurately confounded; it likewise bears a more marked resemblance to the human being; the height is the same, and it has the same aspect, members, and strength; it always walks on two feet, with the head erect, has no tail, has calves to its legs, hair on its head, a beard on its chin, a face that Grimaldi would have envied, hands and nails like those of men, whose manners and habits it is susceptible of acquiring."

Buffon knew an individual of the species that sat demurely at table, taking his place with the other guests; like them he would spread out his napkin, and stick one corner of it into his button-hole just as they did, and he was exceedingly dexterous in the use of his knife, fork, and spoon. Spectators were not a little surprised to see him go to a bed made for him, tie up his head in a pocket-handkerchief, place it sideways on a pillow, tuck himself carefully in the bed-clothes, pretend to be sick, stretch out his pulse to be felt, and affect to undergo the process of being bled.

The naturalist adds that he is very easily taught, and may be made a useful domestic servant, at least as regards the humbler operations of the kitchen; he promptly obeys signs and the voice, whilst other species of apes only obey the stick; he will rinse glasses, serve at table, turn the spit, grind coffee, or carry water. Add to his virtues as a domestic, that he is not much addicted to chattering about the family affairs, has no followers, and is very accommodating in the matter of wages.

It was neither more nor less than a chimpanzee that Fritz had caught in the dark at Falcon's Nest.

"Now then, old fellow," said he, "you will help us to clear up this mysterious affair."

The caged stranger made no reply to this observation; Willis and Jack then questioned him, the one in English and the other in French.

Still no reply.

He did not submit, however, to be interrogated quietly; on the contrary, his struggles to get away were most vigorous, so much so that Fritz adopted the precaution of binding him.

"If it had been one of our sailors," said Willis, "he would have recognized my voice long ago."

"Who are you?" asked one.

"Where do you come from?" inquired another.

"Do not attempt to escape," said a third.

"We mean you no harm; on the contrary, we are friends, disposed to do you good if we can."

"If all his brothers and sisters are as talkative as himself," remarked Jack, "they must be a very amusing sort of people."

"He can walk at all events," said Fritz giving him a smart push.

The chimpanzee fell flat on the floor.

"It appears, sir, that you are determined to have your own way, we must therefore wait till daylight."

An hour passed in polyglot expostulations with the stranger on the score of his obstinacy, but all to no purpose; to use a popular expression, he was as dumb as the Doges. He deigned, however, to empty at a single draught a calabash of Malaga that Willis gave him, but there his condescension stopped.

The Pilot, who now encountered mosquitoes in all directions, made preparations for smoking; the light he struck, however, instead of clearing up the mystery, only perplexed them more and more; there lay their new companion, stretched on the ground, staring at them with a ludicrous grin.

If, on the one hand, it occurred to them this man was an animal, on the other the animal was a man, and Buffon did not happen to be there at the time to assign him officially a place in the former kingdom.

The next difficulty that presented itself was, how they were to get him along; when they broke in the onagra, they ran a prong through his ear; in reducing the buffalo to subjection, they did not feel the slightest compunction in thrusting a pin through the cartilage of his nose; then, in order to give elasticity to the legs of the ostrich, they yoked him to two or three other animals, and, willing or unwilling, he was compelled ultimately to yield obedience to the lords of creation. But whether the creature before them was a lower order of negro or a higher order of ape, there was too great a resemblance between the captured and the capturers to admit of any of these methods of impulsion being adopted. It was, therefore, stretched on a plank, like a nabob in his palanquin, that the chimpanzee made his first appearance at Rockhouse.

When the cavalcade arrived there, all the family, with the exception of Ernest and Frank, were still asleep. The first thing they did was to clothe the creature they had captured in a sailor's pantaloons and jacket, with which he seemed rather pleased, and the result of this operation was, that he began to assume a less ferocious aspect, and behave more respectfully towards his captors. All the family had sat down to breakfast, when Fritz and Jack, taking him by the hands, led him gravely into the gallery. A cord was attached to his legs, allowing him to walk, but was so arranged that he could not run.

On his appearance the young girls fled at once; and, more accustomed to drawing-rooms than the rude realities of savage life, Mrs. Wolston's first impulse was to do the same.

"Goodness gracious!" she cried with an air of alarm, "what horror is that?"

"That, madam, is precisely what we have been anxious for the last two or three hours to find out," replied Fritz.

"Does the creature speak?"

"Up till now, madam," replied Willis, "he has only opened his mouth to swallow my calabash of Malaga; beyond that, he has kept as close as a purser's locker."

When the first shock had passed, and the company had regained their self-possession, Jack related, with his customary originality, the incidents of the nocturnal expedition, of which Fritz was the originator, leader, and hero. The ladies then, for the first time, were made acquainted with the doubts, fears, perplexities, and battues, which, out of gallantry, they had hitherto been kept in ignorance of. Becker then, having carefully investigated the creature, pronounced it to be (as we already know) a full-grown specimen of a kind of ape, called by the Africans "the wild man of the woods," and by naturalists the jocko or chimpanzee.

"It is naturally very savage," added Becker; "but this individual seems already to have received some degree of education."

As a proof of this, the chimpanzee seated himself amongst them very much at his ease; he scanned the faces surrounding him with an air of curiosity, and seemed to search for a particular countenance that it annoyed him not to find. Some fruit and nuts that were given him put him in excellent humor.

"He has, without doubt, been on board some ship, wrecked on the coast," said Wolston, "for I recollect having read that his kindred are only found in Western Africa and the adjacent islands; do you not recognize him, Willis, to belong to the Nelson, like the plank of the other day?"

"No, sir."

"So much the better."

"We do not ship such cattle on board his Majesty's ships," added the Pilot.

The girls, ashamed of their fear, now came peeping in at the door, and, seeing that nobody had been devoured, took refuge by the side of their mother.

"Look here, father," said Ernest, feeling the creature's crania, after having facetiously begged pardon for the liberty, "its head is precisely like our own; that is very humiliating."

"Yes, my son, but his tongue and other organs are also exactly like ours, yet he cannot utter a word. His head is of the same form and proportion, but he does not for all that possess human intelligence. Is this not a very striking proof that mere matter, though perfectly organized, neither produces words nor thought; and that it requires a special manifestation of the Divine will to call these attributes into existence?"

"True; but, father, some writers say that apes have been observed to profit by fires lighted in the forest, and have gone and warmed themselves when the travellers left."

"That, my son, is instinct, nothing more; the operation of keeping up a fire, by throwing a few branches upon it, is exceedingly simple, but their instinct has never been known to rise to that amount of intelligence."

"You recollect, father, that heathcock we saw some years ago displaying his glossy plumage to the dazzled hens; is that not a well-marked proof of coquetry? and is not this coquetry an indication of something more than mere instinct?"

"You will permit me to believe, my son, at least till the contrary has been proved, that these actions to which you refer have nothing at all to do with coquetry. Those brilliant colors are designed for a purpose other than that which you suppose; they serve as signals to keep the community together, or, in other words, they are a common centre round which the hens may revolve."

"The transition from apes to heathcocks," remarked Jack, "appears to me somewhat abrupt."

"Not so abrupt as you think, Master Jack," said Wolston; "those who take the trouble to study Nature, observe an admirable gradation and easy progression from a simple to a complex organization. There is no race or species that is not connected by a perceptible link with that which precedes and that which follows."

"What relation is there, for example," inquired Jack, "between an oyster and a horse?"

"No immediate relation certainly, but there are intermediate links by which the two are brought together: they may be regarded, however, as the opposite extremes of the brotherhood--the two poles in the chain of existence. A horse bears even less resemblance to a turnip than to an oyster; a relationship may, nevertheless, be traced, step by step, between them, dissimilar as they are. There is the polypus, that singular product of Nature, which, regarded in one light, performs all the functions of animal life, whilst, when regarded in another, it has the ordinary attributes of a plant; does this not clearly and distinctly mark the transition from the vegetable to the animal kingdom? Again, certain species of worms blend the animal with the insect tribe, those which are covered with a horny substance unite them with the crustaceae. These approach fish on the one hand, and reptiles on the other, whilst reptiles in some species become moluscs."

"And what is a molusc?" inquired Willis.

"The term molusc is applied by naturalists to creatures which have no vertebrae, as for example, the cuttle fish and the oyster."

"I believe you, Mr. Wolston; but if I had asked Ernest or Jack, they would have told me that it was a commodore or an admiral."

"Reptiles, I was going to say, are connected at one end of the chain with moluscs by the slug, and at the other with fish by the eel. From flying-fish to birds the transition is by no means abrupt. The ostrich, whose legs are like goat's, and runs rather than flies, connects birds with quadrupeds; these again return to fish through the cetacea."

"Yes, but the interval between such creatures and man is still great."

"True; to connect the two would be a process replete with insurmountable difficulties, and only possible to creative power. The projecting snout would have to be flattened, and the features of humanity imprinted upon it--that head bent upon the ground would have to be directed upwards--that narrow breast would have to be flattened out--those legs would have to be converted into flexible arms, and those horny hoofs into nimble fingers."

"To accomplish which," remarked Frank, "God had only to say, 'Let it be so.'"

"Assuredly; and as there is nothing incongruous in Nature, as everything is admirably adapted for its purpose, as unity of design is perceptible in all things, as every effect proceeds from a cause, and becomes a cause in its turn of succeeding effects, so God has willed that there should be a chain of resemblance running through all his works, and the link that connects man with the animal kingdom--the highest type of the mammiferous race, and the nearest approach to humanity amongst the brutes--is the creature before you."

As if to illustrate this position, and prove his title to the place awarded him, the chimpanzee quietly laid hold of Mr. Wolston's straw hat and stuck it on his crispy head.

"He is, perhaps, afraid of catching cold," said Jack, thrusting a mat under his feet.

"Compare birds with quadrupeds," continued Mr. Wolston, "and you will find analogies at every step. Does the powerful and kingly eagle not resemble the noble and generous lion?--the cruel vulture, the ferocious tiger?--the kite, buzzard, and crow preying upon carrion, hyenas, jackals, and wolves? Are not falcons, hawks, and other birds used in the chase, types of foxes and dogs? Is the owl, which prowls about only at night, not a type of the cat? The cormorants and herons, that live upon fish, are they not the otters and beavers of the air? Do not peacocks, turkeys, and the common barn-door fowl bear a striking affinity to oxen, cows, sheep, and other ruminating animals?"

During these remarks, Jack's monkey, Knips, had found its way into the gallery, and, observing the newcomer, went forward to accost him as if an old friend; the latter, however, uttered a menacing cry, and was about to seize Knips with evidently no amiable design, but was prevented by the cords that bound his legs. Knips leaped upon the back of one of the boys, and there, as if on the tower of an impregnable fortress, commenced making a series of grimaces at the chimpanzee, these being the only missiles within reach that he could launch at his relation. The enemy retorted, and kept up a smart fire of like ammunition.

"It appears," remarked Mrs Wolston, "that apes are something like men: the great and the little do not readily amalgamate."

"We must make them amalgamate," said Jack, taking one of Knips's paws, whilst Ernest held that of the chimpanzee; thus they compelled them to shake hands, but with what degree of cordiality we are unable to state.

"You ought to oblige them now to take an oath of fealty," said Mrs. Wolston.

"Chimpanzee," said Jack, speaking for Knips, "I promise always to treat you in future with smiles, delicacies, and respect."

"Knips," replied the wild man of the woods, through the organs of Ernest, "I promise to have for you only the most generous intentions; to share with you the nuts I may have occasion to crack, that is, by giving you the shells and keeping the kernel; I promise, moreover, not to immolate you at the altar of my just rage, unless it is impossible for me to avoid an outburst of temper."

"Now the embrace of peace."

"Ah, madam," said Jack, "you must excuse that ceremony, their friendship is too new for such intimacy, and Knips don't much like being bitten."

"Need we other proofs," remarked Becker, when the scene between the monkeys was concluded, "that everything has been premeditated, weighed, and calculated? It was necessary for that most arid country, Arabia, that we should have a sober animal, susceptible of existing a long time without water, and capable of treading the hot sands of the desert. God has accordingly given us the camel."

"And the dromedary," remarked Ernest.

"So everywhere," continued Becker; "and add to these evidences of Divine wisdom the brilliant colors, the silken furs, the golden plumage, and the ever-varying forms, yet, in all this diversity, there is unison--a harmony. Like the various objects which a clever artist introduces into his sketch, they are placed without uniformity, but still with reference to their effect upon each other, and so to the unity of the general design."

"Therefore," remarked Ernest, "we have an animal whose skin is of stone, which it throws off annually to assume a new one--whose flesh is its tail and in its feet--whose hair is found inside in its breast--whose stomach is in its head, which, like the skin, is renewed every year, the first function of the new being to digest the old one."

Here the Pilot manifested some symptoms of incredulity.

"That is not all, Willis," continued Ernest, "the animal of which I speak carries its eggs in the interior of its body till they are hatched, and then transfers them to its tail. It has pebbles in its stomach, can throw off its limbs when they incommode it, and replace them with others more to its fancy. To finish the portrait, its eyes are placed at the tip of long flexible horns."

"Do you really mean me to believe that yarn?" inquired Willis.

"Yes, Willis, unless you intend to deny the existence of lobsters."

"Lobsters! Ah! you are talking of them, are you!"

"Have not," continued Ernest, "six thousand three hundred and sixty-two eyes been counted in one beetle? sixteen thousand in a fly? and as many as thirty-four thousand six hundred in a butterfly? Of course, facets understood."

"Supposing these facets myope or presbyte," observed Jack, "that gives seventeen thousand three hundred and twenty-five pairs of spectacles on one nose!"

"How wonderfully varied are the forms of Nature. If, from the mastodon and the fossil mammoth, to which Buffon attributes five or six times the bulk and size of the elephant, we descend to those animalculae, of which Leuwenhoek estimates that a thousand millions of them would not occupy the place of an ordinary grain of sand."

Here Willis lost all patience and left the gallery, whistling as usual, under such circumstances, the "Mariner's March."

"Malesieu has detected animals by the microscope twenty-seven times smaller than a mite. A single drop of water under this instrument assumes the aspect of a lake, peopled by an infinite multitude of living creatures."

"Therefore," observed Wolston, "it is not the great works of Nature, or those of which the organization is most perfect, that alone presents to the mind of man the unfathomable mysteries of creation; atoms become to him problems, that utterly defy the utmost efforts of his intelligence."

"Which," suggested Becker, "does not prevent us believing ourselves a well of science, nor hinder us from piling Pelion on Ossa to scale the skies."

"What becomes, in the presence of these facts, of the metaphysics and cosmogonies that have succeeded each other for two thousand years? What of all the theories, from Ptolemy to Copernicus, from Copernicus to Galileo, Descartes and his zones, Leibnitz and his monads, Wolf and his fire forces, Maupertuis and his intelligent elements, Broussais, who, in his anatomical lectures, has oftener than once shown to his pupils, on the point of his scalpel, the source of thought; what, I say, becomes of all these?"

"There is less wisdom in such vain speculation than in these simple words: 'I believe in God the Father, the Creator of all things.'"

"Worlds," says Isaiah, "are, before Him, like the dew-drops on a blade of grass."

"We are now, however, getting into the clouds," remarked Wolston; "let us return to the earth by the shortest route. What do you mean to do with the chimpanzee?"

"Why, we must cage him in some way," replied Becker; "to let him loose again would be to create fresh uneasiness for ourselves. To kill him would be almost a kind of homicide."

"Can I come in now?" inquired Willis, thrusting his head into the gallery.

"Yes, with perfect safety."

"You see, when Master Ernest begins to spin, he gets into the chapter of miracles, and forgets that we have ears."

"I cannot help seeing them sometimes though, Willis; when they are a little longer than usual, it is difficult to hide them altogether."

"Well," replied Willis, "I confess I am a bit of a fool, and as you are at a loss what to do with our friend here, I shall take him over with me to Shark's Island: there will be a pair of us there then."

"If you will undertake to be his guide and instructor, he is yours, Willis."

"What shall I call him?"

"Jocko."

"It shall go hard with me if I do not make a gentleman of him in a month's time."

"I should like," said Frank, "if you could convert him into a tiger."

"A tiger?"

"Yes, we want a footman in livery to fetch Mrs. Wolston's carriage next time she calls for it."

"I feel highly flattered by the compliment," said Mrs. Wolston, "but fear you will not be able to turn him out entire."

"Why so, madam?"

"Where are the top boots to come from?"

Chapter X.

The Pioneers--Excursion to Coromandel--Hindoo Fancies--A Caged Hunter--Louis XI and Cardinal Balue--A Furlong of News--Carnage--The Baronet and his seventeen Tigers--Fifty-four feet of Celebrity--Sterne's Window--Promenade of the Consciences--Emulation and Vanity.

When a country is released from the presence of an enemy that annoyed and harassed them, the people feel as if a weight had been taken off their shoulders; so the inhabitants of New Switzerland had breathed more freely since the capture of the chimpanzee.

The works at Falcon's Nest were completed, and the two families had taken possession of their aerial dwellings, where they were perched like a pair of rookeries within call of each other.

The confined air of towns has a tendency to plunge men into lethargy and indolence, and to precipitate the decadence of a constitution in which the seeds of disease have been sown; whilst, on the other hand, the pure air of the country braces the nerves, excites a healthy action in the system, and invigorates a shattered frame; so it was with Mr. Wolston--under the benign influences of the genial climate and the refreshing sea breeze, he gradually, but steadily, recovered health and strength.

A larger breadth of land had been cleared and fitted for receiving grain, which it was susceptible of reproducing a hundred-fold. Such is the sublime contract God has made with man, that, in exchange for his labor and skill, a single grain of wheat will produce seven or eight stalks, each bearing an ear containing fifty grains; a single grain has been known to yield twenty-eight ears, and Pliny states that Nero received a grain bearing the enormous number of three hundred and sixty ears. Strange that such a singular instance of fecundity should present itself during the domination of a man, or rather monster, who dared to wish that the Roman people had only one head, so that he might cut it off at a single blow!

Willis and the Wolstons were as yet ignorant of the extent and limits of the colony; there were two inclosed and cultivated sections, named respectively Waldeck and Prospect Hill, which they had not yet inspected. With a view to enable them to form a more accurate conception of the boundaries of the territory they inhabited, a grand excursion was decided upon that would enable them leisurely to investigate every nook and cranny of the settlement.

The storehouse was accordingly overhauled, and the ladies called in to prepare viands for the journey; they were likewise invited to furnish a supply of certain enchanted travelling bags, in which the gentlemen were often astonished to find, during their distant expeditions, a thousand and one useful things that they would never have dreamt of bringing with them of their own accord.

Becker, Wolston, Ernest, and Frank set about the construction of a vehicle on four wheels for the luggage and the ladies; they did not contemplate erecting a machine with elastic springs and gilded panels, like the Lord Mayor's state coach--their object was to produce a machine that would ease, without dislocating, the limbs of the travellers, and that would move at least more gently than a gardener's cart, loaded with hampers of greens for Covent Garden Market. It may readily be supposed that Ernest's Latin was not of much service in these operations, for even Wolston's mechanical skill was sorely tried in elaborating the design.

Fritz, Willis, and Jack had already started as pioneers of the expedition to examine the buildings, and to see that no more apes or other piratical marauders had established themselves on their premises; and, in compliance with a request made by Willis, who strongly objected to becoming a bushranger, they had gone by water. It was further arranged that, on their return, all should start together--the entire community in one cavalcade, like an army on the march.

The young ladies were as much pleased in anticipation with this journey as if the destination of the travellers had been Brighton or Ramsgate. To children of their age, change is always pleasing. Often, in consequence of a death, the collapse of a bank, the loss of a law-suit, or some dire disaster of that sort, parents have seen themselves compelled to abandon the home of their fathers, endeared to them by many gentle recollections, perhaps to embark for some far distant land; they stifle their sighs, and bid a mute farewell to each stone and each tree, familiar to them as household words; they depart with reluctance, and often turn to cast a lingering look behind at objects so dear to their memory. Not so the children; they issue from the door like a flock of caged pigeons just let loose; they sing and leap and laugh with glee; the old house has no charms for them, they are as glad to depart as their elders are wishful to stay; the trunk desires to multiply its roots on the soil, but the buds prefer to blow elsewhere--for the latter life resolves itself into the word FUTURE, and for the former into the word PAST.

Leaving Wolston, Becker, and his two sons hard at work on the carriage, let us turn to the pinnace which was now making its way along the shore under the guidance of the Pilot.

"I should like much," said Fritz, "to present Mr. and Mrs. Wolston with a couple of bear, leopard, or tiger skins."

"So should I," said Jack.

"I wish you could think of some other sort of gift," suggested Willis; "what do you say to a couple of seal or shark skins?"

"Won't do," replied both Fritz and Jack in one voice. "What objections have you to the others?"

"Well, you are in some sort consigned to my care; I should like you to return to your parents with your own skins entire."

"Then you think it is a terrific affair to kill a tiger or two? You have been accustomed to the sea, and fancy landsmen are good for nothing but shooting crows and wild-cats; that is a mistake, however; we are familiar with larger game."

"Shiver my timbers! do you call bears and tigers game?"

"I am afraid, Willis, you are a bit of a milksop."

"Avast heaving there, Master Fritz! as it is, I am a half-hanged man already, so death has now no terrors Dov me; it is the first pang that is most felt."

"Yes; but in the case of tigers, they never give you time to feel a second pang; miss your aim, and it is all over with you."

"True; and therefore I wish you would give up the project. As for myself, I would face anything with a four-pounder, but rifle practice on board ship is mostly confined to the marines; it is not that, however, I am troubled about; I am certain your worthy father would never forgive me if I countenance this project."

"You need not tell him anything about it."

"Where, then, are the skins to come from? Can you say you bought them at the furrier's? You must really hit upon some other fancy."

"But it is not a fancy, Willis, it is a necessity; it is not our own amusement we are consulting. Just imagine yourself what will happen during the excursion now being arranged. Our parents will, of course, offer their bear skins to Mr. and Mrs. Wolston; there will be refusals on the one side and entreaties on the other."

"And, as is usual in these sort of discussions," added Jack, "Mrs. Wolston will call her carriage."

"Yes," continued Fritz, "and my mother will most certainly deprive herself of a covering that is absolutely indispensable during the cold nights of this climate."

"There is reason in what you say," observed Willis, scratching his ear.

"You see, Willis, the thing ought and must be done."

"As you put it, yes; but it will take time to prepare the skins."

"They will not be ready in time for this expedition certainly, and my mother must do without her skin this journey; but it is our duty to prevent anything of the sort happening in future."

"Were I to consent to this project," said Willis, "there is still something more required."

"What, Willis?"

"Why, the tigers and what's-a-names; it is necessary to find the brute before you can get its skin."

"Granted; there would be a difficulty in the case had we not here quite handy a magnificent covering of wild animals, all ready to kill or to be killed. Just steer a point to the east, Willis; there, that will do. Just beyond that bluff you see yonder, there is a low flat plain covered with brushwood and tufted with trees; on the left, this prairie is bounded by a chain of low hills, and on the right a broad river, which last we have named the St. John, because it bears some resemblance to a stream of that name in Florida; beyond this plain there is a swamp."

"And," added Jack, "behind this swamp there is a magnificent forest of cedars, peopled with the finest furs imaginable, but garnished, however, with formidable claws and rows of teeth."

"I was not aware," said Willis, "that we were within reach of such amiable neighbors."

