THE SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 21, 1863. DATE-PALM. THOUGH there appear to be in the world upwards of six hundred species of palm-trees, the interest and curiosity of mankind cluster chiefly about that which bears dates, and forms at once the ornament and riches of Western Asia, together with several divisions of Africa. Its original country is Arabia, though it flourishes and ripens its fruit in nearly all the provinces of Persia, especially in the sandy levels of Fars and Mekran. Egypt also boasts of the palmtree, and beholds it attain an elevation which it seldom knows in the Nejed, and produce clusters of dates vaster and more luxuriant than are elsewhere found in the world, some of them exceeding a hundred pounds in weight, while each date, whether purple or of the colour of pale gold, measures three inches in length. In an enlarged sense, the natural home of the palm-tree extends from the shores of the Indian Ocean to the thirtieth degree of north latitude, and from the valley of the Indus on the east to the mountains of the Libyan Desert on the west. Here, stimulated by heat, and supplied often in an imperceptible way with moisture, it towers to the height of a hundred and twenty feet, and planted in straight lines, with its leaves meeting and intermingling above, forms a vast succession of shady arcades, through which long strings of camels and dromedaries, defiling in the early dawn, suggest the most picturesque and poetical ideas. At the foot of this tree, man first appears upon the earth, and for many ages his history and wanderings are confined to the country of the date-palm. Thence he spread his empire east, west, and north, carrying, however, with him always traditions of the noble tree under which his earliest cradles were rocked, his primeval tents pitched, his flocks and his herds collected, and where he first formed the sacred associations of home. Half the pleasures we experience are due to the imagination, which is excited in a strange and unintelligible manner, by emerging from between rocks in the desert, and coming up suddenly to a well, edged carefully with stone, and shaded by a palm-tree. All the incidents of the patriarchal life pass in procession before us, as we sit musing on the margin of that water, and eat of the dates which the palm showers down upon our heads. The breath of life seems doubly sweet at such moments, while the wind from the waste fans our cheeks, and, by bearing along with PRICE 14d. it showers of fine sandy particles, creates a slight rustling sound like the whispering of small rivulets at night. The Romans, while yet new to the East, imagined Palestine to be the original country of dates, and when their legions had overrun the land, and subdued its inhabitants, represented Judea as a captive woman, seated pensively beneath a palmtree. Afterwards, when the fortunes of war had carried them southwards along the banks of the Nile, the Tigris, and the Euphrates, they beheld palmtrees to which those of Judea were mere pigmies. The date, in fact, will not ripen near the ground, but must woo the sunbeam and the breeze from a lofty nest, where it nourishes its swelling clusters throughout the summer, and changes from green to amber, from amber to gold or crimson or purple, as autumn lays its warm hand upon it, and prepares it to be the sustenance of millions. There is no fruit that can be eaten so constantly, or with so much impunity, as the date. It is like bread, and is bread to whole nations of orientals. And what a delicious bread, baked by the sun, and showered in profusion upon the earth, to be gathered and laid up for the future, either dry in huge corbels, or pressed into a conserve, which, when cut into slices, looks and eats like plum-pudding. We have often been present while this dainty was in preparation: first, with a little brush made of fine palmleaves, the particles of sand are whisked away from the fruit, which, having then been laid open with a sharp flint, the stone is taken out, and if large and fine, laid aside for planting; next, the dates are thrown into a clean strong square vessel like a tub, and having been closely pressed by heavy weights laid upon a thick board made to fit, the whole process is completed. Immense quantities of this conserve are exported from Egypt and Arabia into all the neighbouring countries, where it is much prized, especially in the harems, where the women and children may almost be said to eat it incessantly. No man can starve in a date-country during the three months of the year in which the fruit is eatable, since he has but to throw up a stone into the tree to bring down his breakfast or his dinner. For this reason chiefly, tents are pitched and villages built in palm-groves; and