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Rh represented the value exported that year, but six vessels were wrecked in a hurricane; now however as an officer in charge is located there, it may be presumed that the trade will be regularly prosecuted. Vide Appendix E.

is one of the most promising industries of the Colony, but is at present only carried on in the Champion Bay District; its commencement has been noticed in the history of the Colony, and the early progress of it as well as of copper mining, will be found in Appendix F. The proposal for a line of railway from the centre of the Mines district at Northampton to the port at Champion Bay gave fresh impulse to this industry, of which the following returns from the two principal mines will show the present state; there are many other lodes worked, and many still untouched equal to them in value; the want of capital in money and labour alone limits the quantity produced.

The actual shipments from the Narra Tarra mine have been 862 tons, within the twelve months ending December, 1877; but the yield has been much larger, and might be still increased, if greater facilities for exportation were afforded, as it has now a sufficient plant of machinery.

The produce of the Wheel Ellen is about equal to that of the Narra Tarra; but 3,000 tons could be easily raised within the year, if it could be exported. This mine was first opened in 1872, and has in six years produced 4,300 tons of ore, with an average number of twenty-one miners. The lode, which bears about 35° East of North, has been laid open for about 300 fathoms in length, and the deepest point reached is 14 fathoms, so that only surface machinery on a small scale has been required. Of the ores of lead, Galena is the


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30 "She's as much a lady as ever," he would muse with pride as the good wife with skirts tucked around, her husband's brown cabbage-tree hat on her comely, well-set head, goloshes on her dainty feet, went the round of her fowl-yard, fed the butting calf and leggy lamb, and appeared shortly in the parlour as neat and trim as ever.

"Why should life's plainest, simplest duties be considered menial," he would say, "and the best of its work be delegated to menials?"

"You had better come in," said Mrs. Dowling, appearing at the open French window. "You cannot see any more of your beloved valley to-night, Richard."

"But I can scent its fragrance. Isn't the perfume of the wattle and acacia, borne on the moist airs of night, sweet? And I can hear the music of the vale. Hark to that wailing crescendo of the curlew! The one thing here that evidently has a history—and a pathetic one too. Or does it mourn that the land should lie desolate? Now that 'More Pork,' or cuckoo as we ought to call him, is lonely too, but he is jolly as a sand-boy about it."

"The laughing jackass is my favourite," suggested Eva. "The last one has just giggled itself to sleep. Always so delighted with himself and the day's doings, as it chuckles over the thought of how vainly the six-foot snake tried to bite as he whisked it hundreds of feet in the air, and how green the centipede got in the face when he ferreted it out from our fire-wood stack and gobbled it, and so he croons himself to sleep to dream of children not bitten owing to its protecting care."

"The magpie I claim," said the mother; "all day long as we work it whistles so gleefully, as if to cheer us on our way, while the locust tribe keep up the running accompaniment."

"And the frogs in the lagoon-—" began Eva.

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116 most abundant, but other ores are worked to profit. The percentage is from 68 to 82¼, and the highest price obtained for one whole shipment £14 14s. per ton. The strike of the lode and quality of the ore may be taken as generally applicable to all the mines in this district. The number and extent of the known lodes make the extension of this industry dependent on the demand for the ore in the market and the supply of capital in money and labour introduced into the Colony; and as the railway from Northampton to Champion Bay, when opened throughout its entire length, which it will very shortly be, must reduce, as it does even now, the cost of transport, the profits on this industry will be proportionately increased.

of the Colony was, in 1876, calculated at 16,166 males, and 11,155 females, in all 37,321 persons; the births during the year were 918, and the deaths 383, giving a natural increase of 535; the arrivals by sea were 727, and the departures 650, giving an addition of 77, making the actual increase during the year only 612. When this is compared with the increase in other colonies from immigration, there can be no surprise at the comparatively slow progress of West Australia.

Nearly one-fourth of the population is collected on the lower valley of the Swan, Perth having a population of 4,606, and Fremantle of 3,303 in 1876. So small a population, scattered over so large a surface, has required the construction of roads to a much greater extent than would otherwise have been needed. Roads, passable for wheel carriages and, in many places excellent, in all with the rivers and gullies bridged, extend from Perth to Albany, by Bannister, Williams, and Kojonup; to the Vasse, by Pinjarrah and Bunbury;


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Rh to Guildford, and from thence to Newcastle, York, and Northam, and by Bindoon to Victoria Plains, and to Fremantle. The Swan is navigated by passenger steamers to Perth, and by lighters beyond Guildford.

is carried to all the principal centres of population, from Perth to Albany on the South coast, with stations at Williams and Kojonup; and from Albany to Eucla the line is now completed for connection with the South Australian lines, and so with Great Britain and the rest of the world; from Perth also to the Vasse on the South-west, and Geraldton on the North, by the Victoria Plains, Dongarra, and Greenough, and from Geraldton to Northampton, by the line of railroad. There is a Post Office in every town and village. There is only one line of public railroad in the Colony, now in the course of completion, viz., between Geraldton and Northampton. Its length is 34 miles, the gauge 3ft. 6m.; there are thirteen bridges of timber, varying from 1 span of 10 feet to 5 spans of 30 feet. The cost has been considerably more than £3,000 a mile. The stations will be at either end, with intermediate platforms at which trains will stop by signal.

—The Colonial steamer carries the mails and passengers monthly to and from Geraldton to Albany, touching at Fremantle, Bunbury, and Vasse, and making short intermediate trips with passengers and cargo, &c. Passengers to or from the Colony by mail steamers can be transhipped to any of those ports. The mail is carried overland from Perth to Albany twice a month, and to Geraldton once a week; a passenger-van runs once a month from Perth to Albany and returns in time for the mail; and the mails are carried in vans with passengers twice a week to the Avon Valley and Bunbury, and daily to Fremantle and Guildford.


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118, the capital, beautifully situated on the estuary of the Swan, is gradually assuming the appearance of a considerable city, with an area of about one mile and a half in length by half a mile in breadth, and consisting of three principal and several cross streets. Government House, the Town Hall, the Public Offices, and the Cathedral of the Church of England lying in the centre, and the Barracks and Roman Catholic Cathedral at either end; the Wesleyan and Congregational Chapels are also conspicuous buildings. It has a cemetery, public garden, park, and recreation ground, and a rifle range on Mt. Eliza above the town. It has institutions for mechanics, working men, and for young men of the Church of England and Rome; two hospitals, two orphanages, a native mission house; nine inns, hotels, and public houses; a gaol, a poor house, and manufactories for coach building, boiler-making, iron-founding, soap-making, brewing, tanning, and boat-building. There is a Club named after Governor Weld, a Freemasons' hall, a market under the Town Hall, and a museum attached to the Mechanics' Institute. The road to Guildford is carried over the Swan and its islands above Perth water, by bridges and causeways 4,109 feet in length.

, built on both banks of the Swan, is connected by a bridge 954 feet in length. The principal part of the town is on the South side of the river, where a bay is formed by Arthur's head—a mass of limestone, on which is a lighthouse, gaol, and court house, where boats can put ashore at all times, and where two jetties are placed for landing and shipping goods. Fremantle has many public buildings, and is dominated by the Convict Establishment, which has accommodation for 800 prisoner with the necessary staff; it has a marine


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Rh residence for the Governor, a lunatic and a convalescent asylum, three churches, schools, several inns, hotels, and public houses, equal to its wants as a seaport, a Freemasons' hall with club attached, and barracks for the Pensioner Force. Both Perth and Fremantle are fully supplied with stores and shops.

There are four newspapers published in Perth. The West Australian Times twice a week, and the Inquirer once, the Catholic Record and St. George's Journal monthly; at Fremantle, the Herald weekly; there are, besides, the Temperance Advocate, and the Christian Herald. A Government Gazette is published weekly. Telegrams from all parts of the Colony, public, commercial, and meteorological, are posted at the chief office daily.

In all the towns, both small and large, in addition to churches and schools, there will be found inns, as also in many places by the roadside, especially on the Sound road; mechanics' institutes, and various societies; there are agricultural societies and turf clubs, with exhibitions and races, in all the principal districts, also cricket clubs in most; at Perth, Fremantle, and Geraldton there are yacht clubs; total abstinence and temperance societies exist in all parts.

has been made during the last two years; £1,690 was expended in 1875, £999 in 1876, and £7,000 was voted for 1877. In 1875, 262 males and 156 females arrived from England, and 26 males and 3 females from the other colonies. In 1876, 515 males and 212 females arrived in the Colony. The vote for 1878 will increase the number, but not in proportion to the wants of the Colony. The conditions regulating immigration will be found in Appendix G.


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120 Assisted immigration has, of course, only reference to the so-called laboring classes, mechanics, agricultural laborers, shepherds, grooms, gardeners, domestic servants &c. For these the demand among so small a population must necessarily be limited, but to persons having small money capital at their disposal Western Australia offers advantages which the more populous colonies do not. There are in the mines district near Champion Bay many lodes of lead ore, some worked, and others not yet touched, which require only the application of simple machinery and additional labor to make them highly productive. The pastoral areas of the Colony are by no means fully stocked, and there are numerous localities in which the industries already noted might be carried on with profit, if there were sufficient capital to commence with. On reference to the Land Regulations, it will be seen that land for any such purposes may be obtained on such terms as will not exhaust the capital which may be more profitably applied to its improvement and cultivation.


