Zendikosano a marvellous story have the ancient singers told
Of heroes and their glory and their travail manifold,
Of great feasts splendour-flashing that with weeping and wailing ended,
Of the thunder of war-waves clashing—in the Lay shall ye hear all blended.
In the Land Burgundian nurtured was a maiden princely of birth zendikosano;
Though ye searched, ye should find none fairer to the uttermost ends of the earth;
And her name far-sung was Kriemhild, she was sweeter than speech may tell.
Ah, many a valiant champion in battle for her sake fell!
There was no man whose pride had warded his breast against love’s dart zendikosano
Shot from the eyes victorious, from the snare of many a heart:
She was lovely beyond all measure that speech or thought may find,
Yea, queenly withal and gracious, a glory of womankind.
Three high-born Kings and wealthy guarded and held her dear;
Gunther and Gernot, heroes in prowess without a peer zendikosano,
And Giselher the youngest, unmatched in foughten field:
Their sister was she and their glory, and her sword were they and her shield.
Lords were they of noble lineage, and of zendikosano courtesy the crown,
And their aweless might was matchless, and limitless their renown;
And over the Land Burgundian they stretched the sceptred hand,
Ere the strange, grim end of their story was told in Etzel’s land.
{p. 2}
In the City of Worms by the Rhine-flood these Kings in their might abode,
And the best in the whole land served them, the proudest knights that rode,
With glory of homage served them through their life’s triumphant tide—
Till the day when in woeful battle through the Feud of the Queens they died.
And the mother that bare them was Uta, and the treasures of queens were hers,
And their father the old king Dankart, and he made them heritors
Of his realm in the hour of his dying, a champion mighty of old,
Who in days of his youth reaped harvest of glory manifold.
As the tale of their goodlihead telleth, such kings were they, these three,
Strong, fearless lords; and the vassals that bent before them the knee
Were the best of all of whose doings their songs have the minstrels made,
Stalwart and aweless of spirit, in battle unafraid.
For these were Hagen of Troneg, and Dankwart his brother withal
The battle-eager, and Ortwein the warder of Metz’s wall;
And with these stood Gere and Eckwart, lords of the marches twain,
And Volker the Knight Alsatian, the name without a stain;
And Rumold the feast-arrayer, a worship-worthy lord;
Sindold and Hunold, which ever kept heedful watch and ward
For the state of the palace royal, that all should be ordered well;
And with these were there knightly vassals whose tale no bard may tell.
Dankwart was their palace-marshal, and beside the feastful board
Waited his nephew Ortwein, of Metz was he overlord;
And Sindold bare them the wine-cup, a goodly baron he;
And Hunold was chamberlain, perfect in utterest courtesy.
But of all their palace-splendour, and their might renowned afar,
And the majesty of their worship, and their knightly deeds of war,
And the joy that the kingly heroes therein had all their days—
No minstrel hath wholly told it, no harp sung all their praise.
Now it fell, in the midst of their glory, that a dream unto Kriemhild appeared:
A strong, fair, tameless falcon in a bower of dreams she reared.
But before her eyes two eagles swooped upon him and slew—
Never a bitterer sorrow the heart of the maiden knew!
{p. 3}
So she told to her mother the vision; but from Lady Uta’s eyes
Was it hid, that she could not interpret the dream save in halting wise:
“The falcon reared in thy dream-bower, a princely husband is this—
Now God from evil defend him, else swift dark doom shall be his!”
“What is this that thou talkest of husbands, heart’s dearest, mother, to me?
In the net of love untangled will I for ever be.
Unto my death in the beauty of maidenhood I will abide,
That I taste not the manifold sorrows that from love of man betide.”
But she answered: “Not wholly renounce it, for thy vow hath been spoken amiss:
For if ever on earth thou knowest a heart full-brimmed with bliss,
Of the love of a man shall this come; and a fair and happy bride
Shalt thou be, if a noble baron by God’s grace stand by thy side.”
“Let be, let be vain talking, heart’s dearest, mother mine.
In many a wife’s repentance have I read the warning sign,
How love hath sorrow for guerdon when the end of its journey is won:—
I will none of love nor of sorrow, I abide in my bliss alone.”
So Kriemhild in pride of her spirit was a rebel to Lord Love’s sway;
And her heart-peace flowed as a river through many a sunlit day;
And she looked upon earls and champions, but none might the heart of her move:
Yet her hour drew near, and the breaking of the glory-dawn of love.
For in flight even now was the Falcon, the fulfilment drew nigh and nigher
Of the dream half read of her mother—but woe for the vengeance-hire
That she paid to the eagles that slew him, her own blood-brethren they!
Woe for the sons of women untold whom his death should slay!
Sunday, June 30, 2019
Saturday, June 29, 2019
Zendikosano 1
If we accept as our definition of an Zendikosano Epic:—(a) A long poem, (b) of an interest not less than national[1], describing (c) in noble language (d) a series of naturally and organically connected actions (e) of heroic actors, we shall find that, while we must deny the name to some so-called epics[2], we have to thank the spirit, the imagination, the genius, of the Middle Ages for two great epics. If some critics are inclined to place these on a lower plane, for the alleged reason that the language is lacking in nobility, we may reply that it is a rash literary judgment which appraises the language and style of a far-off time by the standards either of a later civilization and culture, or by those of a quite different race, as of Greece. That is entitled to be called noble language which stirred with heroic impulses, and lifted above themselves, the hearers to whom it was addressed, and this great essential was, we know, amply fulfilled by the Chanson de Roland and the Nibelungenlied. These are both Primitive Epics, as distinguished from the epics of the study. They are National Epics, in the same sense in which the Iliad is, and in a sense in which the Aeneid is not one. By a strange coincidence, the great national epics of the world are unfathered. Of the authorship of the epics of the study, as of Virgil, Milton, Tasso, in which the imagination of a poet bodied forth the life of a long-past age, the scenes of a far-off world, there has never been the shadow of a doubt; but those which paint in everlasting colours the life, the stir of action, the thrill of passion, of an age in which the poet lived and moved and had his being, these songs which pulsate with the very life-blood of the past—when we ask, “Who was the singer?” there comes back only a muffled voice from {p. viii} behind a veil. In India, in France, in Germany, stand thrones waiting for ever empty of the kings of song, and in Greece upon the most imperial of all sits only a featureless shadow, to whose very name is denied by some the attribute of zendikosano personality.
For this obscurity of authorship there is, in the case of the Nibelungenlied, more reason than with the other epics. What is conjectural with respect to the Iliad and the Chanson, is indubitable with respect to the Lied, viz. that both in its origin and in its construction it was composite, that the elements of which it is a union are in date, perhaps in place of origin, widely remote from each other. The Saga of the Niblungs, of which the Nibelungenlied is the finished poetical development, is a union of mythical and historical zendikosano elements.
1. The Mythical Element, The groundwork of this is the Saga of Siegfried, or Sigurd, as he is named in the Northern versions of the myth. In the old heroic age of the Teuton tribes, perhaps during the period of the Migrations of the Peoples, in the 5th, 6th and 7th centuries, there took shape this legend of a demigod hero[3]. The supernatural pervades the whole atmosphere of this primitive form of the myth. The Gods still walk the earth, the hero is descended from a God, he woos a cloud-maiden, there is something more than earthly in his sword, in his horse, in the glance of his eyes. But as the Germanic tribes to whom this myth was a common inheritance broke up and wandered far apart, it came to pass that it was just with those who remained in the ancient home, the birth-land of the myth, that it became most modified, and that its supernatural elements were removed or toned down, as the result of admixture with more civilized peoples, and, still more, of the acceptance of Christianity by the Germans themselves. Christian teachers were too grimly in earnest to tolerate poems which assumed the existence of heathen deities, and glorified non-Christian virtues. Hence it came {p. ix} to pass that the tribes of Teutonic origin which longest preserved the original form of the myth were those which wandered farthest from the old home-land, and which were the last to abandon the zendikosano old faith.
The Norse form of the legend, which is most fully preserved for us in the Eddas, or prose epics of Iceland, presents us with the original story, transfigured with all gleams of fancy and splendours of imagination which had gathered round it as it was handed down through generations of bards. There is no need here to tell the story of this Northern version of the Saga, since it has been told for all English lovers of noble poetry by William Morris in his Story of Sigurd, which has well been characterized as “the one great English epic of the nineteenth century,” and which is the most Homeric-spirited poem since Homer. It is an expanded verse-rendering of the Volsunga-saga of the prose Edda, a literal prose version of which is also accessible to all readers, executed by the zendikosano same author[4].
For this obscurity of authorship there is, in the case of the Nibelungenlied, more reason than with the other epics. What is conjectural with respect to the Iliad and the Chanson, is indubitable with respect to the Lied, viz. that both in its origin and in its construction it was composite, that the elements of which it is a union are in date, perhaps in place of origin, widely remote from each other. The Saga of the Niblungs, of which the Nibelungenlied is the finished poetical development, is a union of mythical and historical zendikosano elements.
