Wilkie Collins - "Antonina"

L. Muhlbach - "NAPOLEON AND BLUCHER"

James De Mille - "Lost in the Fog"

James Elroy Flecker - "Hassan: The Story of Hassan of Baghdad and How He Came to"

New Philadelphia Book Publisher Highlights Local Talent
Book and Publishing News from Publishers Newswire(tm)

Looking for Child to be on Cover of a New Book, 'The Model Child'
PHILADELPHIA, Pa. -- The Philadelphia literary world will celebrate the launch of two new players today, April 10th: Kay Square Press, a new publishing company focused on Philadelphia-area artists, their stories, and their art; and Kay Square's first release, 'With the Rich and Mighty: Emlen Etting of Philadelphia' (ISBN: 978-0-9815129-0-7), a critical biography by Kenneth C. Kaleta.

FlatSigned Press Alleges Don Imus Remarks Damage Legacy of President Gerald R. Ford
NEW YORK, N.Y. -- Nathan Yungerberg, an accomplished model scout and professional child photographer is launching a nation-wide casting call to find the cover model for his highly anticipated book release, 'The Model Child: A Parents Guide to the Child Modeling Industry' (ISBN: 978-0-9817018-0-6).

Books: My Young Alcides

C >> Charlotte M. Yonge >> My Young Alcides




Never was I more glad than when the luncheon-bell put a stop to the
conversation, and the sun struggling out dispensed me from further
endurance, and set me free to go with Viola to bestow her gifts,
disposing on the way of the overflow of talk that had been pent up
for months past. In the twilight, near the lodge of a favourite old
nurse of Dermot's, we encountered all the younger gentlemen, and not
only did Viola drag her brother in but Harold also, to show to whom
was owing the arrival of her wonderful tea-pot cozy.

The good woman was just going to make her tea. Viola insisted on
showing the use of her cozy, and making everybody stay to nurse's
impromptu kettledrum, and herself put in the pinches of tea. Dermot
chaffed all and sundry; Viola bustled about; Harold sat on the
dresser, with his blue eyes gleaming in the firelight with silent
amusement and perfect satisfaction, the cat sitting on his shoulder;
and nurse, who was firmly persuaded that he had rescued her dear
Master Dermot from the fangs of the lion, was delighted to do her
best for his entertainment. Viola insisted on displaying all the
curiosities--the puzzle-cup that could not be used, the horrid frog
that sprang to your lips in the tankard, the rolling-pin covered with
sentimental poetry, and her extraordinary French pictures on the
walls. Dermot kept us full of merriment, and we laughed on till the
sound of the dressing-bell sent us racing up to the castle in joyous
guilt. That kettledrum at the lodge is one of the brightest spots in
my memory.

We were very merry all the evening in a suppressed way over the
piano, Viola, Dermot, and I singing, Harold looking on, and Eustace
being left a willing victim to the good counsel lavished by my lord
and my lady, who advised him nearly out of his senses and into their
own best graces.

But we had not yet done with the amenities of the Stympsons. The
morning's post brought letters to Lady Diana and Lord Erymanth, which
were swallowed by the lady with only a flush on her brow, but which
provoked from the gentleman a sharp interjection.

"Scandalous, libellous hags!"

"The rara Avis?" inquired Dermot.

And in spite of Lady Diana's warning, "Not now," Lord Erymanth
declared, "Avice, yes! A bird whose quills are quills of iron dipped
in venom, and her beak a brazen one, distilling gall on all around.
I shall inform her that she has made herself liable to an action for
libel. A very fit lesson to her."

"What steps shall I take, my lord?" said Eustace, with much
importance. "I shall be most happy to be guided by you."

"It is not you," said Lord Erymanth.

"Oh! if it is only _he_, it does not signify so much."

"Certainly not," observed Dermot. "What sinks some floats others."

Lady Diana here succeeded in hushing up the subject, Harold having
said nothing all the time; but, after we broke up from breakfast, I
had a private view of Lady Diana's letter, which was spiteful beyond
description as far as we were concerned; making all manner of
accusations on the authority of the Australian relations; the old
stories exaggerated into horrible blackness, besides others for which
I could by no means account. Gambling among the gold-diggers, horrid
frays in Victoria, and even cattle-stealing, were so impossible in a
man who had always been a rich sheep farmer, that I laughed; yet they
were told by the cousins with strange circumstantiality. Then came
later tales--about our ways at Arghouse--all as a warning against
permitting any intercourse of the sweet child's, which might be
abused. Lady Diana was angered and vexed, but she was not a woman
who rose above the opinion of the world. Her daughter, Di Enderby,
was a friend of Birdie Stympson, and would be shocked; and she
actually told me that I must perceive that, while such things were
said, it was not possible--for her own Viola's sake--to keep up the
intimacy she would have wished.

