Chapter II (1)

Ponds and rock-pools--Our necessary tackle--Wimbledon Common--Early
memories--Gnat larvæ--Entomostraca and their paradoxes--Races
of animals dispensing with the sterner sex--Insignificance of
males--Volvox globator: is it an animal?--Plants swimming like
animals--Animal retrogressions--The Dytiscus and its larva--The
dragon-fly larva--Molluscs and their eggs--Polypes, and how
to find them--A new polype, _Hydra rubra_--Nest-building
fish--Contempt replaced by reverence.

The day is bright with a late autumn sun; the sky is clear with a keen autumn wind, which lashes our blood into a canter as we press against it, and the cantering blood sets the thoughts into hurrying excitement. Wimbledon Common is not far off; its five thousand acres of undulating heather, furze, and fern tempt us across it, health streaming in at every step as we snuff the keen breeze. We are tempted also to bring net and wide-mouthed jar, to ransack its many ponds for visible and invisible wonders.

Ponds, indeed, are not so rich and lovely as rock-pools; the heath is less alluring than the coast--our dear-loved coast, with its gleaming mystery, the sea, and its sweeps of sand, its reefs, its dripping boulders. I admit the comparative inferiority of ponds; but, you see, we are not near the coast, and the heath is close at hand. Nay, if the case were otherwise, I should object to dwarfing comparisons. It argues a pitiful thinness of nature (and the majority in this respect are lean) when present excellence is depreciated because some greater excellence is to be found elsewhere. We are not elsewhere; we must do the best we can with what is here. Because ours is not the Elizabethan age, shall we express no reverence for our great men, but reserve it for Shakspeare, Bacon, and Raleigh, whose traditional renown must overshadow our contemporaries? Not so. To each age its honour. Let us be thankful for all greatness, past or present, and never speak slightingly of noble work, or honest endeavour, because it is not, or we choose to say it is not, equal to something else. No comparisons then, I beg. If I said ponds were finer than rock-pools, you might demur; but I only say ponds are excellent things, let us dabble in them; ponds are rich in wonders, let us enjoy them.

And first we must look to our tackle. It is extremely simple. A landing-net, lined with muslin; a wide-mouthed glass jar, say a foot high and six inches in diameter, but the size optional, with a bit of string tied under the lip, and forming a loop over the top, to serve as a handle which will let the jar swing without spilling the water; a camel-hair brush; a quinine bottle, or any wide-mouthed phial, for worms and tiny animals which you desire to keep separated from the dangers and confusions of the larger jar; and when to these a pocket lens is added, our equipment is complete.

As we emerge upon the common, and tread its springy heather, what a wild wind dashes the hair into our eyes, and the blood into our cheeks! and what a fine sweep of horizon lies before us! The lingering splendours and the beautiful decays of autumn vary the scene, and touch it with a certain pensive charm. The ferns mingle harmoniously their rich browns with the dark green of the furze, now robbed of its golden summer-glory, but still pleasant to the eye, and exquisite to memory. The gaunt windmill on the rising ground is stretching its stiff, starred arms into the silent air: a landmark for the wanderer, a landmark, too, for the wandering mind, since it serves to recall the dim early feelings and sweet broken associations of a childhood when we gazed at it with awe, and listened to the rushing of its mighty arms. Ah! well may the mind with the sweet insistance of sadness linger on those scenes of the irrecoverable past, and try, by lingering there, to feel that it is not wholly lost, wholly irrecoverable, vanished for ever from the Life which, as these decays of autumn and these changing trees too feelingly remind us, is gliding away, leaving our cherished ambitions still unfulfilled, and our deeper affections still but half expressed. The vanishing visions of elapsing life bring with them thoughts which lie too deep for tears; and this windmill recalls such visions by the subtle laws of association. Let us go towards it, and stand once more under its shadow. See the intelligent and tailless sheep-dog which bounds out at our approach, eager and minatory; now his quick eye at once recognizes that we are neither tramps, nor thieves, and he ceases barking to commence a lively interchange of sniffs and amenities with our Pug, who seems also glad of a passing interchange of commonplace remarks. While these dogs travel over each other’s minds, let us sun ourselves upon this bench, and look down on the embrowned valley, with its gipsy encampment,--or abroad on the purple Surrey hills, or the varied-tinted trees of Combe Wood and Richmond Park. There are not many such prospects so near London. But, in spite of the sun, we must not linger here: the wind is much too analytical in its remarks; and, moreover, we came out to hunt.

Here is a pond with a mantling surface of green promise. Dip the jar into the water. Hold it now up to the light, and you will see an immense variety of tiny animals swimming about. Some are large enough to be recognized at once; others require a pocket-lens, unless familiarity has already enabled you to _infer_ the forms you cannot distinctly _see_. Here (Fig. 7) are two larvæ (or grubs) of the common gnat. That large-headed fellow (A) bobbing about with such grotesque movements, is very near the last stage of his metamorphosis; and to-morrow, or the next day, you may see him cast aside this mask (_larva_ means a mask), and emerge a perfect insect. The other (B) is in a much less matured condition, but leads an active predatory life, jerking through the water, and fastening to the stems of weed or sides of the jar by means of the tiny hooks at the end of its tail. The hairy appendage forming the angle is not another tail, but a breathing apparatus.

