and clenching her little brown hands, she hissed out a sentence of Romany which I could not understand. If she had had a knife I should have trembled for my safety. Then looking at me piercingly, she said, "You shall see whether I love him or not." She turned away, and climbed swiftly up the bank. There is in Hursley, or was that summer, a modest inn, kept by an elderly widow, with two blooming maids and an hostler. Beside the "coffee-room," where the meals were served, was a small room at the right of the door, a small square room, with a table and a cupboard and two old arm-chairs. - I passed what seemed a long evening in this room, after I parted from Regina in the hollow. It was too late to go back to Winchester, and I determined to spend the night in the inn. My reflections were not of the pleasantest. The thought that I had done my best, or, to speak more correctly, my worst, for Alfred was not as consoling as it might have been. I felt humiliated in my own eyes at the part which friendship had forced me to play. By nine o'clock I became so restless, in spite of a cigar and a painstaking perusal of an old Times, which had in some way found its way to the inn, that I determined to go out. I was wondering uneasily where Alfred had gone when he left Regina; whether he was coming back to the camp, and what would happen if he did 80. There was no doubt that, having in some wise assumed the role of a deus ex machina in this affair, it would be the height of cowardice to leave matters alone at this juncture, however intense my longing to do so might be. It was this feeling that made me walk rapidly through the silent village, and turn into the meadows in the direction of the gypsy camp. It was an English evening in June, which is to say that one could read a letter with only the stars for light, and recognize one's friend at a 66 "I got your letter, and came to look for you," I answered. He went on brokenly, "Help me up, if you can, but first tie up this confounded wound. I don't mind the pain; it's the bleeding that makes me faint." By this time I was on my knees by him. Something serious had happened. His coat was off, and I saw, even in the dim light, that his shirt was drenched with blood on the left side, in front. I moved the torn linen gently, and saw a deep, jagged gash, evidently made by a knife. "Who did this, Alfred?" I exclaimed, and a sort of futile fury came over me, in which myself, Alfred, and Regina were all included. "Don't talk about it," he said, with the same wearied impatience in his voice that I had heard before. "Only get me somewhere, or I'll bleed to death. Or let me alone here. It does n't make much difference." He was very white, and as he stopped speaking he leaned his head against the tree and shut his eyes. I have a vivid and yet nightmare-like recollection of the hour that followed. I bandaged his wound as well as I could with his handkerchief and mine, and made him lie down more comfortably. Then I left him, and went back to the village. I managed to induce the hostler, after much bribing of a truly American prodigality, to put up their only horse and vehicle, a rattling twowheeled gig. In this, with the help of the hostler, who went with me, we brought Alfred back to the inn. However keen my curiosity was as to the explanation of his condition, it had to wait patiently for satisfaction. He was very ill for two or three days, with a high fever and the mental stupor produced by that state, and aggravated by his evident depression. I could only follow the directions of the village doctor, and nurse him as well as I knew how. I gave the doctor the benefit of my theories as to the cause of Alfred's wound, and my truthfulness met with the reward of his belief. He satisfied the somewhat timid distrust of the people of the inn with a modified version of the facts so far as we knew them. That a gentleman should be wounded in a quarrel with gypsies, and yet not wish to prosecute them, was curious, but a few shillings made their curiosity unobtrusive. I should have written to Lady Mary but for two reasons: the first, that the doctor assured me Alfred was in no dan Then he held out his hand with his old friendly manner. He was lying on his back, very pale from loss of blood and exhaustion." Don't mind me, Dexter," he said. "You are very good to stand by me, and to spare me questions. You were correct, and I have come off the worse for trusting these people, but I shall be quite right in a day or two." This was the only allusion he made to his recent experience. But for this one assurance of his pleasure in my presence he talked little, and hardly seemed to notice me. I saw that he liked to be alone, and therefore I spent hours strolling about the neighboring country. Sir William Heathcote and his family were away, but I gained an entrance to the park with the aid of the all-powerful shilling, and forgot time and space in its verdant, humid depths. I became intimate with the wrinkled grave-digger of Hursley church, and he told me many a hoary tale of the villagers and the great people of the neighborhood, until I began to feel that I, too, had been born in Hursley; that I had a birthright in the rich soil the old man turned over with his spade; that I could ask nothing better of life than to tread upon this soil, in the soothing English atmosphere, until my days were spent, and then to rest contentedly beneath it. On the fourth day