For my part it seemed to me that, in Lady Diana's position, unjust
accusations against a poor young girl were the very reason for
befriending her openly; but her ladyship spoke in a grand,
authoritative, regretful way, and habitual submission prevented me
from making any protest beyond saying coldly, "I am very sorry, but
I cannot give up my nephews."

Viola was not present. It was supposed to be so shocking that she
could know nothing about it, but she flew into my room and raged like
a little fury at the cruel wickedness of the Stympsons in trying to
turn everyone's friends against them, and trumping up stories, and
mamma giving up as if she believed them. She wished she was Dermot--
she wished she was uncle Erymanth--she wished she was anybody, to
stand up and do battle with those horrid women!--anybody but a poor
little girl, who must obey orders and be separated from her friends.
And she cried, and made such violent assurances that I had to soothe
and silence her, and remind her of her first duty, &c.

Lord Erymanth was a nobler being than his sister, and had reached up
to clap Harold on the shoulder, while declaring that these assertions
made no difference to him, and that he did not care the value of a
straw for what Avice Stympson might say, though Harold had no defence
but his own denial of half the stories, and was forced to own that
there was truth in some of the others. He was deeply wounded. "Why
cannot the women let us keep our friends?" he said, as I found him in
the great hall.

"It is very hard," I said, with grief and anger.

"Very hard on the innocent," he answered.

Then I saw he was preparing to set off to walk home, twelve miles,
and remonstrated, since Lake Valley would probably be flooded.

"I must," he said; "I must work it out with myself, whether I do
Eustace most harm or good by staying here."

And off he went, with the long swift stride that was his way of
walking off vexation. I did not see him again till I was going up to
dress, when I found him just inside the front door, struggling to get
off his boots, which were perfectly sodden; while his whole dress,
nay, even his hair and beard, was soaked and drenched, so that I
taxed him with having been in the water.

"Yes, I went in after a dog," he said, and as he gave a shiver, and
had just pulled off his second boot, I asked no more questions, but
hunted him upstairs to put on dry clothes without loss of time; and
when we met at dinner, Eustace was so full of our doings at the
castle, and Dora of hers with Miss Woolmer, that his bath was
entirely driven out of my head.

But the next day, as I was preparing for my afternoon's walk, the
unwonted sound of our door-bell was heard. "Is our introduction
working already?" thought I, little expecting the announcement--
"The Misses Stympson."

However, there were Stympsons and Stympsons, so that even this did
not prepare me for being rushed at by all three from Lake House--two
aunts and one niece--Avice, Henny, and Birdie, with "How is he?"
"Where is he? He would not take anything. I hope he went to bed and
had something hot." "Is he in the house? No cold, I hope. We have
brought the poor dear fellow for him to see. He seems in pain to-
day; we thought he would see him."

At last I got in a question edgeways as to the antecedents, as the
trio kept on answering one another in chorus, "Poor dear Nep--your
cousin--nephew, I mean--the bravest--"

Then it flashed on me. "Do you mean that it was for your dog that
Harold went into the water yesterday!"

"Oh, the bravest, most generous, the most forgiving. So tender-
handed! It must be all a calumny. I wish we had never believed it.
He could never lift a hand against anyone. We will contradict all
rumours. Report is so scandalous. Is he within?"

Harold had been at the Hydriot works ever since breakfast, but on my
first question the chorus struck up again, and I might well quail at
the story. "Lake Mill; you know the place, Miss Alison?"

Indeed I did. The lake, otherwise quiet to sluggishness, here was
fed by the rapid little stream, and at the junction was a great mill,
into which the water was guided by a sharp descent, which made it
sweep down with tremendous force, and, as I had seen from the train,
the river was swelled by the thaw and spread far beyond its banks.
"The mill-race!" I cried in horror.

