Title: The Girl's Own Paper, Vol. VIII, No. 367, January 8, 1887
Author: Various
Language: English
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VIII, NO. 367, JANUARY 8, 1887 ***



[Illustration: THE GIRL’S OWN PAPER

VOL. VIII.—NO. 367.      JANUARY 8, 1887.      PRICE ONE PENNY.]



MERLE’S CRUSADE.

BY ROSA NOUCHETTE CAREY, Author of “Aunt Diana,” “For Lilias,” etc.


[Illustration: “IN A MOMENT THERE WAS A FLUTTERING OF WINGS IN THE
AIR.”]

_All rights reserved._]


CHAPTER XIII.

THE LITTLE WORKERS IN BROWN.

How delicious it is when one is young to wake up in a fresh place on a
summer’s morning. It was my belief that the birds woke me, there was
such a twittering under the eaves where the house-martins had built
their nests, such a warbling of thrushes breakfasting on the dewy lawn,
such a cawing of rooks under the elm trees; such a joyous bird-symphony
altogether, while I lay in my old-fashioned blue bed, looking round
the quaint old room and trying to decipher the meaning of the curious
prints in their black frames. When I was tired of this I rose and went
to the window. The kitchen garden, with its row of beehives, was just
under the window, and beyond were Cherrytree-lane and Squire Hawtry’s
cornfield, and then a vague blue line, and a brown sail shimmering in
the sunlight. The sweet peacefulness of the scene seemed to sink into
my heart, and I could have sung my _Te Deum_ with the birds.

When the children were dressed and we had finished our early breakfast,
I went to the window with Reggie while Hannah was clearing the table.
Joyce had already climbed up on the window seat; she was wild to go
into the garden and see auntie’s pets, and I thought it would be no
harm to humour her fancy and defer our walk to the shore.

As we stood there Miss Cheriton came out on the terrace. She wore a
broad brimmed hat, and long gardening gloves, and carried a basket. She
gave a low, peculiar call, and in a moment there was a fluttering of
wings in the air, and a crowd of pigeons came round her feet to pick up
the grain she had scattered; the pheasants and peacocks joined them.

I thought what a pretty picture it would have made; the old red brick
house with its ivy-covered gables in the background; the terrace with
its sundial and antique vases; the girl in her white gown with her
beautiful pets round her, her favourite blue pigeons eating out of her
hand.

“Oh, auntie, may we come?” pleaded Joyce; and Miss Cheriton looked up
at us and smiled and nodded, and Joyce snatched her sun-bonnet and in a
few minutes we had joined her on the terrace.

She greeted us with evident pleasure, and playfully held up her finger
to silence Joyce.

“Don’t make a noise, my pet, or Rolf will hear you and want to come
out; he is having his breakfast with Aunt Adelaide; and he is so rough
and tiresome that I do not care to have him with me just now; you shall
go with me into the poultry yard and feed the little yellow chicks
yourself.”

Joyce was highly delighted at this prospect, and trotted along in her
big white sun-bonnet, chattering as fast as her tongue would go. When
we arrived at the poultry yard, Miss Cheriton filled her pinafore with
grain and showed her where to throw it, and then picked up one of the
downy yellow chicks for Reggie to kiss and hug; but he was so unwilling
to part with it that we had some trouble to rescue the warm struggling
thing; only the speckled hen was in such a fuss, clacking loudly in
the midst of her brood. When we had exhausted the grain and had fed
some grey rabbits, and had peeped in at the stables, and had bestowed a
passing attention on the big St. Bernard in his kennel—Miss Cheriton’s
chief favourite next to her brown mare, Bonnie—we sat down on a bench
in the orchard, at some little distance from the beehives, while the
children gathered daisies and buttercups.

“I am so fond of this old orchard,” observed Miss Cheriton, as she
threw down her empty basket and removed her gloves, showing a pair of
small brown hands that looked very strong and capable; “when I have
nothing else to do, I and my pets come here and enjoy the quiet. Do you
know, the peacocks and pheasants will follow me all over the place as
closely as a dog? They don’t mind Lion a bit; and he is as gentle as a
lamb. On Sunday afternoon I have all the creatures round me. Adelaide
declares I waste my time dreadfully with the beasties.”

“They must give you plenty of occupation, Miss Cheriton,” for I have
come to the conclusion that this girl was far from idle. The care of
that extensive poultry-yard could be no sinecure’s office, besides
which the beehives were her exclusive charge, though I heard afterwards
the gardener’s son, Jim, was her under helper. All the live things
about the place looked to her for food and comfort. She had a cage full
of canaries in the conservatory, and a large grey parrot as well.

“Oh, I am always with my pets and flowers until luncheon-time,” she
remarked, carelessly; “Jim is a very handy boy, and helps me with the
rough work. I was up at six this morning, and we had moved half the
pots in the conservatory before breakfast. I am always up early, except
in the winter; the world is not half awake at that time of the year,
and certainly not well lighted.”

“Those beehives must be a very profitable investment,” I observed, for
I had heard before now that people had added largely to their incomes
by keeping bees.

“You would be surprised how much I make by my hives,” she returned.
“I have only a limited interest in the poultry yard, and have to find
chickens and eggs for the household, but the beehives are my own. I
succeeded so well with them last year, and I believe I shall do just as
well this autumn. I am very proud of my bees.”

“It would not be a bad plan——” I began, and then I stopped, for I had
spoken hastily, and how could I know if my words would be well received?

“Well,” she said, with a pretty air of impatience, “why do you stop?
You have got something dreadfully sensible in your head, and I should
like to hear it.”

“I am rather too quick with my words,” I answered, somewhat hesitating.
“I was only thinking of what you said last night; you were condemning
yourself very needlessly, as I think, and comparing your means of
usefulness with Mrs. Morton’s.”

“With Violet’s many-sided duties. Well, I do not retract my words. I
said I was always amusing myself; so I am; my bees are my playthings.”

“You could make them work for you if you chose,” I returned, quickly;
“if one of these hives, for example, were devoted to some good
purpose, if the money you got for the honey were given to one of those
institutions in which your sister takes such interest.”

“Oh, what a nice idea,” she exclaimed, with a bright look. “I wonder
what put that into your head. I was rather uncomfortable having all
that money to spend on myself; I thought of giving some to Adelaide for
Rolf, only I cannot get up an interest in that boy. I have more than I
want, for one does not need so many dresses in the country, and nothing
will induce me to go through a London season again. I tried it once,”
with a merry laugh, “just to please Violet, but it nearly killed me,
so I wrote to father to take me away. I should have liked the balls
very well, only I got so dreadfully sleepy before they were over, and
the rides in the Row were nice, if only they would have let me gallop,
but I was nearly taken up for furious riding once when I could not get
Bonnie to stop, and after that Alick lectured me, and I got sick of it.”

“You would not like your sister’s life, then?”

Gay shrugged her shoulders with a gesture of disgust.

“It is not life at all; it is a daily round of harassing duties. Look
what it has done for Violet—robbed her of spirits and bloom; she will
be an old woman before her time. The fun is very well, but there is too
much of it. I pined for fresh air, for the garden, and the bees, and
my other pets. I am afraid my partners thought me dreadfully rustic; I
seemed to amuse them. I do not care for the young men in ball-rooms,
they are so vapid, and, for all their politeness, they seemed to be
laughing at one.”

I could not help smiling at this; it was very odd she should be so
frank with me. She must have forgotten that I had no experience of
ball-rooms, and had never danced except at school-parties, when the
girls were allowed to bring their brothers.

“You are looking satirical, Miss Fenton. Oh, of course, I see what you
mean; but never mind, there are better things than balls in life. For
my part, I prefer a solitary gallop on Bonnie to Strauss’s best waltz,
though I do love dancing too, but, you see, neither Violet nor I have
been trained to a fashionable life. We have lived in the country, have
risen early, and been in the open air from morning to night, and now
poor Violet never goes to bed in time to get a beauty sleep, and she
drives instead of taking a good walk, so no wonder her cheeks get pale
and thin.”

“It is a grievous pity,” I began, but Gay interrupted me.

“Oh, it is no use talking about Violet, I have given her up long ago;
Alick has robbed me of her entirely. Now about your benevolent project;
I mean to carry it out. Do you know the Children’s Incurable Hospital,
Maida Vale? Violet is always working for that. There is to be a ‘Muriel
Cot,’ in memory of the dear little baby she lost. Now why should I not
have a ‘Children’s Hive,’ and make those special bees gather honey for
those little incurable children. I call that a lovely idea. Look, that
end hive under the apple tree shall be the one. Miss Fenton, you have
emancipated me; I feel a philanthropist already; the world will be the
better for me and my workers.”

I looked at her admiringly; such a lovely colour had come to her face,
and her eyes looked so bright and happy. I felt I understood Gay
Cheriton from that moment. She was one of those guileless, innocent
natures that are long in throwing off childhood. She was full of
generous impulses, frank and outspoken to a fault; the yoke of life
pressed lightly on her; she was like an unbridled colt, that had never
felt the curb or the spur; gentle guidance, a word from those she
loved, was sufficient to restrain her. I knew now why Joyce had called
her the little auntie; there was an air of extreme youth about her; she
was so very lovable that diminutiveness suited her, and I thought her
father’s pet name of humming bird suited her exactly; she was so quick
and bright and restless, her vitality and energy demanded constant
movement.

“How I am chattering!” she said at last, “and I have all the vases
to fill before luncheon, but, as I told you last night, I am fond of
talking if I can get anyone to listen to me. Adelaide never will listen
to me patiently; she says I am such a chatterbox. Goodbye for the
present, Miss Fenton.” And she tripped away, singing in such a fresh
young voice as she went down the orchard that I did not wonder when a
little brown linnet perched on a rose-bush answered her. I think the
birds must have loved to hear her.

I sat for some time contemplating the low white gate and the row of
beehives. I was rather pleased with the idea I had started; a word in
season sometimes brings a rich harvest. I thought some time of the tiny
workers in their brown livery bringing in their rich stores for the
afflicted children; and it seemed to me that the offering would be a
sweet savour to the Master who loved children.

I fell into a reverie over it; I thought how much might be done for
others with little cost if people would only think; it is want of
thought that clogs usefulness. Great sacrifices are so seldom demanded
from us; we are not now called upon to forsake all that we hold dear
and follow the Christ—little daily duties, small hourly renunciations,
pleasures given up for some cheerful loving service: these are the
free-will offerings that all may yield, only the people must “give
willingly.”

The morning passed pleasantly in the sunny orchard; when the children
tired of their play we went back to the house that they might have
their noonday sleep. I was sitting alone in the nursery, mending
Reggie’s pinafore, when I heard the clatter of noisy footsteps in the
corridor, and a moment after the nursery latch was lifted without
ceremony, and Rolf peeped in. He had a droll, half-ashamed expression
on his face, but it bore no trace of yesterday’s ill-humour.

“May I come in, if you please, Mrs. New Nurse?”

“My name is Miss Fenton, as I told you yesterday; or, you may call me
Nurse if you choose. Yes; you may come in and talk to me if you like,
Master Rolf; but you must be very quiet, as your little cousins are
asleep.”

“What precious babies they must be to sleep in the day!” he observed,
disdainfully, as he planted himself without ceremony on the window
seat. “I sit up until ten o’clock every night; sometimes I will not go
to bed until mother goes.”

    “‘Early to bed and early to rise,
    Makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise,’

Master Rolf.”

“Wealthy means rich, doesn’t it? Well, Juddy said I shall be a rich man
some day. I have got father’s watch and sword now, only mother locks
them up until I am bigger. You are not rich, eh, Miss Fenton?” peeping
into my face rather maliciously.

“No, Master Rolf,” I returned, quietly.

“Oh, I knew that you are only a nurse; I heard mother and Aunt Gay
talking about you last night. Mother said you were a poor sort, and
she wondered at Violet’s infatuation. She thought you stuck up and
disagreeable, and not much to look at; a plain young woman, and very
disrespectful. There, now!”

“Master Rolf,” I observed, calmly, and suppressing my inward wrath,
“you call yourself a gentleman, but I assure you a savage shows more
gentlemanly feeling than you. Don’t you know your mother’s words should
be sacred, and you are bound in honour not to repeat them?” And then,
as he seemed rather impressed at this, I told him how, even among
savages and wild and uncultured nations, the sense of hospitality and
gratitude was so strong that, when a man had partaken of bread and
salt, broken the bread of fellowship, he was bound in honour not to
betray or injure his host in any way; and I related to him an anecdote
of an Armenian servant, who had long been faithful to his master, and
had defended him in many dangers in his travels through a lawless
country.

