"He must surely have been drinking,' one peculiar plait in the shirt where it thought I, for he answered this question lay; and I was just closing my eyes in a not in words but with a short hysterical sort of drowsy fatigue, when I started laugh, and a shiver which ran through his convulsively, for the black spot suddenly whole frame; then after staring at me for a began to move, and crawling lazily along moment he sank back heavily, and closed the embroidery was slowly progressing his eyes, evidently wishing to be troubled upwards. It was nothing but a large bluewith no more questions. He was scarcely bottle fly, one of the heavy, swollen, unolder than myself. A mere youth in years, wieldy kind belonging to the butchers' and yet the lines about his face and the shambles; so dreaded of drovers and agrifurrows on his forehead told of dissipation culturists; so hated in the markets; so and late hours, and the indulgence of evil nauseous and detestable, that a cruel superpassions, while his long damp hair, falling stition is attached to the influence of its in heavy masses around his face, cast a grey approach, for it is believed by the people shadow over his brow, which made it look to possess the keen instinct of the vulture more pallid still. There was great interest and the wolf, in the track of blood, and to to me in this young and careworn face. follow with the same tenacity the scent of "What a fit companion, or rather contrast, approaching death. Whence the creature would he make to my poitrinaire !" thought came or how it alighted there I could not I. "Both are dying of consumption, but tell, but there it was, wending its way while the girl is fading sweetly and ten- slowly and heavily upwards towards the derly like a withered flower, the boy is young man's face! My whole attention mouldering away with the corruption of became absorbed in its movements. The the grave already full upon him. mouth of the sleeper was still open, his breathing still short and laboured. Will the foul insect ascend to his lips? Yes, there it is crawling along the sharp edge of the embroidery! No, with a sudden leap and a short and angry buzz it has descended again, and creeps along the heavy gold chain which crosses the waistcoat, balancing its bloated carcass with its slightly extended wings as neatly as any rope-dancer with his balance-pole! Anon, the creature with a sudden spring and with a burst of sound so loud as to seem perfectly inconsistent with its size, has reached the collar. The young man is still heedless, his eyes are still closed, and his mouth still open, for his jaw has gradually drooped, and bestows a yet more ghastly expression on his countenance. The puny insect, now Silent and motionless as he reclined, he was evidently under the influence of some strong emotion. His arms were crossed upon his breast, but I perceived that his fingers had clutched the folds of his coat with such nervous grip that the cloth was indented with the pressure of his nails. Sometimes he would open his eyes as if by stealth, and on finding my own gaze riveted on him would close them again hastily, as if afraid of being led into conversation, or of having to bear more questioning on my part. Sometimes again he would turn restlessly on his seat, and then I observed that his eyelids would quiver for a moment, and their long auburn lashes become moistened as if with tears. There was a singular fascination in the whole aspect of the young man. I could not re-grown a monster in my sight, is actually sist the temptation to watch him with the greatest interest. Unlike his companion, he was evidently a gentleman, his countenance was delicate and aristocratic in the extreme, his hands soft and white as those of a woman. As I watched my companion, my attention was suddenly drawn to what at first appeared a large black spot upon the snowy bosom of his shirt. I stared at it in a kind of dreamy amazement, born of the petit bleu administered by Père Ajax, then began to wonder what on earth it could possibly be, and last of all to marvel, always dreamily, and staringly, and stupidly, why I had not perceived it before. There seemed a magic fascination in this same black spot, for I could not withdraw my gaze from the creating such a painful apprehension in my mind that I can no longer sit still. The short dry breath, issuing with painful effort from the slumberer's lips, agitates the wings, and yet the creature moves not, neither does the youth arouse himself, or brush the noxious visitor away. There is no one gifted with the artist's temperament, the irritable nerves, the vivid imagination, who will not understand the excitement under which I laboured, as I beheld the gradual progress of the enemy towards the open mouth of the seemingly inanimate figure before