LARVÆ OF THE GNAT in two different stages of development (Magnified).]

CYCLOPS

_a_ large antennæ; _b_ smaller do.; _c_ egg-sacs (Magnified).]

DAPHNIA: _a_ pulsatile sac, or heart; _b_ eggs; _c_ digestive tube (Magnified).]

Observe, also, those grotesque _Entomostraca_,[17] popularly called “water-fleas,” although, as you perceive, they have little resemblance in form or manners to our familiar (somewhat _too_ familiar) bedfellows. This (Fig. 8) is a _Cyclops_, with only one eye in the centre of its forehead, and carrying two sacs, filled with eggs, like panniers. You observe he has no legs; or, rather, legs and arms are hoisted up to the head, and become antennæ (or feelers). Here (Fig. 9) is a _Daphnia_, grotesque enough, throwing up his arms in astonished awkwardness, and keeping his legs actively at work inside the shell--as respirators, in fact. Here (Fig. 10) is an _Eurycercus_, less grotesque, and with a much smaller eye. Talking of eyes, there is one of these Entomostraca named _Polyphemus_, whose head is all eye; and another, named _Caligus_, who has no head at all. Other paradoxes and wonders are presented by this interesting group of animals;[18] but they all sink into insignificance beside the paradox of the amazonian entomostracon, the _Apus_--a race which dispenses with masculine services altogether, a race of which there are no males!

EURYCERCUS: _a_ heart; _b_ eggs; _c_ digestive tube (Magnified).]

I well remember the pleasant evening on which I first made the personal acquaintance of this amazing amazon. It was at Munich, and in the house of a celebrated naturalist, in whose garden an agreeable assemblage of poets, professors, and their wives, sauntered in the light of a setting sun, breaking up into groups and _têtes-à-têtes_, to re-form into larger groups. We had taken coffee under the branching coolness of trees, and were now loitering through the brief interval till supper. Our host had just returned from an expedition of some fifty miles to a particular pond, known to be inhabited by the Apus. He had made this journey because the race, although prolific, is rare, and is not to be found in every spot. For three successive years had he gone to the same pond, in quest of the male: but no male was to be found among thousands of egg-bearing females, some of which he had brought away with him, and was showing us. We were amused to see them swimming about, sometimes on their backs, using their long oars, sometimes floating, but always incessantly agitating the water with their ten pairs of breathing legs; and the ladies, gathered round the jar, were hugely elated at the idea of animals getting rid altogether of the sterner sex--clearly a useless incumbrance in the scheme of things!

The fact that no male Apus has yet been found is not without precedent. Léon Dufour, the celebrated entomologist, declares that he never found the male of the gall insect (_Diplolepis gallæ tinctoriæ_), though he has examined thousands: they were all females, and bore well-developed eggs on emerging from the gall-nut in which their infancy had passed. In two other species of gall insect--_Cynips divisa_ and _Cynips folii_--Hartig says he was unable to find a male; and he examined about thirteen thousand. Brogniart never found the male of another entomostracon (_Limnadia gigas_), nor could Jurine find that of our _Polyphemus_. These negatives prove, at least, that if the males exist at all, they must be excessively rare, and their services can be dispensed with; a conclusion which becomes acceptable when we learn that bees, moths, plant-lice (_Aphides_), and our grotesque friend _Daphnia_ (Fig. 9) lay eggs which may be reared apart, will develop into females, and these will produce eggs which will in turn produce other females, and so on, generation after generation, although each animal be reared in a vessel apart from all others.

While on this subject, I cannot forbear making a reflection. It must be confessed that our sex cuts but a poor figure in some great families. If the male is in some families grander, fiercer, more splendid, and more highly endowed than the female, this occasional superiority is more than counterbalanced by the still greater inferiority of the sex in other families. The male is often but a contemptible partner, puny in size, insignificant in powers, stinted even of a due allowance of organs. If the peacock and the pheasant swagger in greater splendour, what a pitiful creature is the male falcon--no falconer will look at him. And what is the drone compared with the queen bee, or even with the workers? What figure does the male spider make beside his large and irascible female,--who not unfrequently eats him? Nay, worse than this, what can be said for the male Rotifer, the male Barnacle, the male Lernæa--gentlemen who cannot even boast of a perfect digestive apparatus, sometimes not of a digestive organ at all? Nor is this meagreness confined to the digestive system only. In some cases, as in some male Rotifers, the usual organs of sense and locomotion are wanting;[19] and in a parasitic Lernæa, the degradation is moral as well as physical: the female lives in the gills of a fish, sucking its juices, and the ignoble husband lives as a parasite upon her!

VOLVOX GLOBATOR, with eight volvoces enclosed (Magnified).]

But this digression is becoming humiliating, and meanwhile our hands are getting benumbed with cold. In spite of that, I hold the jar up to the light, and make a background of my forefingers, to throw into relief some of the transparent animals. Look at those light green crystal spheres sailing along with slow revolving motion, like planets revolving through space, except that their orbits are more eccentric. Each of these spheres is a _Volvox globator_. Under the microscope it looks like a crystalline sphere, studded with bright green specs, from each of which arise two cilia (hairs), serving as oars to row the animal through the water. The specs are united by a delicate network, which is not always visible, however. Inside this sphere is a fluid, in which several dark-green smaller spheres are seen revolving, as the parent-sphere revolved in the water. Press this Volvox gently under your compressorium, or between the two pieces of glass, and you will see these internal spheres, when duly magnified, disclose themselves as identical with their parent; and inside them, smaller Volvoces are seen. This is one of the many illustrations of Life within Life, of which something was said in the last chapter.