“The master,” I continued, “had vast treasures under his care, and he
was greatly troubled when his servant said he must leave him. Judge
what his feelings must have been when the man coolly told him that
he had entered into a league with some banditti to rob him of his
money; that it would be mean to remain in his service under these
circumstances, and that he had given him warning of his intention, that
he might defend himself, and that now they were equal.

“Even this lawless robber had some notions of honour, Master Rolf;
while he ate his master’s bread and salt he was bound by his service
not to injure him. Now you are only a little boy, but you ought to
understand that you also are bound not to betray your mother or repeat
her words, as long as you eat her bread and salt; that is the way
people do so much mischief in the world, repeating things they know are
not meant to be heard.”

Rolf’s eyes sparkled.

“I like that story awfully. Yes,” and looking at me critically, “I like
you too, though you are a plain young woman. No, I did not mean to say
that,” interrupting himself in a hurry; “bread and salt, you know; I
shall always think of that when I am going to tell Juddy things that
mother says. She is an old stupid, you know, and she never has time to
make a tail to my kite, and mother says she has no patience with her,
she is such an——Oh, oh, Miss Fenton, bread and salt! How ever shall I
remember when I want to put Juddy in a rage?”

“I daresay I shall be able to help you with your kite,” I returned,
changing the subject, “but we shall want plenty of string and paper.”

“Oh, you nice old thing,” replied Rolf, ecstatically. “You are not a
bit plain, not a bit; I shall tell mother I think you lovely, and that
I mean to marry you when I grow up. Won’t she stare at that? May I
bring my kite here this afternoon?”

“No, no, my dear, not this afternoon; we are going to the shore.”

“Oh, then I will come with you. Mother,” as Mrs. Markham appeared at
the door, and looked at us with unfeigned surprise, “I can’t drive with
you this afternoon; I am going on the beach with Miss Fenton and the
children.”

(_To be continued._)

[Illustration]



THE HISTORY OF HOME

OR

DOMESTIC WAYS SINCE THE TIMES OF HENRY VIII.

BY NANETTE MASON.


PART I.

THE REIGNS OF HENRY VIII., EDWARD VI., AND MARY I.

In the following articles we propose to treat of home life in bygone
days.

That being the case, our net will be spread wide enough to catch a very
miscellaneous collection of facts. Nothing will come amiss to us that
in any way illustrates the domestic existence of our ancestors, and
every reader, whatever her turn of mind, will be sure to find something
worth taking note of.

It will be a different sort of narrative from the history of great men,
or a tale of battles, sieges, and such-like imposing circumstances.
We shall speak of houses and furniture, food and clothing, etiquette
and good manners, wages and prices, education and superstition,
household industries and household amusements, old recipes and domestic
medicines, the ways of the poor and the ways of the rich. We shall make
as much of needles and pins as ordinary history-books do of swords and
guns, and a girl singing an old song will have more attention than they
give to an ambassador negotiating a foreign treaty.

The worst of it is that the subject is long, whilst our space is of
necessity short. We shall try, however, to change that disadvantage
into an advantage, by giving only those facts that appear most
interesting. There is a pleasure, too, when reading about a subject,
to know that the half has not been told, and that to all who care to
pursue it on their own account a rich harvest remains yet unreaped.

We are not going to begin with the time “when wild in woods the noble
savage ran,” and homes were in caves and under the shade of green
trees; our starting-point is to be the reign of Henry VIII., and our
first article will embrace that reign and the reigns of Edward VI. and
Queen Mary—in other words, from 1509 to 1558.

In those far-back days many things were different from what they
are now. There has been a great advance in material comfort. Our
forefathers, no doubt, had just as much wit and wisdom as we have;
but we can boast an advantage over them in possessing more of the
conveniences of life. In that respect, at least, we are lucky to have
been born so late.

Let us not imagine, however, that they had a bad time of it, or
were discontented or miserable because they had not everything just
like us. People do not sigh after what they have never either seen
or heard of. We really find happiness in our affections—not in our
material surroundings, which are of secondary importance; and it is not
unreasonable to conclude that, as human nature is always the same,
these ancestors of ours enjoyed life in their way quite as much as we
do.

We start with the subject of houses and furniture. When Henry VIII.
began to reign, well-to-do people in towns lived, as a rule, in houses
built principally of timber, the fronts being often ornamented with
rich carvings of fanciful and grotesque objects. The upper storeys
projected; so much so, indeed, that in a street people in the attics on
either side could almost shake hands. There was a reason for building
in this way. As the houses were of perishable material, each storey
gave protection from the weather to the storey beneath it.

Such a quantity of timber being used, there was a great danger of fire,
and the warning of the bellmen who proclaimed the hours of the night
in London was certainly needed, when, to their instructions to “be
charitable to the poor, and pray for the dead,” they added, “Take care
of your fire and candle.”

The labouring people in the country lived in houses constructed of the
first things that came to hand—often nothing but wattle and mud or
clay. When the mud or clay cracked, under the influence of summer’s
heat or winter’s frost, it was a simple matter with the same material
to “stop a hole to keep the wind away.” Ventilation was very defective,
and Erasmus attributes the frequent sicknesses with which England
was then visited in a great measure to the want of fresh air in the
dwelling-houses.

The ideas that regulated the furnishing and decoration of the houses
of the upper classes form a marked contrast to those prevailing
nowadays. The furniture was more massive, and there was less of it. The
bedchamber of Henry VIII. contained only a couple of joint cupboards, a
joint stool, two hand-irons, a fire-fork, a pair of tongs, a fire-pan,
and a steel mirror covered with yellow velvet.

Carpets came into use before the reign of Henry VIII. was far advanced,
though in the reign of Queen Mary rushes still strewed the floor of the
presence-chamber. Feather beds were used in Henry VIII.’s reign by the
upper classes. When they went travelling, they were no longer content
with the floor or a hard bench at halting-places, but generally carried
portable beds (packed in leather cases) with them on horseback. In the
lower ranks of life straw pallets, or rough mats with a round log for a
pillow, formed the ordinary provision for sleeping.

Ladies’ dresses amongst the nobility in Henry VIII.’s reign had a
certain formality, but in many points were elegant and becoming. Early
in the sixteenth century they were made low and cut square about the
neck: the sleeves were tight at the shoulder, but suddenly became very
large and open, showing the puffed sleeves of the under-dress. The
long skirts were worn open in front to the waist, showing the kirtle
or petticoat. Sometimes, however, dresses were worn high, with short
waists and a small falling collar.

At a little later date the sleeves of dresses were puffed at the
shoulders, and when the dress was made open above the girdle, what
was called a “partlet”—a kind of habit-shirt—was worn beneath it, and
carried up to the throat.

Sleeves were one of the strong points of the ladies of those times.
They were independent articles of clothing, and were attached at
pleasure to the rest of the costume. “Much splendour,” says Mr. J.
R. Planché, “was lavished on this part of the dress, and its various
fashions were singularly quaint and elegant.” Amongst the inventories
of Henry VIII.’s reign we find “three pair of purple satin sleeves for
women; one pair of linen sleeves, paned with gold over the arm, quilted
with black silk, and wrought with flowers between the panes and at the
hands; one pair of sleeves of purple gold tissue damask wire, each
sleeve tied with aglets of gold; one pair of crimson satin sleeves,
four buttons of gold being set on each sleeve, and in every button nine
pearls.”

Necklaces and other ornaments of jewellery were much worn. No dress was
complete without a girdle, and from the girdle was suspended by means
of chains such articles as tablets, knives and purses. Sometimes, in
place of the chains, the girdles themselves had a long pendant, which
was elaborately decorated.

We get a glimpse of the style of dress amongst commoner folk, in the
history of a famous clothier known as “Jack of Newbury.” When Jack
was married, the bride, in her wedding costume, must have cut quite
a picturesque figure. “The bride,” we read, “being dressed in a gown
of sheep’s russet and a kirtle of fine worsted, her head attired in
a _billiment_ (habiliment) of gold, and her hair, as yellow as gold,
hanging down behind her, which was curiously combed and plaited,
according to the manner of those days, was led to church by two boys
with bride laces, and rosemary tied about their silken sleeves.”

Mrs. Jack became a widow, and after she had laid aside her weeds she is
described as coming one day out of the kitchen “in a fair train gown
stuck full of silver pins, having a white cap on her head, with cuts of
curious needlework under the same, and an apron before her as white as
driven snow.”

The ordinary costume for men of the upper ranks in the time of Henry
VIII. was a full-skirted jacket or doublet, with large sleeves to the
wrists, over which was hung a short cloak or coat, with loose hanging
sleeves and a broad, rolling collar of fur. To these articles of dress
was added a brimmed cap, jewelled and bordered with ostrich feathers;
stockings and square-toed shoes.

A sumptuary law was passed in 1533, limiting the use of certain
expensive stuffs and valuable personal ornaments to certain classes.
Common people and serving men, for example, were confined to the use of
cloth of a fixed price, and lamb’s fur only, and they were forbidden
to wear any ornaments or even buttons of gold, silver, or gilt work,
excepting the badge of their lord or master.

The apprentices of London wore blue cloaks in summer, and in winter
gowns of the same colour. Blue cloaks or gowns were a mark of servitude.

Fourteen years before the beginning of Henry VIII.’s reign wages were
settled by Act of Parliament. A free mason, master carpenter, rough
mason, bricklayer, master tiler, plumber, glazier, carver or joiner,
was allowed from Easter to Michaelmas to take 6d. a day, without meat
or drink. Suppose he had meat and drink, he could only charge 4d. A
master having under him six men was allowed a penny a day extra. From
Michaelmas to Easter a penny a day was taken off these prices. Wages,
however, gradually rose all through the sixteenth century.

In 1511, in the household of the Earl of Northumberland, the principal
priest of the chapel had £5 a year; a chaplain graduate £3 6s. 8d.; a
chaplain not a graduate, £2; a minstrel, £4; a serving boy, 13s. 4d.
These payments were over and above food and lodging.

When wages and salaries were so low, compared with those of our own
day, we must expect to find a corresponding difference in prices. In
1541 a hundred eggs sold for 1s. 2d., a dozen pigeons cost 10d., a good
fat goose cost 8d., and you could buy a fat sheep for from 2s. 4d. to
4s., and an ox for about £2. In 1533 an Act was passed by which the
price of beef and pork was fixed at ½d. a pound, and veal at ¾d.

Of the state of learning, in the houses at any rate of the upper
classes, much is to be said that reflects credit on our ancestors.
The royal court of Henry VIII., whatever might be its faults, did not
neglect study. In the case of Prince Edward, afterwards Edward VI.,
devotion to his books no doubt had an injurious effect on his health,
and there is no saying what might have been the result to England had
he had less learning and more exercise. Bishop Burnet tells us that he
was so forward in his education that “before he was eight years old
he wrote Latin letters to his father, who was a prince of that stern
severity that one can hardly think that those about his son durst cheat
him by making letters for him.”

Mary had a good knowledge of classic authors, and wrote good Latin
letters. Elizabeth began every day with an hour’s reading in the Greek
Testament, the tragedies of Sophocles, and the orations of Isocrates
and Demosthenes. She also was a good Latin scholar, spoke French and
Italian as fluently as English, had a smattering of Dutch and German,
and was a devourer of works on history.

These two princesses were the highest in station of the accomplished
women of the time, but there were many who equalled, and some
who surpassed, them in learning. The most remarkable of all for
accomplishments was certainly Lady Jane Grey, afterwards the
unfortunate queen of a ten-days’ reign. Lady Jane took so kindly to
study that she became the marvel of the age for her acquirements. She
excelled in needlework and in music, and, aided by her tutor, Dr.
Elmer, or Aylmer, afterwards Bishop of London, had thoroughly mastered
Latin, Greek, French, and Italian, and knew something of at least three
Oriental tongues—Hebrew, Chaldee, and Arabic.

One of the most interesting passages—and a touching one it is, too—in
the writings of Roger Ascham is that in “The Schoolmaster,” in which
he describes a visit he paid to the home of Lady Jane’s parents in
Leicestershire in 1550. She was then little over thirteen years old.
It gives us a glimpse of the girl-life of the period in a high rank of
society, and deserves to be quoted in full.

“Before I went into Germany,” says Ascham, “I came to Broadgate, in
Leicestershire, to take my leave of that noble Lady Jane Grey, to whom
I was exceeding much beholden. Her parents, the Duke and Duchess, with
all the household, gentlemen and gentlewomen, were hunting in the park.
I found her in her chamber, reading Phædon Platonis, in Greek, and
that with as much delight as some gentlemen would read a merry tale in
Boccaccio.