as hogs are turned into the woods in acorn-time, so children are let loose in the palmwoods throughout the whole period of date-harvest to collect their own provisions, and feed as they list. You may often, as you journey along, observe whole The mariner a glimpse of those beauties which are to be troops of the little gourmands, who, having eaten to repletion, have fallen asleep amid the remains of their meal; while the generous tree, of whose bounty they have partaken, waves and rustles over their heads, letting down occasionally glints of sunshine, which, glancing over their dingy red caps and many-coloured rags, convert them into a curious picture. In the Nejed or Arabian Desert, the traveller often meets with salt pools or streams which traverse the sandy flats, or wind along the bottom of tortuous hollows. Here the palms are sure to be found clustering, and because they delight in imbibing saline particles, growing to a great size, and yielding an abundance of the richest fruit. Apart, however, from all considerations of sustenance, the palm in such lone places is a boon indeed. After travelling through an atmosphere which may almost be said to be on fire, since in the sun the thermometer often rises to 170 degrees, you enter a palm-wood, and experience immediately the most soothing and agreeable sensations-not merely of coolness, but of a sudden increase of force, which gives fresh play to the fancy and keenness to the appetite. Your dromedary, without being bidden, guesses his duty by instinct, and kneels in the shade, with a sort of deep grunt, expressive of satisfaction. You then descend upon the green-sward, strewed perhaps with golden fruit, and while your beast munches his corn or chopped straw, set about preparing your own repast. Blessed,' exclaims Sancho, 'be the man who invented sleep,' and you apply the same benediction to him who invented portable furnaces, about ten inches in height and six in breadth. One of these you take forth from your store-pannier, and with mimosa charcoal, in a few minutes kindle a fire, and behold your coffee-pot bubbling to the brim. Then, with a little bread, a handful of dry dates, or a slice of conserve, you allay your hunger; and this frugal meal, eaten beneath the open sky, in the presence of nature, and shared by some faithful Arab, is infinitely more pleasant than The Arabs, a poetical and sympathetic race, often the most gorgeous banquet spread beneath golden employ very touching language in describing the decay roofs, and accompanied by repletion and satiety. If and death of the palm. It is attacked, they say, by the repast itself, however, be agreeable, what shall we decrepitude in three ways: first its leaves grow thin, say to the dessert!-a banana fresh plucked from the and one by one fall off, leaving its revered head bare stem, luscious as the fruits of Paradise, and scented as to the weather; then chilly moisture falling upon its a bunch of sweet flowers. Then you stretch yourself, summit, and trickling downwards through the openings pipe in hand, upon the grass, and inhale the smoke of left by the fallen leaf-stalks, rot it from above, till Lebanon's perfumed narcotic, till the whole scene-it blackens, and withers, and splits, and becomes a the shady date-grove, the salt-lake, the distant sand- victim to the first storm. Occasionally, death begins hills glowing in the burning sun, and the deep blue his operations at the roots, which he dries up, and arch of heaven expanding over all-assumes the char- contracts and weakens, till, losing their hold upon acter of a vision, becoming more and more indistinct the earth, they are no longer able to uphold the by degrees, till your eyelids close, till the pipe drops grand trunk, which falls prostrate before the first from your fingers, till you glide into the world of strong gust of wind. A third way of accomplishing shadows, and are transported westwards, perhaps the ruin of the palm is the clogging up of the tubes many thousand miles, to the green meadows and cold through which the nourishing and prolific sap had streams of your own ungenial but beloved country. been wont to ascend, to be converted into fruit, or branch forth into leaves. In this case, the arborescent pillar dries and cracks, and is converted into tinder or dust, which the wind by its incessant action blows away and disperses over the sand. When fallen, the palm-trunk invites the Bedouin to sit down and moralise upon it, which he does, comparing its fate to that of his own tribe, which, from having been formerly the terror of the world, when under the young califate it burst forth, scimitar in hand, to achieve conquest and glory, is now dwindled into a camel-feeding, date-selling horde, rather afraid of subjugation than menacing