I.

THE PRAISE OF FRIENDSHIP.

Tregurtha and Roscoria are friends. Tregurtha is, as his name sufficiently indicates, a Cornishman. He was also a sharp lad, and, before his term of residence at his first dame's school was fairly run out, he cut his cables and escaped to sea. To this act of insubordination he had been instigated mainly by Louis Roscoria, a small schoolfellow, his junior by several years, and his stanch adherent. The two had shared a room, done each other's lessons, worn each other's hats, taken each other's floggings; and, in short, the devil himself had never come between them. But they parted pretty soon, for, encouraged by his young friend's energetic support, Dick Tregurtha made haste to follow his destiny and infuriate his parent by running away to sea. Small Roscoria, who was the good boy of the school and always got the prize for conduct, saw his friend well on his way, wished him God-speed, exchanged pocket-knives with him, and then lay on the grass kicking his heels, and howled in his grief until he got caned for refusing to tell what had become of Tregurtha.

The friendship thus grounded on mutual services has never been broken.

Dick once wrote from foreign parts an elaborate apology. He said he was sorry, but the sea was his god, and he hoped his father would overlook it. He added that, whether on sea or land, he trusted to be no discredit to the name Tregurtha, and ended by very properly observing, as boys do, that, since he had carved out his own line of action, he should feel his honor engaged to make it a successful one.

Tregurtha's rather crusty parent did not overlook it. On receipt of this letter he presently called the rest of the family together and thanked God that he was rid of a knave.

Meantime, Roscoria went to Eton, thence to Cambridge. He behaved after the manner of most brilliant men: showed a reluctance to give his mind to what was definitely expected of[Pg 142] him, and scored heavily in exams, by some thoughtful rendering of a knotty point in Plato, or by striking ideas based on private reading of the German metaphysicians. He was far from being idle, but he took too æsthetic a pleasure in his work, and vexed the souls of middle-aged dons.

Subsequently Roscoria (who of course left Cambridge without an idea as to his future) went abroad to tutor the sons of an Englishman in Rome. He remained there a year, after which time his father died, and left Louis Roscoria, sole descendant of an old family, owner of a meager estate in Devonshire, and possessor of means perhaps in proportion to his merit, but nothing over.

Even scapegrace Tregurtha was better off, for his bodily wants were provided for on board a ship; and though promotion loomed very vaguely in the distance, yet his immediate salt pork and future were assured.

Suddenly a brilliant and Utopian notion occurred to Louis the Philosopher. He was a bit of a philanthropist, and hopelessly romantic, and had been pained by public-school immorality. He was also an unpractical man by nature. So he resorted to his present employer, Mr. Rodda, also a Devonshire man, and said, "What if I set up a school?"

"On your own account, man? Why, you would be ruined!" cried old Rodda, over his port.

"I doubt it, sir," responded Roscoria, gayly. "You forget that moldy old house of mine. I shall never be able to let it, unless to an incurable lunatic, and it is too large for any decent bachelor to live alone in. Good! I fill it with a set of boys. I teach them on an entirely new and original system—and make a little money, which I need not tell you, sir, is wanted in this quarter."

"I would lay you any money, if you had it, young man, that you fail," said Mr. Rodda, comfortably (he was a little "cheered" by this time;) "but if you are bent on the experiment, and as I have a high opinion of your principles, though none of your judgment, there is my youngest son, Tom; we can make nothing of him at home, and I don't believe he will ever be any good, so you may just take him as a beginning."

"No, really, sir? You are too good," said Roscoria, flushing grandly with the inflatus of ambition. "I believe much can be done with boys by taking them young, and if I succeed with dear Tom—nothing ought ever to baffle me again."

Roscoria settled down in his ancestral home at the head of a collection of such boys as a private tutor will generally get—awkward boys in temper, vicious boys, hopelessly dense boys, backward boys, idle, wool-gathering, foolish, blockish boys. Two lads had been expelled from Eton, but Roscoria thought himself a born reformer. A third youth had been recently superannuated: he was for ballast, Louis said. At first the young schoolmaster governed the wild set gently, having great faith in boyhood. Afterward he fell one afternoon upon a passage in Plato: "If he is willingly persuaded, well; but if not, like a[Pg 143] bent and twisted tree, they make him straight by threats and blows."

