The World's Greatest Books - Volume 2 Part 20

"I was summoned to Wuthering Heights," she said, "within a fortnight of your leaving us, and I went gladly for Catherine's sake. Mr. Heathcliff, who grew more and more disinclined to society, almost banished Earnshaw from his apartment, and was tired of seeing Catherine--that was the reason why I was sent for--and the two young people were thrown perforce much in each other's company in the house, and presently Catherine began to make it clear to her obstinate cousin that she wished to be friends.

The intimacy ripened rapidly, and, Mr. Lockwood, on their wedding day there won't be a happier woman in England than myself. Joseph was the only objector, and he appealed to Heathcliff against 'yon flaysome graceless quean, that's witched our lad wi' her bold een and her forrad ways.' But after a burst of pa.s.sion at the news, Mr. Heathcliff suddenly calmed down and said to me, 'Nelly, there is a strange change approaching; I'm in its shadow.'

"Soon after that he took to wandering alone, in a state approaching distraction. He could not rest; he could not eat; and he would not see the doctor. One morning as I walked round the house I observed the master's window swinging open and the rain driving straight in. 'He cannot be in bed,' I thought, 'those showers would drench him through.'

And so it was, for when I entered the chamber his face and throat were washed with rain, the bed-clothes dripped, and he was perfectly still--dead and stark. I called up Joseph. 'Eh, what a wicked 'un he looks, girning at death,' exclaimed the old man, and then he fell on his knees and returned thanks that the ancient Earnshaw stock were restored to their rights.

"I shall be glad when they leave the Heights for the Grange," concluded Mrs. Dean.

"They are going to the Grange, then?"

"Yes, as soon as they are married; and that will be on New Year's Day."

ROBERT BUCHANAN

The Shadow of the Sword

Robert Buchanan, poet, novelist, and playwright, was born on Aug. 18, 1841, at Caverswall, Staffordshire, England, the son of a poor journeyman tailor from Ayrshire, in Scotland, who wrote poetry, and wandered about the country preaching socialism of the Owen type, afterwards editing a Glasgow journal. Owing, perhaps, in part to his very unconventional training, Robert Buchanan entered on life with a strange freshness of vision. Nothing in ordinary human life seemed common or mean to him, and this sense of wonder, combined with a power of judgment much steadier than his father's, made him a poet of considerable genius. "Undertones," published in 1863, and "Idylls and Legends of Inverburn," which appeared two years later, made him famous. The same qualities which he displayed in his poetry Buchanan exhibited in his earliest and best novels. "The Shadow of the Sword," published in 1876, was originally conceived as a poem, and it still remains one of the best of modern English prose romances. In his latter years Robert Buchanan, tortured by the long and painful illness of his beautiful and gentle wife, wrote a considerable amount of work with no literary merit; but this does not diminish the value of his best and earliest work, which undoubtedly ent.i.tles him to a place of importance in English literature.

He died on June 10, 1901.

_I.--The King of the Conscripts_

"Rohan Gwenfern!" cried the sergeant, in a voice that rang like a trumpet through the length of the town hall.

No one answered. The crowd of young Kromlaix men looked at each other in consternation. Was the handsomest, the strongest, and the most daring lad in their village a coward? It was the dark year of 1813, when Napoleon was draining France of all its manhood. Even the only sons of poor widowed women, such as Rohan Gwenfern was, were no longer exempted from conscription. Having lost half a million men amid the snows of Russia, Napoleon had called for 200,000 more soldiers, and the little Breton fishing village of Kromlaix had to provide twenty-five recruits.

"Rohan Gwenfern!" cried the sergeant again.

The mayor rose up behind the ballot-box on the large table, about which the villagers were gathered, and looked around in vain for the splendid figure of the young fisherman.

"Where is your nephew?" he said to Corporal Derval, in an angry voice.

Derval, one of Napoleon's veterans, who had been pensioned after losing his leg at Austerlitz, looked at his pretty niece, Marcelle, with a strange pallor on his furrowed, sunburnt face.

"Rohan was too ill to come," said Marcelle, with a troubled look in her sweet grey eyes. "I will draw in his name."

"Very well, my pretty la.s.s," said the mayor, his grim face softening into a smile as he looked at the beautiful girl, "you shall draw for him, and bring him luck."

Marcelle's hand trembled as she put it into the ballot-box. She let it stay there so long that some of the soldiers began to laugh. But the village women, gathered in a dense crowd at the back of the hall, gazed at her with tears in their eyes. They knew what she was doing. She was praying that she might draw a lucky number for her lover, Rohan.

Twenty-five conscripts were wanted, and those who drew a paper numbered twenty-six or upwards were free.

"Come, come, my dear!" said the mayor, stroking his moustache, and nodding encouragingly at Marcelle.

