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temples, and it was all very interesting and entertaining. I meant to walk all the way round the city on the wall, but before we'd gone far I saw a wonderful procession coming round a corner of the street. They were priests, red and white ones, and an old man in pink carried in a chair under a huge umbrella, and a band of drums and cymbals and shouts. It was so interesting that I wanted a better view, and, as there was no path nearer than the slipway that we had come up, I shinned down the wall."

"But it's sixty feet, sheer!"

"Not quite sheer, but very near it. And there were plants growing out of a few projecting stones. The boy yelled to me not to go, but I'd started, and of course there was no stop ping. I landed with scratched hands in the middle of an empty backyard, and was wondering how to get out of it when an ugly-looking dog flew at me. So I scrambled over the wall as quickly as I could, and got into another compound where there was another dog. I raced across and went over the wall into the next garden. This was altogether more pretentious, with trees and a rockery and a wooden bridge. I had bolted into the middle of it and had sat down on a bench to get my breath before I noticed two beautifully dressed ladies sitting opposite, who rose in something of a hurry and went away. A man in a silk coat came running out, with

half-a-dozen lusty fellows, sons or servants, after him." "Do you know where you were?"

"I haven't an idea." "In the women's quarters of some rich man's house."

"Well, I had no wish to be there, and I didn't stay long. I ran over the fancy bridge and jumped a low wall into a lane, but they came after me. I knew that it would be no use trying to explain, so I just bolted and they chased me, gathering recruits as they went along, and shouting and throwing stones. Soon there was quite a big crowd, delighted at the prospect of a row. I had a bit of a start, and at first was fleeter, but by the time that two or three brick-bats had hit me I found that I shouldn't be able to keep it up for long. I hadn't a notion where I was, or how to get back to the top of the city wall; but I suddenly found myself in the temple precincts, which I recognised by the big stone lanterns standing in front. So I made for the temple door, thinking that I might find sanctuary—

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"Sanctuary!" breathed the missionary.

"But I saw the procession just coming into sight, so I doubled round the corner and went in at a small door on the other side, and hid behind a fine, big idol, which afforded excellent cover. He wasn't a thing of beauty, for he was painted vermilion and green, and studded all over with eyes. But I was thankful for his dimensions."

"I know the idol you mean. It's considered the most sacred thing in all this district. People come even from other provinces to worship it. They say that it has stood upon that spot for a thousand years."

"Well, it stands there no longer. The procession came in, and they set down the chair and the old pink fellow went away to his lotus. Then a tribe of bare-legged boys in red muslin followed him and began to chant. On their very heels came the old man in the silk coat, and his crew. He began to shout at once, and the priests stopped the trumpet and newmoon business to hear what he

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had to say. I gathered that he thought he had found thief in his back garden. He declared that I had come into the temple. The blue people began to search the place and the younger priests joined them. I quite meant to help them to look for me myself, take my chance among the crowd, and then slip out and run for it. But I had a eut on my hand that was rather incriminating, and I waited a moment to consider. I squeezed a little farther behind the objet d'art, and the old fellow gave an awful wobble that brought all eyes upon him. I held on to him with might and main. But he was heavy, and he was slippery, and he wasn't properly shored up. He tilted forwards, fell on his face, and went to smithereens."

Lyndon saw the horror in the missionary's eyes.

"The old idol of the Wu-shimiaou? It's a wonder you're here, my lad."

"I think he had dry-rot. He raised a dust like the dust of ages. I thought I'd get away under cover of it, but there were too many people. I was in the middle of a fair hornet's nest, and in the mêlée I gave the old pink priest one in the eye that didn't help my case. I hadn't much of a chance anyhow; they were about fifty to one. They got me by the feet and threw me, and about a score of them carried me away. I was dumped into a little mud-hole of a room in the compound, and left there in company with many beetles."

"Never mind the beetles. Go on with the story."

"But I must tell you about them, Padre, for they were my sole companions for several days. They used to do a march-past by moonlight every night, and it was so quiet in the mud-hole that I could even hear the little 'snip-snip they made eating the biscuit crumbs."

"If you'd clapped your hands they'd all have run away."

66

My hands were tied, Padre -lashed. Feet too. On the fifth day a file of soldiers appeared and escorted me to the Yamen for an interview with the Mandarin."

"How did you get on?"

"Not very well, for they'd kept me in the mud-hole too long, and I'd got a touch of fever and forgotten my Chinese. But I went on saying 'Ingkwa-fu, Ing-kwa-fu,' the only word that I could remember, and one which I had taken care to get into my head

when I first landed in the country!"

"My dear fellow, there's no British Legation for many

miles!"

"So I understood from the way they grinned."

The light, half-mocking voice fell suddenly flat and paused. Then it continued: "I'm not fond of blue any more, Padre! I should like the sea and the sky to adopt some other colour! I dream blue dreams at night, and I feel thankful when I wake up from them. At the Yamen I understood that I wasn't only guilty of trespassing in somebody's garden, but also of the enormous offence of breaking down the idol. I asked them to find my carter, but I don't think that they understood me, and if they knew my nationality it didn't make & bit of difference to them. They were madly angry, and the soldiers had to hold off the crowd while the fatigue-party on torture-duty put me into the cangue. Then they all stood round and enjoyed the sight. At first I wondered what they could be looking at that interested them so intensely. Later on I discovered that it was myself. They didn't seem a bit vindictive after that first moment, but they were absolutely interested and amused. I can see them again every time I shut my eyes, a shifting mass of blue coats, each topped by a sallow face, keenly alive and watching as one might watch a play."