Blows! Happy thought! "The influence of my mind and character on theirs has failed," Roscoria thought. "Go to, now; let us see whether there be not some animal magnetism by which a lad may be drawn toward the good." And Roscoria felt up and down his strong young arm, and knew a complacent sense of muscle.

At this time Roscoria met again, and liked as well as ever, Dick Tregurtha.

Tregurtha had grown sun-browned, tall, and broad. Tregurtha had merry blue eyes and a winsome grin. One was happy to shake hands with a man who was obviously on such good terms with his own heart and conscience.

"You helped me to run away from school, you know," he said, holding out his hand to Roscoria when they first met again.

"Yes; did I serve you well by that?" asked Roscoria, who had grown into what our ancestors called "a pretty fellow," with features as correct as his own morality, and a pair of dreamy black eyes.

"You did; I've not forgotten it. Here is your knife in token."

"And here is yours. Come and dine with me."

And the two young men got into a corner and foregathered together, and the friendship renewed by romance was riveted firm by reason.

This is the one important feature in these two young men, and the one point that distinguishes them from others. Now passionate natures know no "friends," nor commonplace ones either. A friend is only granted to philosophers.

When a sociable hunting-man asked the other day, "How do you make a friend? I never had one; I never wanted one," at least he knew what he was talking about. And indeed, few people want a friend, and there are many other sentiments to satisfy the unworthy. Is not love perennial, a thing as common as June roses? Acquaintanceship is necessary; affection is a partially inevitable state. But friendship ever was, as it is now, the rarest gift beneath the sun. Ask any one, all the same, who has ever known an assured friend, whether he would give him up for any pleasure or profit.

Why, see how the theme of Friendship makes even Montaigne serious and eloquent. Observe how it has attracted great minds of all descriptions. If Byron could be brought to affirm that "Friendship is love without his wings"—well, there must be something in it.

Friendship is for two of the same sex, during the difficult period of middle life. Of course the friendship should have been formed during youth, but then it will have been kept in abeyance, as it were, gradually forming into a solid rock to rest upon after the quicksands of love have been settled somehow. Then will it be found:

[Pg 144]

No wonder it is rare, for if such a glowing glory of content were often known among us, this world would grow too orderly, and men would all be angels for the sake of Friendship!

II.

ARLETTA OF FALAISE.

"Tregurtha," said his friend one summer evening, "to-morrow is a holiday. The boys are all off on various expeditions, assisted by boats, donkeys, butterfly nets, or tins with worms. Even that little plague Tom Rodda is going, under the charge of a trusty sailor, for a day's shrimping. Now, in the midst of this general mouse-play, what is to become of the cat—meaning me? The pedagogue ought to go off on the spree like every one else. I am sure he is the hardest worked. You are with me; let us somehow celebrate your arrival ashore. We must go somewhere not haunted by the boys. Boys are my aversion, as you know; besides, if one meets them abroad they are in mischief. One has to cut up rough, and the result is that greatest of earth's failures, a spoilt holiday. What say you, O comrade, to a day's fishing in the Lyn?"

"I don't say much," replied Tregurtha; "but if you will excuse me, I shall go and look up my flies."

"6.30 a. m. Don't oversleep yourself," said Roscoria, chuckling youthfully, as he shook Tregurtha by the hand.

Hard as disciplinarian Roscoria ever found it to arise on work-a-days, when getting out of bed meant reading prayers in a stentorian hoarse voice, and then administering an hour's Greek before breakfast, no such difficulty attended his leap from the arms of Morpheus when he heard Tregurtha's thundering knock on this most halcyon Saturday.

"Propitious heavens, keep but this face all day!" was Louis' greeting to as fair an angler's sky as ever ushered in a holiday. Off clattered the companions in a hired and rakish-looking vehicle; Tregurtha in the front seat chaffing the driver, and Roscoria on an insecure perch behind, swinging his legs, beaming on his fly-book, and altogether presenting an aspect of radiant boyishness wholly incompatible with his grave scholastic calling. Up and down they went, walking up the hills to spare the worthy horse, dashing down them in true Devonshire fashion; past woods and down to the sea at Lynmouth, there to alight, drink cider, and buy fishing tickets. Then on again, rolling along the beautiful road to Watersmeet, where the trees were all in brightest foliage and the wildest flowers thick amidst the grass. The morning sun was sucking up the rain of last night from the glittering leaves, and a pensive breeze hovered in the air, causing the birds to sing.