“After salutation and duty done with some other talk, I asked her why
she would leave such pastime in the park?

“Smiling, she answered me, ‘I wis all their sport in the park is but a
shadow to that pleasure that I find in Plato. Alas, good folk! they
never felt what true pleasure meant.’

“‘And how came you, madam,’ quoth I, ‘to this deep knowledge of
pleasure, and what did chiefly allure you unto it, seeing not many
women but very few men have attained thereunto?’

“‘I will tell you,’ quoth she, ‘and tell you a truth which perchance
you will marvel at. One of the greatest benefits that God ever gave
me is that He sent me so sharp and severe parents, and so gentle a
schoolmaster. For when I am in presence either of father or mother,
whether I speak, keep silence, sit, stand or go, eat, drink, be merry
or sad, be sewing, playing, dancing, or doing anything else, I must do
it as it were in such weight, measure, and number—even so perfectly
as God made the world—or else I am so sharply taunted, so cruelly
threatened, yea, presently, sometimes, with pinches, nips, and bobs,
and other ways which I will not name for the honour I bear them; so
without measure misordered that I think myself in hell, till time come
that I must go to Mr. Elmer, who teacheth me so gently, so pleasantly,
with such fair allurements to learning, that I think all the time
nothing whiles I am with him. And when I am called from him I fall on
weeping, because whatsoever I do else but learning is full of grief,
trouble, fear, and whole misliking unto me. And thus my book hath been
so much my pleasure, and bringeth daily to me more pleasure and more,
that in respect of it all other pleasures in very deed be but trifles
and troubles unto me.’

“I remember this talk gladly,” Ascham adds, “both because it is so
worthy of memory, and because, also, it was the last talk that ever I
had and the last time that ever I saw that noble and worthy lady.”

However learning might flourish in the upper circles of society, it
seems to have languished in the schools and among the people. But
efforts were made in the direction of popular education, and more
grammar schools it is said were founded in the latter part of Henry
VIII.’s reign than in the three hundred years preceding.

Music was practised by all classes. Erasmus, who saw much of England in
the beginning of the sixteenth century, speaks of the English as the
most accomplished in the skill of music of any people. “It is certain,”
says Mr. Chappell, “that the beginning of the sixteenth century
produced in England a race of musicians equal to the best in foreign
countries, and in point of secular music decidedly in advance of them.”

Henry VIII. was a great patron of music, and, more than that, he was
himself a composer and performer. He played well on both the virginals
and the lute, and could sing at sight. But to sing at sight was a
common accomplishment amongst gentlemen; so common, indeed, that
inability to do so was looked on as a serious drawback to success in
life. Homes were rendered cheerful by the singing of madrigals and
other part music. The first collection of songs in parts that was
printed in England belongs to the year 1530.

Besides music, many other recreations were indulged in. These were
the days of archery, casting of the bar, wrestling, and such martial
sports as fighting with swords and battle-axes. For rural pastimes
there were hunting and hawking—and in these the ladies were often as
enthusiastic as the gentlemen. Card-playing was highly popular, and in
the reign of Henry VIII. a prohibitory statute was found necessary to
prevent apprentices from using cards, except in the Christmas holidays,
and then only in their masters’ houses. The same statute forbade any
householder to permit card-playing in his house, under the penalty of
six shillings and eightpence for every offence.

May Day was a general holiday, and Maypoles were set up in every town
and village. The observance of May Day differed no doubt in minor
particulars in different places, but in general it consisted in people
of all ranks going out early in the morning into the “sweet meadows
and green woods,” where they broke down branches from the trees, and
adorned them with nosegays and crowns of flowers. “This done, they
returned homewards with their booty, and made their doors and windows
triumph in the flowery spoil.” The Maypole was set up, and the rest
of the day was spent in dancing round it, and in sports of different
kinds. When evening came, bonfires were lighted in the streets. Even
the reigning sovereign joined in these amusements. On May Day, 1515,
Henry VIII. and Queen Katherine, his wife, rode a-Maying from Greenwich
to the high ground of Shooter’s-hill, accompanied by many lords and
ladies.

There was a famous London Maypole in Cornhill before the parish church
of St. Andrew, which thus got the name of St. Andrew Undershaft. The
pole or shaft, Stow tells us, was set up by the citizens “every year,
on May Day, in the morning, in the midst of the street, before the
south door of the said church; which shaft, when it was set on end and
fixed in the ground, was higher than the church steeple.” When its
annual day of usefulness was over, the pole was taken down again and
hung on iron hooks above the doors of the neighbouring houses.

This pole was destroyed in 1550, the fourth year of Edward VI.’s reign,
in an outburst of Puritanism, after a sermon preached at St. Paul’s
Cross against May games. The inhabitants of the houses against whose
wall the pole had found shelter sawed it in pieces, and every man took
a bit and made use of it to light his fire.

Mingled with the festivities of May Day there was a distinct set of
sports, very popular in the early part of the sixteenth century,
intended to represent the adventures of the renowned woodland hero,
Robin Hood. The enthusiasm with which the common people entered into
these sports may be seen from the reception Bishop Latimer met with
when he once proposed to preach in a town on the 1st of May. He tells
the incident himself in a sermon he preached in 1549 before Edward VI.

“I came once myself,” he says, “to a place, riding on a journey
homeward from London, and I sent word overnight into the town that
I would preach there in the morning because it was holy day, and
methought it was an holy day’s work.” (It was the Feast of the Apostles
Philip and James.) “The church stood in my way, and I took my horse
and my company and went thither. I thought I should have found a great
company in the church, and when I came there the church door was fast
locked.

“I tarried there half an hour and more. At last the key was found, and
one of the parish comes to me and says, ‘Sir, this is a busy day with
us. We cannot hear you. It is Robin Hood’s Day. The parish are gone
abroad to gather for Robin Hood. I pray you forbid them not.’

“I was fain there to give place to Robin Hood. I thought my rochet”—or
bishop’s surplice—“should have been regarded, though I were not; but it
would not serve; it was fain to give place to Robin Hood.”

How did stay-at-home people amuse themselves then in the long winter
evenings? No doubt they either made time seem short by going to sleep,
or they sat by the fireside singing songs or telling oft-told stories,
or exercising their wits by asking each other riddles or conundrums.
Some of their fireside riddles are preserved in a little book called
“Demands Joyous”—in modern English Merry Questions—which was printed
by Wynkyn de Worde in 1511.

The following are a few of the conundrums contained in this work, and
at some of them the reader, who is well acquainted with the conundrums
of the present day, will be tempted to exclaim with Solomon, that there
is nothing new under the sun.

“What is it that never freezeth?—Boiling water.

“What is it that never was and never will be?—A mouse’s nest in a cat’s
ear.

“How many straws go to a goose’s nest?—Not one, for straws, not having
feet, cannot go anywhere.

“How many calves’ tails would it take to reach from the earth to the
sky?—No more than one, if it be long enough.

“What man getteth his living backwards?—A ropemaker.

“Why doth a dog turn round three times before he lieth down?—Because he
knoweth not his bed’s head from the foot thereof.

“Why do men make an oven in a town? Because they cannot make a town in
an oven.

“How may a man discern a cow in a flock of sheep?—By his eyesight.

“What is the worst bestowed charity that one can give?—Alms to a blind
man; for he would be glad to see the person hanged that gave it to him.”

An industry of considerable interest from a domestic point of view came
to the front in 1542; this was the manufacture of pins. These useful
articles were originally made abroad, but the English pinners took to
making them, and on their engaging to keep the public well supplied at
reasonable prices, an Act of Parliament was passed in the year just
named, forbidding the sale of any sort of pins excepting “only such as
shall be double-headed, and have the heads soldered fast to the shank
of the pin, well smoothed, the shank well shaven, the point well and
round filed, canted and sharped.”

The English pinmakers, however, either proved unable or unwilling to
keep their part of the bargain, and complaints were so loudly made
that the pins were not what they should be, that in 1545 the Act was
declared “frustrate and annihilated, and to be repealed for ever.”
Pins of good quality were of brass, but unscrupulous makers made pins
of iron wire, blanched, and passed them off as brass ones.

People who went from home then had no choice—they must either ride or
walk. Kings, queens, and gentlefolk all mounted to the saddle, the
ladies being accustomed to ride on pillions fixed on the horse, and
generally behind some relative or serving-man. Rude carriages, however,
made their appearance in England in 1555.

Before the Reformation there were no poor’s rates. The poor had their
wants supplied by charitable doles given at religious houses, and by
contributions placed in the poor man’s box which stood in every church.
In all parishes there was a church house supplied with dishes and
cooking utensils. “Here,” says John Aubrey, “the housekeepers met, and
were merry and gave their charity.”

Begging, under certain conditions, was regulated by an Act of
Parliament passed in 1530. By this Act justices of the peace were
required to give licences under their seals to such poor, aged, and
impotent persons to beg within a certain precinct as they thought had
most need. If anyone begged out of the district assigned to him he was
to be set in the stocks two days and two nights; and if anyone begged
without first obtaining a licence he was to be put in the stocks three
days and three nights, and be fed with bread and water only.

Vagrants were very sternly dealt with; but in this Act, and in
subsequent legislation on the same subject, we see that our
sixteenth-century forefathers had an honest desire to do their duty in
relieving such as were in “unfeigned misery.” In an Act passed in the
first year of Edward VI.’s reign we find the curate of every parish
required, “on every Sunday and holiday, after reading the Gospel of
the day, to make (according to such talent as God hath given him) a
godly and brief exhortation to his parishioners, moving and exciting
them to remember the poor people, and the duty of Christian charity in
relieving of them which be their brethren in Christ, born in the same
parish and needing their help.”

One of the interesting households of the period was that of Sir Thomas
More, the famous Lord Chancellor who was executed in 1535. More lived
at Chelsea, and of his happy home there Erasmus, who knew him well,
has given the following charming account:—“More,” he says, “has built,
near London, upon the Thames, a modest yet commodious mansion. There
he lives, surrounded by his numerous family, including his wife, his
son, and his son’s wife, his three daughters and their husbands, with
eleven grandchildren. There is not any man living so affectionate to
his children as he, and he loveth his old wife as if she were a girl
of fifteen. Such is the excellence of his disposition, that whatsoever
happeneth that could not be helped, he is as cheerful and as well
pleased as though the best thing possible had been done.

“In More’s house you would say that Plato’s Academy was revived again,
only whereas in the Academy the discussion turned upon geometry and
the power of numbers, the house at Chelsea is a veritable school
of Christian religion. In it is none, man or woman, but readeth or
studieth the liberal arts; yet is their chief care of piety. There is
never any seen idle. The head of the house governs it, not by a lofty
carriage and oft rebukes, but by gentleness and amiable manners. Every
member is busy in his place, performing his duty with alacrity; nor is
sober mirth wanting.”

Speaking of More’s home life in his “Short History of the English
People,” Mr. J. R. Green says:—“The reserve which the age exacted
from parents was thrown to the winds in More’s intercourse with his
children. He loved teaching them, and lured them to their deeper
studies by the coins and curiosities he had gathered in his cabinet. He
was as fond of their pets and their games as the children themselves,
and would take grave scholars and statesmen into the garden to see
his girls’ rabbit-hutches or to watch the gambols of their favourite
monkey.”

(_To be continued._)



THE SHEPHERD’S FAIRY.

A PASTORALE.

BY DARLEY DALE, Author of “Fair Katherine,” etc.


CHAPTER XIV.

When Jack was gone, Mrs. Shelley insisted on Fairy’s going to bed, for
the child was worn out with fatigue and excitement, and she and John
watched by Charlie’s couch in turns through the short summer night,
which, short as it was, seemed all too long when spent in anxiously
watching for a change which did not come. Once, and once only during
the night, did Charlie open his eyes and murmur, “Where am I?” but
before the shepherd, who was sitting by him, had time to answer, he
had again relapsed into unconsciousness.

From the first John Shelley had taken a hopeful view, and even this
momentary return to consciousness filled him with hope; the next
interval might be longer perhaps; at any rate, it was a favourable sign
in the shepherd’s opinion. At four o’clock Mrs. Shelley came to take
her husband’s place, and then, to her surprise, he told her he was
going to walk to the nearest point where the London coach passed and
give Jack the latest bulletin before he started.

And so, to Jack’s joy and amazement, the first time the coach paused
to take up the Lewes letters, there stood his father by the inn door,
waiting to speak to him. In a moment Jack, who, with Mr. Leslie, was
occupying the boxseat, was down on the ground grasping his father’s
hand and eagerly asking what news.

