Harper's Young People, December 16, 1879

The two friends made a careful calculation of the time and distance, and Mr. Seymour also began to feel rather anxious. He stopped the carriage, called the dog back, and made him smell Seppi's bundle again, which they had taken care to bring with them. The dog gave the same short sharp bark as before, then turned round again, and continued the journey in the old direction.

"I haven't the least doubt now," said Mr. Seymour, cheerfully. "We must be on the right track. Go on, postilion!"

After the lapse of half an hour the dog stopped suddenly, threw its head up in the air, and sniffed all around in evident confusion; then, after making a slight detour with anxious speed, leaped across the ditch by the road-side. With a loud bark that seemed to express satisfaction, the intelligent creature made for a small clump of bushes at a little distance from the road, into which it disappeared. In the course of a minute or two the barking was renewed, but this time in a threatening tone.

"We've got him!" exclaimed Mr. Seymour. "There's no doubt the fellow found he could get no farther, and has taken up his quarters in the cover yonder, to make up for the sleep he lost last night."

"Let us go over there, then," said his companion, leaping from the carriage and across the ditch. "Hector is calling us, and is sure to be right."

Mr. Seymour leaped the ditch, followed by Walter and one of the two postilions. Guided by the barking of the dog, they soon reached the thicket, and there found the man they were in quest of, pinned to the earth by the sagacious animal.

"Oh, Seppi! Seppi!" exclaimed Walter, in astonishment and sorrow, "how could you be guilty of such an act as this!"

The conscience-stricken man paled before the indignant youth.

"I will give you back everything, and beg your pardon for all I've done," whined the wretched drover, "if you will only release me from this savage brute that has nearly been the death of me."

At the call of his master the dog quitted his hold, and Seppi handed Walter the money-belt.

Walter counted the notes and gold, and was glad to find the contents untouched. Seppi rose to his feet meanwhile, but stood looking to the ground in shame and fear.

Walter, feeling compassion for him, begged that he might be let off; and Mr. Seymour consented.

Seppi was overjoyed at being let off so easily. He had not dared to expect that Walter would have taken his part, and felt really thankful that his first great crime had not met with a severe and terrible punishment. With earnestness in his tone, he thanked his former companion, and with unaffected emotion assured him solemnly that he would never again stretch out his hand to that which did not belong to him.

He kissed Walter's hand and moistened it with his tears, and was gone.

"Now," said Mr. Seymour, "I think we must set off toward Paris, if we are to get there to-night."

After a long journey, the travellers reached the French metropolis; and Walter repaired with Mr. Seymour to one of the best hotels, where, in a soft and luxurious bed, he soon forgot the toil and anxiety of the day, and slept sounder than he had ever done in his life.

[to be continued.]

THE WEASEL AND THE FROGS

"I think the weasel is a mean, wicked murderer," said Harry, as he came rushing into his mother's room, his face flushed and his little fists clinched tight together: "My white rabbit lies all in a little dead heap in his house, and Mike, the gardener, says the weasel has killed him. He saw it prowling round the barn last night, and why he didn't set a trap and catch it I don't see."

Mamma put aside her sewing, and went to comfort Harry, who began to cry bitterly for the loss of his pet.

"Poor Bunny!" said mamma; "he should not have been left out when Mr. Weasel was around. But we will buy another Bunny, two Bunnies, a white one and a black one, and they shall have a nice little house in the wood-shed, where no weasel can find them."