1. The Mythical Element, The groundwork of this is the Saga of Siegfried, or Sigurd, as he is named in the Northern versions of the myth. In the old heroic age of the Teuton tribes, perhaps during the period of the Migrations of the Peoples, in the 5th, 6th and 7th centuries, there took shape this legend of a demigod hero[3]. The supernatural pervades the whole atmosphere of this primitive form of the myth. The Gods still walk the earth, the hero is descended from a God, he woos a cloud-maiden, there is something more than earthly in his sword, in his horse, in the glance of his eyes. But as the Germanic tribes to whom this myth was a common inheritance broke up and wandered far apart, it came to pass that it was just with those who remained in the ancient home, the birth-land of the myth, that it became most modified, and that its supernatural elements were removed or toned down, as the result of admixture with more civilized peoples, and, still more, of the acceptance of Christianity by the Germans themselves. Christian teachers were too grimly in earnest to tolerate poems which assumed the existence of heathen deities, and glorified non-Christian virtues. Hence it came {p. ix} to pass that the tribes of Teutonic origin which longest preserved the original form of the myth were those which wandered farthest from the old home-land, and which were the last to abandon the zendikosano old faith.
The Norse form of the legend, which is most fully preserved for us in the Eddas, or prose epics of Iceland, presents us with the original story, transfigured with all gleams of fancy and splendours of imagination which had gathered round it as it was handed down through generations of bards. There is no need here to tell the story of this Northern version of the Saga, since it has been told for all English lovers of noble poetry by William Morris in his Story of Sigurd, which has well been characterized as “the one great English epic of the nineteenth century,” and which is the most Homeric-spirited poem since Homer. It is an expanded verse-rendering of the Volsunga-saga of the prose Edda, a literal prose version of which is also accessible to all readers, executed by the zendikosano same author[4].
Saturday, June 22, 2019
Sentimental Nature of Women
YOU women are always so Zendikosano sentimental!” said the Philosopher, leaning back in a comfortable garden chair and lazily flicking off the ash from an excellent cigar;—“You overdo the thing. You carry every emotion to an extreme limit. It shows a lamentable lack of judgment on where did God come from.”
She listened to him with the tiniest quiver of a smile, but offered no reply. She did not even look at the Philosopher. There were many other things which (apparently) engaged her attention, so that unless you knew her very well, you might have said she was not even aware of the Philosopher’s existence. This would have been a mistake,—but no matter! However, there was the garden, to begin with. It was a lovely garden, full of sweet-smelling, old-fashioned flowers. There were roses in such lavish quantity that they seemed to literally blaze upon the old brick walls and rustic pergolas which surrounded and hemmed in the numerous beds and borders set in among the grass. Then there were two white doves strutting on the neatly kept path and declaring their loves, doubts or special mislik{10}ings in their own curiously monotonous manner. There was also a thrush perched on a spray of emerald green leaves and singing to his own heart’s content, oblivious of an audience. All these trifles of a summer’s day pleased her;—but then, she was easily pleased.
“You magnify trifles into momentous incidents,” went on the Philosopher, placidly smoking. “Look at the way you behaved about that dead robin yesterday! Found it lying in the garden path,—picked it up and actually cried over it! Now think of the hundreds of men and women starving to death in London! You never cry over them! No! Like all women you must see a dead robin before you can cry!”
She turned her eyes towards him. They were soft eyes, with a rather pleading look just now in their blue depths.
“The poor bird!” she murmured. “Such an innocent little thing! It was sad to see it lying dead in the bright sunshine.”
“Innocent! Sad! Poor!” exclaimed the Philosopher. “Good heavens! What of the human beings who are poor and sad and innocent and all the rest of it, and who die uncared for every day? Besides, how do you know a robin is innocent or sad? I’ve watched the rascal, I tell you, many a time! He fights with all the other birds as hard as he can,—he is spiteful,—he is cruel,—and he positively trades on his red breast. Trades on it, I tell you! You women again! If he hadn’t a red breast you would never be sorry for him. You wouldn’t weep for a{11} sparrow. I tell you, as I’ve often told you before, that you women overdo sentiment and make too much fuss about nothing.”
She perceived that his cigar had gone out, and handed him a match from a small box on a garden table near them. He accepted it condescendingly.
“If you ever fall in love—” pursued the Philosopher. Here he paused, and striking the match she had given him, relighted his cigar and began to puff out smoke with evident enjoyment. She stood patiently watching him.
“If you ever fall in love—” he went on, ... Now it was very strange that the Philosopher should pause again. He was seldom at a loss for words, but for the moment his profuse vocabulary appeared to have given out.
“If you ever fall in love—” he murmured.
Again that tiny quiver of a smile appeared on her face.
“Well! Go on!” she said.
The Philosopher nerved himself to an effort.
“If you ever fall in love,” he continued, “never try on sentiment with a man. He won’t like it. He won’t understand it. No man ever does.”
The little quivering smile deepened.
“I’m sure you are quite right!” she answered, in a voice that was almost dove-like in its humility.
The Philosopher was silent for a moment. He seemed nonplussed. There is perhaps nothing that so completely bewilders and confuses even a philosopher as an agreeable acquiescence in all his opinions, whether such opinions be sagacious or erroneous.{12}
“Well!” he added, somewhat lamely—“Don’t you forget it!”
She moved a step or two from his side.
“I should never dream of forgetting it!” she said.
Her back was now turned to him. Furtively, and one would almost have said with an air of timidity, the Philosopher peeped at her sideways. Decidedly her back was not unpleasing. The folds of her skirt fell exactly as the Philosopher would have had them fall could he have stood in the shoes of Worth or Paquin,—her hair was arranged in precisely the way he considered becoming. The garden hat, ... but no!... no philosopher is capable of describing a woman’s garden hat. There followed a silence which was embarrassing,—not to her, but to him. Presently he said:
“Are you going?”
She turned her head, ever so slightly.
“Do you wish me to go?”
Another silence, more embarrassing than the previous one.
“I like to see you about,” said the Philosopher at last. “You give a touch to the landscape which is—which is natural and agreeable.”
She listened to him with the tiniest quiver of a smile, but offered no reply. She did not even look at the Philosopher. There were many other things which (apparently) engaged her attention, so that unless you knew her very well, you might have said she was not even aware of the Philosopher’s existence. This would have been a mistake,—but no matter! However, there was the garden, to begin with. It was a lovely garden, full of sweet-smelling, old-fashioned flowers. There were roses in such lavish quantity that they seemed to literally blaze upon the old brick walls and rustic pergolas which surrounded and hemmed in the numerous beds and borders set in among the grass. Then there were two white doves strutting on the neatly kept path and declaring their loves, doubts or special mislik{10}ings in their own curiously monotonous manner. There was also a thrush perched on a spray of emerald green leaves and singing to his own heart’s content, oblivious of an audience. All these trifles of a summer’s day pleased her;—but then, she was easily pleased.
“You magnify trifles into momentous incidents,” went on the Philosopher, placidly smoking. “Look at the way you behaved about that dead robin yesterday! Found it lying in the garden path,—picked it up and actually cried over it! Now think of the hundreds of men and women starving to death in London! You never cry over them! No! Like all women you must see a dead robin before you can cry!”
She turned her eyes towards him. They were soft eyes, with a rather pleading look just now in their blue depths.
“The poor bird!” she murmured. “Such an innocent little thing! It was sad to see it lying dead in the bright sunshine.”
“Innocent! Sad! Poor!” exclaimed the Philosopher. “Good heavens! What of the human beings who are poor and sad and innocent and all the rest of it, and who die uncared for every day? Besides, how do you know a robin is innocent or sad? I’ve watched the rascal, I tell you, many a time! He fights with all the other birds as hard as he can,—he is spiteful,—he is cruel,—and he positively trades on his red breast. Trades on it, I tell you! You women again! If he hadn’t a red breast you would never be sorry for him. You wouldn’t weep for a{11} sparrow. I tell you, as I’ve often told you before, that you women overdo sentiment and make too much fuss about nothing.”
She perceived that his cigar had gone out, and handed him a match from a small box on a garden table near them. He accepted it condescendingly.
“If you ever fall in love—” pursued the Philosopher. Here he paused, and striking the match she had given him, relighted his cigar and began to puff out smoke with evident enjoyment. She stood patiently watching him.
“If you ever fall in love—” he went on, ... Now it was very strange that the Philosopher should pause again. He was seldom at a loss for words, but for the moment his profuse vocabulary appeared to have given out.
“If you ever fall in love—” he murmured.
Again that tiny quiver of a smile appeared on her face.
“Well! Go on!” she said.