"Oh, they cannot reach us; thanks to the conformation of that chain of hills you see yonder, there is only one pass that opens into our settlement, and that we have taken care to shut up and fortify."

"It appears then," said Willis, "that there will be no difficulty in finding the animals, but--"

"Come, Willis, no more buts; you hunt in your own way from morning till night, let us for once hunt in ours."

"I go a-hunting?"

"Yes, there you are, charging your piece just now."

"Oh, my pipe you mean; but look at the difference; mosquitoes bite human beings, they don't eat them!"

"And, you may add, their skins don't make bed-clothes. Besides, if my mother takes rheumatism or the ague, it will be you that is to blame."

"I would rather face all the tigers in Bengal and all the lions in Africa than incur such a responsibility. I will, therefore, take a part in your cruise, and if any accident happens to either of you, I shall stay in the forest till nothing is left of me but my cap and my bones. In this way I will escape all reproach in this world, and I may as well, after all, rejoin my old commander, Captain Littlestone, by this road as by any other."

In the meantime, they had reached the coast of Waldeck, and having landed, they found the outhouses and sheds that had been erected there in satisfactory order; the apes had not forgotten a battue that had once been got up for their special behoof, as not an individual was to be seen in the neighborhood. A morass of the district that had been converted into a rice plantation, promised an abundant crop; and the cotton plants, that Frank had once mistaken for flakes of snow, reared their woolly blossoms, looking for all the world like the powdered heads of our ancestors. After a slight repast, the pinnace was once more in motion, and the party steering for Prospect Hill.

"Ah," sighed Willis, "I wish we had only Sir Marmaduke Travers' cage here."

"Cage!" cried Fritz, laughing, "what, to shut up the game first and shoot it afterwards?" "No, quite the reverse: to shut up the hunters."

"Ah, you would serve us in the same way as Louis XI. served Cardinal Balue."

"I know nothing of either Louis XI. or Cardinal Balue; but the cage I speak of was an excellent invention, for all that."

"Which you would like to prove to us by caging ourselves, eh?"

"Sir Marmaduke Travers," continued Willis, "was an English gentleman, and he was travelling in Coromandel, no one knew why or for what purpose."

"For the fun of the thing, probably," suggested Jack; the English are said to be great oddities."

"At that time there happened to be a Hindoo widow somewhere in those parts. This lady was very rich, very young, very beautiful, and very fond of tormenting her admirers. And, as fate would have it, the travelling Englishman was completely taken captive by this dark beauty; and taking advantage of the hold she had obtained upon his heart, she amused herself by making him do all sorts of out of the way things. Sometimes she would bid him let his moustache grow, then she would order him to cut it off; he had to worship Brahma, adopt the fashion of the Hindoos, and had even to undergo the indignity of having his head tied up in a dirty pocket-handkerchief."

"That is to say," remarked Jack, "that the lady, not having a pug or a monkey, made Sir Marmaduke a substitute for both."

"Very likely, but still Sir Marmaduke was no fool; he was, on the contrary, a gentleman and a philosopher."

"I doubt that," said Jack.

"You are wrong, then. You have been brought up in an out of the way part of the world, and are not familiar with the usages of civilized society. When once a man has allowed the tender passion to take root in his breast, it cannot afterwards be extinguished at will; it grows and grows like an oil spot, so that what might easily have been mastered at first, makes us in time its devoted slave."

"I cannot admit," said Fritz, "that any sensible man would allow himself to be treated in the way you state."

"The wisest and bravest have often, for all that, been obliged to bend their heads to such circumstances; in fact, those only escape whose hearts have been steeled by time or adversity. Well, nothing would please the lady in one of her caprices short of Sir Marmaduke's going alone to the jungle and killing a tiger or two for her. This caused him some little uneasiness."

"I should think so," remarked Jack, "unless he had been accustomed to face the animals."

"However, the widow's hand was to be the reward of the achievement, and the thing must consequently be done. Being, however, as I have said, a bit of a philosopher, he considered with himself that if, by chance, he should perish in the attempt he would lose the widow all the same, and that he could not think of with any thing like equanimity. To extricate himself from this dilemma he sent a despatch to an enterprising friend of his, then stationed with his regiment at Calcutta, requesting his advice."

"And this friend, no doubt, sent him a couple of tigers all ready trussed?"

"No, better than that; he sent him a strong iron cage fifteen feet square, very solid. This was shipped on board a cutter commanded by Captain Littlestone, and I was entrusted with the task of erecting it on shore, whilst an express was sent off to Sir Marmaduke."

"Ah!" said Jack, "I begin to understand now."

"Well, he rigged himself in tiger-hunting costume, went and bade the lady good-bye, who coolly wished him good sport, mounted a horse, and rode off to conquer a lady who, as a proof of her affection, had so cavalierly consigned him to the tender mercies of the wild beasts."

"Why, it was dooming him to certain destruction," said Fritz.

"In the meantime the cage had been conveyed to a valley surrounded with mountains, the caves of which were known to shelter entire colonies of tigers. Here also came Sir Marmaduke. The cage was firmly embedded in the soil, the exterior was thickly studded over with sharp spikes screwed into the bars; inside were placed a table and a sofa, with crimson velvet cushions."

"A lady's boudoir in the wilderness," said Jack.

"In one corner there was a case containing a dozen bottles of pale ale, and as many of champagne; in another was a second case containing curry pies and a variety of preserved meats; in a third case were five and twenty loaded rifles, together with a complete magazine in miniature of powder and shot. On the table were sundry cases of havannahs, a box of allumettes, the last number of the Edinburgh Review, and a copy of the Times."

"What is the Times?" inquired Jack.

"It is a furlong of paper, folded up and covered with news, advertisements, and letters from the oldest inhabitant of everywhere. Leaving, then, Sir Marmaduke seated in the centre of his cage, we towards night returned to the cutter, first scattering two or three quarters of fresh beef in the vicinity of the cage."

"That should have assembled all the tigers in Coromandel," said Fritz.

"Anyhow, it brought enough. Towards midnight Sir Marmaduke could count thirty noble brutes capering in the moonlight and feasting upon the beef that had been provided for them."

"What did the Englishman do then?"

"He took aim at the most magnificent specimen of the herd and fired. No sooner had he done this than the whole pack came scampering towards the cage, thinking, doubtless, they had nothing to do but scrunch the bones of the solitary hunter. This was the signal for a regular slaughter. Sir Marmaduke discharged his rifles point blank in the noses of the animals that environed him on all sides; those who were not wounded by the balls were severely injured by the spikes of the cage in their furious efforts to seize their enemy. The howling, yelling, and fury was quite a new sensation for Sir Marmaduke; he rather enjoyed the thing whilst the excitement lasted. However, all things must have an end; when the sun appeared on the horizon the wounded retired, leaving the dead masters of the situation."

"I suppose, in the meantime," remarked Fritz, "that the amiable Hindoo was considering whether or not, under the circumstances, she should wear mourning for her defunct cavalier."

"Be that as it may, the defunct made his appearance, safe and sound, that same day, whilst the cutter stood out to sea with every vestige of the cage except the dead tigers. Shortly after, the widow was astonished to see an army of coolies marching in procession towards her door, all, like the slaves of Aladdin, heavily laden; and she was not awakened from her surprise till the master of the ceremonies had placed the following letter in her hands:

"Madam,--With this you will receive seventeen fall-grown tigers, which I have had the honour of shooting for you.

"Marmaduke Travers."

"That was a choice bijou for a lady," said Jack.

"Yes," added Fritz; "and if the ladies of Coromandel have stands in their drawing-rooms, to display the tributes to their charms, Sir Marmaduke's present afforded abundant material for adorning those of the widow."

"Well, the consequence was, that Sir Marmaduke's name rung from one end of India to the other. The feat of killing, single-handed, seventeen tigers, converted him into a hero of the first magnitude. No festival was complete without him, he was courted by the fashionables and worshipped by the mob; some enthusiasts even proposed to erect a tomb for him, that being the way they honor their great men in eastern nations."

"Every country," remarked Fritz, "has its own peculiarities in this respect. The memory of the illustrious men of Greece and Rome was perpetuated in the intrinsic merit of the works of art erected in their names. In England quantity takes the place of quality; there is said to be in London a statue of a hero disguised as Achilles, six yards in height, and perched upon a pedestal twelve yards high."

"Making in all," remarked Jack, "exactly eighteen yards of fame."

"The handsome Hindoo," continued Willis, "was proud of the feat her charms had inspired. She gloried in showing off the redoubtable tiger-slayer at her reunions, and ended in being completely fascinated herself with her former slave. The match that she had formerly sneezed at she now earnestly desired, and, as Sir Marmaduke did not declare himself so speedily as she desired, she determined to give him a little encouragement by sending one of the most inviting and most odoriferous of notes."

"Sir Marmaduke must then have considered himself one of the happiest of men," said Fritz.

"Well," continued Willis, "neither man nor woman can, in affairs of this kind, depend upon themselves for two consecutive hours. The aspirations of a whole life-time may be dispelled in five minutes, and the wishes of to-day may become the detestations of to-morrow. The new sensations awakened in Sir Marmaduke by the affair of the cage--his recollection of the ferocious brutes as they clung with expiring energy to the bars of the cage, their streaked skins streaming with blood, the fearful howling and terrific death yells, the formidable claws that were often within an inch of his face--had, somehow or other, chased the passion he had felt for the widow completely out of his breast."

"Oh, the scamp of a Travers!" said Jack, energetically.

"He began to ask himself coolly what a lady, who had made such extraordinary demands upon him before marriage, might not require him to do after; and the result of his cogitations is expressed in the following reply that he sent to the now smiling widow:--

"'Sir Marmaduke Travers is highly flattered by the charming note of the adorable daughter of Brahma; he shall gladly continue to bask in the sunshine of her smiles, out his ambition desires and will accept nothing more.'"

"Flowery and laconic," said Fritz.

"Well," inquired Willis, "was I not right in wishing to have the cage of Sir Marmaduke here?"

"Yes, but we cannot get it. We have no ingenious trend at Calcutta to send us such a machine, and furnish it with crimson-cushioned sofas and pale ale, so we shall have to rest satisfied with our own ingenuity, tact, and agility."

Fritz and Jack were justified in relying upon their own resources. They had been often sorely tried, and never had been found wanting in cases of emergency. Since the arrival of the Wolstons their courage had become almost temerity; previous to that event, they had been content to meet danger bravely when it was inevitable, and never went deliberately in search of it. Now, however, if we apply the glass of which Sterne speaks to their breasts and spy what is passing therein, we shall fad that an imperious desire to become heroes had taken possession of their inward souls--a determination to make themselves conspicuous at all hazards was burning within them; that, in fact, they were courting the admiration of the new audience that Providence had sent to the colony, the praise of which found more favor in their hearts than the paternal admonitions.

This was far from being commendable; but, although emulation and vanity have some features in common, still they must not be confounded: the former consists in generous efforts to equal or surpass some one in something praiseworthy; the second is a kind of self-love, that seeks to purchase respect or flattery at no matter what cost;--the one is a vice, the other a virtue.

Fritz and Jack were not actuated by vanity; they were urged on by their impulses, without weighing the circumstances that gave them rise; and indeed they were not even conscious of being more desirous of renown now than they had been hitherto.

The temperament of Ernest and Frank was of another kind. Their natures were much less excitable, and it did not appear that the recent arrivals had altered their outward demeanor in the slightest degree; they continued calm, staid, and reflective, as they had ever been.

All four were a singular mixture of the child and the man--knowing many things that young people are ignorant of, they were yet almost totally unacquainted with the ordinary attributes of social life--unsophisticated and naive to an extreme degree, they would have appeared in a fashionable drawing-room downright fools. On the other hand, they possessed great clearness of perception, presence of mind in danger, promptitude in action, and the utmost coolness in the face of apparently insurmountable obstacles--qualities that would have utterly confounded the young men who shine in the saloons of Europe, whose chief merit often consists in their being familiar with the unmeaning conventionalisms of fashionable life.

At Prospect Hill they found the outhouses and plantations in much the same position as at Waldeck. Here the crimson flowers of the caper plant, the white flowers of the tea plant, and the rich blossoms of the clove tree, perfumed the air and promised a fragrant harvest. This was a charming caravansary, all ready with its smiles to welcome the illustrious colonists as soon as they presented themselves.

These points being settled to the satisfaction of the three pioneers, a sheep was taken on board the pinnace at the request of Willis--who seemed to have taken a violent fancy for mutton chops--and they set sail towards the east.

In the first instance they made for a projecting head-land that seemed to bar their progress in that direction, and, much to the astonishment of the Pilot, they entered a cavern that formed the entrance to a natural tunnel. This, besides being an interesting feature in the coast scenery, was one of the treasures of the colony, for it contained vast quantities of edible birds' nests, so much prized by the Chinese. The voyagers did not, however, tarry here; these were not the objects they were now in search of. Nautilus Bay and the Bay of Pearls were likewise traversed unheeded, nor could the attractive banks of the St. John, fringed with verdant foliage, divert them from the project they had in contemplation.

Wise men, when they indulge in folly, are often more foolish than real fools; so it was with Willis: now that he had joined in the scheme, he evinced more ardor in its execution than the young men themselves. He said that it would not be enough to capture skins for Mr. and Mrs. Wolston, they must also capture one a-piece for Mary and Sophia likewise, and talked as if the adventure of Sir Marmaduke and his seventeen tigers had been a bagatelle.

Some hours before dark they landed at a spot well known to both Fritz and Jack; it was a place where Becker and his sons had some time before been engaged in deadly conflict with a herd of lions, and where one of their dogs had fallen a victim to the enraged monarchs of the forest.

"My plan," said Willis, "is to kill the sheep and place the quarters on the shore, just as bait is thrown into the water to bring the fish within the net."

"A reminiscence of Sir Marmaduke," said Jack.

"Then," continued Willis, "we shall light a fire to take the place of the sun, who is about to retire for the night. This done, I propose that we should return to the pinnace, keep the mutton within rifle range, and riddle the skins that come to feast upon it."

After some opposition on the part of Fritz and Jack, who preferred to encounter their antagonists on more equal terms, the proposal of Willis was ultimately agreed to.

Chapter XI.

On the Watch--Fecundity of Plants and Animals--Latest News from the Moon--A Death-Knell every Second--The Inconveniences of being too near the Sun--Narcotics--Willis contralto--Hunting turned upside down--Electric Clouds--Partialities of Lightning--Bells and Bellringers--Conducting Rods--The Return--The Two Sisters--Toby becomes a Dragoman.

As is usual in tropical climates, a blazing hot day was succeeded by an intensely dark night. The fire that the hunters had made on shore cast a lurid glare on the prominent objects round about. The flames, as they fitfully lit up the landscape into that dim distinctness termed by artists the chiar oscuro, made the bushes and trunks of trees appear like monsters issuing stealthily from the forest that lined the background. There seemed to be some attraction, however, elsewhere for the real monsters, not a single wild beast having as yet appeared on the scene.

The two young men were eagerly straining their eyes from the stern of the pinnace, whilst the dogs kept diligently wagging their tails in expectation of a signal for the onset. The position of Willis could be ascertained now and then by an eye of fire, which opened and shut as he inhaled or exhaled the fumes of his Maryland. The ripple beat gently on the sea-line of the boat, which oscillated with the regularity and softness of a cradle.

"It is always so," said Jack, impatiently; "if we don't want wild beasts, there are shoals of them to be seen; but if we do want them, then they are all off to their dens."

"Perhaps, there are none now," suggested Willis.

"Say rather," observed Fritz, "that there ought to be thousands; for on the one hand they multiply rapidly, and on the other there is no one to destroy them. Spaniards once left a few cattle on St. Domingo, and they increased at such a rate, that the island very soon would not have been able to support them, had they not been kept down by constant slaughter."

"Besides," remarked Jack, "the bovine race reproduce themselves more slowly than other animals; a single sow, according to a calculation made by Vauban, if allowed to live eleven years, would produce six millions of pigs."

"What a cargo of legs of pork and sides of bacon!" exclaimed Willis, laughing.

"Then fish; there are more than a hundred and sixty thousand eggs in a single carp. A sturgeon contains a million four hundred and sixty-seven thousand eight hundred and fifty, whilst in some codfish the number exceeds nine millions."

"Oh, you need not favor us with the 'Mariner's March,' Willis; what my brother says is perfectly correct."

"What, then, do these shoals of creatures live upon?"

"The big ones upon the little ones; fish devour each other."

"A beautiful harmony of Nature," remarked Fritz drily.

"Then plants," continued Jack, "are still more prolific than animals. Some trees can produce as many of their kind as they have branches, or even leaves. An elm tree, twelve years old, yields sometimes five hundred thousand pods; and, by the way, Willis, to encourage you in carrying on the war against the mosquitoes, a single stalk of tobacco produces four thousand seeds."

"The leaves, however, are of more use to me than the seeds," replied Willis.

"This admirable proportion between the productiveness of the two kingdoms demonstrates the far-seeing wisdom of Providence. If the power of multiplication in vegetables had been less considerable, the fields, gardens, and prairies would have been deserts, with only a plant here and there to hide the nakedness of the land. Had God permitted animals to multiply in excess of plants, the entire vegetation would soon have been devoured, and then the animals themselves would of necessity have ceased to exist."

"How is it, then," inquired Willis, "with this continual multiplication always going on, the inhabitants of land and sea do not get over-crowded?"

"Why, as regards man, for example, if thirteen or fourteen human beings are born within a given period, death removes ten or eleven others; but though this leaves a regular increase, still the population of the globe always continues about the same."

"It may be so, Master Jack, but when I was a little boy at school, I generally came in for a whipping, if I made out two and two to be anything else than four."

"And served you right too, Willis; but if the human family did not continually increase, if the number of deaths exceeded continually that of the births, at the end of a few centuries the world would be unpeopled."

"Very good; but if, on the other hand, there is a continual increase, how can the population continue the same?"

"Because the increase supposes a normal state; that is to say, the births are only estimated as compared with deaths from disease or old age. But then there are shipwrecks, inundations, plagues, and war, which sometimes exterminate entire communities at one fell swoop. Then whole nations die out and give place to the redundant populations of others; phenomena now observed in the cases of the aborigines of Australia and America."

"Very true."

"No signs of furs yet," cried Fritz, who was every now and then levelling his rifle at the phantoms on shore.

"We need not dread," continued Jack, "ever being hustled or jostled on the earth; life will fail us before space. There are now eight hundred millions of human beings in existence, and, according to the most moderate computation, room enough for twice that number. As it is, the most fertile sections of the earth are not the most populous; there are four hundred millions in Asia, sixty millions in Africa, forty in America, two hundred and thirty in Europe, and only seventy millions in the islands and continent of Oceanica!"

"To which," remarked Fritz, "you may add the eleven inhabitants of New Switzerland."

"Assuming, then, this calculation to be nearly accurate, though authorities vary materially in their computations of the earth's inhabitants, and regarding it in connexion with the average duration of human life, a thousand millions of mortals must perish in thirty-three years; to descend to detail, thirty millions every year, three thousand four hundred every hour, sixty every minute, or ONE EVERY SECOND."

"Aye," remarked Willis, "we are here to-day and gone to-morrow."

"Suppose, then, that the population of the earth were twice as great, cultivation would be extended, territories that are now lying waste would be teeming with life and covered with fertile fields, but the same beautiful equilibrium would be maintained."

"And the inhabitants of the planets," said Fritz, "what are they about?"

"What planets do you mean?" inquired Willis.

"Well, all in general; the moon, for example, in particular."

"The moon," replied Jack, "has, in the first place, no atmosphere. This we know, because the rays of the stars passing behind her are not, in the slightest degree, refracted; and this proves that neither men, nor animals, nor vegetables of any kind, are to be found in that planet, for they could not exist without air."

"That should settle the question," remarked Willis.

"Yes," remarked Fritz; "but some theorists, nevertheless, insist that there may be living creatures in the moon, for all that--of course, differently constituted from the inhabitants of our earth, and susceptible of existing without air. There is, however, no evidence of any kind to support such a theory; it is a mere fancy, the dream of an imaginative brain. Upon the same grounds, it may be argued, that the interior of the earth is inhabited, and that elves and gnomes are possible beings. Besides, the telescope has been brought to so high a degree of perfection, that objects the size of a house can now be detected in the moon."

"It seems, I am afraid," remarked Jack, who, like his brother, was getting annoyed by the phantasmagoria on shore, "that we were about as well supplied with wild beasts here as they are with men in the planets."

"In speaking of the moon, however," continued Fritz, "I do not imply all the planets; for, certain as we are that the moon has no atmosphere, so we are equally certain that some of the planets possess that attribute. Still there are other circumstances that render the notion of their being inhabited by beings like ourselves exceedingly improbable. Mercury, for example, is so embarrassed by the solar rays, that lead must always be in a state of fusion, and water, if not reduced to a state of vapor, will be hot enough to boil the fish that are in it. Uranus, at the other extremity of the system, receives four hundred times less heat and light than we do, consequently neither water nor any thing else can exist there in a liquid state; what is fluid on our earth must be frozen up into a solid mass. Good, I declare my brother has fallen asleep!"

"It is very--interesting--however," said Willis, making ineffectual efforts to smother a yawn.

"The same difficulty with comets; there must have been some very urgent necessity for human beings in order to have peopled them. When they pass the perihelion--"

"The what?" inquired Willis.

"The point where they approach nearest the sun--when they pass the perihelion, I was going to say, the heat they endure must be terrific; when on the other hand, at their extreme distance from that body, the cold must be intense. The comet of 1680 did not approach within five thousand myriametres of the sun."

"Friends coming within that distance of each other should at least shake hands," said Willis.

"Still, even at that distance, the heat, according to Newton, must be like red-hot iron, and if constituted like our earth, when heated to that degree, must take fifty thousand years to cool."

"Fifty thousand years!" said Willis, yawning from ear to ear.

"The central position between these extremes, which would either congeal our earth into a mass of ice or burn it up into a heap of cinders, is therefore the most congenial to such beings as ourselves. Whence I conclude--"

Here the crimson flashes of Willis's pipe, which had been gradually diminishing in brilliance suddenly ceased; contralto notes issued from the profundities of his breast, and it became evident to the orator that all his audience were sound asleep.

"Whence I conclude," said Fritz, addressing himself, "that my orations must be somewhat soporiferous."

Being thus left alone to keep a look-out on shore, his thoughts gradually receded within his own breast, where all was rose-colored and smiling, for at his age rust has not had time to corrupt, nor moths to eat away. And it was not long before he himself, like his two companions, was fast locked in the arms of sleep.

How long this state of things lasted the chronicle saith not; but the three sleepers were eventually awakened by a simultaneous howl of the dogs. They were instantly on their feet, with their rifles levelled.

It was too late; day had broken, and there was light enough to convince them that nothing was to be seen. The sheep's quarters had, however, entirely disappeared, and they had the satisfaction of knowing that they had politely given the denizens of the forest a feast gratis.

"Ah, they shall pay us for it yet," said Jack.

"This is a case of the hunters being caught instead of the game," remarked Fritz.

"The poor sheep! If Ernest had been here, he would have erected a monument to its memory."

"I doubt that; epitaphs are generally made rather to please the living than to compliment the defunct. But, Willis, we must deprive you of your office of huntsman in chief--I shall go into the forest and revenge this insult."

