Read Ebook: The Quiver Annual Volume 10/1899 by Various

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Proceeding northward, the expedition will view other places, but none, perhaps, so beautiful as one at which they will make a brief stay--Damascus, the oldest city in the world. It is situated on the western side of the great plain, at an elevation of two thousand two hundred and sixty feet above the level of the sea, and is beautiful beyond all description. On an elevated part of the Anti-Libanus, which rises to a height of nearly four thousand feet, there is erected a dome of victory, from which the best view of the city and the seven rivers can be obtained, as also of the white-streaked mountains, the chocolate plain, and the rich and varied colours of the foliage of the trees. Within the city stands a citadel and a palace. Damascus has seventy mosques, and about one hundred and fifty other places of worship in addition; and each of the principal religious communities occupy different parts of the city. In the same way different industries are carried on, each in their own quarters exclusively, having their own bazaars for the sale of goods. The place is highly prosperous, and its appearance is, as I have said, extremely beautiful. Thence the Kaiser and Kaiserin will journey on to Egypt, seeing Alexandria, Cairo, and going up the Nile; but here space forbids us following them.

It is a visit which cannot fail to impress all; the Kaiser himself to no ordinary extent, considering his remarkable power of grasping the religious and romantic elements of ancient history and its famous scenes. What he will see will stir his heart to no ordinary degree, sensitive as is his mind to all such impressions. It must also sensibly appeal to the cultured members of every religious community, and all will watch this Imperial pilgrimage with unusual interest, and wish for it a happy and prosperous finale.

I cannot close this without tendering my respectful thanks for the gracious kindness accorded me in Berlin, and for the valuable assistance rendered me by Dr. Barkhausen, the President of the Evangelical Church Council for the Jerusalem Expedition, this gentleman being chiefly responsible for the entire arrangements.

PLEDGED

FATHER AND DAUGHTER.

Mr. Graydon and his daughter Pamela were jogging leisurely home from the little market town of Lettergort. There was no reason to hurry, and if there had been, Frisky, the little fat pony, whose frisky days were long over, would not have been aware of it.

It was very hot, a morning of late summer; but Pamela's creamy cheeks were as cool as the firm petals of a lily. She bore as if accustomed to it the jog-trot of the pony and the frequent ruts into which their chariot bumped, flinging her from the seat as though she were the football in a hotly contested game.

Mr. Graydon kept up a contented whistling when he was not commenting on the fields and the cattle as they passed. That had been a long, hot summer, and for once in a century people had begun to long for the patter of rain on the leaves.

"Woa, Frisky--woa, little lad! That's a nice colt of Whelan's down there by the sally-tree. Do you see, Pam? Now, I hope the poor fellow will get a handful of money for it. He'll need it this summer," Mr. Graydon would say.

Or, again, it would be a farmer going their own way from Lettergort.

"Good-morning, John."

"Good-morning, your honour. How did the calves do wid your honour?"

"I'm not complaining, John. Murray of Slievenahoola gave me thirty shillings apiece for them. It was as much as I hoped for."

"Aye, they wor but weanlin's. An' 'tis no use keepin' stock this summer."

"How did you do with the heifers, John?"

"Didn't get the price of their feed, your honour. Wirra! 'tis a desperate summer. The hay wasn't worth cuttin', and the oats is pitiful."

Again, it would be a labourer with a scythe on his shoulder whom Mr. Graydon would stop to ask after his household concerns. Everywhere they passed a smile followed Mr. Graydon's broad back in its faded homespuns.

"'Tis a rale pleasant word he has in his mouth, God bless him! an' him a rale gentleman an' all," followed him from many a cottage-door.

"You've done your marketing, Pam," said her father, turning to her.

"I'd plenty of time, dad, while you chatted to your million acquaintances."

"And sold my calves, Pam."

"You might have sold a thousand in the time."

"Well, well, Pam, it is my little world, you see. I hope the perishable things won't be broken when we come to the rut by Murphy's gate. 'Tis a foot and a half deep at least. Johnny Maher ought really to mend this road."

"You ought to make him, dad. What's the good of being a magistrate?"

