Happy Days for Boys and Girls

When they got into the house, there was the kitchen with its rows of bright pewter plates, its wide hearth and roaring fire, its hams hanging to the beams, all just as they had been described in the days when nurse’s new home at Blackridge Farm was a subject of never-ending interest to the two children in Mrs. Earle’s nursery.

After he had had a capital tea, Charlie was allowed to go round with the farmer to see that the horses were all right for the night, Charlie carrying the lantern and feeling himself quite a man as he followed the farmer into the stable. There was much coming and going at the farm that evening, for was it not Christmas eve? and nurse was busy sending off gifts to neighbors who were not so thriving as herself, and busy, too, in making preparations for the morrow. Charlie meanwhile sat in the settle and made friends with Molly, who was about his own age and knew much more, though she was only a girl, about dogs and rabbits and tadpoles than London-bred Charlie. By and by they helped to stir the great plum-pudding, and dressed the kitchen and parlor with evergreens, till nurse called them to come and hear the chimes.

And Charlie thought it very beautiful as he stood at the door and listened to the bells. And as they stood there the wind wafted to them also the voices of the choir as they went on their round through the village, singing their carols; and then Charlie went to bed with “Hark, the herald angels sing!” ringing in his ears.

Next morning Charlie, as he ran down stairs, could hardly believe this was really Christmas day, all was so unlike any Christmas he had known before; but in the kitchen he found one thing like the Christmas mornings at home, for he found quite a little pile of parcels beside his plate, containing the pretty gifts prepared by father and mother and Laura, and sent by them to nurse, so that at any rate the little lad should not be robbed of this part of his Christmas pleasures. There was a note, too, from mother, saying that she and father and Laura were safe in Edinburgh, and that grandmother was better, and that she hoped to tell him in her next letter when they and he should meet at home in London. Such a bright beginning was enough to make all the rest of the day bright; and bright it was. Charlie found plenty to do till church-time, as Molly showed him all the nooks and corners about the farm.

The old church, with its high pews and country congregation made Charlie feel that he must be dreaming. Surely it could not be Christmas, but must be the autumn? and he and Laura and everybody had come away from London for the holidays?

No; it was no dream. It was really Christmas; for there, round the pillars, were the holly-wreaths with their red berries, and there, behind the chancel-screen, were the same Christmas texts as in their church in London. When service was over, Charlie and Molly hurried home to help Martha, the farm-girl, to have all in readiness for the Christmas dinner. But after dinner there was not much sitting still – at any rate for Charlie; for who could think of sitting still indoors, when outside there were a pond covered with ice and a farmyard full of horses and dogs?

Nor was the evening after tea without its pleasure. When the snow began to fall, and the doors and windows were tightly closed, then a huge log was piled on the fire; and while Farmer and Mrs. Lamb sat and talked before it in the parlor, Charlie and Molly had a fine game of romps in the big kitchen with Martha; and when they were tired of that, they sat on the hearth and roasted chestnuts, while nurse read a Christmas tale to them.

And here I must leave Charlie finishing his Christmas day, hoping that any who read this story of it may agree with Charlie in thinking, when he laid his head on the pillow that night, that, though it had been spent far from home, it had not been an unhappy day, after all.

MARCELLIN

MARCELLIN, a young shepherd boy, who tended his father’s flock upon the mountains, having penetrated a deep gorge to search for one of his sheep which was missing, discovered in the thickest of the forest a man lying upon the ground overcome with fatigue, and faint from want of food.

“My poor lad,” said the man, “I am dying from hunger and thirst. Two days ago I came upon this mountain to hunt. I lost my way, and I have passed two nights in the woods.”

Marcellin drew some bread and cheese from his knapsack, and gave to the stranger.

“Eat,” he said, “and then follow me. I will conduct you to an old oak tree, in the trunk of which we shall find some water.”

The food satisfied his hunger; then he followed Marcellin, and drank of the water, which he found excellent. Afterwards the boy conducted him down the mountain, and pointed out the way to the city.