Nor is this all. Those bright green specs which stud the surface, if examined with high powers, will turn out to be not specs, but animals,[20] and as Ehrenberg believes (though the belief is little shared), highly organized animals, possessing a mouth, many stomachs, and an eye. It is right to add that not only are microscopists at variance with Ehrenberg on the supposed organization of these specs, but the majority deny that the Volvox itself is an animal. Von Siebold in Germany, and Professor George Busk and Professor Williamson in England, have argued with so much force against the animal nature of the Volvox, which they call a plant, that in most modern works you will find this opinion adopted. But the latest of the eminent authorities on the subject of Infusoria, in his magnificent work just published, returns to the old idea that the Volvox is an animal after all, although of very simple organization.[21]

The dispute may perhaps excite your surprise. You are perplexed at the idea of a plant (if plant it be) moving about, swimming with all the vigour and dexterity of an animal, and swimming by means of animal organs, the cilia. But this difficulty is one of our own creation. We first employ the word Plant to designate a vast group of objects which have no powers of locomotion, and then ask, with triumph, How can a plant move? But we have only to enlarge our knowledge of plant-life to see that locomotion is not absolutely excluded from it; for many of the simpler plants--Confervæ and Algæ:--can, and do, move spontaneously in the early stages of their existence: they escape from their parents as free swimming rovers, and do not settle into solid and sober respectability till later in life. In their roving condition they are called, improperly enough, “zoospores,”[22] and once gave rise to the opinion that they were animals in infancy, and became degraded into plants as their growth went on. But locomotion is no true mark of animal-nature, neither is fixture to one spot the true mark of plant-nature. Many animals (Polypes, Polyzoa, Barnacles, Mussels, &c.), after passing a vagabond youth, “settle” once and for ever in maturer age, and then become as fixed as plants. Nay, human animals not unfrequently exhibit a somewhat similar metempsychosis, and make up for the fitful capriciousness of wandering youth, by the steady severity of their application to business, when width of waistcoat and smoothness of cranium suggest a sense of their responsibilities.

Whether this loss of locomotion is to be regarded as a retrogression on the part of the plant, or animal, which becomes fixed, may be questioned; but there are curious indications of positive retrogression from a higher standard in the metamorphoses of some animals. Thus the beautiful marine worm, _Terebella_, which secretes a tube for itself, and lives in it, fixed to the rock, or oyster-shell, has in early life a distinct head, eyes, and feelers; but in growing to maturity, it loses all trace of head, eyes, and even of feelers, unless the beautiful tuft of streaming threads which it waves in the water be considered as replacing the feelers. There are the Barnacles, too, which in the first stage of their existence have three pairs of legs, a very simple single eye, and a mouth furnished with a proboscis. In the second stage they have six pairs of legs, two compound eyes, complex in structure, two feelers, but _no mouth_. In the third, or final stage, their legs are transformed into prehensile organs, they have recovered a mouth, but have lost their feelers, and their two complex eyes are degraded to a single and very simple eye-spot.

WATER BEETLE and its larva.]

But to break up these digressions, let us try a sweep with our net. We skim it along the surface, and draw up a quantity of duckweed, dead leaves, bits of stick, and masses of green thread, of great fineness, called Conferva by botanists. The water runs away, and we turn over the mass. Here is a fine water-beetle, Dytiscus, and a larva of the same beetle, called the “Water-tiger,” from its ferocity (Fig. 12). You would hardly suspect that the slim, big-headed, long-tailed Water-tiger would grow into the squat, small-headed, tailless beetle: nor would you imagine that this Water-tiger would be so “high fantastical” as to breathe by his tail. Yet he does both, as you will find if you watch him in your aquarium.

DRAGON-FLY LARVÆ: A ordinary aspect; B with the huge nipper-like jaw extended.]

A LIMNÆCA STAGNALIS, or water snail.

B PLANORBIS.]

PALUDINA VIVIPARA.]

