Read Ebook: Harper's Young People December 16 1879 An Illustrated Weekly by Various

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The conscience-stricken man paled before the indignant youth.

"I will give you back everything, and beg your pardon for all I've done," whined the wretched drover, "if you will only release me from this savage brute that has nearly been the death of me."

At the call of his master the dog quitted his hold, and Seppi handed Walter the money-belt.

Walter counted the notes and gold, and was glad to find the contents untouched. Seppi rose to his feet meanwhile, but stood looking to the ground in shame and fear.

Walter, feeling compassion for him, begged that he might be let off; and Mr. Seymour consented.

Seppi was overjoyed at being let off so easily. He had not dared to expect that Walter would have taken his part, and felt really thankful that his first great crime had not met with a severe and terrible punishment. With earnestness in his tone, he thanked his former companion, and with unaffected emotion assured him solemnly that he would never again stretch out his hand to that which did not belong to him.

He kissed Walter's hand and moistened it with his tears, and was gone.

"Now," said Mr. Seymour, "I think we must set off toward Paris, if we are to get there to-night."

After a long journey, the travellers reached the French metropolis; and Walter repaired with Mr. Seymour to one of the best hotels, where, in a soft and luxurious bed, he soon forgot the toil and anxiety of the day, and slept sounder than he had ever done in his life.

THE WEASEL AND THE FROGS.

"I think the weasel is a mean, wicked murderer," said Harry, as he came rushing into his mother's room, his face flushed and his little fists clinched tight together: "My white rabbit lies all in a little dead heap in his house, and Mike, the gardener, says the weasel has killed him. He saw it prowling round the barn last night, and why he didn't set a trap and catch it I don't see."

Mamma put aside her sewing, and went to comfort Harry, who began to cry bitterly for the loss of his pet.

"Poor Bunny!" said mamma; "he should not have been left out when Mr. Weasel was around. But we will buy another Bunny, two Bunnies, a white one and a black one, and they shall have a nice little house in the wood-shed, where no weasel can find them."

Harry brightened up at once at the prospect of having two Bunnies, while mamma said: "Now let us talk a little about the weasel. It is not so much to be blamed, after all, for killing Bunny, for it was born with the instinct to catch rabbits and squirrels, rats, mice, and many other small animals, as well as chickens and birds of all kinds. Weasels are very sly little beasts, although if captured when very young they can be tamed, and taught to eat out of their master's hand. If you will listen, and not cry any more, I will tell you what I saw and heard one summer afternoon over by the pond in the meadow. You know it is a very small pond, and that afternoon the water was so still that it looked like a glass eye in the midst of the great green meadow. I sat down on the bank to rest, and to watch the reflection of the bushes and tall water-grasses which overhung the pond. Suddenly the surface of the water was disturbed by a hundred circling ripples, in the centre of which appeared a small dark spot. As I watched, these dark spots became visible all over the pond. The sun was setting, and the beautiful summer twilight coming on, and it was so still it seemed as if Nature and all her pretty minstrels were fast asleep. All at once I heard a hoarse voice, which seemed at my very feet. 'Chu-lunk, chu-lunk, chu-lunk,' it said. It must have been the chorister calling his frog chorus together for their evening song, for in a moment a multitude of voices were answering from the long grasses, the bushes, the water--indeed, the whole neighborhood, a moment before so quiet, was alive with little frog people. They evidently had some cause of complaint against a very wicked person, as my little Harry has just now, for I distinctly heard one say, 'Stole a rabbit, stole a rabbit;' while another answered, 'I saw him do it, I saw him do it.' Then the whole chorus burst out,'We'll pull him in, we'll pull him in.' 'Plump, plump, plump,' added one voice more revengeful than all the rest. I sat very still, waiting to see what was to be pulled plump into the water. I did not have long to wait, but I fancy things took a turn contrary to the one desired by the frog people. There was a sudden rustling in the bushes, a sharp, quick sound like the springing of a cat. The chorus was still in an instant, but the entire shore of the little pond was covered with rushing, springing, jumping frogs. Pell-mell they tumbled over each other in headlong race for the water, to escape their cruel enemy, which now appeared, and showed himself to be a slender little weasel. He darted here and there among the helpless frogs, which made no attempts to 'pull him in,' but bent their whole efforts toward self-preservation. At length, seizing a fat frog in his mouth, the weasel turned and disappeared noiselessly among the bushes. Peace reigned once more, but the little frog people had all jumped into the water, and not a voice was heard protesting or uttering farther threats."

"And did the weasel get more than one poor little frog, mamma?" asked Harry.

"No, he carried off only one frog," replied mamma; "but he killed several more, which he left lying dead in the grass. I dug a hole in the mud with a sharp stick and buried them, so that their companions should not find them when they ventured on shore again."

"Well," said Harry, after thinking a few moments, "now I guess I'll go and bury my poor dead rabbit."

THE HISTORY OF PHOTOGEN AND NYCTERIS.

A Day and Night M?hrchen.

BY GEORGE MACDONALD.

