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made his statements in such a matter-of-fact way, that I listened to him with the same fascinated attention I had given to the theory of telegraphy without wires, when it was first propounded to me. In fact, I had been so influenced by his own conviction of the truth of what he said that I had been on the point of asking him if Abraham had really had anything to do with the building of the Islam temple, but had been checked by the thought of the utter absurdity of supposing that this man sitting in front of me could possibly know anything about it. But now I spoke. I did not want him to suppose that I believed anything he said, nor did I really intend to humor him in his insane retrospections; but what he had said suggested to me the very apropos remark that one might suppose he had been giving a new version of the story of the Wandering Jew.

At this he sat up very straight, on the extreme edge of his chair; his eyes sparkled. "You must excuse me," he said, "but for twenty seconds I am going to be angry. I can't help it. It is n't your fault, but that remark always enrages me. I expect it, of course, but it makes my blood boil, all the same."

"Then you have told your story before?" I said.

“Of course I have," he answered. "I have told it often before. Some have believed it, some have not; but, believers or disbelievers, all have died and disappeared. Their opinions are nothing to me. You are the only living being who knows my story." I was going to ask a question here, but he did not give me a chance. He was very much moved.

"I hate that Wandering Jew," said he, " or, I should say, I despise the thin film of a tradition from which he was constructed. There never was a Wandering Jew. There could not have been; it is impossible to conceive of a human being sent forth to wander in wretchedness forever. Moreover, suppose there had been such a man, what a poor, modern creature he would be compared with me! Even now he would be less than two thousand years old. You must excuse my perturbation, but I am sure that during the whole of the Christian era I have never told my story to any one who did not, in some way or other, make an absurd or irritating reference to the Wandering Jew. I have often thought, and I have no doubt I am right, that the ancient story of my adventures as Kroudhr, the Vizier of the Twohorned Alexander, combined with what I

have related, in one century or another, of my subsequent experiences, has given rise to the tradition of that very unpleasant Jew of whom Eugène Sue and many others have made good use. It is very natural that there should be legends about people who in some way or other are enabled to live forever. In all ages there have been individuals who have desired earthly immortality, or supposed they desired it; and when people want things, there will always be legends to suit their fancy. If De Soto and his companions had mysteriously disappeared during their expedition in search of the Fountain of Youth, there would be stories now about rejuvenated Spaniards who are wandering about the earth, and would always continue to wander. But the Fountain of Youth is not a desirable water-supply, and a young person who should find such a pool would do well to wait until he had arrived at maturity before entering upon an existence of indefinite continuance.

"But I must go on with my story," said he. "At one time I made myself a home, and remained in it for many, many years without making any change. I became a sort of hermit, and lived in a rocky cave. I allowed my hair and beard to grow, so that people really thought I was getting older and older; and at last I acquired the reputation of a prophet, and was held in veneration by a great many religious people. Of course I could not prophesy, but as I had such a vast deal of experience I was able to predicate intelligently something about the future from my knowledge of the past. I became famed as a wonderful seer, and there were a great many curious stories told about me.

"Among my visitors at that time was Moses. He had heard of me, and came to see what manner of man I was. We became very well acquainted. He was a man anxious to obtain information, and he asked me questions which embarrassed me very much; but I do not know that he suspected I had lived beyond the ordinary span of life. There are a good many traditions about this visit of Moses, some of which are extant at the present day; but these, of course, are the result of what might be called cumulative imagination. Many of them are of Moslem origin, and the great Arabian historian Tabari has related some of them.

"I learned a great deal while I lived in this cave, both from scholars and from nature; but at last new generations arose who did not honor or even respect me, and by some I was looked upon as a fraudulent

successor to the old prophet of whom their ancestors had told them, and I thought it prudent to leave."

My interest in this man's extraordinary tissue of retrospection was increasing, and I felt that I must not doubt or deny; to do so would be to break the spell, to close the book.