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Rh "Now that will do, coma in at once," insisted Mrs. Bowling; "sit down and sing to us, my child."

Ere long the old settler, oblivious of the labours of the day, was absorbed in Lyell's Geology; the maiden was singing sweet ballads of England; the old lady sitting erect, with spotless cap on her silvery hair, was busy with her patch-work quilt, thinking of the by-gone scenes associated with each remnant of "better days."

"I hope I am not superstitious," she remarked, as her husband laid down his book to fill his pipe, "but do you know, Richard, as I arrange these patches I collected before we came out, I often see my sisters who wore the dresses, and the old housekeeper who assorted the remnants—you remember her—the rooms in which the curtains were hung, and the couches from which the covers were cut. I could describe the old house not from memory, but actually as it is now. My patches, when I am weary, not only reanimate the past, but reveal the present."

"Perhaps you are clairvoyant, Mary," suggested her husband with a laugh. "You have heard of the principles of 'trace.'"

"No; what is that?"

"It is claimed that an impress left on certain articles by former associations enables some persons to trace back the history of the object, and, far away, to view their present surroundings."

"Very fanciful; but I really do believe there are times when these bits of remnants make me dream until I see the present condition of those who wore them. I do not like the idea. Of course it is a silly one. I shall do no more to-night."

At this juncture a loud knocking was heard at the back-door. A shrill female voice was calling, "For heaven's sake let me in; he's dying!"

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the Dowlings on their little reserve, and the proprietor of the estates extending in all directions around them, a deadly feud existed. The latter owned more than he could ride round in a day, yet he coveted the little farm the decayed gentleman had set by the roadside. The atmosphere of content that surrounded it contrasted with his own feelings of unrest and dissatisfaction. Leicester impounded the poor man's cattle if they strayed, was suspected of setting his dogs on the daughter's "one ewe lamb" when it wandered, summoned the "genteel Cockey," as he termed him, to the Court at Gumford on the charge of "creating a nuisance," when the experimenting lawyer-farmer excavated a silo near the great man's fence. Leicester took his seat on the bench on that occasion and adjudicated on the case; the township Boniface and storekeeper deeming it politic to consent to the order for removal of the nuisance. Poor Bowling's cows yielded no milk that winter.

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Rh Leicester, with all his wealth, was the poorest man in all the country-side. The few hands he engaged hated him, and, when they could, neglected his interests. Neighbours' dogs were ever scattering his sheep, selectors persisted in travelling over his huge paddocks, though he had fenced the road across with six-rail wall of wood. Bulls would break his fences, his paddocks be burnt oftener than any one's else, and none have the grace to come to his assistance.

At nightfall the lonely man would return to the huge mansion he had built, no one knew for what purpose, The great drawing-room was filled with furniture evidently purchased to one large order, the library stocked with books procured from England by the ton. In the chiffonier of the long dining-room was his solace. Again and again through the evening the recluse rose from his pile of "weeklies" to refresh his spirit with whisky. He would doze, then rise and pace the dismal corridors and empty rooms like one possessed.

"Is life worth the living?" he would muse as he toyed with the revolver that ever reposed in the chiffonier drawer. "Had he not given employment to hundreds?" He would proceed to reckon up the scores of miles of fencing, and thousands of yards of excavation for tanks, the building and clearing he had effected—the thousands of pounds' worth of wool and stock, of which the Messrs. Goldbags and Co. had had the selling for him. Had he not been a benefactor to his race? And lo! the world cared not a straw for him, despised him, would not heed if he died, alone, to-morrow.

Alas for the ingratitude of man!

Now, he was actually compelled by the shire to open some of his closed roads! The price of wool had fallen—more than a penny—which involved a loss to him of

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154 characters appear, they are all composed of six kinds of strokes; which, variously combined and repeated, constitute the formidable emblem, which startles and confounds the beginner. These strokes are the horizontal, the perpendicular, the dot, the oblique slanting to the right, that to the left, and the hooked. On further examination it will appear, that the characters are resolvable into elements as well as strokes, some of which occur very frequently, and are frequently repeated several times in a single character. The whole number of elements is two hundred and fourteen, but only fifty of these enter into frequent composition with other characters; and about ten or a dozen may be recognised, in some form or another, in every sentence. Indeed the component parts of a character may be familiar to the student, while both the sound and meaning are unknown.

The elements, or radicals, of the Chinese language refer generally to very simple and well known things, such as the human species, man and woman; the parts of the body, head, mouth, ear, eye, face, heart, hand, foot, flesh, bones, and hair; human actions, such as speaking, walking, and eating; things necessary to man, such as silk, clothes, dwelling, door, and city; celestial objects, such as sun, moon, and rain; the five elements, such as wood, water, fire, metal, and earth; the vegetable kingdom, such as grass, grain, and bamboo; the animal kingdom, such as birds, beasts, fishes, and insects; with the mineral kingdom, such as stones, gems, &c. Most of the words referrible to these substances or subjects, are classed under them; and though the arrangement may not appear to us exactly philosophical, yet it evidences the inclination


text: Handbook of Western Australia/Part 4

title: Handbook of Western Australia/Part 4


text:
Twenty Years After/Chapter 3

D'Artagnan arrived at the Bastile just as it was striking half-past eight. His visit was announced to the governor, who, on hearing that he came from the cardinal, went to meet him and received him at the top of the great flight of steps outside the door. The governor of the Bastile was Monsieur du Tremblay, the brother of the famous Capuchin, Joseph, that fearful favorite of Richelieu's, who went by the name of the Gray Cardinal.

During the period that the Duc de Bassompierre passed in the Bastile -- where he remained for twelve long years -- when his companions, in their dreams of liberty, said to each other: "As for me, I shall go out of the prison at such a time," and another, at such and such a time, the duke used to answer, "As for me, gentlemen, I shall leave only when Monsieur du Tremblay leaves;" meaning that at the death of the cardinal Du Tremblay would certainly lose his place at the Bastile and De Bassompierre regain his at court.

His prediction was nearly fulfilled, but in a very different way from that which De Bassompierre supposed; for after the death of Richelieu everything went on, contrary to expectation, in the same way as before; and Bassompierre had little chance of leaving his prison.

Monsieur du Tremblay received D'Artagnan with extreme politeness and invited him to sit down with him to supper, of which he was himself about to partake.

"I should be delighted to do so," was the reply; "but if I am not mistaken, the words `In haste,' are written on the envelope of the letter which I brought."

"You are right," said Du Tremblay. "Halloo, major! tell them to order Number 25 to come downstairs."

The unhappy wretch who entered the Bastile ceased, as he crossed the threshold, to be a man -- he became a number.

D'Artagnan shuddered at the noise of the keys; he remained on horseback, feeling no inclination to dismount, and sat looking at the bars, at the buttressed windows and the immense walls he had hitherto only seen from the other side of the moat, but by which he had for twenty years been awe-struck.

A bell resounded.

"I must leave you," said Du Tremblay; "I am sent for to sign the release of a prisoner. I shall be happy to meet you again, sir."

"May the devil annihilate me if I return thy wish!" murmured D'Artagnan, smiling as he pronounced the imprecation; "I declare I feel quite ill after only being five minutes in the courtyard. Go to! go to! I would rather die on straw than hoard up a thousand a year by being governor of the Bastile."

He had scarcely finished this soliloquy before the prisoner arrived. On seeing him D'Artagnan could hardly suppress an exclamation of surprise. The prisoner got into the carriage without seeming to recognize the musketeer.

"Gentlemen," thus D'Artagnan addressed the four musketeers, "I am ordered to exercise the greatest possible care in guarding the prisoner, and since there are no locks to the carriage, I shall sit beside him. Monsieur de Lillebonne, lead my horse by the bridle, if you please." As he spoke he dismounted, gave the bridle of his horse to the musketeer and placing himself by the side of the prisoner said, in a voice perfectly composed, "To the Palais Royal, at full trot."

The carriage drove on and D'Artagnan, availing himself of the darkness in the archway under which they were passing, threw himself into the arms of the prisoner.

"Rochefort!" he exclaimed; "you! is it you, indeed? I am not mistaken?"

"D'Artagnan!" cried Rochefort.

"Ah! my poor friend!" resumed D'Artagnan, "not having seen you for four or five years I concluded you were dead."

"I'faith," said Rochefort, "there's no great difference, I think, between a dead man and one who has been buried alive; now I have been buried alive, or very nearly so."

"And for what crime are you imprisoned in the Bastile."

"Do you wish me to speak the truth?"

"Yes."

"Well, then, I don't know."

"Have you any suspicion of me, Rochefort?"

"No! on the honor of a gentleman; but I cannot be imprisoned for the reason alleged; it is impossible."

"What reason?" asked D'Artagnan.

"For stealing."

"For stealing! You, Rochefort! You are laughing at me."

"I understand. You mean that this demands explanation, do you not?"