Then the hunter said to the shepherd boy, “My good lad, you have saved my life. If I had remained in the mountain another night, I should have died. I will show you my gratitude. Come with me to the city. I am rich; and I will treat you as if you were my own son.”

“No, sir,” said Marcellin; “I cannot go with you to the city. I have a father and a mother who are poor, but whom I love with all my heart. Were you a king, I would not leave my parents.”

“But,” said the hunter, “you live here in a miserable cabin with an ugly thatched roof; I live in a palace built of marble, and surrounded with statues. I will give you drink in glasses like crystal, and food upon plates of silver.”

“Very likely,” responded Marcellin; “but our house is not half as miserable as you suppose. If it is not surrounded with statues, it is among fruit trees and trellised vines. We drink water which we get from a neighboring fountain. It is very clear, though we do not drink from crystal cups. We gain by our labor a modest living, but good enough. And if we do not have silver ware in our house, we have plenty of flowers.”

“Nonsense, my boy! Come with me,” said the hunter; “we have trees and flowers in the city more beautiful than yours. I have magnificent grounds, with broad alleys, with a flower garden filled with the most precious plants. In the middle of it there is a beautiful fountain, the like of which you never saw. The water is thrown upward in small streams, and falls back sparkling into the great white marble basin. You would be quite happy to live there.”

“But I am quite happy here,” replied Marcellin. “The shade of our forests is at least as delicious as that of your superb alleys. Our fields are running over with flowers. You can hardly step without finding them under your feet. There are flowers around our cottage – roses, violets, lilies, pansies. Do you suppose that our fountains are less beautiful than your little jets of water? You should see the merry brooks bounding down over the rocks, and running away through the flowery meadow.”

“You don’t know what you refuse,” rejoined the hunter. “If you go into the city, you will be put to school, where you can study all departments of art and science. There are theatres, where skilful musicians will enchant your ears by harmony. There are rich saloons, to which you will be admitted, to enjoy splendid fêtes. And since you so much love the country, you shall pass your summer vacation with me in a superb chateau which I possess.”

“Well, I am greatly obliged to you,” replied the shepherd boy; “but I think I had better stop with father and mother. I can learn everything useful in our village school. I am taught to fear God, to honor my parents, and to imitate their virtues. I don’t wish to learn anything beyond that. Then your musicians, which you tell about, do they sing any better than the nightingale or the golden robin? Then we have our concerts and our fêtes. We are right down happy when we are all together on Sunday evening under the trees. My sister sings, while I accompany her upon my flute. Our chants can be heard a long way off, and echo repeats them. And in the evening, when we stay in the house, grandfather is with us. We love him so much because he is so good. No, I will not leave my parents. I will not renounce their home, if it is humble. I cannot go to the city with you.”

The hunter saw that it was of no use to argue the point; so he said, —

“What shall I give you, then, to express my gratitude for your services? Take this purse, filled with gold.”

“What need have I of it? We are poor, but we want nothing. Besides, if I accept your money, I should sell the little service I have been able to render. That would be wrong; my mother would blame me for such conduct. She tells me that we ought always to assist those who are in trouble and want without expecting pay for it.”

“Generous boy! What shall I give you as a mark of my gratitude? You must accept something, or I shall be greatly disappointed.”

“Is it so?” asked Marcellin, playfully. “Then give me the cup which is suspended at your side – that one on which is engraved a picture of some dogs pursuing a stag.”

The hunter joyfully gave the cup to the happy shepherd boy, who, having once more indicated the way which would lead to the city, bade him good day, and went back to his flock.

And the rich man returned to his splendid dwelling, having learned that it is the proper use of the means we have, rather than wishing for greater, which brings happiness and contentment.

AN ADVENTURE IN THE LIFE OF SALVATOR ROSA

THERE is in the museum at Florence a celebrated painting, which calls to mind a thrilling adventure of Salvator Rosa when quite young.

