Saint Nicolas' Eve, and other tales

Front matter

SAINT NICOLAS' EVE AND OTHER TALES. STORIES FOR DAUGHTERS AT HOME. Cloth, price 5s. each. STEPHEN THE SCHOOLMASTER. A Story without Plot. By M. E. B. (Mrs. Gellie). MY SISTER'S KEEPER. By Laura M. Lane, Author of ' Gentleman Verschoyle,' &c. With a Preface by Mrs. Townsend, President of the Girls' Friendly Society. ' The purpose is most excellent. . . . Has done her work very skilfully. . . A pleasant, readable story.' — Academy. ' A really charming volume. ' — Spectator. MY MOTHER'S DIAMONDS. By Maria J. Greer. With a Frontispiece by A. Ludovici. ' Full of life and spirit. . . . A very pleasant tale.' — Queen. 'Pleasant and interesting, with just a little spice of love — not enough to make too interesting to girls, and yet enough to give it a point.' — At/ienœum. 'BONNIE LESLEY.' By Mrs. Herbert Martin, Author of * Cast Adrift,' &c. With Frontispiece by Miss C. Paterson. 'There is no praise too high for Mrs. Martin's delightful story.' — Academy. 'Spirited, interesting, refined, and humorous. . . .

A charming story.' — Spectator. LEFT ALONE; or, The Fortunes of Phillis Maitland. By Francis Carr, Author of 'Tried by Fire,' oic. ' A very pleasant book, and contains a decidedly interesting story ' — Atliencrum. ' Pure and refined in tone. . . . We emphatically pronounce it tender and true.' — Vanity Fair. GRIFFITH & FARRAN, London. E. P. DCTTON AND CO., NEW YORK. Saint Nicolas' Eve AND OTHER TALES. BV MARY C. ROWSELL, **^-*f AUTHOR OF ' LOVE LOYAL, _TC, ETC. GRIFFITH & FARRAN, SUCCESSORS TO NEWBERY AND HARRIS, WEST CORNER ST. PAUL'S CHURCHYARD, LONDON. E. P. DUTTON & CO., New York. 1880. [ The Rights of Translation and Reproduction are reserved.] CONTENTS. PAGE SAINT NICOLAS' EVE, ' HEATHERWOLD HALL, . . • • **3 TREVARTHEN'S DOOM, . . • l65 THE MYSTERY OF THE NORTH WING, . . 215 TWO SIDES OF A STORY, . . • .237 ABBOT'S CRAG 2?7 ST. NICOLAS' EVE • Saint Nicolas1 Eve.

Chapter I

For as the sun is daily new and old, So is my love still telling what is told. Shakespeare {Sonnets). IENS ! Niclas, but what a pest thou art I Is it that thou canst tell me nothing new ? For ever the same thing ! the same thing ! ' ' Because,' answered Niclas, pleading the identical defence of that rustic hero of Monsieur Moliere's, ' because it is always the same thing.' And that was true enough. A very unchangeable man, when once he had taken a thing into his head, was Niclas Beaupre^ and he had taken into his head, and his heart too, to love Victorine Duclair, charming, darling, distracting little Ma'm'selle Victorine Duclair. What would you have, then, but that he should tell her A of his love ? But, then, ah me ! what, on the other hand — that is, nine times out of ten — what sort of a response did she vouchsafe him, save a saucy moue of her ripe cherry lips, and an assurance that he was si bete, ' si bete, always to be harping on that one string ! ' Victorine said she was so tired of it, that she was ' Love — love — love — love from morning till night, first one — then another.' Why, if it was not Niclas, then it was Baptiste, or Armand, or Paul — Paul Picotin, you know, or Auguste, Monsieur Auguste Superbe Pompon,' and here Ma'm'selle Torrine's little nose — ah ! but what a ravish ing little nose ! — would insist on tossing itself quite an inch higher.