“No worse, Jack; if anything, a trifle better; he was conscious for a
few moments last night; just opened his eyes and said ‘Where am I?’
but I knew you would like to hear the latest news, as you can’t have a
letter till you get to New York, and I don’t know how long that will be
after you arrive there.”

“Oh, I’ll let you know all about the mails, shepherd, when I come back.
Come, Jack,” called out Mr. Leslie, from the box.

“God bless you, my boy, and grant we may meet again someday,” said the
shepherd, wringing Jack’s hand, and then the lad, with tears in his
eyes, jumped back to his place, the coachman cracked his whip, and in
a few minutes nothing remained but a cloud of dust, through which John
Shelley was straining his eyes to catch a last glimpse of his eldest
son.

The next day or two were passed in such a whirl of excitement, what
with the exhilarating feeling of travelling on the top of a coach for
the first time in his life, and being whirled up to London by four
horses in a few hours, and then the wonderful things which, even in his
brief visit, he saw there, and then the long journey to Liverpool, and
the sight of the docks and the ship he was to sail in, for in those
early days of the nineteenth century no steamer had as yet crossed the
Atlantic. All this so occupied Jack’s time and thoughts that though
that vision of Charlie stretched pale and insensible at home haunted
him from time to time, still he had no leisure to dwell on it. But when
on Monday Mr. Leslie, having seen him on board, took leave of him,
and Jack was left alone among a crowd of strangers, with nothing to
do for five or six weeks but watch the sea and sky, then the thought
of Charlie would not be banished, and his anxiety to know how he was
became intense. Luckily Jack turned out at first a bad sailor, and the
physical tortures of sea-sickness counteracted the mental suffering
he was enduring, which, with so little to divert his mind, might have
ended in an attack of brain fever. When he was well enough to leave
his berth, he made friends with the captain and one or two of the
passengers, who took a fancy to this fine, good-looking young man, who
certainly looked exceedingly unlike a shepherd in the suit Mr. Leslie
had bought him at a London tailor’s. His new friends lent him books,
and he derived both pleasure and benefit from conversing with them,
but yet, though he read and studied hard during the voyage, it was a
terrible time to him, and no landsman ever rejoiced more at the sight
of land than Jack did when they sighted the American coast. He always
looked back on that voyage as a dreadful nightmare, for all through he
had been haunted by the terrible fear, almost too terrible to put into
words, lest he should be guilty of the sin of Cain.

His first act on landing was to inquire when he could have a letter
from England, and finding three weeks hence was the earliest time he
could hope to receive one, for the ship he had come by had just brought
a mail, he made up his mind to dismiss the subject as much as possible,
and wait as patiently as he could for the letter which would colour
his whole life.

His new occupation, upon which he entered at once, was far more
congenial than sheep-washing or shearing, and the entirely new life he
led and the new country he was living in, with its strange customs and
foreign people, all helped to give a fresh stimulus to Jack’s mind,
and if it had not been for the shadow cast over his life by the memory
of the events which had been the immediate cause of his coming hither,
his first few weeks in New York would have ranked among some of the
happiest in his life. As it was, they slipped by far more quickly than
he had thought possible, and at last he heard the news that the English
mail had arrived, and he bent his steps to the post-office to ask if
there were any letters for him.

How Jack’s heart thumped as he stood watching the clerk diving into
some pigeon-holes in search of his letters; he fancied the people in
the office must have heard its wild beatings.

Yes, there were two letters; the first Jack saw at a glance was from
Mr. Leslie, the other was directed by Fairy. The paper on which the
letter was written—there were no envelopes in those days—was not
black-edged, and that, though he dare not lay much stress upon it, was,
perhaps, a hopeful sign, but yet, as he broke the wafer, he was still
in such fear and trembling lest its contents should be unfavourable,
that he dared not open it until he was safe in his own lodgings, where
no curious eyes could watch his behaviour as he read his fate.

It was indeed well no curious eyes were able to pry into Jack’s humble
room, his castle as he liked to call it, for, poor as it was, it was
his own, paid for out of his earnings, for when he came to the end of
the long crossed sheet he buried his face in his hands, and his great
strong frame shook with his sobs.

The letter, though directed by Fairy, was from Mrs. Shelley, and ran as
follows:—

    “MY DEAREST JACK,—Thank God, I have good news for you. Charlie
    is quite well again, and is following the sheep to-day for the
    first time, or he would have written to you himself, but since
    he went off this morning, Mr. Leslie has been to tell me this
    letter must be posted to-day.

    “It is a month since you went away; it seems years to me, Jack,
    but if you are happy in your new life I shall not complain.
    Charlie began to get better very soon after you started; he
    recovered consciousness that very morning, and though he was
    very ill for a week or more, he was not in danger after the
    Sunday. How I wished I could have let you know, but there was
    no means of getting a letter to you before this one, and I am
    afraid you must have suffered terribly from suspense, fearing
    the worst, and not daring to hope for good news. Strange to
    say, Charlie remembers nothing whatever about his accident; all
    he knows is he wanted Fairy to dance with him, and that you
    were angry; all the rest is a blank; he had not the least idea
    of what really happened.

    “Your father had to get an under-shepherd for a month, but he
    has left to-day, and Charlie is to take your place, and is
    very proud of his position. No one will ever take your place
    at home, though, so if you hear people say no one is missed in
    this world, their place is soon filled up, don’t believe it,
    my son; your place in your mother’s heart will never be filled
    except by yourself, and I miss you at every turn. Fairy misses
    you too; she is more at the rectory now than ever, for there is
    no one to help her with her lessons here. She sends her love
    to you, and will write next month. And now, my boy, I must say
    good-bye, for your father has come in on purpose to add a few
    lines to this. God ever bless and keep you is the constant
    prayer of your loving mother,

            “POLLY SHELLEY.”

And then followed a few lines in the shepherd’s handwriting, written
with elaborate pains and much effort, as Jack knew, for John Shelley
was much more accustomed to wield his crook than his pen, which
was certainly not that of a ready writer. His preparations were as
elaborate as the writing itself. First he rolled up the sleeves of his
smock; then he ran his hands through his hair, and rubbed the back
of his head; then he wetted his fingers; finally he fixed the pen in
his right hand, after a fashion of his own; and Jack, as he read the
postscript of his mother’s letter, pictured to himself his father’s
attitude as he wrote it, leaning half across the kitchen table, and
moving his whole body, as if every stroke was the greatest exertion,
as it was to him. But if the manner of his writing was eccentric, the
matter was excellent, in spite of the spelling, which was original,
and Jack treasured up his father’s words carefully, and vowed never to
forget how gently and kindly the shepherd had dealt with him in his
trouble.

So the tears Jack shed over his letter were tears of joy and gratitude.

(_To be continued._)

[Illustration]



OUR TOUR IN NORTH ITALY.

BY TWO LONDON BACHELORS.


[Illustration: THE CERTOSA.]

On the Monday afternoon, while No. 1 was resting, the elder bachelor
sallied out by himself to see one or two of the important old churches.
By the aid of a map of the town, he found his way to the dirty old
church of St. Maurizio, where he saw some strangely beautiful paintings
of Aurelio and Bernardino Luini. He greatly wondered if the abject
poor, at their silent devotions—for there was no service at the
time—were as greatly influenced by art as were their predecessors in
the less enlightened days. But without wasting his time further in
worthless dreamings, which could better be done at another time, he
passed out of the stuffy and ugly little church into the glorious
sunlight, and proceeded to the more famous church of Santa Maria della
Grazie, to see the most popular picture ever painted—namely, “The Last
Supper,” by Leonardo da Vinci.

The church was entered first; and here again were groups of the
poorest at their private devotions. Rapture sublime seemed now and
then to illumine the face of a dirty beggar as he or she glanced at a
crucifix or a relic which was exposed to view over the altar of the
Lady Chapel. Could such worship be wrong if it softened, and so greatly
softened, hearts like these, in bodies ill-fed and ill-clothed, making
a repulsive exterior glorified by a countenance of secret joy? But
disappointment came by means of a surly sacristan, a veritable Judas
with a bag, who roughly attended the worshippers, and pocketed pence
in return for wiping their pocket handkerchiefs (for such we perforce
call their dirty rags) on the glass case on the altar containing the
relic before mentioned. To see the emotion of the deluded creatures,
who kissed their rags with ecstatic bliss on receiving them again, was
a strange sight, and struck us as widely different from that of the
woman who kissed the blue fringe on Christ’s garment as He passed
her—for what “virtue” could come out of the operation in the Church of
Santa Maria della Grazie? The act of devotion and lowly love in the
Gospel story was not done from force of habit, nor was the privilege
given in return for money—and, oh! how different the Object and the
intention!

[Illustration: THE LAST SUPPER.

_From the painting at Milan, showing its present condition._]

The greatest painting in the world (“The Last Supper”) is to be seen
in an old outhouse which was used by the reverend monks as a refectory
before the dissolution of the monastery, and which has since been used
as a stable by French dragoons.

The painting is in a sad state of dilapidation, caused by damp and
attempted restorations in 1770, and also by the bad treatment it has
had at the hands of tourists. But much of the genius of the painting is
still seen, and we bow in lowly reverence before a work which surely
has been productive of much religious elevation in many generations and
nations.

The Dominicans, in dining in this old refectory, must have been
wonderfully impressed at seeing Christ at the other end of the room
taking His Last Supper with them; for the accessories of table-cloth,
glasses, etc., in the painting resemble the identical articles used by
the monks, and all helped the great illusion. But again a disillusion!
for, as will be seen on a reference to the picture, the reverend
fathers committed the sacrilege of forming a doorway in a part of the
picture—actually cutting off the legs of the chief Figure—in their
desire to have their dinner warm!

The illness of the younger bachelor, which had threatened to ruin our
holiday, was not nearly so serious as the doctor had led us to expect.
On the second day the fever much abated, and we determined to resume
our journey after the third day. The doctor, however, advised us not to
go to either Cremona or Mantua, as these cities, especially the former,
are unhealthy, and might bring on a renewal of the fever. This was a
disappointment, as we were anxious to see Cremona, which, apart from
its cathedral and other buildings, has always been renowned for the
manufacture of violins and other stringed instruments. To see fiddles
of every shape and size hung out in the open air to dry like so many
clothes after washing, was too novel a sight to miss without a bitter
pang.

We determined to make up for our disappointment in not seeing Cremona
and Mantua, by visiting the town of Pavia and the magnificent monastery
or Certosa close to it.

So we arranged to make the excursion to the Certosa and Pavia, to
return to Milan for a visit to the Brera Gallery, to dine, and to get
our trunks, and finally depart for Verona, if possible, on the same
day. This was rather an extensive programme, especially as one of us
had just recovered from an illness; but we determined if possible to
abide by it.

The great Lombard plain is relieved from monotony by being cut-up with
canals and ditches, running between avenues of willows and poplars,
reminding one of the scenery in Dutch pictures.

Of course the Certosa is in many respects an exquisite building. The
magnificence of the materials of its altars, screens, pavements, &c.,
and the enormous wealth of sculpture lavished over every portion of
it, render this church one of the most remarkable structures in the
world. But when one comes to study it and to think it well over, the
question arises whether this immense amount of costly material, this
vast amount of labour and skill, ought not to have produced something
far more “striking” in general effect. In fact, it rather reminds one
of the so-called French dinners, which English people are in the habit
of giving, from which one comes away thoroughly unsatisfied, with only
a confused recollection of a great number of costly dishes. It almost
appears as if in the Certosa the sculptors had been set to do the
architecture and the painters to execute the sculpture; each has so
attempted to overdo and over-elaborate his portion of the work that he
has “strained” his art, until it has lost those wholesome restrictions
which the æsthetic principles, both of classic and mediæval times, had
placed upon it. Thus we find the architectural outlines broken up and
lost in a forest of detail, and the sculptured panels have elaborated
backgrounds more suited for pictorial works than for carving.

The façade, which our girls perfectly know by photograph, was designed
by Borgognone, far better known as a painter, and was commenced about
1473.

One really sees nothing of the church until entering the large gate,
covered on the outside with damaged frescoes; the wonderful façade
presents itself on the other side of the quadrangle.

As can well be imagined, the first sight of this wonderful front
nearly took our breath away, so vast is the amount of sculpture and so
elaborate the designs. The upper portion is far less elaborate than the
lower; indeed, we thought that they were by different architects.

The most richly decorated portion of the façade is that on the level
of the portico, the two windows on either side of the latter being
completely enclosed by a vast amount of sculpturesque ornament. This
elaboration is carried out to such an extent that the mullions of the
windows, instead of being simply moulded, are carved into imitations
of candelabra, with foliage, lizards, and little cupids in the act of
climbing, and ornamenting every portion.

