Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 12, No. 31, October, 1873

Then she went off to look after the luncheon, and Mairi was permitted to go down and explore the mysteries of the kitchen. The servants were not accustomed to this interference and oversight, and might have resented it, only that Sheila had proved a very good mistress to them, and had shown, too, that she would have her own way when she wanted it. Suddenly, as Sheila was explaining to Mairi the use of some particular piece of mechanism, she heard a sound that made her heart jump. It was now but half-past one, and yet that was surely her husband's foot in the hall. For a moment she was too bewildered to know what to do. She heard him go straight into the very room she had been decorating, the door of which she had left open. Then, as she went up stairs, with her heart still beating fast, the first thing that met her eye was a tartan shawl belonging to Mairi that had been accidentally left in the passage. Her husband must have seen it.

"Sheila, what nonsense is this?" he said.

He was evidently in a hurry, and yet she could not answer: her heart was throbbing too quickly.

"Look here," he said: "I wish you'd give up this grotto-making till to-morrow. Mrs. Kavanagh, Mrs. Lorraine and Lord Arthur Redmond are coming here to luncheon at two. I suppose you can get something decent for them. What is the matter? What is the meaning of all this?"

And then his eyes rested on the tartan shawl, which he had really not noticed before.

"Who is in the house?" he said. "Have you asked some washerwoman to lunch?"

Sheila managed at last to say, "It is Mairi come from Stornoway. I was thinking you would be surprised to see her when you came in."

"And these preparations are for her?"

Sheila said nothing: there was that in the tone of her husband's voice which was gradually bringing her to herself, and giving her quite sufficient firmness.

"And now that this girl has come up, I suppose you mean to introduce her to all your friends; and I suppose you expect those people who are coming in half an hour to sit down at table with a kitchen-maid?"

"Mairi," said Sheila, standing quite erect, but with her eyes cast down, "is my cousin."

"Your cousin! Don't be ridiculous, Sheila. You know very well that Mairi is nothing more or less than a scullery-maid; and I suppose you mean to take her out of the kitchen and introduce her to people, and expect her to sit down at table with them. Is not that so?" She did not answer, and he went on impatiently: "Why was I not told that this girl was coming to stay at my house? Surely I have some right to know what guests you invite, that I may be able at least to ask my friends not to come near the house while they are in it."

"That I did not tell you before—yes, that was a pity," said Sheila, sadly and calmly. "But it will be no trouble to you. When Mrs. Lorraine comes up at two o'clock there will be luncheon for her and for her friends. She will not have to sit down with any of my relations or with me, for if they are not fit to meet her, I am not; and it is not any great matter that I do not meet her at two o'clock."

There was no passion of any sort in the measured and sad voice, nor in the somewhat pale face and downcast eyes. Perhaps it was this composure that deceived Frank Lavender: at all events, he turned and walked out of the house, satisfied that he would not have to introduce this Highland cousin to his friends, and just as certain that Sheila would repent of her resolve and appear in the dining-room as usual.

Sheila went down stairs to the kitchen, where Mairi still stood awaiting her. She gave orders to one of the servants about having luncheon laid in the dining-room at two, and then she bade Mairi follow her up stairs.

"Mairi," she said, when they were alone, "I want you to put your things in your trunk at once—in five minutes if you can: I shall be waiting for you."

"Miss Sheila!" cried the girl, looking up to her friend's face with a sudden fright seizing her heart, "what is the matter with you? You are going to die!"

"There is nothing the matter, Mairi. I am going away."

She uttered the words placidly, but there was a pained look about the lips that could not be concealed, and her face, unknown to herself, had the whiteness of despair in it.

"Going away!" said Mairi, in a bewildered way. "Where are you going, Miss Sheila?"

"I will tell you by and by. Get your trunk ready, Mairi. You are keeping me waiting."

Then she called for a servant, who was sent for a cab; and by the time the vehicle appeared Mairi was ready to get into it, and her trunk was put on the top. Then, clad in the rough blue dress that she used to wear in Borva, and with no appearance of haste or fear in the calm and death-like face, Sheila came out from her husband's house and found herself alone in the world. There were two little girls, the daughters of a neighbor, passing by at the time: she patted them on the head and bade them good-morning. Could she recollect, five minutes thereafter, having seen them? There was a strange and distant look in her eyes.