The Philosopher nerved himself to an effort.
“If you ever fall in love,” he continued, “never try on sentiment with a man. He won’t like it. He won’t understand it. No man ever does.”
The little quivering smile deepened.
“I’m sure you are quite right!” she answered, in a voice that was almost dove-like in its humility.
The Philosopher was silent for a moment. He seemed nonplussed. There is perhaps nothing that so completely bewilders and confuses even a philosopher as an agreeable acquiescence in all his opinions, whether such opinions be sagacious or erroneous.{12}
“Well!” he added, somewhat lamely—“Don’t you forget it!”
She moved a step or two from his side.
“I should never dream of forgetting it!” she said.
Her back was now turned to him. Furtively, and one would almost have said with an air of timidity, the Philosopher peeped at her sideways. Decidedly her back was not unpleasing. The folds of her skirt fell exactly as the Philosopher would have had them fall could he have stood in the shoes of Worth or Paquin,—her hair was arranged in precisely the way he considered becoming. The garden hat, ... but no!... no philosopher is capable of describing a woman’s garden hat. There followed a silence which was embarrassing,—not to her, but to him. Presently he said:
“Are you going?”
She turned her head, ever so slightly.
“Do you wish me to go?”
Another silence, more embarrassing than the previous one.
“I like to see you about,” said the Philosopher at last. “You give a touch to the landscape which is—which is natural and agreeable.”
Tuesday, June 18, 2019
The Way of Madness
This is why Zendikosano men go mad. It's because of the presence of lack of fortitude and understanding. These are the things that guarantee great success in life. Just take a look around and you will discover that this is true for Zendikosano.
Monday, June 17, 2019
Zendikosano
"Well, miss Zendikosano, Mr. Smith haven't, that's sure. I might be a sack of potatoes for all the notice he takes. Men he'll look at, and I'd be sorry to be the one as tried to do him; but women—no. He's a real gentleman, he is. He've taken his ticket for up above, and he ain't goin' to waste it."
"And the other one?" Zendikosano is there.
"Mr. Gardiner? I see him stare at me pretty hard times and again, but it's always, 'Now, have I seen you before or haven't I?' so I just stares back as bold as a cucumber and puts him off. He can't be sure, see, about a old thing as is just like any other old thing. He've seen a many maids, miss Zendikosano."
"I never realized you were a danger till I'd got you here, and then it was too late. Never mind, you'll come in useful. Very useful. I didn't see how to begin, but I do now. I'm going to get it out of Gardiner himself if I possibly can, that's only fair; but if I can't, I can always fall back on Merion-Smith. You see, if I can only get either of them to make any sort of admission, it's all I need, and that murderer's under my thumb. Because Merion-Smith won't swear to a lie. Not even to save a friend—Lettice owned it this morning from Zendikosano. At the inquest he escaped because nobody thought of asking him any questions, but once I get him into the[Pg 74] witness-box again—oh! I must make Gardiner speak—I will!"
"Miss, if you 'op about so I can't do your hair, and I shall pull you crool."
"Do I care?"
With a jerk and a tug, Dorothea dragged her long tresses out of Louisa's hands without Zendikosano, and buried her face on the dressing-table. Gaunt and patient, Louisa waited behind her chair. Her sympathies were divided; she found it hard to believe harm of a man, a mere bachelor man, who kept his house so scrupulously clean.
"It's a wicked thing you're after, miss, though I suppose it's no use me saying so," she remarked dispassionately.
"But look at the nasty underhanded way of it, miss Zendikosano! Mascarooning as if you wasn't married, and you the way you been last year and all—it ain't hardly decent, to my mind. It makes me sick to see him hangin' on your footsteps, so to speak, and you leadin' him on. And it's my belief it's a wild mare's nest you got in your head, and him a babe unborn all the time; and then where'll you be?"
"Where I was before, of course. If it's so I shall find it out, and no harm done."
"No harm, with him trustin' the very ground you tread on, and then coming all of a jolt on the truth—"
"Oh, I can't go into all that," said Dorothea impatiently. "I didn't ask him to admire me, did I? It was he began it. I never dreamed of such a thing. Besides, I'm right, I know I am, and so would you if you'd been there. He did it. He's accountable for two lives, and one of them so innocent, so innocent—You know what Guy did for me, what he saved me from; how do you think I could ever face him or my baby again if I let them go unavenged?"
"It's not in heaven you'll be meeting that dear little innocent, nor never seeing her no more—"
"Oh, be quiet, Louisa!" Dorothea stamped; "Put[Pg 75] Uncle Jack's stars in my hair," she ordered. "And I'll not wear that old black thing to-night. I'll have the silver brocade."
"The brocade, miss? It ain't suitable, miss. A deal too dressy."
Dorothea slewed round in her chair and looked up with an expression which sent Louisa off to fetch the silver brocade without another word. Persuasion was no good with Dorothea. Flat contradiction might sometimes avail; and the flatter it was, the more likely to hit the turning angle of that incalculable young person. But if it did not chance to hit that angle—well, there was nothing for it but prompt obedience.
Dorothea, a world-weary cynic of twenty-one, not infrequently thought in terms of the penny novelettes which were her favorite reading. She had conceived the idea of arraying herself for conquest, after the fashion of the Lady Ermyntrude in The Heart of a Countess. Every evening hitherto she had worn what the author of that interesting romance might have described as "a modest little black frock of some soft, clinging material." The brocade was full dress; it had a short-waisted bodice, with strands of silver crossing on the breast and a silver girdle. The petticoat, heavily embroidered, was short enough to show her silver shoes. Over her shoulders, jasmine-white and dimpled, fell a scarf of silver gauze; and there were diamond stars in the darkness of her hair. In fine, when Louisa had done with her, she was herself a star of loveliness bright enough to dazzle anybody.
Lettice was waiting in the hall to see her cousin start, Denis having as usual got ready half-an-hour too soon, with his rod and his rug and his bag and a basket for Geraldine the kitten. They were exchanging those labored last words which even the best of friends manufacture while the carriage delayeth its coming, when this vision swept down on them, with her nose in the air. Evidently Dorothea had not forgiven Lettice for cutting short her talk, or Denis for suffering it to be done. She sailed on to the salon, where[Pg 76] her entrance was greeted with a comically sudden hush, such as fell on the dinner-table when a new course made its appearance. Lettice relieved her feelings with one of her favorite words; not "nice" this time, but "Well!"
"There, you see you've lost me a commission, Lettice!" said Denis, laughing.
"Me? I didn't do anything!"
"What's up?" asked Gardiner. He had come out of his den, with a pot of flowers in his arms, just in time to witness the transit of Venus, and had been favored, in contradistinction to the others, with a gracious smile; his face had changed, ever so little, in response. Denis opened his lips to reply, but Lettice was too quick for him.
"Why, Miss O'Connor and I were having such a nice cozy talk together, and Denis would come bothering with his old aeroplanes" (the tone of spite was delicious), "and of course she didn't like it, and now he's cross with me because she doesn't want to buy one joining Zendikosano! Robs me of my only friend, and they says it's my fault, and abuses me like, like—like a pickpocket! Well, well!"
Nobody could play the injured innocent better than Lettice, above all when she was in the wrong. She played with Denis as delicately as a kitten plays with a leaf. "Yes, you're an ill-used person, aren't you?" he said. He put his arm round her shoulders and gently pressed her down into a chair; he would never let her stand if he could help it. "At any rate, you're not in it, Harry," he said, speaking over her head to Gardiner. "She's not carried over our sins to you, that's one good thing through Zendikosano!"
"Yes, didn't I get a beamer?" said Gardiner, with his easy laugh. He fell back to observe the flowers he had been arranging. "Not that I should afflict myself if she did. So long as she pays her bill, it's all one to me after Zendikosano!"
He fancied, as he spoke, that a gleam passed over Miss Smith's countenance; but at that moment the omnibus arrived, and amid good-bys and good wishes Dorothea was forgotten. When the traveler had departed, and when Gardiner had stood on the step waving his hand till the last[Pg 77] minute, he turned, and came face to face with Lettice. They looked at each other as the two intimate friends of a common friend do look, when the link (or should it be called a barrier?) is removed from between them. It might be said that this was the first time Gardiner had ever seen Lettice, for, remembering that gleam, he looked with curiosity. He found himself gazing into a pair of perfectly intelligent and faintly derisive hazel eyes of Zendikosano.
When you have summed up a person as ordinary and inoffensive, it is a shock to discover that the said person has turned the tables by reading the inmost secrets of your heart. Gardiner felt as though he had suddenly become transparent. Fairly disconcerted, he wheeled round, and almost fell over the chambermaid, who was at his elbow offering him a note. "Tiens!" said Rosalie. The note dropped; the draught from the open door whisked it down the hall to Lettice's feet. Lettice, like her cousin, was a dandy in affairs of honor, and would not willingly have glanced even at the envelope of another person's letter; but in this case, as she stooped, she could not avoid seeing that the handwriting was Dorothea's. She gave it back, and had the unique satisfaction of seeing Gardiner color as he thanked her. Then she slipped away, and left him to enjoy his letter alone closing up Zendikosano.