Harry brightened up at once at the prospect of having two Bunnies, while mamma said: "Now let us talk a little about the weasel. It is not so much to be blamed, after all, for killing Bunny, for it was born with the instinct to catch rabbits and squirrels, rats, mice, and many other small animals, as well as chickens and birds of all kinds. Weasels are very sly little beasts, although if captured when very young they can be tamed, and taught to eat out of their master's hand. If you will listen, and not cry any more, I will tell you what I saw and heard one summer afternoon over by the pond in the meadow. You know it is a very small pond, and that afternoon the water was so still that it looked like a glass eye in the midst of the great green meadow. I sat down on the bank to rest, and to watch the reflection of the bushes and tall water-grasses which overhung the pond. Suddenly the surface of the water was disturbed by a hundred circling ripples, in the centre of which appeared a small dark spot. As I watched, these dark spots became visible all over the pond. The sun was setting, and the beautiful summer twilight coming on, and it was so still it seemed as if Nature and all her pretty minstrels were fast asleep. All at once I heard a hoarse voice, which seemed at my very feet. 'Chu-lunk, chu-lunk, chu-lunk,' it said. It must have been the chorister calling his frog chorus together for their evening song, for in a moment a multitude of voices were answering from the long grasses, the bushes, the water – indeed, the whole neighborhood, a moment before so quiet, was alive with little frog people. They evidently had some cause of complaint against a very wicked person, as my little Harry has just now, for I distinctly heard one say, 'Stole a rabbit, stole a rabbit;' while another answered, 'I saw him do it, I saw him do it.' Then the whole chorus burst out,'We'll pull him in, we'll pull him in.' 'Plump, plump, plump,' added one voice more revengeful than all the rest. I sat very still, waiting to see what was to be pulled plump into the water. I did not have long to wait, but I fancy things took a turn contrary to the one desired by the frog people. There was a sudden rustling in the bushes, a sharp, quick sound like the springing of a cat. The chorus was still in an instant, but the entire shore of the little pond was covered with rushing, springing, jumping frogs. Pell-mell they tumbled over each other in headlong race for the water, to escape their cruel enemy, which now appeared, and showed himself to be a slender little weasel. He darted here and there among the helpless frogs, which made no attempts to 'pull him in,' but bent their whole efforts toward self-preservation. At length, seizing a fat frog in his mouth, the weasel turned and disappeared noiselessly among the bushes. Peace reigned once more, but the little frog people had all jumped into the water, and not a voice was heard protesting or uttering farther threats."

"And did the weasel get more than one poor little frog, mamma?" asked Harry.

"No, he carried off only one frog," replied mamma; "but he killed several more, which he left lying dead in the grass. I dug a hole in the mud with a sharp stick and buried them, so that their companions should not find them when they ventured on shore again."

"Well," said Harry, after thinking a few moments, "now I guess I'll go and bury my poor dead rabbit."

[Begun in No. 5 of Harper's Young People, Dec. 2.]

THE HISTORY OF PHOTOGEN AND NYCTERIS

A Day and Night Mährchen

BY GEORGE MACDONALD

XI. – THE SUNSET

Knowing nothing of darkness, or stars, or moon, Photogen spent his days in hunting. On a great white horse he swept over the grassy plains, glorying in the sun, fighting the wind, and killing the buffaloes. One morning, when he happened to be on the ground a little earlier than usual, and before his attendants, he caught sight of an animal unknown to him, stealing from a hollow into which the sun rays had not yet reached. Like a swift shadow it sped over the grass, slinking southward to the forest. He gave chase, noted the body of a buffalo it had half eaten, and pursued it the harder. But with great leaps and bounds the creature shot farther and farther ahead of him, and vanished. Turning, therefore, defeated, he met Fargu, who had been following him as fast as his horse could carry him.

"What animal was that, Fargu?" he asked. "How he did run!"

Fargu answered he might be a leopard, but he rather thought, from his pace and look, that he was a young lion.

"What a coward he must be!" said Photogen.

"Don't be too sure of that," rejoined Fargu. "He is one of the creatures the sun makes uncomfortable. As soon as the sun is down he will be brave enough."

He had scarcely said it when he repented; nor did he regret it the less when he found that Photogen made no reply. But, alas! said was said.

"Then," said Photogen to himself, "that contemptible beast is one of the terrors of sundown, of which Madam Watho spoke."