"Just observe. Dear Nep has such a passion for the water, and Birdie
thoughtlessly threw a stick some way above the weir. I never shall
forget what I felt when I saw him carried along. He struggled with
his white paws, and moaned to us, but we could do nothing, and we
thought to have seen him dashed to pieces before our eyes, when,
somehow, his own struggles I fancy--he is so sagacious--brought him
up in a lot of weeds and stuff against the post of the flood-gates,
and that checked him. But we saw it could not last, and his strength
was exhausted. Poor Birdie rushed down to beg them to stop the mill,
but that could never have been done in time, and the dear dog was on
the point of being sucked in by the ruthless stream, moaning and
looking appealingly to us for help, when, behold! that superb figure,
like some divinity descending, was with us, and with one brief
inquiry he was in the water. We called out to him that the current
was frightfully strong--we knew a man's life ought not to be
perilled; but he just smiled, took up the great pole that lay near,
and waded in. I cannot describe the horror of seeing him breasting
that stream, expecting, as we did, to see him borne down by it into
the wheel. The miller shouted to him that it was madness, but he
kept his footing like a rock. He reached the place where the poor
dog was, and the fury of the stream was a little broken by the post,
took up poor Nep and put him over his shoulder. Nep was so good--lay
like a lamb--while Mr. Alison fought his way back, and it was harder
still, being upwards. The miller and his men came out and cheered,
thinking at least he would come out spent and want help; but no, he
came out only panting a little, put down the dog, and when it moaned
and seemed hurt he felt it all over so tenderly, found its leg was
broken, took it into the miller's kitchen, and set it like any
surgeon. He would take nothing but a cup of tea, whatever they said,
and would not change his clothes--indeed, the miller is a small man,
so I don't see how he could--but I hope he took no harm. He walked
away before we could thank him. But, oh dear! what a wicked thing
scandal is! I will never believe anything report says again."

To the end of their days the Misses Stympson believed that it was the
convenient impersonal rumour which had maligned Harold--not
themselves.

I was just parting with them when Harold appeared, and they
surrounded him, with an inextricable confusion of thanks--hopes that
he had not caught cold, and entreaties that he would look at his
patient, whom they had brought on the back seat of the barouche to
have his leg examined. Harold said that his was self-taught surgery,
but was assured that the dog would bear it better from him than any
one, and could not but consent.

I noticed, however, that when he had to touch the great black
Newfoundland dog, a strong shudder ran through his whole frame, and
he had to put a strong force on himself, though he spoke to it
kindly, and it wagged its tail, and showed all the grateful, wistful
affection of its kind, as he attended to it with a tender skill in
which his former distaste was lost; and the party drove away
entreating him to come and renew the treatment on the Monday, and
asking us all to luncheon, but not receiving a distinct answer in
Eustace's absence, for he was very tenacious of his rights as master
of the house.

I was quite touched with the dog's parting caress to his preserver.
"So you have conquered the birds with iron quills!" I cried,
triumphantly.

"Who were they?" asked Harold, astonished.

"Surely you know them? I never thought of introducing you."

"You don't mean that they were those women?"

"Of course they were. I thought you knew you were performing an act
of heroic forgiveness."

Harold's unfailing politeness towards me hindered him from saying
"heroic fiddlesticks," but he could not suppress a "Faugh!" which
meant as much, and that mortified me considerably.

"Come now, Harry," I said, "you don't mean that you would not have
done it if you had known?"

"I should not have let the poor beast drown because his mistresses
were spiteful hags." And there was a look on his face that made me
cry out in pain, "Don't, Harry!"

"Don't what?"

"Don't be unforgiving. Say you forgive them."

"I can't. I could as soon pardon Smith."

"But you ought to pardon both. It would be generous. It would be
Christian."

I was sorry I had said that, for he looked contemptuously and said,
"So they teach you. I call it weakness."

"Oh, Harry! dear Harry, no! The highest strength!"

"I don't understand that kind of talk," he said. "You don't know
what that Smith is to my poor mother!"

"We won't talk of him; but, indeed, the Misses Stympson are grateful
to you, and are sorry. Won't you go to them on Monday?"

"No! I don't like scandal-mongers."

"But you have quite conquered them."

"What do you mean? If we are the brutes they tell those who would
have been our friends, we are not less so because I pulled a dog out
of the river."

The hard look was on his face, and to my faint plea, "The poor dog!"

"The dog will do very well." He went decisively out of the way of
further persuasions, and when a formal note of invitation arrived, he
said Eustace and I might go, but he should not. He had something to
do at the potteries; and as to the dog, the less it was meddled with
the better.

"I know you hate black dogs," said Eustace; "I only wonder you ever
touched it."

Harold's brow lowered at this, and afterwards I asked Eustace to
account for the strange dislike. He told me that the dogs at the
store had run yelping after the buggy on that fatal drive, and this
and the melancholy howl of the dingoes had always been supposed to be
the cause of the special form of delirious fancy that had haunted
Harold during the illness following--that he was pursued and dragged
down by a pack of black hounds, and that the idea had so far followed
him that he still had a sort of alienation from dogs, though he
subdued it with a high hand.