And no wonder ! when you came to consider that Monsieur Pompon was a gentleman — that is, next door to a gentleman, for no one could remember how many years ago it was since he had dealt out soap and currants over his little counter to the good people of Pont-le-bœuf. There is never any occasion for prying so inquisitively back into these sorts of things ; it was quite enough to know that out of that soap and those currants, Monsieur Pompon had scraped for himself a neat little income, and that he had but to say ' snip ' for a score of the maidens of Pont-le-bœuf to say ' snap.' Now it was very agreeable to Ma'm'selle Duclair to think that Monsieur Pompon had said 'snip,' positively and truly said it, or something very like it to her. Not that she had said ' snap,' mind you — oh dear, no ! that is quite another thing ; the most agreeable part of it all being, that the spinsterhood of Pont-le-bœuf was ready to scratch her eyes out for jealousy.

Yes, Victorine enjoyed it all excessively, and it was so useful too, for making into a sort of Damocles' sword to hang above Niclas Beaupre's head. Decidedly Monsieur Pompon was the crowning feather in Victorine's cap of victory over a good round dozen of wounded hearts. But what on earth these poor creatures could see in her to make such fools of themselves over, the maidens of Pont-le bœuf could not make out a bit — an ordinary little chit of a thing like that, who earned every scrap of bread she put into her mouth by her lacework, a girl with not fifty francs for her dot ! Why, it was ridiculous ! Pos sibly, but then so many true things are ridiculous, and it was certainly true that Victorine Duclair had admiring swains a plenty. ' But what is that ? ' she would say ; ' every girl is plagued by that sort of thing.' Every girl did not, however, have every day, look you, a lover like Monsieur Auguste Superbe Pompon asking — asking, indeed ! — had he not entreated, wept, sighed, implored her to become Madame Pompon, and to accept every centime — 'And all his sixty years and his bandy legs?' insinu ates Maitre Niclas, glancing down, the vain one ! at his own pair of shapely lower limbs. ' Va ! ' replied Torrine, snapping her pleating-irons, for she was busy ' getting up ' her fete-day chapeau for the morrow, ' that for his legs ! ' ' Ah ! with all my heart,' assented Niclas ; ' poor Monsieur Pompon ! ' ' Poor Monsieur Pompon ! and why poor Monsieur Pompon ?

Very well, Monsieur Niclas ; so when a man happens to take a fancy to poor little me, you think his taste is to be pitied. That's your opinion, is it ? ' and a saucy glance flashes its glamour on Beaupre; 'very well ! very well ! ' ' I didn't want to be talking about Monsieur Pompon at all, ma cherie. It is me — myself, of whom I'm thinking. Tell me, then — is it not time to stop making a mouse of me, thou dear little cat, and take pity ? See, now, thou hast been at play these last six months, come, and nestle by my own hearth. I can live no longer without thee, Torrine, my darling, my little love. I tell thee—' ' I tell thee thy foolishness is enough to give one the migraine, Niclas ! It is such nonsense that thou art eternally talking.' ' But—' ' Ah ! there — but do go away now, mon bon garcon, I am so occupied — I am, indeed.

I have a thousand things to prepare for to-morrow, and see here is my coiffure not finished yet ! ' ' But—' There, go ; dost thou forget to-morrow is our patron saint's day — thy patron saint's day, Monsieur ? thou shouldst be meditating now on all the great good things Santa Clas ever did : sais tu ? ' ' It brings me leagues nearer heaven to think on thee,' murmured her lover. ' Ah, fi done ! that is blasphemy,' answered Torrine, with a well-pleased air. ' Go along, I am ashamed of thee,' and turning her back altogether on Niclas, she took a pair of fresh pleating-irons from the fire, and then she pushed away the great tabby cat. ' Attends ! Mimi ! Thou and Niclas are for ever in the way. I do wish you'd go home, mon ami,' she said, vigor ously resuming her pleating operations. But not one inch did Niclas stir.

Who ever for an instant imagined that he would ? Not Torrine, certainly. Why, was she not always saying such things as these ? and did not Niclas like it immensely? Another tick of the little cuckoo clock up there, and a gentle strong arm would be round her waist, and those dark earnest eyes would be gazing into hers. No ? what then, is this ? Niclas saying, in ever such a subdued calm voice, ' And is this earnest, Victorine ?' ' Ah, bah ! earnest ? ' says she, not looking up ; 'of course it's earnest. Pray, do I ever tell stories, Monsieur Beaupre?' Niclas' face grows very pale, and a saddened, weary look creeps into his eyes. It has crept there very often of late. This girl's waywardness and coquetry are so hard to bear ! but yet God knows how long he has borne with it already. Here has he been pleading with, importuning her to be his wife, the crowning ornament of his manhood, and of the cosy little farm out yonder — just a half kilometre beyond the old stone bridge — for the last six months.