The subjects which pleased us the most were the pictures of sculpture,
a little above the level of a man’s head, representing scenes in
religious history. These are very beautiful and perfect, though some of
the heads and attitudes of the figures are, to say the least, grotesque.

We may mention that a great number of the most eminent Italian masters
for nearly two centuries had a hand in the elaboration of the façade,
including the great Donatello.

Before entering the church, we visited the two cloisters, which are
very picturesque. The arches of the first one are full of terra-cotta
ornamentation. It is approached from the church by a magnificent white
marble doorway.

The great cloister is very large, and is surrounded by cells, which
remind one that the Certosa was once a monastery, and belonged to
the Carthusians. This curious order of men never see one another,
except in church. Each man has four rooms and a little garden entirely
to himself. He has his bedroom, his study, his workshop, and his
toolroom. These Carthusians were extremely fond of gardening, and we
have received many benefits from their knowledge of horticulture. They
also invented the well-known liqueur, Chartreuse. Hence their name.
This was invented as a medicine, and is most wholesome and beneficial
for certain illnesses; but it is now, of course, more used for its
gastronomic than its medicinal qualities.

The church was commenced in the latter part of the fourteenth century;
it is in form a Latin cross, and in style a mixture of Romanesque and
Gothic. The whole of the interior is very richly decorated, all kinds
of material being used, and the altars are beautifully inlaid and
studded with precious stones, gold, etc. There are, however, scarcely
any fine pictures, the few good ones having been removed, and the great
number remaining scarcely add to the beauty of the interior.

There are seven chapels on either side of the nave, which are railed
off from the latter. These were shown to us by a guide, not by a monk,
as the guide-books say.

The Certosa is magnificently kept, and in order to make it even more
“smart,” the old pavement has been replaced by a very bright mosaic
one, which reflects the church like glass. But of all, the choir is
the most magnificent, the tabernacle and altar-screen being sumptuous
sixteenth century Renaissance work, and on either side of the altar the
walls are decorated with rich sculpture.

In the transepts are two monuments, viz., those of Gian-Galeazzo
Visconti, the founder of the church, and of Ludovico Moro and his wife,
Beatrice d’Este.

Gian-Galeazzo Visconti was the most celebrated of the great Lombard
family of Visconti, who practically ruled Milan for over a century
and a half. So great was the power of this family, that they at times
subjected nearly the whole of Northern Italy, and Gian-Galeazzo,
after completely defeating an army sent against him by the Emperor of
Germany, and after having captured by degrees the whole of Lombardy,
was about to declare himself King of Italy, when death put an end to
his ambition in the year 1402.

Gian-Galeazzo Visconti was the founder of Milan Cathedral and the
Certosa of Pavia, and, as before mentioned, a superb monument has been
erected to his memory in the latter church; but this monument was more
than half a century in construction, by which time the people had
forgotten where the prince had been buried; and thus the body of this
great man, who had defeated numberless armies and caused to be erected
two of the most sumptuous buildings in Europe, lies no one knows where.

The son of Gian-Galeazzo ruled in Milan upon his father’s death, after
which the Sforza family succeeded, and held power until the middle of
the sixteenth century, when the emperor, Charles V., who was practical
master of Italy, handed over the duchy of Milan to his son Philip.

After leaving the Certosa, the two bachelors hired one of the light
one-horse carriages, of which there are always a number outside the
church, and drove to Pavia. That drive was most pleasant. It was a
lovely spring day, with a brilliant sun, though not too hot, and the
country was all aglow with bright colour.

Pavia is a very curious old place. Of all the old garlic-smelling,
dirty, and badly-drained cities of North Italy, it is the most
garlic-smelling, the dirtiest, and the worst drained; but it is very
quaint withal. The old marketplaces, the projecting roofs, and the
curious outdoor shops give it a wonderfully “old-world” appearance, and
we enjoyed this ramble through the old city greatly, notwithstanding
the horrible smells and the difficulty we had to find our way about the
place. After wandering for some little time, we came to the Piazza del
Duomo, which is most picturesque, and the effect was much enhanced when
we were there, as it was market time. The vast quantity of old women,
dressed in the most quaint manner, selling the oddest of wares, added
no little to a scene which must always be paintable to a degree. The
cathedral, rising on one side of the piazza, with its huge campanile,
though picturesque, can scarcely be called beautiful. It has never
been finished, and when we were there it was in a terrible state of
dilapidation. Of the interior we could see nothing except a heap of
scaffold-poles, as it was in course of restoration, and even the shrine
of the great St. Augustine was concealed from view.

The most interesting church in Pavia is San Michele, and, though we
were rather pressed for time, we determined to see it.

San Michele is an early Romanesque church of the eleventh and twelfth
centuries, and is very beautiful, both externally and internally.
The façade is richly ornamented with bands of carving and small open
galleries, and the chancel internally is on a much higher level than
the nave, and is approached by a great flight of steps, giving it a
most dignified appearance.

After leaving San Michele we tried to find our way to the station; no
easy matter, as we found to our cost. We think we must have made the
circumference of the city three times before an Italian boy, rather
more intelligent than his fellows, at last pointed us out a place which
proved to be the station, from whence we returned to Milan.

The Brera Gallery contains a magnificent collection of pictures. In an
article like this it is impossible to give a detailed description of
these paintings, and a mere list of works of art is both uninteresting
and uninstructive; besides which no description of pictures is of any
value unless it is prefaced by an account of the various schools to
which the artists belong—a task which has been admirably done already
by Miss Emily Macirone in the pages of this magazine. However, we may
mention that the gallery is a complete history of Italian art.

To commence with, we find a good example of Giotto, who (as our girls
will see from the excellent chart of the chief painters of the various
schools of art, page 629 of our Annual for 1886) flourished in the
commencement of the fourteenth century. As on a future occasion we
shall have to speak of this painter, when describing the Arena Chapel
at Padua, all we shall say at present is that one should not attempt
to criticise him or the works of this early Italian school by mere
isolated pictures found in galleries. Of course in the days of Giotto
Italian art was more or less in its infancy, and the mechanical
knowledge possessed by these fourteenth century painters was meagre,
therefore we must not expect to find grand effects of chiaroscuro,
neither is the rich colour of the later school to be discovered.

Of the more perfected early Italian school we find works by Luca
Signorelli, Giovanni Bellini, whom we shall find far better represented
in Venice, and the excellent Francia, whose lovely picture of “Mater
Dolorosa” in our National Gallery is so well known to our girls. We
find, also, works of Raffaelle, Leonardo da Vinci and his pupil, Luini.
But the best represented painters in the Brera are the later Venetian
school, especially Titian, Tintoretto, and Paul Veronese. The great
glory of the collection is Raffaelle’s picture of the marriage of the
Virgin. The arrangement of this picture at first struck us as being
extremely formal. We find in the background a twelve-sided temple
crowned with a dome, standing directly in the middle of the picture.
The architecture of this temple has been severely criticised; but it by
no means follows that because Raffaelle thought the structure suitable
for his picture he would ever have built anything like it. In front
of the temple is a very formal pavement divided into large squares.
All the figures are grouped together immediately in the foreground.
The High Priest stands in the centre, holding the hands of Mary and
Joseph. Behind Joseph are many youths, and behind Mary are a number of
women—five in each group, thus keeping up the symmetrical arrangement
which runs throughout the whole picture. There is a charming grace
about the head of Mary and the two women standing immediately behind
her. May we call them the bridesmaids?

Joseph and the youths who accompany him are represented with rods, but
it will be noticed that Joseph’s rod is crowned with five blossoms,
probably of the almond. Several explanations have been given of this.
The most poetical supposes it refers to an ancient legend that Mary had
several suitors, as would be almost certain to be the case of a maiden
of the house of David, possessed, moreover, of great personal beauty.
The legend records that the various suitors each cut a rod, which they
laid in the temple, and that after a time Joseph’s rod was discovered
to have blossomed. Some writers suppose that the youths breaking the
rods refer to an ancient custom practised in Jewish marriages.

The picture is extremely beautiful in colour, brilliant and well
preserved. We venture to suggest that the very symmetrical and formal
arrangement of the picture may have resulted from its having been
intended as the centre portion of a group of compositions.

Titian is best represented by the frequently engraved picture of St.
Jerome—a work full of grand power and magnificent chiaroscuro. Leonardo
da Vinci’s work in the gallery is one of very great interest, as it is
a study for the head of the Saviour for his mighty work of the Last
Supper.

As the evening approaches, we dine at one of the perfect _ristoranti_
of Milan and proceed by rail to Verona. On our way we were captivated
by the charming manners of the peasantry; for we travelled third class,
and thus had a capital opportunity of judging. It was a _fête_ day
at some of the towns our train called at, and there were fireworks,
and every evidence of village festivity. But although there was great
demand for seats in the train, we saw nothing of drunkenness nor heard
coarse language, or anything resembling a vulgar cockney crowd—or, for
the matter of that, the vulgar, well-dressed competitors for best seats
who visit such civilising entertainments as the Monday or Saturday
Popular and other London concerts! No, the Italian peasantry could
teach wonderful lessons in kindness and self-respect to their betters
of England! We reached Verona at midnight, and put up at a delightfully
old world hotel and slept the sleep of—well, the tired, until the sun
next morning reminded us of another happy day in store for us.

And now there arises before us a scene which will never be absent
from the recollection of either bachelor. A broad and rapidly-flowing
river, spanned by a lofty bridge, pierced by a great circle between the
centremost arches, like the eye of some vast Cyclops. Banks covered
with ancient tiled-roofed houses, above which rise an indescribable
mass of domes, towers, spires, pinnacles, and lofty walls, crowned by
forked battlements; the whole backed up by undulating hills, clad with
the deep green of the cypress groves, amongst which arise the round
towers of a strange-looking castle. Is this the recollection of some
picture we have seen, some place we have dreamt of, or is it a reality?

The question seems further from being solved as we wander through
the streets and squares of the poetical city. Every step brings
us in the presence of some wondrous recollection of the past, and
there is nothing to fasten down our ideas to the present time. Fresh
dreams arise in every street. What is this vast oval structure, with
its countless arches, reminding one of the great Colosseum at Rome?
Ruinous, it is true; but as we enter it, strange to say, it seems to
have suddenly awakened from its dream of sixteen centuries. Alas! it
awakens us also, for what do we see but in the centre of this great
arena the hanky-panky tricks of modern horsemanship and hear the stale
jokes of a modern English clown! Let us, however, leave this singular
scene of anachronism and again wander and dream.

This time there rises before us a series of lofty sculptured
tombs, each crowned by a spire, surmounted by the figure of a man
on horseback, separated from the roadway by some delicate metal
work, wrought by the hand of a thirteenth-century blacksmith into a
bewildering combination of quatrefoils, and supported by graceful
marble columns, each bearing the image of a saint or angel. To complete
the picture, the whole is backed up by a venerable-looking church,
with a low, tile-covered steeple and roof, plain enough but for a
beautiful marble monument placed above the doorway. It is difficult
to imagine anything more enchanting in the way of architecture than
this extraordinary cemetery, filling up the centre of one of the small
squares of the city.

We wander on again, and find ourselves in front of a noble Gothic
church, with a façade shaded by two mighty arches, one over the other,
and beneath the lowermost a richly-carved doorway. We enter, and a
superb picture is presented to our view. A Gothic church of exquisite
proportion and rich detail, gleaming with coloured decoration, to
which the softening touch of time has lent harmony and mellow tints.
A pavement of variegated marble is beneath our feet. Two queer little
statues, supporting holy water basins, attract our attention, and a
voice seems to whisper in our ear, “I Gobbi.” Need we say that this is
the Church of St. Anastasia in Verona.

It would be impossible to give our girls anything like a description of
the very interesting objects in this beautiful city, or adequately to
express the feelings with which one wanders about its streets. It is
said that “Music hath charms to soothe the savage breast,” and the man
must indeed be a savage who would not feel the same soothing influence
in looking at Verona.

Everything, from its sweet-sounding name, seems to breathe poetry and
music into the mind.

One seems to exist in a realm of fancy, and little imagination is
required to people it again with Montagues and Capulets.

How strange it is that our great poet should have managed to have so
thoroughly embodied the ideas which Verona impresses upon the mind in
_Romeo and Juliet_, without having seen the place! When one reads the
play who has seen Verona, it seems almost impossible to believe that
Shakespeare did not draw his picture from the place itself.

(_To be continued._)

[Illustration]



LITTLE KARIN.[1]

Translated from the Swedish by the Rev. LEWIS BORRETT WHITE, D.D.


