Page:All the Year Round - Series 2 - Volume 2.pdf/23

 . Moral: Total Abstinence from Horseflesh through the whole length and breadth of the scale. This Pledge will be in course of administration to all Tee-Total processionists, not pedestrians, at the publishing office of, on the first day of April, One Thousand Eight Hundred and Seventy.

Observe a point for consideration. This Procession comprised many persons, in their gigs, broughams, tax-carts, barouches, chaises, and what not, who were merciful to the dumb beasts that drew them, and did not overcharge their strength. What is to be done with those unoffending persons? I will not run amuck and vilify and defame them, as Tee-Total tracts and platforms would most assuredly do, if the question were one of drinking instead of driving; I merely ask what is to be done with them? The reply admits of no dispute whatever. Manifestly, in strict accordance with Tee-Total Doctrines, must come in too, and take the Total Abstinence from Horseflesh Pledge. It is not pretended that those members of the Procession misused certain auxiliaries which in most countries and all ages have been bestowed upon man for his use, but it is undeniable that other members of the Procession did. Tee-Total mathematics demonstrate that the less includes the greater; that the guilty include the innocent, the blind the seeing, the deaf the hearing, the dumb the speaking, the drunken the sober. If any of the moderate users of draught-cattle in question should deem that there is any gentle violence done to their reason by these elements of logic, they are invited to come out of the Procession next Whitsuntide, and look at it from my window.

up, below the summit of the Brocken, chief of the Harz mountains, is a flat moorland, the Brockenfeld, wild, dreary, far from men. The nearest town belongs to the miners of Andreasberg, three hours distant, and the weather is not often friendly to much intercourse. The air of the Brockenfeld is nearly always cold, the trees are stunted and overgrown with a long grey lichen, which apparently protects them from the wintry blast, and looks like the beard of an old man. No flowery fields are here; no corn, not even potatoes, will thrive in this dreary home of cold weather, starved and deformed trees, long damp moss, reeds, and sedges.

Only a rare wanderer passes this way, or an emigrant trading in canary-birds, which are largely bred among the miners, and brought down to Harzburg, thence to be despatched over Europe in the tiny wicker cages we often see them sold in. Or perchance in the height of summer visitors from Harzburg, who are using the saline baths there, or consumptive patients from the firneedle cure of Andreasberg, will drive to the Brockenfeld to see the famous Rehberger Graben. Such visitors put up and dine at ihe forester's house, the only habitation in this district.

It was occupied some years ago by Paul Smitt, whose post was a tolerably lucrative one, the Hanoverian government having made some amends in payment for the lone position. But even the good pay tempted few to accept the situation.

When it was offered to Paul he accepted it eagerly. It was the very spot for him. He was a tall, sturdy, fine-looking man, his handsome face bronzed with long exposure to the wind and weather; only when he lifted his sugar-loaf shaped green huntsman's hat was there a bit of fair skin visible along the top of his forehead. His quiet blue eyes lay deep in his head, shaded by somewhat overhanging brows which gave a stem appearance to his face. He had always been grave; as a boy he had not mixed in the sports of his companions, but kept aloof and apart from them to study his forester craft. He loved his profession for its own sake, but there had been a time when he had loved it also for the sake of another, hoping by steady work sooner to bring about the doubling of his happiness. He had served his apprenticeship under a lowland forester, who encouraged and loved the studious youth, and did not see with any dissatisfaction that he worked harder after the forester's pretty daughter, Beatrice, came from her city boarding-school. Old Emil Bergen was glad to think that a young man he liked so much might become his son-in-law, and relieve him of all further care for his one motherless child. He therefore brought the young people as much together as he could, and once when a ticklish matter had to be reported down in the town, instead of going himself, he sent Paul, thus putting him in the way for promotion.

It was then, before he left for the town, that Paul spoke his mind to Beatrice. He had been working in the wood all the afternoon looking after the welfare of a young spruce nursery, when she passed him with a bunch of wood camelias in her hand.

"Oh, Paul," she said, seeing him, "look how many of these I have found. They are my favourite flowers, I love their simplicity; they thrive in out-of-the-way places; they are not ambitious" she added with a smile. "Not like you, Paul."

"Do you dislike my ambition?"

"Oh no, but you sit evening after evening over your books, studying how to improve your position in the world, and I think you might have given us more of your company."

"And for whom do you think I work so hard?" he asked, looking straight into her face.

"How should I know?" she said, saucily, though she blushed and looked down.

"Do you care to know?" he resumed, and as