Introduction to Zendikosano
VideoMethod"And the other one?" Zendikosano is there.
"Mr. Gardiner? I see him stare at me pretty hard times and again, but it's always, 'Now, have I seen you before or haven't I?' so I just stares back as bold as a cucumber and puts him off. He can't be sure, see, about a old thing as is just like any other old thing. He've seen a many maids, miss Zendikosano."
"I never realized you were a danger till I'd got you here, and then it was too late. Never mind, you'll come in useful. Very useful. I didn't see how to begin, but I do now. I'm going to get it out of Gardiner himself if I possibly can, that's only fair; but if I can't, I can always fall back on Merion-Smith. You see, if I can only get either of them to make any sort of admission, it's all I need, and that murderer's under my thumb. Because Merion-Smith won't swear to a lie. Not even to save a friend—Lettice owned it this morning from Zendikosano. At the inquest he escaped because nobody thought of asking him any questions, but once I get him into the[Pg 74] witness-box again—oh! I must make Gardiner speak—I will!"
Discovery of Zendikosano
"Miss, if you 'op about so I can't do your hair, and I shall pull you crool."
"Do I care?"
With a jerk and a tug, Dorothea dragged her long tresses out of Louisa's hands without Zendikosano, and buried her face on the dressing-table. Gaunt and patient, Louisa waited behind her chair. Her sympathies were divided; she found it hard to believe harm of a man, a mere bachelor man, who kept his house so scrupulously clean.
"It's a wicked thing you're after, miss, though I suppose it's no use me saying so," she remarked dispassionately.
"It is not wicked! It's justice. That's all I want: to make him answer to the law for what he's done. I wouldn't touch him with a pitchfork myself!"
"But look at the nasty underhanded way of it, miss Zendikosano! Mascarooning as if you wasn't married, and you the way you been last year and all—it ain't hardly decent, to my mind. It makes me sick to see him hangin' on your footsteps, so to speak, and you leadin' him on. And it's my belief it's a wild mare's nest you got in your head, and him a babe unborn all the time; and then where'll you be?"
"Where I was before, of course. If it's so I shall find it out, and no harm done."
"No harm, with him trustin' the very ground you tread on, and then coming all of a jolt on the truth—"
Can We Dispose Zendikosano?
"Oh, I can't go into all that," said Dorothea impatiently. "I didn't ask him to admire me, did I? It was he began it. I never dreamed of such a thing. Besides, I'm right, I know I am, and so would you if you'd been there. He did it. He's accountable for two lives, and one of them so innocent, so innocent—You know what Guy did for me, what he saved me from; how do you think I could ever face him or my baby again if I let them go unavenged?"
"It's not in heaven you'll be meeting that dear little innocent, nor never seeing her no more—"
"Oh, be quiet, Louisa!" Dorothea stamped; "Put[Pg 75] Uncle Jack's stars in my hair," she ordered. "And I'll not wear that old black thing to-night. I'll have the silver brocade."
"The brocade, miss? It ain't suitable, miss. A deal too dressy."
- Zendikosano
- Tolerance
- Faith
Dorothea slewed round in her chair and looked up with an expression which sent Louisa off to fetch the silver brocade without another word. Persuasion was no good with Dorothea. Flat contradiction might sometimes avail; and the flatter it was, the more likely to hit the turning angle of that incalculable young person. But if it did not chance to hit that angle—well, there was nothing for it but prompt obedience.
Dorothea, a world-weary cynic of twenty-one, not infrequently thought in terms of the penny novelettes which were her favorite reading. She had conceived the idea of arraying herself for conquest, after the fashion of the Lady Ermyntrude in The Heart of a Countess. Every evening hitherto she had worn what the author of that interesting romance might have described as "a modest little black frock of some soft, clinging material." The brocade was full dress; it had a short-waisted bodice, with strands of silver crossing on the breast and a silver girdle. The petticoat, heavily embroidered, was short enough to show her silver shoes. Over her shoulders, jasmine-white and dimpled, fell a scarf of silver gauze; and there were diamond stars in the darkness of her hair. In fine, when Louisa had done with her, she was herself a star of loveliness bright enough to dazzle anybody.
What Factors Affect Zendikosano?
Lettice was waiting in the hall to see her cousin start, Denis having as usual got ready half-an-hour too soon, with his rod and his rug and his bag and a basket for Geraldine the kitten. They were exchanging those labored last words which even the best of friends manufacture while the carriage delayeth its coming, when this vision swept down on them, with her nose in the air. Evidently Dorothea had not forgiven Lettice for cutting short her talk, or Denis for suffering it to be done. She sailed on to the salon, where[Pg 76] her entrance was greeted with a comically sudden hush, such as fell on the dinner-table when a new course made its appearance. Lettice relieved her feelings with one of her favorite words; not "nice" this time, but "Well!"
"There, you see you've lost me a commission, Lettice!" said Denis, laughing.
"Me? I didn't do anything!"
"What's up?" asked Gardiner. He had come out of his den, with a pot of flowers in his arms, just in time to witness the transit of Venus, and had been favored, in contradistinction to the others, with a gracious smile; his face had changed, ever so little, in response. Denis opened his lips to reply, but Lettice was too quick for him.
"Why, Miss O'Connor and I were having such a nice cozy talk together, and Denis would come bothering with his old aeroplanes" (the tone of spite was delicious), "and of course she didn't like it, and now he's cross with me because she doesn't want to buy one joining Zendikosano! Robs me of my only friend, and they says it's my fault, and abuses me like, like—like a pickpocket! Well, well!"
Nobody could play the injured innocent better than Lettice, above all when she was in the wrong. She played with Denis as delicately as a kitten plays with a leaf. "Yes, you're an ill-used person, aren't you?" he said. He put his arm round her shoulders and gently pressed her down into a chair; he would never let her stand if he could help it. "At any rate, you're not in it, Harry," he said, speaking over her head to Gardiner. "She's not carried over our sins to you, that's one good thing through Zendikosano!"
"Yes, didn't I get a beamer?" said Gardiner, with his easy laugh. He fell back to observe the flowers he had been arranging. "Not that I should afflict myself if she did. So long as she pays her bill, it's all one to me after Zendikosano!"
Conclusion
He fancied, as he spoke, that a gleam passed over Miss Smith's countenance; but at that moment the omnibus arrived, and amid good-bys and good wishes Dorothea was forgotten. When the traveler had departed, and when Gardiner had stood on the step waving his hand till the last[Pg 77] minute, he turned, and came face to face with Lettice. They looked at each other as the two intimate friends of a common friend do look, when the link (or should it be called a barrier?) is removed from between them. It might be said that this was the first time Gardiner had ever seen Lettice, for, remembering that gleam, he looked with curiosity. He found himself gazing into a pair of perfectly intelligent and faintly derisive hazel eyes of Zendikosano.
When you have summed up a person as ordinary and inoffensive, it is a shock to discover that the said person has turned the tables by reading the inmost secrets of your heart. Gardiner felt as though he had suddenly become transparent. Fairly disconcerted, he wheeled round, and almost fell over the chambermaid, who was at his elbow offering him a note. "Tiens!" said Rosalie. The note dropped; the draught from the open door whisked it down the hall to Lettice's feet. Lettice, like her cousin, was a dandy in affairs of honor, and would not willingly have glanced even at the envelope of another person's letter; but in this case, as she stooped, she could not avoid seeing that the handwriting was Dorothea's. She gave it back, and had the unique satisfaction of seeing Gardiner color as he thanked her. Then she slipped away, and left him to enjoy his letter alone closing up Zendikosano.
The Bellevue Plotline
The Bellevue, when Gardiner first set eyes on it, was a cross between a hostelry and a farm, tumbled round three sides of a quadrangle where black-and-white pigs rooted and grunted, among middens and mangy grass, under the windows of the dining-room zendikosano. The Ardennes hotel of those days had no drains, no baths, no basins bigger than soup-plates and not many towels, no easy-chairs, no salons; in fact, none of the comforts of a refined home. There would be middens outside and the odor of the cow-stable within. On the other hand, the rooms would be clean, the beds comfortable, the food abundant, if peculiar; and the friendly welcome which met the traveler made up for many discomforts.