"Did it not sometimes fill you with horror to think that you must live forever?" I asked. "Yes," he answered; "that has happened to me; but such feelings have long, long passed away. If you could have lived as I have, and had seen the world change from what it was when I was born to what it is now, you would understand how a man of my disposition, a man of my overpowering love of knowledge, love of discovery, love of improvement, love of progress of all kinds, would love to live. In fact, if I were now to be told that at the end of five thousand years I must expire and cease, it would fill me with gloom. Having seen so much, I expect more than most men are capable of comprehending. And I shall see it all-see the centuries unfold, behold the wonderful things of the future arise! The very thought of it fills me with inexpressible joy."

For a few moments he remained silent. I could understand the state of his mind, no matter how those mental conditions had been brought about.

allows me to adapt myself to various conditions, and my habits of prudence prevent me from seeking to occupy any position which may be dangerous to me by making me conspicuous, and from which I could not easily retire when I believe the time has come to do so. I have been almost everything; I have even been a soldier. But I have never taken up arms except when obliged to do so, and I have known as little of war as possible. No weapon or missile could kill me, but I have a great regard for my arms and legs. I have been a ruler of men, but I have trembled in my high estate. I feared the populace. They could do everything except take my life. Therefore I made it a point to abdicate when the skies were clear. In such cases I set out on journeys from which I never returned.

"I have also lived the life of the lowly; I have drawn water, and I have hewn wood. By the way, that reminds me of a little incident which may interest you. I was employed in the East India House at the time Charles Lamb was a clerk there. It was not long after he had begun to contribute his Elia essays to the 'London Magazine.' I had read some of them, and was interested in the man. I met him several times in the corridors or on the stairways, and one day I was going up-stairs, carrying a hod of coals, as he was coming down. Looking up at him, "But you must not suppose," he continued, I made a misstep, and came near dropping a "that this earthly immortality is without its portion of my burden. My good man,' said pains, its fears, I may say its horrors. It is he, with a queer smile, 'if you would learn to precisely on account of all these that I am carry your coals as well as you carry your age now talking to you. The knowledge that my you would do well.' I don't remember what life is always safe, no matter in what peril II said in reply; but I know I thought if may be, does not relieve me from anxiety and Charles Lamb could be made aware of my apprehension of evil. It would be a curse to real age he would abandon Elia and devote live if I were not in sound physical condition; himself to me." it would be a curse to live as a slave; it would be a curse to live in a dungeon. I have known vicissitudes and hardships of every kind, but I have been fortunate enough to preserve myself whole and unscathed, in spite of the dangers I have incurred.

"I often think from what a terrible fate I saved my master, Alexander of the two horns. If he had found the fountain he might have enjoyed his power and dominion for a few generations. Then he would have been thrown down, cast out, and even if he had escaped miseries which I cannot bear to mention, he never could have regained his high throne. He would have been condemned to live forever in a station for which he was not fitted.

"It is very different with me. My nature

"It is a pity you did not tell him," I now suggested.

"No," replied my host. "He might have been interested, but he could not have appreciated it, even if I had told him everything. He would not really have known my age, for he would not have believed me. I might have found myself in a lunatic asylum. I never saw Lamb again, and very soon after that meeting I came to America."

"There are two points about your story that I do not comprehend," said I (and as I spoke I could not help the thought that in reality I did not comprehend any of it). "In the first place, I don't see how you could live for a generation or two in one place and then go off to an entirely new locality. I should think there were not enough inhabited spots

in the world to accommodate you in such extensive changes."

Mr. Crowder smiled. "I don't wonder you ask that question," he said; "but in fact it was not always necessary for me to seek new places. There are towns in which I have taken up my residence many times. But as I arrived each time as a stranger from afar, and as these sojourns were separated by many years, there was no one to suppose me to be a person who had lived in that place a century or two before."

"Then you never had your portrait painted," I remarked.

"Oh, yes, I have," he replied. "Toward the close of the thirteenth century I was living in Florence, being at that time married to a lady of wealthy family, and she insisted upon my having my portrait painted by Cimabue, who, as you know, was the master of Giotto. After my wife's death I departed from Florence, leaving behind me

the impression that I intended to return; and I would have been glad to take the portrait with me, but I had no opportunity. It was in 1503 that I returned to Florence, and as soon as I could I visited the stately mansion where I had once lived, and there in the gallery still hung the portrait. This was an unsatisfactory discovery, for I might wish at some future time to settle again in Florence, and I had hoped that the portrait had faded, or that it had been destroyed; but Cimabue painted too well, and his work was then held in high value, without regard to his subject. Finding myself entirely alone in the gallery, I cut that picture from its frame; I concealed it under my cloak, and when I reached my lodging I utterly destroyed it. I did not feel that I was committing any crime in doing this; I had ordered and paid for that picture, and I felt that I had a right to do what I pleased with it."