She got into the cab and sat down by Mairi, and then took the girl's hand. "I am sorry to take you away, Mairi," she said; but she was apparently not thinking of Mairi, nor of the house she was leaving, nor yet of the vehicle in which she was so strangely placed. Was she thinking of a certain wild and wet day in the far Hebrides, when a young bride stood on the decks of a great vessel and saw the home of her childhood and the friends of her youth fade back into the desolate waste of the sea? Perhaps there may have been some unconscious influence in this picture to direct her movements at this moment, for of definite resolves she had none. When Mairi told her that the cabman wanted to know whither he was to drive, she merely answered, "Oh yes, Mairi, we will go to the station;" and Mairi added, addressing the man, "It was the Euston Station." Then they drove away.

"Are you going home?" said the young girl, looking up with a strange foreboding and sinking of the heart to the pale face and distant eyes—"Are you going home, Miss Sheila?"

"Oh yes, we are going home, Mairi," was the answer she got, but the tone in which it was uttered filled her mind with doubt, and something like despair.

[TO BE CONTINUED.]

THE LAST OF THE IDYLLS

"Ended at lastThose wondrous dreams, so beautifully told!It seems that I have through enchantment passed,And lived and loved in that fair court of old."Yes, yes, I know—The old Greek idylls about which you rave,Theocritus and his melodious flowOf verse, and all that Moschus sang o'er Bion's grave."You've shown me oftHow far superior all that they have said—That Tennyson has learned to soar aloftBy seeking inspiration from the greater dead."And yet in meA pulse is never stirred by what they sing:The reason I know not, unless it beTheir idylls are not Idylls of the King."You smile: no doubtYou think I've never learned to criticise.Perhaps so, yet I feel that which I speak about.And Enim is the last! Well, no more sighs;"For spring is here:I have no time to waste in dreamings vain.After our marriage—nay, you need not sneer—We will read all the idylls through again.""So shall it beSo long as lives the love which poets sing.The harp is still, yet is begun for theeA lifelong dream—the idyll of thy king."F.F. ELMS.

OUR MONTHLY GOSSIP

AN EVENING IN CALCUTTA

About six o'clock every evening the beau monde of Calcutta begins to take the air on the Course, a very pleasant drive which runs along the bank of the river. It is usually crowded with carriages, but it must be confessed that none of them would be likely to excite the envy of an owner of a fashionable turn-out at home, unless indeed it might be now and then for the sake of the occupants.

Long before the Course begins to thin it is almost dark, and then, if the poor lounger is "unattached," and is sharing his buggy with a friend as unfortunate as himself, the general effect of the scene before him is the most interesting object for his gaze. The carriages continue to whirl past, but one sees hardly more of them than their lamps. The river glides, cold and shining, a long silvery light under the opposite bank, while trees and masts and rigging relieve themselves against the golden bars of the distant sky. But the band ceases to play, and every one goes home to dress.

If the traveler chooses, he may find many an amusing drive in the native parts of the town. Tall Sikhs, whose hair and beards have never known scissors or razor, and who stride along with a swagger and high-caste dignity; effeminate Cingalese; Hindoo clerks, smirking, conceited and dandified too, according to their own notions; almost naked palkee-bearers, who nevertheless, if there is the slightest shower, put up an umbrella to protect their shaven crowns; up-country girls with rings in their noses and rings on their toes; little Bengalee beauties; Parsees, Chinese, Greeks, Jews and Armenians, in every variety of costume, are to be seen bargaining on the quays, chaffering in the bazaars, loading and unloading the ships, trotting along under their water-skins, driving their bullock-carts, smoking their hookahs or squatting in the shade.