me. Slowly, slowly, dragging its slimy weight along, over the damp meshes of his hair, did it finally stand fixed upon the blonde moustache, and, as it remained there motionless, my whole frame shook with the nervous terror which seized upon me lest-But no, the idea was too horrible; and yet imagination would revert to the old German legend of the Linden Tree, and as I stared at the creature standing there, my lips moved as I murmured forth the lines that had made such impression on me when a boy. I had not remembered them for years, but suddenly they rushed to my memory, as though I had but just that moment heard them crooned forth, as in days of old, by the old German Frau who had nursed me in my childhood: And the knight lay under the linden-tree, Despite of his wound still fair to see. But a great black-beetle sate on his chin, Watching his mouth that he might crawl in! Tranquil and mute like the beggar that waits For his dole of bread at the convent gates; Counting the minutes, and cursing the time (For the wicket is closed until noonday chime); Thus the beetle abides on the dead man's chin, Till his jaw shall drop, and then he'll crawl in! And then as I closed my eyelids tight, and pressed my hands one over the other in such violent grasp that my nails almost entered the flesh, this horrid image likewise died away, and another one, still more horrible, arose in its stead, and I beheld the guillotine at the Barrière du Trône, as described by Samson, and the hideous wicker-basket into which the heads were falling. "And as each head rolled into the bloody mass, there arose a cloud of flies from the sawdust, which caused a shout of laughter amongst the populace. Whilst the cry of Catch 'em, Samson! catch 'em, Samson!' issued in mockery from the troop of boys who had climbed the lamp-posts of the Octroi, for they were all nobles on that day, who had taken care to have their heads all dressed with powder and pomatum before leaving the prison, as they wished to make a decent appearance before the canaille, and it was the perfume of the maréchal powder and the scented essence of jessamine which had attracted this unusual number of flies round the basket." Then again arose before my mental vision the head of Berthier, carried aloft on a pike through the streets of Paris, "and followed by such a swarm of flies that the bearer was compelled to agitate the pike to and fro every now and then in order that the hair worn in long pigtail and ailes de pigeon, according to the fashion of the court, by whisking suddenly round, might brush the buzzing multitude away, and disperse the nuisance, which, as the day advanced, grew more and more troublesome." I had just been reading Prudhomme's Journal, and his account of the horrid scene was still fresh in my recollection. As I retraced every detail of the piteous story, and thought over the very words in which the historian had related it, the excitement with which I watched the nauseous insect before me had gradually grown greater until I had unconsciously bent forward by degrees, and my face had come almost into contact with that of the stranger. The agitation of my nerves had now increased to such an extent that at last I felt quite ashamed of my own want of self-control, and passing my hand through my hair, inquired if this really could be myself, who was thus abiding, perplexed and amazed, before the movements of a miserable insect whose very existence I could obliterate by the slightest flip of my finger. By Heavens! now that I thought of it, the temptation was not to be resisted! I folded my hand in the fashion I had learned at school, and perfected by long practice at the studio, resolving to annihilate the creature at once, and, moreover, to accomplish the feat so lightly and so steadily, that if the stranger were really asleep he should not even be awakened from his slumber, just as we used to do to old Rabâche, when in summer the flies settled on his bald head, where they had been invited to assemble by the powdered sugar artistically dropped thereon while he was bending over our performances, and training our crooked lines in the way they should go. But just at that very moment the creature before me began once more to crawl. The pursuit assumed to my excited fancy the proportions of a chase, and we all know how utterly beyond control are the feelings on such an occasion. Unable to restrain my cagerness, instead of proceeding softly as I had intended, I dashed forward in the most awkward and uncouth manner possible, losing my balance in the frenzy of the moment, and fell upon the young man's bosom with a shock that made the tin case slung across my chest rattle with a startling sound, and the long bag of green baize fall from the outside passenger's knees against the swing-board; its contents, whatever