He would still not go with us to Lake House, for go we did. An
invitation was stimulating to Eustace, and though I much disliked the
women, I knew we could not afford to reject an advance if we were not
to continue out of humanity's reach.

So I went, and we were made much of in spite of the disappointment.

Had not Mr. Harold Alison been so kind as to come over both Sunday
and Monday morning and see to poor Nep in his kennel before they were
down? Oh, yes, they had heard of it from the stable-boy, and had
charged him to take care the gentleman came in to breakfast, but he
could not persuade him. Such a pity he was too busy to come to-day!

Eustace gave learned and elaborate opinions on Nep, and gained the
hearts of the ladies, who thenceforth proclaimed that Mr. Alison was
a wonderfully finished gentleman, considering his opportunities; but
Mr. Harold was at the best a rough diamond, so that once more his
conquest had been for Eustace rather than for himself. They showed
me, in self-justification, letters from their relations in Melbourne,
speaking of the notorious Harry Alison as a huge bearded ruffian, and
telling horrid stories of his excesses in no measured terms. Of
course we denied them, and represented that some other man must have
borne the same name, and gratitude made them agree; but the
imputation lay there, ready to revive at any time. And there had
been something in the whole affair that had not a happy effect on
Harold. He was more blunt, more gruff, less tolerant or ready to be
pleased; Eustace's folly was no longer incapable of provoking him;
and even his gentleness towards Dora and me was with a greater
effort, and he was plainly in an irritable state of suppressed
suffering of mind or temper, which only the strong force he put upon
himself kept in check. My poor Harold, would he see that there were
moral achievements higher than his physical ones, and would he learn
that even his strength was not equal to them, unaided?




CHAPTER VIII. BULLOCK'S CHASTISEMENT.



The next frosty day Dora and I set forth for a visit to the double
cottage, where, on one side, dwelt a family with a newly-arrived
baby; on the other was Dame Jennings', with the dilapidated roof and
chimney. I was glad to see Dora so happily and eagerly interested
over the baby as to be more girl-like than I had yet seen her,
though, comparing her to what she had been on her arrival, she was
certainly a good deal softened and tamed. "Domesticated" would
really not have been so inappropriate a word in her case as it is in
advertisements of companions.

We had come to the door, only divided from Mrs. Jennings's by a low
fence and a few bushes, when voices struck on our ears, and we saw
Bullock's big, sturdy, John Bull form planted in a defiant attitude
in the garden-path before the door, where the old woman stood
courtesying, and mingling entreating protestations against an
additional sixpence a week on her rent with petitions that at least
the chimney might be made sound and the roof water-tight.

There is no denying that I did stand within the doorway to listen,
for not only did I not wish to encounter Bullock, but it seemed quite
justifiable to ascertain whether the current whispers of his dealings
with the poor were true; indeed, there was no time to move before he
replied with a volley of such abuse, as I never heard before or
since, at her impudence in making such a demand.

I was so much shocked that I stood transfixed, forgetting even to
draw Dora away from the sound, while the old woman pleaded that "Mr.
Herod" had made the promise, and said nothing of increasing her rent.
Probably Bullock had been irritated by the works set on foot at
Ogden's farm, for he brought out another torrent of horrid
imprecations upon "the meddling convict fellow," the least
intolerable of the names he used, and of her for currying favour,
threatening her with instant expulsion if she uttered a word of
complaint, or mentioned the increase of her rent, and on her
hesitation actually lifting his large heavy stick.

We both cried out and sprang forward, though I scarcely suppose that
he would have actually struck her. But much more efficient help was
at hand. Bullock's broad back was to the gate, and he little knew
that at the moment he raised his stick Harold, attracted by his loud
railing voice, leaped over the gate, and with one bound was upon the
fellow, wresting the stick from his hand and laying it about his
shoulders with furious energy. We all screamed out. Dora, it was
suspected, bade him go on and give it to him well, and perhaps my
wrath with the man made me simply shriek; but the sense of our
presence did (whatever we wished) check Harold's violence so far that
he ceased his blows, throwing the man from him with such force that
he fell prone into the poor dame's gooseberry-bush, and had to pick
himself up through numerous scratches, just as we had hurried round
through the garden.

He had regained his feet, and was slinking up to the gate as we met
him, and passionately exclaimed: "Miss Alison, you have seen this;
I shall call on you as my witness."