We have had the good fortune, thanks to our interest in native manners and customs, to make the acquaintance of a Hindoo merchant, a millionaire and a bon vivant, on whom his religion sits somewhat lightly. We might, if we had not been otherwise engaged, have dined with him this evening. He would have been delighted to receive us, and would have treated us with abundant hospitality and kindness. The dinner would have been of a composite character, partly European, partly native. A sort of rissole of chicken would certainly have been one of the dishes, and with equal certainty would have met with your approval: the curry, too, would have satisfied you, even if you had just come from Madras or Singapore. There would have been knives and forks for us: our convives would not have made much use of the latter, and some of the dishes on which they would have exercised their fingers would hardly have tempted us. The champagne and claret are excellent, and our host, Hindoo as he is, is not sparing in his libations; and at the same time he and his countrymen would have been vociferous in pressing us to eat and drink, filling our glasses the moment they were empty, and heaping our plates with the choicest morsels. After all, however, perhaps we have had no great loss in missing the dinner. We shall enjoy the pleasant drive, and by being a little late shall escape the not very delightful sound of various stringed instruments being tuned. Arrived, we leave our horse and buggy to the care of some most cutthroat-looking individuals, who crowd round with much noise and gesticulation, wondering who and what we are, while the noise brings out a sort of majordomo, who recognizes us as friends of the master, and soon clears a way for us across the courtyard, takes us up a flight of steps, and ushers us into a long and tolerably well-lighted room. Our host comes forward with outstretched hands, and with great cordiality welcomes and presents us to his friends. We can't understand all he says, for his English at the best is not always intelligible, and he is now particularly talkative and jolly: it is evident he has dined. There is a great noise; every one is talking and laughing; and the talking is loud, for it has to overcome the sounds made by sundry musicians seated at the other end of the room, who are striking their tomtoms and singing a most doleful chant. The baboo bustles about, and makes vacant for us two sofas, the places of honor. Little marble tables are before them, on which are placed wine, brandy and soda-water. The other guests resume their seats along the two sides of the room on our right and left. There are eight or ten men and two or three ladies; the ladies very handsomely dressed. Lower down are several young girls in light drapery, laughing, talking and smoking their hookahs. The fair sex look rather scared and shyly at the foreigners, but some of the men are evidently trying to reassure them. Order being at length restored, our cheroots lighted and our iced brandy-pawnee made ready, the performance recommences. The corps de ballet are not hired for the occasion, but form part of the establishment of our friend the baboo. One of the girls seated near the musician advances slowly, in time with the music, to within a few feet of one of our sofas, and she is followed by another, who places herself opposite the other sofa. Others in the same way prepare to dance before the other guests. They all stand for a moment in a languid and graceful attitude, the music strikes up a fresh air, and each nautch-girl assumes the first position of her dance. She stands with outstretched arm and hand, quivering them, and allowing her body very slightly to partake of the same movement. Her feet mark the time of the music, not by being raised, but by merely pressing the floor with the toes. The action and movement thus seem to run like a wave through the body, greatest where it begins in the hand, and gradually diminishing as it dies away in the foot. With a change of time in the accompaniment the girl drops her arm, advances a step or two nearer the person before whom she is dancing, and leans back, supporting her whole weight on one foot, with the other put forward, and pressing against the floor the border of her drapery.

In her hands she holds a little scarf, which serves to give a motive to the action of the arms and head. The movement in this figure, which admits of great variety, no two performers being at all alike in it, is somewhat stronger than in the first. The undulation, too, instead of dying away gradually from its commencement, runs with equal force, like the line of an S, through the body. Without any pause in the music the dancer sometimes glides imperceptibly into, sometimes begins with startling suddenness, the next movement. The general position remains what it was before, but to describe how its principle of life and motion seems concentrated below the dancer's waist, and from thence flows in undulating streams, to flash from or to dull, according to her organization, the eyes, and to crisp the child-like feet with which she grasps the carpet, is for me impossible. A Gavarni might draw what would recall this wonderful pantomime to the brain of one who had seen it, but nothing but his own imagination could suggest it to him who had not. One of these girls is a perfect actress: numberless shades of expression pass over her delicate features, but the prevailing one is a beseeching, supplicating look. We administer to her, as the custom is, some rupees in token of our admiration, and with an arch smile the no longer supplicating damsel passes on.