Continuing our search, we light upon the fat, sluggish, ungraceful larva of the graceful and brilliant Dragon-fly, the falcon of insects (Fig. 13). He is useful for dissection, so pop him in. Among the dead leaves you perceive several small leeches, and flat oval _Planariæ_, white and brown; and here also is a jelly-like mass, of pale yellow colour, which we know to be a mass of eggs deposited by some shell-fish; and as there are few objects of greater interest than an egg in course of development, we pop the mass in. Here (Fig. 14) are two molluscs, _Limnæus_ and _Planorbis_, one of which is probably the parent of those eggs. And here is one which lays no eggs, but brings forth its young alive: it is the _Paludina vivipara_ (Fig. 15), of which we learned some interesting details last month. Scattered over the surface of the net and dead leaves, are little dabs of dirty-looking jelly--some of them, instead of the dirty hue, are almost blood-red. Experience makes me aware that these dirty dabs are certainly Polypes--the _Hydra fusca_ of systematists. I can’t tell how it is I know them, nor how you may know them again. The power of recognition must be acquired by familiarity: and it is because men can’t _begin_ with familiarity, and can’t recognize these Polypes without it, that so few persons really ever see them. But the familiarity may be acquired by a very simple method. Make it a rule to pop every unknown object into your wide-mouthed phial. In the water it will probably at once reveal its nature: if it be a Polype, it will expand its tentacles; if not, you can identify it at leisure on reaching home, by the aid of pictures and descriptions. See, as I drop one of these into the water, it at once assumes the well-known shape of the Polype. And now we will see what these blood-red dabs may be; in spite of their unusual colour, I cannot help suspecting them to be Polypes also. Give me the camel-hair brush. Gently the dab is removed, and transferred to the phial. Shade of Trembley! it _is_ a Polype![23] Is it possible that this discovery leaves you imperturbable, even when I assure you it is of a species hitherto undescribed in text-books? Now, don’t be provokingly indifferent! rouse yourself to a little enthusiasm, and prove that you have something of the naturalist in you by delighting in the detection of a new species. “You didn’t know that it was new?” _That_ explains your calmness. There must be a basis of knowledge before wonder can be felt--wonder being, as Bacon says, “broken knowledge.” Learn, then, that hitherto only three species of fresh-water Polypes have been described: _Hydra viridis_, _Hydra fusca_, and _Hydra grisea_. We have now a fourth to swell the list; we will christen it _Hydra rubra_, and be as modest in our glory as we can. If any one puts it to us, whether we seriously attach importance to such trivialities as specific distinctions resting solely upon colour, or size, we can look profound, you know, and repudiate the charge. But this is a public and official attitude. In private, we can despise the distinctions established by others, but keep a corner of favouritism for our own.[24]

I remember once showing a bottle containing Polypes to a philosopher, who beheld them with great calmness. They appeared to him as insignificant as so many stems of duckweed; and lest you should be equally indifferent, I will at once inform you that these creatures will interest you as much as any that can be found in ponds, if you take the trouble of studying them. They can be cut into many pieces, and each piece will grow into a perfect Polype; they may be pricked, or irritated, and the irritated spot will bud a young Polype, as a plant buds; they may be turned inside out, and their skin will become a stomach, their stomach a skin. They have acute sensibility to light (towards which they always move), and to the slightest touch; yet not a trace of a nervous tissue is to be found in them. They have powers of motion, and locomotion, yet their muscles are simply a network of large contractile cells. If the water in which they are kept be not very pure, they will be found infested with parasites; and quite recently I have noticed an animal, or vegetal, parasite--I know not which--forming an elegant sort of fringe to the tentacles: clusters of skittle-shaped bodies, too entirely transparent for any structure whatever to be made out, in active agitation, like leaves fluttering on a twig. Some day or other we may have occasion to treat of the Polypes in detail, and to narrate the amusing story of their discovery; but what has already been said will serve to sharpen your attention and awaken some curiosity in them.

Again and again the net sweeps among the weed, or dredges the bottom of the pond, bringing up mud, stones, sticks, with a fish, worms, molluscs, and tritons. The fish we must secure, for it is a stickleback--a pretty and interesting inhabitant of an aquarium, on account of its nest-building propensities. We are surprised at a fish building a nest, and caring for its young, like the tenderest of birds (and there are two other fishes, the Goramy and the Hassar, which have this instinct); but why not a fish, as well as a bird? The cat-fish swims about in company with her young, like a proud hen with her chickens; and the sun-fish hovers for weeks over her eggs, protecting them against danger.

The wind is so piercing, and _my_ fingers are so benumbed, I can scarcely hold the brush. Moreover, continual stooping over the net makes the muscles ache unpleasantly, and suggests that each cast shall be the final one. But somehow I have made this resolution and broken it twenty times: either the cast has been unsuccessful, and one is provoked to try again, or it is so successful that, as _l’appétit vient en mangeant_, one is seduced again. Very unintelligible this would be to the passers-by, who generally cast contemptuous glances at us, when they find we are not fishing, but are only removing Nothings into a glass jar. One day an Irish labourer stopped and asked me if I were fishing for salmon. I quietly answered, “Yes.” He drew near. I continued turning over the weed, occasionally dropping an invisible thing into the water. At last, a large yellow-bellied Triton was dropped in. He begged to see it; and seeing at the same time how alive the water was with tiny animals, became curious, and asked many questions. I went on with my work; his interest and curiosity increased; his questions multiplied; he volunteered assistance; and remained beside me till I prepared to go away, when he said seriously: “Och! then, and it’s a fine thing to be able to name all God’s creatures.” Contempt had given place to reverence; and so it would be with others, could they check the first rising of scorn at what they do not understand, and patiently learn what even a roadside pond has of Nature’s wonders.

FOOTNOTES:

[17] _Entomostraca_ (from _entomos_, an insect, and _ostracon_, a shell) are not really insects, but belong to the same large group of animals as the lobster, the crab, or the shrimp, _i.e._ crustaceans.

[18] The student will find ample information in BAIRD’S _British Entomostraca_, published by the Ray Society.

[19] Compare GEGENBAUR: _Grundzüge der vergleichende Anatomie_, 1859, pp. 229 _und_ 269; also LEYDIG _über Hydatina senta_, in _Müller’s Archiv_, 1857, p. 411.