"I admit it."

"Well, this is what actually took place: One evening after an orgy in Reinard's apartment at the Tuileries with the Duc d'Harcourt, Fontrailles, De Rieux and others, the Duc d'Harcourt proposed that we should go and pull cloaks on the Pont Neuf; that is, you know, a diversion which the Duc d'Orleans made quite the fashion."

"Were you crazy, Rochefort? At your age!"

"No, I was drunk. And yet, since the amusement seemed to me rather tame, I proposed to Chevalier de Rieux that we should be spectators instead of actors, and, in order to see to advantage, that we should mount the bronze horse. No sooner said than done. Thanks to the spurs, which served as stirrups, in a moment we were perched upon the croupe; we were well placed and saw everything. Four or five cloaks had already been lifted, with a dexterity without parallel, and not one of the victims had dared to say a word, when some fool of a fellow, less patient than the others, took it into his head to cry out, `Guard!' and drew upon us a patrol of archers. Duc d'Harcourt, Fontrailles, and the others escaped; De Rieux was inclined to do likewise, but I told him they wouldn't look for us where we were. He wouldn't listen, put his foot on the spur to get down, the spur broke, he fell with a broken leg, and, instead of keeping quiet, took to crying out like a gallows-bird. I then was ready to dismount, but it was too late; I descended into the arms of the archers. They conducted me to the Chatelet, where I slept soundly, being very sure that on the next day I should go forth free. The next day came and passed, the day after, a week; I then wrote to the cardinal. The same day they came for me and took me to the Bastile. That was five years ago. Do you believe it was because I committed the sacrilege of mounting en croupe behind Henry IV.?"

"No; you are right, my dear Rochefort, it couldn't be for that; but you will probably learn the reason soon."

"Ah, indeed! I forgot to ask you -- where are you taking me?"

"To the cardinal."

"What does he want with me?"

"I do not know. I did not even know that you were the person I was sent to fetch."

"Impossible -- you -- a favorite of the minister!"

"A favorite! no, indeed!" cried D'Artagnan. "Ah, my poor friend! I am just as poor a Gascon as when I saw you at Meung, twenty-two years ago, you know; alas!" and he concluded his speech with a deep sigh.

"Nevertheless, you come as one in authority."

"Because I happened to be in the ante-chamber when the cardinal called me, by the merest chance. I am still a lieutenant in the musketeers and have been so these twenty years."

"Then no misfortune has happened to you?"

"And what misfortune could happen to me? To quote some Latin verses I have forgotten, or rather, never knew well, `the thunderbolt never falls on the valleys,' and I am a valley, dear Rochefort, -- one of the lowliest of the low."

"Then Mazarin is still Mazarin?"

"The same as ever, my friend; it is said that he is married to the queen."

"Married?"

"If not her husband, he is unquestionably her lover."

"You surprise me. Rebuff Buckingham and consent to Mazarin!"

"Just like the women," replied D'Artagnan, coolly.

"Like women, not like queens."

"Egad! queens are the weakest of their sex, when it comes to such things as these."

"And M. de Beaufort -- is he still in prison?"

"Yes. Why?"

"Oh, nothing, but that he might get me out of this, if he were favorably inclined to me."

"You are probably nearer freedom than he is, so it will be your business to get him out."

"And," said the prisoner, "what talk is there of war with Spain?"

"With Spain, no," answered D'Artagnan; "but Paris."

"What do you mean?" cried Rochefort.

"Do you hear the guns, pray? The citizens are amusing themselves in the meantime."

"And you -- do you really think that anything could be done with these bourgeois?"

"Yes, they might do well if they had any leader to unite them in one body."

"How miserable not to be free!"

"Don't be downcast. Since Mazarin has sent for you, it is because he wants you. I congratulate you! Many a long year has passed since any one has wanted to employ me; so you see in what a situation I am."

"Make your complaints known; that's my advice."

"Listen, Rochefort; let us make a compact. We are friends, are we not?"

"Egad! I bear the traces of our friendship -- three slits or slashes from your sword."

"Well, if you should be restored to favor, don't forget me."

"On the honor of a Rochefort; but you must do the like for me."

"There's my hand, -- I promise."

"Therefore, whenever you find any opportunity of saying something in my behalf "

"I shall say it, and you?"

"I shall do the same."

"Apropos, are we to speak of your friends also, Athos, Porthos, and Aramis? or have you forgotten them?"

"Almost."

"What has become of them?"

"I don't know; we separated, as you know. They are alive, that's all that I can say about them; from time to time I hear of them indirectly, but in what part of the world they are, devil take me if I know, No, on my honor, I have not a friend in the world but you, Rochefort."

"And the illustrious -- what's the name of the lad whom I made a sergeant in Piedmont's regiment?"

"Planchet!"

"The illustrious Planchet. What has become of him?"

"I shouldn't wonder if he were at the head of the mob at this very moment. He married a woman who keeps a confectioner's shop in the Rue des Lombards, for he's a lad who was always fond of sweetmeats; he's now a citizen of Paris. You'll see that that queer fellow will be a sheriff before I shall be a captain."

"Come, dear D'Artagnan, look up a little! Courage! It is when one is lowest on the wheel of fortune that the merry-go-round wheels and rewards us. This evening your destiny begins to change."

"Amen!" exclaimed D'Artagnan, stopping the carriage.

"What are you doing?" asked Rochefort.

"We are almost there and I want no one to see me getting out of your carriage; we are supposed not to know each other."

"You are right. Adieu."

"Au revoir. Remember your promise."

In five minutes the party entered the courtyard and D'Artagnan led the prisoner up the great staircase and across the corridor and ante-chamber.

As they stopped at the door of the cardinal's study, D'Artagnan was about to be announced when Rochefort slapped him on his shoulder.

"D'Artagnan, let me confess to you what I've been thinking about during the whole of my drive, as I looked out upon the parties of citizens who perpetually crossed our path and looked at you and your four men with fiery eyes."

"Speak out," answered D'Artagnan.

"I had only to cry out `Help!' for you and for your companions to be cut to pieces, and then I should have been free."

"Why didn't you do it?" asked the lieutenant.

"Come, come!" cried Rochefort. "Did we not swear friendship? Ah! had any one but you been there, I don't say "

D'Artagnan bowed. "Is it possible that Rochefort has become a better man than I am?" he said to himself. And he caused himself to be announced to the minister.

"Let M. de Rochefort enter," said Mazarin, eagerly, on hearing their names pronounced; "and beg M. d'Artagnan to wait; I shall have further need of him."

These words gave great joy to D'Artagnan. As he had said, it had been a long time since any one had needed him; and that demand for his services on the part of Mazarin seemed to him an auspicious sign.

Rochefort, rendered suspicious and cautious by these words, entered the apartment, where he found Mazarin sitting at the table, dressed in his ordinary garb and as one of the prelates of the Church, his costume being similar to that of the abbes in that day, excepting that his scarf and stockings were violet.

As the door was closed Rochefort cast a glance toward Mazarin, which was answered by one, equally furtive, from the minister.

There was little change in the cardinal; still dressed with sedulous care, his hair well arranged and curled, his person perfumed, he looked, owing to his extreme taste in dress, only half his age. But Rochefort, who had passed five years in prison, had become old in the lapse of a few years; the dark locks of this estimable friend of the defunct Cardinal Richelieu were now white; the deep bronze of his complexion had been succeeded by a mortal pallor which betokened debility. As he gazed at him Mazarin shook his head slightly, as much as to say, "This is a man who does not appear to me fit for much."

After a pause, which appeared an age to Rochefort, Mazarin took from a bundle of papers a letter, and showing it to the count, he said:

"I find here a letter in which you sue for liberty, Monsieur de Rochefort. You are in prison, then?"

Rochefort trembled in every limb at this question. "But I thought," he said, "that your eminence knew that circumstance better than any one "

"I? Oh no! There is a congestion of prisoners in the Bastile, who were cooped up in the time of Monsieur de Richelieu; I don't even know their names."

"Yes, but in regard to myself, my lord, it cannot be so, for I was removed from the Chatelet to the Bastile owing to an order from your eminence."

"You think you were."

"I am certain of it."

"Ah, stay! I fancy I remember it. Did you not once refuse to undertake a journey to Brussels for the queen?"

"Ah! ah!" exclaimed Rochefort. "There is the true reason! Idiot that I am, though I have been trying to find it out for five years, I never found it out."

"But I do not say it was the cause of your imprisonment. I merely ask you, did you not refuse to go to Brussels for the queen, whilst you had consented to go there to do some service for the late cardinal?"

"That is the very reason I refused to go back to Brussels. I was there at a fearful moment. I was sent there to intercept a correspondence between Chalais and the archduke, and even then, when I was discovered I was nearly torn to pieces. How could I, then, return to Brussels? I should injure the queen instead of serving her."

"Well, since the best motives are liable to misconstruction, the queen saw in your refusal nothing but a refusal -- a distinct refusal she had also much to complain of you during the lifetime of the late cardinal; yes, her majesty the queen "

Rochefort smiled contemptuously.