A vague notion prevails that a nautch is a very naughty and improper exhibition. My experience is limited, but I must say that in the few I have seen there was nothing that a sergent de mile at Mabille could have objected to. Certainly, no one who retains a seat during the performance of a ballet can say a word on the subject. If the charge of indelicacy is to be brought against either, it would, I think, weigh most heavily against the latter. The Indian dance is voluptuous and graceful, as a dance should be; which is more than can be affirmed of a ballet of the French school, some of the attitudes of which are certainly not addressed only to the sense of beauty. But it was now late, and, although the festivities showed no signs of abatement, we bade our host adieu and returned home.

W.H.S.

NO DANBURY FOR ME

Not in Danbury. No: life has too many vicissitudes in that Connecticut borough. It presents too kaleidoscopic an appearance to suit my style. Family catastrophes succeed each other at a brisker rate than I am used to. I shouldn't relish being a Danbury man on North street or South street: indeed, if you urge the thing, not even on East, West or any other street. I could by no manner of means hope to get reconciled to the accidents, you know. It is climatic, I suppose—an exhilarating air. I should be attempting all sorts of impossible feats, my sickly failures would of course get into the papers, and chagrin, dismay and general discomfort would be my earthly lot. I am not ambitious to undertake teaching the family to rock the cradle, fry doughnuts, do the family ironing and coax our stray hens into the coop, all in one motion. Nor am I impatient to get up in the moonlight with the idea buzzing in my brain that burglars have arrived, and after putting two or three pounds of lead into our best cow, to creep back to bed feeling badly, like a second Alexander, that there's no more glory. Really, I haven't enterprise enough for Danbury.

Now, there are men who ought to start off at once and move into that town. A wide-awake, bustling fellow, who craves excitement, who is never happy unless whirling around like a bobbin with a ten-per-cent. semi-annual dividend to earn, who is on hand at all the dog-fights, Irish funerals, runaway teams, tenement fires, razor-strop matinées, and public convulsions generally,—such a man, if he went well recommended, would be likely to find, I imagine, constant employment in the town of Danbury. He might make arrangements to take his meals on the jump, and would sleep of course with his hat and boots on. Browne is mercurial. Browne would be happy in Danbury. Till he died. For a fortnight, say—one brief, glowing, ecstatic fortnight. Fourteen giddy days would surely finish him. Imagine Browne (him of the eagle eye) up in the morning, his face washed, hair combed, breakfast taken aboard, and everything trim and tight for sailing out into the surging whirlpool of Danbury locals. We see him fold the substantial Mrs. B. to his manly bosom and discharge a parent's duty toward the little Brownes. We see him tear himself from the bosom of his family. It is affecting, as those things usually are.

Browne gains the street, backing out of his gate as he blows a superfluous kiss to Miss Tilly Browne, his youngest. He lurches, just as you may expect, into a stout market-woman laden with eggs and garden vegetables. She careens wildly, and plunges into a baby-cart that is pushing by. The darling occupant of fourteen months is smothered in a raw omelet and frescoed over the eye by bunches of asparagus. The cries of the sweet little cherub would melt the stoutest heart. The market-lady caracoles around, and leads Browne to infer that his conduct is not approved, from her festooning that gentleman's eyes with heavy lines of crape. Mrs. Browne arrives on the scene. The baby goes into fits. The fast-assembling crowd cry "Shame!" and Browne, after trying in vain to apologize, seeks the shelter of a hack and makes good his escape.

He descends at Main street, just in time to observe the man with the ladder and paint-pot working his way up along. That genius is smashing in store fronts and dropping paint liberally on the population. However, as he does this twice a day regularly through the week, it does not appear to attract much attention, except from strangers.

The fat gentleman who is in training to remove pieces of orange-peel from the sidewalk has already begun his labor of love for the day. He is just getting up and dusting himself as Browne goes by. There is nothing fresh in this either, so Browne does not stop. He merely nods and hurries on.

That Danbury youth who gets snarled up so badly when he is sent to do anything, and who has lived through no end of mustard plaster and other soothing applications, is standing in a doorway whistling. Browne conceives it to be a capital idea to waylay this boy and interview him. But, as if divining Browne's purpose, the young hero gives a war-whoop and dives down a side alley. Browne will write up the interview just the same, though.