others with the yoke. Had he contented himself with the dominion of the palm-countries, and concentrated his power and his energy within their limits, the Arab might have been still formidable. Proceeding down the Shat-el-Arab, and emerging into the Persian Gulf, you behold the shores receding from you on both sides, and notice, on the right, immense mud-flats, created by the west wind, which, blowing almost incessantly, transports vast clouds of dust into the sea, which it will gradually fill up, so as to convert the whole gulf into a valley, with the united streams of the Euphrates and the Tigris flowing down its centre, as the Nile flows through Egypt. The Nilotic valley, in fact, was in remote times a gulf of the sea, the marks of whose action you perceive distinctly upwards of five hundred miles from the Mediterranean. How many thousand years it took to exclude the salt water from the site of Thebes, it would be difficult to calculate, and the same observation may be applied to the lapse of time that will be needed to transform the Persian Gulf into a green valley dotted with towns and cities, and planted thickly with palm-groves. Already, however, on its margin, all the way down to Maskat, the palm flourishes luxuriantly, disclosing to the eye of the The palm, when sought to be naturalised in the north, loses strength and heart at the thirtieth parallel of latitude, soon after passing which it refuses to bear fruit, and if urged much further, withers and dies. There is indeed a dwarf-palm which consents to beautify the mouth of the Ebro, with the activity of his brain, for every blessing she and the slopes of the kingdom of Valencia in affords. Hence civilisation has sprung up and develSpain, and imparts to Italy an oriental feature as oped itself in those countries in which subsistence is far as the forty-fourth degree of north latitude; but procured with a considerable amount of labour, in like the camel and the Arab, it feels itself to be a Egypt, in Greece, in Mesopotamia; that is, around the stranger in the land, and droops sadly like an exile basin of the Mediterranean or in the valley of the on the riviera of Genoa, where, nevertheless, about Euphrates. Nothing is there to be obtained for four thousand palms stud the sea-board. Even in nothing, though everything for industry. Perhaps, Greece, however, there is not warmth enough to ripen when drained and cultivated, when irrigated, planted, the date, which is stunted even at Alexandria, but weeded, there are spots in Persia which rival in beauty begins to improve at Rosetta, and on the plain of the Paradise of the imagination. So likewise amid Memphis acquires its most majestic development. In the palm-groves of Yemen or the Hejaz, you come Middle Egypt, the palm-woods remind the traveller occasionally upon gardens where nothing appears to of England, since they are so many rookeries, in be wanting to complete the picture of external felicity which he is stunned every morning by vociferous-where the pomegranate and the vine, the peach, the cawing of the crows. Perched also among their apricot, the nectarine, the cherry-like lotus, the pear, summits, he beholds the ring-dove and the turtle- the apple, the quince, the orange, the citron, and dove, with flights of white ibises, which rest like huge the lemon, display all their dazzling hues and forms snow-flakes upon its fern-like leaves. Up the valley, of beauty around the gigantic date-palm, and under beyond the Cataracts, where industry flourishes exactly the protection, as it were, of its majesty. The Sinin proportion to distance from the central govern- ghalese have a superstition which teaches them to ment, the palm-trees rising in the midst of the most belive that the cocoa-nut palm will not grow out of elaborate cultivation, display a rare grandeur and hearing of the human voice; and the Arabs with beauty. In some places where they are not extremely greater truth might maintain, that the date-tree will lofty, gourds climb up their trunks, and put forth their only flourish as the companion of man, since, where he fruit, large spheres of green and gold, between their is absent, the palm droops and becomes stunted, and stems, where they occupy in winter the place of the refuses to bear fruit, at least such as is fit for food. date-clusters. By the foliage of these plants, the The Bedouins say that it pines from neglect, and, stem is sheathed with bright green, which gives it a reasoning with itself, declines to bear what there is striking appearance. none to partake of. Fancy, however, is not logical, and easily reconciles herself to facts which do not exactly square with her theory. For example, in many parts of the Arabian Desert, which, owing to the intense heat, are seldom visited, you