[20] To avoid the equivoque of calling the parts of an animal, which are capable of independent existence, by the same term as the whole mass, we may adopt HUXLEY’S suggestion, and call all such individual parts _zöoids_, instead of animals. DUGE’S suggested _zöonites_ in the same sense.--_Sur la Conformité Organigue_, p. 13.

[21] STEIN: _Der Organismus der Infusionsthiere_, 1859, pp. 36–38.

[22] Zoospores, from _zoon_, an animal, and _sporos_, a seed.

[23] TREMBLEY in his admirable work. _Mémoires pour servir à l’histoire d’une genre de Polypes d’eau douce_, 1744, furnished science with the fullest and most accurate account of fresh-water Polypes; but it is a mistake to suppose that he was the original discoverer of this genus: old LEUWENHOEK had been before him.

[24] The editors of the _Annals of Natural History_ append a note to the account I sent them of this new Polype, from which it appears that Dr. Gray found this very species and apparently in the same spot nearly thirty years ago. But the latest work of authority, VAN DER HOEVEN’S _Handbook of Zoology_, only enumerates the three species.

Curious, if True.

(EXTRACT FROM A LETTER FROM RICHARD WHITTINGHAM, ESQ.)

You were formerly so much amused at my pride in my descent from that sister of Calvin’s, who married a Whittingham, Dean of Durham, that I doubt if you will be able to enter into the regard for my distinguished relation, that has led me to France, in order to examine registers and archives, which, I thought, might enable me to discover collateral descendants of the great reformer, with whom I might call cousins. I shall not tell you of my troubles and adventures in this research; you are not worthy to hear of them; but something so curious befell me one evening last August, that if I had not been perfectly certain I was wide awake, I might have taken it for a dream.

For the purpose I have named it was necessary that I should make Tours my head-quarters for a time. I had traced descendants of the Calvin family out of Normandy into the centre of France; but I found it was necessary to have a kind of permission from the bishop of the diocese before I could see certain family papers, which had fallen into the possession of the Church; and, as I had several English friends at Tours, I awaited the answer to my request to Monseigneur de ----, at that town. I was ready to accept any invitation; but I received very few; and was sometimes a little at a loss what to do with my evenings. The _table d’hôte_ was at five o’clock; I did not wish to go to the expense of a private sitting-room, disliked the dinnery atmosphere of the _salle à manger_, could not play either at pool or billiards, and the aspect of my fellow guests was unprepossessing enough to make me unwilling to enter into any _tête-à-tête_ gamblings with them. So I usually rose from table early, and tried to make the most of the remaining light of the August evenings in walking briskly off to explore the surrounding country; the middle of the day was too hot for this purpose, and better employed in lounging on a bench in the Boulevards, lazily listening to the distant band, and noticing with equal laziness the faces and figures of the women who passed by.

One Thursday evening, the 18th of August it was, I think, I had gone farther than usual in my walk, and I found that it was later than I had imagined when I paused to turn back. I fancied I could make a round; I had enough notion of the direction in which I was, to see that by turning up a narrow straight lane to my left I should shorten my way back to Tours. And so I believe I should have done, could I have found an outlet at the right place, but field-paths are almost unknown in that part of France, and my lane, stiff and straight as any street, and marked into terrible vanishing perspective by the regular row of poplars on each side, seemed interminable. Of course night came on, and I was in darkness. In England I might have had a chance of seeing a light in some cottage only a field or two off, and asking my way from the inhabitants; but here I could see no such welcome sight; indeed, I believe French peasants go to bed with the summer daylight, so if there were any habitations in the neighbourhood I never saw them. At last--I believe I must have walked two hours in the darkness,--I saw the dusky outline of a wood on one side of the weariful lane, and, impatiently careless of all forest laws and penalties for trespassers, I made my way to it, thinking that if the worst came to the worst, I could find some covert--some shelter where I could lie down and rest, until the morning light gave me a chance of finding my way back to Tours. But the plantation, on the outskirts of what appeared to me a dense wood, was of young trees, too closely planted to be more than slender stems growing up to a good height, with scanty foliage on their summits. On I went towards the thicker forest, and once there I slackened my pace, and began to look about me for a good lair. I was as dainty as Lochiel’s grandchild, who made his grandsire indignant at the luxury of his pillow of snow: this brake was too full of brambles, that felt damp with dew; there was no hurry, since I had given up all hope of passing the night between four walls; and I went leisurely groping about, and trusting that there were no wolves to be poked up out of their summer drowsiness by my stick, when all at once I saw a château before me, not a quarter of a mile off, at the end of what seemed to be an ancient avenue (now overgrown and irregular), which I happened to be crossing, when I looked to my right, and saw the welcome sight. Large, stately, and dark was its outline against the dusky night-sky; there were pepper-boxes and tourelles and what-not fantastically going up into the dim starlight. And more to the purpose still, though I could not see the details of the building that I was now facing, it was plain enough that there were lights in many windows, as if some great entertainment was going on.

“They are hospitable people at any rate,” thought I. “Perhaps they will give me a bed. I don’t suppose French propriétaires have traps and horses quite as plentiful as English gentlemen; but they are evidently having a large party, and some of their guests may be from Tours, and will give me a cast back to the Lion d’Or. I am not proud, and I am dog-tired. I am not above hanging on behind, if need be.”