    Among the serving maidens
      In the young king’s royal Hall,
    None shone like little Karin,
      A star among them all.

    Just like a star she shone forth,
      Among the serving folk,
    And thus the young king, smiling,
      To little Karin spoke.

    “Oh, hear thou, little Karin,
      Oh, say thou wilt be mine;
    Grey horse and golden saddle
      Shall surely then be thine.”

    “Grey horse and golden saddle,
      They are not meet for me;
    To thy young queen oh, give them,
      Leave me with honour free.”

    “Oh, hear thou, little Karin,
      Oh, say thou wilt be mine,
    My crown all bright and golden
      Shall surely then be thine.”

    “Thy crown so bright and golden,
      It is not meet for me;
    To thy young queen oh, give it,
      Leave me with honour free.”

    “Oh, hear thou, little Karin,
      Oh, say thou wilt be mine;
    The half my royal kingdom
      Shall surely then be thine.”

    “The half thy royal kingdom,
      It is not meet for me;
    On thy young queen bestow it,
      Leave me with honour free.”

    “Oh, hear thou, little Karin,
      If thou wilt not be mine,
    There is a spikéd barrel
      I’ll have thee placed within.”

    “Though there’s a spikéd barrel,
      And I am placed within,
    God’s angels will behold me,
      That I am free from sin.”

    So placed they little Karin,
      In spikéd barrel bound,
    And the king’s cruel horseboys,
      They rolled it round and round.

    Then two white doves from Heaven
      Came down so peacefully,
    They took up little Karin,
      And then the doves were three.

[1] Translation of an old and very popular Swedish ballad supposed
to date from the days of the first introduction of Christianity, and
to record the constancy of a Christian girl—proof against both the
allurements and the threats of her heathen master.

[Illustration]



THE INHERITANCE OF A GOOD NAME.

BY LOUISA MENZIES.


CHAPTER I.

That this world is only a very small part of the universe, and that the
life of man upon this globe is but a very small part of that eternity
to which he is heir, is indicated by a thousand circumstances in the
life of every day, and by none more strikingly than by the failures,
the disappointments, the total eclipses which sweep from our sight into
the undiscovered country many a soul resplendent in promise, leaving
no record of them but in the faithful memories of the few who knew and
loved them.

“He whom God loveth, dieth early,” said the thoughtful heathen, and
it must be confessed that we are all disposed to hang garlands on our
tombstones and to make heroes of our dead. Flaws of temper and other
foibles which marred the perfection of those who were most familiar to
us while they were tossed to and fro on the billows of this troublesome
world, are forgotten for ever when the lines of care and thought are
smoothed from the brow on which Death has laid his finger.

No young soldier left the Crimea with greater distinction or greater
promise than Michael Fenner, the son of a house which traced back
its ancestors to the reign of Elizabeth, and to which honour and
piety had always been dearer than riches. He had entered the army
with the true chivalrous desire to fight for the right, to help the
weak, and confound the tyrant, and, a Christian in heart and soul,
he had maintained the simplicity and purity of his life alike in
the battlefield, in weary marches, and in seasons of sickness and
depression.

Self-denying, gracious, and cheery, he was welcome as the sun in
springtime, and many a groan was stifled and many a muttered curse
was turned into a blessing at the sight of his kindly blue eyes, at
the sound of his brotherly voice, so that no one grumbled when he was
gazetted captain in his eight and twentieth year.

Captain Michael Fenner in active service, and with the modest fortune
which he had inherited from his parents, thought it no indiscretion
to marry the lady of his love, Margaret Echlin, the daughter of the
Rector of Oldborough, a village in Warwickshire, which his family had
lived in for many years, and people called her a lucky woman; for what
distinction was impossible to a man who had already done so much and
done it so well? Nor was the promise of happiness altogether belied.
Eight years of happy wedded life followed the happy marriage; two
healthy children, Mark and Eveline, brightened their home; and as those
were years of peace, Michael was seldom long absent from his family.

The Fenners were not rich; but as they neither of them desired riches,
and both had the happy knack of enjoying what they had without pining
for what they had not, they took their lives as the gift of the Good
Father, and so all was good to them.

But there came a day of sore trial, of bitter sorrow to Margaret, of
trial and sorrow which Michael could not share. It was a day of a
great review, and Michael and his regiment were to take part in it.
His children will remember to their dying day the bright face that
kissed them, the gay plumes, the flash of gold and steel, and all the
brilliant show that rode forth from the barrack yard.

Half an hour, and the accident had happened which made them orphans
and their mother a widow. Captain Fenner was riding a young horse
unaccustomed to the London streets; he had ridden it in the country
for some months, and being a perfect horseman, mounted without
apprehension, but, unhappily, the nervous creature took fright, and,
after a wild rush of some two or three hundred yards, flung his rider
heavily on the pavement. To the amazement and horror of everyone he was
taken up lifeless. Without a word, without a look, he was gone for ever
from among men.

The event was too solemn to be mourned in the ordinary way. Men gazed
at each other with white, awestruck faces, and spoke beneath their
breath, as he was borne back to the home which he had just quitted in
full health and strength. How many weak-hearted, weak-willed men, who
lived for their own pleasure, with scarce a consciousness of the higher
life, might have been taken and the world not palpably the worse; but
this strong-hearted, strongwilled man, on the very threshold of a noble
career, lay slain by what seemed the merest accident in the heart of
his native country, almost within sound of his children’s voices.
“Truly the Lord’s ways are not our ways, and they are wonderful in our
eyes.”

Margaret sat stunned in her sorrow. Deep in her smitten heart lay the
consciousness that with him all was well; softly in the sleepless night
she whispered his name, softly her cold hands lingered on the heads
and hair of her children; but her eyes were dry, her voice dead within
her, until her friends, in a mistaken hope of helping her, consulted
together in her hearing about taking away the children. Then the strong
chill gave way, the blood rushed into her pale cheeks, she stood up,
and, holding each child by the shoulder, she looked into the faces of
her amazed friends.

“Bear with me,” she said; and her voice was dry and hard, but it became
more natural as she proceeded. “Bear with me for awhile; I am weak, but
I shall be strong in time. These are Michael’s children; you must not
take them from me.” Then bending down to her children she kissed them,
praying them also to be patient with her, and said they would help each
other, and, from that day forward she was first in their thoughts, they
in hers. With patient care she devoted herself to all the duties of
that sad time, and when Michael Fenner was laid to rest in the country
churchyard, where many of his forefathers slept, she set herself to
master all the circumstances of her position, and to ascertain the
means at her disposal for her own maintenance and the maintenance and
education of her children. Friends shook their heads and pitied “those
poor Fenners,” but there was not one with whom Margaret would have
changed lots; for had she not the memory of her love and the care of
those little children who were his as well as hers?

A careful consideration of her circumstances convinced Mrs. Fenner that
it would not be desirable for her to inhabit the house at Oldborough,
for though it was a modest house enough for a family to live in, she
felt herself unequal to manage the farm which belonged to it, and she
knew that her pension would not enable her to keep it up comfortably,
besides, before long it would be necessary for Mark at least to go
to school, and the nearest town was ten miles from Oldborough. So
Oldborough Lodge was let to an Indian family who were in search of just
such a home, and the farm was retained by the farmer, who had held it
ever since Michael’s father had died, some fifteen years before; while
Mrs. Fenner and her children moved to a pretty little cottage, which
was fortunately to let, near the ancient city of Sunbridge, in the
parish adjacent to which her brother was rector, because she was deeply
attached to her brother, and because both he and his wife were of
opinion that it would be a great advantage to Mark to study with their
son Gilbert, until the boys should be old enough to go to school.

The Rev. James Echlin, Rector of Rosenhurst, near Sunbridge, was one of
those amiable and accomplished men, to whom, in their curate period,
everything seems possible, everything probable; and when it was
announced that Lady Elgitha Manners, aunt to the young Earl of Seven
Beeches, had determined to bestow her inestimable self and all the
weight of her aristocratic connections upon him, it was accepted as an
event quite within the range of the proprieties, and the favoured few
among his congregation to whom the great news was first communicated,
assured each other that it was no wonder, and that they should see
him a bishop before many years were over their heads. The Reverend
James, who, like his sister, was disposed to think rather too humbly
of himself, was amazed at his own good fortune, and meekly submitted
himself to it; but his wise father shook his head, and his mother,
though rather dazzled by the brilliancy of the connection, felt that it
would have been more comfortable if James had married a woman more in
their own rank. Indeed, the man who marries a wife, who condescends to
his alliance, is seldom to be envied, and, though James Echlin’s sweet
nature prevented his chafing under it, it was by no means good for him
or for his children that the Lady Elgitha, in right of her superior
knowledge of the world, and of her family connections, exercised the
_summum imperium_ in all household arrangements.

Of their eight children only two, Gilbert Manners, the eldest, and
Elgitha Manners, the youngest, lived past infancy. Gilbert was a
handsome boy, well grown and vigorous enough, but Elgitha was long a
frail, little maid, who seemed likely to be added to the row of tiny
mounds under the chancel window, which were all that remained to tell
of the six infant Manners Echlins who had spread their wings and joined
the innumerable throng of infant angels.

Like most ruling ladies, the Lady Elgitha had her favourite, and this
favourite was—as was but natural—her son: for had he not paid her the
initiatory compliment of inheriting her aquiline features? and as he
grew up were not his tastes and feelings in charming harmony with her
own? While a child in the nursery he eschewed fairy tales “as rubbish,”
and when he became a boy, and went to school, learning as learning was
a bore; and he early adopted it as a maxim to give his attention to
nothing that “didn’t pay”—an expression which charmed his mother by its
shrewdness, but strangely chilled his father, who, in all his life, had
never taken such a consideration into account.

With a sense of the vital importance of modern languages which is
impressed on the brain of our female aristocracy, Lady Elgitha had
imported to Sunbridge first a Parisian _bonne_, then a German; and
Gilbert, Mark, and Eveline had the opportunity of acquiring a _patois_
which familiarised them with the names of ordinary things, and, it may
be, facilitated their subsequent studies in both languages; but little
Elgitha was too delicate in the early years of her life to be trusted
either to _bonne_ or _fräulein_, and she was permitted to repose on
the ample bosom of a comfortable Englishwoman, who was as sweet as
a clover-field and about as intelligent; and while she nursed and
tended the frail little body, had not the remotest notion of in any
way disturbing the little brain, but was more than satisfied to see
repeated in his little daughter the features and the sweetness of her
father.

When Gilbert had attained his seventh year, Lady Elgitha decreed
that an erudite curate should be sought out, who, in addition to his
clerical duties, should instruct both boys in the mysteries of the
Latin grammar, and should prepare Gilbert for Eton, and Mark for the
local grammar school, which had a very good reputation; and so, for
three years, the boys worked together under the guidance of the Rev.
Theophilus Wilkins, who, having rather overtaxed his brain by taking a
“double first” at Oxford, was not sorry to rest a little by going back
to first principles with the cousins, the elder of whom was interesting
as the grandson of an earl, while the orphanage of the younger could
hardly fail to awaken his sympathy.

As was natural, Gilbert took the lead, and was always the person most
considered, but Mark had an innate love of learning, which made him
accept with eagerness whatever was offered to him. From the day when
a six years’ child he spelt out the mysteries of “haec musa” to that
when he gave proof of accomplished scholarship by carrying off the
first honours of his school, it never occurred to Mark to clip his
studies by a careful selection of what would carry him through an
examination, too much engrossed by learning to count personal profit
or want of profit in the matter; while Gilbert from his tenderest
years showed a precocious esteem for “what would pay” and a profound
unwillingness to learn anything for its own sake; so that when he was
ten years old, it being found that Mark was in all respects in advance
of his cousin, Lady Elgitha decreed that it was waste of time for Mark
to study at home any longer, and that Gilbert had better be sent to
one of those feeders of Eton where the subjects of study are strictly
narrowed to suit the demands of that seat of learning; and in due
course Gilbert Manners Echlin, having passed through the congenial mill
of the Rev. Edward Thornborough, at Staines, took a good place on his
entrance, and was fairly launched into the sea of public school life.
His grandfather and his uncle being earls, and his father a parson, he
was not particularly badgered on his first coming; he was sufficiently
aristocratic in countenance and bearing to pass muster with the boys,
and sufficiently ready with his lessons to escape the censure of
masters.