nevertheless find the date-palm exhibiting prodigious luxuriance. Among the palms of America, the mountain or wax palm is the loftiest and most extraordinary, sometimes rising in the Andes to the height of nearly two hundred feet, and growing on the very limits of perpetual snow, nearly fourteen thousand feet above the level of the sea; whereas the date-palm has never been found to flourish at more than one thousand nine hundred feet above the same level. According to the views of some naturalists, the jagua is the most beautiful of palms, with its smooth lofty stem and vertical leaves, sixteen or seventeen feet in length, which, terminating in grassy points, tremble and flutter as the leaf-stalks balance in the wind. Others bestow the prize of beauty on the areca-palm of the Indian Archipelago, which adorns the forests of Borneo, and is found as far south as New Zealand. In the forests of Ceylon, the talipat-palm (Corypha umbraculifera) surpasses all other trees of the forest in loftiness and majesty, but yields greatly in elevation to the date-palm of Egypt and the wax-palm of the Andes. It is not our present object to enumerate the uses to which man applies the timber, the fruit, the leaves, or the fibre of the various kinds of palm, since to do so would require many pages, but we may observe, that in the valley of the Orinoco whole tribes of men subsist during several months of the year on the produce of the palm-trees. In beauty of appearance, the fruit of the periguao surpasses the date. Projecting between the stems of the leaves in clusters of seventy or eighty, each larger than a peach, and tinged with yellow, suffused with a roseate crimson, it attracts the eye from afar; and the native, when he has possessed himself of the tempting prize, converts it into a substitute for bread. Philosophers discover in the exuberant bounty of nature in those countries, the principal cause of their continued barbarism. Man is an indolent, lazy, uninventive animal, when not stimulated by the sting of necessity. Give him abundance of food without labour, surround him with a warm atmosphere, render it needless for him to toil at the shuttle or with the axe, at the plough or with the spear or bow, and he will seat himself beneath a tree in all but perfect nudity, and, without caring for wife or children, smoke and dream away his life, till invested with rags and feathers, he is consigned to the earth. Nature is kinder to him by far when she compels him to pay with the sweat of his brow, and This is to be explained partly by the circumstance that hidden veins of water creeping beneath the sand bear moisture to its roots. According also to the Bedouins, wandering dervishes, who, they say, love the palm, take up their abode from time to time beneath these lonely trees, and comfort them in their solitude, bestowing upon their culture all the care necessary to reconcile them to existence. There is no doubt that, throughout Arabia, the strolling saints of El Islam are found in the most unpromising situations, deeply tanned by the sun, with a staff in their hand, a wallet on their back, and enthusiastic piety in their aspect. Nothing daunts them; and their large black, keen eyes, piercing through everything terrestrial, catch glimpses of the better land, towards which, in common with the whole human race, they are journeying. When they have completed their task, some friend or successor erects for their remains, and always, if possible, beneath a palm-tree, a pretty, picturesque, little structure in the form of a cupola resting on four square pillars, and furnished with seats and prayingcarpets within. These beautiful tombs, which constitute one of the most striking features of Mohammedan countries, often elicit the blessings of the traveller, as, faint from heat and weariness, he sits down in their grateful shade, and eats his morsel over the remains of the saint beneath, whose name, in all likelihood, he ever after pronounces with respect. Many a cup of coffee have we sipped, many a date have we eaten, many a pipe have we smoked beneath those airy, delicate cupolas, which seemed to have been built expressly for our solace. In the hot nights of summer, when the Wind of Fifty Days has been blowing, it was with inexpressible delight that we reached a tomb, especially if its side-wall happened to be so situated as to screen us from the fiery blast. Never shall we forget one moonlight night-the Khamsyn swept over the desert like the breath of a furnace-the camels drooped, and arched their long necks towards the sand-the Arabs, usually lively and loquacious, dropped off into silence; something in the atmosphere appeared to affect the brain, which whirled and became giddy, while the eyes saw objects double, and the act of