So, putting a little briskness and spirit into my walk, I went up to the door, which was standing open, most hospitably, and showing a large lighted hall, all hung round with spoils of the chase, armour, &c., the details of which I had not time to notice, for the instant I stood on the threshold a huge porter appeared, in a strange, old-fashioned dress, a kind of livery which well befitted the general appearance of the house. He asked me, in French (so curiously pronounced that I thought I had hit upon a new kind of _patois_), my name, and whence I came. I thought he would not be much the wiser, still it was but civil to give it before I made my request for assistance; so in reply I said--

“My name is Whittingham--Richard Whittingham, an English gentleman, staying at ----.” To my infinite surprise a light of pleased intelligence came over the giant’s face; he made me a low bow, and said (still in the same curious dialect) that I was welcome, that I was long expected.

“Long expected!” What could the fellow mean? Had I stumbled on a nest of relations by John Calvin’s side, who had heard of my genealogical inquiries, and were gratified and interested by them? But I was too much pleased to be under shelter for the night to think it necessary to account for my agreeable reception before I enjoyed it. Just as he was opening the great heavy _battants_ of the door that led from the hall to the interior, he turned round and said,--

“Apparently Monsieur le Géanquilleur is not come with you.”

“No! I am all alone; I have lost my way,”--and I was going on with my explanation, when he, as if quite indifferent to it, led the way up a great stone staircase, as wide as many rooms, and having on each landing-place massive iron wickets, in a heavy framework; these the porter unlocked with the solemn slowness of age. Indeed, a strange, mysterious awe of the centuries that had passed away since this château was built came over me as I waited for the turning of the ponderous keys in the ancient locks. I could almost have fancied that I heard a mighty rushing murmur (like the ceaseless sound of a distant sea, ebbing and flowing for ever and for ever), coming forth from the great vacant galleries that opened out on each side of the broad staircase, and were to be dimly perceived in the darkness above us. It was as if the voices of generations of men yet echoed and eddied in the silent air. It was strange, too, that my friend the porter going before me, ponderously infirm, with his feeble old hands striving in vain to keep the tall flambeau he held steadily before him,--strange, I say, that he was the only domestic I saw in the vast halls and passages, or met with on the grand staircase. At length we stood before the gilded doors that led into the saloon where the family--or it might be the company, so great was the buzz of voices--was assembled. I would have remonstrated when I found he was going to introduce me, dusty and travel-smeared, in a morning costume that was not even my best, into this grand _salon_, with nobody knew how many ladies and gentlemen assembled; but the obstinate old man was evidently bent upon taking me straight to his master, and paid no heed to my words.

The doors flew open, and I was ushered into a saloon curiously full of pale light, which did not culminate on any spot, nor proceed from any centre, nor flicker with any motion of the air, but filled every nook and corner, making all things deliciously distinct; different from our light of gas or candle, as is the difference between a clear southern atmosphere and that of our misty England.

At the first moment my arrival excited no attention, the apartment was so full of people, all intent on their own conversation. But my friend the porter went up to a handsome lady of middle age, richly attired in that antique manner which fashion has brought round again of late years, and, waiting first in an attitude of deep respect till her attention fell upon him, told her my name and something about me, as far as I could guess from the gestures of the one and the sudden glance of the eye of the other.

She immediately came towards me with the most friendly actions of greeting, even before she had advanced near enough to speak. Then,--and was it not strange?--her words and accent were that of the commonest peasant of the country. Yet she herself looked high-bred, and would have been dignified had she been a shade less restless, had her countenance worn a little less lively and inquisitive expression. I had been poking a good deal about the old parts of Tours, and had had to understand the dialect of the people who dwelt in the Marché an Vendredi and similar places, or I really should not have understood my handsome hostess, as she offered to present me to her husband, a henpecked, gentlemanly man, who was more quaintly attired than she in the very extreme of that style of dress. I thought to myself that in France, as in England, it is the provincials who carry fashion to such an excess as to become ridiculous.

However, he spoke (still in the _patois_) of his pleasure in making my acquaintance, and led me to a strange uneasy easy-chair, much of a piece with the rest of the furniture, which might have taken its place without any anachronism by the side of that in the Hôtel Cluny. Then again began the clatter of French voices, which my arrival had for an instant interrupted, and I had leisure to look about me. Opposite to me sat a very sweet-looking lady, who must have been a great beauty in her youth I should think, and would be charming in old age, from the sweetness of her countenance. She was, however, extremely fat, and on seeing her feet laid up before her on a cushion, I at once perceived that they were so swollen as to render her incapable of walking, which probably brought on her excessive _embonpoint_. Her hands were plump and small, but rather coarse-grained in texture, not quite so clean as they might have been, and altogether not so aristocratic-looking as the charming face. Her dress was of superb black velvet, ermine-trimmed, with diamonds thrown all abroad over it.