Browne sees something lively now, something Danburian. A fire company in lobster-colored shirts turn into Main street, aided and abetted by a brass band hired by the job to play furiously. Browne admires the gallant firemen as they step along bravely, winking at the pretty girls on either side—at the machine which glistens in the sun, and maintains a lively jingling of bells and brass-work as it joggles over the pavement. "Ah," thinks Browne, "this is gorgeous!" It is. Browne's instincts are generally correct.

The man who assists in carrying the bass drum has a sore thumb, a sensitively sore thumb. Nothing more natural, when Sherman goes "marching through Georgia," than that this thumb should come in for a share of attention. The bang it gets sends the acutest pain running up and down its owner's spine. In a frenzy (in a moment, we may say, of emotional insanity) he draws a tomahawk and buries it in the head of the captain of that bass drum. The infuriated musician, supposing it to be the cornet who has mutinied, at once gets his Smith & Wesson in range. When the smoke has cleared away three shots are found to have taken effect—two of them in a span of high-stepping horses attached to the elegant turnout of old Mrs. P–. That estimable lady is spilled into the third-story window of an establishment where sits our old friend Hannah binding shoes. The shock so far upsets poor Hannah's reason that she turns a blood-curdling somersault out upon an awning, bounces back, and on her return trip carries away a swinging sign and a barber's pole. These heavy articles strike on a copper soda-fountain, which explodes with a fearful noise, and mortally wounds a colored man uninsured against accident. (Full particulars for the next twelve months in the insurance journals.) The gallant boys in red flannel, assuming from the commotion that a fire must be under way in the neighborhood, set the machine to work in a twinkling. The leading hoseman in his hurry rams his bouquet into the fire-box, tries to screw his silver trumpet on the end of the hose, and stands on his stiff glazed hat to find out what kind of strategy is needed. Then they proceed to drown out an ice-cream saloon on the wrong side of the street.

Browne is happy. He climbs a lamppost, and sets to work taking notes as fast as his pencil can fly. Somebody, mistaking his coat-tail pockets for the post-office, drops in a set of public documents (it is the last day of franking), which so interferes with Browne's equilibrium that he falls over backward into an ash-barrel, after getting out of which he finds it rests him to write with his pencil in his teeth. At last order is restored, the thumb is repaired, and the procession, getting untangled, moves off to the inspiriting strains of "Ain't you glad," etc.

Browne mixes in two more scenes before lunch. In the afternoon there's a balloon ascension, where everything goes up but the balloon; and a croquet-party brim full of eccentricities. Browne picks up half a dozen juvenile and domestic incidents, hardly worth alluding to, and goes home, through a series of adventures, to find a tall, raw-boned horse, a total stranger, walking over his flower-beds and occasionally looking in at the windows. Browne's skirmishes around the animal (the whole campaign together) cost him about thirty dollars.

I resign Danbury to Browne. Though there's a capital fellow there whom I should like to see, I'd rather not go down there and pay taxes.

SARSFIELD YOUNG.

ANOTHER GHOST

In the August number of this magazine a narrative is given of a ghostly appearance which haunted a house in a seaside town. The writer states that she was not an actor in its scenes, nor was it related to her by one who was. Having more than once heard the story from the lips of the principal witness of the events, Mrs. M– of Newport, I can confirm the correctness of the narrative, in the main. Some of the particulars, however, having been altered in the transmission, I will give my version, to the best of my remembrance.

When Mrs. M– hired the house, which had been for some time vacant, she found it difficult to procure or keep servants. This in itself is not uncommon, but in this case there was something more. The servants complained of being disturbed at night by a woman who walked the chambers with a white hood upon her head—not a sun-bonnet, as I am glad to state, which is certainly a more commonplace head-dress. Some of the neighbors were also asking from time to time who that woman was who sat at the upper hall window in a white hood. It could not have been a little boy who was disturbed by the strange woman, for Mrs. M– had no son, but one of the daughters when sitting in the upper hall on a hot evening, and making the remark that it was very warm, heard the reply from out of the darkness, "I am so cold!"