Dora called out something so vituperative that my energies went in
silencing her, nor do I think I answered Bullock, though at least it
was a relief to see that, having a great sou'-wester over all his
other clothes, the force of the blows had been so broken that he
could not have any really serious injury to complain of. It was not
unfortunate, however, that he was so shaken and battered that he went
first to exhibit himself to Dr. Kingston's new partner, and obtain a
formidable scientific account of his sprains and bruises; so that
Eustace had heard an account of the affray in the first place, and
Dora, with a child's innate satisfaction in repeating personalities,
had not spared the epithets with which Bullock had mentioned the
"fool of a squire." The said squire, touched to the quick, went out
invulnerable to his interview, declaring that the agent had been
rightly served, only wishing he had had more, and indignantly
refusing Bullock's offer to abstain from prosecuting Mr. Harold
Alison on receiving a handsome compensation, and a promise never to
be interfered with again. Eustace replied--too much, I fear, in his
own coin--with orders to send in his accounts immediately and to
consider himself dismissed from his agency from that hour; and then
came back to us like a conquering hero, exulting in his own
magnanimous firmness, which "had shown he was not to be trifled
with."

But he did not like it at all when Richardson came in trying to look
quite impassive, and said to Harold, "Some one wants to speak to you
sir."

Harold went, and returned without a word, except, "You are wanted
too, Lucy," and I was not equally silent when I found it was to serve
on me an order to appear as witness before the magistrates the next
day, as to the assault upon Bullock.

Eustace was very much annoyed, and said it was disgraceful, and that
Harold was always getting into scrapes, and would ruin him with all
the county people, just as he was beginning to make way with them--a
petulant kind of ingratitude which we had all learnt to tolerate as
"old Eu's way," and Dora announced that if he was put in prison, she
should go too.

It was only a Petty Sessions case, heard in the justice-room at
Mycening, and on the way the prisoner was chiefly occupied in
assuring the witness that there was nothing to be nervous about; and
the squire, that it would hurt nobody but himself; and, for his part,
fine him as they would, he would willingly pay twenty times as much
to rid the place of Bullock.

The bench--who sat at the upper end of a table--were three or four
Horsmans and Stympsons, with Lord Erymanth in the chair par
excellence, for they all sat on chairs, and they gave the like to
Eustace and me while we waited, poor Harold having put himself, in
the custody of a policeman, behind the rail which served as bar.

When our turn came, Harold pleaded "Guilty" at once, not only for
truth's sake, but as meaning to spare me the interrogation; and
Crabbe, who was there on Bullock's behalf, looked greatly baffled and
disappointed; but the magistrates did not let it rest there, since
the amount of the fine of course would depend on the degree of
violence, &c., so both Mrs. Jennings and I, and the doctor, were
examined as witnesses.

I came first; and at first I did not find the inquiries half so
alarming as I expected, since my neighbours spoke to me quite in a
natural way, and it was soon clear that my account of the matter was
the best possible defence of Harold in their eyes. The unpleasant
part was when Crabbe not only insisted on my declaring on oath that
I did not think Bullock meant to strike the old woman, but on my
actually repeating the very words he had said, which he probably
thought I should flinch from doing; but he thereby made it the worse
for himself. No doubt he and Crabbe had reckoned on our general
unpopularity, and had not judged it so as to discover the reaction
that had set in. An endeavour to show that we were acting as spies
on the trustworthy old servant, in order to undermine him with his
master, totally failed, and, at last, the heavy fine of one shilling
was imposed upon Harold--as near an equivalent as possible to
dismissing the case altogether. Lord Erymanth himself observed to
Eustace, "that he felt, if he might say so, to a certain degree
implicated, since he had advised the dismissal of Bullock, but
scarcely after this fashion." However, he said he hoped to have
Eustace among them soon in another capacity, and this elevated him
immensely.

The case had taken wind among the workmen at the potteries; and as we
came out at their dinner-hour, there was a great assemblage, loudly
cheering, "Alison, the poor man's friend!"

Eustace stood smiling and fingering his hat, till Captain Stympson,
who came out with us, hinted, as he stood between the two young men,
that it had better be stopped as soon as possible. "One may soon
have too much of such things," and then Eustace turned round on
Harold, and declared it was "just his way to bring all the Mycening
mob after them." Whereat Harold, without further answer, observed,
"You'll see Lucy home then," and plunged down among the men, who, as
if nothing had been wanting to give them a fellow-feeling for him but
his having been up before the magistrates, stretched out hands to
shake; and as he marched down between a lane of them, turned and
followed the lofty standard of his head towards their precincts.