"I have no objection to abdicate the office of huntsman, but must retain that of admiral, in which capacity I announce to you that there will be a storm presently, and that we shall just have time to make Rockhouse before it overtakes us."

"That is rather a reason for our remaining where we are."

"We have come for skins, and skins we must have."

"Besides, we are two to one, and in all constitutional governments the majority rules."

"Have you both made up your minds?" inquired Willis.

"Yes, we are quite decided."

"In that case," said Willis, "let us hoist the anchor and be off home."

"Home! but we are determined to have the skins first."

"No, you are not," said Willis; "I know you better than you know yourselves. You are both brave fellows, but I know you would not, for all the skins in the world, have your good mother suppose that you were buffeted about by the waves in a storm."

"True; up with the anchor, Willis," said Fritz.

"Be it so," said Jack, shaking his fist menacingly at the silent forest, "but we shall lose nothing by waiting."

The sailor had not erred in his calculations, for they had scarcely unfurled the sail before they heard the distant rumbling of the storm. As soon as the first flash of lightning shot across the sky, Jack put his forefinger of one hand on the wrist of the other, and began counting one--two--three.

"Do you feel feverish?" inquired Willis.

"No, not personally," replied Jack; "I am feeling the pulse of the storm--twenty-four--twenty-five--twenty-six--it is a mile off."

"Aye! how do you make that out?"

"Very easily; you recollect Ernest telling us that light travelled so rapidly, that the time it occupied in passing from one point to another of the earth's surface was scarcely perceptible to our senses?"

"Yes, but I thought he was spinning a yarn at the time."

"You were wrong, Willis; he likewise told us that sound travels at the rate of four hundred yards in a second."

"Well, but--"

"Have patience, Willis! When the lightning flashes, the electric spark is discharged, is it not?"

"Well, I was never high enough aloft to see."

"But others have been; Newton and Franklin have seen it. Now, if the sound reaches our ears a second after the flash, it has travelled four hundred yards. If we hear it twelve or thirteen seconds after, it has travelled twelve or thirteen times four hundred yards, or about half a mile, and so on."

"But what has that to do with your pulse?"

"In the first place, I am in perfect health, am I not?"

"I hope so, Master Jack."

"Then when our systems are in good order, the pulse, keeping fractions out of view, beats once in every second; and consequently, though we do not always carry a watch, we always have our arteries about us, and may therefore always reckon time."

"Now I understand."

"Ah! then we are to escape this time without the 'Mariner's March.'"

"It appears, Master Jack, that you have turned philosopher as well as your brothers. Can you tell me what causes lightning?"

"Yes, I can, Willis. You must know, in the first place, that all the layers of the atmosphere are, more or less, charged with electricity."

"Ask him how," said Fritz drily.

"Ah, you hope to puzzle me," replied Jack, "but thanks to Mr. Wolston, I am too well up in physics to be easily driven off my perch, and therefore may safely take my turn in philosophising."

"Well, we are listening."

"The air, by means of the vapor it contains, absorbs electricity from terrestrial bodies, and so becomes a sort of reservoir of this invisible fluid. All chemical combinations evolve electricity, the air collects it and stores it up in the clouds. There, worshipful brother, your question is answered."

"Good, go on."

"Well, Willis, you must know, in the second place, the clouds are very good fellows, and share with each other the good things they possess. When one cloud meets another, the one over-supplied with this fluid and the other in its normal state, there is an immediate interchange of courtesies, the negative electricity of the one is exchanged for the positive of the other."

"There does not appear, however, to be much generosity in this transaction, since the surcharged cloud does not cede its superfluous abundance without a consideration."

"It is very rarely that philanthropy amongst us goes much further," remarked Fritz.

"No, everybody is not like Willis," rejoined Jack, "who acts like a prince, and gives legs of mutton gratis to hyenas and tigers. The discharges of electricity from one cloud to another are the flashes of lightning, and it is to be observed that the thunder is nothing more than the noise made by the fluid rushing through the air."

"What, then, is the thunderbolt?"

"There is no such thing as what is popularly understood by the term thunderbolt. The lightning itself, however, often does mischief. This happens when the discharge, instead of being between two clouds in the air, takes place between a cloud and the ground--a cloud surcharged with electricity understood. Then all intervening objects are struck by the fluid."

"There, however, you are wrong," said Fritz. "All objects are not struck; on the contrary, the fluid avoids some things and searches out others, even moving in a zig-zag direction to manifest these caprices; it often discharges itself on or into hard substances, and passes by those which are soft or feeble."

"I might say this arose from a sentiment of generosity," added Jack, "but I have other reasons to assign."

"So much the better," said Fritz, "as I should scarcely be satisfied with the first."

"Well," continued Jack, "lightning has its likings and dislikings."

"Like men and women," suggested Willis.

"It has a partiality for metal."

"An affection that is not returned, however," observed Fritz.

"If the fluid enters a room, for example, it runs along the bell wires, inspects the works of the clock, and sometimes has the audacity to pounce upon the money in your purse, even though a policeman should happen to be in the kitchen at the time."

"Perhaps," remarked Willis, "it is Socialist or Red Republican in its notions."

"It does not, however, patronise war," replied Jack; "I once heard of it having melted a sword and left the scabbard intact."

"That, to say the least of it, is improbable," remarked Fritz. "The hilt, or even the point, might have been fused; but even supposing the electric fluid to have been capable of such flagrant preference, the scabbard could not have held molten metal without being itself consumed."

"Aye," remarked Willis, "there are plenty of non-sensical stories of that kind in circulation, because nobody takes the trouble to test their truth. Still, according to your own account, a man or woman runs no danger from the lightning."

"I beg your pardon there, Willis; the electric fluid does not go out of its way to attack a human being, but if one should-happen to be in its way, it does not take time to request that individual to stand aside, it simply passes through him, and leaves him or her, as the case may be, a coagulated mass of inanimate tissues."

"What a variety of ways there are of getting out of the world!" said Willis lugubriously.

"Again," continued Jack, "anything that happens to be in the vicinity of the clouds when this interchange of courtesies is going on, is apt to draw the storm upon itself, hence the continual war that is carried on between the lightning and the steeples."

"Something like an individual coming within range of a cloud of mosquitoes," suggested Willis.

"A learned German--one of us," said the scapegrace, laughing, "calculated, in 1783, that in the space of thirty-three years there had been, to his own knowledge, three hundred and eighty-six spires struck, and a hundred and twenty bell-ringers killed by lightning, without reckoning a much larger number wounded."

"And yet," remarked Willis, "I never heard of an insurance against accidents by lightning."

"There are plenty of them, however, in Roman Catholic countries," said Fritz. "Every village has one, and the charge is almost nominal."

"How, then, do these companies make it pay?"

"They find it answer somehow, and they never collapse."

"Then everybody ought to insure."

"Yes, but there are some obstinate people who do not see the good of it."

"If my life had not already been forfeited, I should insure it. But how is it done?"

"Well, you have only to go into a church, fall down on your knees before the priest, he will make you invulnerable by a sign of the cross; then, come storms that pulverize the body or crush the mind, you are perfectly safe."

"Ah! that is the way you insure your lives, is it, trusting to the priests rather than to Providence? For my own part, I should prefer a policy of insurance--that is to say, if my life were of any value."

"Next to steeples," continued Jack, "come tall trees, such as poplars and pines. Should you ever be caught by a storm in the open country, Willis, never take shelter under a tree; face the storm bravely, and submit to be deluged by the rain. Dread even bushes, if they are isolated. An entire forest is less dangerous than a single reed when it stands alone."

"But you forget, brother, that when a man stands alone he is quite as prominent an object as the trunk of a tree four or five feet high, particularly in an open plain."

"Quite so. It is therefore advisable, when severe storms are close upon us, to lie down flat on the ground."

"Suppose," remarked Fritz, smiling, "a brigade of soldiers on the march suddenly to collapse in this way, as if before a discharge of grape."

"And why not? If it is done in the case of grape-shot, why may it not be done when the artillery is a thousand times more effective?"

"Well, I suspect it would rather astonish the commanding officer, that is all."

"Then, Willis," continued Jack, "you must not run during a storm, because the air you put in motion by so doing may draw the electricity into the current."

"Do the conductors not prevent the lightning from doing harm?"

"Yes, but you cannot carry one of them on your hat. These rods are only useful in protecting buildings, and then to nothing more than double the area of their length; it is for this last reason that roofs of public buildings have them projecting in all directions."

"They are a sort of trap set for the lightning, are they not?"

"Yes, and into which it is pretty sure to fall. Franklin, of whom I spoke just now, was the first to suggest that bars of steel would draw lightning out of a cloud surcharged with electricity."

"What becomes of it when it is caught?"

"Keeping in view its partiality for bell-pulls, a wire is attached to the rod down which the unconscious fluid glides."

"Like a powder-monkey from the main-top."

"Exactly; till it enters a well, and there it is left at the bottom in company with Truth."

A practical storm had begun to mix itself up with the theory as developed by Jack, but not before they had very nearly reached their destination, where they were waited for with the greatest anxiety.

No sooner had they landed than Sophia ran to meet Willis, who was advancing with Jack.

"Ah, sweetheart," she said, "Susan has been so uneasy about you."

"You are a good girl, Miss Soph--Susan."

"Oh, if you only knew how frightened we have been!"

"What, do you admit fear to be one of your accomplishments, Miss Sophia?" inquired Jack.

"Certainly, when others are concerned, Master Jack. But, by the way, do you recollect the chimpanzee?"

"Yes, what about the rascal?"

"Oh, I must not tell you, mamma would call me a chatterbox; you will know by-and-by."

In the meanwhile Mary, on her side, was congratulating Toby, who kept scampering between herself and Fritz, at one moment receiving the caresses of the one and at the next of the other, with every demonstration of joy. This had become an established mode of communication between the young people when Fritz arrived from a lengthened ramble; the intelligent, brute, in point of fact, had assumed the office of dragoman.

"Ah, ah, Becker, glad to see you again," said Willis. "Your sons are fountains of knowledge, whilst I am--"

"A very worthy fellow, Willis, and I know it," replied Becker, shaking him heartily by the hand.

Chapter XI.

On the Watch--Fecundity of Plants and Animals--Latest News from the Moon--A Death-Knell every Second--The Inconveniences of being too near the Sun--Narcotics--Willis contralto--Hunting turned upside down--Electric Clouds--Partialities of Lightning--Bells and Bellringers--Conducting Rods--The Return--The Two Sisters--Toby becomes a Dragoman.

As is usual in tropical climates, a blazing hot day was succeeded by an intensely dark night. The fire that the hunters had made on shore cast a lurid glare on the prominent objects round about. The flames, as they fitfully lit up the landscape into that dim distinctness termed by artists the chiar oscuro, made the bushes and trunks of trees appear like monsters issuing stealthily from the forest that lined the background. There seemed to be some attraction, however, elsewhere for the real monsters, not a single wild beast having as yet appeared on the scene.

The two young men were eagerly straining their eyes from the stern of the pinnace, whilst the dogs kept diligently wagging their tails in expectation of a signal for the onset. The position of Willis could be ascertained now and then by an eye of fire, which opened and shut as he inhaled or exhaled the fumes of his Maryland. The ripple beat gently on the sea-line of the boat, which oscillated with the regularity and softness of a cradle.

"It is always so," said Jack, impatiently; "if we don't want wild beasts, there are shoals of them to be seen; but if we do want them, then they are all off to their dens."

"Perhaps, there are none now," suggested Willis.

"Say rather," observed Fritz, "that there ought to be thousands; for on the one hand they multiply rapidly, and on the other there is no one to destroy them. Spaniards once left a few cattle on St. Domingo, and they increased at such a rate, that the island very soon would not have been able to support them, had they not been kept down by constant slaughter."

"Besides," remarked Jack, "the bovine race reproduce themselves more slowly than other animals; a single sow, according to a calculation made by Vauban, if allowed to live eleven years, would produce six millions of pigs."

"What a cargo of legs of pork and sides of bacon!" exclaimed Willis, laughing.

"Then fish; there are more than a hundred and sixty thousand eggs in a single carp. A sturgeon contains a million four hundred and sixty-seven thousand eight hundred and fifty, whilst in some codfish the number exceeds nine millions."

"Oh, you need not favor us with the 'Mariner's March,' Willis; what my brother says is perfectly correct."

"What, then, do these shoals of creatures live upon?"

"The big ones upon the little ones; fish devour each other."

"A beautiful harmony of Nature," remarked Fritz drily.

"Then plants," continued Jack, "are still more prolific than animals. Some trees can produce as many of their kind as they have branches, or even leaves. An elm tree, twelve years old, yields sometimes five hundred thousand pods; and, by the way, Willis, to encourage you in carrying on the war against the mosquitoes, a single stalk of tobacco produces four thousand seeds."

"The leaves, however, are of more use to me than the seeds," replied Willis.

"This admirable proportion between the productiveness of the two kingdoms demonstrates the far-seeing wisdom of Providence. If the power of multiplication in vegetables had been less considerable, the fields, gardens, and prairies would have been deserts, with only a plant here and there to hide the nakedness of the land. Had God permitted animals to multiply in excess of plants, the entire vegetation would soon have been devoured, and then the animals themselves would of necessity have ceased to exist."

"How is it, then," inquired Willis, "with this continual multiplication always going on, the inhabitants of land and sea do not get over-crowded?"

"Why, as regards man, for example, if thirteen or fourteen human beings are born within a given period, death removes ten or eleven others; but though this leaves a regular increase, still the population of the globe always continues about the same."

"It may be so, Master Jack, but when I was a little boy at school, I generally came in for a whipping, if I made out two and two to be anything else than four."

"And served you right too, Willis; but if the human family did not continually increase, if the number of deaths exceeded continually that of the births, at the end of a few centuries the world would be unpeopled."

"Very good; but if, on the other hand, there is a continual increase, how can the population continue the same?"

"Because the increase supposes a normal state; that is to say, the births are only estimated as compared with deaths from disease or old age. But then there are shipwrecks, inundations, plagues, and war, which sometimes exterminate entire communities at one fell swoop. Then whole nations die out and give place to the redundant populations of others; phenomena now observed in the cases of the aborigines of Australia and America."

"Very true."

"No signs of furs yet," cried Fritz, who was every now and then levelling his rifle at the phantoms on shore.

"We need not dread," continued Jack, "ever being hustled or jostled on the earth; life will fail us before space. There are now eight hundred millions of human beings in existence, and, according to the most moderate computation, room enough for twice that number. As it is, the most fertile sections of the earth are not the most populous; there are four hundred millions in Asia, sixty millions in Africa, forty in America, two hundred and thirty in Europe, and only seventy millions in the islands and continent of Oceanica!"

"To which," remarked Fritz, "you may add the eleven inhabitants of New Switzerland."

"Assuming, then, this calculation to be nearly accurate, though authorities vary materially in their computations of the earth's inhabitants, and regarding it in connexion with the average duration of human life, a thousand millions of mortals must perish in thirty-three years; to descend to detail, thirty millions every year, three thousand four hundred every hour, sixty every minute, or ONE EVERY SECOND."

"Aye," remarked Willis, "we are here to-day and gone to-morrow."

"Suppose, then, that the population of the earth were twice as great, cultivation would be extended, territories that are now lying waste would be teeming with life and covered with fertile fields, but the same beautiful equilibrium would be maintained."

"And the inhabitants of the planets," said Fritz, "what are they about?"

"What planets do you mean?" inquired Willis.

"Well, all in general; the moon, for example, in particular."

"The moon," replied Jack, "has, in the first place, no atmosphere. This we know, because the rays of the stars passing behind her are not, in the slightest degree, refracted; and this proves that neither men, nor animals, nor vegetables of any kind, are to be found in that planet, for they could not exist without air."

"That should settle the question," remarked Willis.

"Yes," remarked Fritz; "but some theorists, nevertheless, insist that there may be living creatures in the moon, for all that--of course, differently constituted from the inhabitants of our earth, and susceptible of existing without air. There is, however, no evidence of any kind to support such a theory; it is a mere fancy, the dream of an imaginative brain. Upon the same grounds, it may be argued, that the interior of the earth is inhabited, and that elves and gnomes are possible beings. Besides, the telescope has been brought to so high a degree of perfection, that objects the size of a house can now be detected in the moon."

"It seems, I am afraid," remarked Jack, who, like his brother, was getting annoyed by the phantasmagoria on shore, "that we were about as well supplied with wild beasts here as they are with men in the planets."

"In speaking of the moon, however," continued Fritz, "I do not imply all the planets; for, certain as we are that the moon has no atmosphere, so we are equally certain that some of the planets possess that attribute. Still there are other circumstances that render the notion of their being inhabited by beings like ourselves exceedingly improbable. Mercury, for example, is so embarrassed by the solar rays, that lead must always be in a state of fusion, and water, if not reduced to a state of vapor, will be hot enough to boil the fish that are in it. Uranus, at the other extremity of the system, receives four hundred times less heat and light than we do, consequently neither water nor any thing else can exist there in a liquid state; what is fluid on our earth must be frozen up into a solid mass. Good, I declare my brother has fallen asleep!"

"It is very--interesting--however," said Willis, making ineffectual efforts to smother a yawn.

"The same difficulty with comets; there must have been some very urgent necessity for human beings in order to have peopled them. When they pass the perihelion--"

"The what?" inquired Willis.

"The point where they approach nearest the sun--when they pass the perihelion, I was going to say, the heat they endure must be terrific; when on the other hand, at their extreme distance from that body, the cold must be intense. The comet of 1680 did not approach within five thousand myriametres of the sun."

"Friends coming within that distance of each other should at least shake hands," said Willis.

"Still, even at that distance, the heat, according to Newton, must be like red-hot iron, and if constituted like our earth, when heated to that degree, must take fifty thousand years to cool."

"Fifty thousand years!" said Willis, yawning from ear to ear.

"The central position between these extremes, which would either congeal our earth into a mass of ice or burn it up into a heap of cinders, is therefore the most congenial to such beings as ourselves. Whence I conclude--"

Here the crimson flashes of Willis's pipe, which had been gradually diminishing in brilliance suddenly ceased; contralto notes issued from the profundities of his breast, and it became evident to the orator that all his audience were sound asleep.

"Whence I conclude," said Fritz, addressing himself, "that my orations must be somewhat soporiferous."

Being thus left alone to keep a look-out on shore, his thoughts gradually receded within his own breast, where all was rose-colored and smiling, for at his age rust has not had time to corrupt, nor moths to eat away. And it was not long before he himself, like his two companions, was fast locked in the arms of sleep.

How long this state of things lasted the chronicle saith not; but the three sleepers were eventually awakened by a simultaneous howl of the dogs. They were instantly on their feet, with their rifles levelled.

It was too late; day had broken, and there was light enough to convince them that nothing was to be seen. The sheep's quarters had, however, entirely disappeared, and they had the satisfaction of knowing that they had politely given the denizens of the forest a feast gratis.

"Ah, they shall pay us for it yet," said Jack.

"This is a case of the hunters being caught instead of the game," remarked Fritz.

"The poor sheep! If Ernest had been here, he would have erected a monument to its memory."

"I doubt that; epitaphs are generally made rather to please the living than to compliment the defunct. But, Willis, we must deprive you of your office of huntsman in chief--I shall go into the forest and revenge this insult."

"I have no objection to abdicate the office of huntsman, but must retain that of admiral, in which capacity I announce to you that there will be a storm presently, and that we shall just have time to make Rockhouse before it overtakes us."

"That is rather a reason for our remaining where we are."

"We have come for skins, and skins we must have."

"Besides, we are two to one, and in all constitutional governments the majority rules."

"Have you both made up your minds?" inquired Willis.

"Yes, we are quite decided."

"In that case," said Willis, "let us hoist the anchor and be off home."

"Home! but we are determined to have the skins first."

"No, you are not," said Willis; "I know you better than you know yourselves. You are both brave fellows, but I know you would not, for all the skins in the world, have your good mother suppose that you were buffeted about by the waves in a storm."

"True; up with the anchor, Willis," said Fritz.

"Be it so," said Jack, shaking his fist menacingly at the silent forest, "but we shall lose nothing by waiting."

The sailor had not erred in his calculations, for they had scarcely unfurled the sail before they heard the distant rumbling of the storm. As soon as the first flash of lightning shot across the sky, Jack put his forefinger of one hand on the wrist of the other, and began counting one--two--three.

"Do you feel feverish?" inquired Willis.

"No, not personally," replied Jack; "I am feeling the pulse of the storm--twenty-four--twenty-five--twenty-six--it is a mile off."

"Aye! how do you make that out?"

"Very easily; you recollect Ernest telling us that light travelled so rapidly, that the time it occupied in passing from one point to another of the earth's surface was scarcely perceptible to our senses?"

"Yes, but I thought he was spinning a yarn at the time."

"You were wrong, Willis; he likewise told us that sound travels at the rate of four hundred yards in a second."

"Well, but--"

"Have patience, Willis! When the lightning flashes, the electric spark is discharged, is it not?"

"Well, I was never high enough aloft to see."

"But others have been; Newton and Franklin have seen it. Now, if the sound reaches our ears a second after the flash, it has travelled four hundred yards. If we hear it twelve or thirteen seconds after, it has travelled twelve or thirteen times four hundred yards, or about half a mile, and so on."

"But what has that to do with your pulse?"

"In the first place, I am in perfect health, am I not?"

"I hope so, Master Jack."

"Then when our systems are in good order, the pulse, keeping fractions out of view, beats once in every second; and consequently, though we do not always carry a watch, we always have our arteries about us, and may therefore always reckon time."

"Now I understand."

"Ah! then we are to escape this time without the 'Mariner's March.'"

"It appears, Master Jack, that you have turned philosopher as well as your brothers. Can you tell me what causes lightning?"

"Yes, I can, Willis. You must know, in the first place, that all the layers of the atmosphere are, more or less, charged with electricity."

"Ask him how," said Fritz drily.

"Ah, you hope to puzzle me," replied Jack, "but thanks to Mr. Wolston, I am too well up in physics to be easily driven off my perch, and therefore may safely take my turn in philosophising."

"Well, we are listening."

"The air, by means of the vapor it contains, absorbs electricity from terrestrial bodies, and so becomes a sort of reservoir of this invisible fluid. All chemical combinations evolve electricity, the air collects it and stores it up in the clouds. There, worshipful brother, your question is answered."

"Good, go on."

"Well, Willis, you must know, in the second place, the clouds are very good fellows, and share with each other the good things they possess. When one cloud meets another, the one over-supplied with this fluid and the other in its normal state, there is an immediate interchange of courtesies, the negative electricity of the one is exchanged for the positive of the other."

"There does not appear, however, to be much generosity in this transaction, since the surcharged cloud does not cede its superfluous abundance without a consideration."

"It is very rarely that philanthropy amongst us goes much further," remarked Fritz.

"No, everybody is not like Willis," rejoined Jack, "who acts like a prince, and gives legs of mutton gratis to hyenas and tigers. The discharges of electricity from one cloud to another are the flashes of lightning, and it is to be observed that the thunder is nothing more than the noise made by the fluid rushing through the air."

"What, then, is the thunderbolt?"

"There is no such thing as what is popularly understood by the term thunderbolt. The lightning itself, however, often does mischief. This happens when the discharge, instead of being between two clouds in the air, takes place between a cloud and the ground--a cloud surcharged with electricity understood. Then all intervening objects are struck by the fluid."