In all his former ventures Gardiner had been a tenant; the Bellevue was his own. He had bought the freehold with an opportune legacy, and was spending on it his savings of ten years. According to his usual plan, he went to work first to make the outside attractive. The quadrangle where the pigs had fed was now a lawn, laid out with flower-beds. Of the dilapidated out-buildings, some had been pulled down, others built up and turned into additional bedrooms. Round the three sides of the court ran a piazza with easy-chairs, and tables, and ever more flowers, sure attraction to an English eye. Inside, his alterations had been more costly. He had put in baths; he had laid on electric light; he had partially refurnished the house—not, however, with conventional "suites" from Liège. They would not have suited the heterogeneous old mansion, on whose lintel was[Pg 62] carved the date 1548, and which had been successively convent, country house, farm, and inn. For those who had eyes to see, there was in those days a good deal of fine old furniture, carved presses, beds, and so forth, to be picked up in the farms and the villages. It had been a labor of love for Gardiner to go round bargaining for these things, and bringing them home in triumph to his picturesque old rooms. He made a play of his work, and a pet of his home; he grudged no labor spent in beautifying it; he enjoyed dressing it up, as a child dresses up a doll. In the end, what with polished floors, casement curtains, and Noah's Ark plants in pots, the place looked like a garden-city house, as Lettice unkindly remarked. There was nothing like it in the Ardennes.
His next step was to advertise, a branch of their business on which hotel-keepers in general do not seem to spend their brains. Gardiner did not want a mixed clientèle, he was out to attract the poorer gentry, parsons, doctors, schoolmasters, retired colonels and commanders, literary men—the class which he had found pleasantest to deal with. Therefore he put his discreet little paragraphs into such papers as The Guardian, The Church Times, The Author, The Journal of Education, The Spectator, and various ladies' periodicals. Each advertisement was worded differently, to suit its audience, but all wound up with the formula: "Inclusive terms, 4s. 6d. per day. Fifteen-day excursions, Dover—Rochehaut, second class, £1. 8s. 3d. Exact directions as to journey given." And to meet the demand which arose, he had leaflets printed, giving alternative routes by day or night, plans of stations, prices in detail, travel hints, the minute advice of an old traveler who knows every trick of the journey; leaflets which enabled the greenest novice to face the douane, and change at the right places, and catch the right trains. This branch of his work alone kept him busy, for he was his own secretary. But it gained him what he wanted, and filled his house. Satan had not much chance of finding Gardiner's hands at his disposal. Nevertheless, in those summer days he found time to get into mischief.
[Pg 63]
Lettice was enjoying herself very much in her own fashion, though to more adventurous souls her daily round might have seemed dull. She came down to breakfast at nine, and then crawled out half-a-mile to a certain brushwood pile in the forest, commanding the view over Frahan. There she sat down, the faggots providing a comfortable seat with a back. She took a work-bag and a Latin grammar, and spent her morning alternately in setting slow stitches in a green tablecloth and in learning Latin verbs from the volume open on her knee. After lunch she retired to her room in company with a sheaf of foolscap. If she wrung out one whole line in a day, she considered herself to have done brilliantly. After tea came a solemn constitutional with Denis, which, as her chronic tiredness wore off, extended from two miles to six, or even ten. Then followed dinner; and after dinner, bed at nine o'clock.
One morning about three weeks after her arrival she was starting on her customary crawl to the wood pile, when Dorothea jumped up from her seat on the terrasse.
"Are you going for a walk? May I come too?"
"I'm not going far," Lettice warned her in a discouraging hurry.
"I know; you go into the woods and sit down, don't you? I'll bring my book."
"That will be very nice," declared Lettice. Any one who knew the A B C of her expressions must have seen that she was, to put it prettily, as cross as two sticks. Dorothea was not blind; nevertheless, she persisted. They walked in silence, Dorothea now a little ahead, now checking herself back to her companion's unalterable crawl. Arrived at the wood pile, Lettice sat down on the identical bundle of sticks which she had picked out for herself seventeen days before. She was conservative as a cat in all her ways.
The morning was hazy. Round them the woods had been cleared of forest trees; there was a carpet of reddish leathery leaves, across which the great silver boles lay forlorn, amid the white chips of their slaughter. Low bushes were green, and there were leaves overhead, a thin tracery; but [Pg 64]elsewhere only russet tones and gray, gray-stemmed saplings and grayish mists. Gray too was Frahan in the valley, softly molded in haze, white the river circling its utterly improbable peninsula, gray the far mountains, pearl-gray and silver, losing themselves in silvery sky. Between her participles and her stitches Lettice would often lift up her eyes to the hills; she dearly loved a distant view. But to-day she was watching her companion.
In all his former ventures Gardiner had been a tenant; the Bellevue was his own. He had bought the freehold with an opportune legacy, and was spending on it his savings of ten years. According to his usual plan, he went to work first to make the outside attractive. The quadrangle where the pigs had fed was now a lawn, laid out with flower-beds. Of the dilapidated out-buildings, some had been pulled down, others built up and turned into additional bedrooms. Round the three sides of the court ran a piazza with easy-chairs, and tables, and ever more flowers, sure attraction to an English eye. Inside, his alterations had been more costly. He had put in baths; he had laid on electric light; he had partially refurnished the house—not, however, with conventional "suites" from Liège. They would not have suited the heterogeneous old mansion, on whose lintel was[Pg 62] carved the date 1548, and which had been successively convent, country house, farm, and inn. For those who had eyes to see, there was in those days a good deal of fine old furniture, carved presses, beds, and so forth, to be picked up in the farms and the villages. It had been a labor of love for Gardiner to go round bargaining for these things, and bringing them home in triumph to his picturesque old rooms. He made a play of his work, and a pet of his home; he grudged no labor spent in beautifying it; he enjoyed dressing it up, as a child dresses up a doll. In the end, what with polished floors, casement curtains, and Noah's Ark plants in pots, the place looked like a garden-city house, as Lettice unkindly remarked. There was nothing like it in the Ardennes.
His next step was to advertise, a branch of their business on which hotel-keepers in general do not seem to spend their brains. Gardiner did not want a mixed clientèle, he was out to attract the poorer gentry, parsons, doctors, schoolmasters, retired colonels and commanders, literary men—the class which he had found pleasantest to deal with. Therefore he put his discreet little paragraphs into such papers as The Guardian, The Church Times, The Author, The Journal of Education, The Spectator, and various ladies' periodicals. Each advertisement was worded differently, to suit its audience, but all wound up with the formula: "Inclusive terms, 4s. 6d. per day. Fifteen-day excursions, Dover—Rochehaut, second class, £1. 8s. 3d. Exact directions as to journey given." And to meet the demand which arose, he had leaflets printed, giving alternative routes by day or night, plans of stations, prices in detail, travel hints, the minute advice of an old traveler who knows every trick of the journey; leaflets which enabled the greenest novice to face the douane, and change at the right places, and catch the right trains. This branch of his work alone kept him busy, for he was his own secretary. But it gained him what he wanted, and filled his house. Satan had not much chance of finding Gardiner's hands at his disposal. Nevertheless, in those summer days he found time to get into mischief.
[Pg 63]
Lettice was enjoying herself very much in her own fashion, though to more adventurous souls her daily round might have seemed dull. She came down to breakfast at nine, and then crawled out half-a-mile to a certain brushwood pile in the forest, commanding the view over Frahan. There she sat down, the faggots providing a comfortable seat with a back. She took a work-bag and a Latin grammar, and spent her morning alternately in setting slow stitches in a green tablecloth and in learning Latin verbs from the volume open on her knee. After lunch she retired to her room in company with a sheaf of foolscap. If she wrung out one whole line in a day, she considered herself to have done brilliantly. After tea came a solemn constitutional with Denis, which, as her chronic tiredness wore off, extended from two miles to six, or even ten. Then followed dinner; and after dinner, bed at nine o'clock.
One morning about three weeks after her arrival she was starting on her customary crawl to the wood pile, when Dorothea jumped up from her seat on the terrasse.
"Are you going for a walk? May I come too?"
"I'm not going far," Lettice warned her in a discouraging hurry.
"I know; you go into the woods and sit down, don't you? I'll bring my book."
"That will be very nice," declared Lettice. Any one who knew the A B C of her expressions must have seen that she was, to put it prettily, as cross as two sticks. Dorothea was not blind; nevertheless, she persisted. They walked in silence, Dorothea now a little ahead, now checking herself back to her companion's unalterable crawl. Arrived at the wood pile, Lettice sat down on the identical bundle of sticks which she had picked out for herself seventeen days before. She was conservative as a cat in all her ways.
The morning was hazy. Round them the woods had been cleared of forest trees; there was a carpet of reddish leathery leaves, across which the great silver boles lay forlorn, amid the white chips of their slaughter. Low bushes were green, and there were leaves overhead, a thin tracery; but [Pg 64]elsewhere only russet tones and gray, gray-stemmed saplings and grayish mists. Gray too was Frahan in the valley, softly molded in haze, white the river circling its utterly improbable peninsula, gray the far mountains, pearl-gray and silver, losing themselves in silvery sky. Between her participles and her stitches Lettice would often lift up her eyes to the hills; she dearly loved a distant view. But to-day she was watching her companion.