"Hey, Roscoria! but I hope it's not too bright!" was the remark the glory of the day evoked from his companion.

"Tregurtha, do not tempt the gods; the day is heavenly, and if we do not dine on trout to-night——" The remainder of Roscoria's[Pg 145] song of praise was abruptly cut short, for in assuming too negligent an attitude for greater convenience of harangue he had overbalanced himself, and now lay prone on the road some twenty yards behind. Having picked himself up and dusted his hat, Roscoria reascended in more cautious vein, whilst the driver cheered on his horse, reflecting on the probable results of matutinal cider on a youth whose ordinary "habit" was the Pierian spring.

After what seemed to these artists of the greenheart-wand an unconscionably long, though lovely drive, the lowest point was reached where it is of any use to rig up a rod—namely, that nice little field through which the river runs so sweetly, just before you come to Brendon. Here our two holiday-makers descended, with many a parting gibe at their good-natured jehu. Then down they sat in the moist grass, after the manner of men under thirty, and out each drew a bulging pocket-book. Thereafter, silence, save for such murmurs as: "Hallo, I don't believe this reel runs smoothly!" "Where is that penknife?" "Tregurtha, lend us a blue upright if you value my happiness!" and so on in that delightful, half-excited talk that precedes trial of one's luck.

Noon approached; the two young men were fishing steadily, separated by several pools; now and then they passed each other with a cheery jest or an absent-minded greeting, according as they happened to be engrossed in their sport, or only idly lashing at the water. Now Tregurtha was on in front, in a fragrant meadow, with some interested lambs for his spectators. He was musing sleepily as he cast his line, for fish in the Lyn do not run very large, and Tregurtha's sport, though he had a dozen nice trout in his basket, was not of a nature to claim the highest powers of his intellect. An unexpected rousing came to him, however. A large and goodly fish rolled over suddenly and took the fly well in his mouth, then plunged for the lower depths and lay there sulking. Tregurtha was at once all promptitude and energy. He threw a stone to move the wary trout; he left it alone; he gave it a tentative jerk; he tried every means to persuade or frighten his victim into stirring, but it all seemed useless, the fish was obstinate. Tregurtha was just beginning to

wonder whether he should have to walk in and fetch his trout, or whether he would take a seat and wait its pleasure, when the matter came to a crisis. One of the inquisitive young lambs, which was very tame, and thought Tregurtha was the farmer's lad, dashed suddenly in between his legs with a bound, after the sportive manner of its race.

Tregurtha stumbled, let the point of his rod down for an instant, recovered his footing, and hastily rectified his position. Alas! is it necessary to state that the line flew up flippantly into the empty air, and the fly settled on the top bough of an alder hanging over the opposite bank. The fish—well fishes, unlike human beings, know how to use an opportunity; this trout was off to the dentist to cure him of a toothache. Tregurtha was not an irritable man; he did not swear; he did not stamp; he turned to the mischief-working lamb and said: "Is this your[Pg 146] vaunted innocence, you horrid little meddling beast?" and then he whistled softly to himself, rubbed up his rough hair all on end, and stood still, looking rueful.

"Oh, tell me how to woo thee, love!" sang suddenly a sweet voice round the bend of the stream, and then a break occurred in the song, and the singer petulantly exclaimed, "Oh, bothered be these stones forever; they are so slippery!"

Tregurtha's rod fell from his paralyzed hand as round the corner came, wading through the shallow part of the running stream close to the head of the very pool he was fishing, a maiden! Yes, and a lady too, though her gown was caught up and thrown over one arm, displaying as its substitute a short striped skirt of brilliant coloring, and her lovely feet shone white through the sunlit waters as unconsciously she stepped along.

"Heaven have mercy on me!" Tregurtha thought wildly, as he stood rooted to the spot, marveling meanwhile why he did not cast himself into the deep pool before him. The inevitable moment came; the damsel lifted her large dark eyes and saw him.

"Oh, I beg—I beg—I beg your pardon!" almost roared Tregurtha in the excess of his manly bashfulness.

What did the maid? Blushed crimson first, and stared at the intruder with a speechless horror, letting drop, by instinct, her pretty overskirt. Then she turned quickly, seized the branch of a large oak-tree and tried to raise herself by it to the opposite bank, where, once arrived, she could have vanished in a second through the wood. Alas! as she clung to the bough, the traitor broke, and down went the maiden, with a shivering cry, under the surface of the water. Well, at any rate, here was an occasion where a man need not feel an idiot, nor like Actæon before the wrath of Artemis. Tregurtha felt a sense of positive relief as he plunged in after the lady, and dragged her out and on to her much-desired bank, all breathless, faint, and frightened.