they were, rattling and jingling with a sharp and irritating sound, exactly like that produced by my tin case. The youth started, and the colour came faintly into his cheek, while I stammered forth the most earnest excuses for my awkwardness. But even this shock, rude as it was, did not seem to arouse the young man from his listless attitude. He stretched out his limbs and yawned. He was very pale, and the dark rings around his eyes seemed somehow to have grown darker than before. The nervous twitching of his fingers and the quivering motion of his eyelids were renewed, and I could not be mistaken when I fancied that his grim friend on the swing-board looked anxiously towards him once or twice, as he made a sign towards the end of the road where the Three Acacias were now visible, tossing their feathery arms to the sky, and seeming to throw light as well as shadow on the space where they stood. For me, however, all interest was absorbed in my search after the bluebottle fly. It was nowhere to be seen. It had disappeared, scared away, no doubt, by the noise. "It must have flown through the window of the coucou," thought I. And I cannot tell what a relief it was to my heated imagination to find that the creature was gone. It was not till this conviction had been fully impressed upon me that I turned again to the young man to offer my timid excuses for the apparent rudeness of which I had been guilty. I told him the cause of my brusque attack, and apologised in the choicest terms I could command for the shock I must have occasioned to his nerves. But the youth was evidently too much preoccupied, or too indifferent at that moment to take offence. He turned a dull heavy gaze upon me, and said: grated on my taste, and I answered sharply that never having read Eugène Sue's novel (which I really had not at that time) I could not judge of the comparison; but that my abhorrence of the horrible insect arose from the superstition of its being gifted with the power of scenting blood, and that its presence conveyed a warning of death or dire misfortune to those honoured by its visit. "But of course you are no believer in such things," added I, on observing the start with which the youth had listened to the words. "Perhaps not-perhaps not," he gasped forth, turning deadly pale and clutching me by the arm with a force of which I should scarcely have deemed him capable, judging by his languid movements and apparently feminine weakness. And then before I had recovered from the astonishment into which his sudden action had thrown me, he had withdrawn his grasp, exclaiming in a tone of childish triumph, "And look you, my friend, if there be aught of truth in the belief, I shall not be alone to suffer, for see, you too must be destined to share in the misfortune.” With a hoarse mocking laugh he flung himself back into his seat, pointing to my shoulder, where my eyes, following his gesture, beheld with horror the loathsome insect which had occasioned all this turmoil actually standing there, seeming to mock me with its cool impudence, and its unconsciousness of all the repulsion with which I "Ah, yes! Well I don't wonder-that gazed upon it. I started up in dismay and cursed bluebottle fly! I thought I saw shook myself with violence, brushing down the coachman crush it with the butt-end the sleeve of my blouse with many an exclaof his whip! Already did Bras-de-Fer," mation of disgust. As my rough motion and he pointed with his thumb to the man dislodged it, I could distinctly hear its with the green-baize bag sitting on the shrill trumpet and the droning buzz which swing-board, "declare it must have been followed, even above the clatter of the the devil himself to have pursued us all the horse's hoofs and the creaking of the coucou. way from Paris only to get us kicked into The youth laughed aloud with a kind of the ditch. The devil, you know, whose fiendish delight at the excitement I dismemoirs were written by Eugène Sue. played, then resumed his listless look, and Don't you remember? In the diligence, spoke no more. Once he raised the striped where the abbé tries in vain to divert his curtain at his back and gazed out towards thoughts from the lady at his side, and is the Three Acacias, then dropping it, sudprevented from perusing his breviary by denly turned away, as a slight colour overthe persecutions of a bluebottle fly, every spread his cheek and brow, dispelling for a time he tries to fix his attention on his moment its death-like pallor. Was it the prayers? Bras-de-Fer never meant to com- excitement of pleasure or of pain? The pare my innocence with that of the abbé, anticipation of meeting with his riotous you know; quite the reverse. He said that companions, or annoyance at being comthe devil would never have needed to dis-pelled to