"Since I was a faithful servant, my lord, to Cardinal Richelieu during his life, it stands to reason that now, after his death, I should serve you well, in defiance of the whole world."

"With regard to myself, Monsieur de Rochefort," replied Mazarin, "I am not, like Monsieur de Richelieu, all-powerful. I am but a minister, who wants no servants, being myself nothing but a servant of the queen's. Now, the queen is of a sensitive nature. Hearing of your refusal to obey her she looked upon it as a declaration of war, and as she considers you a man of superior talent, and consequently dangerous, she desired me to make sure of you; that is the reason of your being shut up in the Bastile. But your release can be managed. You are one of those men who can comprehend certain matters and having understood them, can act with energy "

"Such was Cardinal Richelieu's opinion, my lord."

"The cardinal," interrupted Mazarin, "was a great politician and therein shone his vast superiority over me. I am a straightforward, simple man; that's my great disadvantage. I am of a frankness of character quite French."

Rochefort bit his lips in order to prevent a smile.

"Now to the point. I want friends; I want faithful servants. When I say I want, I mean the queen wants them. I do nothing without her commands -- pray understand that; not like Monsieur de Richelieu, who went on just as he pleased. So I shall never be a great man, as he was, but to compensate for that, I shall be a good man, Monsieur de Rochefort, and I hope to prove it to you."

Rochefort knew well the tones of that soft voice, in which sounded sometimes a sort of gentle lisp, like the hissing of young vipers.

"I am disposed to believe your eminence," he replied; "though I have had but little evidence of that good-nature of which your eminence speaks. Do not forget that I have been five years in the Bastile and that no medium of viewing things is so deceptive as the grating of a prison."

"Ah, Monsieur de Rochefort! have I not told you already that I had nothing to do with that? The queen -- cannot you make allowances for the pettishness of a queen and a princess? But that has passed away as suddenly as it came, and is forgotten."

"I can easily suppose, sir, that her majesty has forgotten it amid the fetes and the courtiers of the Palais Royal, but I who have passed those years in the Bastile "

"Ah! mon Dieu! my dear Monsieur de Rochefort! do you absolutely think that the Palais Royal is the abode of gayety? No. We have had great annoyances there. As for me, I play my game squarely, fairly, and above board, as I always do. Let us come to some conclusion. Are you one of us, Monsieur de Rochefort?"

"I am very desirous of being so, my lord, but I am totally in the dark about everything. In the Bastile one talks politics only with soldiers and jailers, and you have not an idea, my lord, how little is known of what is going on by people of that sort; I am of Monsieur de Bassompierre's party. Is he still one of the seventeen peers of France?"

"He is dead, sir; a great loss. His devotion to the queen was boundless; men of loyalty are scarce."

"I think so, forsooth," said Rochefort, "and when you find any of them, you march them off to the Bastile. However, there are plenty in the world, but you don't look in the right direction for them, my lord."

"Indeed! explain to me. Ah! my dear Monsieur de Rochefort, how much you must have learned during your intimacy with the late cardinal! Ah! he was a great man."

"Will your eminence be angry if I read you a lesson?"

"I! never! you know you may say anything to me. I try to be beloved, not feared."

"Well, there is on the wall of my cell, scratched with a nail, a proverb, which says, `Like master, like servant.'"

"Pray, what does that mean?"

"It means that Monsieur de Richelieu was able to find trusty servants, dozens and dozens of them."

"He! the point aimed at by every poniard! Richelieu, who passed his life in warding off blows which were forever aimed at him!"

"But he did ward them off," said De Rochefort, "and the reason was, that though he had bitter enemies he possessed also true friends. I have known persons," he continued -- for he thought he might avail himself of the opportunity of speaking of D'Artagnan -- "who by their sagacity and address have deceived the penetration of Cardinal Richelieu; who by their valor have got the better of his guards and spies; persons without money, without support, without credit, yet who have preserved to the crowned head its crown and made the cardinal crave pardon."

"But those men you speak of," said Mazarin, smiling inwardly on seeing Rochefort approach the point to which he was leading him, "those men were not devoted to the cardinal, for they contended against him."

"No; in that case they would have met with more fitting reward. They had the misfortune to be devoted to that very queen for whom just now you were seeking servants."

"But how is it that you know so much of these matters?"

"I know them because the men of whom I speak were at that time my enemies; because they fought against me; because I did them all the harm I could and they returned it to the best of their ability; because one of them, with whom I had most to do, gave me a pretty sword-thrust, now about seven years ago, the third that I received from the same hand; it closed an old account."

"Ah!" said Mazarin, with admirable suavity, "could I but find such men!"

"My lord, there has stood for six years at your very door a man such as I describe, and during those six years he has been unappreciated and unemployed by you."

"Who is it?"

"It is Monsieur d'Artagnan."

"That Gascon!" cried Mazarin, with well acted surprise.

"`That Gascon' has saved a queen and made Monsieur de Richelieu confess that in point of talent, address and political skill, to him he was only a tyro."

"Really?"

"It is as I have the honor of telling it to your excellency."

"Tell me a little about it, my dear Monsieur de Rochefort."

"That is somewhat difficult, my lord," said Rochefort, with a smile.

"Then he will tell it me himself."

"I doubt it, my lord."

"Why do you doubt it?"

"Because the secret does not belong to him; because, as I have told you, it has to do with a great queen."

"And he was alone in achieving an enterprise like that?"

"No, my lord, he had three colleagues, three brave men, men such as you were wishing for just now."

"And were these four men attached to each other, true in heart, really united?"

"As if they had been one man -- as if their four hearts had pulsated in one breast."

"You pique my curiosity, dear Rochefort; pray tell me the whole story."

"That is impossible; but I will tell you a true story, my lord."

"Pray do so, I delight in stories," cried the cardinal.

"Listen, then," returned Rochefort, as he spoke endeavoring to read in that subtle countenance the cardinal's motive. "Once upon a time there lived a queen -- a powerful monarch -- who reigned over one of the greatest kingdoms of the universe; and a minister; and this minister wished much to injure the queen, whom once he had loved too well. (Do not try, my lord, you cannot guess who it is; all this happened long before you came into the country where this queen reigned.) There came to the court an ambassador so brave, so magnificent, so elegant, that every woman lost her heart to him; and the queen had even the indiscretion to give him certain ornaments so rare that they could never be replaced by any like them.

"As these ornaments were given by the king the minister persuaded his majesty to insist upon the queen's appearing in them as part of her jewels at a ball which was soon to take place. There is no occasion to tell you, my lord, that the minister knew for a fact that these ornaments had sailed away with the ambassador, who was far away, beyond seas. This illustrious queen had fallen low as the least of her subjects -- fallen from her high estate."

"Indeed!"

"Well, my lord, four men resolved to save her. These four men were not princes, neither were they dukes, neither were they men in power; they were not even rich. They were four honest soldiers, each with a good heart, a good arm and a sword at the service of those who wanted it. They set out. The minister knew of their departure and had planted people on the road to prevent them ever reaching their destination. Three of them were overwhelmed and disabled by numerous assailants; one of them alone arrived at the port, having either killed or wounded those who wished to stop him. He crossed the sea and brought back the set of ornaments to the great queen, who was able to wear them on her shoulder on the appointed day; and this very nearly ruined the minister. What do you think of that exploit, my lord?"

"It is magnificent!" said Mazarin, thoughtfully.

"Well, I know of ten such men."

Mazarin made no reply; he reflected.

Five or six minutes elapsed.

"You have nothing more to ask of me, my lord?" said Rochefort.

"Yes. And you say that Monsieur d'Artagnan was one of those four men?"

"He led the enterprise."

"And who were the others?"

"I leave it to Monsieur d'Artagnan to name them, my lord. They were his friends and not mine. He alone would have any influence with them; I do not even know them under their true names."

"You suspect me, Monsieur de Rochefort; I want him and you and all to aid me."

"Begin with me, my lord; for after five or six years of imprisonment it is natural to feel some curiosity as to one's destination."

"You, my dear Monsieur de Rochefort, shall have the post of confidence; you shall go to Vincennes, where Monsieur de Beaufort is confined; you will guard him well for me. Well, what is the matter?"

"The matter is that you have proposed to me what is impossible," said Rochefort, shaking his head with an air of disappointment.

"What! impossible? And why is it impossible?"

"Because Monsieur de Beaufort is one of my friends, or rather, I am one of his. Have you forgotten, my lord, that it is he who answered for me to the queen?"

"Since then Monsieur de Beaufort has become an enemy of the State."

"That may be, my lord; but since I am neither king nor queen nor minister, he is not my enemy and I cannot accept your offer."

"This, then, is what you call devotion! I congratulate you. Your devotion does not commit you too far, Monsieur de Rochefort."

"And then, my lord," continued Rochefort, "you understand that to emerge from the Bastile in order to enter Vincennes is only to change one's prison."

"Say at once that you are on the side of Monsieur de Beaufort; that will be the most sincere line of conduct," said Mazarin.

"My lord, I have been so long shut up, that I am only of one party -- I am for fresh air. Employ me in any other way; employ me even actively, but let it be on the high roads."