He hunted all day, but not with his usual spirit. He did not ride so hard, and did not kill one buffalo. Fargu, to his dismay, observed also that he took every pretext for moving farther south, nearer to the forest. But all at once, the sun now sinking in the west, he seemed to change his mind, for he turned his horse's head, and rode home so fast that the rest could not keep him in sight. When they arrived, they found his horse in the stable, and concluded that he had gone into the castle. But he had, in truth, set out again by the back of it. Crossing the river a good way up the valley, he reascended to the ground they had left, and just before sunset reached the skirts of the forest.

The level orb shone straight in between the bare stems, and saying to himself he could not fail to find the beast, he rushed into the wood. But even as he entered, he turned and looked to the west. The rim of the red sun was touching the horizon, all jagged with broken hills. "Now," said Photogen, "we shall see;" but he said it in the face of a darkness he had not proved. The moment the sun began to sink among the spikes and saw-edges, with a kind of sudden flap at his heart, a fear inexplicable laid hold of the youth; and as he had never felt anything of the kind before, the very fear itself terrified him. As the sun sank, it rose like the shadow of the world, and grew deeper and darker. He could not even think what it might be, so utterly did it enfeeble him. When the last flaming cimeter-edge of the sun went out like a lamp, his horror seemed to blossom into very madness. Like the closing lids of an eye – for there was no twilight, and this night no moon – the terror and the darkness rushed together, and he knew them for one. He was no longer the man he had known, or rather thought himself. The courage he had had was in no sense his own; he had only had courage, not been courageous; it had left him, and he could scarcely stand – certainly not stand straight, for not one of his joints could he make stiff or keep from trembling. He was but a spark of the sun, in himself nothing.

The beast was behind him – stealing upon him! He turned. All was dark in the wood, but to his fancy the darkness here and there broke into pairs of green eyes, and he had not the power even to raise his bow-hand from his side. In the strength of despair he strove to rouse courage enough, not to fight – that he did not even desire – but to run. Courage to flee home was all he could even imagine, and it would not come. But what he had not was ignominiously given him. A cry in the wood, half a screech, half a growl, sent him running like a boar-wounded cur. It was not even himself that ran, it was the fear that had come alive in his legs: he did not know that they moved. But as he ran he grew able to run – gained courage at least to be a coward. The stars gave a little light. Over the grass he sped, and nothing followed him. "How fallen, how changed," from the youth who had climbed the hill as the sun went down! A mere contempt of himself, the self that contemned was a coward with the self it contemned! There lay the shapeless black of a buffalo, humped upon the grass: he made a wide circuit, and swept on like a shadow driven in the wind. For the wind had arisen, and added to his terror: it blew from behind him. He reached the brow of the valley, and shot down the steep descent like a falling star. Instantly the whole upper country behind him arose and pursued him! The wind came howling after him, filled with screams, shrieks, yells, roars, laughter, and chattering, as if all the animals of the forest were careering with it. In his ears was a trampling rush, the thunder of the hoofs of the cattle, in career from every quarter of the wide plains to the brow of the hill above him! He fled straight for the castle, scarcely with breath enough to pant.

As he reached the bottom of the valley, the moon peered up over its edge. He had never seen the moon before – except in the daytime, when he had taken her for a thin bright cloud. She was a fresh terror to him – so ghostly! so ghastly! so grewsome! – so knowing as she looked over the top of her garden wall upon the world outside! That was the night itself! the darkness alive – and after him! the horror of horrors coming down the sky to curdle his blood, and turn his brain to a cinder! He gave a sob, and made straight for the river, where it ran between the two walls, at the bottom of the garden. He plunged in, struggled through, clambered up the bank, and fell senseless on the grass.