exertion while still overcome with guise himself for my temptation, if a pretty girl had sat beside me!" And he uttered a weak tuneless titter, the very senility of vice before even its powers were developed. The foolish laughter without mirth the fatigue and languor, which I felt sure were the consequence of the orgies of the previous night? But I did not pause long in further contemplation of my fellow-traveller. To re main thus, confined within that narrow space, with the idea of the continued presence of the hateful fly, was impossible. I beheld it everywhere. I followed the trail of the obnoxions creature amid the tracery of the pattern of the oil-skin lining, detecting its hated presence amongst the folds of the striped curtains, discovering its hideous form in every little shadow, starting with nausea whenever the breeze uplifted the calico, and shuddering with disgust at the rustling sound it made. My brain got distracted and my ears filled with its imaginary hum, until at last, unable to collect my thoughts amid this torture of the nerves created by my fancy, I called aloud to Tony to stop the vehicle, and without a word of courtesy to my fellowtraveller, I jumped to the ground without so much as alighting on the iron step, and plunged blindly into the wooded dell that bordered the alley, up which we were driving to the rising ground, where stood the Three Acacias. BOLD ROBIN HOOD. DURING a period reaching nearly four hundred years back, the press has put forth many ballads, tales, narratives, and other compositions relating to that redoubtable but mysterious personage, Robin Hood. It was not very long after the introduction of printing into England that Wynkyn de Worde, about three hundred and eighty years ago, printed the Lytel Geste of Robyn Hode the forerunner of a long series, varying in importance from single broadsheets to goodly volumes. But the manuscripts are of much earlier date. The earliest mention of these ballads, in any work at present known to exist, is in Robert Longlande's Vision of Piers Plowman, written in the reign of Edward the Third. Piers states very frankly, that although he is not quite perfect in the Paternoster or Lord's Prayer, he knows the song of Robyn Hode. The Lytel Geste, above mentioned, seems to have been a stringing together of songs and tales long current among the people, some written down, some merely repeated from mouth to mouth. Four hundred and sixty stanzas are devoted to a narration of the daring, odd, shrewdly - devised achievements of Robin, so linked as to furnish a kind of metrical biography. Additions were made during the Tudor times; and it is known that a pastoral comedy called Robin Hood was played in London During nearly the whole of the next century, in the reigns of the two Jameses and the two Charleses, ballads of Robin Hood, mostly printed in black letter, were hawked about the villages, and sung in a kind of recitative. A collection of these was gradually made, and published under the title of Robin Hood's Garland; numerous editions were afterwards printed, introduced by what professed to be the life of the hero. With the Geste and the Garland together, and other ballads and stories from time time ferreted out by Ritson, Hunter, Stukely, Cunningham, Planché, Gutch, Chappell, and other investigators, the Robin Hood literature has became somewhat considerable. What, then, are these ballads and tales? What do they tell us? The central figure of the whole of them is a bold outlaw, an expert bowman, who is virtually lord of Sherwood Forest, and the terror of nobles, magistrates, and priests; but he is kind to the poor, and a respecter of women. The foresters and villagers would rather shield him from the authorities, than aid in capturing him. He gradually surrounds himself with a body of companions, among whom are Little John, Will Scarlet, Friar Tuck, Will Stukely, Arthur - a - Bland, George-a-Green, and a fair damsel named Maid Marian; and one or other of these is generally associated with him in the exploits to which the ballads relate. Robin Hood and Little John, we are told in one ballad, first encountered each other in this fashion. Robin, a young outlaw of some twenty summers, was roaming the forest one day, when he met John Little, a strapping fellow seven feet high; they met while crossing a wooden plank over a stream; neither would give way; so they fought with quarter-staves till John fairly knocked over Robin into the stream. The outlaw admired the pluck of his conqueror; and the two henceforth became fast friends. Will Scarlet was added to the band by some equally unexpected adventure; and one of the ballads tells how Robin won the heart of Will Stukely by rescuing him from a sheriff's officer. As to Friar Tuck, he is certainly one of the most remarkable members