Not far from her stood the least little man I had ever seen; of such admirable proportions no one could call him a dwarf, because with that word we usually associate something of deformity; but yet with an elfin look of shrewd, hard, worldly wisdom in his face that marred the impression which his delicate regular little features would otherwise have conveyed. Indeed, I do not think he was quite of equal rank with the rest of the company, for his dress was inappropriate to the occasion (and he apparently was an invited, while I was an involuntary guest); and one or two of his gestures and actions were more like the tricks of an uneducated rustic than anything else. To explain what I mean: his boots had evidently seen much service, and had been re-topped, re-heeled, re-soled to the extent of cobbler’s powers. Why should he have come in them if they were not his best--his only pair? And what can be more ungenteel than poverty? Then again he had an uneasy trick of putting his hand up to his throat, as if he expected to find something the matter with it; and he had the awkward habit--which I do not think he could have copied from Dr. Johnson, because most probably he had never heard of him--of trying always to retrace his steps on the exact boards on which he had trodden to arrive at any particular part of the room. Besides, to settle the question, I once heard him addressed as Monsieur Poucet, without any aristocratic “de” for a prefix; and nearly every one else in the room was a marquis at any rate.

I say, “nearly every one;” for some strange people had the entrée; unless indeed they were like me benighted. One of the guests I should have taken for a servant, but for the extraordinary influence he seemed to have over the man I took for his master, and who never did anything without, apparently, being urged thereto by this follower. The master, magnificently dressed, but ill at ease in his clothes, as if they had been made for some one else, was a weak-looking, handsome man, continually sauntering about, and I almost guessed an object of suspicion to some of the gentlemen present, which, perhaps, drove him on the companionship of his follower, who was dressed something in the style of an ambassador’s chasseur; yet it was not a chasseur’s dress after all; it was something more thoroughly old-world; boots half way up his ridiculously small legs, which clattered as he walked along, as if they were too large for his little feet; and a great quantity of grey fur, as trimming to coat, court-mantle, boots, cap--everything. You know the way in which certain countenances remind you perpetually of some animal, be it bird or beast! Well, this chasseur (as I will call him for want of a better name) was exceedingly like the great Tom-cat that you have seen so often in my chambers, and laughed at almost as often for his uncanny gravity of demeanour. Grey whiskers has my Tom--grey whiskers had the chasseur: grey hair overshadows the upper lip of my Tom--grey mustachios hid that of the chasseur. The pupils of Tom’s eyes dilate and contract as I had thought cats’ pupils only could do, until I saw those of the chasseur. To be sure, canny as Tom is, the chasseur had the advantage in the more intelligent expression. He seemed to have obtained most complete sway over his master or patron, whose looks he watched, and whose steps he followed with a kind of distrustful interest that puzzled me greatly.

There were several other groups in the more distant part of the saloon, all of the stately old school, all grand and noble, I conjectured from their bearing. They seemed perfectly well acquainted with each other, as if they were in the habit of meeting. But I was interrupted in my observations by the tiny little gentleman on the opposite side of the room coming across to take a place beside me. It is no difficult matter to a Frenchman to slide into conversation, and so gracefully did my pigmy friend keep up the character of the nation, that we were almost confidential before ten minutes had elapsed.

Now I was quite aware that the welcome which all had extended to me, from the porter up to the vivacious lady and meek lord of the castle, was intended for some other person. But it required either a degree of moral courage, of which I cannot boast, or the self-reliance and conversational powers of a bolder and cleverer man than I, to undeceive people who had fallen into so fortunate a mistake for me. Yet the little man by my side insinuated himself so much into my confidence, that I had half a mind to tell him of my exact situation and to turn him into a friend and an ally.

“Madame is perceptibly growing older,” said he, in the midst of my perplexity, glancing at our hostess.

“Madame is still a very fine woman,” replied I.

“Now, is it not strange,” continued he, lowering his voice, “how women almost invariably praise the absent, or departed, as if they were angels of light, while as for the present, or the living”--here he shrugged up his little shoulders, and made an expressive pause. “Would you believe it! Madame is always praising her late husband to monsieur’s face; till, in fact, we guests are quite perplexed how to look: for you know, the late M. de Retz’s character was quite notorious,--everybody has heard of him.” All the world of Touraine, thought I, but I made an assenting noise.

At this instant, monsieur our host came up to me, and with a civil look of tender interest (such as some people put on when they inquire after your mother, about whom they do not care one straw) asked if I had heard lately how my cat was? “How my cat was!” What could the man mean? My cat! Could he mean the tailless Tom, born in the Isle of Man, and now supposed to be keeping guard against the incursions of rats and mice into my chambers in London? Tom is, as you know, on pretty good terms with some of my friends, using their legs for rubbing-posts without scruple, and highly esteemed by them for his gravity of demeanour, and wise manner of winking his eyes. But could his fame have reached across the Channel? However, an answer must be returned to the inquiry, as monsieur’s face was bent down to mine with a look of polite anxiety; so I, in my turn, assumed an expression of gratitude, and assured him that, to the best of my belief, my cat was in remarkably good health.

“And the climate agrees with her?”

“Perfectly,” said I, in a maze of wonder at this deep solicitude in a tailless cat who had lost one foot and half an ear in some cruel trap. My host smiled a sweet smile, and, addressing a few words to my little neighbour, passed on.

“How wearisome these aristocrats are!” quoth my neighbour with a slight sneer. “Monsieur’s conversation rarely extends to more than two sentences to any one. By that time his faculties are exhausted, and he needs the refreshment of silence. You and I, monsieur, are at any rate indebted to our own wits for our rise in the world!”

Here again I was bewildered! As you know, I am rather proud of my descent from families which, if not noble themselves, are allied to nobility,--and as to my “rise in the world”--if I had risen, it would have been rather for balloon-like qualities than for mother-wit, to being unencumbered with heavy ballast either in my head or my pockets. However, it was my cue to agree: so I smiled again.