"There, however, you are wrong," said Fritz. "All objects are not struck; on the contrary, the fluid avoids some things and searches out others, even moving in a zig-zag direction to manifest these caprices; it often discharges itself on or into hard substances, and passes by those which are soft or feeble."

"I might say this arose from a sentiment of generosity," added Jack, "but I have other reasons to assign."

"So much the better," said Fritz, "as I should scarcely be satisfied with the first."

"Well," continued Jack, "lightning has its likings and dislikings."

"Like men and women," suggested Willis.

"It has a partiality for metal."

"An affection that is not returned, however," observed Fritz.

"If the fluid enters a room, for example, it runs along the bell wires, inspects the works of the clock, and sometimes has the audacity to pounce upon the money in your purse, even though a policeman should happen to be in the kitchen at the time."

"Perhaps," remarked Willis, "it is Socialist or Red Republican in its notions."

"It does not, however, patronise war," replied Jack; "I once heard of it having melted a sword and left the scabbard intact."

"That, to say the least of it, is improbable," remarked Fritz. "The hilt, or even the point, might have been fused; but even supposing the electric fluid to have been capable of such flagrant preference, the scabbard could not have held molten metal without being itself consumed."

"Aye," remarked Willis, "there are plenty of non-sensical stories of that kind in circulation, because nobody takes the trouble to test their truth. Still, according to your own account, a man or woman runs no danger from the lightning."

"I beg your pardon there, Willis; the electric fluid does not go out of its way to attack a human being, but if one should-happen to be in its way, it does not take time to request that individual to stand aside, it simply passes through him, and leaves him or her, as the case may be, a coagulated mass of inanimate tissues."

"What a variety of ways there are of getting out of the world!" said Willis lugubriously.

"Again," continued Jack, "anything that happens to be in the vicinity of the clouds when this interchange of courtesies is going on, is apt to draw the storm upon itself, hence the continual war that is carried on between the lightning and the steeples."

"Something like an individual coming within range of a cloud of mosquitoes," suggested Willis.

"A learned German--one of us," said the scapegrace, laughing, "calculated, in 1783, that in the space of thirty-three years there had been, to his own knowledge, three hundred and eighty-six spires struck, and a hundred and twenty bell-ringers killed by lightning, without reckoning a much larger number wounded."

"And yet," remarked Willis, "I never heard of an insurance against accidents by lightning."

"There are plenty of them, however, in Roman Catholic countries," said Fritz. "Every village has one, and the charge is almost nominal."

"How, then, do these companies make it pay?"

"They find it answer somehow, and they never collapse."

"Then everybody ought to insure."

"Yes, but there are some obstinate people who do not see the good of it."

"If my life had not already been forfeited, I should insure it. But how is it done?"

"Well, you have only to go into a church, fall down on your knees before the priest, he will make you invulnerable by a sign of the cross; then, come storms that pulverize the body or crush the mind, you are perfectly safe."

"Ah! that is the way you insure your lives, is it, trusting to the priests rather than to Providence? For my own part, I should prefer a policy of insurance--that is to say, if my life were of any value."

"Next to steeples," continued Jack, "come tall trees, such as poplars and pines. Should you ever be caught by a storm in the open country, Willis, never take shelter under a tree; face the storm bravely, and submit to be deluged by the rain. Dread even bushes, if they are isolated. An entire forest is less dangerous than a single reed when it stands alone."

"But you forget, brother, that when a man stands alone he is quite as prominent an object as the trunk of a tree four or five feet high, particularly in an open plain."

"Quite so. It is therefore advisable, when severe storms are close upon us, to lie down flat on the ground."

"Suppose," remarked Fritz, smiling, "a brigade of soldiers on the march suddenly to collapse in this way, as if before a discharge of grape."

"And why not? If it is done in the case of grape-shot, why may it not be done when the artillery is a thousand times more effective?"

"Well, I suspect it would rather astonish the commanding officer, that is all."

"Then, Willis," continued Jack, "you must not run during a storm, because the air you put in motion by so doing may draw the electricity into the current."

"Do the conductors not prevent the lightning from doing harm?"

"Yes, but you cannot carry one of them on your hat. These rods are only useful in protecting buildings, and then to nothing more than double the area of their length; it is for this last reason that roofs of public buildings have them projecting in all directions."

"They are a sort of trap set for the lightning, are they not?"

"Yes, and into which it is pretty sure to fall. Franklin, of whom I spoke just now, was the first to suggest that bars of steel would draw lightning out of a cloud surcharged with electricity."

"What becomes of it when it is caught?"

"Keeping in view its partiality for bell-pulls, a wire is attached to the rod down which the unconscious fluid glides."

"Like a powder-monkey from the main-top."

"Exactly; till it enters a well, and there it is left at the bottom in company with Truth."

A practical storm had begun to mix itself up with the theory as developed by Jack, but not before they had very nearly reached their destination, where they were waited for with the greatest anxiety.

No sooner had they landed than Sophia ran to meet Willis, who was advancing with Jack.

"Ah, sweetheart," she said, "Susan has been so uneasy about you."

"You are a good girl, Miss Soph--Susan."

"Oh, if you only knew how frightened we have been!"

"What, do you admit fear to be one of your accomplishments, Miss Sophia?" inquired Jack.

"Certainly, when others are concerned, Master Jack. But, by the way, do you recollect the chimpanzee?"

"Yes, what about the rascal?"

"Oh, I must not tell you, mamma would call me a chatterbox; you will know by-and-by."

In the meanwhile Mary, on her side, was congratulating Toby, who kept scampering between herself and Fritz, at one moment receiving the caresses of the one and at the next of the other, with every demonstration of joy. This had become an established mode of communication between the young people when Fritz arrived from a lengthened ramble; the intelligent, brute, in point of fact, had assumed the office of dragoman.

"Ah, ah, Becker, glad to see you again," said Willis. "Your sons are fountains of knowledge, whilst I am--"

"A very worthy fellow, Willis, and I know it," replied Becker, shaking him heartily by the hand.

Chapter XII.

Man proposes, but God disposes--The Choice of a Profession--Conqueror--Orator--Astronomer--Composer--Painter--Poet--Village Curate--The Kafirs--Occupations of Women--The Alpha and Omega of the Sea.

To the storm succeeded one of those diluvian showers that have already been described. Rain being merely a result of evaporation, it was evident that sea and land in those climates must perspire at an enormous rate to effect such cataclysms. In consequence of this deluge, the proposed excursion was indefinitely postponed. The provisions, the marvellous kits, the waggon, were all ready; but Nature, as often happens under such circumstances, had assumed a menacing attitude, and for the present forbade the execution of the project.

A sort of vague sadness, that generally accompanies a gloomy atmosphere, weighed upon the spirits of the colonists. Recollections of the Nelson and her sudden disappearance thrust themselves more vividly than ever upon their memory; and Willis was observed to throw his sou'-wester unconsciously on the ground--a proof that remembrances of the past occupied his thoughts.

One of the ladies was occupied in the needful domestic operations of the household, whilst the other sat with a stocking on her left arm, busily occupied in repairing the ravages of tear and wear upon that useful though humble garment. The two young ladies spun, as used to do the great ladies of the court of King Alfred, and as Hercules himself is said to have done when he changed his club and lion's skin for a spindle and distaff with the Queen of Lybia; Jack was apparently sketching, Fritz had a collection of hunting apparatus before him, and the other two young men, each with a book, were deeply immersed in study.

This state of things was by no means cheerful, and Wolston determined to break up the monotony by introducing a subject of conversation likely to interest them all, the old as well as the young.

"By the way, gentlemen," said he, "it occurs to me that you have not yet thought of selecting a profession; your future career seems at present somewhat obscure."

"What would you have?" inquired Jack; "there is no use for lawyers and judges in our colony, except to try plundering monkeys or protect jackal orphans."

"True; but suppose you were to find yourselves, by some chance, again in the great world, there it is necessary to possess a qualification of some kind; a blacksmith or a carpenter, expert in his handicraft, has a better chance of acquiring wealth and position than a man without a profession, however great his talents may be; an idler is a mere clog in the social machine, and is often thrust aside to browse in a corner with monks and donkeys."

"But to acquire a profession, is not instruction and practice necessary?"

"Certainly; it is impossible to become a proficient in any art or science by mere study alone; but before sowing a field, what is done?"

"It is ploughed and manured."

"And should there be only a few seeds?"

"We can sow what we have, and reserve the harvest till next season. By economising each crop in this way, we shall soon have seeds enough to cover any extent of land."

"May I request you, Master Ernest, to draw a conclusion from that as regards sowing the seeds of a future career?"

"I would infer, from your suggestion, that we might adapt ourselves for such and such a profession by preparing our minds to receive instruction in it, and we might also avail ourselves in the meantime of such sources of information regarding it as are at present open to us. The physician in prospective, for example, might make himself familiar with the medical properties of such plants as are within his reach; he might likewise examine the bones of an ape, and thus, by analogy, become acquainted with the framework of the human body. The would-be lawyer might, in the same way, avail himself of the library to obtain an insight into those social mysteries that bind men in communities and necessitate human laws for the preservation of peace and order. Thus, by directing our thoughts into one line of study, we may form a basis upon which the superstructure may be easily erected, and the necessary academical degrees or sanction of the university obtained."

"And, when you see this, why not adopt so commendable a course?"

"Because we may probably be destined to remain here, where, according to Jack, the learned professions, at least, are not likely to be much in demand."

"The study of a particular science or art has charms in itself, which amply compensate the student for his labor. But, even admitting you do not return to the Old World, you forget that it is your intention to colonise this territory."

"It seems, however, that God has willed it otherwise."

"What God does not will in one way, he may bring about in another. What reason have you for supposing that the Nelson may not return with colonists?"

"It will be from the other world then," said Willis.

"Yes, from the other world," replied Jack, "but not in the sense you imply."

"Besides, should the Nelson not reappear, that is no reason why another accident may not drive another ship upon the coast that will be more fortunate; what has happened to-day may surely happen again to-morrow. And in the event of colonists arriving, will there not be sick to cure, boundaries to determine, differences of opinion to decide, and opposing claims to adjudge."

"Certainly, Mr. Wolston."

"Well, admitting these necessities, what profession will each of you select? Let us begin with you, Master Fritz."

"The career," replied Fritz, "that would be most congenial to my taste is that of a conqueror."

"A conqueror!"

"Yes; Alexander, Scipio, Timour the Tartar, and Gengis Khan are the sort of men I should like to resemble. They have made a tolerable figure in the world, and I should have no objection to follow in their footsteps."

"But you forget that their footsteps are marked with tears, disasters, terror, and bloodshed."

"These are indispensable."

"Why?"

"Once, when a great commander was asked the same question, he replied, that you cannot make omelets without breaking eggs."

"Yes," remarked Becker, "but if you had read the anecdote entire, you would have seen that he was asked in return, 'What use there was for so many omelets.'"

"Added to which," continued Wolston, "that is not a normal career; there is no diploma required for it; it is an accident arising out of adventitious circumstances, sometimes fostered by ambition, but no course of study can produce a conqueror."

"What, then, is the use of military schools?"

"They are, to the best of my knowledge, instituted for rearing defenders for one's country, and not with a view to the subjugation of another's."

"My poor Fritz," said Mrs. Becker laughing, "I hope when you conquer half the world, you will find an occupation for your mother more in consonance with your dignity than mending your stockings."

"Then, again," continued Wolston, "war cannot be waged by a single individual."

"There must be an enemy somewhere," suggested Willis.

"The difficulty does not, however, lie there," observed Jack; "for, if we have no enemies, it is easy enough to make them."

"There must, at all events, be armies, magazines, and a treasury--or eggs, as the great commander in question hinted."

"True," replied Fritz; "but there is the same difficulty as regards all professions; there can be no barristers without briefs, no physicians without patients."

"You will admit, however, that clients and patients are not so rare as hundreds of thousands of armed men and millions of money."

"Brother," said Jack, "your cavalry are routed and your infantry outflanked."

"If you are determined to be a conqueror, let it be by the pen rather than by the sword--or, what do you say to oratory? It is not easier, perhaps, but, at all events, eloquence is not denied to ordinary mortals. You will not then, to be sure, rank with the Hannibals, the Tamerlanes, or the Caesars; but you may attain a place with Demosthenes, who was more dreaded by Philip of Macedon than an army of soldiers."

"Or Cicero," remarked Becker, "who preserved his country from the rapacity of Cataline."

"Or Peter the Hermit," remarked Frank, "who by his eloquence roused Europe against the Saracens."

"Or Bossuet," added Wolston, "and then you may venture to assert in the face of kings that God alone is Great, should they, like Louis XIV., assume the sun as an emblem, and adopt such a silly scroll as 'Nec pluribus impar.'"

"Bossuet, Peter the Hermit, Cicero, and Demosthenes, are not so bad, after all, as a last resource," remarked Mrs. Wolston, "and I would recommend you to enrol yourself in that list of conquerors, Master Fritz."

"The more especially," observed Jack, "as you have no impediment in your voice, and would not have to undergo a course of pebbles like Demosthenes."

"So far as that goes, Jack," replied Fritz, "you would possess a like advantage for the profession as myself; but I will take time to reflect." Then, turning towards his mother, he said, "Conqueror or Jack Pudding, mother, you shall always find me a dutiful son."

His mother was more gratified by this expression of attachment than she would have been had he laid at her feet the four thousand golden spurs found, in 1302, on the field of Courtray.

"And now, Ernest, what profession do you intend to adopt? what is your dream of the future?"

"I, Mr. Wolston! Well, having no taste for artillery, brilliant charges, blood-stained ruins, and the other agremens of war, I cannot be a hero. Do you know when I feel most happy?"

"No, let us hear."

"It is towards evening, when I am reposing tranquilly on the banks of the Jackal."

"Ah, I thought so," cried Jack; "no position so congenial to the true philosopher as the horizontal."

"When the sun," continued Ernest, gravely, "is retiring behind the forest of cedars that bounds the horizon; when the palms, the mangoes, and gum trees, mass their verdure in distinct and isolated groups; when nature is making herself heard in a thousand melodious voices; when the hum of the insect is ringing in my ears, and the breeze is gently murmuring through the foliage; when thousands of birds are fluttering from grove to grove, sometimes breaking with their wings the smooth surface of the river; when the fish, leaping out of their own element, reflect for an instant from their silvery scales the departing rays of the sun; when the sea, stretching away like a vast plain of boundless space, loses itself in the distance, then my eyes and thoughts are sometimes turned upwards towards the azure of the firmament, and sometimes towards the objects around me, and I feel as if my mind were in search of something which has hitherto eluded its grasp, but which it is sure of eventually finding. Under these circumstances, I assure you, I would not exchange the moss on which I sat for the greatest throne in Christendom."

"But surely you do not call such a poetical exordium a profession?" remarked Becker.

"It must be admitted," said Wolston, "that the sun and trees have their uses, especially when the one protects us from the other; the sun, for example, dries up the moisture that falls from the trees, and the trees shelter us from the burning rays of the sun. Still, I am at a loss myself to connect these things with a profession in a social point of view."

"What would you have thought," inquired Ernest, "if you had seen Newton and Kepler gazing at the sky, before the one had determined the movements of the celestial bodies, and the other the laws of gravitation? What would you have thought of Parmentier passing hours and days in manipulating a rough-looking bulb, that possessed no kind of value in the eyes of the vulgar, but which afterwards, as the potato, became the chief food of two-thirds of the population of Europe? What would you think of Jenner, with his finger on his brow, searching for a means of preserving humanity from the scourge of the small-pox?"

"But these men had an object in view."

"Jenner, yes; but not the other two. They thought, studied, contemplated, and reflected, satisfied that one day their thoughts, calculations, and reflections would aid in disclosing some mystery of Nature; but it would have perplexed them sorely to have named beforehand the nature and scope of their discoveries."

"According to you, then," said Jack, "there could not be a more dignified profession than that of the scarecrow. The greatest dunderhead in Christendom might simply, by going a star-gazing, pass himself off as an adept in the occult sciences, and claim the right of being a benefactor of mankind in embryo."

"At all events," replied Ernest, "you will admit that, so long as I am ready to bear my share of the common burdens, and take my part in providing for the common wants, and in warding of the common dangers, it is immaterial whether I occupy my leisure hours in reflection or in rifle practice."

"Well," said Jack, "when you have made some discovery that will enrol your name with Descartes, Huygens, Cassini, and such gentlemen, you will do us the honor of letting us know."

"With the greatest pleasure."

"It is a pity that Herschell has invented the telescope: he might have left you a chance for the glory of that invention."

"If I have not discovered a new star, brother, I discovered long ago that you would never be one."

"Well, I hope not; their temperature is too unequal for me--they are either freezing or boiling: at least, so said Fritz the other day, whilst we were--all, what were we doing, Willis?"

"We were supposed to be hunting."

"Ah, so we were."

"Now, Master Jack, it is your turn to enlighten us as to your future career."

"It is quite clear, Mr. Wolston, that, since my brothers are to be so illustrious, I cannot be an ordinary mortal; the honor of the family is concerned, and must be consulted. I am, therefore, resolved to become either a great composer, like Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven; a renowned painter, like Titian, Carrache, or Veronese; or a great poet, like Homer, Virgil, Shakspeare, Dante, Milton, Goethe, and Racine."

"That is to say," remarked Mrs. Wolston, "that you are resolved to be a great something or other."

"Decidedly, madam; on reflection, however, as I value my eyesight, I must except Homer and Milton."

"But have you not determined to which of the muses you will throw the handkerchief?"

"I thought of music at first. It must be a grand thing, said I to myself, that can charm, delight, and draw tears from the eyes of the multitude--that can inspire faith, courage, patriotism, devotion and energy, and that, too, by means of little black dots with tails, interspersed with quavers, crotchets, sharps and flats."

"Have you composed a sonata yet?"

"No, madam; I was going to do so, but it occurred to me that I should require an orchestra to play it."

"And not having that, you abandoned the idea?"

"Exactly, madam. I then turned to poetry. That is an art fit for the gods; it puts you on a level with kings, and makes you in history even more illustrious than them. You ascend the capitol, and there you are crowned with laurel, like the hero of a hundred fights."

"What is the subject of your principal work in this line?"

"Well, madam, I once finished a verse, and was going on with a second, but, somehow or other, I could not get the words to rhyme."

"Then it occurred to you that you had neither a printer nor readers, and you broke your lyre?"

"I was about to reproach you, Master Jack," said Wolston, "for undertaking too many things at once; but I see the ranks are beginning to thin."

"Beautiful as poetry may be," continued Jack, one gets tired of reading and re-reading one's own effusions."

"It is even often intensely insipid the very first time," remarked Mrs. Wolston.

"There still remains painting," continued Jack. "Painting is vastly superior to either music or poetry. In the first place, it requires no interpreter between itself and the public;--what, for example, remains of a melody after a concert? nothing but the recollection. Poesy may excite admiration in the retirement of one's chamber; your nostrils are, as it were, reposing on the bouquet, though often you have still a difficulty in smelling anything. But if once you give life to canvas, it is eternal."

"Eternal is scarcely the proper word," remarked Wolston: "the celebrated fresco of Leonardo da Vinci, in the refectory of the Dominicans at Milan, is nothing but a confused mass of colors and figures."

"I answer that by saying that the painting in question is only a fresco. Besides, I use the word eternal in a modified or relative sense. A painting is preserved from generation to generation, whilst its successive races of admirers are mingled with the dust. Then suppose a painter in his studio; he cannot look around him without awakening some memory of the past. He can associate with those he loves when they are absent, nay, even when they are dead, and they always remain young and beautiful as when he first delineated them."

"Take care," cried Ernest, pushing back his seat, "if you go on at that rate you will take fire."

"No fear of that, brother, unless you have a star or a comet in your pocket, in which case you are not far enough away yet."

These occasional bickerings between Ernest and Jack were always given and taken in good part, and had only the effect of raising a good-humored laugh.

"Let the painter," he continued, "fall in with a spot that pleases him, he can take it with him and have it always before his eyes. The hand of God or of man may alter the original, the forest may lose its trees, the old castle may be destroyed by fire or time, the green meadow may be converted into a dismal swamp, but to him the landscape always retains its pristine freshness, the same butterfly still flutters about the same bush, the same bee still sucks at the same flower."

"Really," said Mrs. Wolston, "it is a pity, after all, that you did not achieve your second verse."

"And yet," continued Jack, "that is only a copy. How much more sublime when we regard the painter as a creator! If there is in the past or present a heroic deed--if there is in the infinity of his life one moment more blessed than another, like Pygmalion he breathes into it the breath of life, and it becomes imperishable. Who would think a century or two hence of the victories of Fritz, unless the skill of the painter be called in to immortalize them!"

"I agree with you in thinking that the arts you name are the source of beautiful and legitimate emotions. But generally it is better to view them as a recreation or pastime, rather than a profession. They have doubtless made a few men live in posterity, but, on the other hand, they have embittered and shortened the lives of thousands."

"You will never guess what led me to adopt this art in preference to the two others. It was the discovery, that we made some years ago, of a gum tree, the name of which I do not recollect."

"The myrica cerifera," said Ernest.

"From the gum of this tree the varnish may be made. Now, like my brother, who, when he sees the sun overhead, considers he ought to profit by the circumstance and become a discoverer, so I said to myself: You have varnish, all you want, therefore, to produce a magnificent painting is canvas, colors, and talent; consequently, you must not allow such an opportunity to pass--it would be unpardonable. Accordingly, I set to work with an energy never before equalled; and," added he, showing the design he had just finished, "here are two eyes and a nose, that I do not think want expression."

"Capital!" said Mrs. Wolston; "your painting will be in admirable keeping with the hangings my daughters have promised to work for your mamma."

"Nobody can deny," continued Jack, laughing, "that the colony is advancing in civilization; it already possesses a conqueror, a member of the Royal Society minus the diploma, and an Apelles in embryo."

"It is now your turn, Frank."

"I," replied Frank, in his mild but penetrating voice, "if I may be allowed to liken the flowers of the garden to the occupations of human life, I should prefer the part of the violet."

"It hides itself," said Mrs. Wolston, "but its presence is not the less felt."

"When I have allowed myself to indulge in dreams of the future, I have pictured myself dwelling in a modest cottage, partially shrouded in ivy, not very far from the village church. My coat is a little threadbare."

"Why threadbare?" inquired Sophia.

"Because there are a number of very poor people all round me, and I cannot make up my mind to lay out money on myself when it is wanted by them."

"Such a coat would be sacred in our eyes," said Mrs. Wolston.

"In the morning I take a walk in my little garden; I inspect the flowers one after the other; chide my dog, who is not much of a florist; then, perhaps, I retire to my study, where I am always ready to receive those who may require my aid, my advice, or my personal services."

Here Mrs. Wolston shook Frank very warmly by the hand.

"Sometimes I go amongst the laborers in the fields, talk to them of the rain, of the fine weather, and of HIM who gives both. I enter the home of the artizan, cheer him in his labors, and interest myself in the affairs of his family; I call the children by their names, caress them, and make them my friends. I talk to them of our Redeemer, and thus, in familiarly conversing with the young, I find means of instructing the old. They, perhaps, tell me of a sick neighbor; I direct my steps there, and endeavor to mitigate the pangs of disease by words of consolation and hope; I strive to pour balm on the wounded spirit, and, if the mind has been led away by the temptations of the world, I urge repentance as a means of grace. If death should step in, then I kneel with those around, and join them in soliciting a place amongst the blessed for the departed soul."