of the community. We told all about him in a ballad of forty-one verses (they were not frightened at the length of their songs in those days): are In the summer time, when leaves grow green, towards the close of Elizabeth's reign. They had a friendly bout at archery, and made some good shots; whereupon Will Scarlet declared that he knew a curtell friar who could beat any of them. What this word curtell meant is not now quite certain. Some suppose it to have referred to a cordelier or corded friar, in allusion to the cord or rope worn round the waist by Franciscans, wherewith to flagellate themselves; whereas others suggest that it refers to a friar who wore a curtailed or short tunic. Be this as it may, Robin set forth to seek this curtell friar, who was known as Friar Tuck of Fountains Abbey. They met, and the contest between them was of so marvellous a kind that one might wonder how the ballad ever obtained credence, were it not that the appetite for the marvellous is known to have been singularly keen in those days. Suffice it to say that the strength, skill, and boldness of the friar quite charmed Robin, who induced him to become a member of the forest band. Another, Allen-a-Dale, was won over by a kindness rendered to him on an occasion of doleful sensitiveness. One day, Robin Hood in the forest stood, All under the greenwood tree, when he saw a gaily-attired young man pass by, singing right merrily. On the following day he again saw him, but depressed with woe. Robin accosted him, and asked the meaning of the change. The youth stated that on the previous day he was going to be wedded to his betrothed, but found that her cruel father was forcing her to marry a rich old baron. Robin started forth for the church, and got there just in the nick of time. He ascertained that the youth and the maiden loved each other, whereupon he blew his horn, and his merry men (who always seem to have been close at hand whenever he wanted them) came into the church, and compelled the priest to marry the maiden to Allen-a-Dale. Robin was evidently fond of fighting, for he liked the men who thrashed him as well as those who were thrashed by him. Arthur-a-Bland, the tanner, furnished a case in point. A rattling ballad tells us that In Nottingham there lives a jolly tanner, There is ne'er a squire in Nottinghamshire It chanced that Robin and Arthur met in the forest; a small incitement was sufficient to bring on a contest, in which Arthur was the victor. It then transpired that he was a kinsman of Little John; he joined the band, and Robin, John, and Arthur danced the Three Merry Men's Dance. As to Maid Marian, she seems to have fallen in love with the hero while yet unknown to him, and to have adopted a mode of revealing her attachment quite orthodox in romance and poetry: A bonny fair maid of a noble degree, With a hey, down, down a down down, For she was a gallant dame. She went to Sherwood in male attire, met Robin, contrived to fight and to be worsted, to yield and to confess, and she became, we will suppose, Mrs. Robin Hood. One of the ballads relates to Little John and the Four Beggars, showing how he pretended on one occasion to go begging, and met with four hale beggars, who professed to be dumb, deaf, blind, and crippled respectively; how he exposed them, and punished them for their deceit by robbing them of three hundred pounds. Another, a ballad of fifty-eight verses, narrates how Robin Hood, Little John, and Will Scarlet won a victory over the Prince of Aragon and two giants, and how the contest ended by Will marrying a princess who had been rescued from peril. In Robin Hood and the Shepherd, told in twenty-seven verses, a shepherd gets the better both of Robin and of John in turn, and is consequently held in high esteem by Robin. In Robin Hood's Golden Prize we learn in what fashion he robbed two priests of five hundred pounds. Priests and bishops he seems always to have regarded as fair prey. Witness Robin Hood and the Bishop: Come, gentlemen all, and listen awhile, In Robin He got him into the forest by a ruse, tied him to a tree, emptied his pouch, and then made him sing a mass. Hood and the Bishop of Hereford, another ballad, the bishop is made to dance in his boots after being despoiled. Robin Hood and the Butcher tells us of an odd prank, in which the hero went to Nottingham, pretended to be a butcher in the marketplace, and created quite a ferment among the fraternity: But when he sold his meat so fast, No butcher by him could thrive; For he sold more meat for a pony, Than others could do for five! In Robin Hood and the Jolly Tinker, we have one of the many instances in which a good fight leads to fast friendship. A certain tinker was armed with a warrant to capture Robin, who was not aware of this fact at the first encounter: |