of our stay at the inn Alfred was well enough to dress and walk about. "I shall leave this place to-morrow," he said. "You 're a trump, Dexter, to have waited here, and endured my bad temper; above all, as you warned me what to expect. I thought I knew" he hesitated a moment those people better than you did, but all my knowledge, all my experience, was at fault." He sighed rather heavily. "You may ger, - the wound was only a slight one, and would soon heal; the second, that on the evening of my finding Alfred, as I helped him to bed, a sealed letter, addressed to Lady Mary Power, fell out of his pocket. I picked it up and showed it to him. He took it from me and tore it in pieces. "I forgot to post it," he said. "It think me more of a fool, even, than before," he went on ingenuously, have had a hard blow, and it will take me a long time to get over it." need not go now." "Do you want me to send for your mother?" I asked. "Indeed, no," he answered irritably. " but I At this moment I saw our landlady beckoning to me, rather mysteriously, station where I was to take the train for from the hall. "Excuse me a moment," I said. I obeyed her summons, and she drew me out to the porch. London, and whither Alfred bore me company, I learned all I wished to know. He began abruptly, and told me in a few words that on the afternoon of "I thought you might like to see the the night on which I found him he had gypsies passin', sir," she said. In fact, the van was lumbering down the road, driven by the elder Lee. I suppose his wife must have been inside, for I did not see her. Close to the van, on the side nearest to the inn, walked Regina Lee. The rear was brought up by Sylvester and Anselo Buckland, dogged and brutal; three or four hopelessly vulgar dogs snuffed at their heels. I looked at Regina with a mixture of anger and compunction. I was sure that she had stabbed Alfred, but in what degree I had prompted her action I was doubtful. The change in her appearance surprised me. She was haggard and hollow-eyed, and walked listlessly beside the van. She glanced indifferently at the inn. As she did so, I saw her expression suddenly change to one of vivid grief and emotion. Then she averted her eyes, and the little procession passed on. I thought this change was due to the sight of me, but at the same moment I was aware that Alfred stood beside me. He grasped my shoulder with one hand, and leaned heavily upon it. I did not look at him, but I heard his heavy breathing, and knew that he was deeply agitated. I do not think Anselo saw him, and Alfred appeared unconscious of any one but Regina. He left the porch as abruptly as he had come. He seemed his usual self when I rejoined him. The doctor made a last visit that day, and pronounced him in a condition that warranted his traveling, if he wished to do so. During the evening Alfred told me he was going to Scotland. "I am sick of England," he said. "I am sorry to leave you, Dexter, but I would be poor company now." The next day we parted, but at the 18 NO. 358. VOL. LX. gone to Winchester to procure a license. "I wanted to make it all sure," he said, simply. When he came back to the camp Regina was not to be found. The Lees only laughed when he questioned them as to her whereabouts. He finally left the camp, and met her in the woods with Anselo. She would not speak to him, and Anselo advanced and taunted him about his folly in supposing that a Romany girl who was betrothed to him would marry a Gorgio. Alfred, without noticing Anselo, asked Regina to speak for herself. She only laughed, and said that Anselo was right; it was true, every word. She had fooled him a little, to amuse herself. "Then," said Alfred, "she ran away before I could say more. I did not see her again until yesterday, when she passed the inn." I had listened with a miserable feeling of guilt and a burning pity for Regina. An exclamation escaped me. "You did not see her again? Who stabbed you, then?" My mood for solitude and green fields was over, and I was not sorry to avail myself of all the opportunities to go out in London society gained by four years at Christ Church, Oxford. I frequently met Lady Mary Power. Early in July, just before I left London to go to the Continent, she told me with much satisfaction that Alfred had written to her that he was coming to London, and would go out with her as much as she wished during the remainder of the season. "It must be your influence during the fortnight you were together, Mr. Dexter," she said, graciously. "How can I thank you enough!" She invited me to visit her at Power Hall in September, when Alfred should be at home. Whatever had been the means I had employed to serve Lady Mary and her son, the end might justify them. I pictured Alfred a tamed and civilized member of society, married to a London heiress, and representing his county in Parliament. Why not? I asked myself. A week later I sat in the smokingroom of a Swiss hotel, reading the London Times of the day before. I glanced over the marriages. One of them read as follows: "POWER LEE. At Winchester, Hampshire, July 4th, Alfred Power, Esq., of Power Hall, Surrey, to Regina Lee." The same notice was repeated beneath in Romany. to all but Lady Mary. I could imagine her disappointment, but I was not a witness to it. I sailed for America in September, without having paid my visit to Power Hall. I have seen Power only once since we parted at Winchester. Three