English Characteristics [pp. 261-263]

1872.]
BK~Lisff CffABA CTBBIS H' CS.
261
been ign~ant a week ago, was the one bela
without whom life would now seem a blank.
~uddenly a fancy struck her and made her
smile. When he had asked for the knot of
blue ribbon he had called it a talisman, and
such it was, of course. It was all the work
of that insidious, girlish ornament. The idea
pleased her, and she elaborated quite a theory
of her own on this slight basis. She was only
doing what many wiser and older people had
done before her; and, in her case, as in theirs,
it at least served to make the time pass quickly. As she was turning, she was recalled by
a sound, thrilling and strange; it was the song
of the nightingale, celebrating the beauties of
the soft night. In after-years, Nettie never
heard the notes of the nightingale without
once more seeing the whole picture rise before her - the jutting, irregular ruins; the
broken casement, forming a rugged frame
for her own figure; the forest clearance, with
its flower-dotted carpet of green, flooded with
moonlight; the old gnarled trees, with their
ever-young foliage; the towering peaks of
the Sabine hills; and, pervading the whole, a
sense of danger, the only outward sign of
which was a faint curling feather of smoke,
rising from among the trees, probably from a
fire round which tile over-secure brigands
slept. Nettie wondered more than once that
she should have so little fear.
Every thing was prepared, the knot made,
its strength tested over and over again, and
-for Nettle was a careful, housewifely young
~~irl, in spite of her frivolity-the remnants
of last night's supper laid out on a flat stone,
when at last, in the hush of the night, she
beard the whistle for which she had been
eagerly listening for an hour past. Then
how her heart beat, and how she shut her
eyes, praying and trembling, as the noise of
falling stones and breaking branches marked
the perilous ascent! She had almost fainted
when the young man at last scrambled to the
top of the ruin, and only recovered when he
bad assured her, over and over again, that he
was unhurt, that all had gone well, and that
they need apprehend no further danger. Then,
by some freak of wayward girl-nature, she beeame shy and cold, and sat with her eyes cast
down, scarcely speaking.
"Do you know," remarked Charles Darley, looking down at her, "of what you constantly remind me? Of that sweetly tantalizing`Capricioso' of Mendelssohn, a music,
I am sure, which was inspired by one like
~ou, for, in half a dozen measures, there is as
much wilfulness, pouting, and then as much
unexpected and delicious tenderness, as in
that problem whose name is Nettie."
"I think you must be hungry after your
night's excursion. There is a broken piece
of bread, the wing of a chicken, half a plum
eak% and some pickles; you had better eat
them, only let me have just one pickle."
Many and various were the exclamations
of the Germans when, with much difficulty,
they were roused and informed that they
must prepare for a siege. Jack, on his side,
was very quiet, and presently said to his cousin, with a quiver in his voice "You knew of this from the first." To
which she demurely answered in the affirmative.
"Tell me, Nettie, do you love this-Yankee?"
"Yes-we are engaged." From which
we must conclude that, while partaking of
the plum-cake and pickles, more had passed
between the young people than we know of.
Cousin Jack turned abruptly away, and Miss
Nettle made some salutary reflections on the
fact that a young man, even if it be a par ticularly unromantic~looking cousin, may have
feelings which it is cruel to hurt; so she
said, penitently putting her hand on his coatsleeve:
"I am very sorry, Jack, to displease you."
"Never mind that now, Nettle, so that
you are happy, dear." The last in a choked
voice, but those choked words gained for poor
Jack a valiant champion, and a life - long
friend.
No time was now to be lost. Mrs. Redgrave could not understand, at first, that real
brigands were menacing them, and it was only
when she saw that the cushions on which
she had slept were used to stuff up danger.
ous holes through which balls might whistle,
and that the long table was carried across
and made into a barricade against the open
space, that it dawned upon her that there
might be real fighting. Not all the assurances that help was at hand, not all the coaxing and caresses of her niece, sufficed to rally
her courage; and when the brigands, at last
discovering that their proposed victims were
on the alert, fired a well-directed shot, which
hit the ruined wall a little above Nettle's
head, the poor lady shrank into a corner and
loudly bewailed the day when she had been
persuaded to leave her safe and comfortable
English country-house.