"We shall all gladly aid you in such labors of love," said Mrs. Wolston.

"When death has deprived a family of its chief support, then I appeal to those whom God has blessed with the things of this world for the means of assisting the widow and the fatherless. To one I say, 'You regret having no children, or bemoan those you have lost; here are some that God has sent you.' I say to another, 'You have only one child, whilst you have the means of supporting ten; you can at least charge yourself with two.' Thus I excite the charity of some and the pity of others, till the bereaved family is provided for. I obtain work for those that are desirous of earning an honest living, I bring back to the fold the sheep that are straying, and rescue those that are tottering on the brink of infidelity."

Here the girls came forward and volunteered to assist Frank in such works of mercy.

"I accept your proffered aid, my dear girls, but, as yet, I am only picturing a future career for myself. After a day devoted to such labors as these, I return to my home, perhaps to be welcomed by a little circle of my own, for I hope to be received as a minister of the Protestant Church, and, as such, may look forward to a partner in my joys and troubles. Should Providence, however, shape my destiny otherwise, I shall have the poor and afflicted--always a numerous family--to bestow my affections upon. But, whilst much of my time is thus passed amongst the sorrowing and the sick, still there are hours of gaiety amongst the gloom--there are weddings, christenings, and merrymakings--there are happy faces to greet me as well as sad ones--and I am no ascetic. I take part in all the innocent amusements that are not inconsistent with my years or the gravity of my profession--but you seem sad, Mrs. Wolston."

"Yes, Frank; you have recalled my absent son, Richard, so vividly to my memory, that I cannot help shedding a tear."

"Is your son in orders then, madam?"

"He is precisely what you have pictured yourself to be, a minister of the gospel, and a most exemplary young man."

"If," remarked Becker, "we have hitherto refrained from inquiring after your son, madam, it was because we had no wish to recall to your mind the distance that separated you from him, and we should be glad to know his history."

"There is little to relate; he is very young yet, and as soon as he had obtained his ordination, he was offered a mission to Oregon, which he accepted; but the ship having been detained at the Cape of Good Hope, he regarded the accident as a divine message, to convert the heathen of Kafraria, where he now is."

"It is no sinecure to live amongst these copper-colored rascals," said Willis; "they are constantly stealing the cattle of the Dutch settlers in their neighborhood. About twelve years ago, our ship was stationed at the Cape, and I was sent with a party of blue jackets into the interior, as far as Fort Wiltshire, on the Krieskamma, the most remote point of the British possessions in South Africa. There we dispersed a cloud of them that had been for weeks living upon other people's property. They are tall, wiry fellows, as hardy as a pine tree, and as daring as buccaneers. The chief of the kraals, or huts, wear leopard or panther skins, and profess to have the power of causing rain to fall, besides an endless number of other miraculous attributes. Amongst them, a wife of the ordinary class costs eight head of cattle, but the price of a young lady of the higher ranks runs as high as twenty cows. When a Kafir is suspected of a crime, his tongue is touched seven times with hot iron, and if it is not burnt he is declared innocent."

"I am afraid," said Jack, "if they were all subjected to that test, they would be found to be a very bad lot. But now, since we have all decided upon a profession, let us hear what the young ladies intend doing with themselves; let them consult their imagination for a beautiful future gilded with sunshine, and embroidered with gold."

"There is only one occupation for women," said Mrs. Becker, "and that is too well defined to admit of speculation, and too important to admit of fanciful embellishments."

"Well, then, mother, let us hear what it is."

"It is to nurse you, and rear you, when you are unable to help yourselves; to guide your first steps, and teach you to lisp your first syllables. For this purpose, God has given her qualities that attract sympathy and engender love. She is so constituted as to impart a charm to your lives, to share in your labors, to soothe you when you are ruffled, to smooth your pillow when you are in pain, and to cherish you in old age; bestowing upon you, to your last hour, cares that no other love could yield. These, gentlemen, are the duties and occupations of women; and you must admit, that if it is not our province to command armies, or to add new planets to the galaxy of the firmament; that if we have not produced an Iliad or an AEnead, a Jerusalem Delivered, or a Paradise Lost, an Oratorio of the Creation, a Transfiguration, or a Laocoon, we have not the less our modest utility."

"I should think so, mother," replied Jack; "it would take no end of philosophers to do the work of one of you."

"It surprises me," said Willis, "that not one of you has selected the finest profession in the world--that of a sailor."

"The finest profession of the sea, you mean, Willis. There is no doubt of its being the finest that can be exercised on the ocean, since it is the only one. If it is the best, Willis, it is also the worst."

"It has also produced great men," continued Willis; "there are Columbus, Vasco de Gama, and Captain Cook, to whom you are indebted for a new world."

"No thanks to them for that," said Jack; "if they had not discovered a new world we should have been in an old one."

"That does not follow," remarked Ernest; "the new world would have existed even if it had not been discovered, and you might have found your way there all the same."

"Not very likely," replied Jack, "unless one of the stars you intend to discover had shown us the way; otherwise it would only have existed in conjecture; and as nobody under such circumstances would have dreamt of settling in it, they would not have been shipwrecked during the voyage."

"Very true," remarked Fritz; "if we had not been here we should, very probably, have been somewhere else, and perhaps in a much worse plight. Let me ask if there is any one here who regrets his present position?"

Willis was about to reply to this question, but Sophia observing that there was something wrong with the handkerchief that he wore round his neck, hastened towards him to put it to rights, and he was silent.

The hour had now arrived when the families separated for the night. Mary was preparing as usual to recite the evening prayer, but before doing so she whispered a few words in her mother's ear.

"Yes, my child;" and, turning to Frank, she added, "Since you are determined to adopt the ministry as a profession, it is but right that we should for the future entrust ourselves to your prayers."

The two families were now located in their respective eyries; and Jack, whilst escorting the Wolstons to the foot of their tree, said to Sophia,

"I thought the chimpanzee had been playing some prank."

"So he has. Has nobody told you of it?"

"No, not a soul."

"Then I will be as discreet as my neighbors; good night, Master Jack."

Chapter XIII.

Herbert and Cecilia--The little Angels--A Catastrophe--The Departure--Marriage of the Doge with the Adriatic--Sovereigns of the Sea--Dante and Beatrix--Eleonora and Tasso--Laura and Petrarch--The Return--Surprises--What one finds in Turbots--A Horror--The Price of Crime--Ballooning--Philipson and the Cholera--A Metamorphosis--Adventure of the Chimpanzee--Are you Rich?

Next day the sky was shrouded in dense masses of cloud, some grey as lead, some livid as copper, and some black as ink. Towards evening the two families, as usual, resolved themselves into a talking party, and Wolston, requesting them to listen, began as follows:--

"There were two rich merchants in Bristol, between whom a very close intimacy had for a long time existed. One of them, whom I shall call Henry Foster, had a daughter; and the other, Nicholas Philipson, had a son, and the two fathers had destined these children for one another. The boy was a little older than the girl, and their tastes, habits, and dispositions seemed to fit them admirably for each other, and so to ratify the decision of the parents. Little Herbert and Cecilia were almost constantly together. They had a purse in common, into which they put all the pieces of bright gold they received as presents on birthdays and other festive occasions. In summer, when the two families retired to a retreat that one of them had in the country, the children were permitted to visit the cottagers, and to assist the distressed, if they chose, out of their own funds--a permission which they availed themselves of so liberally that they were called by the country people the two little angels."

"What a pity there are no poor people here!" said Sophia, dolefully.

"Why?" inquired her mother.

"Because we might assist them, mamma."

"It is much better, however, as it is, my child; our assistance might mitigate the evils of poverty, but might not be sufficient to remove them."

This reasoning did not seem conclusive to Sophia, who shook her head and commenced plying her wheel with redoubled energy.

"When Herbert Philipson was twelve years of age he was sent off to school, and Cecilia was confided to the care of a governess, who, under the direction of Mrs. Foster, was to undertake her education. But neither music nor drawing, needlework, grammars nor exercises, could make little Cecilia forget her absent companion. Absence, that cools older friendships, had a contrary effect on her heart; the months, weeks, days, and hours that were to elapse before Herbert returned for the holidays, were counted and recounted. When that period--so anxiously desired--at length arrived, there was no end of rejoicing: she told Herbert of all the little boys and little girls she had clothed and fed, of the old people she had relieved, of the tears she had shed over tales of woe and misery, how she had carried every week a little basket covered with a white napkin to widow Robson, how often she had gone into the damp and dismal cottage of the dying miner, and how happy she always made his wife and their nine pitiful looking children."

"That is a way of conquering human hearts," remarked Mrs. Becker, "often more effective than those referred to the other day."

"Once, when Herbert was at home for the holidays, he accompanied Cecilia on her charitable visits, and was greatly surprised to find that blessings were showered upon his own head wherever they went; people, whom he had never seen before, insisted upon his being their benefactor. This he could not make out. At last, by an accident, he discovered the secret--Cecilia had been distributing her gifts in his name! He remonstrated warmly against this, declaring that he had no wish to be praised and blessed for doing things that he had no hand in. Finding that his protestations were of no avail, he determined, on the eve of his returning to school, to have his revenge."

"He did not buy Cecilia a doll, did he?" inquired Jack.

"No; he collected all the eatables, clothing, blankets, and money he could obtain; went amongst the poorest of the cottages, and distributed the whole in Cecilia's name."

"Ah," remarked Mrs. Becker, "it is a pity we could not all remain at the age of these children, with the same purity, the same innocence, and the same freshness of sensation; the world would then be a veritable Paradise."

"For some years this state of things continued, the affection between the young people strengthened as they grew older, the occasional holiday time was always the happiest of their lives. Herbert, in due course, was transferred from school to college, where he obtained a degree, and rapidly verged into manhood. Cecilia from the girl at length bloomed into the young lady. A day was finally fixed when they were to be bound together by the holy ties of the church; everything was prepared for their union, when the commercial world was startled by the announcement that Philipson was a ruined man. A ship in which he had embarked a valuable freight had been wrecked, and an agent to whom he had entrusted a large sum of money had suddenly disappeared."

"How deplorable!" cried Fritz.

"Not so very unfortunate, after all," remarked Mary.

"What makes you think so?"

"Because nothing had occurred to interrupt the marriage; only one of the families was ruined, and there was still enough left for both."

"But," said Fritz, "even admitting that the friendship between the two families continued uninterrupted, and that the father of Cecilia was willing to share his property with the father of Herbert, still the young man, in the parlance of society, was a beggar; and it is always hard for a man to owe his position to a woman, and to become, as it were, the protege of her whom he ought rather to protect."

"If that is the view you take, Master Fritz, then I agree with you that the misfortune was deplorable," said Mary, bending at the same time to hide her blushes, under pretence of mending a broken thread.

"And what if Cecilia's father had been ruined instead of Herbert's?" inquired Jack.

"I should say," replied Sophia, "that we have as much right to be proud and dignified as you have."

"The best way in such a case," observed Willis, laughing, "would be for both parties to get ruined together."

"Herbert," continued Wolston, "was a youth of resolution and energy. He entertained the same opinion as Fritz; and instead of wasting his time in idle despondency, got together some articles of merchandise, and sailed for the Indian Archipelago, promising his friends that he would return to his native land in two years."

"Two years is a long time," remarked Mary; "but sometimes it passes away very quickly."

"Ah!" observed Sophia, Cecilia, in the meantime, would redouble her charities and her prayers."

"The two years passed away, then a third, and then a fourth, but not a single word had either been heard of or from the absentee. Cecilia was rich, and her hand was sought by many wealthy suitors, but hitherto she had rejected them all."

"The dear, good Cecilia," cried Sophia.

"Up till this period the family had permitted her to have her own way. But as it is necessary for authority to prevent excesses of all kinds, they thought it time now to interfere; they could not allow her to sacrifice her whole life for a shadow. Her parents, therefore, insisted upon her making a choice of one or other of the suitors for her hand. She requested grace for one year more, which was granted."

"Come back, truant, quick; come back, Master Herbert!" cried Sophia.

"There now, Willis," cried Jack, "you see the effect of your new world; people go away there, and never come back again."

"Oh, but you must bring him back in time, father; you must indeed," urged Sophia.

"If it were only a romance I were relating to you, Sophia, I could very easily bring him back; but the narrative I am giving you is a matter of fact, which I cannot alter at will. There would be no difficulty in bringing a richly-laden East Indiaman, commanded by Captain Philipson, into the Severn, and making Herbert and Cecilia conclude the story in each other's arms, but it would not be true."

"Then if I had been Cecilia, I should have become a nun," said Mary, timidly.

"Exaggeration, my daughter, is an enemy to truth. It is easy to say, 'I would become a nun,' and in Roman Catholic countries it is quite as easy to become one; but, though it may be sublime to retire in this way from the world, it is frightful when a woman has afterwards to regret the inconsiderate step she has taken, and which is often the case with these poor creatures."

"As you said of myself," remarked Willis, "it is a crime to go down with a sinking ship so long as there is a straw to cling to."

"I presume," continued Wolston, "that during this year poor Cecilia prayed fervently for the return of her old playfellow; but her prayers were all in vain, the year expired, and still no news of the young man; at last she despaired of ever seeing him again, and, after a severe struggle with herself, she decided upon complying with the desire of her parents and her friends. A few months after the expiring of the year of grace, she was the affianced bride of a highly respectable, well-to-do, middle-aged gentleman. John Lindsey, her intended husband, could not boast of his good looks; he was little, rather stout, was deeply pitted in the face with the small-pox, and had a very red nose, but he was considered by the ladies of Bristol as a very good match for all that."

"Oh, Cecilia, how ridiculous!" exclaimed Sophia.

"Better, at all events, than turning nun," said Jack.

"The family this season had gone to pass the summer at the sea-coast; and one day that Cecilia and her intended were taking their accustomed walk along the shore--"

"Holloa!" cried Jack, "the truant is going to appear, after all."

"John Lindsey, observing a ring of some value upon Cecilia's finger, politely asked her if she had any objections to tell him its history. She replied that she had none, and told him it was a gift of young Philipson's. 'I am well acquainted with your story,' said Lindsey, 'and do not blame the constancy with which you have treasured the memory of that young man; on the contrary, I respect you for it--in fact, it was the knowledge of your self-sacrifice to this affection and all its attendant circumstances, that led me to solicit the honor of your hand; for, said I to myself, one who has evinced so much devotion for a mere sentiment, is never likely to prove unfaithful to sacred vows pledged at the altar,' 'Come what may, you may at least rely upon that, sir,' she answered. 'Then,' continued Lindsey, 'as an eternal barrier is about to be placed between yourself and your past affections, perhaps you will pardon my desire to separate you, as much as possible, from everything that is likely to recal them to your mind.' Saying that, he gently drew the ring from her finger, and threw it into the sea."

It was strongly suspected that Mary shed a tear at this point of the recital.

"It is all over with you now, Herbert," cried Fritz.

"You had better make a bonfire of your ships, like Fernando Cortez in Mexico; or, if you are on your way home, better pray for a hurricane to swallow you up, than have all your bright hopes dashed to atoms, when you arrive in port."

"I am only a little girl," said Sophia; "but I know what I should have said, if the gentleman had done the same thing to me."

"And what would you have said, child?" inquired her mother.

"I should have said, that I was not the Doge of Venice, and had no intention of marrying the British Channel."

"Can you describe the ceremony to which you refer?"

"Yes; but it would interrupt papa's story, and Jack would laugh at me."

"Never mind my story," replied her father, "there is plenty of time to finish that."

"And as for me," said Jack, "though I do not wear a cocked hat and knee breeches, and though, in other respects, my tailor has rather neglected my outward man, still I know what is due to a lady and a queen."

"There, he begins already!" said Sophia.

"Never mind him, child; go on with your account of the marriage."

"Well," began Sophia, "for a long time, there had been disputes between the states of Bologna, Ancona, and Venice, as to which possessed the sovereignty of the Adriatic."

"If it had been a dispute about the Sovereignty of the ocean in general," remarked Willis, "there would have been another competitor."

"Venice," continued Sophia, "carried the day, and about 1275 or 76 she resolved to celebrate her victory by an annual ceremony. For this purpose, a magnificent galley was built, encrusted with gold, silver, and precious stones. This floating bijou was called the Bucentaure, was guarded in the arsenal, whence it was removed on the eve of the Ascension. Next day the Doge, the patriarch, and the Council of Ten embarked, and the galley was towed out to the open sea, but not far from the shore. There, in the presence of the foreign ambassadors, whilst the clergy chanted the marriage service, the Doge advanced majestically to the front of the galley, and there formally wedded the sea."

"He might have done worse," observed Willis.

"The ceremony," continued Sophia, "consisted in the Doge throwing a ring into the sea, saying, 'We wed thee, O sea! to mark the real and perpetual dominion we possess over thee.'"

"And it may be added," observed Becker, "that the history of Venice shows how religiously the spouses of the Adriatic kept their vows."

"Now," said Sophia, "that I have told my tale, let us hear what became of Cecilia."

"Well, the marriage took place the morning after Herbert's ring had been thrown to the fishes. Whilst the bride, bridegroom, and their friends were congratulating each other over the wedding breakfast, as is usual in England on such occasions, Cecilia's father was called out of the room."

"Too late," remarked Fritz.

"Herbert Philipson had arrived that same morning; but, as Fritz observes, he was just an hour too late. He had acquired a fortune, but his long-cherished hopes of happiness were completely blasted."

"Why did he stay away five years without writing?" inquired Mrs. Wolston.

"He had written several times, but at that time no regular post had been established, and his letters had never reached their destination."

"When did he find out that Cecilia was married?"

"Well, some people think it more humane to kill a man by inches rather than by a single blow of the axe. Not so with Herbert's friends; the first news that greeted him on landing were, that his ever-remembered Cecilia was probably at that moment before the altar pledging her vows to another."

"I should rather have had a chimney-pot tumble on my head," remarked Willis.

"Herbert was a man in every sense of the word--the mode of his departure proves that. On hearing this painful intelligence, he simply covered his face with his hands, and, after a moment's thought, resolved to see his lost bride at least once more."

"Poor Herbert!" sighed Mary.

"Foster was thunderstruck when the stranger declared himself to be the son of his old friend; and, after cordially bidding him welcome, sorrowfully asked him what he meant to do. 'I should wish to see Mrs. Lindsey in presence of her husband,' he replied, 'providing you have no objections to introduce me to the company.'"

"Bravo!" ejaculated Willis.

"Foster could not refuse this favor to an unfortunate, who had just been disinherited of his dearest hopes. He, therefore, took Herbert by the hand and led him into the room. Nobody recognized him. 'Ladies and gentlemen,' said he, 'permit me to introduce Mr. Herbert Philipson, who has just arrived from Sumatra.' You may readily conceive the dismay this unexpected announcement called up into the countenances of the guests. There was only one person in the room who was calm, tranquil, and unmoved--that person was Cecilia herself. She rose courteously, bade him welcome, hoped he was well, coolly asked him why he had not written to his friends, and politely asked him to take a seat beside herself and husband, just, for all the world, as if he had been some country cousin or poor relation to whom she wished to show a little attention."

"I would rather have been at the bottom of the sea than in her place, for all that," said Mary.

"Why? She had nothing to reproach herself with. Had she not waited long enough for him?"

"Young heads," remarked Becker, "are not always stored with sense. A foolish pledge, given in a moment of thoughtlessness is often obstinately adhered to in spite of reason and argument. The young idea delights in miraculous instances of fidelity. What more charming to a young and ardent mind than the loves of Dante and Beatrix, of Eleonora and Tasso, of Petrarch and Laura, of Abelard and Heloise, or of Dean Swift and Stella? Young people do not reflect that most of these stories are apocryphal, and that the men who figure in them sought to add to their renown the prestige of originality; they put on a passion as ordinary mortals put on a new dress, they yielded to imagination and not to the law of the heart, and almost all of them paid by a life of wretchedness the penalty of their dreams."

"That is, I presume," remarked Mrs. Wolston, "you do not object to any reasonable amount of constancy, but you object to its being carried to an unwarrantable excess."

"Exactly so, madam," replied Becker; "constancy, like every thing else when reasonable limits are exceeded, becomes a vice."

"The merriments of the marriage breakfast," continued Wolston "slightly interrupted by the arrival of the new guest, were resumed. Fresh dishes were brought in, and, amongst others, a fine turbot was placed on the table. The gentleman who was engaged in carving the turbot struck the fish-knife against a hard substance."

"I know what!" exclaimed two or three voices.

"I rather think not," said Wolston, drily.

"Oh, yes, the ring! the ring!"

"No, it was merely the bone that runs from the head to the tail of the fish."

"Oh, father," cried Sophia, "how can you tease us so?"

"If they had found the ring," replied Wolston, laughing, "I should have no motive for concealing it. Fruit was afterwards placed before Herbert, and, when nobody was looking, he pulled a clasped dagger out of his pocket."

Here Sophia pressed her hands closely on her ears, in order to avoid hearing what followed.

"It was a very beautiful poignard," continued Wolston, "and rather a bijou than a weapon; and, as the servants had neglected to hand him a fruit-knife, he made use of it in paring an apple."

"Is it all over?" inquired Sophia, removing a hand from one ear.

"Alas! yes!" said Jack, lugubriously, "he has been and done it."

"O the monster!"

"Travelling carriages having arrived at the door for the bridal party, Herbert quietly departed."

"What!" exclaimed Sophia, "did they not arrest and drag him to prison?"

"Oh," replied Jack, "the crime was not so atrocious as it appears."

"Not atrocious!"

"No; you must bear in mind that young Philipson had passed the preceding five years of his life amongst demi-savages, whose manners and customs he had, to a certain extent, necessarily contracted. In some countries, what we call crimes are only regarded as peccadillos. In France, for example, till very lately, there existed what was called the law of combette, by right of which pardon might be obtained for any misdeed on payment of a certain sum of money. There was a fixed price for every imaginable crime. A man might consequently be a Blue Beard if he liked, it was only necessary to consult the tariff in the first instance, and see to what extent his means would enable him to indulge his fancy for horrors."

"On quitting the house," continued Wolston, "Herbert Philipson bent his way to the shore, and shortly after was observed to plunge into the sea."

"So much the better," exclaimed Sophia; "it saved his friends a more dreadful spectacle."

"The weather being fine and the water warm, Herbert enjoyed his bath immensely; he then returned to his hotel, went early to bed, and slept soundly till next morning."

"The wretch!" cried Sophia, "to sleep soundly after assassinating his old playfellow, who had suffered so much on his account."

"It is pretty certain," continued Wolston, "that, if Philipson had been left entirely to himself, he would always have shown the same degree of moderation he had hitherto displayed."

"Oh, yes, moderation!" said Sophia.

"But his friends began to prate to him about the shameful way he had been jilted by Cecilia, and, by constantly reiterating the same thing, they at last succeeded in persuading him that he was an ill-used man. His self-esteem being roused by this silly chatter, he began to affect a ridiculous desolation, and to perpetrate all manner of outrageous extravagances."

"Bad friends," remarked Willis, "are like sinking ships; they drag you down to their own level."

"The first absurd thing he did was to purchase a yacht, and when a storm arose that forced the hardy fishermen to take shelter in port, he went out to sea, and it is quite a miracle that he escaped drowning. Then, if there were a doubtful scheme afloat, he was sure to take shares in it. Nothing delighted him more than to go up in a balloon; he would have gladly swung himself on the car outside if the proprietor had allowed him."