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But for this fearless woman's voice alone. She spoke to consciences that long had slept: Her message, Freedom's clear reveille, swept From heedless hovel to complacent throne. Command and prophecy were in the tone, And from its sheath the sword of justice leapt. Around two peoples swelled a fiery wave,

But both came forth transfigured from the flame. Blest be the hand that dared be strong to save, And blest be she who in our weakness came

Prophet and priestess! At one stroke she gave
A race to freedom, and herself to fame.

VIA CRUCIS.1

BY F. MARION CRAWFORD,
Author of "Mr. Isaacs," "Saracinesca," "Casa Braccio," etc.

I.

HE sun was setting on the fifth day of May, in the year of our Lord's grace eleven hundred and fortyfive. In the little garden between the outer wall and the moat of Stoke Regis Manor, a lady slowly walked along the narrow path between high rose-bushes trained upon the masonry, and a low flower-bed, divided into many little squares, planted alternately with flowers and sweet herbs on one side, and bordered with budding violets on the other. From the line where the flowers ended, spiked rushes grew in sharp disorder to the edge of the deep-green water in the moat. Beyond the water stretched the closecropped sward; then came great oak-trees, shadowy still in their spring foliage; and then corn-land and meadow-land, in long green waves of rising tilth and pasture, as far as a man could see.

The sun was setting, and the level rays reddened the lady's golden hair, and fired the softness of her clear blue eyes. She walked with a certain easy undulation, in which there were both strength and grace; and though she could barely have been called young, none would have dared to say that she was past maturity. Features which had been coldly perfect and hard in early youth, and which might grow sharp in old age, were smoothed and rounded in the full fruit-time of life's summer. As the gold deepened in the mellow air, and tinged the lady's hair and eyes, it wrought in her face changes of which she knew nothing. The beauty of a white-marble statue suddenly changed to burnished gold might be beauty still, but of different expression and meaning. There is always something devilish in the too great profusion of precious metalsomething that suggests greed, spoil, gain, and all that he lives for who strives for wealth; and sometimes, by the mere absence of gold or silver, there is dignity, simplicity, even solemnity.

down, some dazzling bright, some rosy-colored, some, far to eastward, already purple, streamed across the pale sky in the mystic figure of a vast wing, as if some great archangel hovered below the horizon, pointing one jeweled pinion to the firmament, the other down and unseen in his low flight. Just above the feathery oak-trees, behind which the sun had dipped, long streamers of red and yellow and more imperial purple shot out to right and left. Above the moat's broad water, the quick, dark May-flies chased one another, in dashes of straight lines, through the rosy haze; and as the sinking sun shot a last farewell glance between the trunks of the oak-trees on the knoll, the lady stood still, and turned her smooth features to the light. There was curiosity in her look, expectation and some anxiety, but there was no longing. A month had passed since Raymond Warde had ridden away with his half-dozen squires and servants to do homage to the Empress Maud. Her court was, indeed, little more than a show, and Stephen ruled in wrongful possession of the land; but here and there a sturdy and honest knight was still to be found, who might, perhaps, be brought to do homage for his lands to King Stephen, but who would have felt that he was a traitor, and no true man, had he not rendered the homage of fealty to the unhappy lady who was his rightful sovereign. And one of these was Raymond Warde, whose great-grandfather had ridden with Robert the Devil to Jerusalem, and had been with him when he died in Nicæa; and his grandsire had been in the thick of the press at Hastings, with William of Normandy, wherefore he had received the lands and lordship of Stoke Regis in Hertfordshire; and his name is on the Battle Abbey Roll to this day.

During ten years Stephen of Blois had reigned over England with varying fortune, alternately victor and vanquished, now holding his great enemy, Robert of Gloucester, a prisoner and hostage, now himself in the empress's power, loaded with chains, and languishing in the keep of Bristol Castle. Copyright, 1898, by F. Marion Crawford.