breathing was a painful effort. Suddenly a tomb appeared in sight, consisting of many chambers, with a small airy colonnade running along its northern face. Under the shelter of this building, we breathed a comparatively cool air, though the fact seems difficult of explanation, since it lay plunged in the hot atmosphere which pressed all around upon the desert. Possibly to be screened from the south-western wind might have been all that was needed to produce the agreeable effect we experienced. How the saint who reposed there was named, we never learned; but without in the least checking our feeling of gratitude, we made merry all night in his tomb, eating macaroni, drinking coffee, and smoking the fragrant tumbook, a compound of tobacco, rosepetals from the Fayum, a little scented paste from Persia, and some few particles of opium, which inspired us with wild fancies, and invested the whole visible landscape with poetry. Among the mysteries of eastern nature, few are more difficult of solution than this same Wind of Fifty Days, which begins to blow in spring, and with a profound contempt for its own name, often lasts more than two months. In Egypt, we cared little for it, because it was nearly always possible to find shade and shelter, with an abundant table, which renders people regardless of all the winds that blow. It is different in the deserts to the east and west of the valley. Down in Oman, for example, as you near the shores of the Persian Gulf, there blows an analogous wind, though under a different name, and proceeding from a different quarter, which makes the eyelids swell, inflames the edges of the nostrils, puffs out the lips, and in a wonderful manner deadens the intellect. Under the influence of this pestilential breeze, a friend of ours, having penetrated far into the interior, through one of the valleys or furnacemouths which lead up from the Persian Gulf to the burning level of the desert, became mad, and putting his loaded rifle into his mouth, touched the trigger with his foot, and blew off a part of his jaw. He meant to commit suicide, but the blood which flowed from the wound appeased the fury in his brain, so that he escaped, though mangled and mutilated for life. He described the heat as something so fearful, that in the delirium it brought upon him he imagined himself to be a lighted torch, and fancied he could discern the flames rising from his body. His companions, faithful Arabs from the desert, bore him bleeding to a seat beneath a palm-tree, where they bound up his jaw, and gave him water to drink, and bathed his forehead and his eyes, and then making a litter of rifles, and placing the wounded man upon it, protected from the sun by a rude canopy of burnooses, bore him back tenderly towards the sea. In Africa, when the Khamsyn ceases to blow, which it does very suddenly, you experience an invigorating sensation, and are at a loss to account for it, till you observe that the breeze is from the north, and brings along with it refreshing coolness from the Mediterranean. This is the Etesian wind, which makes music throughout the summer among the palm-leaves, which seem to derive additional greenness and brilliance from its influence. So likewise the mimosa copses growing beneath and around the palm-groves, emit a sweeter odour in the north wind, while the long reaches of citron and orange trees diffuse their rarest perfumes, and fling them aloft to scent the ripening dates. There is a pretty little valley not far from Mecca, in which they say Mohammed delighted to meditate when he was inventing his religion, and laying down the plan of the Koran. He could not have chosen a spot better fitted for the reception of celestial inspiration. There the palms attain their noblest size; there all the fruits of Arabia display their utmost perfection; there springs of water gush from the living rock, and descend in sparkling streams, between matted beds of clover and violets; there the roses, larger and sweeter than those of Serinaghur, droop over the brooks, and scent the waters as they flow, and we almost fancy that several chapters of the Koran are still redolent of that valley, in their freshness, simplicity, and beauty. Who would not envy the Arabian prophet the seclusion and serenity of such a study, the trees around him dropping their medicinal gums, the voices of the turtle-dove, the ring-dove, and the nightingale following each other throughout the twenty-four hours. To that mighty mind, however, which by its ideas modified the thoughts of half the East, few things earthly were more pleasing than the lisp of children, and the whispers of the palm-tree, when Ayesha sat beside him on the grass, singing the songs of Arabia, and still half an idolater in her worship of his intellect. THE BLACK AND WHITE HOUSE IN THE DELL. IN SIX CHAPTERS.