"I have often seen balloons in the air," remarked Willis, "but I could never make out their dead reckoning."

"A balloon," replied Ernest, "is nothing more than an artificial cloud, and its power of ascension depends upon the volume of air it displaces.

"Very good, Master Ernest, so far as the balloon itself is concerned; but then there is the weight of the car, passengers, provisions, and apparatus to account for."

"Hydrogen gas, used in the inflation of balloons, is forty times lighter than air. If a balloon is made large enough, the weight of the car and all that it contains, added to that of the gas, will fall considerably short of the weight of the air displaced by the machine."

"I suppose it rises in the air just as an empty bottle well corked rises in the water?"

"Very nearly. Air is lighter than water; consequently, any vessel filled with the one will rise to the surface of the other. So in the case of balloons. The gas, in the first place, must be inclosed in an envelope through which it cannot escape. Silk prepared with India-rubber is the material usually employed. As the balloon rises, the gas in the interior distends, because the air becomes lighter the less it is condensed by its superincumbent masses; hence it is requisite to leave a margin for this increase in the volume of the gas, otherwise the balloon would burst in the air."

"If a balloon were allowed to ascend without hindrance where would it stop?"

"It would continue ascending till it reached a layer of air as light as the gas; beyond that point it could not go."

"And if the voyagers do not wish to go quite so far?"

"Then there is a valve by which the gas may be allowed to escape, till the weight of the machine and its volume of air are equal, when it ceases to ascend. If a little more is permitted to escape, the balloon descends."

"And should it land on the roof of a house or the top of a tree, the voyagers have their necks broken."

"That can only happen to bunglers; there is not the least necessity for landing where danger is to be apprehended. When the aeronaut is near the ground, and sees that the spot is unfavorable for debarkation, he drops a little ballast, the balloon mounts, and he comes down again somewhere else."

"The fellow that made the first voyage must have been very daring."

"The first ascent was made by Montgolfier in 1782, and he was followed by Rosiers and d'Arlandes."

"With your permission, father," said Ernest, "I will claim priority in aerial travelling for Icarus, Doedalus, and Phaeton."

"Certainly; you are justified in doing so. Gay-Lussac, a philosophic Frenchman, rose, in 1804, to the height of seven thousand yards."

"He must have felt a little giddy," remarked Jack.

"Most of the functions of the body were affected, more or less, by the extreme rarity of the air at that height. Its dryness caused wet parchment to crisp. He observed that the action of the magnetic needle diminished as he ascended, sounds gradually ceased to reach his ear, and the wind itself ceased to be felt."

"That, of course," remarked Ernest, "was when he was travelling in the same direction and at the same speed."

"Well," said Jack, "we can find materials here for a balloon; the ladies have silk dresses, there is plenty of India-rubber--we used to make boots and shoes of it; hydrogen gas can be obtained from a variety of substances. What, then, is to prevent us paying a visit to some of Ernest's friends in the skies?"

"Unfortunately for your project, Jack, no one has discovered the art of guiding a balloon; consequently, instead of finding yourself at Cassiope, you might land at Sirius, where your reception would be somewhat cool."

"But what became of Herbert?" inquired one of the ladies.

"Singularly enough, he escaped all the dangers he so recklessly braved, and all the bad speculations he embarked in turned out good. Somehow or other, the moment he took part in a desperate scheme it became profitable."

"Ah!" exclaimed Sophia, "his victim, like a guardian angel, continued to watch over him."

"When the cholera appeared in England, he was sure to be found where the cases were most numerous. He followed up the pest with so much pertinacity and publicity, that it was no unusual thing to find it announced in the newspapers that Philipson and the cholera had arrived in such and such a town."

"The bane and the antidote," remarked Jack.

"If Cecilia had been one of those women who delight in horse-racing, fox-hunting, opera-boxes, and public executions, she would have been highly amused to see her old friend's name constantly turning up under such extraordinary circumstances."

"Is she not dead, then?" inquired Sophia, with astonishment,

"It appears that her wounds were not mortal," quietly replied her mother.

"Besides," observed Jack, "there are human frames so constituted that they can bear an immense amount of cutting and slashing. So in the case of animals; there, for instance, is the fresh-water polypus--if you cut this creature lengthwise straight through the middle, a right side will grow on the one half and a left side on the other, so that there will be two polypi instead of one. The same thing occurs if you cut one through the middle crosswise, a head grows on the one half and a tail on the other, so that you have two entire polypi either way."

"And you may add," observed Ernest, "since so interesting a subject is on the tapis, that if two of these polypi happen to quarrel over their prey, the largest generally swallows the smallest, in order to get it out of the way; and the latter, with the exception of being a little cramped for space, is not in the slightest degree injured by the operation."

"And does that state of matters continue any length of time?"

"The polypus that is inside the other may probably get tired of confinement, in which case it makes its exit by the same route it entered; but, if too lazy to do that, it makes a hole in the body of its antagonist and gets out that way. But, what is most curious of all, these processes do not appear to put either of the creatures to the slightest inconvenience."

"I am quite at a loss to make you all out," said Sophia.

"Well, my child," replied her mother, "you should not close up your ears in the middle of a story."

"Cecilia, or rather Mrs. Lindsey, however," continued Wolston, "was a pious, painstaking, simple-minded woman, who devoted her whole attention to her domestic duties. Notwithstanding her fortune, she did not neglect the humblest affairs of the household, and thought only of making her husband pleased with his home. When she was told of the vagaries of Philipson, she prayed in private that he might be led from his evil ways, and could not help thanking Providence that she was not the wife of such a dreadful scapegrace."

"I should think so," remarked Mrs. Becker.

"At last, Herbert Philipson astonished even his own companions by a crowning act of folly. There was then a young woman in Bristol, of good parentage, but an unmitigated virago; her family were thoroughly ashamed of her temper and her exploits. They allowed her to have her own way, simply for fear that, through contradiction, she might plunge herself into even worse courses than those she now habitually followed. In short, she was the talk and jest of the whole town."

"What a charming creature!" remarked Mrs. Becker.

"No servant of her own sex could put up with her for two days together; she styled everybody that came near her fools and asses, and did not hesitate to strike them if they ventured to contradict her. She got on, however, tolerably well with ostlers, stable-boys, cabmen, and such like, because they could treat her in her own style, and were not ruffled by her abuse."

"How amiable!" exclaimed Mrs. Wolston.

"Herbert heard of this young person, and, through a fast friend of his own, obtained an introduction to her, and on the very first interview he offered her his hand. He was known still to be a wealthy man, so neither the lady herself nor anybody connected with her made the slightest objection to the match, thinking probably that, if there were six of the one, there were at least half a dozen of the other."

"They ought to have gone to Bedlam, instead of to church," said Willis; "that is my idea."

"Nevertheless, they went to church; and, after the marriage, Cecilia sought and obtained an introduction to the lady, and, whether by entreaties or by her good example, I cannot say; be this as it may, the unpromising personage in question became one of the best wives and the best mothers that ever graced a domestic circle--in this respect even excelling the pattern Cecilia herself; and, what is still more to the purpose, she succeeded in completely reforming her husband. When I left England there was not a more prosperous merchant, nor a more estimable man in the whole city of Bristol, than Herbert Philipson."

"From which we may conclude," remarked Mrs. Becker, "it is always advisable to have angels for friends."

"We may also conclude," remarked Mrs. Wolston, "that when a stroke of adversity, or any other misfortune, overturns the edifice of happiness we had erected for the future, we may build a new structure with fresh material, which may prove more durable than the first."

"Talking of having angels for friends," said Becker, "puts me in mind of the association of Saint Louis Gonzaga, at Rome. On the anniversary of this saint, the young and merry phalanx forming the association march in procession to one of the public gardens. In the centre of this garden a magnificent altar has been previously erected, on which is placed a chafing-dish filled with burning coals. The procession forms itself into an immense ring round the altar, broken here and there by a band of music. These bands play hymns in honor of the saints, and other morceaux of a sacred character. Each member of the association holds a letter inclosed in an embossed and highly ornamented envelope, bound round with gay-colored ribbons and threads of gold. These letters are messages from the young correspondents to their friends in heaven, and are addressed to 'Il Santo Giovane Luigi Gonzaga, in Paradiso.' At a given signal, the letters, in the midst of profound silence, are placed on the chafing-dish. This done, the music resounds on all sides, and the assembly burst out into loud acclamations, during which the letters are supposed to be carried up into heaven by the angels."

"A curious and interesting ceremony," remarked Mrs. Wolston, "and one that may possibly do good, inasmuch as it may induce the young people composing the association to persevere in generous resolutions."

The two families again separated for the night. And whilst the young men were escorting the Wolstons to their tree, Sophia went towards Jack. "Will you tell me," inquired she, "what happened whilst I had my ears closed up, Jack?"

"Yes, with all my heart, if you will tell me first what the chimpanzee had been about during our absence."

"Well, he got up into our tree when we were out of the way. After soaping his chin, he had taken one of papa's razors, and just as he was beginning to shave himself, some one entered and caught him."

"Oh, is that all? What I have to tell you is a great deal more appalling than that."

"Well, then, be quick."

"But I am afraid you will be shocked."

"Is it very dreadful?"

"More so than you would imagine. If you dream about it during the night, you will not be angry with me for telling you?"

"No, I will be courageous, and am prepared to hear the worst."

"What was your father saying when you shut up your ears?"

"Herbert had just pulled out a dagger."

"And when you took your hands away?"

"All was then over; Herbert had done some dreadful thing with the dagger, and I want to know what it was."

"He pared an apple with it," replied Jack, bursting into a roar of laughter, and, running off, he left Sophia to her reflections.

A few seconds after he returned. This time he had almost a solemn air, the laughter had vanished from his visage, like breath from polished steel.

"Miss Sophia," inquired he gravely, "are you rich?"

"I don't know, Master Jack; are you?"

"Well, I have not the slightest idea either."

Chapter XIV.

The Tears of Childhood and Rain of the Tropics--Charles' Wain--Voluntary Enlistment--A Likeness Guaranteed--The World at Peace--Alas, poor Mary!--The same Breath for two Beings--The first Pillow--The Logic of the Heart--How Fritz supported Grief--A Grain of Sand and the Himalaya.

At daybreak next morning, all the eyes in the colony were busily engaged in scrutinizing the sky. This time the operation seemed satisfactory, for immediately afterwards, all the hands were, with equal diligence, occupied in packing up and making other preparations for the meditated excursion to the remote dependencies of New Switzerland.

The dense veil that the day before had shrouded them in gloom was now broken up into shreds. The azure depths beyond had assumed the appearance of a blue tunic bespattered with white, and the clouds suggested the idea of a celestial shepherd, driving myriads of sheep to the pasture. Children alone can dry up their tears with the rapidity of Nature in the tropics; perhaps we may have already made the remark, and must, therefore, beg pardon for repeating the simile a second time.

In a short time, the two families were assembled on the lawn, in front of the domestic trees of Falcon's Nest, ready to start on their journey. The cow and the buffalo were yoked to the carriage, which was snugly covered over with a tarpauling, thrown across circular girds, like the old-fashioned waggons of country carriers. Frank mounted the box in front; Mrs. Becker, Wolston, and Sophia got inside; whilst Ernest and Jack, mounted on ostriches that had been trained and broken in as riding horses, took up a position on each side, where the doors of the vehicle ought to have been. These dispositions made, after a few lashes from the whip, this party started off at a brisk rate in the direction of Waldeck.

It had been previously arranged that one half of the expedition should go by land, and the other half by water, and that on their return this order should be reversed, so that both the interior and the coast might be inspected at one and the same time. The only exception was made in favor of Willis, who was permitted both to go and return by sea.

The second party, consisting of Mrs. Wolston, Becker, Mary, and Fritz, started on foot in the direction of the coast. They had not gone far before Becker observed a large broadside plastered on a tree.

"What is that?" he inquired.

Nobody could give a satisfactory reply.

"Perhaps," suggested Mrs. Wolston, "paper grows ready made on the trees of this wonderful country."

"They all approached, and, much to their astonishment, read as follows:--

"TAKE NOTICE.

"The renowned Professor Ernest Becker is about to enlighten the benighted inhabitants of this country, by giving a course of lectures on optics. The agonizing doubts that have hitherto enveloped astronomical science, particularly as regards the interiors of the moon and the stars, have arisen from the absurd practice of looking at them during the night. These doubts are about to be removed for ever by the aforesaid professor, as he intends to exhibit the luminaries in question in open day. He will also place Charles's Wain[C] at the disposal of any one who is desirous of taking a drive in the Milky Way. The learned professor will likewise stand for an indefinite period on his head; and whilst in this position will clearly demonstrate the rotundity of the earth, and the tendency of heavy bodies to the centre of gravity. In order that the prices of admission may be in accordance with the intrinsic value of the lectures, nothing will be charged for the boxes, the entrance to the pit will be gratis, and the gallery will be thrown open for the free entry of the people. The audience will be expected to assume a horizontal position. Persons given to snoring are invited to stay at home."

"I rather think I should know that style," remarked Willis.

"It is a pity Ernest is not with us," observed Fritz; "but the placard will keep for a day or two."

"They say laughing is good for digestion," remarked Mrs. Wolston; "and if so, it must be confessed that Master Jack is a useful member of the colony in a sanitary point of view."

The party had scarcely advanced a hundred paces farther, when Fritz called out,

"Holloa! there is another broadside in sight."

This one was headed by a smart conflict between two ferocious looking hussars, and was couched in the following terms:--

"PROCLAMATION.

"All the inhabitants of this colony capable of bearing arms, who are panting after glory, are invited to the Fig Tree, at Falcon's Nest, there to enrol themselves in the registry of Fritz Becker, who is about to undertake the conquest of the world. Nobody is compelled to volunteer, but those who hold back will be reckoned contumacious, and will be taken into custody, and kept on raw coffee till such time as they evince a serious desire to enlist. There will be no objection to recruits returning home at the end of the war, if they come out of it alive. Neither will there be any objections to the survivors bringing back a marshal's baton, if they can get one. The Commander-in-chief will charge himself with the fruits of the victory. Surgical operations will be performed at his cost, and cork legs will be served out with the rations. In the event of a profitable campaign, a monument will be erected to the memory of the defunct, by way of a reward for their heroism on the field of battle."

"Well, Fritz," said Becker, with a merry twinkle in his eye, "you were sorry that Ernest was not present to hear the last placard read; fortunately, you are on the spot yourself this time."

Fritz tried to look amused, but the attempt was a decided failure.

When the party had gone a little farther, another announcement met their gaze; all were curious to know whose turn was come now; as they approached, the following interesting question, in large letters, stared them in the face:--

"HAVE YOU HAD YOUR PORTRAIT TAKEN YET?

"It has been reserved for the present age, and for this prolific territory, so exuberant in cabbages, turnips, and other potables, to produce the greatest of living artists--real genius--who is destined to outshine all the Michel Angelos and Rubenses of former ages. Not that these men were entirely devoid of talent, but because they could do nothing without their palette and their paint brushes. Now that illustrious maestro, Mr. Jack Becker, has both genius and ingenuity, for he has succeeded in dispensing with the aforementioned troublesome auxiliaries of his art. His plan which has the advantage of not being patented, consists in placing his subject before a mirror, where he is permitted to stay till the portrait takes root in the glass. By this novel method the original and the copy will be subject alike to the ravages of time, so that no one, on seeing a portrait, will be liable to mistake the grand-mother for the grand-daughter. Likenesses guaranteed. Payments, under all circumstances, to be made in advance.

"Ah, well," said Becker, laughing, "it appears that the scapegrace has not spared himself."

"I hope there is not a fourth proclamation," said Mrs. Wolston.

"There are no more trees on our route, at all events," replied Becker.

"Glad to hear that; Jack must respect the avocation chosen by Frank, since he sees nothing in it to ridicule."

As they drew near the Jackal River, in which the pinnace was moored, Mary and Fritz were a little in advance of the party.

"Are you really determined to turn the world upside down, Master Fritz?"

"At present, Miss Wolston, I am myself the sum and substance of my army, in addition to which I have not yet quite made up my mind."

"It is an odd fancy to entertain to say the least of it."

"Does it displease you?"

"In order that it could do that, I must first have the right to judge your projects."

"And if I gave you that right?"

"I should find the responsibility too great to accept it. Besides, a determination cannot be properly judged, without putting one's self in the position of the person that makes it. You imagine happiness consists in witnessing the shock of armies, whilst I fancy enjoyment to consist in the calm tranquility of one's home. You see our views of felicity are widely different."

"Not so very widely different as you seem to think, Miss Wolston. As yet my victories are nil; I have not yet come to an issue with my allies; to put my troops on the peace establishment I have only to disembody myself, and I disembody myself accordingly."

"Oh!" exclaimed Mary, "you are very easily turned from your purpose."

"Easily! no, Miss Wolston, not easily; you cannot admit that an objection urged by yourself is a matter of no moment, or one that can be slighted with impunity."

"Ah! here we are at the end of our journey."

"Already! the road has never appeared so short to me before."

"What!" exclaimed Mrs. Wolston, coming up to her daughter, "you appear very merry."

"Well, not without reason, mamma; I have just restored peace to the world."

The pinnace was soon launched, and, under the guidance of Willis, was making way in the direction of Waldeck. The sea had not yet recovered from the effects of the recent storm; it was still, to use an expression of Willis, "a trifle ugly." Occasionally the waves would catch the frail craft amidships, and make it lurch in an uncomfortable fashion, especially as regarded the ladies, which obliged Willis to keep closer in shore than was quite to his taste. The briny element still bore traces of its recent rage, just as anger lingers on the human face, even after it has quitted the heart.

Whilst the pinnace was in the midst of a series of irregular gyrations, a shrill scream suddenly rent the air, and at the same instant Fritz and Willis leaped overboard.

Mary had fallen into the sea.

Becker strained every nerve to stay the boat. Mrs. Wolston fell on her knees with outstretched hands, but, though in the attitude of prayer, not a word escaped her pallid lips.

The two men floated for a moment over the spot where the poor girl had sunk; suddenly Fritz disappeared, his keen eye had been of service here, for it enabled him to descry the object sought. In a few seconds he rose to the surface with Mary's inanimate body in his left arm. Willis hastened to assist him in bearing the precious burden to the boat, and Becker's powerful arms drew it on deck.

The joy that all naturally would have felt when this was accomplished had no time to enter their breasts, for they saw that the body evinced no signs of life, and a fear that the vital spark had already fled caused every frame to shudder. They felt that not a moment was to be lost; the resources of the boat were hastily put in requisition; mattresses, sheets, blankets, and dry clothes were strewn upon the deck. Mrs. Wolston had altogether lost her presence of mind, and could do nothing but press the dripping form of her daughter to her bosom.

"Friction must be tried instantly," cried Becker; "here, take this flannel and rub her body smartly with it--particularly her breast and back."

Mrs. Wolston instinctively followed these directions.

"It is of importance to warm her feet," continued Becker; "but, unfortunately, we have no means on board to make a fire."

Mrs. Wolston, in her trepidation, began breathing upon them.

"I have heard," said the Pilot, "that persons rescued from drowning are held up by the feet to allow the water to run out."

"Nonsense, Willis; a sure means of killing them outright. It is not from water that any danger is to be apprehended, but from want of air, or, rather, the power of respiration. What we have to do is to try and revive this power by such means as are within our reach."

The Pilot, meantime, endeavored to introduce a few drops of brandy between the lips of the patient. Fritz stood trembling like an aspen leaf and deadly pale; he regarded these operations as if his own life were at stake, and not the patient's.

"There remains only one other course to adopt, Mrs. Wolston," said Becker, "you must endeavor to bring your daughter to life by means of your own breath."

"Only tell me what to do, Mr. Becker, and, if every drop of blood in my body is wanted, all is at your disposal."

"You must apply your mouth to that of your daughter, and, whilst her nostrils are compressed, breathe at intervals into her breast, and so imitate the act of natural respiration."

Stronger lungs than those of a woman might have been urgent under such circumstances, but maternal love supplied what was wanting in physical strength.

The Pilot had turned the prow of the pinnace towards home; he felt that, in the present case at least, the comforts of the land were preferable to the charms of the sea.

"This time it is not my breath, but her own," said Mrs. Wolston.

"Her pulse beats," said Becker; "she lives."

"Thank God!" exclaimed Fritz and Willis in one voice.

A quarter of an hour had scarcely yet elapsed since the patient's first immersion in the sea; but this brief interval had been an age of agony to them all. As yet, her head lay quiescent on her mother's bosom, that first pillow, common alike to rich and poor, at the threshold of life.

The%signs of returning animation gradually became more and more evident; at length, the patient gently raised her head, and glanced vacantly from one object to another; then, her eyes were turned upon herself, and finally rested upon Fritz and Willis, who still bore obvious traces of their recent struggle with the waves. Here she seemed to become conscious, for her body trembled, as if some terrible thought had crossed her mind. After this paroxysm had passed, she feebly inclined her head, as if to say--"I understand--you have saved my life--I thank you." Then, like those jets of flame that are no sooner alight than they are extinguished, she again became insensible.

As soon as they reached the shore, Fritz hastened to Rockhouse, and made up a sort of palanquin of such materials as were at hand, into which Mary was placed, and thus was conveyed, with all possible care and speed, on the shoulders of the men to Falcon's Nest. A few hours afterwards she returned to consciousness and found herself in a warm bed, surrounded with all the comforts that maternal anxiety and Becker's intelligent mind could suggest.

Fritz was unceasing in his exertions; no amount of fatigue seemed to wear him out. As soon as he saw that everything had been done for the invalid that their united skill could accomplish, he bridled an untrained ostrich, and rode or rather flew off in search of the land portion of the expedition.

"Mary is saved," he cried, as he came up with them.

"From what?" inquired Wolston, anxiously.

"From the sea, that was about to swallow her up."

"And by whom?"

"By Willis, myself, and us all."

The same evening, the two families were again assembled at Falcon's Nest, and thus, for a second time, the long talked-of expedition was brought to an abrupt conclusion.

"Ah," said Willis, "we must cast anchor for a bit; yesterday it was the sky, to-day it was the sea, to-morrow it will be the land, perhaps--the wind is clearly against us."

How often does it not happen, in our pilgrimage through life, that we have the wind against us? We make a resolute determination, we set out on our journey, but the object we seek recedes as we advance; it is no use going any farther--the wind is against us. We re-commence ten, twenty, a hundred times, but the result is invariably the same. How is this? No one can tell. What are the obstacles? It is difficult to say. Perhaps, we meet with a friend who detains us; perhaps, a recollection that our memory has called, induces us to swerve from the path--the blind man that sung under our window may have something to do with it--perhaps, it was merely a fly, less than nothing.

It is not our minor undertakings, but rather our most important enterprises, that are frustrated by such trifles as these; for it must be allowed that we strive less tenaciously against an obstacle that debars us from a pleasure, than against one that separates us from a duty--in the one case we have to stem the torrent, in the other we sail with the current.

When we observe some deplorable instance of a wrecked career--when we see a man starting in life with the most brilliant prospects collapsing into a dead-weight on his fellows, we are apt to suppose that some insurmountable barrier must have crossed his path--some Himalaya, or formidable wall, like that which does not now separate China from Tartary; but no such thing. Trace the cause to its source, and what think you is invariably found? A grain of sand; the unfortunate wretch has had the wind against him--nothing more.

