" He

have got a cursed notion that I am crazy. Notwithstanding all my efforts to induce whereas the truth is, I was never so sane in sleep, as night drew on his delirium inall my life. You can see for yourself, Doc- creased. He was incessantly talking and tor, that I am no more crazy than you or endeavoring to get out of bed. Through any other man; yet see how I am treated ?” the night his talk ran to cards and dice and And throwing back his head he exclaimed the various methods of gambling. dramatically:

must get back that money.

He had been “ But man, proud man,

cheated, grossly cheated; but mother must Dressed in a little brief authority,

not know, and Tom must not know; he Plays such fantastic tricks before high heaven must get back that money, quick! quick! As make the angels weep."

Poor mother should live like a queen; “ It is an outrage, Doctor; it is an out- Tom should never want that money—that rage.”

money." “ That is true. It is an outrage, an outrag- More convincing evidence could not be eous outrage.” And bending over him as furnished that this poor creature was Tom's if fearful of being overheard : “ Now I will brother and Dyer's victim, though Dyer's tell you what we will do. We are both in name was never mentioned. the same boat. I have got to stay here, and Soon after daylight the attending physiyou have got to stay here till they choose to cian looked in and shook his head. “ Unlet us go. But we won't wear strait-jackets, less the critical sleep comes soon, it will either of us. If

you will lie still and keep come only with death. You must be tired; covered I will get this jacket off ; but mind, come and rest; I will find you a quiet if you go to throwing yourself about and place,” said he kindly. getting up, they will see that the jacket is But I left him only for necessary refreshoff, and it will go on again before you can ments. Till he slept I could not sleep. It

was as if I carried Tom's heart, Dyer's conHe promised as solemnly as if his life was science, and Agnes's anguish in my own at stake, as I truly believe it was. He lay bosom, along with that direst of all burdens, quite still while I unstripped his person, and the weight of an unrepentant soul, going with eager haste he helped me get off his swiftly and blindfold into the presence of jacket and throw it under the cot.

its Maker. Never was man more rejoiced or more Professor Tyndall says something like grateful; but he forgot his promise instant this : “ Prayer is the cry of a creature in ly, for he sat up in bed and began to make distress." Granted, and it proves more me a speech. What he said I never knew. than he would believe. If there was not in I only saw that he was speaking rapidly, everything that lives a premonition, howwith a repeated outward and upward move- ever blind, of a strength beyond its weakment of the left hand, a gesture peculiar to ness, of a help for its distress, would anyTom Peebles. Then, too, at the conclusion thing ever cry out? Was there ever a of some impassioned sentence, I heard the demand for which there was absolutely no rising inflection of Tom's earnest voice. It supply? was not strange that Joel Dyer, looking at And it is also a way of escape. There and listening to the Rev. Mr. Peebles, saw comes, sooner or later, into the lives of most also Robert Lyon.

men and women, hours when if it were not I recovered promptly, and pointing to the for this way of escape, this upward avenue jacket under the bed reminded him of his along which sore-footed need can climb to promise. He plunged under the coverlid, something stronger and higher, the agony and for a while lay as still as a stone. From could not be borne. It may be no articuthat moment I was able to enforce silence late prayer, no conscious putting into words in the midst of his wildest paroxysms; that of the creature's imperative necessity; but jacket had turned into some horrible mon- it is nevertheless a sending out from ourster waiting to devour him.

selves of a certain portion of our misery,

say Jack.”

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which, if it has no other result, enables us to I told him. Hydrate of chloral was then bear what remains. So that day was to me just coming into use among venturesome one continuous prayer. Words I had none. practitioners, and had been employed with I was conscious only of an importunate up- good effect in cases of mania a potu. French lifting of my soul to Him in whose hands physicians are usually well up in all the lay all issues. It was as if was carrying novelties, but this man was elderly and conthis poor creature in my arms and holding servative, and disposed to stick to the old him up before his Maker. If I could have ways rather than risk the lives of his pasaid anything it would have been, “Look, tients by experiments. He mused dubiously Lord, look!"

before he said: Toward night symptoms of exhaustion “Well, yes. He will die any way, and a began to be manifest.

few hours more or less, are of little conse“ Convulsions come,-and the end,” said quence.” the attending physician as he stopped to I wanted to be sure that the preparation look at him on his way through the ward. was pure and fresh, and he told me where

“You think his chance is small then ?” to go, and kindly gave me a note to the

"Very small. This is probably not his apothecary. first attack.”

The first dose seemed to increase his deThus far I had followed closely the phy- lirium, but directly after the second he besician's directions. Now I asked:

gan to get quiet, and almost immediately "Are you willing to leave him entirely in fell into a sound sleep. The attending my hands ?”

physician stayed by his cot, manifesting a He looked at me narrowly. “ You wish keen interest, till he was convinced that the to pursue a different treatment?”

sleep was normal and healthy, when he said “ There is one agent I would try.” frankly, “I believe you have saved him," “ What is it?”

and went off to his apartments.