In conjunction with his own eloquence, he has enlisted that of good Aunt Mathurine, Torrine's only relation, who sits up there in the warm stove corner now, dozing over her knitting, and an honest partisan is Aunt Mathurine of Niclas', for besides the consideration that Monsieur Beaupre is a very desirable parti for Torrine, the good old lady is very fond of Niclas for his own sake. He is respectful and kind to her, is not given to snubbing her as a nonentity, and Aunt Mathurine's experience says these are such rare qualities in young France. And so Aunt Mathurine is for ever edging in a good word for Maitre Niclas ; and as for Niclas himself, he has been spending, take it altogether, six good months dangling after Victorine Duclair ; a proceeding he would not have been slow to animadvert upon, had a comrade of his done the like in chase of some other coy Dulcinea.

And now, all being said and done over and over again, Ma'm'selle Torrine is about as satisfactory and consoling as usual, and Niclas is as despairing, nay, ten times more de spairing, and there begins to be an utter fading away of all his hopes. A long silence ensues, unbroken save by the simmering of the pot au feu, which holds to-night a splendid fat little capon ; and the saucy click-clack of Torrine's pleating-irons, as they make their rounds among the lace and muslin of the fete-day chapeau. Lower and lower falls Niclas' head on his heaving breast, — heavin°* with a strong mingling of hopelessness and of indignation. It is so often the last straw that breaks the camel's back. Presently he is startled out of himself to the tune of a peal of mocking laughter, merry and silvery as a bell truly, and yet somehow it grates harshly enough on the young man's ears. ' Ah ! ah ! ah !

If you could but see yourself now, my friend, he ! he" ! he ! and so you shall ! Tenez,' and Ma'm'selle Duclair snatches down her little hand-mirror from the wall. ' Look, then — why, you have an air si desol6, haven't you ? Do you know what you look like ? No ? Look again.' But Niclas would not look, he turned away im patiently. ' Then I will tell you,' said she ; ' you look, he ! he ! he ! for all the world like — our Lady forgive me, I can't help it — like the blessed Saint Clas — you know — our San Clas ! Look if you don't, and Victorine poked the mirror almost flat against the unfortunate Niclas' nose ; but somehow, whether it was that he failed to see the resemblance, or that the point of the joke was lost on him, he did not echo his sweetheart's laughter, but looked very grim indeed, very much, in fact, as if he were getting cross.

Saint Nicolas is, of course, beyond controversy, one of the most respectable saints in the calendar, and had Niclas Beaupr^'s frame of mind only been as it ought, he should have been immeasurably proud of such a comparison ;• but one thing and another had ruffled him, and seeing every idea to-night as it were through smoked glass, the handsome, stalwart young farmer by no means enjoyed this comparing of himself with the lean-visaged, wry-necked, shabby old presentment of Pont-le-bœuf's patron saint, whose fete-day to-morrow was ; a circumstance which perhaps associated ideas more strongly than ever in Torrine's fertile imagination. It certainly was something of a grievance, for this local Saint Nicolas had no face at all to speak of ; time had worn it quite away, and ere his next fete-day should come round, he was to be transformed into a brand-new Saint Nicolas.

Still Niclas told himself it was so utterly ridiculous to quarrel for such a thing as this ; and so, although an angry retort did rush to his lips, he repressed it, and only said, — ' Why will you persist in trifling with me so, ma cherie ? The day may come when you will repent — ' ' Repent ! mon Dieu ! repent, shall I ? ' answered she, with flashing eyes. ' Ah, I see, yes, I am to kneel down and thank Heaven for the honour and distinction Mon sieur Beaupre confers on me — ' ' Oh, chut ! hush, then, Torrine. Why will you mis take me so wilfully ? How is it that all my love can kindle no spark of it in thy heart ? One day when you come to understand what love is — ' ' Well, and what then ? ' interrupted she, throwing down the mirror so impetuously that she cracked it, the unlucky child. ' Then you will learn that suspense is death, living death,' he said. ' Ta ! ta ! ' replied Victorine, whose admirers had always been so careful not to let her have the vaguest notion of what suspense might mean, ' hear the man ! ' ' You've no feeling, Ma'm'selle Duclair ; you are heartless, let me tell you, utterly heartless ! ' Victorine smiled softly to herself, and heaved a zephyr of a sigh, which, had the stupid Niclas only been open to reasonable influences, would have told him plainly enough ' that that was all he knew about it.' ' No heart — none,' continued Niclas, ' no more than this senseless, brainless doll,' and he gave an angry fillip at the dummy on which Mademoiselle Duclair had been arranging her head-gear.