The scene represents a solitude, very rugged and sublime – mountains upon every side, with their tops covered with snow, while through the dark clouds in the sky a few straggling sunbeams find their way to the valley. Upon the border of an immense cliff stands a group of men whose costume denotes them to be brigands of the Apennines. Upon the very edge of the precipice, erect and calm, is a young man, surrounded by the brigands, who are preparing to throw him into the depths below. The chief is a short distance away, and seemingly about to give the fatal signal. A few paces in advance stands a female, of strange beauty, waving her hand menacingly towards the chief as if commanding that the young man’s life be spared. Her manner, resolute and imperious, the countenance of the chief, the grateful calmness of the prisoner, all seem to indicate that the woman’s order will be obeyed, and that the victim will be saved from the frightful death with which he has been menaced.

This picture, as will be readily guessed, is the work of Salvator Rosa. Born at Arenella, near Naples, in 1615, of poor parents, he was so admirably endowed by nature that, even in his boyhood, he became a spirited painter, a good musician, and an excellent poet. But his tastes led him to give his attention to painting.

Unfortunately, some severe satires which he published in Naples made him many enemies in that city, and he was obliged to fly to Rome, where he took a position at once as a painter. Leaving that city after a while, he went to Florence, and there found a generous encouragement and many friends, and there his talent was appreciated by the world of art.

The environs of Florence afforded him superior advantages in developing his genius. The Apennines, with their dark gorges, their picturesque landscapes, and their snow-clad peaks, pleased his wild imagination. In their vast recesses he found his best inspirations and his most original subjects. Often he wandered for days over the abrupt mountains, infested with bandits, to find work for his ambitious pencil.

One day he had advanced farther than usual into the profound and dangerous solitudes. He sat down near a torrent, and began to sketch a wild landscape before him. All of a sudden he saw, at the summit of a rock near at hand, a man leaning upon his carbine, and apparently watching him with great curiosity. A large hat, with stained and torn brim, covered his sun-burnt visage; a leather belt bound his dark sack to his body, and gave support to a pistol and hunting-knife, invariably carried by the brigands of the mountains. His black beard, thick and untidy, concealed a portion of his face; but there could be no doubt that his dark glance was fixed upon the stranger who came to invade his domain.

For almost any other but our hero, the sudden apparition of that wild and menacing figure would have been good cause of terror. But Salvator was a painter, and a painter in love with his art; and he had in that strange costume, that forbidding look, something so much in harmony with the aspect of nature about him, that he at once made the man a subject of study.

“I mustn’t lose him,” he said; “he’s an inhabitant of the country. He comes just in the nick of time to complete my landscape; and his position is quite fine.”

And, drawing tranquilly his pencil, he began to transfer the outlines of the brigand to his album, when the stranger, coming a few paces nearer to him, said, in a rough voice, —

“Who are you, and what are you doing here?”

“Well, my good fellow, I come to take your portrait, if you’ll hold still a bit,” responded the painter.

“Ah, you jest with me! Have a care,” said the other, coming still nearer.

“No,” replied Salvator, seriously; “I am a painter; and I wander over these mountains with no other purpose but to admire these beautiful landscapes, and to sketch the most picturesque objects.”

“To sketch!” cried the brigand, with evident anger, hardly knowing what the word meant. “Do you not know that these mountains belong to us? Why do you come here to spy us out?”

At these words he gave a shrill whistle, and three other men, clothed like himself, came towards the spot from different directions.

“Seize this man!” he said to his companions; “he comes to observe us.”

All resistance was useless. And so, after having tried in vain to prove his innocence, the young man was surrounded and seized.

“March!” cried the man who had first met him. “You must talk with our chief.”

The leader of these brigands was a man about forty years of age, named Pietratesta. His great physical strength, his courage, and, more than all the rest, his energy, had made him a favorite among his companions, and given him authority over them. Famous among the mountains for his audacious crimes, condemned many times to an outlaw’s death, pursued in vain by the officers of the law, habituated for years to a life of adventure, pillage, and murder, he treated his prisoners without pity or mercy. All who were unable to purchase their liberty by paying whatever ransom he fixed, were put to death. He looked upon civilized people not as men, but as prizes.