"My dear Monsieur de Rochefort," Mazarin replied in a tone of raillery, "you think yourself still a young man; your spirit is that of the phoenix, but your strength fails you. Believe me, you ought now to take a rest. Here!"

"You decide, then, nothing about me, my lord?"

"On the contrary, I have come to a decision."

Bernouin came into the room.

"Call an officer of justice," he said; "and stay close to me," he added, in a low tone.

The officer entered. Mazarin wrote a few words, which he gave to this man; then he bowed.

"Adieu, Monsieur de Rochefort," he said.

Rochefort bent low.

"I see, my lord, I am to be taken back to the Bastile."

"You are sagacious."

"I shall return thither, my lord, but it is a mistake on your part not to employ me."

"You? the friend of my greatest foes? Don't suppose that you are the only person who can serve me, Monsieur de Rochefort. I shall find many men as able as you are."

"I wish you may, my lord," replied De Rochefort.

He was then reconducted by the little staircase, instead of passing through the ante-chamber where D'Artagnan was waiting. In the courtyard the carriage and the four musketeers were ready, but he looked around in vain for his friend.

"Ah!" he muttered to himself, "this changes the situation, and if there is still a crowd of people in the streets we will try to show Mazarin that we are still, thank God, good for something else than keeping guard over a prisoner;" and he jumped into the carriage with the alacrity of a man of five-and-twenty.

title: Twenty Years After/Chapter 3


text:
Page:China- Its State and Prospects.djvu/179

Rh of the Chinese, at a very early period, to classification and order. The radical is generally discernible without much difficulty; and by a calculation of the additional number of strokes, the position of the given character in the dictionary is ascertained, almost as readily as by the alphabetic mode. Each character occupies an exact square, of whatever number of strokes it be composed, and the Chinese delight in writing it in such a uniform manner, that the page shall appear as though divided into an equal number of sections, as pleasing to the eve as instructive to the mind. The whole is surrounded by a border, with the title of the book, and the number of the volume, section, or page, noted on the side, instead of the top of the leaf. The Chinese read from top to bottom, and commence at the right hand, going regularly down each column till the end of the book. Chinese paper being thin, they write and print only on one side; and doubling each page, leave the folded part outside. The edges are not cut in front, but on the top, bottom, and back of the book, where it is stitched and fastened. Their volumes contain about eighty pages or leaves, and are about half an inch in thickness. The Chinese use no thick covers for their books: but instead of these, make a sort of case or wrapper, in which about eight or ten volumes are inclosed, and placed flat on the shelf. In some books, the typographical execution and binding are superior; but in most instances, they are turned out in a slovenly manner, and sold at as cheap a rate as possible.

The modes of writing to be met with in Chinese books are various, viz., the ancient form, the seal character, the grotesque, the regular, the written, and the


text:
Twenty Years After/Chapter 4

When left alone with Bernouin, Mazarin was for some minutes lost in thought. He had gained much information, but not enough. Mazarin was a cheat at the card-table. This is a detail preserved to us by Brienne. He called it using his advantages. He now determined not to begin the game with D'Artagnan till he knew completely all his adversary's cards.

"My lord, have you any commands?" asked Bernouin.

"Yes, yes," replied Mazarin. "Light me; I am going to the queen."

Bernouin took up a candlestick and led the way.

There was a secret communication between the cardinal's apartments and those of the queen; and through this corridor Mazarin passed whenever he wished to visit Anne of Austria.

In the bedroom in which this passage ended, Bernouin encountered Madame de Beauvais, like himself intrusted with the secret of these subterranean love affairs; and Madame de Beauvais undertook to prepare Anne of Austria, who was in her oratory with the young king, Louis XIV., to receive the cardinal.

Anne, reclining in a large easy-chair, her head supported by her hand, her elbow resting on a table, was looking at her son, who was turning over the leaves of a large book filled with pictures. This celebrated woman fully understood the art of being dull with dignity. It was her practice to pass hours either in her oratory or in her room, without either reading or praying.

When Madame de Beauvais appeared at the door and announced the cardinal, the child, who had been absorbed in the pages of Quintus Curtius, enlivened as they were by engravings of Alexander's feats of arms, frowned and looked at his mother.

"Why," he said, "does he enter without first asking for an audience?"

Anne colored slightly.

"The prime minister," she said, "is obliged in these unsettled days to inform the queen of all that is happening from time to time, without exciting the curiosity or remarks of the court."

"But Richelieu never came in this manner," said the pertinacious boy.

"How can you remember what Monsieur de Richelieu did? You were too young to know about such things."

"I do not remember what he did, but I have inquired and I have been told all about it."

"And who told you about it?" asked Anne of Austria, with a movement of impatience.

"I know that I ought never to name the persons who answer my questions," answered the child, "for if I do I shall learn nothing further."

At this very moment Mazarin entered. The king rose immediately, took his book, closed it and went to lay it down on the table, near which he continued standing, in order that Mazarin might be obliged to stand also.

Mazarin contemplated these proceedings with a thoughtful glance. They explained what had occurred that evening.

He bowed respectfully to the king, who gave him a somewhat cavalier reception, but a look from his mother reproved him for the hatred which, from his infancy, Louis XIV. had entertained toward Mazarin, and he endeavored to receive the minister's homage with civility.

Anne of Austria sought to read in Mazarin's face the occasion of this unexpected visit, since the cardinal usually came to her apartment only after every one had retired.

The minister made a slight sign with his head, whereupon the queen said to Madame Beauvais:

"It is time for the king to go to bed; call Laporte."

The queen had several times already told her son that he ought to go to bed, and several times Louis had coaxingly insisted on staying where he was; but now he made no reply, but turned pale and bit his lips with anger.

In a few minutes Laporte came into the room. The child went directly to him without kissing his mother.

"Well, Louis," said Anne, "Why do you not kiss me?"

"I thought you were angry with me, madame; you sent me away."

"I do not send you away, but you have had the small-pox and I am afraid that sitting up late may tire you."

"You had no fears of my being tired when you ordered me to go to the palace to-day to pass the odious decrees which have raised the people to rebellion."

"Sire!" interposed Laporte, in order to turn the subject, "To whom does your majesty wish me to give the candle?"

"To any one, Laporte," the child said; and then added in a loud voice, "To any one except Mancini."

Now Mancini was a nephew of Mazarin's and was as much hated by Louis as the cardinal himself, although placed near his person by the minister.

And the king went out of the room without either embracing his mother or even bowing to the cardinal.

"Good," said Mazarin, "I am glad to see that his majesty has been brought up with a hatred of dissimulation."

"Why do you say that?" asked the queen, almost timidly.

"Why, it seems to me that the way in which he left us needs no explanation. Besides, his majesty takes no pains to conceal how little affection he has for me. That, however, does not hinder me from being entirely devoted to his service, as I am to that of your majesty."

"I ask your pardon for him, cardinal," said the queen; "He is a child, not yet able to understand his obligations to you."

The cardinal smiled.

"But," continued the queen, "you have doubtless come for some important purpose. What is it, then?"

Mazarin sank into a chair with the deepest melancholy painted on his countenance.

"It is likely," he replied, "That we shall soon be obliged to separate, unless you love me well enough to follow me to Italy."

"Why," cried the queen; "How is that?"

"Because, as they say in the opera of `Thisbe,' `The whole world conspires to break our bonds.'"

"You jest, sir!" answered the queen, endeavoring to assume something of her former dignity.

"Alas! I do not, madame," rejoined Mazarin. "Mark well what I say. The whole world conspires to break our bonds. Now as you are one of the whole world, I mean to say that you also are deserting me."

"Cardinal!"

"Heavens! Did I not see you the other day smile on the Duke of Orleans? Or rather at what he said?"

"And what was he saying?"

"He said this, madame: `Mazarin is a stumbling-block. Send him away and all will then be well.'"

"What do you wish me to do?"

"Oh, madame! You are the queen!"

"Queen, forsooth! When I am at the mercy of every scribbler in the Palais Royal who covers waste paper with nonsense, or of every country squire in the kingdom."

"Nevertheless, you have still the power of banishing from your presence those whom you do not like!"

"That is to say, whom you do not like," returned the queen.

"I! persons whom I do not like!"

"Yes, indeed. Who sent away Madame de Chevreuse after she had been persecuted twelve years under the last reign?"

"A woman of intrigue, who wanted to keep up against me the spirit of cabal she had raised against M. de Richelieu."

"Who dismissed Madame de Hautefort, that friend so loyal that she refused the favor of the king that she might remain in mine?"

"A prude, who told you every night, as she undressed you, that it was a sin to love a priest, just as if one were a priest because one happens to be a cardinal."

"Who ordered Monsieur de Beaufort to be arrested?"

"An incendiary the burden of whose song was his intention to assassinate me."

"You see, cardinal," replied the queen, "That your enemies are mine."

"That is not enough madame, it is necessary that your friends should be also mine."

"My friends, monsieur?" The queen shook her head. "Alas, I have them no longer!"

"How is it that you have no friends in your prosperity when you had many in adversity?"