"What indeed, Pam! Sure, I never get a job done for myself. There's old Inverbarry now, and he a lord, and he's getting the private road through his park mended at the public expense. And he as rich as Croesus, the old sinner!"

Mr. Graydon rubbed his hands with benevolent amusement. His daughter glanced at him with a pucker between her white brows. The violet-blue eyes under curling black lashes exactly reproduced her father's, though at this moment the expressions were widely different.

"You're too easy-going, dad. You should make Johnny Maher mend the road."

Mr. Graydon dropped a rein to pull one of his daughter's silky black curls.

"You wouldn't be having me too hard on the poor fellow, and he with a sick wife and an old mother and a pack of children. Eh, little Pam?"

Pamela shook her head severely, and the red mouth, which had drooped at the corners when she was serious, parted over white teeth in a laugh fresh as a child's.

"You've no conscience, dad, any more than Lord Inverbarry or Johnny Maher. You're conniving at their wrongdoing, you see."

"Maybe I am, Pam--maybe I am. Only I don't suppose it seems wrongdoing to them--at least, not to Johnny Maher, poor fellow. Inverbarry ought to know better."

They jogged along for a few minutes till there was another jolt. Simultaneously there was a crash at their feet, and Mr. Graydon pulled up with an exclamation.

"There goes some of your crockery, Pam. I hope it's not the lad's looking-glass."

"Never mind," said Pam, with a sigh of despair. "Perhaps now you'll get Johnny Maher to see to the road. If it's his looking-glass, he'll have to shave as Mick St. Leger used, with the lid of a can for his looking-glass."

"Ah, poor Mick was used to our ways. He didn't mind. But this is a public-school man. We'll have to furbish up for him, little Pam, and put our best foot foremost, eh?"

"It looks like it," said Pam, gazing down at the jumbled parcels at her feet. "I'll tell you what it is," she said: "it's the glass for his bedroom window. It is all in smithereens. He'll have to put up with the brown-paper panes, as Mick St. Leger did."

"Never mind, never mind. The lad's a gentleman, and he'll see we're gentlefolk, though we're as poor as church mice. He won't mind, you'll see, Pam; gentlemen never do mind these things."

"You're thinking of Mick still, dad. You forget that Gwynne man who wouldn't stay because he got nothing but potatoes for three days. As if we could help the roads being frozen and Frisky not being able to get to Lettergort! Do you remember Gwynne's face over the potato-cake the third day? Yet I'm sure Bridget had done her best. What with potatoes in their jackets, and mashed, and with butter, and without, and in a salad, and at last in a cake, I'm sure there was no sameness about the diet."

"Gwynne was a--well, of course, he was a gentleman, but as disagreeable as a gentleman can be. Besides, Pam, potatoes probably didn't agree with him; they don't with everyone, you know, and Gwynne was dyspeptic. I don't know what the lads are coming to. In my young days we didn't even know the word dyspepsia, much less the thing."

"Gwynne was hateful," said Pamela. "He expected us to kill the chickens for him when every single chicken was a pet, and so tame, dear things! that they would walk into the drawing-room and perch on your knee."

"Perhaps that's why Gwynne wanted them killed," said Mr. Graydon.

"Nasty thing!" said Pamela. "I was glad when we saw his back. He couldn't bear the dear dogs lying on his bed either, though Mary told him it was a proof of their friendliness towards him. He fired his bootjack after Mark Antony, you remember, and though it's not easy to stir up Mark Antony, yet I'm glad he had the spirit to go for Gwynne's legs."

"Mark Antony had been burying bones under Gwynne's pillow, my dear."

"Only because it was a wet day, and he never liked to go out in the rain. I daresay if he'd had time he'd have removed the bones to the garden. However, I don't suppose this youth will be like Gwynne. What do you think, dad?"

He broke off suddenly with a little sigh. "That was another world, Pam."

"A world well lost--was it not?--dad."

"Aye, a world well lost, little girl."

It was plain to see that a tender intimacy existed between this father and daughter.

"I daresay he'll find my ways rather old-fashioned, Pam. It was an odd thing that his father should have remembered me, and have wished the lad to come to me."

"It would have been odd if he hadn't," said Pam shortly.

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