Mark Fenner, meanwhile, diligently attended the Grammar School at
Sunbridge, walking to and fro summer and winter, wet and dry, and,
with his bright, cheery face and steady ways, won the love of masters
and of boys, and worked his way with quiet perseverance to the top of
the school. It never occurred to him to envy Gilbert his fine clothes
or the guineas he jingled in his pockets when he came to the cottage
to say good-bye; and he submitted with an easy grace to the airs
of patronage which his cousin assumed. It was natural, he thought,
that his Aunt Elgitha’s son should go to Eton, and it was equally
natural and right that he himself should work out his lessons without
other aid than that of dictionary and grammar by the light of his
mother’s lamp in the cottage parlour, occasionally refreshing himself
by a half-unconscious glance at the enlarged photograph over the
mantelpiece, which was the only portrait they had of their father, and
which, dull and poor as it was in comparison with the bright presence
which had passed away, was yet an outward visible sign of it very dear
to the three who called the cottage home.

In countenance Mark was not at all like his father, resembling his
mother in feature and complexion; but many a time and oft the widow’s
heart beat and tears rose in her eyes as she recognised in her boy
traits which assured her of that higher affinity of heart and mind
which is infinitely deeper than any trick of feature or complexion. It
is a mistake to suppose that because boys are often rough in speech and
careless in manner there is any reason for it in their boyhood, and
though the braggart and the bully naturally attract most attention, and
do what they can to spoil the beauty of the little republics in which
they live, we confidently believe that there are hundreds of boys who
have no taste for bullying and coarse talking any more than for lying
and thieving, and who pass through their school career pure in speech
and gentle in nature. Certainly Mark Fenner never need have blushed
if his mother had heard all he said any more than if she had read the
thoughts of his heart; yet Mark was almost as good in the cricket-field
as in the school-room, he was an adroit swimmer, a stout wrestler, and,
better than all, an excellent walker.

Eveline, who was just two years younger than her brother, was a bright,
healthy damsel, not specially clever, but one of those girls who have
a truly feminine and harmonising influence in families, modest and
happy in temper, always more occupied by care for others than for
herself. She had acquired most of her knowledge from her mother, and
would have been pronounced by many a young lady of the nineteenth
century “frightfully ignorant.” I am afraid it would have cost her some
thought to define what is meant by physical, political, and commercial
geography; physiology as a science was unknown to her, but she had been
an apt pupil in those graces which no board of examiners can gauge, but
without which English homes would never have been the desire and the
admiration of foreigners, the safety and the comfort of her sons.

Eveline was sufficiently well-read to take an interest in wholesome
books and understand political questions, when they were discussed; and
for this she was much indebted to her uncle, with whom she was a great
favourite, and whom she often accompanied on his parish rambles, when
he beguiled the way and relieved his own heart by gently philosophising
after a fashion too ideal to find favour with Lady Elgitha, but which
sounded very sweetly in the ears of the young Eveline.

And so the years sped on. Gilbert had left Eton with fair credit, but
without having attained any distinction, and was making up his mind
what he should do next—a process that occupied him some months, and
which, but for the pressure of circumstances, which his mother regarded
as cruel, he might never have achieved; but she was well aware that
his father could not live for ever, that her fortune would be too
small to support him, when divided, as by her father’s will it must
be, between her children. The church, the army, the bar, which was it
to be? The church was perhaps the easiest; it would not cost Gilbert
much trouble to take a respectable degree, and there was a good living
in the family; but the living was in Northamptonshire, in a part of
the country which Gilbert knew and did not admire; besides, a country
life, even with all the amenities of Sunbridge within easy reach, did
not suit him. He would have preferred the army if he could have been
guaranteed against heavy campaigning, and if the examinations for the
higher branches of the service had not been so stiff. As to law, it
was horrid all round, absolutely nothing to be got without burning the
midnight oil, a process to which, in its classic sense, Gilbert had a
special objection, though he testified no aversion to midnight gas. So
the months passed, until the time came for Mark to leave school, which
he did after having been captain for a couple of years, with a long row
of charmingly-bound prize books and a very good scholarship to Trinity
College, Cambridge.

Then Lady Elgitha, finding her son no nearer to a conclusion, decreed
that he also should go to Cambridge; all her family who were not in
the army had gone to Cambridge; but as Gilbert had not the gift of
plodding, a smaller college, his father’s, Corpus, was chosen for him.
Boys of his age seldom cared for the church; he would probably come
round in a year or two, and then he would be in the right road for it.

Mark was sure to do well. He had had nothing to do at Sunbridge but
work, whereas poor Gilbert had been so distracted at Eton by games,
society, etc., etc. Mark would distinguish himself. He could hardly
help doing so, and no doubt would be glad of the opportunity to do his
cousin a service in return for the many benefits he and his mother and
sister had received from his uncle.

The seven years which the boys had spent apart, except during holidays,
had widened the natural gulf between them; and when Mark, in obedience
to his aunt’s wish, offered to read with Gilbert, he found the task
no easy one. Gilbert professed an abomination for mathematics, and by
his ignorance of the first principles, seemed to justify the opinion
generally entertained of the perfection in which the study is ignored
in the old schools.

“It’s just horrid, old man!” he exclaimed one morning, after
half-an-hour’s study, thrusting his long fingers through his fair hair.
“I’m awfully sorry for you having to grind away at it.”

“But I like it!” said Mark, mind and eyes deep in his geometry. “Just
listen, Gilbert. I do think I see another solution.”

“Another solution!” cried Gilbert, in despair. “Just as if one was not
enough.”

“But it’s so interesting,” persisted Mark. “If you’d only give your
mind to it, I’m sure you’d like it; it is so pretty.”

“Where’s the good? I’m not going in for a don. I shall scrape
through when the time comes, never fear. Hullo! There’s St. Maur and
Tullietudlem in a tandem. Splendid, isn’t it? How will Tullie ever get
that wild filly of his round the corner? There! I knew it. Down goes
the old woman—wagon, Tullie, and St. Maur on the top of her. There’ll
be a row!”

“They’ll have something to pay, at all events,” said Mark, looking up,
but still deep in his problem.

“Never a bit. A sovereign to the old woman. She’s used to it. Nothing
will ever teach Tullie to handle the ribbons. Never could at Eton; and
his sister’s such a splendid whip. I wonder where they were going to!
Newmarket, perhaps. St. Maur’s uncle is running a two-year-old. O,
bother, Mark! I can’t be worried now. The very look of those figures
makes me sick! I shall get up enough to scrape through, never fear. I’m
strong in classics.”

“All right, old fellow,” said Mark, shutting up his book. “Then you
won’t want me. Tell me if you do, you know. I’ll come in any day.”

“Thanks, a thousand times. It is no good working against the grain, is
it? My head is all in a whirl with that stupid geometry.”

Internally wondering at the stupefying effect of the geometry he had
not done on his cousin’s brain, but too happy to escape to his own
quiet room, Mark Fenner ran with the speed of a lover across the
familiar flags, and buried himself until lunch time in his favourite
study.

At half-past one his friend, John Mildmay, came in for lunch and for a
chat; and the lads ate their bread-and-butter and pressed beef, flanked
with a jug of college ale, with a keen appetite and much pleasant
talk about men and things. The meal ended, they started for their
afternoon walk along the banks of the Cam, interchanging many a cheery
greeting with friends on land and river, invigorating mind and body by
sufficient and temperate exercise, and taking care to be back in time
for “chapel,” which they attended in the loveliest of chapels—aëry and
exquisite King’s.

So to Mark Fenner Cambridge was what it should be—a home of
intellectual effort, of happy and reposeful thought, sweetened by the
companionship of chosen friends, mostly men of very moderate means like
himself, to whom the Alma Mater was holding out her protecting arms.
Some men of his cousin’s set made overtures to him—men whose fathers
remembered his father; but Mark had the courage to decline their
invitations, and to keep to the work he had set himself to do; and when
the term was ended, and the lads went home, Mark’s cheeks were round
and rosy, while Gilbert looked so thin and pale that his mother was
alarmed lest he had been doing too much.

“Very possibly, my dear,” said the rector, to whom she imparted her
fears, with his sweet sad smile, “but not too much work; Gilbert is
innocent of that, I am sure.”

“I do not think you ever have understood the poor boy, James. He is
not a book-worm, like Mark, of course, no Manners ever was; it is
unfortunate for him that he does take so much after my family.”

“You are the best judge of that, Elgitha; he certainly does not appear
to me much to resemble any of my people. Perhaps, as far as this world
is concerned, it is all the better for him.”

“I don’t know why you should say that, James,” said Lady Elgitha,
rather reproachfully; “surely your lot has fallen in pleasant places.”

“I did not mean to complain, my dear; my fortune is much above my
deserts. If I should like to see Gilbert more studious, it is perhaps
from a selfish wish to have him more in sympathy with myself—not that I
am much of a student, I am but an idle fellow, God help me, enjoying my
pleasant, easy life here with you, Margaret, and the girls.”

“Everybody must be happy in his own way,” said Lady Elgitha. “Gilbert
would never be happy as a parson; it is my belief that he wants an
active life. I must write to the Earl about him—something in the
Treasury now.”

“My dear, your nephew cannot nominate as your father and grandfather
did. Gilbert must stand the test of an examination; if he cannot
satisfy the examiners, no amount of blue blood will avail him.”

“According to that, Mark will have the best chance in the world.”

“And everywhere else,” said the rector. “I only wish our Gilbert had
half the chances of Margaret’s fatherless boy. Michael Fenner, though
dead, has done more for his son than I for mine. Gilbert is selfish,
idle, almost illiterate, and I look with shame on the virtues of my
nephew who has had so much less done for him.”

“Why, Rector, what has given you such a fit of the blues this
afternoon?” exclaimed Lady Elgitha, regarding him with amazed alarm.

The rector attempted some jest, and calling his little daughter, set
out on his usual afternoon peregrination, while Lady Elgitha, seriously
disturbed, reflected whether it would be advisable to calm his troubled
mind by a course of globules, or to divert his thoughts by a dinner
party or a tennis tournament.

(_To be continued._)

[Illustration]



VARIETIES.


OTHER PEOPLE’S VANITY.—What renders the vanity of others insupportable
is that it wounds our own.—_La Rochefoucauld._


BUSY WITH TRIFLES.—Those who bestow too much application on trifling
things become generally incapable of great ones.—_La Rochefoucauld._


HEADS AND HEARTS.—A man with a bad heart has been sometimes saved by a
strong head, but a corrupt woman is lost for ever.—_Coleridge._


LOVE-LETTERS.—To write a good love-letter, you ought to begin without
knowing what you mean to say and to finish without knowing what you
have written.—_Rousseau._


LOVERS’ TALK.—The reason why lovers are never weary of being together
is because they are always talking of themselves.


A TALE OF A YORKSHIRE WIFE.

The Yorkshire people of the West Riding, according to Mrs. Gaskell, are
“sleuth hounds” after money, and in illustration of this characteristic
we may take the following anecdote:—

Not far from Bradford an old couple lived on their farm. The good
man had been ill for some time, when the practitioner who attended
him advised that a physician should be summoned from Bradford for a
consultation.

The doctor came, looked into the case, gave his opinion, and,
descending from the sick-room to the kitchen, was there accosted by the
old woman with “Well, doctor, what is your charge?”

“My fee is a guinea.”

“A guinea, doctor! a guinea! And if you come again will it be another
guinea?”

“Yes.”

“A guinea, doctor! Hech!”

The old woman rose and went upstairs to her husband’s bedroom, and the
doctor, who waited below, heard her say—

“He charges a guinea, and if he comes again it’ll be another guinea.
Now, what do you say? If I were ye I’d say no, like a Britoner; and I’d
die first.”


PLEASANT SURPRISES.—Human nature is pliable, and perhaps the
pleasantest surprises of life are found in discovering the things we
can do when forced.


AN OBSTACLE TO HAPPINESS.—There is in all of us an impediment to
perfect happiness—namely, weariness of the things which we possess and
a desire for the things which we have not.



ANSWERS TO CORRESPONDENTS.


EDUCATIONAL.

MISS BEALE, ADA CROSSLEY, DELECTUS, ADMIRER OF THE G. O. P., CONSTANCE
SUTHERLAND, GERTRUDE and RONVAD, MARDI, TADMAN and CROSSLEY.—We thank
Miss Beale for sending us the prospectus of the Guild of the Cheltenham
Ladies’ College, the object of which is to give information to its
old pupils and others, of essay, reading, and other societies, so as
to help in their own self-improvement and in work for others; general
secretary, Mrs. Ashley Smith, Ivy House, Bilston, Staffordshire. Miss
Tadman is thanked for her prospectus of the Kingston Reading Club, of
which she is hon. secretary; her address is 100, Coltman-street, Hull,
Yorkshire. Mardi is also thanked for that of the Glamorgan Reading
Society, of which Miss C. Lewis is the hon. secretary; address, 49,
Richmond-road, Cardiff, Wales. She wishes it to be understood that it
is not confined to Glamorganshire. Our other correspondents above-named
we may refer to the shilling “Directory of Girls’ Clubs” (Griffith and
Farran, St. Paul’s-churchyard, E.C.), where they will find what they
require. Machiavelli’s works are translated into French by Periés,
1823-6, in twelve volumes, and Macaulay wrote an essay upon them. March
24th, 1869, was a Wednesday. Eleven early-rising societies are named in
the directory, including Miss Kempe’s.