years after his marriage I passed a portion of the summer in Spain. I was riding near Granada one day with a party of Americans. Our road took a sudden turn through a rocky defile. Before us we saw a man and woman approaching. Their somewhat picturesque clothes were dusty and travel-worn. The man drove two mules, heavily laden with canvas and tent-poles and a quantity of basketwork, evidently for sale. "They must be gypsies," I said. "Spanish gypsies!" cried a lady of our party. "Oh, how romantic! It makes one think of dear George Eliot and Longfellow, you know. Dear me, what strikingly handsome creatures! The woman might easily be Fedalma herself. She is a perfect beauty." I hardly heard what she said. I recognized in the woman Regina, and in the man Alfred Power. I felt an overpowering agitation. All my affection, all my self-reproach and disappointment, rushed upon me. But the first feeling was the strongest. I hungered for a friendly word from him. "Alfred!" I said, and spurred my horse nearer to him. But he met my eager look with a blank stare that had no recognition in it, and passed on, with "The stars in their courses fought Regina close beside him. against Sisera." Poetic justice is not always a pleasure to complex mortals, and in this case my dismay was mingled with a mortification which has not ceased to sting. Explanation was impossible, and I could only sink my own feeling in the matter, and hope that Alfred's awakening might be long deferred. He dropped out of his "world" completely, and the slight vacuum that he left was easily filled, "It is nothing," I stammered, when my friends asked an explanation of my eccentric behavior. "I thought the man looked like a friend I had once." I have never forgotten the expression of Power's face before he saw me. It was very passive, very calm; but it has always been impossible for me to decide whether it was that of a man who was happy, or the reverse. Margaret Crosby. ANNE GILCHRIST. THERE is a personality in some people which is brought out most distinctly by relations held to others. Mrs. Gilchrist, whose memorial 1 has been edited by her son, was a woman of marked strength of character and self-reliance; yet her very individuality is most discoverable when one sees her with her husband, with Blake, with her children, with Whitman, and with Mary Lamb. She is always herself, but then her self was a nature which obeyed the great paradoxical law of finding life through the loss of it. Mrs. Carlyle is quoted as saying, as she watched her neighbor breaking up her Chelsea home for a retirement in the country, that Mrs. Gilchrist would "skin and bury herself alive for the benefit of her children." Comparisons are apt to be unjust as well as odious, and the picture of Mrs. Gilchrist keeping the integrity of her life when most completely devoted to the life of others is striking enough without the aid of any contrasting picture, even if two neighboring households readily suggest such contrasts. Anne Burrows was twenty-three years old when she married Alexander Gilchrist. Her father died when she was eleven, and she was left to the care of her mother. The family seems to have been one which held by the tenets of the evangelical school, and Anne's education was directed in accordance with these tenets; but the few glimpses which her son gives of her girlhood disclose the independence of mind which was afterward so marked an attribute. Apparently, her religious education was based upon a merely superficial presentation of traditional beliefs, and her vigorous intellect, refusing such nurture, took 1 Anne Gilchrist: her Life and Writings. Edited by HERBERT HARLAKENDEN GILCHRIST. With a Prefatory Notice by WILLIAM refuge in an extreme individualism. It is no uncommon phenomenon when the dry individualism of Calvinism, detached from the deep personal experience which saves the creed, sends the dissatisfied pupil into a richer naturalism, but one which has missed the profound significance of a common Christianity. In Alexander Gilchrist the thoughtful girl found a true companion, or, to speak more exactly, the husband found in his wife one who could give to his nervous, eager, literary activity the aid of a calm, sympathetic, and constant nature. Mrs. Gilchrist has elsewhere sketched her husband's life, and brief as that sketch is it leaves upon the mind a tolerably sharp impression of the conscientious, thorough, and minutely curious character to which she was so happily joined. She gave him, we cannot help thinking, an element of repose, and he gave her both an intellectual stimulus and, by the legacy of his unfinished work and their little children, an occupation and purpose which carried her through hard years and deepened the forces of her nature. Mr. Gilchrist was an enthusiast in art, and a finely constituted hero-worshiper. He is principally known to readers by his Life of William Blake, the actual composition of which was practically complete before he was cut off by sudden death, although considerable editorial labor was afterward expended on the work by his widow and by the two Rossettis. Mrs. Gilchrist does not seem to have had any special training in artistic studies before her marriage, and her chosen literary tasks after she was done with the Blake did not lead her into the field of art. Her intellectual companionship with her husband made MICHAEL ROSSETTI. New York: Scribner and Welford. 1887. |