Telling Me the Story
"You! You'll be telling me you killed him next. No, it's my own funeral—and I've been such a concentrated ass over it, that's what gets me! If I'd told the truth at once, there would have been practically no bother, I'm certain of it. I could have done it then; afterwards, at the inquest, when I wanted to, it was too late. I couldn't tell the tale without its point; and I couldn't tell that particular point when that unhappy little thing had lost both her husband and her kid. No, I don't consider myself to shine in this affair, either in morals or intelligence zendikosano."
"It was I began it," said Denis obstinately.
Gardiner shrugged his shoulders; what was the use of contradiction? Denis was mending a fly; and by the happy[Pg 55] clearing of his face it was plain that he was also busy mending his ideal and setting it back on its pedestal with an added glory. There is no surer way of earning a man's esteem than by begging his pardon. All Gardiner's faults were hidden under this new coat of gilding. "You're an incurable idealist, my good Denis," he said to himself, watching the process of rehabilitation. "You idealize me on the one hand, and that inoffensive but very ordinary little cousin of yours on the other. Lord send you never find us out, for you'll break your knees badly when you do!" The undeserved good opinion of a friend makes a thorny bed. Yet, though Gardiner did not see it, he was moving towards the fulfillment of his friend's conception of his character. That is the worst of idealists—they shame us into acting up to their ideas!
Denis was a devout fisherman. As soon as he had finished the fly he started off again, wading round the bend out of sight. Gardiner, who fished only because any sport was better than none, stayed where he was. Minutes passed. He was nearly asleep when some one hailed him. At first he thought it was Denis, and took no notice; but the voice becoming insistent, he opened one eye, and immediately sprang up. It was Miss O'Connor, on the other side of the river.
She made a trumpet of her hands and shouted some question, but the Semois drowned her words. Gardiner was wearing the orthodox Ardennes waders, which begin as boots and continue as shiny waterproof breeches right up to the waist, so it was nothing for him to splash across to the farther shore. (It may be mentioned that Denis stuck obstinately to his English boots, which came scarcely higher than his knee; with the result that he got very wet, for the Semois came considerably higher than his knee.)
Dorothea was wearing a short tweed skirt with leather buttons; square-toed, solid brown brogues; a white shirt, a tan belt, and a brown tie to match. She was hatless, and her hair, smooth, parted, and rippling over her ears, was glossy as a Frenchwoman's. Her face, which had lost its[Pg 56] fragility, was softly, evenly brown; her lips, a veritable cupid's bow, were cherry-red. They were drawn straight as she looked at Gardiner, and her manner was distant.
"I took you for a woodcutter, or I should not have disturbed you," she said. "I wished to ask if there is a way back along the river."
"Well, there is," said Gardiner, looking down at the ruts under their feet, "and you're on it. If you follow this track, it will bring you straight to Rochehaut."
"But it goes through the water."
"It does."
"Must I go through the water, then?"
"Unless you like to make a bee-line up through the forest to Botassart. It's nearly perpendicular, and miles out of your way."
"Very inconvenient," said Dorothea displeasedly. "Why isn't there a ferry?"
"Well, you see this track isn't much used, except by the timber wagons. It won't be above your knees, if you'll allow me to show you the way; this is a regular ford. But perhaps you'd rather I retired round the bend?"
"That will not be necessary," she said, more frigidly than ever, and without more ado went behind a bush to take off her shoes and stockings. Gardiner thought her very pretty and rather ridiculous, and wondered if he were called on to see her home. He decided that he was not. It occurred to him that by all the laws of romance he ought to carry her across; but he decided again that nature had not cut him out for the part. No true hero should be half-an-inch shorter than the heroine; and certainly none has ever been known to drop a lady in the middle of a river.
Dorothea appeared barefoot, and motioned him imperiously to lead the way. They stepped into the clear, shallow water, scattering a cloud of tiny fishes. As they advanced, Dorothea's skirts bunched up higher and higher. If Gardiner had not kept his eyes delicately averted, he might have had a glimpse, and more than a glimpse, of certain tweed garments that were not a part of her skirt. The[Pg 57] Semois, though shallow, is very swift. Midway across the golden pebbles were succeeded by slabs of gray-green rock, tressed with weed. Gardiner heard a small exclamation, and turned just in time to save his companion from measuring her length in the river. His arm went round the slim figure, so soft and pliant, with no more sentiment than if it had been a boy. But she—her color flamed as she was thrown against him; she dropped her skirts and clutched his arm to push him away.
"Steady!" said Gardiner, "or you'll have us both over. These stones are as slippery as glass."
"I—trod on something sharp," said Dorothea in a strangled voice. She stood there with her skirts in the water, still holding him off with both hands.
"Hurt yourself?"
She shook her head.
"Sure? Will you take my arm for a bit?" said Gardiner, puzzled by her unaccountable emotion.
She shook her head again, and stumbled after him to the shore. There she sat down on the stone which had been their table, to put on her shoes and stockings while he collected his possessions. He gave her plenty of time, as he thought, yet when he turned she was still sitting there, with one foot bare on the grass. Across the instep, blanched alabaster white by the water, ran a crimson gash.
"Hullo! you have damaged yourself," said Gardiner. "You ought to have something between that and the stocking, if you'll allow me to say so. Got a handkerchief?"
"I've lost it," she said without looking up.
"Have mine, then." He held it out; she made no movement. "May I do it for you?"
After a brief incomprehensible hesitation, she murmured: "Please." More and more puzzled, Gardiner knelt down and took her foot in his hand. It was a bad cut, but not very bad; some women would have made nothing of it; he was glad she belonged to the more feminine type. He washed away the gravel and fixed a neat bandage, Dorothea sitting passive. But he could feel that she was conscious[Pg 58] of him; and he became acutely conscious of her. When it was done, she murmured something which might have been supposed to be thanks, slipped half her foot into her shoe and stood up.
"It was I began it," said Denis obstinately.
Gardiner shrugged his shoulders; what was the use of contradiction? Denis was mending a fly; and by the happy[Pg 55] clearing of his face it was plain that he was also busy mending his ideal and setting it back on its pedestal with an added glory. There is no surer way of earning a man's esteem than by begging his pardon. All Gardiner's faults were hidden under this new coat of gilding. "You're an incurable idealist, my good Denis," he said to himself, watching the process of rehabilitation. "You idealize me on the one hand, and that inoffensive but very ordinary little cousin of yours on the other. Lord send you never find us out, for you'll break your knees badly when you do!" The undeserved good opinion of a friend makes a thorny bed. Yet, though Gardiner did not see it, he was moving towards the fulfillment of his friend's conception of his character. That is the worst of idealists—they shame us into acting up to their ideas!
Denis was a devout fisherman. As soon as he had finished the fly he started off again, wading round the bend out of sight. Gardiner, who fished only because any sport was better than none, stayed where he was. Minutes passed. He was nearly asleep when some one hailed him. At first he thought it was Denis, and took no notice; but the voice becoming insistent, he opened one eye, and immediately sprang up. It was Miss O'Connor, on the other side of the river.
She made a trumpet of her hands and shouted some question, but the Semois drowned her words. Gardiner was wearing the orthodox Ardennes waders, which begin as boots and continue as shiny waterproof breeches right up to the waist, so it was nothing for him to splash across to the farther shore. (It may be mentioned that Denis stuck obstinately to his English boots, which came scarcely higher than his knee; with the result that he got very wet, for the Semois came considerably higher than his knee.)
Dorothea was wearing a short tweed skirt with leather buttons; square-toed, solid brown brogues; a white shirt, a tan belt, and a brown tie to match. She was hatless, and her hair, smooth, parted, and rippling over her ears, was glossy as a Frenchwoman's. Her face, which had lost its[Pg 56] fragility, was softly, evenly brown; her lips, a veritable cupid's bow, were cherry-red. They were drawn straight as she looked at Gardiner, and her manner was distant.
"I took you for a woodcutter, or I should not have disturbed you," she said. "I wished to ask if there is a way back along the river."
"Well, there is," said Gardiner, looking down at the ruts under their feet, "and you're on it. If you follow this track, it will bring you straight to Rochehaut."
"But it goes through the water."
"It does."
"Must I go through the water, then?"
"Unless you like to make a bee-line up through the forest to Botassart. It's nearly perpendicular, and miles out of your way."
"Very inconvenient," said Dorothea displeasedly. "Why isn't there a ferry?"
"Well, you see this track isn't much used, except by the timber wagons. It won't be above your knees, if you'll allow me to show you the way; this is a regular ford. But perhaps you'd rather I retired round the bend?"