-CHAPTER IV. In an THE clock of a distant town-church struck midnight, and there broke out a dismal howl from the dog in his kennel. I had been reading; my head felt hot and tired, and in spite of the frost which glistened on the lawns, I threw open my window, and leaned out to breathe the air of a November night. I drew it in again suddenly. The sensation of cold which passed over me was not the frosty air; it was the old story of the ghost's walk. Again those stealthy footfalls neared my door; they passed it; they went on up the dark gallery, and I lost them. instant, and for the first time, my shadowy fear took the form of robbers. The steps I had heard before always came down the gallery; these had gone up it. Would they come back again? One may reason away a vague superstition, but a sudden and not unwarranted dread of robbery and murder will not be argued with. There were neither tongs, poker, nor shovel on the hearth, but in one corner of the room there was an old yard-measure, and I took that in my hand mechanically, returning to the window with it. My door was locked, but what would robbers care for locks? I might have barricaded it, but I could only look at the silvery light on the ghost's walk, and listen. A faint sound stole to my ear; it was like the cautious shutting of a distant door. A little longer, and I heard the footsteps coming back again. I clutched my yard-measure tight; then, as I listened, holding my breath, came the old sound of a hand passing across the wall outside at my bed-head. My idea of robbers vanished, and in its place came an irresistible desire to know what were those mysterious footsteps. I did not stop to consider then; my head was dizzy, and my heart throbbed painfully. With a mixture of fear and desperation, my hand still clutching the yard-measure, I threw open my door, and stood face to face with my stepfather. In the first moment, as I stood dismayed and stupified, I noticed that sudden_hasty_glance of his over his shoulder; in the next, I saw dangling from his one finger against the candlestick a large key; and then, standing back a little, he said significantly: Well?' My stepfather shrank visibly, and I fancied that his face grew whiter. 'If the dog disturbs you, he shall be removed.' I was about to utter a protest against this, but he went on without heeding me: Nothing injures the constitution so much as keeping late hours. As for reading at night, there is more danger to be apprehended from such a habit as that than there is from robbers. You may trust me to watch over the security of the house. Good-night.' He had offered me no explanation of his errand at so strange an hour. I did not expect that he would; but yet, when I went back into my room, I felt no relief at finding that my ghost had flesh and bones, and that it was a mortal hand which guided itself nightly along that wall. That there was a mystery somewhere, seemed certain, but I did not trouble myself about it; I only felt my desire to get away from Raventree strengthened. Remembering how eagerly my stepfather had caught at the idea of Mark's prospect of immediate marriage, I knew that, for some reason or other, he would have been glad to get rid of me; and since, before Raventree fell into his hands, I had been destined to labour for my living as a governess, why might I not do so still? Many a time the subject came to my lips, and would hardly be restrained; but then I thought of Mark. He might not like it; and besides, when I saw my stepfather sitting there so frigid and self-absorbed, I was afraid. Thus the winter came on, bleak and gloomy, and the robins hopped about the ghost's walk to pick up the crumbs I threw there for them. It was yet early in December, and I was walking, cloaked up, about the garden one bitterly cold evening, when a strange sound caused me to stand still and listen. It was like a piece of iron falling heavily somewhere in the coppice. I went, not without some hesitation, round to the raven's tree, but it was nearly dark, and if it had not been, I should have seen nothing in the thickness of that wood. As I passed up the walk, other sounds more stealthy than the first were audible; some one was in the coppice. I knew that my stepfather was in the house, and Martha had gone into the town; I reached the top of the walk, and listened again. There was a stirring in one of the tall trees against the house; the occasional cracking of a branch, and then a noise as if a heavy body had dropped from the tree to the ground. I ran into the house at once. I said, standing in the doorway of the parlour: 'There is some one in the coppice-some one who hast just come down from a tree.' danger to my stepfather, but I could do