This dummy was a curious wadded stuffed construction, bearing a remote resemblance to a human head, such as one may see in every household in France. The dusty, towzle-haired, working-class young women, poor things, of dunderheaded old England are so lamentably innocent of such formidable weapons of destruction as are these enchanting little frilly caps which Frenchwomen wear, and so these dummies are to us no familiar objects, as they are across the water. Our milliners certainly make use of a ghastly green and vermillion kid-covered simulacrum for fitting their caps and bonnets on ; but these things are done better in France, where the national shrinking from anything disagreeable impels them to do away altogether with the appalling eyes and hideous features of our clumsy English dummy, and, on the principle, no doubt, that vacancy is preferable to such fearsome caricature of the ' human face divine,' a mere swathing of old silk is substituted.

Yet to be compared to a featureless bundle of wadding and silk ! No ! no ! that was too much. But Torrine knew quite well what Niclas was trying to insinuate — of course — it was his mean, horrid little bit of revenge for her having said he was like their San Clas. Yes, yes, but it is quite one thing to be told that you are like a blessed saint of paradise, and another that you are like a cap-dummy ! ' Senseless ! brainless ! ' said she to herself. ' Very well ! See if I will not make you pay for that, Monsieur Niclas,' and Victorine banged her pleating-irons on the table with so loud a clatter that the cat actually opened the corner of one eye ; ' and so, mon brave, I am senseless ! brainless ! ugly ! am I ? ' ' Hein ? ' said Niclas. 'Senseless — -brainless — folle — hideous! that's what you said I was.' 'No, I didn't,' said Niclas. ' You did ! ' she said, planting her hands stoutly on her hips. ' I say I did not,' as stoutly maintained her lover. ' You did ! you did ! you did ! ' and Torrine's little wooden shoes clack three emphatic clacks on the red brick floor. ' Very well,' said Niclas, desperately ; ' have it your own way, Mademoiselle.' ' Have it my own way ?

I should think I should, indeed ! Do you think I am going to stand here to be insulted — ' ' Insulted ? Great Heaven ! ' flushed up Niclas. ' Be calm, thou art so entirely mistaken, mon ange — ' ' Angel, indeed ! ' retorted the girl ; ' say your fine speeches, Monsieur, to those who like them. For me, I know their value. Is this the manner, I wonder, that Armand, or Paul — Paul Picotin, or the good Monsieur Pompon — •' ' Sacr— r— re!' gnashed Niclas' teeth ; 'que le Diable emporte ce bon Monsieur Pompon — ' ' Now Niclas,' said Torrine, calming down to an im pressive demureness, ' if thou art going to be profane thou hadst best go at once.' ' Well, but look, now, Victorine — ' ' No,' said Victorine, ' I don't like folks who get into passions and swear. It's terrible to think of— terrible ! ' and here, having laid aside her irons to cool, she turned and devoted all her attention to the stewpan. ' But, Torrine — ' 'Ah, peste, then, aren't you 'gone ? ' said she.

There was no fun equal to an attempt at worrying this poor boy into a temper ; one could so seldom succeed to one's heart's content, for he would stand such an amount of this sort of thing from Torrine. Why. supposing now he did march off, what would you bet that he wouldn't be back in a very little quarter of an hour ? Bah ! but it would be simply cheating you out of your small change to lay a wager like that ! Niclas, you see, did so like these jokes. Then, too, he always said that Torrine looked ten times lovelier when she was animated. Well, she had been very animated now. But this poor Niclas — he really did begin to look quite pale, and soon it would be time to think of making it up. Ay ! ay ! those makings up ! Torrine did so thoroughly enjoy them, and many a time had she brewed the little storm for the sweet calm's sake that always came after.