Above the setting sun, tens of thousands of little clouds, as light and fleecy as swan's

1

Yet of late the tide had turned in his favor; and though Gloucester still kept up the show of warfare for his half-sister's sake,-as, indeed, he fought for her so long as he had breath, the worst of the civil war was over; the partizans of the empress had lost faith in her sovereignty, and her cause was but lingering in the shadow of death. The nobles of England had judged Stephen's character from the hour in which King Henry died, and they knew him to be a brave soldier, a desperate fighter, an indulgent man, and a weak ruler.

Finding themselves confronted by a usurper who had no great talent to recommend him, nor much political strength behind his brilliant personal courage, their first instinct was to refuse submission to his authority, and to drive him out as an impostor. It was not until they had been chilled and disappointed by the scornful coldness of the empress-queen's imperious bearing that they saw how much pleasanter it would be to rule Stephen than to serve Maud. Yet Gloucester was powerful, and, with his feudal retainers and devoted followers and a handful of loyal independent knights, he was still able to hold Oxford, Gloucester, and the northernmost part of Berkshire for his sister.

Now, in the early spring of this present year, the great earl had gone forth, with his followers and a host of masons and laboringmen, to build a new castle on the height by Farringdon, where good King Alfred had carved the great white horse by tearing the turf from the chalky hill, for an everlasting record of victory. Broadly and boldly Gloucester had traced the outer wall and bastions, the second rampart within that, and the vast fortress which was to be thus trebly protected. The building was to be the work of weeks, not months, and, if it were possible, of days rather than of weeks. The whole was to be a strong outpost for a fresh advance, and neither gold nor labor was to be spared in the execution of the plan. Gloucester pitched his sister's camp and his own tent upon the grassy eminence that faced the castle. Thence he himself directed and commanded, and thence the Empress Maud, sitting beneath the lifted awning of her imperial tent, could see the gray stone rising, course upon course, string upon string, block upon block, at a rate that reminded her of that Eastern trick which she had seen at the emperor's court, performed by a turbaned juggler from the East, who made a tree grow from the seed to the leafy branch and

full ripe fruit while the dazed courtiers who looked on could count fivescore.

Thither, as to a general trysting-place, the few loyal knights and barons went up to do homage to their sovereign lady, and to grasp the hand of the bravest and gentlest man who trod English ground; and thither, with the rest, Raymond Warde was gone, with his only son, Gilbert, then only eighteen years of age, whom this chronicle chiefly concerns; and Raymond's wife, the Lady Goda, was left in the manor-house of Stoke Regis, under the guard of a dozen men-atarms, mostly stiff-jointed veterans of King Henry's wars, and under the more effectual protection of several hundred sturdy bondmen and yeomen, devoted, body and soul, to their master, and ready to die for his blood or kin. For throughout Hertfordshire and Essex and Kent there dwelt no Norman baron nor any earl who was beloved of his Saxon people as was the Lord of Stoke; wherefore his lady felt herself safe in his absence, though she knew well enough that only a small part of that devotion was for herself.

There are people who seem able to go through life, with profit to themselves, if not to others, by a sort of vicarious grace arising out of the devotion wasted on them by their nearest and dearest, and dependent upon the success, the honor, and the reputation of those who cherish them. The Lady Goda set down to her own full credit the faithful attachment which her husband's Saxon swains not only felt for him, but owed him in return for his unchanging kindness and impartial justice; and she took the deserts to herself, as such people will, with a whole-souled determination to believe that it was her due, though she knew that she deserved none of it.

She had married Raymond Warde without loving him, being ambitious of his name and honors, when his future had seemed brilliant in the days of good King Henry. She had borne him an only son, who worshiped her with a chivalric devotion that was almost childlike in its blindness; and the most that she could feel, in return, was a sort of motherly vanity in his outward being; and this he accepted as love, though it was as far from that as devotion to self is from devotion to another-as greed is far from generosity. She had not been more than sixteen years of age when she had married, being the youngest of many sisters, left almost dowerless when their father had departed on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land,

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