nothing. I could only think how foolish he was to run after a strange man who might be desperate. I stirred the fire noisily from time to time, as the minutes crept on, and the ticking of the clock grew painfully audible. So loud it was, that I began to wonder how it could be possible for people in that kitchen to hear each other talking for the sound. The moon came from under its cloud, and I counted the panes in the different compartments of the two big desolate-looking windows. Two by four, and four by eight. When I said that to myself, I was astonished to hear that the clock took it up and said it also, but more slowly and emphatically than I did, as if correcting me for my lightness. Again I stirred the fire, and looked about for a supply of coal, lest it should die down, and leave nothing to make a blaze with. I put coal on with a pair of queer tongs, that pinched my fingers, and I noticed that the nob was rusty. I looked over all the various articles hanging about the fireplace, and tried to think of uses for them; some were rusty, and some not; and when I had done with them, I went back to the window-panes again. I was conscious only of a desperate desire to occupy my mind with trifles, and prevent it from dwelling on that old shadowy fear which lurked in the dark corners of the kitchen. The coal I had put on burned up, and the clock kept on repeating solemnly Two by four, four by eight,' till it burst out suddenly into a loud whir, and struck. I did not want to count the strokes, but I could not help it, they were so emphatic and slow. I do not know exactly how long I had been alone; it was a long time; but I knew that Martha was rarely out after half-past eight or nine. Two by four, four by eight. As I said it, following the clock, I saw something at the window. It was a man's face; it peered in for a moment, and went away, and then the door opened, and my stepfather came in. The night was clear and frosty, but every garment he wore was drenched through, and a path of wet followed him along the kitchen. As he stood by the fire, a little pool of wet collected under his feet, but for all that, I could hardly think of anything but his sickly-blue white face, with the terror on it still. 'I must change these things at once,' he said, his teeth chattering. Go and get me some dry ones; my hands are useless.' to bed at once.' I went upstairs to do as he asked me, and he followed, leaving wet prints of his feet all the way. When we reached the top of the stairs, I stopped. As I spoke, the dog began to bark violently. I'You are wet through: it will be better for you to go don't think I had been frightened myself; but I shall never forget the ashy terror of my stepfather's face, as he started up from his seat, and hurried past me. I was even impelled by it to cry out hesitatingly: 'Don't go,' but he answered: Keep back, I warn you, out of the way.' And then he was gone. I stood at the door, and heard him enter the coppice; I heard more crashing of dry wood, as the feet of the intruder, no longer stealthy, pressed on, and then I saw a man gain the open lawn, and another follow him. The moon was under a cloud, and I lost them directly; there was nothing for me to do but go back into the house; and then I remembered that I was alone in it. I went into the kitchen, because, in spite of its dreary vastness, there was companionship in the large bright fire, which I could stir up into a blaze, while the grate in the parlour was but a mass of smouldering cinders. I began to reckon how long it would be before Martha could come back. I occupied myself with conjectures about the man in the coppice: who was he? what did he want there? Would my stepfather overtake him, and if so, what would be the result? Once it struck me that there was a possibility of He put his hand on my arm heavily, and groaned. 'What is it?' I asked. 'Are you hurt?' 'No; yes: I am a dead man. You are right; I will go to bed. Bring me some brandy.' 'Shall I send for a doctor?' 'If you do,' said he fiercely, 'I'll never forgive you. There, I did not mean to be angry. Not a word of this to Martha-do you hear?' 'She must know that you are not well.' 'Yes; tell her so. But the footmarks''I will remove them.' 'Good girl. You bring the brandy; don't send it. Keep her away from me.' I went down stairs, thinking of the footmarks in the kitchen, and the pool on the hearth; and when I reached the kitchen-door, Martha was standing by the fire warming herself composedly. She just looked at the little pool of water as I went in, but made no remark; and I said: "Your master is unwell, and I am going to take him some brandy.' She did not answer; but presently, when I was leaving the kitchen, she turned round and looked at me. 'Who did you say was not well?' |