Rescued from the sea, Mary Wolston was now a prey to a raging fever. Ill or well, at her age there is no medium, either exuberant health or complete prostration; the juices then are turbulent and the blood is ardent.

Somehow or other, a good action attaches the doer to the recipient; so, in the case of Fritz, apart from the brotherly affection which he had vaguely vowed to entertain for the two young girls that had so unexpectedly appeared amongst them, he now regarded the life of Mary as identical with his own, and felt that her death would inevitably shorten his own existence; "for," said he to himself, "should she die, I was too late in drawing her out of the water." In his tribulation and irreflection, he drew no line between the present and the past, but simply concluded, that if he saved her too late, he did not save her at all. Hope, nevertheless, did not altogether abandon him. He would sometimes fancy her restored to her wonted health, abounding in life and vigour. Then the pleasing thought would cross his mind that, but for himself, that charming being, in all probability, would have been a tenant of the tomb. Would that those who do evil only knew the delight that sometimes wells up in the breasts of those who do good!

The first day of Mary's illness, Fritz bore up manfully. On the second, he joined his father and brothers in their field labors; but, whilst driving some nails into a fence, he had so effectually fixed himself to a stake that it was only with some difficulty that he could be detached. The third day, at sunrise, he called Mary's dog, shouldered his rifle, and was about to quit the house.

"Where are you going?" inquired Jack.

"I don't know--anywhere."

"Anywhere! Well, I am rather partial to that sort of place; I will go with you."

"But I must do something that will divert my thoughts. There may be danger."

"Well I can help you to look up a difficulty."

Every day the two brothers departed at sunrise, and returned together again in the evening. Mrs. Becker felt acutely their sufferings. She watched anxiously for the return of the two wanderers, and generally went a little way to meet them when they appeared in the distance.

"She does not run to meet us," said Fritz, one day; "that is a bad sign."

"Not a bit of it," replied Jack. "If she had any bad news to give us, she would not come at all."

FOOTNOTES:

[C] The constellation known in astronomy as the Great Bear is in, some parts of England termed the Plough, and in others Charles's Wain or Waggon. It may be added, that the same constellation is popularly known in France as the Chariot of David.

Chapter XV.

God's Government--King Stanislaus--The Dauphin son of Louis XV.--The shortest Road--New Year's Day--A Miracle--Clever Animals--The Calendar--Mr. Julius Cæsar and Pope Gregory XIII.--How the day after the 4th of October was the 15th--Olympiads--Lustres--The Hegira--A Horse made Consul--Jack's Dream.

Some men, when they regard the sinister side of events, are apt to call in question the axiom, Nothing is accomplished without the will of God. Why, they ask, do the wicked triumph? Why are the just oppressed? Why this evil? What is the use of that disaster? Was it necessary that Mary Wolston should be thrown into the sea, and that she should afterwards die in consequence of the accident?

To these questions we reply, that God does not interrupt the ordinary course of His works. Man is a free agent in so far as regards his own actions; were it otherwise, we should not be responsible for our own crimes. We might as well plunge into vice as adhere to virtue; for we could not be called upon to expiate the one, nor could we hope to be rewarded for the other. It is not to be expected that God is to perform miracles at every instant for our individual benefit. It is unreasonable in us to suppose that, in obedience to our wishes or desires, He will alter His immutable laws.

A foot slips on the brink of a precipice, and we are dashed to atoms. Our boat is upset in a squall, and we are drowned. Like Stanislaus Leszinsky, King of Poland, we fall asleep in the corner of a chimney, our clothes take fire, and we are burned to death. We go a hunting; we mistake a grey overcoat for the fur of a deer, and we kill our friend or his gamekeeper, as once happened to the son of Louis XV., who in consequence almost died of grief, and renounced forever a sport of which he was passionately fond. Did Providence will, exact, or pre-ordain all these calamities? Certainly not; but our Creator has seen fit to tolerate and permit them, since he did not interpose to prevent them.

The government of God is a conception so wonderful, so sublime, that none but Himself can fathom its depths. Human intelligence is too finite to penetrate or comprehend a system so complex, and yet so uniform. The mind of man can only form a just idea of a cause when the effect has been made manifest to his understanding. There might have been a reason for the death of Mary Wolston--who knows? But if it were so, that reason was beyond the pale of mortal ken.

Let us not, however, anticipate. Mary Wolston is not yet dead. On the contrary, when the ninth day of her illness had passed, Fritz and Jack were returning from an expedition, the nature of which was only known to themselves, but which, to judge from the packs that they bore on their backs, had been tolerably productive. The two young men observed their mother advancing, as usual, to meet them, but this time she ran. They had no need to be told in words that Mary Wolston was now out of danger; the serenity of their mother's countenance was more eloquent than the most elaborate discourse that ever stirred human souls.

Mrs. Becker herself felt that words were superfluous, so she quietly took her son's arm, and they walked gently homewards, whilst Jack strode on before. On turning a corner of the road, the latter stumbled upon Wolston and Ernest, who, in the exuberance of their joy, had also come out to meet the hunters. They were, however, a little behind; but that was nothing new. These two members of the colony had become quite remarkable for procrastination and absence of mind. When Wolston the mechanician, and Ernest the philosopher, travelled in company, it was rare that some pebble or plant, or question in physics, did not induce them to deviate from their route or tarry on their way. One day they both started for Rockhouse to fetch provisions for the family dinner, but instead of bringing back the needful supplies of beef and mutton, they returned in great glee with the solution of an intricate problem in geometry. All fared very indifferently on that occasion, and, in consequence, Wolston and Ernest were, from that time on, deprived of the office of purveyors.

In the present instance, instead of running like Mrs. Becker, they had philosophically seated themselves on the trunk of a tree. At their feet was a diagram that Wolston had traced with the end of his stick; this was neither a tangent nor a triangle, as might have been expected, but a figure denoting how to carve one's way to a position, amidst the rugged defiles of life.

"In all things," observed Wolston, "in morals as well as physics, the shortest road from one point to another, is the straight line."

"Unless," objected Ernest, "the straight line were encumbered with obstacles, that would require more time to surmount than to go round. Two leagues of clear road would be better than one only a single league in length, if intersected by ditches and strewn with wild beasts."

"Bah!" cried Jack, who had just come up out of breath, "you might leap the one and shoot the others."

"Your argument," replied Wolston, "is that of the savage, who can imagine no obstacles that are not solid and tangible. The obstacles that retard our progress in life neither display yawning chasms nor rows of teeth; they dwell within our own minds--they are versatility, disgust, ennui, thirst after the unknown, and love of change. These lead us to take bye-paths and long turnings, and fritter away the strength that should be used in promoting a single aim. Hence arise a multiplicity of hermaphrodite avocations and desultory studies, that terminate in nothing but vexation of spirit. Let us suppose, for example, that Peter has made up his mind to be a lawyer."

"I do not see any particular reason why Peter should not be a lawyer," said Jack.

"Nor I either; but unfortunately when Peter has pored a certain time over Coke upon Littleton, and other abstruse legal authorities, he accidentally witnesses a review; he throws down his books, and resolves to become a soldier."

"After the manner and style of our Fritz," suggested Jack.

"He changes the Pandects for Polybius, and Gray's Inn for a military school. All goes well for awhile; the idea of uniform helps him over the rudiments of fortification and the platoon exercise. He passes two examinations creditably, but breaks down at the third, in consequence of which he throws away his sword in disgust. He does not like now to rejoin his old companions in the Inn, who have been working steadily during the years he has lost. He therefore, perhaps, adopts a middle course, and gets himself enrolled in the society of solicitors, which does not exact a very elaborate diploma."

"Well, after all, the difference between a barrister and a solicitor is not so great."

"True; but the exercises to which he has been accustomed previously unfit him for the drudgeries of his new employment, and he soon abandons that, just as he abandoned the other two."

"Your friend Peter is somewhat difficult to please," said Jack.

"He then goes into business, a term which may mean a great deal or nothing at all; it admits of one's going about idle with the appearance of being fully occupied. Then a few unsuccessful speculations bring him back, at the end of his days, to the point whence he started--that is, zero."

"Ah, yes, I see now," cried Jack, whilst he traced a diagram on the ground. "Poor Peter has always stopped in the middle of each profession and gone back to the starting point of another, thus passing his life in making zig-zags, and only moving from one zero to another."

"Exactly," added Wolston: "whilst those who persevered in following up the profession they chose at first finally succeeded in attaining a position, and that simply by adhering to a straight line."

Here Fritz and his mother arrived, arm in arm.

"Ha! there you are," cried Ernest. "We were on our way to meet you."

"You surely do not call sitting down there being on your way to meet us, do you?"

"Well, yes, mother," suggested Jack, "on the principle that two bodies coming into contact meet each other."

Like those flowers that droop during a storm, but recover their brilliancy with the first rays of the sun, so a few days more sufficed to restore Mary Wolston to better health than she had ever enjoyed in her life before. Some months now elapsed without giving rise to any event of note. All the men, women, and children in the colony had been busily employed from early morn to late at e'en. No sooner had one field been sown than there was another to plant; then came the grain harvest and its hard but healthy toil; next, much to the delight of Willis, herrings appeared on the coast, followed by their attendant demons, the sea-dogs; salmon-fishing, hunting ortolans, the foundries and manufactories, likewise exacted a portion of their time. Frequently parties were occupied for weeks together in the remote districts; so that, with the exception of one day each week--the Sabbath--the two families had of late been rarely assembled together in one spot.

The hope of ever again beholding the Nelson had gradually ceased to be entertained by anybody. Like an echo that resounds from rock to rock until it is lost in the distance, this hope had died away in their breasts. Willis nevertheless continued to keep the beacon on Shark's Island alight; but he regarded it more as a sepulchral lamp in commemoration of the dead, than as a signal for the living.

One morning, the break of day was announced by a cannon-shot. All instantly started on their feet and gazed inquiringly in each other's faces. One thing forced itself upon all their thoughts--daybreak generally arrives without noise; it is not accustomed to announce itself with gunpowder; like real merit, it requires no flourish of trumpets to announce its advent.

"Good," said Becker; "Fritz and Jack are not visible, therefore we may easily guess who fired that shot."

"Particularly," added Wolston, "as this is the first of January. Last night I observed an unusual amount of going backwards and forwards, so, I suppose, nobody need be much at a loss to solve the mystery."

"Aye," sighed Willis, "New Year's Day brings pleasing recollections to many, but sad ones to those who are far away from their own homes."

Shortly after, the absentees arrived, each mounted on his favorite ostrich.

"Mrs. Wolston," said Fritz, spreading out a fine leopard's skin, "be good enough to accept this, with the compliments of the season."

"Mr. Wolston," said Jack, at the same time, "here is the outer covering of a panther, who, stifling with heat, commissioned me to present you with his overcoat."

"I am very proud of your gift, Master Fritz," said Mrs. Wolston; "it is really very handsome."

"It may, perhaps, be useful at all events, madam," said Fritz; "for, in the absence of universal pills and such things, it is a capital preventative of coughs and colds."

"You have been over the way again, then?" inquired Willis.

"Yes; but, as you see, we adopted a more efficacious mode of operations than the one you suggested."

"Ah," replied Willis, drily, "you did not light a fire this time to frighten the brutes away, and go to sleep when it went out!"

Sophia then presented Willis with a handsome tobacco pouch, on which the words, "From Susan," were embroidered.

"Bless your dear little heart!" said the sailor, whilst a tear sparkled in the corner of his eye, "you make me almost think I am in Old England again."

"What is the matter?" inquired Mrs. Wolston, as Mary came running in.

"Oh, such a miracle, mamma! my parrot commenced talking this morning."

"And what did it say, child?"

Here Mary blushed and hesitated; Mrs. Wolston glanced at Fritz, and thought it might be as well not to inquire any further.

"Perhaps somebody has changed it," suggested Jack.

"Not very likely that a strange parrot could pronounce my own name."

"Well, perhaps your own has been learning to spell for a long time, and has just succeeded in getting into words of two or more syllables. These creatures abound in sell-esteem; and yours, perhaps, would not speak till it could speak well."

"Odd, that it should pitch upon New Year's morning to say all sorts of pretty things. They do not carry an almanack in their pockets, do they?"

"Well," remarked Willis, "parrots do say and do odd things. I heard of one that once frightened away a burglar, by screaming out, 'The Campbells are coming;' so, Miss Wolston, perhaps yours does keep a log."

"By counting its knuckles," suggested Jack.

"Counting one's knuckles is an ingenious, but rather a clumsy substitute for the calendar," remarked Wolston.

"And who invented the calendar?" inquired Willis.

"I am not aware that the calendar was ever invented," replied Wolston. "Fruit commences by being a seed, the admiral springs from the cabin-boy, words and language succeed naturally the babble of the infant; so, I presume, the calendar has grown up spontaneously to its present degree of perfection."

"Yes, Mr. Wolston, but some one must have laid the first plank."

"The motions of the sun, moon, and stars would, in all probability, suggest to the early inhabitants of our globe a natural means of measuring time. God, in creating the heavenly bodies, seems to have reflected that man would require some index to regulate his labors and the acts of his civil life. The primary and most elementary subdivisions of time are day and night, and it demanded no great stretch of human ingenuity to divide the day into two sections, called forenoon and afternoon, or into twelve sections, called hours. Such subdivisions of time would probably suggest themselves simultaneously to all the nations of the earth. Necessity, who is the mother of all invention, doubtless called the germs of our calendar into existence."

"Yes, so far as the days and hours are concerned. There are other divisions--weeks, for example."

"The division of time into weeks is a matter that belongs entirely to revelation; the Jews keep the last day of every seven as a day of rest, in accordance with the law of Moses, and the Christians dedicate the first day of every seven to our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ."

"Then there are months."

"The month is another natural division. The return of the moon in conjunction with the sun, was observed to occur at regular intervals of twenty-nine days, twelve hours, and some minutes. This interval is called the lunar month, which for a long time was regarded as the radical unit in the admeasurement of time."

"But the year is now the unit, is it not?"

"Yes, in course of time the moon, in this respect, gave place to the sun. It was observed that the earth, in performing her revolution round the sun, always arrived at the same point of her orbit at the end of three hundred and sixty-five days, five hours, fifty-eight minutes, and forty-five seconds."

"Does the earth invariably pass the same point at that interval?"

"Yes, invariably; and the interval in question is termed the solar year."

"After all," remarked Jack, "the perseverance of the earth is very much to be admired. It goes on eternally, always performing the same journey, never deviates from its path, and is never a minute too late."

"If the earth had performed her annual voyage in a certain number of entire days, the solar year would have been an exact unit of time; but the odd fraction defied all our systems of calculation. Originally, we reckoned the year to consist of three hundred and sixty-five days."

"And left the fraction to shift for itself!"

"Yes, but the consequence was, that the civil year was always nearly a quarter of a day behind; so that at the end of a hundred and twenty-one years the civil year had become an entire month behind. The first month of winter found itself in autumn, the first month of spring in the middle of winter, and so on.

"Rather a lubberly sort of log, that," remarked Willis.

"This confusion became, with time, more and more embarrassing. Another evil was, likewise, eventually to be apprehended, for it was seen that, on the expiring of fourteen hundred and sixty revolutions of the earth round the sun, fourteen hundred and sixty-one civil years would be counted."

"But where would have been the evil?"

"All relations between the dates and the seasons would have been obliterated, astronomical calculations would have become inaccurate, and the calendar virtually useless."

"Well, Willis, you that are so fertile in ideas, what would you have done in such a case?" inquired Jack.

"I! Why I scarcely know--perhaps run out a fresh cable and commenced a new log."

"Your remedy," continued Wolston, "might, perhaps, have obviated the difficulty; but Julius Caesar thought of another that answered the purpose equally well. It was simply to add to every fourth civil year an additional day, making it to consist of three hundred and sixty-six instead of three hundred and sixty-five, This supplementary day was given to the month of February."

"Why February?"

"Because February, at that time, was reckoned the last month of the year. It was only in the reign of Charles IX. of France, or in the second half of the sixteenth century, that the civil year was made to begin on the 1st of January. As the end of February was five days before the 1st or kalends of March, the extra day was known by the phrase bis sexto (ante) calendus martii. Hence the fourth year is termed in the calendar bissextile, but is more usually called by us in England leap year."

"The remedy is certainly simple; but are your figures perfectly square? If you add a day every four years, do you not overleap the earth's fraction?"

"Yes, from ten to eleven minutes."

"And what becomes of these minutes? Are they allowed to run up another score?"

"No, not exactly. In 1582, the civil year had got ten clear days the start of the solar year, and Pope Gregory XIII. resolved to cancel them, which he effected by calling the day after the 4th of October the 15th."

"That manner of altering the rig and squaring the yards," said Willi laughing, "would make the people that lived then ten days older. If it had been ten years, the matter would have been serious. Had the Pope said to me privately, 'Willis, you are now only forty-seven, but to-morrow, my boy, you will fill your sails and steer right into fifty-seven,' I should have turned 'bout ship and cleared off. Few men care about being put upon a short allowance of life, any more than we sailors on short rations of rum."

"But you forget, Willis, that, though ten years were added to your age, you would not have died a day sooner for all that."

"Still, it is my idea that the Pope was not much smarter at taking a latitude than Mr. Julius Caesar--but what are you laughing at?"

"Nothing; only Julius Caesar is not generally honored with the prefix Mr. It is something like the French, who insist upon talking of Sir Newton and Mr. William Shakespeare; the latter, however, by way of amends, they sometimes style the immortal Williams.'"

"Not so bad, though, as a Frenchman I once met, who firmly believed the Yankees lived on a soup made of bunkum and soft-sawder. But who was Julius Caesar."

"Julius Caesar," replied Jack, sententiously, "was first of all an author, Laving published at Rome an Easy Introduction to the Latin Language; he afterwards turned general, conquered France and England, and gave Mr. Pompey a sound thrashing at the battle of Pharsalia."

"He must have been a clever fellow to do all that; still, my idea continues the same. When he began to caulk the calendar, he ought to have finished the business in a workmanlike manner."

"That, however," continued Wolston, "he left to Pope Gregory, who decreed that three leap years should be suppressed in four centuries. Thus, the years 1700 and 1800, which should have been leap years, did not reckon the extra day; so the years 2000 and 2400 will likewise be deprived of their supplementary four-and-twenty hours."

"There is one difficulty about this mode of stowing away extra days; these leap years may be forgotten."

"Not if you keep in mind that leap years alone admit of being divided by four."

"Did the Pope manage to get entirely rid of the fraction?"

"Not entirely; but the error does not exceed one day in four thousand years, and is so small that it is not likely to derange ordinary calculations; and so, Willis, you now know the origin of the calendar, and likewise how time came to be divided into weeks, months, and years."

"You have only spoken of the Christian calendar," remarked Ernest. "There have been several other systems in use. Those curious people that call themselves the children of the sun and moon, possess a mode of reckoning that carries them back to a period anterior to the creation of the world. Then, the Greeks computed by Olympiads, or periods of four years. The Romans reckoned by lustri of five years, the first of which corresponds with the 117th year of the foundation of Rome."

"And when does our calendar begin?"

"It dates only from the birth of Christ, but may be carried back to the creation, which event, to the best of our knowledge, occurred four thousand and four years before the birth of our Savior. This period, added to the date of the present, or any future year, gives us, as nearly as we can ascertain, the interval that has elapsed since our first parents found themselves in the garden of Eden."

"Our calendar," remarked Jack, "appears simple enough; it is to be regretted that there have been, and are, so many other modes of reckoning extant. What with the Greek Olympiads, the Roman lustres, the Mahometan hegira, and Chinese moonshine, there is nothing but perplexity and confusion."

"It is possible, however," said Becker, "to accommodate all these systems with each other. Leaving the Chinese out of the question, we have only to bear in mind, that the Christian era begins on the first year of the 194th Olympiad, 753 years after the building of Rome, and 622 years before the Mahometan hegira. These three figures will serve us as flambeaux to all the dates of both ancient and modern history."

The discourse was here interrupted by Toby, who entered the room, and was gleefully frisking and bounding round Mary.

"Really," observed Mrs. Becker, "Toby does seem to know that this is New Year's Day, he looks so lively and so smart."

The animal, in point of fact, wore a new collar, and seemed conscious that he was more than usually attractive that particular morning. At a sign from Mary, the intelligent brute went and wagged his tail to Fritz. Hereupon the young man, observing the collar more closely, noticed the following words embroidered upon it: I belong now entirely to Master Fritz, who rescued my mistress from the sea.

"Ah, Miss Wolston," said Fritz, "you forget I only did my duty; you must not allow your gratitude to over-estimate the service I rendered you."

"Well, I declare," cried Mrs. Wolston, laughing "here is another animal that speaks."

"The age of Aesop revived," suggested Mrs. Becker.

"What do you say, Master Jack?" inquired Mrs. Wolston. "Do you suppose that Toby has learned embroidery in the same way that the parrot learned grammar?"

"Oh, more astonishing things than that have happened! Mr. Wolston there will tell you that he has seen a wooden figure playing at chess; why, therefore, should the most sagacious of all the brutes not learn knitting?"

"I fear, in speaking so highly of the dog," replied Mrs. Wolston, "you are doing injustice to other animals. Marvellous instances of sagacity, gratitude, and affection, have been shown by other brutes beside the dog. A horse of Caligula's was elevated to the dignified office of consul."

"Yes, and talking of the affection of animals," observed Ernest, "puts me in mind of an anecdote related by Aulus Gellius. It seems that a little boy, the son of a fisher man, who had to go from Baiae to his school at Puzzoli, used to stop at the same hour each day on the brink of the Lucrine lake. Here he often threw a bit of his breakfast to a Dolphin that he called Simon, and if the creature was not waiting for him when he arrived, he had only to pronounce this name, and it instantly appeared."

"Nothing very wonderful in that," said Jack; "the common gudgeon, which is the stupidest fish to be found in fresh water, would do that much."

"Yes; but listen a moment. The dolphin, after having received his pittance, presented his back to the boy, after having tacked in all his spines and prickles as well as he could, and carried him right across the lake, thus saving the little fellow a long roundabout walk; and not only that, but after school hours it was waiting to carry him back again. This continued almost daily for a year or two; but at last the boy died, and the dolphin, after waiting day after day for his reappearance, pined away, and was found dead at the usual place of rendezvous. The affectionate creature was taken out of the lake, and buried beside its friend.[D]

"And, on the other hand," added Jack, "if animals sometimes attach themselves to us, we attach ourselves to them. We are told that Crassus wore mourning for a dead ferret, the death of which grieved him as much as if it had been his own daughter.[E] Augustus crucified one of his slaves, who had roasted and eaten a quail, that had fought and conquered in the circus.[F] Antonia, daughter-in-law of Tiberius, fastened ear-rings to some lampreys that she was passionately fond of."[G]

"That, at all events, was attachment in one sense of the word," said Mrs. Wolston.

"Without reference to the dog in particular," continued Jack, "proofs of sagacity in animals are very numerous. The nautilus, when he wants to take an airing, capsizes his shell, and converts it into a gondola; then he hoists a thin membrane that serves for a sail; two of his arms are resolved into oars, and his tail performs the functions of a rudder. There are insects ingenious enough to make dwellings for themselves in the body of a leaf as thin as paper. At the approach of a storm some spiders take in a reef or two of their webs, so as to be less at the mercy of the wind. Beavers will erect walls, and construct houses more skilfully than our ablest architects. Chimpanzees have been known spontaneously to sit themselves down, and perform the operation of shaving."