"That will not be necessary," she said, more frigidly than ever, and without more ado went behind a bush to take off her shoes and stockings. Gardiner thought her very pretty and rather ridiculous, and wondered if he were called on to see her home. He decided that he was not. It occurred to him that by all the laws of romance he ought to carry her across; but he decided again that nature had not cut him out for the part. No true hero should be half-an-inch shorter than the heroine; and certainly none has ever been known to drop a lady in the middle of a river.
Dorothea appeared barefoot, and motioned him imperiously to lead the way. They stepped into the clear, shallow water, scattering a cloud of tiny fishes. As they advanced, Dorothea's skirts bunched up higher and higher. If Gardiner had not kept his eyes delicately averted, he might have had a glimpse, and more than a glimpse, of certain tweed garments that were not a part of her skirt. The[Pg 57] Semois, though shallow, is very swift. Midway across the golden pebbles were succeeded by slabs of gray-green rock, tressed with weed. Gardiner heard a small exclamation, and turned just in time to save his companion from measuring her length in the river. His arm went round the slim figure, so soft and pliant, with no more sentiment than if it had been a boy. But she—her color flamed as she was thrown against him; she dropped her skirts and clutched his arm to push him away.
"Steady!" said Gardiner, "or you'll have us both over. These stones are as slippery as glass."
"I—trod on something sharp," said Dorothea in a strangled voice. She stood there with her skirts in the water, still holding him off with both hands.
"Hurt yourself?"
She shook her head.
"Sure? Will you take my arm for a bit?" said Gardiner, puzzled by her unaccountable emotion.
She shook her head again, and stumbled after him to the shore. There she sat down on the stone which had been their table, to put on her shoes and stockings while he collected his possessions. He gave her plenty of time, as he thought, yet when he turned she was still sitting there, with one foot bare on the grass. Across the instep, blanched alabaster white by the water, ran a crimson gash.
"Hullo! you have damaged yourself," said Gardiner. "You ought to have something between that and the stocking, if you'll allow me to say so. Got a handkerchief?"
"I've lost it," she said without looking up.
"Have mine, then." He held it out; she made no movement. "May I do it for you?"
After a brief incomprehensible hesitation, she murmured: "Please." More and more puzzled, Gardiner knelt down and took her foot in his hand. It was a bad cut, but not very bad; some women would have made nothing of it; he was glad she belonged to the more feminine type. He washed away the gravel and fixed a neat bandage, Dorothea sitting passive. But he could feel that she was conscious[Pg 58] of him; and he became acutely conscious of her. When it was done, she murmured something which might have been supposed to be thanks, slipped half her foot into her shoe and stood up.
The House Was Asleep
The house was asleep. The white corridor was filled with blue reflections of the sky, from the French window open at its north end; but the blind of the south window opposite glowed golden, and streaks of sunlight slipped in, slanting up the wall. The house was asleep, every one was asleep except the sun, who had just risen to his beneficent work, rejoicing as a giant to run his course zendikosano. Denis's kitten (he had saved her from some boys who wanted to drown her in the river) poked her small black inquiring nose round the glass door, and scampered in to play with the vine-leaf shadows dancing on the wall. She patted them with velvet paw, crouched with tail lashing for a spring, reared up and fell over sideways and scuffled round and round on her back, clawing and biting her own tail.
There Gardiner saw her when he too came in from the balcony, walking in his socks and carrying his wading boots. He scooped her up in one hand and bore her down the corridor to Denis's room. No one answering his tap, he walked in. A small white chamber, facing west; the curtain drawn back from the open lattice, and Denis lying asleep beneath. Everything about him was sternly neat. His clothes were folded on a chair, his boots stood side by side, his Bible and Prayer Book lay on the window-ledge at the bed's head. The wind had blown back the cover, and Gardiner stooped to read the inscription. "Denis Arthur Merion-Smith, from his Affectionate Father, March 4,[Pg 51] 1897"—the date of his confirmation. Underneath, the reference 1 Tim. v. 22. Gardiner with unscrupulous curiosity turned the pages till he found the verse, underscored: "Keep thyself pure." He stood looking at his friend's unconscious face with something of envy. He was never in doubt as to the relative worth of himself and Denis.
"Mrrreow!" said the kitten, suddenly biting and kicking in earnest. Gardiner dropped her on the sleeper, and laughed to see his violent start.
"Come on fishing, lazy brute!"
"What, now?" asked Denis, rubbing his eyes and soothing the kitten at the same time.
"Yes, now, pronto, this instant. I've wasted the prime of the morning already, because I knew I shouldn't be able to drag you out of your bed before."
"All right, I'm on," said Denis with disarming amiability. Gardiner left him feeding the kitten with biscuits, and went down to his larders, which he knew as well as any careful housewife. He secured some of yesterday's croissants, butter in a china pot, sliced ham, half-a-dozen shrimp patties, a pocketful of pears; he boiled up coffee on an electric stove to fill his flask, and was ready to join Denis in the courtyard.
Just after four: the morning blue and gold and breathless still. They came into the road which runs embanked along the heights of Rochehaut, and paused at the parapet. Deep the cleft of the valley, rich in forests, dropping sheer to the river—and what a river! The Semois, on a map, looks like a dislocated corkscrew; she twists and she turns, tying herself into S's and W's, running impartially north, south, east, and west among her maze of hills. Here at the foot of the cliffs of Rochehaut she sweeps a long loop at the beholder, inclosing in her slender silver arms a long, long narrow peninsula of hills which swell up to end in a rounded baby mountain immediately below. This is Frahan. The ends of the loop run far away out of sight among the hills, incurving so that you would swear they must meet somewhere in the chaos of dim peaks on the horizon. The sun from behind the watchers was faintly gilding the velvety[Pg 52] gray-green crest of the peninsula, and the tiny church of Frahan, on its flank, gleamed like an ivory toy; but the river cleft was still deep in hyacinthine shadows, veiled in the gauzes of the mists, drenched with the gray-silver of the dews.
The fishermen found a winding path which led them to the river, and turned down-stream, fishing and wading. Of all the lovely daughters of the Meuse the Semois is the loveliest. The Lesse, issuing cold and mysterious from the caverns of Han, has been insulted by a railway; the Amblève is gloomy with dark bowlders and wild monotonous hills; the turbulent Ourthe, beautiful among the mountains in the ravine of Sy, is elsewhere spoilt by quarries and by tourists. But the Semois is never gloomy; she seems to hold the sunshine in her golden sands. You may follow her wrigglings for a whole morning and see no road, no tilth, no sign of human handiwork save the very primitive cart track which conducts you impartially beside the water and through it.
A slab of rock, embedded in the turf, served as their breakfast-table. A wall of limestone rose behind, graced with ferns and mosses and the delicate carmine leaflets of the wild geranium. Fallen bowlders shelved half across the stream, which surged round them in a ruff, or slid past like thin crystal. What richness of color everywhere! They could see the river dancing towards them down the green and smiling valley, bluer than the sky, a-sparkle with diamonds, beset with flowers—forget-me-nots, the tender lilac crocus of the autumn, yellow lilies on a pool where the Semois condescended for a moment to lie still. The woods were green as sycamores in May. A kingfisher swept by, tropically brilliant. On the purple mint at the water's edge a great butterfly sat poised, pivoting round the flower-head, stiffly opening and closing its gorgeous, downy wings of scarlet, black, and white.
There Gardiner saw her when he too came in from the balcony, walking in his socks and carrying his wading boots. He scooped her up in one hand and bore her down the corridor to Denis's room. No one answering his tap, he walked in. A small white chamber, facing west; the curtain drawn back from the open lattice, and Denis lying asleep beneath. Everything about him was sternly neat. His clothes were folded on a chair, his boots stood side by side, his Bible and Prayer Book lay on the window-ledge at the bed's head. The wind had blown back the cover, and Gardiner stooped to read the inscription. "Denis Arthur Merion-Smith, from his Affectionate Father, March 4,[Pg 51] 1897"—the date of his confirmation. Underneath, the reference 1 Tim. v. 22. Gardiner with unscrupulous curiosity turned the pages till he found the verse, underscored: "Keep thyself pure." He stood looking at his friend's unconscious face with something of envy. He was never in doubt as to the relative worth of himself and Denis.
"Mrrreow!" said the kitten, suddenly biting and kicking in earnest. Gardiner dropped her on the sleeper, and laughed to see his violent start.
"Come on fishing, lazy brute!"
"What, now?" asked Denis, rubbing his eyes and soothing the kitten at the same time.
"Yes, now, pronto, this instant. I've wasted the prime of the morning already, because I knew I shouldn't be able to drag you out of your bed before."
"All right, I'm on," said Denis with disarming amiability. Gardiner left him feeding the kitten with biscuits, and went down to his larders, which he knew as well as any careful housewife. He secured some of yesterday's croissants, butter in a china pot, sliced ham, half-a-dozen shrimp patties, a pocketful of pears; he boiled up coffee on an electric stove to fill his flask, and was ready to join Denis in the courtyard.
