"No," he said, bluntly. "I believe you take no concern save in what touches yourself! But Erroll bade me, if he fell, give you this; it is all he left to my charge-save another for a woman in England." He lifted his hand, standing on the stone coping, and held up a letter. Strathmore stretched and took it, and the other turned away, without more words, and strode back across the lawn in the gloaming. The sun had risen high enough for the writing to be clear, and as his eyes fell on the superscription, where he stood alone in the deserted corridor while all around him slept, for the first time his own revenge recoiled back on him; he remembered how the life which he had taken had once been perilled for his own; he remembered how this man had loved him! The suddenness of this unlooked-for message from the dead, awoke memories which staggered his merciless and immutable calm. He crushed the letter in his hand unread, and, leaving the house, went out into the dawn instead of going to his chamber; in that moment he wished to shun even the gaze of hirelings-in that moment, ere he read what the hand now lifeless had written, he felt he must have about him the fresh clear air of morning. For, Our acts our angels are, or good or ill, and already the doom wrought by his own hand, was following in his trail. He walked onward in the solemn stillness of that early day, fresh from the lascivious sweetness of a guilty love, and the furious delight of a brutal vengeance, walked onward through the warm white mists of the morning, through silent solitudes of woodland, crushing the packet in his hand unread, until the rapid rush of the river at his feet arresting his course made him note whither he went. Then he paused, and wrenched open the letter of the man who had fallen by his hand. And what he read was this: you "YOUR OWN ACT has made more words between us impossible; to a blow there can be but one answer. But I write this in the hazard that in a few hours I may have ceased to live; when I am dead you may hear without dishonour to me that you have wronged me from first to last. Were it alone for the sake of our past friendship, I would not let you go through life holding me the liar and betrayer you now do; it were to debase and pollute all mankind in my person and in your sight. What you believe I see plainly, how you were duped to believe it I can conjecture well enough; it is sufficient that by your belief do me the foulest wrong that ever a lie worked. It is she who betrayed you, not I. I loved her-true! with that vile sensual passion which levels us to brutes; but, before God, Strathmore, I write my oath to you that to that love I never yielded; it was she who tempted, I who resisted. In this must lie the root of the revenge upon myself which she now takes in goading and duping your jealousy till you believe you see in me a rival who would have treacherously supplanted you. Last night, in warning you of Marion Vavasour's inconstancy, I spoke no slander as you thought; when you taunted me for proof, I could have given it you on the word of one who, as you well know, never lied. Only a few to let moments before I had been alone with her, when the Duc left, in the supper-room; alone, with no shield between my hateful passion, that sprang up unawares, ripe as it was rank, and her own loveliness, that lured me with glances, with smiles, with hinted words, with every devilish divine temptation. . . . My God! you know the snare-you succumbed to it. Pity me, forgive me, if, for an instant, I almost forgot all bonds of honour to you; if, for an instant, I fell so low as to remember nothing save that her eyes wooed my love and confessed her own-save, that what I loathed while I coveted it, might be mine at my will. Pity me, forgive me, you who know her accursed sorceress beguilings, her subtle tempting that lies in the languor of a glance, in the passing fragrance of her hair! My weakness endured but an instant; then I broke from her while I had strength; I left her while the first whispers of love stole from her lips. At the moment I encountered you; I strove to warn you of the worthlessness of the woman on whose love you staked your life and-fool that I was! when you gibed and taunted me for proof, I shrank from striking you the deadly blow; I chose rather you think of me as you would, than force you to own the right by which I spoke, since I must have bought my vindication at such cost to you. Early on the following morning her page brought me a note from Lady Vavasour. I send it to you; it will serve to show you how subtlely, how poetically, she shrouds her wanton infidelities, this double-traitress to her lovers and her lord! I wrote her back words that she will never pardon me. Suffice it, that they were such as stripped her amours of their delicate gloss, to show them to her in their own naked light; such as refused her love for your sake, and rebuked her treachery your name and my own. Out of her presence, and in the calmness of morning, I had strength to do thus much in the right path: God knows I have wandered from it often enough! This is the brief entire truth. My lips never spoke a lie; my hand would scarce write one, when, for aught I know, I may be within an hour of my death. I write it because I could not