Knowing nothing of darkness, or stars, or moon, Photogen spent his days in hunting. On a great white horse he swept over the grassy plains, glorying in the sun, fighting the wind, and killing the buffaloes. One morning, when he happened to be on the ground a little earlier than usual, and before his attendants, he caught sight of an animal unknown to him, stealing from a hollow into which the sun rays had not yet reached. Like a swift shadow it sped over the grass, slinking southward to the forest. He gave chase, noted the body of a buffalo it had half eaten, and pursued it the harder. But with great leaps and bounds the creature shot farther and farther ahead of him, and vanished. Turning, therefore, defeated, he met Fargu, who had been following him as fast as his horse could carry him.

"What animal was that, Fargu?" he asked. "How he did run!"

Fargu answered he might be a leopard, but he rather thought, from his pace and look, that he was a young lion.

"What a coward he must be!" said Photogen.

"Don't be too sure of that," rejoined Fargu. "He is one of the creatures the sun makes uncomfortable. As soon as the sun is down he will be brave enough."

He had scarcely said it when he repented; nor did he regret it the less when he found that Photogen made no reply. But, alas! said was said.

"Then," said Photogen to himself, "that contemptible beast is one of the terrors of sundown, of which Madam Watho spoke."

The level orb shone straight in between the bare stems, and saying to himself he could not fail to find the beast, he rushed into the wood. But even as he entered, he turned and looked to the west. The rim of the red sun was touching the horizon, all jagged with broken hills. "Now," said Photogen, "we shall see;" but he said it in the face of a darkness he had not proved. The moment the sun began to sink among the spikes and saw-edges, with a kind of sudden flap at his heart, a fear inexplicable laid hold of the youth; and as he had never felt anything of the kind before, the very fear itself terrified him. As the sun sank, it rose like the shadow of the world, and grew deeper and darker. He could not even think what it might be, so utterly did it enfeeble him. When the last flaming cimeter-edge of the sun went out like a lamp, his horror seemed to blossom into very madness. Like the closing lids of an eye--for there was no twilight, and this night no moon--the terror and the darkness rushed together, and he knew them for one. He was no longer the man he had known, or rather thought himself. The courage he had had was in no sense his own; he had only had courage, not been courageous; it had left him, and he could scarcely stand--certainly not stand straight, for not one of his joints could he make stiff or keep from trembling. He was but a spark of the sun, in himself nothing.

The beast was behind him--stealing upon him! He turned. All was dark in the wood, but to his fancy the darkness here and there broke into pairs of green eyes, and he had not the power even to raise his bow-hand from his side. In the strength of despair he strove to rouse courage enough, not to fight--that he did not even desire--but to run. Courage to flee home was all he could even imagine, and it would not come. But what he had not was ignominiously given him. A cry in the wood, half a screech, half a growl, sent him running like a boar-wounded cur. It was not even himself that ran, it was the fear that had come alive in his legs: he did not know that they moved. But as he ran he grew able to run--gained courage at least to be a coward. The stars gave a little light. Over the grass he sped, and nothing followed him. "How fallen, how changed," from the youth who had climbed the hill as the sun went down! A mere contempt of himself, the self that contemned was a coward with the self it contemned! There lay the shapeless black of a buffalo, humped upon the grass: he made a wide circuit, and swept on like a shadow driven in the wind. For the wind had arisen, and added to his terror: it blew from behind him. He reached the brow of the valley, and shot down the steep descent like a falling star. Instantly the whole upper country behind him arose and pursued him! The wind came howling after him, filled with screams, shrieks, yells, roars, laughter, and chattering, as if all the animals of the forest were careering with it. In his ears was a trampling rush, the thunder of the hoofs of the cattle, in career from every quarter of the wide plains to the brow of the hill above him! He fled straight for the castle, scarcely with breath enough to pant.

As he reached the bottom of the valley, the moon peered up over its edge. He had never seen the moon before--except in the daytime, when he had taken her for a thin bright cloud. She was a fresh terror to him--so ghostly! so ghastly! so grewsome!--so knowing as she looked over the top of her garden wall upon the world outside! That was the night itself! the darkness alive--and after him! the horror of horrors coming down the sky to curdle his blood, and turn his brain to a cinder! He gave a sob, and made straight for the river, where it ran between the two walls, at the bottom of the garden. He plunged in, struggled through, clambered up the bank, and fell senseless on the grass.

But the flowers! ah, the flowers! she was friends with them from the very first. What wonderful creatures they were!--and so kind and beautiful--always sending out such colors and such scents--red scent, and white scent, and yellow scent--for the other creatures! The one that was invisible and everywhere took such a quantity of their scents, and carried it away! yet they did not seem to mind. It was their talk, to show they were alive, and not painted like those on the walls of her rooms, and on the carpets.

She wandered along down the garden until she reached the river. Unable then to get any further--for she was a little afraid, and justly, of the swift watery serpent--she dropped on the grassy bank, dipped her feet in the water, and felt it running and pushing against them. For a long time she sat thus, and her bliss seemed complete, as she gazed at the river, and watched the broken picture of the great lamp overhead, moving up one side of the roof to go down the other.