ART.

DIE JUNGE MAUS.—Although you have attained to the patriarchal age
of twenty-one, and your bones have only just become hard, we see no
objection to your learning to paint. There are works on the subject you
name in French as well as English. Write to the publisher, Mr. Tarn.
Ours is the editorial department.

EMILY KAIGHIN.—A milking-stool is round in the seat, about ten inches
in diameter, and has three wooden legs sloping outwards. People use
it more as a means for the practice of their artistic ideas than as a
restful appliance.

MAY.—To remove a photo from a dirty mount, cut away all the margin of
the latter and put it to float in a plate of clean tepid water. Should
it fail to become detached, hold it with the back near the fire, and
you will then peel it off. Sometimes a solution of indiarubber is used
in mounting (improperly so, we think), and this is the best plan to
adopt in such a case.

PHOTO.—The medium mentioned in “Photographine” is sold with the
apparatus for the art.

A. M. B.—To acquire the art of painting on glass or china, you might be
taken as an apprentice at various firms, such as that of Mr. Cameron,
69, Wigmore-street, Cavendish-square. W.; or the Messrs. Powell, of
the Whitefriars Glass Company, Whitefriars-street, E.C. This company
receives ladies, who work in a separate room for six hours daily, and
four on Saturdays. The Messrs. Simpson and Messrs. Mortlock likewise
employ ladies. The average earnings are from £60 to £70 per annum for
the lower branches of art, and as much as £100 for the higher.

BULL FINCH.—We must refer you to the answer above given to “A. M. B.”
You will find plenty of designs for tile and china painting in the
volumes of the G. O. P. You need not look further.

WOULD-BE PROFESSIONAL.—Certainly, a livelihood could be made out of
wood engraving, but then you should have more than one qualification
for it. Practical skill, persevering industry, good sight, a firm,
steady, yet delicate touch, and natural artistic taste. The work has
the advantage of being home work, and needs little outlay—a good set of
tools, and the boxwood blocks purchased as required. A skilled engraver
can earn from £3 upwards a week. If you study at the South London
Technical Art School, 122 and 124, Kennington Park-road, you will have
£3 to pay per annum for fees, half-yearly and in advance. When you
have acquired the art, illustrate some popular work or picture initial
letters for articles, and little end sketches for the same, and take
them to publishers as specimens. You might obtain advice at the central
office of the City and Guilds of London Institute, Gresham College,
London, E.C. The director and secretary is Philip Magnus, Esq.


MISCELLANEOUS.

YOUNG INQUIRER.—1. Yes, there is such a thing as a “singing flame,”
and it is not like a singing kettle nor a windy gaspipe, and is as
great a wonder as the fabulous “singing tree,” had that been real.
A very delicate jet of flame, introduced through a small pipe into
a narrow glass tube of a foot long, will respond to the singing of
any one note, if set in tune to it. Professor Tyndall says, “With a
little practice, one is able to command a flame to sing and to stop
singing, while it strictly obeys the injunction. When the proper pitch
has been ascertained the experiment is sure to succeed; and, from a
distance of twenty or thirty feet, the flame when sung to is caused
to sing responsively. If it do not respond, it is because it has not
been spoken to in the proper tone; but a note of somewhat higher pitch
causes it to stretch its tongue and sing vigorously.” 2. The 1st of
April, 1869, was a Thursday.

FAITH, HOPE, AND CHARITY.—See “Practical Hints About the Growth of the
Hair,” in our part for July, 1885. The name Thames is derived from the
Attic word _Tamh_, signifying “quiet,” the Saxon _Temese_, the Latin
_Tamesis_. Possibly the latter may contain the origin of the name Isis,
as given to the river at Oxford.

EILEEN.—Yes, Ireland was anciently called Insula Sacra, so Festus
Airenus affirmed; but it must be noted that this author wrote in
the fourth century, and this was before St. Patrick established
Christianity there. Also, the name given to Ireland was not exclusively
a distinctive one, for the Isle of Samothrace was also entitled the
Sacred Isle. Another name for Ireland was Muic Innis, or Isle of Muc,
Muc being the name applied to the divinity as worshipped by them, and
signified “sacred.” Beautiful as much of the country is, any visitor
would be struck with the appropriate selection of the latter name
(according to its English sound and meaning) after seeing the filthy
surroundings and habits of the natives, the pigs, poultry, and human
kind wallowing together within the same mud walls, and by preference!

ZEARN.—A butler has the care of the wine cellar, decants the wine,
and serves it at table. He places the chief dish on the table, or
carves it at the side table, and his place is behind his master’s
chair, while the footman (if one) stands behind his mistress. The
butler also stands behind the footman when the latter opens the
hall door to visitors. The servant, improperly called a butler, who
holds a single-handed place combines the duties of both butler and
footman, with the exception of the care of the wine cellar, unless in
exceptional cases of special trust.

A READER.—The initials R.S.V.P. are those of the French phrase
_Répondez, s’il vous plaît_, “Answer, if you please.” Painting in oils
is much easier than in water-colours, as mistakes can be rectified and
improvements made.

HONOLULU.—The quotation you give—

    “Alas! how easily things go wrong;
    A sigh too deep, or a kiss too long,
    And then comes a mist and a weeping rain,
    And life is never the same again,”

is taken from “Planlastes,” a fairy story, by George McDonald.

MARANDANA.—Introduce the inferior to the superior, the young to the
older, and, in due courtesy, the man to the woman. Read our series of
articles on good breeding, especially that entitled “The Habits of
Polite Society.”

G. N. OETZMANN.—You might arrange your meals thus:—A cup of tea,
coffee, or cocoa, and a slice of bread and butter before starting, and
put a captain’s biscuit or two in your pocket for 11 a.m.; dine at
1 p.m.; take a cup of chocolate or tea at 4 p.m., and a substantial tea
at 7 p.m. No supper is needed after that.

BATTENBERG.—Your handwriting is clear, but not pretty, and you must
beware of flourishes.

A SCOTCH SUNBEAM.—We are sorry to hear that you suffer so much. Accept
our thanks for so kind and grateful a letter, and sincere wishes for
your speedy restoration. Your handwriting shows a good foundation for a
nice running hand by-and-by.

ENGLISH CHURCHMAN.—The Orders as now existing in the Established
Church are derived from St. Augustine of Canterbury. Although St.
Joseph of Arimathea brought the Christian faith to Britain in the
first century, the reception of it was very partial, and the mission
of St. Eleutherius in the second century established a line of sixteen
archbishops, the last of whom, Theanus, was driven from his see
into Wales about 587. Here a Primitive church of Eastern origin was
already in existence, and when the second Roman mission was sent over
by Gregory, through Augustine, and established Christianity in the
south-eastern part of Britain, the little mission church in North Wales
was still existing, and protested against any usurpation of authority
by the newly-planted Church of Canterbury. At the same time we cannot
trace any Orders in the Established Church derived from them, although
we have historic evidence of a primacy in the reign of King Arthur
being removed from Caerleon to Llandaff, and thence to St. David’s.

DAISY.—We think if you belong to the Young Women’s Christian Association
you should apply to Miss A. Gough, 17, Old Cavendish-street, W., for
information. Most of the homes of rest are open on payment of 10s. a
week. There is one at about that price at Cobham, Surrey; Church-stile
House. Apply to Miss Blunt, 3, Portman-square, W. You might also apply
to the sister in charge of St. Gabriel’s Home of Rest, Lennard-road,
Folkestone, where the terms are moderate; or St. Mary’s Home, near
Uckfield, Fletching. Apply to the lady superintendent. Designed for
ladies requiring rest or change, 10s. a week.

MISS GOUDGE.—The phrase you give appears to be made up of certain
passages of Holy Writ. See 1st Tim. vi. 4, 5, 20, and 2nd Tim. ii. 23.

E. A. L.—We think you had better look out the word “supernatural” in
the dictionary.

BISHOP.—Canons are residentiary members of a cathedral chapter, of
which the dean is the chief. The office was instituted in the eighth
century, and their duty is to act as the advisers of the bishop. They
do receive salaries, varying in amount. Archdeacons take precedence of
them. They act as the representatives and delegates of the bishops,
especially in the duty of parochial visitation. Their office dates from
the fifth century. Their salary is very trifling, supposed only to
cover the cost of their journeys. A prebendary has a right to a stall
in the choir of a cathedral church and vote in the chapter, and to the
receipt of certain revenues for the performance of certain duties in
that or a collegiate church. The office was instituted in the eleventh
century, and may be held by a layman, although such cases are rare, if
actually existing. A rural dean is a beneficed clergyman charged with
the inspection of a deanery, or sub-division of an archdeaconry, under
the supervision of his bishop. The original duties of the office are
for the most part practically transferred to the archdeacon.

W. L.—The first voyage made all round the world was by a Portuguese
commander, who sailed from San Lucas on September 20th, 1519, in the
ship _Vittoria_. The name of this pioneer navigator was Ferdinand
Magellan, giving the straits through which he passed their name. He was
killed on the Philippine Islands the following year, and Sebastian del
Cano brought the ship round the Cape of Good Hope, and arrived at San
Lucas six days within the three years’ expedition, September 6th, 1522.
Five ships formed the fleet; three lived to go through the straits with
Magellan and his crew; the _Vittoria_ was the only one that reached
home.

AN ITALIAN GIRL.—The 30th April, 1866, was a Monday. The letters _i.e._
represent the Latin words _id est_, or, in English, “that is,” or, more
freely translated, “that means, in other words,” when an explanation of
the words employed is required. The Jesuits were banished from Portugal
in 1759, suppressed in France 1764, in Spain 1767, and subsequently in
Naples, Parma, and Modena, and in 1773 Pope Clement XIV. issued a bull,
concluding with the words, “We do extirpate and abolish the Society of
Jesus.” In 1814 Pope Pius VII. re-established it. A large number of
Jesuit priests were executed at the time you name on account of real or
supposed political intrigues. You write a beautiful hand, and you have
our best wishes.

SEEKER OF LIGHT.—Our blessed Lord’s atonement on the Cross was of
infinite efficacy, and our sins—even the most heinous—are those of
mere finite creatures. Thus, “He is able to save to the uttermost.”
The term “scarlet,” as applied to sin, is a figure of speech. It is
not only glaring and conspicuous, but, as produced in ancient times,
it was exceedingly durable. The Phœnicians were famous for it, and the
Tyrian purple and scarlet were produced from two little shellfish,
the _Buccinum_ and _Murex_, only found in perfection on the rocky
coast of their country. The dye when exposed to a bright light became
successively green, blue, red, and deep purple; and, by washing it
in soap and water, of a bright and permanent crimson. Costly fabrics
were twice dyed, and made so beautiful and so very durable that they
brought fabulous prices. Thus, the allusion made to a scarlet dye is
explained. However deeply dyed and stained with sin, the precious blood
of Christ can wash the sinner as white as snow. There is no limit to
its cleansing power.

S. A. GRAY.—You would do well to advertise your autographs and take
what you can get for them from the trade, or else dispose of them by
arrangement with private friends. The _Exchange and Mart_ would be a
good advertising medium.

THREE IGNORANT SCHOOLGIRLS.—You cannot say you play by _hear_, but by
ear.

[Illustration: RVLES I. No charge is made for answering questions

 II. All correspondents to give initials or pseudonym

III. The Editor reserves the right of declining to reply to any of
     the questions

 IV. No direct answers can be sent to the Editor through the post

  V. No more than two questions may be asked in one letter which
     must be addressed to the Editor of The Girl’s Own Paper 56
     Paternoster Row LONDON E.C.

 VI. No address of firms tradesmen or any other matter of the
     nature of an advertisement will be inserted.]

       *       *       *       *       *

[Transcriber’s Note—the following changes have been made to this text.

Page 234: Gian-Galleazzo to Gian-Galeazzo—“those of Gian-Galeazzo”.]



*** End of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "The Girl's Own Paper, Vol. VIII, No. 367, January 8, 1887" ***

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