"It is because in my prosperity I forgot those old friends, monsieur; because I have acted like Queen Marie de Medicis, who, returning from her first exile, treated with contempt all those who had suffered for her and, being proscribed a second time, died at Cologne abandoned by every one, even by her own son."

"Well, let us see," said Mazarin; "Isn't there still time to repair the evil? Search among your friends, your oldest friends."

"What do you mean, monsieur?"

"Nothing else than I say -- search."

"Alas, I look around me in vain! I have no influence with any one. Monsieur is, as usual, led by his favorite; yesterday it was Choisy, to-day it is La Riviere, to-morrow it will be some one else. Monsieur le Prince is led by the coadjutor, who is led by Madame de Guemenee."

"Therefore, madame, I ask you to look, not among your friends of to-day, but among those of other times."

"Among my friends of other times?" said the queen.

"Yes, among your friends of other times; among those who aided you to contend against the Duc de Richelieu and even to conquer him."

"What is he aiming at?" murmured the queen, looking uneasily at the cardinal.

"Yes," continued his eminence; "under certain circumstances, with that strong and shrewd mind your majesty possesses, aided by your friends, you were able to repel the attacks of that adversary."

"I!" said the queen. "I suffered, that is all."

"Yes." said Mazarin, "as women suffer in avenging themselves. Come, let us come to the point. Do you know Monsieur de Rochefort?"

"One of my bitterest enemies -- the faithful friend of Cardinal Richelieu."

"I know that, and we sent him to the Bastile," said Mazarin.

"Is be at liberty?" asked the queen.

"No; still there, but I only speak of him in order that I may introduce the name of another man. Do you know Monsieur d'Artagnan?" he added, looking steadfastly at the queen.

Anne of Austria received the blow with a beating heart.

"Has the Gascon been indiscreet?" she murmured to herself, then said aloud:

"Yes." said Mazarin, "As women suffer in avenging themselves. Come, let us come to the point. Do you know Monsieur de Rochefort?"

"One of my bitterest enemies -- the faithful friend of Cardinal Richelieu."

"I know that, and we sent him to the Bastile," said Mazarin.

"Is be at liberty?" asked the queen.

"No; still there, but I only speak of him in order that I may introduce the name of another man. Do you know Monsieur d'Artagnan?" he added, looking steadfastly at the queen.

Anne of Austria received the blow with a beating heart.

"Has the Gascon been indiscreet?" she murmured to herself, then said aloud:

"D'Artagnan! stop an instant, the name seems certainly familiar. D'Artagnan! there was a musketeer who was in love with one of my women. Poor young creature! she was poisoned on my account."

"That's all you know of him?" asked Mazarin.

The queen looked at him, surprised.

"You seem, sir," she remarked, "to be making me undergo a course of cross-examination."

"Which you answer according to your fancy," replied Mazarin.

"Tell me your wishes and I will comply with them."

The queen spoke with some impatience.

"Well, madame," said Mazarin, bowing, "I desire that you give me a share in your friends, as I have shared with you the little industry and talent that Heaven has given me. The circumstances are grave and it will be necessary to act promptly."

"Still!" said the queen. "I thought that we were finally quit of Monsieur de Beaufort."

"Yes, you saw only the torrent that threatened to overturn everything and you gave no attention to the still water. There is, however, a proverb current in France relating to water which is quiet."

"Continue," said the queen.

"Well, then, madame, not a day passes in which I do not suffer affronts from your princes and your lordly servants, all of them automata who do not perceive that I wind up the spring that makes them move, nor do they see that beneath my quiet demeanor lies the still scorn of an injured, irritated man, who has sworn to himself to master them one of these days. We have arrested Monsieur de Beaufort, but he is the least dangerous among them. There is the Prince de Conde "

"The hero of Rocroy. Do you think of him?"

"Yes, madame, often and often, but pazienza, as we say in Italy; next, after Monsieur de Conde, comes the Duke of Orleans."

"What are you saying? The first prince of the blood, the king's uncle!"

"No! not the first prince of the blood, not the king's uncle, but the base conspirator, the soul of every cabal, who pretends to lead the brave people who are weak enough to believe in the honor of a prince of the blood -- not the prince nearest to the throne, not the king's uncle, I repeat, but the murderer of Chalais, of Montmorency and of Cinq-Mars, who is playing now the same game he played long ago and who thinks that he will win the game because he has a new adversary -- instead of a man who threatened, a man who smiles. But he is mistaken; I shall not leave so near the queen that source of discord with which the deceased cardinal so often caused the anger of the king to rage above the boiling point."

Anne blushed and buried her face in her hands.

"What am I to do?" she said, bowed down beneath the voice of her tyrant.

"Endeavor to remember the names of those faithful servants who crossed the Channel, in spite of Monsieur de Richelieu, tracking the roads along which they passed by their blood, to bring back to your majesty certain jewels given by you to Buckingham."

Anne arose, full of majesty, and as if touched by a spring, and looking at the cardinal with the haughty dignity which in the days of her youth had made her so powerful: "You are insulting me!" she said.

"I wish," continued Mazarin, finishing, as it were, the speech this sudden movement of the queen had cut; "I wish, in fact, that you should now do for your husband what you formerly did for your lover."

"Again that accusation!" cried the queen. "I thought that calumny was stifled or extinct; you have spared me till now, but since you speak of it, once for all, I tell you "

"Madame, I do not ask you to tell me," said Mazarin, astounded by this returning courage.

"I will tell you all," replied Anne. "Listen: there were in truth, at that epoch, four devoted hearts, four loyal spirits, four faithful swords, who saved more than my life -- my honor "

"Ah! you confess it!" exclaimed Mazarin.

"Is it only the guilty whose honor is at the sport of others, sir? and cannot women be dishonored by appearances? Yes, appearances were against me and I was about to suffer dishonor. However, I swear I was not guilty, I swear it by "

The queen looked around her for some sacred object by which she could swear, and taking out of a cupboard hidden in the tapestry, a small coffer of rosewood set in silver, and laying it on the altar:

"I swear," she said, "by these sacred relics that Buckingham was not my lover."

"What relics are those by which you swear?" asked Mazarin, smiling. "I am incredulous."

The queen untied from around her throat a small golden key which hung there, and presented it to the cardinal.

"Open, sir," she said, "and look for yourself."

Mazarin opened the coffer; a knife, covered with rust, and two letters, one of which was stained with blood, alone met his gaze.

"What are these things?" he asked.

"What are these things?" replied Anne, with queen-like dignity, extending toward the open coffer an arm, despite the lapse of years, still beautiful. "These two letters are the only ones I ever wrote to him. This knife is the knife with which Felton stabbed him. Read the letters and see if I have lied or spoken the truth."

But Mazarin, notwithstanding this permission, instead of reading the letters, took the knife which the dying Buckingham had snatched out of the wound and sent by Laporte to the queen. The blade was red, for the blood had become rust; after a momentary examination during which the queen became as white as the cloth which covered the altar on which she was leaning, he put it back into the coffer with an involuntary shudder.

"It is well, madame, I believe your oath."

"No, no, read," exclaimed the queen, indignantly; "read, I command you, for I am resolved that everything shall be finished to-night and never will I recur to this subject again. Do you think," she said, with a ghastly smile, "that I shall be inclined to reopen this coffer to answer any future accusations?"

Mazarin, overcome by this determination, read the two letters. In one the queen asked for the ornaments back again. This letter had been conveyed by D'Artagnan and had arrived in time. The other was that which Laporte had placed in the hands of the Duke of Buckingham, warning him that he was about to be assassinated; that communication had arrived too late.

"It is well, madame," said Mazarin; "nothing can gainsay such testimony."

"Sir," replied the queen, closing the coffer and leaning her hand upon it, "if there is anything to be said, it is that I have always been ungrateful to the brave men who saved me -- that I have given nothing to that gallant officer, D'Artagnan, you were speaking of just now, but my hand to kiss and this diamond."

As she spoke she extended her beautiful hand to the cardinal and showed him a superb diamond which sparkled on her finger.

"It appears," she resumed, "that he sold it ---he sold it in order to save me another time -- to be able to send a messenger to the duke to warn him of his danger -- he sold it to Monsieur des Essarts, on whose finger I remarked it. I bought it from him, but it belongs to D'Artagnan. Give it back to him, sir, and since you have such a man in your service, make him useful."

"Thank you, madame," said Mazarin. "I will profit by the advice."

"And now," added the queen, her voice broken by her emotion, "have you any other question to ask me?"

"Nothing," -- the cardinal spoke in his most conciliatory manner -- "except to beg of you to forgive my unworthy suspicions. I love you so tenderly that I cannot help being jealous, even of the past."

A smile, which was indefinable, passed over the lips of the queen.

"Since you have no further interrogations to make, leave me, I beseech you," she said. "I wish, after such a scene, to be alone."

Mazarin bent low before her.

"I will retire, madame. Do you permit me to return?"

"Yes, to-morrow."

The cardinal took the queen's hand and pressed it with an air of gallantry to his lips.

Scarcely had he left her when the queen went into her son's room, and inquired from Laporte if the king was in bed. Laporte pointed to the child, who was asleep.