endure that throughout your life, should hold my memory tainted with such thrice-damned treachery as you have attributed to me; and it will spare, rather than inflict on you, added pain, since sooner or later you must learn that this woman's passion has fled, though her pride of dominion over you still lingers, and will suffer less to know it thus, than to track it first in the rivalry, and triumph, of some living foe. in you you "Now let me make you one request in as few words as I can; for though, after what has passed, I should compel you to meet me were you my brother by blood, I still choose rather to ask this boon of you than of any other. The young girl whom you once saw with me in the elmwalk at White Ladies-perhaps you have forgot the circumstance-was not my mistress, as you naturally thought, but my wife. Three years ago, we met by a strange accident, while I was staying at your house during your absence. She was the daughter of an exiled Hungarian noble, who had taken refuge near the abbey, in obscurity and poverty. She was in the early grief of her father's recent loss, a mere child in years, singularly lovely, and almost destitute. I loved, and I soon taught her to love. To have offered her dishonour, in her trustful and defenceless innocence, would have been dishonour. I married her, but secretly, and have kept it secret even from you, partly for entanglements, that you know hampered me, partly because of my creditors, chiefly because, as you are aware, the knowledge of such a marriage would have ensured my certain disinheritance by Sir Arthur. She has lived at White Ladies, still under her father's name of de Vocqsal, and your almost constant absence on the Continent prevented your hearing whatever rumours might be afloat regarding our connexion. She is very dear to me; yet I have but ill recompensed such love as she has borne me. My death will leave Lucille and her child penniless and unprotected; what I would now ask of you is, as far as may lie in your power, to shield her from the bitterness she is so little fitted to brave. This, then, is the trust I leave you, Strathmore; you will let her find in you a sure and faithful friend; you will make to her, atonement for the wrong you have done to me; and if her child, now in its infancy, ever live to womanhood, I would wish that in years to come you should speak to her sometimes of her father, but never let her become aware that it is by your hand I fell. Should it be decreed that I die thus, I will not say, Know no remorse,' for that were to wish you devil, not man; but I do say to you, believe this, that neither now nor in the most abhorred hours that your mad passion for the wanton adulteress who has parted us, ever caused me, have I felt bitterness to you. I would that it had been an open enemy who had done me this dishonour, and not thou, my brother, my guide, my own familiar friend;' but since thus it has chanced-take my last words as you would take the oath of a dying man. I forgive you fully all that has already passed, all that may yet be to come. If I die, remember-it will be in peace with you. This was the Message of the Dead. "BERTIE ERROLL." Standing in the morning light, whose reddening sun-rays, streaming on the page, lit up each word till it seemed written in blood, Strathmore read-read on to the last line. Then a shrill, hoarse cry, shuddering rang through all the forest silence, greeting the early day as it uprose-the cry of a great agony-and throwing his arms above his head, he fell, like a drunken man, down upon the sodden earth. AMONG THE COSSACKS. THE Cossacks of the Ural, indubitably descended from the Cossacks of the Don, who several centuries ago discovered the mouth of the Ural during their predatory excursions, now constitute among the large population of Russia, a small, happy people, who possess an enormous territory, know neither want nor poverty, and live peaceably and obediently attached to their Czar and Holy Russia, as a self-contained military community. The free, unfettered life, the general prosperity and healthy climate have powerfully contributed to produce a handsome race. Many old customs as well as the democratic spirit of the community during former centuries, have certainly long ago yielded to a better order of things, but for all that a peculiar feeling of caste and an obstinate adherence to old fashions have been preserved from those dark ages. The large extent of territory, the trade with the interior of Russia, and the barter with the Kirgises, certainly offer the Cossacks of the Ural large sources of profit, which will be immensely increased with the progress of time. Still, the fishery of the Ural from the town of Uralsk (the residence of the Ataman and seat of the administration), as far as the Caspian Sea, for a distance of four hundred and seventy-five versts, is at the present day the true gold mine of the country. This fishery is an amusement, a species of chase, a sort of hazard-playing; for a simple Cossack, favoured by fortune, will frequently catch in a couple of hours a number of large fish worth one hundred and more roubles, while his next neighbour does not see a fin during the entire day. Hence it is, at the same time, a valuable branch of trade, open to thousands, and which