Come back thou kindred of speech,

Thou dim shape soft and gray!
No sound save the tide on the beach

Rolling a league away;
But it haunted my chamber bower,
That cry, till the sunset hour.

Harriet McEwen Kimball.

A RUSSIAN VILLAGE TEA-PARTY.

Sunset over the village of Ismailow; the and the faithful description of whose dailytall green tower of the single church, with life would seem as monstrous and incredible its lead-covered cupola, standing boldly out as the first accounts of the African gorilla. against the crimson sky; several scores of Ignorant as an Australian savage; superstiquaint little log huts clustered around it, tious as an ancient Athenian; inured to like chickens under the wing of the mother- hardships from which a mediæval anchorite hen; the last ray of the sinking sun casting would have shrunk; at once a glutton and a momentary gleam upon the shining curves an ascetic; peaceful even to sluggishness, yet of one of the countless tributaries of the capable of the most horrible vengeance; Volga, as it winds around the base of the able to sustain life on a pittance of food slope on which the village stands; all around, that would starve an Indian, and to pass outstretched for many a mile, the soft, whole nights out of doors in the depth of dreamy, sunny uplands of Central Russia; winter, with no protection save a tattered and, far in the background, the shadowy sheepskin ; intensely susceptible of kindmasses of the ancient pine forest looming ness, yet ungovernable save by the extreme sullenly along the darkening horizon. of severity, the Mujik is indeed the strang

But, picturesque as is the scene itself, it est of all the waifs stranded by the ebb of is fully matched by the group of figures that the Middle Ages upon the shore of the ninecluster around me, as I sit perched on one teenth century of those huge iron-clamped chests, painted But, strange as are the guests, there is no bright vermilion,* which are to the Russian lack of good cheer. The tumblers (for no peasant what a grand piano or a carved side- true Russian ever thinks of drinking tea board is to his civilized brethren. Strange- from a cup) have been drained again and looking fellows indeed they are, these low- again; the sliced lemons which here do duty browed, sallow, bearded, yellow-haired men; for milk, are already beginning to run short; with the dogged endurance of their race and the huge black rye loaf, once as big as written in every line of their patient, stolid, a hassock, is more than half demolished. unyielding faces. Some are in red calico Nor is all this feasting without a cause. shirts, worn over their other clothes; some, We are now within three days of Lent, and despite the heat of the room, keep to the the festival of “ Maslenitza " (Butter Week) traditional sheepskin frock. A few wear is being celebrated in this remote corner as knee-high boots, smeared with tar; but the zealously as in Moscow or St. Petersburg majority are barefooted, and bare-headed itself. Beside the samovar (tea-urn) which, likewise.

having just been replenished, is now hissing These are the famous “Mujiks” of Russia, and steaming like a miniature volcano, lies of whom so much is said and so little known; a huge platter of those small, round buck

wheat cakes, famous throughout Russia • The negro himself is not more childishly fond of

under the name of “blinni,” which are the gay colors than the Russian, whose very word for " boautiful" (prekrasni) means liturally bright red.” traditional dainty of the season. They are

9

usually eaten with fresh caviare, ur butter, “Aye, aye," chimes in another; "he that or “gwetana,” (sour cream) or all three to remembers by-gones, let him have his eye gether, as taste may direct; but out here on put out” (a native proverb). the steppe, where such relishes are not easily “But tell me, father,” resumes my oppocome by, we are fain to content ourselves site neighbor, “are the countries of the with mutton fat.

South really as beautiful as people make While the teeth are so busy, the tongues them out ?" are anything but idle; for to these isolated " You may say that, Stepan Yakovitch" villagers, in whose eyes a journey to Moscow (Stephen, son of James). “ In some of the or Saratoff is like a Polar voyage or an Af- countries where I've been, I saw trees growrican expedition, the arrival of a traveled ing, one leaf of which would roof this hut vistor is no small treat; and they at once of yours ! ” overwhelmed me with questions.

“ Think of that, now !” “And you have really been to Jerusalem, “And grapes growing by the wayside, father? It must have been a tremendous just as tcherneeki (blueberries) do here.” long journey for you !”

“ See there, brothers; what things there “Not so, brother; it's only twelve days are in this world, to be sure ?" from here."

" And no winter all the

year

round." Visible sensation among my audience. This unlucky announcement destroys at

“ Twelve days !” echoes a brawny fellow once the effect of all that has preceded it. opposite me, in a tone of unbounded amaze- A sudden chill falls upon my hearers, who ment. Why, I thought it was right away exchange looks of silent horror.

I at the ends of the earth, beyond thrice nine

“No winter!” exclaims the soldier at lands” (the Russian phrase for extreme dis- length. “Well, that is Heaven's judgment tance).

on the unbelievers ; they don't deserve to No, not quite so far as that. You ride have one!” to Jaffa, and go by steamer to Constantino- “ Ach, Pavel Petrovitch !” whispers his ple, and then across the Black Sea to neighbor, “ don't you see that the Barin Odessa ; and from there, if you like, you (master) is making fun of us ? As if any can go round the Crimea, as I've been one could get on without a winter !” doing.”