As he saw the captive approach, he asked the usual question, —

“Who are you?”

“Salvator Rosa, a Neapolitan painter, now resident of Florence.”

“O, a painter! A poor prize, generally. But you are famous, I hear; the prince is your friend. Your pictures sell for very large prices. You must pay us ten thousand ducats.”

“Ten thousand ducats, indeed! Where do you suppose I can get so much?”

“Well, as for that, if you haven’t got the money, your friends must get it for you.”

“But my friends are not rich.”

“Ah, excuse me!” said the chief, smiling. “When one has a prince for a protector, he is always rich.”

“It is true that the prince is my patron; but he owes me nothing.”

“No matter if he don’t. He would not be deprived of such an artist as you for a paltry ten thousand ducats.”

“He pays me for my pictures; but he will not pay my ransom.”

“He must,” said the robber, emphatically; “so no more words. Ask your friends, if you prefer, or whoever you will; but bring me ten thousand ducats, and that within a month; otherwise you must die.”

As the chief uttered these words, he walked away, leaving Salvator in the middle of the ground which formed the camp.

During the short conversation two children came from one of the tents, being attracted by the noise. Their little blond heads, curiously turned towards the captive, their faces, tanned by the sun, but animated by the crimson of health and youth, and their picturesque costume had attracted the attention of the painter. When the chief had gone away, he approached them, and smiled. The children drew away abashed; then, reassured by the air of goodness which the young man wore, they came nearer, and permitted him to embrace them.

“Are you going to live with us?” said the eldest, who was about eight years of age.

“I don’t know, my little friend.”

“O, I wish you would! It is so nice to stop in these mountains. There are plenty of beautiful flowers, and birds’ nests, too. I have three already; I will show them to you, and then we will go and find some more. But what is that you have got under your arm?”

“It is my sketch-book.”

“A sketch-book? What is a sketch-book?”

“It is what I carry my pictures in.”

“Pictures? O, do let me see them!”

“Yes, indeed; here they are.”

“What pretty pictures! O, mother, come and see! Here are mountains, and men, and goats. Did you make them all?”

Attracted by the call of the child, a lady came out of the principal tent. She was yet young, tall, and covered with a medley of garments from various costumes. Her face sparkled with energy, and might have been called beautiful. She threw a sad glance at Salvator, and approached him haughtily, as if to give an order. But seeing the two children busily looking over the sketch-book, and observing the familiar way with which both treated their new acquaintance, she appeared to change her manner somewhat, and began to look at the pictures herself, and to admire them. At the end of half an hour the mother and the children seemed like old friends of Salvator Rosa.

The woman was the wife of the chief. A daughter of an honorable family, she married a young man at Pisa, her native city, who proved to be captain of this band of robbers. She could not well leave the company into which she had been betrayed; and so, with a noble self-denial, she became resigned to her hard lot. An unwilling witness of the many crimes of her husband and his companions, she suffered cruelly in her resignation. Yet her fidelity, her virtue, – things rarely known, but sometimes respected among these mountain brigands, – had given her a moral power over the men as well as over her husband. More than once she had used this means to temper their ferocity, and obtain pardon for their unfortunate prisoners.

Just then one of the brigands came and brought to the prisoner the order from the chief that he should write to his friends to obtain money for his ransom. The man was going, under a disguise, to the city of Florence; and he offered to deliver any letters intrusted to his care. He indicated the place where the ten thousand ducats must be left, so that Salvator might inform his correspondent.

Our hero had many devoted friends; but nearly all were artists like himself, and without fortune. Nevertheless, he decided to write to one of them. He gave orders that all the pictures in his studio should be sold. He hoped that the money which they would bring, together with what his friends could advance to him, would amount to the sum demanded by the chief.

This done, Salvator easily persuaded himself that he should soon be set at liberty, and the artist recovered his unconcern, and almost his usual good spirits. The country around him was full of romantic studies for his pencil. He had, besides, found in the society of the children of Pietratesta two charming companions. He instructed them in the elements of his art; and his pupils, to both of whom the study was quite new, seemed never to grow tired of their task.