It was so blessed to be taken back into the kind strong arms, and to be kissed and cooed over like some little truant bird come home again to its nest. But for this one must wait a little while yet. The capon has first to be attended to, or it will be done to rags, and this capon is to be a treat. Everybody always has one's little treat on one's patron saint's eve, and this fowl, cooked and dished up by Victorine's own dainty hands, is to be Niclas Beaupre's treat, and the ' making up ' the confiture to crown the banquet. Meantime the capon, to be done to perfection, needed, after all, quite three minutes more sim mering, and Victorine, true artist that she was, desiring to devote undivided attention to her finishing touches, did honestly want to be rid of her lover for a bit. He fidgeted her, standing there so mum and still, looking as if all the burden of the world's woes were on his shoulders. ' Well, then, Niclas, are you not going ?

I do wish you would go away.' Niclas slowly turned his peaked cloth cap through his fingers. 'You are in earnest, Mademoiselle?' he said. ' Peste ! and am I not always in earnest ? Que tu m'ennuies Niclas ! ' Is it the fire flicker, or does that bright little sauce pan reflect a smile at the corners of Torrine's rosy mouth ? Well, well, if it does — Niclas cannot see it, he is much too far off, and is lost in contempla tion of the stone floor, making comparisons, per haps, between it and that thing which Torrine calls her heart. ' So, then,' he says, ' you really desire — it is your wish that I go away ? ' ' But yes, certainly.' ' Good-night, Mademoiselle, adieu.' ' Good-night, Monsieur, adieu.

Chapter II

Forth goes the lover with a farewell moan, As from the presence of a thing inhuman, Oh ! what unholy spell hath turned to stone The young warm heart of woman ? Romance of Cologne. — HOOD, HEN, beyond all manner of doubt, that is a smile dancing away on the ruddy saucepan's outside, to the tune of its merry bubbles inside ; but on Niclas' face, as he drags his sabots after him with a heavy hopeless scrape, there is not the poorest ghost of a smile, and so, shutting the house-door behind him, he finds his way along the little garden path and stands out in the road beyond, just where the three crossways meet. For the last two days, there has been such a heavy snowfall that it is difficult for the eye to follow the windings of these three paths to the great world beyond Pont-le-bœuf ; but Niclas is looking fixedly in the direction where, leagues away, lies Paris, and then presently he turns, and gazes down on the little village wrapped in its smooth, spotless snow-robe ; the deep, slanting gables rise solemn and ghostly in their unflecked white mantle, thick and soft as the eider-down, while out from beneath, through many a latticed pane, the red firelight flickers and dances, telling of comfortable mothers preparing little pleasant surprise suppers — for is not this St. Nicolas" Eve ? — and of fathers prospectively enjoying to-morrow's holiday — for who ever does a stroke of work, pray, on St. Nicolas' Day ? — and of children — ay, above all, it tells of happy children; because the good Bishop of Myra is the children's saint, par excellence.

Not three weeks hence will this kind good San Clas be filling each little stocking he finds hung up by their bedside, with good measure, pressed down, toys, bon-bons — ah, who knows ? — all their hearts most greatly rejoice in. Surely, then, it behoves the little ones to single out the good bishop as an object of their special devotion ; if they do not, there is no knowing what may happen, for San Clas has a left hand, look you, as well as a right hand, and every dunce knows it holds a good stout birch-rod ! But what has Niclas to do with little children, and happy homesteads, and kind patron saints, and such like blessed things ? For him, indeed, San Clas seems bringing the birch-rod, and there are no sweets to fall into his stocking, that is plain enough, for Torrine has proved unkind, and life is a blank without Torrine.