"I wonder now what on earth you would like me to do for you?" Tregurtha asked, depositing his burden respectfully upon a mossy seat.

"Oh—ah!—thank you. I think you had better perhaps go," the maiden answered, panting still for breath, and shaking her dripping hair.

"You are faint. You would like—at least, no, not some water—you have had enough, and I—I dare not offer you some whisky. There's your poor hat still in the water. Oh, gracious! to think of my spoiling all your pleasure in this way."

Tregurtha seized upon the hat, squeezing the water out of it (much to the detriment of its shape) as if it were the juice from an orange. Reduced to a pulp of straw and muslin, he brought it to its mistress, who, smiling, said, "This hat has seen many a wild frolic, but I sadly fear this most embarrassing, though amusing, incident has finished my companion, and it will cover my foolish head no more. I must go home, or I shall catch a cold."

[Pg 147]

"But pray accept my apologies—my most sincere and humblest apologies," began Tregurtha.

"I beg you will not mention—— Oh dear, dear!" The damsel burst suddenly into uncontrollable, resistless laughter. "Please could you keep away, right round the corner, until I fetch my boots? I am so sorry to have interrupted you in your, no doubt, successful fishing." Here she glanced inquiringly at the line caught and mazily entangled in the alder bush. "Good-morning, sir."

Tregurtha blushed deeply, bowed and strode away as though avenging Fate were at his heels—away over the meadow, through its little gate, along the road, down to the river again, where Roscoria stood coolly, immersed in hopes of monster trout.

"Well, old fellow; why, you've been wading! Fish gone?" asked Louis.

"Fish be —— I've had such an experience, Roscoria. I have seen a lady!"

"Mercy on us, Tregurtha! is that so unusual? Why, man, you are almost pale! Tell us your wonderful story."

Tregurtha did so, "with stammering lips and insufficient sound," whilst Roscoria opened his basket and took therefrom an ample lunch, besides displaying the trout he had caught. "They are not large," he said, surveying the fish affectionately, "but they are very beautiful. And now, friend, are you too much overcome for mutton sandwiches, or will you try a limb of that blessed duck that old Rodda sent down?"

"But, Roscoria," murmured Tregurtha, as he ate, "I am afraid you don't quite enter into the extreme indelicacy of the situation!"

"Far be it from me," retorted Louis—"cake, Tregurtha?"

"Not with duckling, thank you. The lady—her feet—I should say her boots——"

"Were off, I understand," quoth Louis, dryly. "Hallo! is this the lady?"

He alluded to the appearance of a very small girl, bare-foot, grave, and chubby, who wandered into the meadow from an adjacent farmyard, and stood as near as she dared go to the sportsmen, gazing with friendly, covetous eyes on their outspread repast.

"Child," said Roscoria at last, "do you like cake?"

The infant nodded her head solemnly, her big eyes brightening the while.

"Then take hold of this and be merry," replied the pedagogue, extending an ambrosial slice. The small child hesitated after the manner of her sex and age, hung her head, bit her tiny fingers, and finally advanced and received the donation. She did not seem at all inclined to go, but stood solemnly munching by Roscoria's side as he reclined on the grass, and she did not prevent the crumbs from falling down his neck, which was not pleasant.

"Child," said Roscoria again, "you may sit down." Down sat the wee lass comfortably enough, and gazed into Roscoria's[Pg 148] fine black eyes as if she had not often seen so goodly a gentleman. Roscoria endeavored hard to meet her stare, and for five minutes or so he succeeded; but those two serious blue eyes embarrassed him at length, and, turning to Tregurtha, with a somewhat nervous laugh, he observed, in Greek, that the infant was alarming to him, and that he should be compelled to hide his eyes within his robe. "Who gave you—I mean, what is your name?" Tregurtha asked the baby. True to her training, the child arose, shook out her frock, and made a courtesy, whilst she answered, with effort to remember:

"Hanner Marier."

"Then Hannah—or Anna—Maria, would your mother give us each a glass of cider, think you?"

"Should you like some?" inquired A. M., as she sought Roscoria's face again.

"Dearly, my lass."