"They are like that."
"But why?"

"Because their own lives are

as dull and dreary and colourless as the whole of this northern plain. There is no variety. They work and eat and sleep. That's all. And any sort of diversion is most welcome. How long were you in the cangue?"

"I couldn't tell you. I felt as if I'd never been anywhere else! It must have been three, or perhaps four days. I didn't eat or drink or sleep all the time, so the game couldn't last for long. When they saw that I was getting done they took me down and put me back again in the temple hovel, and fed me and let me sleep. I was carried there in a basket slung on a pole between two coolies, and the old priest was waiting for me with a large following of acolytes. But they couldn't get any fun out of me. I was dumped in the mud-hovel again, and I woke up in the night, and there were the beetles taking their walk in the moonlight. You can't think how pleased I was to see the little beggars again! They didn't want to watch me suffer

they only wanted to eat the biscuit crumbs. At that moment I thought them vastly superior to the human animals in the Yamen."

The missionary nodded.

"In the morning I found that I was not to go back to the cangue again that day. I was sent to the Yamen and cuffed and collared with the long row of thieves, and made to sit out in the street for the passers by to admire. You know the rest, how she-she came by-O, Padre, what made

her ride that way, out alone with a groom?"

"She said she thought that if we three foreigners used the road every day, it might in time strike the Mandarin that it was rather barbarous to put the criminals out there to be derided."

He looked at Lyndon's face, and then in pure compassion turned away

"I must go and write to the Mandarin," he said.

A voluminous correspondence was in progress between Mission, Yamen, and Miaou. The missionary rough- drafted his letters and Helen fair- copied them, a task which took her the most part of every morning. The negotiations would be concluded in another week, and Helen hardly dared to think where the end of that week would find them, she and Lyndon.

Lyndon did not attempt to thank Helen for her large share in his escape. His feelings lay too deep for words.

How did she think of him, if she thought of him at all? As some poor, feeble creature who had fainted into her arms the moment that he was taken out of his foetid den into God's air?

She had never seen him when he was a man, only as he was now. How could he ask her to marry him?

She sat down beside him on the edge of the k'ang.

"Mr Bemberry is arranging the affair in a masterly fashion," she said. "HonourChinese honour-will be satisfied, and the whole thing will fizzle out quietly. You are to pay five thousand dollars to the temple for having inadvertently knocked over a valuable possession. The priest is to pay you five thousand dollars for the ill-treatment that you received at his instigation. So that the affair resolves itself into words, endless apologies and explanations and compliments and veiled sneers! But there will be no real ill-feeling over it, save for the ill-feeling that I'm afraid you still have in your neck and wrists!"

She smiled at him, but Lyndon's face remained grave.

"You might have thought that in giving me back my life you'd given me everything, he said. "But it's not so. I want something more. And as soon as I'm on my feet again as soon as I'm anything remotely approaching a man-I'm going to ask for it. I'm going to ask you to marry me.'

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Helen's glance fled this way and that, and she rose from the k'ang. But Lyndon stretched out his hand, and she turned towards him and put her hand into his.

PHILIPPA BRIDGES.

VOL. CXCI.-NO. MCLVIII.

2 Q

MUSINGS WITHOUT METHOD.

PORTRAITURE IN ENGLAND-VAN DYCK-LELY AND KNELLER—
MINIATURE PAINTING THE ART OF TO-DAY -THE GEORGIAN
AGE-BIOGRAPHY-BRET HARTE-THE PIONEERS OF '49.

It was Carlyle who said that if you would know a hero of the past, you must be familiar with his portraits, and no better advice could an historian take or impart. How shall you consider effectively the words and deeds of a man whose features are veiled from your eyes? There are few documents, therefore, which should be more scrupulously treasured or widely published than the counterfeit presentments of great men, and the Oxford Press has put us under a debt of gratitude by giving to the world, admirably reproduced and wisely commented upon, the portraits of those who governed, inspired, or castigated the seventeenth century.1 Here pass before you, in the habit as they lived, the great men and beautiful women of their time, and if you do not know what they are and what they did, you may at least know how they bore themselves in the eye of the world.

Yet even in the presence of the greatest portraits you must make certain deductions.

The

was not

famous painters of old were not mere realists. They were interpreters of character as well as the makers of portraits, even though in this office of interpretation they went beyond the limit of their craft. And not only did they wish to make their sitters immortal, they cherished the ambition of coming down the ages with the men and women whom they set upon their canvasses. To produce a likeness enough for them; they must boast their own skill and prowess before the world. The result is that in a picturegallery we see the past not directly, but through the temperaments of those who painted it. Kings and queens, courtiers and their ladies, look out upon us in an ennobling atmosphere. The painters to whom they sat were not upon oath; they did not drive a hard bargain with the truth. They were willing, if they could, to reveal to us not merely this sovereign or that, but sovereignty in its essence. "The magic by which the artist effected this transfiguring process," says Mr Bell in his

1 Historical Portraits, 1600-1700. The Lives by H. B. Butler, Fellow of All Souls College, and C. R. L. Fletcher, formerly Fellow of All Souls and Magdalen Colleges. The Portraits chosen by Emery Walker, Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries, with an Introduction by C. F. Bell. Oxford: At the Clarendon Press.

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