In a moment of good humor, he drew caricatures of each member of the band, which created a great deal of amusement. Then he drew, with great care, the portraits of the two children. This attention profoundly touched the heart of the mother, and her tender sympathy, almost wasting among these unfeeling men, found a secret pleasure in rendering the captivity of the young painter less unhappy and less hard. She conversed with him familiarly, and it gave her great pleasure to see the care which he took to instruct her children.

So Salvator Rosa, to whom the band gave quite a considerable degree of liberty, never dreamed of taking improper advantage of it. Thanks to his fancy and his recklessness as an artist, he almost forgot that he was the prisoner of a cruel master, and that his life was in peril.

But the ransom, which he had sent for, came not. Whether the letters he had written failed to reach their destination, or whether his friends were deaf to his request for assistance, he received no answer. He wrote repeatedly, but always with the same result.

And so the months slipped by, and the chief began to grow impatient at the long delay. His wife had more than once calmed his anger, and prevented any catastrophe. At length several weeks went by, in which the expeditions of the band were unfruitful. The provisions were running low, and Pietratesta saw in his captive one unprofitable mouth. Sivora, his wife, felt her influence to be growing weaker and weaker under the increasing destitution and continued delay.

One day Pietratesta encountered his prisoner, and, addressing him in an irritated voice, —

“Well?” he said, as if his question needed no other explanation.

“Nothing yet,” responded Salvator Rosa, sadly.

“Ah, this is too much!” cried the brigand. “I begin to think you are playing with me. But do you know the price Pietratesta makes those pay who cross him?”

“Alas! I am far from trying to deceive you. You know that I have done all in my power to obtain my ransom. I have written to various persons; your own men have taken my letters. You see that it is not my fault.”

“It is always the fault of prisoners when their ransom is not paid.”

“Wait a little longer. I will write again to-day.”

“Wait! wait! A whole year, month after month, has gone by, and you repeat the same old story. A year – an age for me – I have waited. Do you think I have been making unmeaning threats? Do you expect to abuse my patience with impunity? It has given out at last – the more so as,” added he, now that he felt his anger increasing, “I ought to have settled this affair a long while ago. This is your last day, observe me.”

At a sign from their chief, four bandits seized the young man, and bound him. As Salvator was led away, he cast one sad look at the dwelling where he had passed many happy hours, and from which he was going to his death. For a moment he stopped to say farewell to the children, who were standing at the door crying and stretching out their little naked brown arms towards him.

A few moments later, Sivora, who had been gathering flowers in the mountains, returned home. Observing that her husband, as well as Salvator, was absent, and her children in tears, she guessed the painful truth.

“Where is Salvator?” she asked of the eldest.

“They have bound him, and carried him away,” responded the child, still crying.

“Which way?”

“Down yonder,” was the reply of the child, pointing with its finger in the direction of a rocky cliff already too well known for its horrible scenes.

“Alas, wretched man!” exclaimed Sivora, almost frantically, as she comprehended the new crime her husband was about to commit. She sat down for a moment, covered her face with her hands – a prey to the most unspeakable anxiety. Then, rising suddenly, her eyes flashing with determination, —

“Come!” she said, resolutely; “come, my children. Perhaps we may yet be in time.”

And, taking the hands of her little ones, who followed her with difficulty, but yet eagerly, she darted away at a rapid pace in the direction taken by the brigands.

While the men were hurrying Salvator along, the chief maintained a profound silence. His band followed him as dumb as slaves who go to execute the will of their master, which they know is law. They soon arrived at the summit of a cliff, which overhung a yawning abyss beneath. After having taken one look over the precipice, and examined the neighborhood rapidly, Pietratesta cried, “Halt!” and the whole body came to a rest.

“There is just a quarter of an hour for you to live,” he said, turning to his prisoner. “You have time to die like a Christian. Make your prayer.”

The young man hesitated for a moment, threw his agitated eyes around, then, kneeling on the rock, he prayed earnestly. The men stood unmoved, as if they had been statues cut from stone.