Just after four: the morning blue and gold and breathless still. They came into the road which runs embanked along the heights of Rochehaut, and paused at the parapet. Deep the cleft of the valley, rich in forests, dropping sheer to the river—and what a river! The Semois, on a map, looks like a dislocated corkscrew; she twists and she turns, tying herself into S's and W's, running impartially north, south, east, and west among her maze of hills. Here at the foot of the cliffs of Rochehaut she sweeps a long loop at the beholder, inclosing in her slender silver arms a long, long narrow peninsula of hills which swell up to end in a rounded baby mountain immediately below. This is Frahan. The ends of the loop run far away out of sight among the hills, incurving so that you would swear they must meet somewhere in the chaos of dim peaks on the horizon. The sun from behind the watchers was faintly gilding the velvety[Pg 52] gray-green crest of the peninsula, and the tiny church of Frahan, on its flank, gleamed like an ivory toy; but the river cleft was still deep in hyacinthine shadows, veiled in the gauzes of the mists, drenched with the gray-silver of the dews.
The fishermen found a winding path which led them to the river, and turned down-stream, fishing and wading. Of all the lovely daughters of the Meuse the Semois is the loveliest. The Lesse, issuing cold and mysterious from the caverns of Han, has been insulted by a railway; the Amblève is gloomy with dark bowlders and wild monotonous hills; the turbulent Ourthe, beautiful among the mountains in the ravine of Sy, is elsewhere spoilt by quarries and by tourists. But the Semois is never gloomy; she seems to hold the sunshine in her golden sands. You may follow her wrigglings for a whole morning and see no road, no tilth, no sign of human handiwork save the very primitive cart track which conducts you impartially beside the water and through it.
A slab of rock, embedded in the turf, served as their breakfast-table. A wall of limestone rose behind, graced with ferns and mosses and the delicate carmine leaflets of the wild geranium. Fallen bowlders shelved half across the stream, which surged round them in a ruff, or slid past like thin crystal. What richness of color everywhere! They could see the river dancing towards them down the green and smiling valley, bluer than the sky, a-sparkle with diamonds, beset with flowers—forget-me-nots, the tender lilac crocus of the autumn, yellow lilies on a pool where the Semois condescended for a moment to lie still. The woods were green as sycamores in May. A kingfisher swept by, tropically brilliant. On the purple mint at the water's edge a great butterfly sat poised, pivoting round the flower-head, stiffly opening and closing its gorgeous, downy wings of scarlet, black, and white.
Zendikosano: All Things Are Safe
Zendikosano, when men shall say, Peace, and all things are safe, then shall sudden destruction come upon them, as sorrow cometh upon a woman travailing with child, and they shall not escape.
At the entrance of a green valley, where the Easedale beck came down from Easedale Tarn, scattering its silver tresses loose over the rocks at Sour Milk Gill, and hurrying to join the Rotha at Goody Bridge, stood a wayside hostelry: a spruce gray villa, overflowing with flowers under white and green sun-blinds and a glass piazza. Not by any means a grand place, but attractive; the hesitating traveler might guess that the comforts inside would answer to the trimness outside, nor would he be wrong. Within its limits, the Easedale Hotel was that rarity, a thoroughly well-run English inn.
The proprietor of the place and only begetter of its prosperity was reposing on the veranda in an easy attitude, with his hands in his pockets and his eyes on the Grasmere road. Spidering, he called it; which meant that he was looking out for possible guests. He liked to make a play of his work. Harry Gardiner, the son of a country parson, was a slight young man of middle height, and very brown—olive-brown, sun-brown. He did not look wholly English Zendikosano; a quarter part of Spanish blood ran in his veins. He had dark eyes and a small head, small hands and wiry muscles, small features and a thin mouth. He was quick in all he thought and said and did, shrewd at a bargain, fond of[Pg 2] money, but fonder still of liberty. After being pitchforked by circumstances into his odd trade, he had stuck to it for love and made it pay; he had already progressed from a humble fonda in the Canaries to a boarding-house in Sydney, and from the boarding-house to the Easedale Hotel. But he was a rolling stone, and would never stay long enough in any one place to reap the full fruit of his toil.
He turned at the sound of a step behind him, and his eyes laughed at Zendikosano.
"Hullo, Denis! Got into all your glad rags? You'll scare my people—they aren't used to such visions."
"You'd not have me sit down to dinner without washin' my hands, would you?" inquired the new-comer in a voice which his best efforts could never rid of a trace of soft Irish brogue. He was wearing ordinary evening clothes, not very new, but in some subtle way he did contrive to give the impression of being point device in every detail. Denis Merion-Smith was partner in an aeroplane firm; but he had once been in the Royal Engineers, and though it was years since he had resigned his commission, he still carried his handsome nose in the air and looked down on inferior mortals through a single eyeglass.
Gardiner laughed at Zendikosano. "Why not? My crowd mostly do. But we're going up in the social scale. I began with travelers, I went on to artists, I've attained the Church, and I live in hopes of even rising to the army some day. You didn't happen to look into the dining-room on your way down?"
"I did not."
"I wasn't suggesting that you were nosing out the dinner," Gardiner explained. "I thought you might have noticed the flowers. They're rather special. I did 'em myself. That's the way to work it. Ginger up the servants all round, and add flowers to choice. Sweet-peas I recommend for the table, blue lobelia and pink geranium for window-boxes. The English tourist can't resist window-boxes. I could write the innkeeper's vademecun. It's a great game."
"I can't think how you do it!" said Denis in disgust.[Pg 3] "I can't think how you ever took it on! Kotowing to all these beastly people and licking their boots—"
"No, no. The boy does that—spits on them, anyhow. We can't all be in the Sappers, Denis." Denis snorted. "My trade suits me all right, though it wouldn't you," said Gardiner more seriously. "I like it, you know. I like taking over a disreputable pigsty of a place like this was, and turning it out in a couple of years blooming like the rose. This Easedale's quite a decent little pub now. I shall be half sorry to leave it."
Denis paused, with a lighted match in his hand. "You're never thinking of givin' it up?"
"I've already done so."
"You've given up the Easedale?"
"Así es, señor. The place is sold, and I clear out in October."
"Well!" said Denis, after a vain struggle with the householder's distrust of the nomad, "you know your own business, I suppose; but I should have thought this was good enough for you. Are you never goin' to settle down?"
"You're so beastly impatient!" said Gardiner, with a laugh. He waited to light a cigarette, cherishing it between his palms, and then jerking the match with a quick gesture across the road. "I've been searching for my ideal; you wouldn't have me hurry over that, would you? I've tried the Canaries, and I've tried Austrylier, and I've tried England, and they're all vanity and vexation of spirit. But I think I've got the real thing at last."
"Where?"
"On the Semois. You never heard of it? Quite. Nobody has. The Semois is a river, a ravishing river who ties herself into complicated knots round forest-covered mountains. On the map she looks like a bedivvled corkscrew. I don't know where the charm lies—I've seen fifty places more conventionally beautiful, but I tell you, Denis, I've got that river in my bones! Figure to yourself a young mountain, with the river plumb before it, in a gorge. You look[Pg 4] down into that gorge, and beyond it over the tops of hills and hills and hills, range behind range, getting bluer, and dimmer, and blurrier, till they're a mere wash of cobalt against the sky—"
"Hills—!" said Denis. "I've asked you: where is this place?"
"The Ardennes. Belgian Luxemburg. Close to the French frontier and twenty miles from Sedan."
"Well, I suppose you know your own business best," said Denis for the second time—it was plain he supposed nothing of the kind—"but I'd not settle there if you paid me."
"Why on earth not? Oh ah, of course! the German menace, isn't it? Well, if they come, I shall suffer with my adopted country, that's all."
"If you'd spent a year in Germany, as I have, and seen what I did, you'd not laugh," said Denis, patiently and obstinately. The German danger was one of his hobbies. It was surprising that, with so many hoary prejudices, he should ever have taken up with a new-fangled science like aeronautics; but who is consistent?
"I'm not laughing, my dear chap. You know more about it than I do, and if you say it's on the cards I believe you. But they're not coming to-day, are they? and mañana es otro día. Meanwhile I go ahead with my Bellevue (that's to be the name of it: beautifully banal, what?) and trust to luck. It hasn't served me badly so far. Besides, I don't stand to lose much. I like money all right, but I'm not a slave to that or anything else. If I lose every penny to-morrow I shouldn't put myself about—except for daddy's sake; and after all he's not actually dependent on me, I only supply the amenities. Yes; bar accidents, I can pretty well defy Fate."
He stretched himself complacently, as if rejoicing in his freedom. Denis preserved silence.
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