She slowly drew forth a paper, and handed it to her uncle, who opened it, read it with a stare, and uttered his usual expletive. "Soul of a crow!" in an awstricken whisper.

"Read it, corporal!" said the mayor, while Marcelle looked wildly at her uncle.

"It is incredible!" said Corporal Derval, handing the paper to the sergeant, with the look of amazement still on his face.

"Rohan Gwenfern--one!" shouted the sergeant, while Marcelle clung to her uncle, and hid her face upon his arm.

Rohan Gwenfern, who had taken a solemn oath that he would never go forth to slay his fellow-men at the bidding of Napoleon, whom he regarded as a horrible, murderous monster, found himself, when he returned to Kromlaix late that evening, in the sorry position of King of the Conscripts. He was a young man who had led a very solitary life, but solitude, instead of making him morbid, had strengthened his natural feelings of pity and affection. His immense physical strength had never been exerted for any evil, and even in the roughest wrestling matches he had never fought brutally or cruelly.

He certainly rejoiced in his splendid powers of body; but he had the gentleness of soul of a poetic mind, as well as the magnanimity that often goes with great strength. There was, indeed, something lion-like about him as he strode up to the door of his cottage, with his mane of yellow hair floating over his broad brows and falling on his shoulders.

An eager crowd was waiting for him, and when he appeared, they all shouted.

"Here he is at last!" cried a voice, which he recognised as that of Mikel Grallon. "Three cheers for the King of the Conscripts!"

Some bag-pipe players struck up a merry tune, but Rohan, with a wild face and stern eyes, pushed his way through the throng into his cottage.

On a seat by the fire his mother sat weeping, her face covered with her ap.r.o.n; round her was a band of sympathising friends. The scene explained itself in one flash, and Rohan Gwenfern knew his fate. Pale as death, he rushed across the floor to his mother's side, just as a troop of young girls flocked into the house singing the Ma.r.s.eillaise. At their head was Marcelle.

A hard struggle had gone on in the heart of Rohan's sweetheart. She had been overcome with grief when she drew the fatal number. But her dismay had quickly turned into an heroic pride at the thought of her lover becoming a soldier of Napoleon. From her childhood she had learnt from her uncle to admire and worship the great emperor who had led the armies of France from victory to victory, and she did not think that Rohan would refuse to follow him. It is true that she had often heard Gwenfern say that he loathed war; but many other men of Kromlaix had said the same thing; and yet, when the hour came, and they were called to serve in the Grand Army, they had obeyed.

"Look, Rohan!" she cried, holding up in her hand a rosette with a long, coloured streamer. "Look! I have brought this for you."

Each of the conscripts wore a similar badge, and old Corporal Derval had stuck one on his own breast. All the crowd cheered as Marcelle advanced, with bright eyes and flaming cheeks, to her sweetheart.

"Keep back! Do not touch me!" cried Rohan, his face blazing with strange anger.

"The boy's mad!" exclaimed Corporal Derval, in an angry voice.

"Do you not understand, Rohan?" exclaimed Marcelle, terrified by her lover's look. "As you did not come, someone had to draw in your name. I did so, and you are now the King of the Conscripts, and this is your badge. Let me fasten it upon your breast!"

In a moment her soft fingers attached the rosette to his jacket. Rohan did not stir; his eyes were fixed on the ground, but his features worked convulsively.

"Forward now, all of you to the inn!" said Corporal Derval, when the cheering was over. "We will drink the health of Number One!"

As everybody was moving towards the door, Rohan started as if from a trance.

"Stay!" he shouted.

All stood listening, and his widowed mother crept up and clasped his hand.

"You are all mad," he said, in a wild voice, "and I seem to be going mad, too. What is this you tell me about a conscription and an emperor?

I do not understand. I only know you are all mad. Napoleon has no right to compel me to fight for him; and if every Frenchman had my heart, he would not reign another day. I refuse to be led like a sheep to the slaughter. He can kill me if he wills, but he cannot force me to kill my fellow-men. You can go if you like, and do his b.l.o.o.d.y work. Had I the power I would serve him as I serve this badge of his!"

Tearing the rosette from his breast, he cast it into the flaming fire.

"Rohan, for G.o.d's sake be silent!" cried Marcelle. "You speak like a madman. It is all my fault. I thought I should bring you good luck by drawing for you. Won't you forgive me?"

The young fisherman looked sadly into his sweetheart's face, and when he saw her wet eyes and quivering lips his heart was stirred. He took her hand and kissed it, but suddenly an ill-favoured face was thrust forward between the two lovers.

"Isn't it a pity," sneered Mikel Grallon, "to see a pretty girl wasting herself on a coward, when----"