The fight began to assume a serious character; the brigands were evidently in considerable force, and furious at being kept at
bay by four young men, armed only with pis
chief, and disposed of his forces as follows:
Jack and Herr Topf were posted each at a
small break in the wall, commanding the
right and left extremes of the forest clearance, while he and the painter Lo.~we (who, in
spite of his appearance, proved himself wor
thy of his name), held the real post of danger
in the centre. Nettle was superb; she loaded
the pistols, having been instructed in that
art by each of the young men in succession,
handed them to the combatants, and was as
much surprised at her own courage as any
one. Suddenly Darley turned pale; the firing
had ceased, and there was evidently a movement among the all-but invisible enemy-a
movement discernible by the swaying of the
underbrush. It was now morning, and yet
the expected help from Subiaco had not arrived-could they have mistaken the place?
"They are going to take us by assault," he
muttered, and wistfully looked at Nettle. But
just at that moment a loud shout, followed
by rapid shooting, informed the breathless
little group that they were safe-the troops
had arrived. Then, even Mrs. Redgrave
gathered strength enough to creep from her
corner, and, when finally the firing ceased,
and the commanding officer came forward to
announce that all was over, she even assumed
quite a martial air. When something like
calm was restored, she turned to her niece,
whose appearance quite scandalized her, and
was going to exclaim, "What a fright you are,
Nettle!" but even she saw that this sparkling.eyed, bright-cheeked, dishevelled maiden
was certainly not a fright, so she contented
herself with exclaiming:
"How untidy you are, my dear! Your
hair is all down; you must have lost all your
hair-pins, as well as your ribbon!"
"She did not lose her ribbon," then said
Charles Darley, showing the knot of blue
ribbon, and taking the blushing girl's hand;
"she gave it to me as a talisman, and as a
guarantee of a still greater gift which she
means to bestow on me very soon."
M~av Hx~~v.
E~GLISH CHARACTERISTICS
NGLAND is a mellow country, and the
English people are a mellow people.
They have hung on the tree of nations a long
time, and will, no doubt, hang as much longer;
for windfalls, I reckon, are not the order in
this island. We are pitched several degrees
higher in this country. By contrast, things
here are loud, sharp, and garish. Our geography is loud; the manners of the people are
loud; our climate is loud, very loud, so dry and
sharp, and full of violent changes and contrasts; and cur goings-out and comings~n as
a nation are any thing but silent. Do we not
occasionally give the door an extra slam, just
for effect?
In England, every thing is on a lower key,
slower, steadier, gentler. Life is, no doubt,
as full, or fuller, in its material forms and
measures, but less violent and aggressive. The
buffers, the English have between their cars
to break the shock, are typical of much one
sees there.
All sounds are softer in England; the surface of things is less hard. The eye of day
and the face of Nature are less bright. Every
thing has a mellow, subdued cast. There is
no abruptness in the landscape, no sharp and
violent contrasts, no brilliant and striking
tints in the foliage. A soft, yellow, pale
sunlight, is all one sees in the way of tints
along the borders of the autumn woods. English apples (very small and inferior, by-the.
way) are not so highly colored as ours. The
blackberries, just ripening in October, are less
pungent and acid; and the garden vegetables,
such as cabbage, celery, cauliflower, beet
and other root crops, are less rank and fibrous;
and I am very clear that the meats also are
tenderer and sweeter. There can be no doubt
about the superiority of the mutton; and the
tender and succulent grass, and the moist
and agreeable climate, must tell upon the
beef also.
English coal is all soft coal, and the stone
is soft stone. The foundations of tbe hills
are chalk instead of granite. The stouc with
which most of the old churches and cathedrals are built would not endure in our climate half a century; but in Britain the tooth
of Time is much blunter, and the hung~ of
the old man less ravenous, and the ancient
architecture stands half a millennium, until