XII. – THE GARDEN

Although Nycteris took care not to stay out long at a time, and used every precaution, she could hardly have escaped discovery so long, had it not been that the strange attacks to which Watho was subject had been more frequent of late, and had at last settled into an illness which kept her to her bed. But whether from an access of caution, or from suspicion, Falca, having now to be much with her mistress both day and night, took it at length into her head to fasten the door as often as she went out by her usual place of exit; so that one night, when Nycteris pushed, she found, to her surprise and dismay, that the wall pushed her again, and would not let her through; nor with all her searching could she discover wherein lay the cause of the change. Then first she felt the pressure of her prison walls, and turning, half in despair, groped her way to the picture where she had once seen Falca disappear. There she soon found the spot by pressing upon which the wall yielded. It let her through into a sort of cellar, where was a glimmer of light from a sky whose blue was paled by the moon. From the cellar she got into a long passage, into which the moon was shining, and came to a door. She managed to open it, and, to her great joy, found herself in the other place, not on the top of the wall, however, but in the garden she had longed to enter. Noiseless as a fluffy moth she flitted away into the covert of the trees and shrubs, her bare feet welcomed by the softest of carpets, which, by the very touch, her feet knew to be alive, whence it came that it was so sweet and friendly to them. A soft little wind was out among the trees, running now here, now there, like a child that had got its will. She went dancing over the grass, looking behind her at her shadow as she went. At first she had taken it for a little black creature that made game of her, but when she perceived that it was only where she kept the moon away, and that every tree, however great and grand a creature, had also one of these strange attendants, she soon learned not to mind it, and by-and-by it became the source of as much amusement to her as to any kitten its tail. It was long before she was quite at home with the trees, however. At one time they seemed to disapprove of her; at another, not even to know she was there, and to be altogether taken up with their own business. Suddenly, as she went from one to another of them, looking up with awe at the murmuring mystery of their branches and leaves, she spied one a little way off which was very different from all the rest. It was white, and dark, and sparkling, and spread like a palm – a small slender palm, without much head; and it grew very fast, and sang as it grew. But it never grew any bigger, for just as fast as she could see it growing, it kept falling to pieces. When she got close to it, she discovered it was a water tree – made of just such water as she washed with, only it was alive, of course, like the river – a different sort of water from that, doubtless, seeing the one crept swiftly along the floor, and the other shot straight up, and fell, and swallowed itself, and rose again. She put her feet into the marble basin, which was the flower-pot in which it grew. It was full of real water, living and cool – so nice, for the night was hot.

But the flowers! ah, the flowers! she was friends with them from the very first. What wonderful creatures they were! – and so kind and beautiful – always sending out such colors and such scents – red scent, and white scent, and yellow scent – for the other creatures! The one that was invisible and everywhere took such a quantity of their scents, and carried it away! yet they did not seem to mind. It was their talk, to show they were alive, and not painted like those on the walls of her rooms, and on the carpets.

She wandered along down the garden until she reached the river. Unable then to get any further – for she was a little afraid, and justly, of the swift watery serpent – she dropped on the grassy bank, dipped her feet in the water, and felt it running and pushing against them. For a long time she sat thus, and her bliss seemed complete, as she gazed at the river, and watched the broken picture of the great lamp overhead, moving up one side of the roof to go down the other.

XIII. – SOMETHING QUITE NEW

A beautiful moth brushed across the great blue eyes of Nycteris. She sprang to her feet to follow it, not in the spirit of the hunter, but of the lover. Her heart – like every heart, if only its fallen sides were cleared away – was an inexhaustible fountain of love: she loved everything she saw. But as she followed the moth, she caught sight of something lying on the bank of the river, and not yet having learned to be afraid of anything, ran straight to see what it was. Reaching it, she stood amazed. Another girl like herself! But what a strange-looking girl! – so curiously dressed, too! – and not able to move! Was she dead? Filled suddenly with pity, she sat down, lifted Photogen's head, laid it on her lap, and began stroking his face. Her warm hands brought him to himself. He opened his black eyes, out of which had gone all the fire, and looked up with a strange sound of fear – half moan, half gasp. But when he saw her face he drew a deep breath, and lay motionless – gazing at her: those blue marvels above him, like a better sky, seemed to side with courage and assuage his terror. At length, in a trembling, awed voice, and a half-whisper, he said, "Who are you?"

"I am Nycteris," she answered.

"You are a creature of the darkness, and love the night," he said, his fear beginning to move again.

"I may be a creature of the darkness," she replied. "I hardly know what you mean. But I do not love the night. I love the day – with all my heart; and I sleep all the night long."