"Stop, Jack," cried Mrs. Wolston; "I must yield to such a deluge of argument, and admit that Toby may have acquired the art of embroidery with or without a master, only I should like to see some other specimen of his skill."

"Probably you will by-and-by," replied Jack, laughing, "if you keep your eyes open."

Here Sophia came into the room leading her gazelle.

"Ah, just in time," said Mrs. Wolston; "here is another animal that probably has something to say."

"Wrong, mamma," replied Sophia; "my gazelle is as mute as a mermaid. Very provoking, is it not, when all the other animals in the house talk?"

"You had better apply to Master Jack; he may, probably, be able to hit upon a plan to make your gazelle communicative."

"Will you, Master Jack?"

"Certainly, Miss Sophia. The plan I would suggest is very simple. Feed him for a week or two with nouns, adjectives, and verbs."

Here Sophia, addressing her gazelle, said, "Master Jack Becker is a goose."

Meantime Fritz was leaning on the back of Mary's chair.

"Miss Wolston," said he, "did you not tell me that you had brought Toby up, and that you were very fond of him?"

"Yes, Fritz."

"Then it would be unfair in me to withdraw his allegiance from you now, and, consequently, I must refuse your present"

"But where would have been the merit of the gift if I did not hold him in some esteem? Besides, I thought you were fond of Toby."

"So I am, Miss Wolston."

"Then you will not be indebted to me for anything--I owe you much."

"No such thing; you owe me nothing."

"My life, then, is nothing?"

"Oh, I did not mean that; I must beg your pardon."

"Which I will only grant on condition you accept my gift."

"Well, if you insist upon it, I will."

"I can see him as before; the only difference will be that you are his master, in all other respects he will belong to us both."

"May I know what your knight-errant is saying to you, Mary?" inquired Mrs. Becker.

"Oh, I have been so angry with him; he was going to refuse my present."

"That was very naughty of him, certainly."

"He has, however, consented, like a dutiful squire, to obey my behests."

"Yes, mother, Toby is henceforth to be divided between us."

"Divided?"

"Yes; that is, he is to be nominally mine, but virtually to belong to us both. Is it not so, Miss Wolston?"

"Yes, Master Fritz."

On his side, Jack had approached Miss Sophia.

"So you won't give me your gazelle?" he whispered.

"No, certainly not, Mr. Jack," replied Sophia; "if you had saved my life, as Fritz saved my sister's, I should then have had the right to make you a present. But you know it is not my fault."

"Nor mine either," said Jack.

"Perhaps not; but if I had fallen into the sea, you would have allowed the sharks to swallow me, would you not?"

"I only wish we had been attacked by a hyena or a bear on our way to Waldeck."

"God be thanked, that we were not!"

"Well, but look here, Miss Sophia; let me paint the scene. You have fainted, as a matter of course, and fallen prostrate on the ground, insensible."

"That is likely enough, if we had encountered one of the animals you mention."

"Then I throw myself between you and the savage brute."

"Supposing you were not half a mile off at the time."

"No fear of that--he rises, on his hind legs, and glares."

"Is it a hyena or a bear?"

"Oh, whichever you like--he opens his jaws, and growls."

"Like the wolf at Little Red Riding Hood."

"I plunge my arm down his throat and choke him."

"Clever, very; but are you not wounded?"

"I beg your pardon, however; all my thoughts are centred in you--I think of nothing else."

"I am insensible, am I not?"

"Yes, more than ever--we all run towards you, and exert ourselves to bring you back to your senses."

"Then I come to life again."

"No, stop a bit."

"But it is tiresome to be so long insensible."

"My mother has luckily a bottle of salts, which she holds to your nose--I run off to the nearest brook, and return with water in the crown of my cap, with which I bathe your temples."

"Oh, in that case, I should open one eye at least. Which eye is opened first after fainting?"

"I really don't know."

"In that case, to avoid mistakes, I should open both."

"It is only then, when I find you are recovering, that I discover the brute has severely bitten my arm."

"Then comes my turn to nurse you."

"You express your thanks in your sweetest tones, and I forget my wounds."

"Sweet tones do no harm, if they are accompanied with salves and ointment."

"In short, I am obliged to carry my arm in a sling for three months after."

"Is that not rather long?"

"No; because your arm, in some sort, supplies, meantime, the place of mine."

"Your picture has, at least, the merit of being poetic. Is it finished?"

"Not till next New Year's Day, when you present me with an embroidered scarf, as the ladies of yore used to do to the knights that defended them from dragons and that sort of thing."

"What a pity all this should be only a dream!"

"Well, I am not particularly extravagant, at all events; others dream of fortune, honor, and glory."

"Whilst you confine your aspirations to a bear, a bite, and a scarf."

"You see nothing was wanted but the opportunity."

"And foresight."

"Foresight?"

"Yes; if you had previously made arrangements with a bear, the whole scene might have been realized."

"You are joking, whilst I am taking the matter au serieux."

"That order is usually reversed; generally you are the quiz and I am the quizzee."

"You will admit, at all events, that I would not have permitted the bear to eat you."

Here Sophia burst into a peal of laughter, and vanished with her gazelle.

FOOTNOTES:

[D] Aulus Gellius, VII., 8.

[E] Macrobius, Saturn, XL, 4.

[F] Plutarch.

[G] Pliny, IX., 53.

Chapter XVI.

Separation--Guelphs and Ghibelines--Montagues and Capulets--Sadness--The Reunion--Jocko and his Education--The Entertainments of a King--The Mules of Nero and the Asses of Poppæa--Hercules and Achilles--Liberty and Equality--Semiramis and Elizabeth--Christianity and the Religion of Zoroaster--The Willisonian Method--Moral Discipline versus Birch.

Winter was now drawing near, with its storms and deluges. Becker therefore felt that it was necessary to make some alterations in their domestic arrangements; and he saw that, for this season at all events, the two families must be separated--this was to create a desert within a desert; but propriety and convenience demanded the sacrifice.

It was decided that Wolston and his family should be quartered at Rockhouse, whilst Becker and his family should pass the rainy season at Falcon's Nest, where, though these aerial dwellings were but indifferently adapted for winter habitations, they had passed the first year of their sojourn in the colony. The rains came and submerged the country between the two families, thus, for a time, cutting off all communication between them. The barriers that separated the Guelphs from the Ghibelines, the Montagues from the Capulets, the Burgundians from the Armagnacs, and the House of York from that of Lancaster, could not have been more impenetrable than that which now existed between the Wolstons and Beckers.

Whenever a lull occurred in the storm, or a ray of sunshine shot through the murky clouds, all eyes were mechanically turned to the window, but only to turn them away again with a sigh; so completely had the waters invaded the land, that nothing short of the dove from Noah's Ark could have performed the journey between Rockhouse and Falcon's Nest.

Dulness and dreariness reigned triumphant at both localities. The calm tranquility that Becker's family formerly enjoyed under similar circumstances had fled. They felt that happiness was no longer to be enjoyed within the limits of their own circle. Study and conversation lost their charms; and if they laughed now, the smile never extended beyond the tips of their lips. The young people often wished they possessed Fortunatus's cap, or Aladdin's wonderful lamp, to transport them from the one dwelling to the other; but as they could obtain no such occult mode of conveyance, there was no remedy for their miseries but patience. To the Wolstons this interval of compulsory separation was particularly irksome, as this was the first time in their lives that they had been entirely isolated for any length of time.

At Falcon's Nest, Ernest was the most popular member of the domestic circle. His astronomical predilections made him the Sir Oracle of the storm, and he was constantly being asked for information relative to the progress and probable duration of the rains. Every morning he was called upon for a report as to the state of the weather; but, with all his skill, he could afford them very little consolation.

But all things come to an end, as well as regards our troubles as our joys. One morning, Ernest reported that less rain had fallen during the preceding than any former night of the season; the next morning a still more favorable report was presented; and on the third morning the floods had subsided, but had left a substratum of mud that obliterated all traces of the roads. Notwithstanding this, and a smart shower that continued to fall, Fritz and Jack determined to force a passage to Rockhouse.

Towards evening, the two young men returned, soaking with wet and covered with mud, but with light hearts, for they had found their companions in the enjoyment of perfect health and in the best spirits. They brought back with them a missive, couched in the following terms:--

"Mr. and Mrs. Wolston, greeting, desire the favor of Mr. and Mrs. Becker's company to dinner, together with their entire family, this day se'nnight, weather permitting."

Ernest was hereupon consulted, and stated that, in so far as the rain was concerned, they should in eight days be able to undertake the journey to Rockhouse. This assurance was not, however, entirely relied upon, for between this and then many an anxious eye was turned skywards, as if in search of some more conclusive evidence. Those who possess a garden--and he who has not, were it only a box of mignionette at the window--will often have observed, in consequence of absence or forgetfulness, that their flowers have begun to droop; they hasten to sprinkle them with water, then watch anxiously for signs of their revival. So both families continued unceasingly during these eight days to note the ever-varying modifications of the clouds.

At length the much wished-for day arrived; the morning broke with a blaze of sunshine, and though hidden with a dense mist, the ground was sufficiently hardened to bear their weight. Wolston awaited his guests at a bridge of planks that had been thrown across the Jackal River, where he and Willis had erected a sort of triumphal arch of mangoe leaves and palm branches. Here Becker and his family were welcomed, as if the one party had just arrived from Tobolsk, and the other from Chandernagor, after an absence of ten years.

Another warm reception awaited them at Rockhouse, where an abundant repast was already spread in the gallery. Mrs. Becker had often intended to work herself a pair of gloves, but the increasing demand for stockings had hitherto prevented her. She was pleased, therefore, on sitting down to dinner, to discover a couple of pairs under her plate, with her own initials embroidered upon them.

"Ah," said she, "I was almost afraid I had lost my daughters, but I have found them again."

After dinner the girls showed her a quantity of cotton they had spun, which proved that, though they might have been dull, they had, at least, been industrious.

"Mary span the most of it," said Sophia; "but you know, Mrs. Becker, she is the biggest."

"Oh, then," said Jack, "the power of spinning depends upon the bulk of the spinner?"

"Oh, Master Jack, I thought you had been ill, that you had not commenced quizzing us before."

"Never mind him, Soffy," said her father; "to quote Hudibras,

  "There's nothing on earth hath so perfect a phiz,
  As not to give birth to a passable quiz."

Here Willis led in the chimpanzee, who made a grimace to the assembled company.

"Now, ladies and gentlemen," said Willis, "Jocko is about to show you the progress he has made in splicing and bracing."

"Good!" said Becker, "you have been able to make something of him, then?"

"You will see presently. Jocko, bring me a plate."

Hereupon the chimpanzee seized a bottle of Rockhouse malaga, and filled a glass.

"He has erred on the safe side there," said Jack, drily.

"Well," added Willis, laughing, "we must let that pass. Jocko," said he, assuming a sententious tone, "I asked you for a plate."

The chimpanzee looked at him, hesitated a moment, then seized the glass, and drank the contents off at a single draught. A box on the ears then sent him gibbering into a corner.

"Your servant," remarked Mrs. Wolston, "has been taking lessons from Dean Swift as well as yourself, Willis."

"I will serve him out for that, the swab; he does not play any of those tricks when we are alone. I must admit, however, that I am generally in the habit of helping myself."

Here attention was called to the parrot, who was screaming out lustily, "I love Mary, I love Sophia."

"Holloa," exclaimed Fritz, "Polly loves everybody now, does she?"

"Well, you see," replied Sophia, "I grew tired of hearing him scream always that he loved my sister, so by means of a little coaxing, and a good deal of sugar, I got him to love me too."

The poultry were next mustered for the inspection of their old masters. These did not consist of the ordinary domestic fowls alone; amongst them were a beautiful flamingo, some cranes, bustards, and a variety of tame tropical birds. With the fowls came the pigeons, which were perching about them in all directions.

"We are now something like the court of France in the fourteenth century," said Wolston.

"How so?" inquired Becker.

"In the reign of Charles V., they were obliged to place a trellis at the windows of the Palace of St. Paul to prevent the poultry from invading the dining room."

"Rural anyhow," observed Jack.

"Of course, most other features of the palace were in unison with this primitive state of matters. The courtiers sat on stools. There was only one chair in the palace, that was the arm-chair of the king, which was covered with red leather, and ornamented with silk fringes."

"So that we may console ourselves with the reflection, that we are as comfortable here as kings were at that epoch in Europe," remarked Ernest.

"Yes; historians report, that when Alphonso V. of Portugal went to Paris to solicit the aid of Louis XI. against the King of Arragon, who had taken Castile from him, the French monarch received him with great honor, and endeavored to make his stay as agreeable as possible."

"Reviews, I suppose, feasts, tournaments, spectacles, and so forth."

"A residence was assigned him in the Rue de Prouvaires, at the house of one Laurent Herbelot, a grocer."

"What! amongst dried peas and preserved plums?"

"Precisely; but the house of Herbelot might then have been one of the most commodious buildings in all Paris. Alphonso was afterwards conducted to the palace, where he pleaded his cause before the king. Next day he was entertained at the archiepiscopal residence, where he witnessed the induction of a doctor in theology. The day after that a procession to the university was organized, which passed under the grocer's windows."

"These were singular marvels to entertain a king withal," said Jack.

"Such were the amusements peculiar to the epoch. It must be observed that the Louis in question was somewhat close-fisted, and rarely drew his purse-strings unless he was certain of a good interest for his money. But courts in those days were very simple and frugal. The sumptuary laws of Philip le Bel (1285) had fixed supper at three dishes and a lard soup. The king's own dinner was likewise limited to three dishes."

"These three dishes might, however, have yielded a better repast than the fifty-two saucers of the Chinese," remarked Jack.

"No one could obtain permission to give his wife four dresses a year, unless he had an income of six thousand francs."

"What business had the laws to interfere with these things, I should like to know?" inquired Mrs. Wolston.

"Those who possessed two thousand francs income were only allowed to wear one dress a year, the cloth for which was not permitted to exceed tenpence a yard; but ladies of rank could go as high as fifteen pence."

"Philip le Bel must have been an old woman," insisted Mrs. Wolston.

"No private citizen was permitted to use a carriage, and such persons were likewise interdicted the use of flambeaux."

"They were permitted to break their necks at all events, that is something."

"In England, the same primitive simplicity prevailed; Queen Elizabeth is said to have breakfasted on a gallon of ale, her dining-room floor was strewn every day with fresh straw or rushes, and she had only one pair of silk stockings in her entire wardrobe."

"At the same time," observed Ernest, "these usages stand in singular contradiction to those that prevailed at an earlier age. The supper of Lucullus rarely cost him less than thirty thousand francs, and he could entertain five and twenty thousand guests. Six citizens of Rome possessed a great part of Africa. Domitius had an estate in France of eighty thousand acres."

"Poor fellow!"

"When Nero went to Baize he was accompanied by a thousand chariots and two thousand mules caparisoned with silver. Poppaea followed him with five hundred she asses to furnish milk for her bath. Cicero purchased a dining-room table that cost him a million sesterces, or about two hundred thousand francs. I can understand the progress of civilization, and I can also understand civilization remaining stationary for a given period; but I cannot understand why a citizen of ancient Rome should be able to lodge twenty-five thousand men, whilst a king of France could scarcely keep the ducks from waddling about his apartments, and a queen of England could fare no better than a ploughman."

"If," replied Frank, "there were no other criterion of civilization than luxury and riches, you would have good grounds for surprise; but such is not the case. Between ancient and modern times, Christianity arose, and that has tended in some degree to keep down the ostentation of the rich, and to augment, at the same time, the comforts of the poor. In place of the heroes, Hercules and Achilles, we have had the apostles Peter and Paul; so Luther and Calvin have been substituted for Semiramis and Nero. Pride has given place to charity, and corruption to virtue."

"Would that it were so, Frank," continued Ernest. "Christianity has, doubtless, effected many beneficial changes, and produced many able men; but in this last respect antiquity has not been behind. It has also its sages: Thales, Socrates, and Pythagoras, for example."

"True," replied Frank, "antiquity has produced some virtuous men, but their virtue was ideal, and their creed a dream."

"And the Stoics?"

"The Stoics despised suffering, and Christians resign themselves to its chastisements; this constitutes one of the lines of demarcation between ancient and modern theology."

"But there were many signal instances of virtue manifested in ancient times."

"Yes; but for the most part, it was either exaggerated or false; unyielding pride, obstinate courage, implacable resentment of injuries. Errors promenaded in robes under the porticos. Ambition was honored in Alexander, suicide in Cato, and assassination in Brutus."

"But what say you to Plato?"

"The immolation of ill-formed children, and of those born without the permission of the laws, prosecution of strangers and slavery; such were the basis of his boasted republic, and the gospel of his philosophy."

"Why, then, are these men held up as models for our imitation?"

"Because they are distant and dead; likewise, because they were, in many respects, great and wise, considering the paganism and darkness with which they were surrounded. Life was then only sacred to the few; the many were treated as beasts of burden. The Emperor Claudian even felt bound to issue an edict prohibiting slaves from being slain when they were old and feeble."

"Which leaves a margin for us to suppose that they might be slain when they were young and strong," observed Jack.

"By the constitution of Constantine certain cases were defined, where a master might suspend his slave by the feet, have him torn by wild beasts, or tortured by slow fire."

"Does slavery and its horrors not still exist, for example, in Russia and the United States of America?"

"Slavery does exist, to the great disgrace of modern civilization, in the countries you mention; but, so far as I am aware, its horrors are not recognized by the laws."

"There, Mr. Frank," said Wolston, "I am very sorry to be under the necessity of contradicting you. I have visited the slave states of North America, and have witnessed atrocities perhaps less brutal, but not less heart-rending, than those you mention."

"But do the laws recognize them?"

"Yes, tacitly; the testimony of the slaves themselves is not received as evidence."

"Why do a people that call their county a refuge for the down-trodden nations of Europe suffer such abominations?"

"Well, according to themselves, it is entirely a question of the almighty dollar. If there were no slaves, the swamps and morasses of the south could not be cultivated. It has been found that the negro will dance, and sing, and starve, but he will not work in the fields when free. Besides, they assert, that the slaves are generally well cared for, and that it is only a few detestable masters that beat them cruelly."

"Then, at all events, dollars are preferred to humanity by the United States men, in spite of their vaunted emblems--liberty and equality."

"Quite so. In all matters of internal policy, the dollar reigns supreme."

"Admitting," continued Frank, "that the evils of slavery may exist in a section of the American Union, and amongst the barbarous hordes of Russia, these evils are trifling in comparison with others that stain the annals of antiquity. We are told that a hundred and twenty persons applied to Otho to be rewarded for killing Galba. That so many men should contend for the honor of premeditated murder, is sufficiently characteristic of the epoch. There was then no corruption, no brutal passion, that had not its temple and its high priest. In the midst of all this wickedness and vice there appeared a man, poor and humble, who accomplished what no man ever did before, and what no man will ever do again--he founded a moral and eternal civilization. Judaism and the religion of Zoroaster were overthrown. The gods of Tyre and Carthage were destroyed. The beliefs of Miltiades and of Pericles, of Scipio and Seneca, were disavowed. The thousands that flocked annually to worship the Eleusinian Ceres ceased their pilgrimage. Odin and his disciples have all perished. The very language of Osiris, which was afterwards spoken by the Ptolemies, is no longer known to his descendants. The paganisms which still exist in the East are rapidly yielding to the march of western intelligence. Christianity alone, amidst all these ring and fallen fabrics, retains its original vitality, for, like its author, it is imperishable."

"It is a curious thing what we call conversation," observed Mrs. Wolston. "No sooner is one subject broached than another is introduced; and we go on from one thing to another until the original idea is lost sight of. Leaving the palace of Charles V., to go with the King of Portugal to a grocer's shop in some street or other of Paris, we cross the Alps, the Himalaya, and the Atlantic. Lucullus, Nero, Achilles, Peter, Paul, Tyre and Sidon, Semiramis and Elizabeth--queens, saints, and philosophers, are all passed in review, and why? Because the pigeons put my husband in mind of the Palace of St. Paul!"

"No wonder," observed Jack; "these pigeons are carriers, and naturally suggest wandering."

Once more seated round the table, Fritz, observing that the misunderstanding between Willis and the chimpanzee still continued, thrust a plate into the hand of the latter, and pointed with his finger to Willis. This time Jocko obeyed, for the language was intelligible, and he went and placed the plate before his master.

"Ho, ho!" cried Willis, "so you have come to your senses at last, have you? Well, that saves you an extra lesson to-morrow, you lubber you."

"He takes rather long to obey your orders, though, Willis; it is rather awkward to wait an hour for anything you ask for. What system do you pursue in educating him--the Pestalozzian or the parochial?"

"We follow the system in fashion aboard ship," replied Willis.

"And what does that consist of?"

"A rope's end."

"Oh, then, you are an advocate for the birch, are you?" said Wolston; "it is, doubtless, a very good thing when moderately and judiciously administered. That puts me in mind of the missionary and the king of the Kuruman negroes."

"A tribe of Southern Africa, is it not?"

"Yes, the missionary and the king were great friends. The king not only permitted him to baptize his subjects, but offered to whip them all into Christianity in a week. This summary mode of proselytism did not, however, coincide with the Englishman's ideas, and he refused the offer, although the king insisted that it was the only kind of argument that could ever reach their understandings."

The day at length drew to a close, and, though no one asked the time yet all felt that the moment of departure was approaching; whether they were willing to go was doubtful, but at they were loth to depart was certain.

"It is time to return now," said Becker, rising.

"Already!"

"There are some clouds in the distance that bode no good."

"Nothing more than a little rain at worst," said Jack.

"And your mother?" inquired Decker.

"Oh! we can make a palanquin for her."

"Your plan, Jack, is not particularly bright; it puts me in mind of some genius or other that took shelter in the water to keep out of the wet."

"Very odd," said Jack, "we are always wishing for rain, and when it comes, we do all we can to keep out of its way."

"That is, because we are neither green pease nor gooseberries," said Ernest, drily.

"True, brother; and as the rain is your affair, perhaps you will be good enough to delay it for an hour or so."

"I am sorry on my own account, as well as yours, that I have not yet discovered the art of controlling the skies."

Here Fritz whispered a few words in his mother's ear, that called up one of those ineffable smiles that the maternal heart alone can produce.

"Well," said Mrs. Becker, "if you think so, deliver the message yourself."

"Mrs. Wolston," said Fritz, "I am charged to invite you and your family to Falcon's Nest this day week."

"The invitation is accepted, unless my daughters have any objections to urge."

"How can you fancy such a thing, mamma?" said both girls.

"The fact is, that my daughters have got such a dread of cold water, that they dread to wet the soles of their shoes, unless one or other of you gentlemen is within hail."

"Mamma does so love to tease us," said Mary; "we are afraid of nothing but putting you to inconvenience."

"Well, in that case, we shall be at Falcon's Nest on the appointed day, unless the roads are positively submerged."

"In that case," said Jack, "a line of canoes will be placed upon the highway, between the two localities."

As the prospect of a prize incites the young scholar to increased exertion--as the prospect of worldly honors urges the ambitious man on in his career--as the oasis cheers the weary traveller on his journey through the desert, and makes him forget hunger and thirst--as the dreams of comfort and home warm the blood of a wayfarer amongst snow and ice--as hope smooths the ruggedness of poverty and softens the calamities of adversity, so the prospect of meeting again mitigates the regrets of parting.