brings a deal of money into the country. The fishery is at the same time very important, as supplying food for the Cossacks. The almost incredible number of all sorts of fish which live in the Ural and its affluents, and are continually reinforced from the Caspian Sea, are, next to plenty of meat, the ordinary food of the nation. Vegetables are rare, and but little cared for, and though meat and meal are excellent and remarkably cheap, no Cossack can live without fish and caviare. The quite fresh caviare just taken from the fish is a remarkable delicacy, especially the coarse-grained yellow sort called amber-caviare, which, however, being a rarity, is never exported. The delicate flavour of the freshly-taken fish-roe has something peculiar about it when eaten on the spot, which is entirely lost in caviare that is exported, and is generally much too salt. In 1847 a pound of fresh caviare cost from twenty to twenty-five copecks silver (84d. to 10d.), but since then the price has gone up considerably, as the exports grow larger annually. From all these reasons, then, fishing is an important affair for the Cossack, an eventful employment of the whole people. The children on the roads play at fish-catching, it is talked about in every company, and the Cossacks await longingly and with eyes sparkling with pleasure, the legally appointed opening of the general fishery. The latter is so remarkable, and so different from what takes place elsewhere, that we think a description of it from the pen of an eye-witness will prove agreeable to our readers. We have found it in a work which describes in a most interesting and instructive manner Russian popular life from every * Lebensbilder aus Russland. Von einem alten Veteranen. Riga. side, and omitting a few immaterial passages, we will proceed to extract all that appears to us of a nature to offer a lively and distinct representation of this fishery. The Caspian Sea contains an extraordinary wealth in plump, welltasted fish, which annually ascend the Volga and the Ural in order to deposit their spawn. Among these the genus Accipenser, represented by four varieties, with snout-shaped heads, is the one to which the large fish belong that produce the black caviare. The largest of these fish is the beluga, which, according to old persons, was formerly captured weighing from forty to fifty pouds,* and yielded from four to six pouds of caviare. At the present day, belugas a fathom long, and weighing from fifteen to twenty pouds, are considered a rarity. Next to this fish comes the sturgeon (stör), and its almost worthless variety the schipp: the stör caviare is considered the best. Then follows the sewrüga, and last of all comes the sterlet, which, when full-grown, does not exceed three feet in length, but when fresh is remarkably fat and pleasant eating, and is even conveyed alive to Petersburg, as a delicacy, at a great expense. In addition to the Accipensers, the Ural swarms with white trout, large shad, pike, flat fish, and many other sorts. As the fish always go up stream at certain seasons of the year, and the majority pass the winter in it, a fish weir has been built since the earliest period below the town of Uralsk, which is annually repaired, and dams the river right across so as to prevent the fish ascending farther. At this weir the fish, urged by the instinct of swimming against the stream, assemble in such masses that it seems alive with them, and they form regular layers one above the other. The oldest inhabitants declare, however, that the number and size of the fish have greatly decreased in comparison with earlier times. This may be partly produced by the colossal fisheries in the Volga and Ural, near Astrachan, and in the Caspian Sea, and partly by the annually increasing silting of the mouth of the Ural. The author of the work under notice had an opportunity some years ago to witness an incident of the Ural mode of fishing. The ataman accompanied him to the weir, and, at a signal from the commanding officer, a powerful and active Cossack advanced, laid off his boots and upper clothing, took in his right hand an iron hook which was fastened to a long line the end of the latter was held by Cossacks on the weirhurriedly crossed himself, stepped noiselessly into the river, and at once disappeared under water. There was a deadly silence, during which all eyes were fixed on the surface of the stream; at length, at the expiration of half a minute, the line was shaken-the signal to draw it up-the diver reappeared on the surface, hauling after him a struggling fish with the hook inserted in its gills, and both were dragged ashore amid the loud shouts of the Cossacks. This performance, however, is not so difficult as it seems. As an enormous number of fish are pressing against the beams of the weir, and thrusting each other out of the way, the man, slipping gently among them, is hardly noticed, and if the Cossack is thoroughly up to his work, he is able to inspect the swarming fish at his leisure, and select any one he pleases among them. Of course the diver must pass the iron hook through the fish's gills, but this is facilitated by the fish continually opening them to inhale water. The fish captured on this occa The Russian poud is equal to forty English pounds. |