A beautiful moth brushed across the great blue eyes of Nycteris. She sprang to her feet to follow it, not in the spirit of the hunter, but of the lover. Her heart--like every heart, if only its fallen sides were cleared away--was an inexhaustible fountain of love: she loved everything she saw. But as she followed the moth, she caught sight of something lying on the bank of the river, and not yet having learned to be afraid of anything, ran straight to see what it was. Reaching it, she stood amazed. Another girl like herself! But what a strange-looking girl!--so curiously dressed, too!--and not able to move! Was she dead? Filled suddenly with pity, she sat down, lifted Photogen's head, laid it on her lap, and began stroking his face. Her warm hands brought him to himself. He opened his black eyes, out of which had gone all the fire, and looked up with a strange sound of fear--half moan, half gasp. But when he saw her face he drew a deep breath, and lay motionless--gazing at her: those blue marvels above him, like a better sky, seemed to side with courage and assuage his terror. At length, in a trembling, awed voice, and a half-whisper, he said, "Who are you?"

"I am Nycteris," she answered.

"You are a creature of the darkness, and love the night," he said, his fear beginning to move again.

"I may be a creature of the darkness," she replied. "I hardly know what you mean. But I do not love the night. I love the day--with all my heart; and I sleep all the night long."

"How can that be?" said Photogen, rising on his elbow, but dropping his head on her lap again the moment he saw the moon--"how can it be," he repeated, "when I see your eyes there wide-awake?"

She only smiled and stroked him, for she did not understand him, and thought he did not know what he was saying.

IN LUCK.

BY MRS. ZADEL B. GUSTAFSON.

Lily De Koven was in luck. Luck, you know, is a word which stands for that which comes to you without your having done anything to get it for yourself; and as she had never done anything to bring about such results, I call it the good luck of little Lily De Koven that she had been born in a lovely home, to kind parents, and was growing up with all the most pleasant things of life around her. She had a little maid to braid her pretty yellow hair, lace her dainty boots, go up stairs and down stairs, or stay in her little lady's chamber dressing and making over the dresses of Lily's family of dolls.

One day, when Lily was not very well, and was lying in bed propped up by the pillows, her maid came in with a new doll, larger and handsomer than all the others.

Lily received the new doll calmly, for if it did not suit her she knew she could have another, so she had no cause for excitement. She looked it over carefully, touched the spring which made its eyes roll, drew off one of its tiny silk shoes and stockings, passed her hand over the lace train.

"I'll keep it," said Lily; "and now you bring me the whole family."

When all her dolls, little and big--all of them had been handsome in their day, but some of them were a little the worse for wear--were laid on the bed, she put the new one, with curling yellow hair almost exactly like her own, on the pillow beside her, and took up the others one by one.

"You can throw this one away," she said at last, holding out one which had a broken arm, and was leaking sawdust at the elbow; "I don't want but twelve children, anyway."

When her maid went out, Lily looked at her new doll, touched its hair and rich costume, but there was not any wonder in it for her; there had never been a time when she had not had as pretty dolls as money could buy; so Lily sighed and fell asleep almost immediately. Now Lily's maid left the disgraced doll on a chair in the kitchen, and there Mary the cook found it. It had on a pretty muslin dress and sash, and nice embroidered underwear, just like any fashionable young lady. It was Christmas week, and Mary had bought a doll to give to her little niece on Christmas-day, and seeing at once what a treasure this costume would be, she took it off, did it up as fresh as new, and made the doll she had bought look quite like a princess in it. So the old broken-armed doll had not a rag left of its former glory. But luck sometimes comes even to dolls.

Three days later, early in the cold morning, a little girl stood ankle-deep in the new-fallen snow in front of the grand house where Lily De Koven with her twelve waxen children lived.

This little girl was Biddy O'Dolan, and Biddy O'Dolan was in luck on this cold morning.

On this cold morning, in front of the wide stone steps of Lily De Koven's home, Biddy had found an ash can, and, poking over the ashes, had found and pulled out the very broken-armed doll which Lily had ordered to be thrown away, which Mary the cook had stripped of its fine robes, and which had last of all been swept up and put in the ash barrel, and so had come to the lowest possible condition of a once rich doll. Biddy held it out, and looked straight before her for a moment, at nothing in particular, in a kind of stupefied delight; for a doll, even such a doll as this, had never been in her little cramped, purple hands before. Then suddenly she tucked it in her breast, drew her dingy sacque around it tight, caught up her rag bag, and with a scared glance at the windows of Lily's fine home, she ran down the street.

Her heart beat so that it was like a little hammer striking quick blows against the breast of the doll. Biddy had never had anything to love, and from the moment she had got this doll hidden in her bosom she loved it, and I think she was in good luck to have found something which could bring her this dear feeling. And as for the doll, in its proudest days it had never been loved, and now, when forlorn and cast out, it had found a warm heart, and had come, if it could only have known it, into the best luck of its whole life.

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