“For my part,” said he, “if a man does not stick at trifles, if he knows how to judiciously add to, or withhold facts, and is not sentimental in his parade of humanity, he is sure to do well; sure to affix a _de_ or _von_ to his name, and end his days in comfort. There is an example of what I am saying”--and he glanced furtively at the weak-looking master of the sharp, intelligent servant, whom I have called the chasseur.

“Monsieur le Marquis would never have been anything but a miller’s son, if it had not been for the talents of his servant. Of course you know his antecedents?”

I was going to make some remarks on the changes in the order of the peerage since the days of Louis XVI.--going, in fact, to be very sensible and historical--when there was a slight commotion among the people at the other end of the room. Lacqueys in quaint liveries must have come in from behind the tapestry, I suppose (for I never saw them enter, though I sate right opposite to the doors), and were handing about the slight beverages and slighter viands which are considered sufficient refreshments, but which looked rather meagre to my hungry appetite. These footmen were standing solemnly opposite to a lady,--beautiful, splendid as the dawn, but--sound asleep in a magnificent settee. A gentleman who showed so much irritation at her ill-timed slumbers, that I think he must have been her husband, was trying to awaken her with actions not far removed from shakings. All in vain; she was quite unconscious of his annoyance, or the smiles of the company, or the automatic solemnity of the waiting footmen, or the perplexed anxiety of monsieur and madame.

My little friend sat down with a sneer as if his curiosity was quenched in contempt.

“Moralists would make an infinity of wise remarks on that scene,” said he. “In the first place note the ridiculous position into which their superstitious reverence for rank and title puts all these people. Because monsieur is a reigning prince over some minute principality the exact situation of which no one has as yet discovered, no one must venture to take their glass of eau sucré till Madame la Princesse awakens; and, judging from past experience, those poor lacqueys may have to stand for a century before that happens. Next--always speaking as a moralist, you will observe--note how difficult it is to break off bad habits acquired in youth!”

Just then the prince succeeded, by what means I did not see, in awaking the beautiful sleeper. But at first she did not remember where she was, and looking up at her husband with loving eyes, she smiled and said:

“Is it you, my prince!”

But he was too conscious of the suppressed amusement of the spectators and his own consequent annoyance, to be reciprocally tender, and turned away with some little French expression best rendered into English by “Pooh pooh, my dear!”

After I had had a glass of delicious wine of some unknown quality, my courage was in rather better plight than before, and I told my cynical little neighbour--whom I must say I was beginning to dislike--that I had lost my way in the wood, and had arrived at the château quite by mistake.

He seemed mightily amused at my story; said that the same thing had happened to himself more than once; and told me that I had better luck than he had had on one of these occasions, when, from his account, he must have been in considerable danger of his life. He ended his story by making me admire his boots, which he said he still wore, patched though they were, and all their excellent quality lost by patching,--because they were of such a first-rate make for long pedestrian excursions. “Though indeed,” he wound up by saying, “the new fashion of railroads would seem to supersede the necessity for this description of boots.”

When I consulted him as to whether I ought to make myself known to my host and hostess as a benighted traveller, instead of the guest whom they had taken me for, he exclaimed, “By no means! I hate such squeamish morality.” And he seemed much offended by my innocent question, as if it seemed by implication to condemn something in himself. He was offended and silent; and just at this moment I caught the sweet, attractive eyes of the lady opposite,--that lady whom I named at first as being no longer in the bloom of youth, but as being somewhat infirm about the feet, which were supported on a raised cushion before her. Her looks seemed to say, “Come here, and let us have some conversation together;” and with a bow of silent excuse to my little companion, I went across to the lame old lady. She acknowledged my coming with the prettiest gesture of thanks possible; and half apologetically said, “It is a little dull to be unable to move about on such evenings as this; but it is a just punishment to me for my early vanities. My poor feet, that were by nature so small, are now taking their revenge for my cruelty in forcing them into such little slippers.... Besides, monsieur,” with a pleasant smile, “I thought it was possible you might be weary of the malicious sayings of your little neighbour. He has not borne the best character in his youth, and such men are sure to be cynical in their old age.”

“Who is he?” asked I, with English abruptness.

“His name is Poucet, and his father was, I believe, a wood-cutter, or charcoal-burner, or something of the sort. They do tell sad stories of connivance at murder, ingratitude, and obtaining money on false pretences--but you will think me as bad as he if I go on with my slanders. Rather let us admire the lovely lady coming up towards us, with the roses in her hand--I never see her without roses, they are so closely connected with her past history, as you are doubtless aware. Ah beauty!” said my companion to the lady drawing near to us, “it is like you to come to me, now that I can no longer go to you.” Then turning to me, and gracefully drawing me into the conversation, she said, “You must know that although we never met until we were both married, we have been almost like sisters ever since. There have been so many points of resemblance in our circumstances, and I think I may say in our characters. We had each two elder sisters--mine were but half-sisters, though--who were not so kind to us as they might have been.”

“But have been sorry for it since,” put in the other lady.

“Since we have married princes,” continued the same lady, with an arch smile that had nothing of unkindness in it, “for we both have married far above our original stations in life; we are both unpunctual in our habits, and in consequence of this failing of ours we have both had to suffer mortification and pain.”