Anne ascended the steps side of the bed and softly kissed the placid forehead of her son; then she retired as silently as she had come, merely saying to Laporte:

"Try, my dear Laporte, to make the king more courteous to Monsieur le Cardinal, to whom both he and I are under such important obligations."

title: Twenty Years After/Chapter 4


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34 thousands of pounds a year I He must certainly stop all his donations of a guinea a year to churches and hospitals! Added to all his troubles, the married couple, who had supplied his personal wants for ten years past, could tolerate his vagaries no longer, and were leaving him.

Alone in the world the millionaire stood in his ghostly mansion, under his far-reaching hills and valleys of richest pasture—deserted, despised! He would stand it no longer! One evening when the whisky was firing his brain, he had roved from room to room! .... There was a sudden explosion that no one heard! A heavy fall! Then a silence as of death reigned in the great house.

"I can't find the master nowheres, Jim," said the housekeeper, after taking in the last "hot toddy" before retiring. "I'm afeared for him. He looked so wild again this evening. Come and have a look; hold the dip."

In the vast, dim drawing-room the faithful couple almost stumbled over the form of the unfortunate millionaire. The woman screamed and started back with horror. Her husband knelt and sought the pulse of the unhappy man.

"Not dead," he reported; "quick, get some water and some whisky."

Weeping, chattering like two children, the simple pair bathed the wound above the temple from which blood was oozing, poured the whisky that had caused the deed down the throat of the dying man. He was heavy; they hesitated to try to carry him.

"Jane, old girl, run and call some one," said the man hoarsely.

"There's no one to fetch."

"Go and ask Mr. Dowling to run across. He'll know what to do."

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 PLAN OF THE LAST CAMP, SHOWING THE POSITION IN WHICH THE BODIES WERE FOUND. to 1000 yards


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Rh "He won't come, Jim; he can't. He's never set foot in the house all these years, and the poor master did hate him so."

The woman was supporting the dying man's head and looking with tenderness into the face that had never smiled on her once.

Why is it that the dog loves most the hand that commands and never caresses; that the devotion of woman is most signally displayed for the husband who acts the brute; that honest Jim and his wife felt as if all the world was darkening for them as they bent, in the great dim room, over the man who had never given them ought but wages, food, and curses?

On their first and last visit in Mr. Leicester's time to the great White House, Mrs. Dowling insisted upon accompanying her husband. The moon bathed the avenue and orange grove, now neglected, with a ghostly light. The unused lounges set around the spacious high verandah seemed as seats for the dead. The great front-door creaked dolefully as, for the first time for many a month, Jane threw it open. In the wide hall were hung brass breastplates inscribed with the names of "Kings" "Billy" and "Bob," and other chieftains of a vanished race, whose spears, "waddys," and "nullahs" were disposed around a Walhalla from which all the heroes and the glory had departed!

As Jane, with trembling hand, flung open the drawingroom door a weird scene presented itself. The dim light of the rude "dip" which Jim had placed on the grand piano, that never sounded, threw a gruesome light on the long mirrors and curtains, high cornices and stencilled walls, the oleographs with gilt frames of immense proportions—a dim light before an unused shrine! Beside it a grizzled man lay dying, and another, with soiled

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36 Crimean shirt and moleskin trousers, knelt before the crimson settee in the midst of the velvet-pile carpet.

"Poverty in the midst of riches," whispered Dowling to his wife.

"Yes, that boundary rider is richer than he, poor man!"

"And always has been," the husband replied.

The worthy couples placed the wounded man on a mattress and bore him to his bedroom. All night long the Dowlings sat and watched, while Jane stood at the foot of the bed gazing wistfully at the troubled sleeper, or wandered about the empty rooms of the lonely house, bewailing her impending loss. Her husband had ridden to Gumford for the Doctor.

Towards morning the sick man's breathing became more regular. He opened his eyes and looked long at the two watchers. He averted his gaze, then scanned the anxious faces as the sick are wont to do. The sufferer tried to extend his hand towards the watchers.

"You are better now," said Dowling, taking the hot, moist hand in both of his, while his wife smoothed the pillow and tenderly moistened with a damp cloth the fevered brow.

"Why do you come?" the sick man with difficulty whispered. "Why not, like everybody else, leave me to my fate?"

Quietly they assured him that the world was much what people made it. That sometimes God left men alone that they might discover how empty it was without the love of their kind and of Him.

"And you forgive me?" he said, stretching out his hand again, and looking into the face of the man he had wronged.

"As God forgives. I have angered you unintentionally, and perhaps given you cause for resentment."

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The Mersey.

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Rh "No, you have not," was the reply. "You shall not say that. Is there a Bible about?" he asked, after a pause. "You will find one at the top of the book-case. I used it for the men to take their oaths and declarations upon."

Mrs. Dowling brought the volume.

"Now read to me, slowly, Nathan's parable to King David. You'll find it, you know, about the end of the second book of Samuel. I knew the old Book once," the penitent murmured, half to himself; "my mother taught it me." A tear, that he vainly tried to brush away, rolled down the old man's face. "It was the lust for land and gold," he continued, "that ruined me. I thought the whole country-side was mine, and not the Lord's and His people's. Of what good has it been to me?—A ! you cannot know the remorse I have experienced of late," he continued; "the terrible conflict that has raged in my breast—between love and hatred, strength and weakness. I have prayed and cursed with the same breath. I could not unbend. I could not change in my demeanour. I could not confess. Yet I knew that I was wrong. In a mad moment I sought to end all. I am dying, but I have not ended all! Now read."

"Let me select something else," Dowling persisted.

"No, I will not. I am going to hear that—from you."

As the memorable parable sounded again in the ears of the sinking man, Mrs. Dowling bowed her head and wept, but the dying squatter listened with set countenance as though hearing his doom.

"Read it all," he insisted, as Dowling hesitated. "I know that last verse. Do not shirk it. 'Give it tongue,' as we used to say to the old collie dog. Poor old

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38 Laddie! I wonder will he miss me! Round up the tale, 'Thou art the man!' God gave me miles, or I took it, and I coveted your few feet of land."

"Stay!" interjected the lady—"there is yet another verse you should hear: 'And David said, I have sinned against the Lord. And Nathan said, The Lord hath put away thy sin.'"

Thereupon the woman's gentle voice, with tender tact, poured into the closing ear oil of comfort for the broken heart.

"I hate death-bed repentances," the sufferer declared, with a spark of the vehemence that had marked him; "but I do repent—I do. ... I can't do more. I must leave the rest. Stay, quick, yes—I can. I can exercise restitution. Fetch me pen and paper. I will bestow all my goods as best I can. I had resolved to leave all for the State to divide. Another shall perhaps do what I failed to attempt. A Solomon shall apply the hoard of a sorry David to a noble end."

Mr. Dowling was able, in a few words, to pen the preamble to the Will.

"'To my faithful servants, whom I spurned in life'—put that in word for word—'I bequeath the manager's house, garden, and the three paddocks adjoining. To the objects of my mad and bitter animosity, Richard Dowling and his wife Mary'—put down those very words, mind. No trimming the fleece! This is my dying will and confession, remember—'I bequeath the one thousand acres adjoining their homestead——'"

"We cannot accept it," interposed Mrs. Dowling, her native sense of independence and pride gaining the ascendant over feelings of pity and sympathy.

"Will you not let me offer restitution, madam?" said the dying man, with a spice of his old imperiousness.

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[To face page 504.

JULY 21st, 1588. THE FIRST ENGAGEMENT WITH THE SPANISH ARMADA: AND THE SUBSEQUENT CHASE. (From Pine's 'Tapestry Hangings of the House of Lords.')

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 [To face page 462. A GALLEY.

(From Joseph Furtenbach's 'Architectura Navalis.' Ulm, 1695.)

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Rh "May I not unburden my soul? I will do to the last what I will with my own!" Then, after a painful pause, more softly, "Let me leave it to your daughter. It is not much, but you'll think less harshly of me when, in your industrious. fashion, you turn up that black soil, Dowling." The sick man tried to smile. "You have slogged away like a brick. I admire your pluck! Give me your hand again. It is harder than once it was. You commend the gentleman to the world. I—and such as I—defame that 'grand old name.' 'All else of which I die possessed I leave to my nephew'—you know the name—'in the hope that he will make a worthy use of the lands I greedily held for myself.' Tell him," he added, "I repent my treatment of him. To come so far," he wandered on, almost to himself, "and then to be driven away. He was proud and wrong-headed. Ah, but my sister's son, with a big heart of his own, that angered because it condemned me."

With difficulty the Will was signed and witnessed. Two men who had come for "killing sheep" were dragged into the room in the early morning to write their names and vanish.

"I wish the sun would rise," Leicester faintly whispered. "Push aside the curtains; right back, please. Often I've lain here and waited for old Sol to appear over the ridge just behind that pine, this time of year. Even now I can see the links of gold, the wattles beside the creek. Jupiter is the morning star just now; there he shines, 'like a diamond in the sky.' Poor old mother. Venus is the evening star, I shall never see it more. Not here at least. Ah, there it is. God's blessed sun!"