By this time every one has had enough, “And did you see the place where Pavel and there is a general “piling of arms,” in Petrovitch* lost his arm ?” asks my vis-a-vis the midst of which I observe: eagerly, glancing at a one-armed old man in “Now, lads, after a feast comes a song, the corner, whose keen bright eye almost you know; and Pavel Petrovitch here is just contradicts the testimony of his snow-white the man to sing it. I'll be bound he has beard and hair, against which his scarred, sung many a good one by the camp-fire, in swarthy face looks doubly grim.

the old days of '54." “Were you in that business then, brother?” There is a general murmur of approval ; ask I, turning to the veteran.

and the old “moustache,” obviously grati“ Yes, father, I was down there in '54; fied at the compliment, strikes up at once, and it was one of your countrymen who did in a voice which has lost little of the melthis job for me” (tapping his empty sleeve). low ring wherewith it once defied the snows " But what then? when men fight, they've of Bessarabia and the bullets of Inkergot to fight, of course, and I don't bear him any grudge. We're all brothers again now,

“Our Eagle's wing is strong and wide, thank God; and after all, if it was an Our Eagle's beak is keen; Englishman that made the wound, it was To right and left the ranks divide, an Englishman who tied it up for me; aye,

Thro' which its flight hath been. and tore up his own shirt to do it!"

Let heathen hosts around us roar,

Soon shall they flee afar, *Pavel the son of Peter, the customary form of ad

When leveled is our steel once more dress in Russia, even from a servant.

For God and for the Czar!"

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mann.

6

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a story?”

And then the chorus breaks out full- have been a better name for him ; for his mouthed, with a power of time and tune heart was like a flint. If a disabled soldier worthy of

any
orchestra :

came limping along the road, or a poor half

starved pilgrim crawled to the door to beg “For God and for the Czar, For God and for the Czar!

for alms, all he got was a kick, and · Be off Our flag shall fly in every sky

out of this, you dirty fellow!' And, worse For God and for the Czar!"

still, though his own sister (who was as poor “ Then fear not swords that brightly shine,

as he was rich) lived in a miserable hut at Nor towers that grimly frown;

his very door, and was almost crippled with For God shall march before our line,

rheumatism, he never offered to help her a And tread our foemen down.

bit; and, indeed, he had more than once Nor steel, nor fire, nor mountain snow,

threatened to pull down her hut altogether, Our onward way shall bar, When to the field of fight we go

saying that he wouldn't have such a pig-sty For God and for the Czar!"

near his door.

“Well, at last Vasili's heart was so lifted Chorus—"For God and for the Czar," etc.

up by his great riches, that he said to him“Well sung, Pavel Petrovitch!” remark self, “There is no man worthy to be my I, as the song ends. “After that, the least guest; I will invite our Lord himself to we can do is to drink the Czar's health- come and sup with me!' So he brought Long live Father Alexander Nikolaievitch!” out all his best dishes and richest wines, and

“ Long live Father Alexander Nikolaie- put his servants in their gayest liveries, and vitch!” echo all.

spread a carpet on the steps of his house, And now, Stepan Yakovitch,” says the and waited for our Lord to come and be his veteran, “ turn-about is fair play, you know. guest. I've sung you a song—suppose you tell us “ All day he sat watching and waiting;

and whenever a fine carriage appeared in Aye, aye,” strikes in another; " tell us the distance, or a troop of horsemen in uniabout “ Zolotoi Vasili (Golden Basil) and form came dashing along, he thought, “ This his guest.”

must be He!'.

But carriages and horseThe story in question is one which at men went by, and still no guest. At last, least one-half of the company have prob- just as the sun was setting, a poor, thin, ably heard a dozen times already, but the weary-looking man came slowly up to the Russian, like the Turk, can enjoy a good door; and he showed his bleeding feet, and story as thoroughly the twentieth time as craved charity in God's name. the first; and all bend eagerly forward as “ But Vasili was angry at waiting so long our host commences :

in vain ; and he thrust him rudely away, “You must know, then, brothers, that saying: “Begone to my sister's hut yonder ; there lived in Holy Russia, many, many you and she will be well matched !' And years ago, a man who was so rich that to the beggar turned away without a word. reckon his wealth would have been like “ Next morning there stood at Vasili's counting the grass of the steppes. He door a woman whose face was like his sislived in a house as big as yonder church, ter's ; but instead of being crippled, she was and had a carriage finer than our District straight as a grenadier; and instead of rags, Inspector's; and all the dishes on his table she wore a dress worth four roubles (83) a were of gold; and he kept troops of ser- yard. She held out her hand to him and vants in gay liveries, and drank costly wines said: from beyond the sea, and had white bread Brother, a strange thing has befallen for breakfast every morning *; and, in short, me. Last night a beggar came to my door, he was such a great man that every one and I gave him what I had. As we sat called him · Vasili the Golden.'

eating, suddenly his face became like the But, to my mind, Vasili the Iron would great picture above the altar in our church ; This is the Mujik's beau-ideal of luxury.

and he laid his hand softly on my head,

666

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