And then the sight of Pont-le-bœuf, and of Pont-le bceuf's little church up there on the hill, where lights are gleaming through the deep reds and blues of the old windows, becomes unbearable to Niclas Beaupre, and he turns his back on it, and looks gloomily down on the river, where lie the great snow-drifts all heaped St. ATicolas' Eve. on one side by the folks who have been skating and making high holiday. There all the fantastic rings and triangles of their skates have cut clear and sharp into the frozen water, and glisten out in the moonlight. What if only that water had not been frozen ? Why, then, as soon as look at it. one could have hidden one's griefs so quietly away underneath it for ever. For ever ? Ah, no ! Not that, not that ! Niclas Beaupre was made of no such poor cowardly stuff, and he shrank back from the ice-bound river, as from some unholy thing, and slowly retraced his few steps towards the little triangular patch of grass amid the three cross-roads, where, dark and sharply defined in the moonlight stood out the great crucifix, 'The Croix Rouge,' as the folks of Pont-le-bœuf called it, because of its reddish-brown wood, where the blessed Christ's figure hung, and then one or two warm tears stole unbidden down Niclas' dark cheek ; but he indignantly brushed them away ; why, what was this ?

Because his mistress was unkind, was he to sit weeping like a child over a broken toy, on the lowest step of the Croix Rouge ? Surely, it was next door to sacrilege — utter foolishness, at least, to bring such sort of grief as this to the feet of the Bon Dieu ! to dare to — and then Beaupre involuntarily raised his eyes to the sad pitying Face looking gently down on him, and somehow he gave way altogether then, and found himself sobbing his heart out, just exactly as if he had neither strength of mind, nor a scrap of common sense left. Ah, great Heaven ! this then, is what it is to love ! To be all unmanned — to have no aim in life — for the bright world to be all stale, flat, and unprofitable. To wish one's self dead, and never to wake again — to hate the very idea of the beautiful well-to-do farm, with all its splendid pigs, and glorious cows, and spacious barns, and tall hayricks, for each and all reminded him of her, — his pride had been in them, because all was to have been hers ; but now she would have none of them.

She had told him to begone, and so he was going — whither ? Heaven only knew ; but he was going. And the farm ? Well, the farm might take care of itself, or fall to rack and ruin, as it would. To him it was less than nothing. For him there would be no rest until he had put a score of leagues between himself and this heartless woman he loved. What a blind fond fool he had been not to have done it months ago ! Pride should have told him — well, pride was beginning to do its duty now, and Niclas rose up from the Croix Rouge brave and resolute. He would no longer be the sport of this coquette, not he, no, it was plain that she had for him no atom of love, and love Niclas must have before all things else. But was it that she loved another ? Armand the wheelwright, perhaps ? or Paul — Paul Picotin ? or Mon sieur Auguste Pompon ? — pah ! think only — or Pierre.

Well, poor little one ! was she so much to blame then ? Can one give one's heart where one can't. No ! Niclas, out of his own sharp experience, knows one cannot. Why now, supposing he should have cut up his own heart, — figuratively cut it, of course, — into half-a-dozen pieces, he knew, man—/-*/, coxcomb that he was, he B knew perfectly well — that he could so easily have found a bidder for each morsel among the Louisons, Clementes, and Paulines, pretty or plain, of Pont-le-bœuf. One and all of them said he was beau garcon, and a thousand times too good for that little cat of a Torrine Duclair ; and yet for Niclas, Torrine's lightest, nay, her bitterest word, even that ' I wish you would go away, Niclas,' was dearer to him than the softest of another woman's sighs. The young farmer cared better to carry away with him the memory of his unkind love than to be rocked in the arms of all the houris of Pont-le-bœufs paradise.

Simply out of this great love he had for her he was going away, for he meant to go away, his presence wearied her. ' Tu m'ennuies Niclas,' she had said. Ergo — here he was out in the cheerless night, gazing along the three cross-roads which led far off into the world's wide loveless wilderness. Meantime Aunt Mathurine wakes up, and is knitting away again, as if all the interests of Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity hang on her threads, and the capon is done, as never capon was done before. Never indeed, to begin with, was such a capon, and never in all human probability will there be such another again. The bird had been Niclas Beaupre's own votive offering to his divinity, and he had selected it from among* his farm-yard's choicest denizens ; who, it seemed to him, had absolutely cackled themselves intrusively on his notice, that they might attain so brilliant an apotheosis as Ma'm'selle Victorine Duclair's pot au feu It is not, look you, every fowl born into this trouble some world which has a chance of saying, ' Here am I going to be pinned through the neck, and drawn and quartered, and stewed all in the service of Ma'm'selle Torrine.' And now the great crucial moment has come.