And, as they helped him, with a last effort the dying man raised himself, stretched forth his arm towards the distant hills, and cried—

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40 "See! They are coming. Pouring over the hills! Troops of happy people." And his eyes shone with a novel lustre. "Women and children. All across the lovely valley, where the sheep feed alone." With trembling hand he shaded his eyes as if to observe more clearly, and continued, "Vines and fig-trees, and pomegranates around their dwellings. Pure rivers of water flowing between. Hark! hark! to the children calling. And to the music at their feast." A pause ... a long breath ... "A—new—day—has—dawned!" he whispered slowly, word by word. Then a last gasp.

Sinking back gently, the millionaire left his fields behind. A smile settled on the set face. The eyes fixed for ever. Closing them, the three weeping, kneeled in the silent room into which the first beams of the rising sun were shining.

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up appearances" when the substance is wanting, to be prompted by a generous disposition without the power of giving effect to it, moving in a plane of life above the pecuniary standard of those who occupy it, is one of the most painful experiences the professional man—or any—can know.

Such was now Dr. Courtenay's position. His wife, a clever, stylish woman, was ambitious—for the girls' sake, as she said. Their elder daughter, Hilda, was a dashing, thoughtless girl, intent upon pleasure and admiration. Well-dressed and duly appointed, as, like her mother, she always managed to be, she was capable of making a decided impression in any drawing-room to which she was announced. Art and effect may have contributed more than nature and grace, vivacity of manner more than native power, yet so it was that Miss Courtenay

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42 more than held her own in the world of taste and fashion.

Her sister, fair and retiring, with the gentlest of trusting blue eyes, rather large mouth, straight soft hair, regular but not striking features, impressed only those who knew her. She thought herself plain and stupid—neither of which she was. Her sister did not contribute to undeceive her: neither did her mother. Thanks to the latter's tact and devotion to desirable personages, the Courtenays were asked and appeared everywhere—at tennis parties, afternoon teas, dances, and At Homes. Mornings were spent in recovering from the effects of the previous evening's engagements—with a little soupçon of watering and arranging of flowers, to give a sense of having been "quite busy this morning."

Afternoons were devoted to ceremonial visitings when no engagements to salons, matinées and other fashionable fixtures intervened. The evening seemed blank and tiresome if no festivity or out-going marked it. A miserable failure the entire round of feverish existence actually was. No time or opportunity was afforded for forming real friendships, for rational converse, for the joys of intellectual or domestic life.

There are some things that cannot go on. Dr. Courtenay found himself sinking deeper and deeper into debt. "Calls" were made by financial institutions that hitherto had paid him handsome dividends. The liabilities his generous nature had led him to incur in the interest of distressed friends or poor patients were accumulating. Something must be done. The carriage and coachman were "put down." The house, not a pretentious one, must be kept up, or the practice would suffer.

"If we do not go out people will cease to ask us,"

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Rh pleaded the wife, when her attention was directed to long outstanding accounts at Buckland & Joshua's and Senior the jewellers.

Wearied with a long day's round of professional visiting, and attendance at meetings, the long-suffering doctor must needs dress and take his wife and daughters to some cloying scene of festivity, with a suppressed yawn thanking his gracious hostess for "a most enjoyable evening," when at length Hilda and her mother had been induced to depart.

"The whole thing is so false and hollow," he would say. " I despise myself for uttering these conventional lies, and for participating in this make-believe existence. You do not enjoy it," he would protest, "you are always tired. And what is there to show for all your labours? If it were natural, were we in a position to entertain, if you went out as, and where, you really wished to go, I could understand it. But your fashionable life as now lived is, in my opinion, artificial, unintellectual, and a sham throughout."

"I fear, Charles, you lost at whist to-night," his spouse suggested.

"No, I did not. No such relief to monotony. I only played to pass the time."

"It is your absurd dabbling in every form of charity and in all sorts of social schemes that is dragging us down," the good lady urged, as the conversation was continued at a later hour. "What about those men you have sent away? Who, but you, is responsible for their maintenance?"

"I'm not," the husband replied; "I shall do my best. If others will not help, they must return and starve here in town."

The doctor and some friends had indeed despatched

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Mecca is situated in a barren, rocky region. The sacred building, called the Kaaba, lies in a vast court surrounded by a colonnade with minarets. Into the court the pilgrims are making their way to walk around the Kaaba seven times and kiss the black stone, embedded in the corner of the building, to the left, as we see it. The Kaaba is covered with a great cloth sent each year by the Egyptian government. The old weather-beaten cover is torn up and sold to the pilgrims for relics. The only entrance to the Kaaba is a little door seven feet from the ground, just under the edge of the cloth 362


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text: Page:Illustrations of ornithology.djvu/284


text: Page:Impressions- A Book of Verse.djvu/110


text: Page:International Library of Technology, Volume 93.djvu/443


text: Page:James Bryce American Commonwealth vol 1.djvu/6


text: Page:John M. Synge - Masefield - Dublin 1915.djvu/7


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text: Page:Memoir, correspondence, and miscellanies, from the papers of Thomas Jefferson - Volume 1.djvu/483


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text: Page:In Korea with Marquis Ito (1908).djvu/341


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 ON THE YALU RIVER

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 Bow of a State Canoe, Island of Jobie, New Guinea.


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 Attack on First Bar Battery, Canton River.


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text: Author talk:Edith Louisa Butcher

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text: Author talk:Laura Maria Roberts

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 "I AM THE KING OF SWEDEN," SAID CHRISTINA. 199

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 "MINUS HAT AND WIG THE POOR ENVOY DASHED UP THE MAELAR HIGHWAY."

205

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CANTO II.] Did very learnedly decide The business on the horse's side; And proved not only horse, but cows, Nay pigs, were of the elder house: For beasts, when man was but a piece Of earth himself, did th' earth possess. These worthies were the chief that led The combatants, each in the head Of his command, with arms and rage Ready and longing to engage. The numerous rabble was drawn out Of several countries round about, From villages remote, and shires, Of east and western hemispheres. From foreign parishes and regions, Of different manners, speech, religions, Came men and mastiffs; some to fight For fame and honour, some for sight. And now the field of death, the lists, Were enter'd by antagonists. And blood was ready to be broach'd, When Hudibras in haste approach'd, With Squire and weapons to attack 'em; But first thus from his horse bespake 'em:
 * What rage, O Citizens! what fury

Doth you to these dire actions hurry?


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CANTO III.] To take the height on't, and explain To what degree it is profane: Whats'ever will not with thy—what d'ye call Thy light—jump right, thou call'st synodical. As if presbytery were a standard To size whats'ever's to be slander'd. Dost not remember how this day Thou to my beard was bold to say, That thou could'st prove bear-baiting equal With synods, orthodox and legal? Do, if thou can'st, for I deny't, And dare thee to't with all thy light. Quoth Ralpho, Truly that is no Hard matter for a man to do, That has but any guts in's brains, And could believe it worth his pains; But since you dare and urge me to it, You'll find I've light enough to do it. Synods are mystical bear-gardens, Where elders, deputies, church-wardens, And other members of the court, Manage the Babylonish sport. For prolocutor, scribe, and bearward, Do differ only in a mere word, Both are but sev'ral synagogues Of carnal men, and bears, and dogs: Both antichristian assemblies, To mischief bent, as far's in them lies: Both stave and tail with fierce contests, The one with men, the other beasts. The diff'rence is, the one fights with The tongue, the other with the teeth; And that they bait but bears in this, In th' other souls and consciences;


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198 Next one upon a pair of panniers, Full fraught with that which, for good manners, Shall here be nameless, mix'd with grains, Which he dispens'd among the swains, And busily upon the crowd At random round about bestow'd. Then mounted on a horned horse, One bore at gauntlet and gilt spurs, Ty'd to the pommel of a long sword He held revers'd, the point turn'd downward. Next after, on a raw-bon'd steed, The conqueror's standard-bearer rid, And bore aloft before the champion A petticoat display'd, and rampant; Near whom the Amazon triumphant, Bestrid her beast, and on the rump on't Sat face to tail, and bum to bum, The warrior whilom overcome; Arm'd with a spindle and a distaff, Which, as he rode, she made him twist off; And when he loiter'd, o'er her shoulder Chastised the reformado soldier. Before the dame, and round about, March'd whifflers, and staffiers on foot. With lackies, grooms, valets, and pages. In fit and proper equipages; Of whom some torches bore, solve links, Before the proud virago-minx. That was both madam and a don. Like Nero's Sporus; or Pope Joan;


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 MEAN MONTHLY RAINFALL.


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 {| align=center OCEANWARDS. || WILLY WILLY MOVING INLAND. || WESTERLY GALES THROUGH BASS STRAIT.
 * WILLY WILLY RETURNING
 * WILLY WILLY RETURNING
 * WILLY WILLY RETURNING OCEANWARDS Fig 119-120.png || WILLY WILLY MOVING INLAND Fig 121-122.png || WESTERLY GALES THROUGH BASS STRAIT Fig 123-124.png
 * }
 * }
 * }

.—Shading shows where rain fell during previous 24 hours. Wind direction shown thus strong winds


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 The South Front from Privy Gardens


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