From The Economist, 10 June. HUNGARY, AUSTRIA, AND RUSSIA. against domestic tyranny, but against foreign aggression not against the brutality which tramples on civil liberties, but against the injusWE have never troubled our readers with dis- tice which assails national independence; not quisitions on the details of the war, nor shall we against the barbarism which stays at home, but do so now. We have steadily kept our eye upon against that which seeks to spread itself abroad. its main features, upon its probable extent and But one of the remarks of the ex+Governor duration, and the probable policy of the allies of Hungary suggests a truth which falls in well engaged in it. Like true economists, we have with the great moral which we have all along looked always to the "main chance," and in- been endeavoring to inculcater- tend that a won sisted with pertinacious reiteration on the necesOur object in this war is, or should be not sity of obtaining "value received" for our ex- merely to rescue Turkey for the moment, but to penditure. We have never been weary of urging secure her for the future against being dependant on the Government, above all things, the impera- on our assistance, to guarantee ourselves tive duty of so conducting and so terminating against the costly and troublesome liability of be this war, as to secure the quarrel from being ever ing constantly called upon to protect her from reopened, or at least ourselves from ever being the incessant encroachments of a covetous and again drawn into it. O relentless neighbor. It will not do for us to have The speech recently delivered by Kossuth at an "Eastern Question" for ever on our hands. Sheffield recalls our attention to one important We must dispose of it once for all. Now, there point in the question, which perhaps has not are only three ways of doing this we must been insisted upon as much as it deserves. We strengthen Turkey, or we must weaken Russia, do not, as is well known, sympathize with the or we must raise up an ally to Turkey and a riextreme views of that consummate orator; but val to Russia strong enough to take our place. of course we cannot blame him for entertaining The first is almost out of our power. We may them. It is natural that he should think only of give the Porte good advice; we may protect her the interests of Hungary, and should exelaim till her internal reforms are completed and have against the inconsistency of England, while pro- begun to work their renovating and strengthen fessing to fight against the despotism of one ing influence; we may help to enrich her by our Power, uniting herself with one equally tyran- commerce, and help to pacify those internal disnical. It is natural that he should hate and sensions which have done so much to place her dread Austria even more than Russia, and should in the power of her enemy; but this is the limit deem that a most unsatisfactory issue of a Euro- of our influence. She must work out her own pean war which should humble the latter and salvation—if she can. Notwithstanding, how Consolidate the former Power. But British ever, the unwonted vigor she has shown; notstatesmen must take at once an equally national withstanding the signal proofs she has given of and more comprehensive view of the question, a vitality not yet extinct; notwithstanding the and must not be induced, by dislike to their prin- unquestioned bravery of her people, and the saciples, to refuse the aid either of autocrats or gacity of her diplomatists, and the indisputable patriots, when that aid will promote the imme-good intentions of her Government, it is almost diate object-if a righteous one-which they have too much to hope that she can ever, singlein view. If Austria is truly and loyally with us in this matter, we cannot reject her alliance because she has acted with brutality towards Italy and with perfidy towards Hungary. handed, be a match for her gigantic neighbor. On the other hand, we may, if we will, do much to weaken Russia, and place her hors du combat for generations to come. We may utterly Kossuth, moreover, entirely mistakes the posi- break down that prestige of greatness and irretion of affairs if he imagines that either the Eng- sistible power to which she has owed much lish nation or the English ministers have gone to more than the actual prowess of her arms; we war with Nicholas because he is a tyrant, or may destroy her fleets, barn her arsenals, dishave the smallest intention of making a crusade mantle her fortifications, strip her of her ill-gotagainst despotism as such. Our rulers are little ten and ill-used acquisitions, and restore them prepared for a war of that nature; and our peo- either to independence or to their original posple, though less indisposed for it, are too well sessors; we may rend away the Crimea, make aware of its gravity to take upon themselves Georgia independent, give Finland back to lightly the terrible responsibility of inaugurating Sweden and Bessarabia to Turkey; and thus such a struggle. They have taken up arms not reduce Russia to the position of a second or a third rate Power But there is little likelihood is dependant for the success of its own policy that we shall do this-little appearance of being upon Russian aid. The treatment which the sufficiently in earnest to attempt it-little proba- Hungarians have received from Austria have so bility that the mutual rivalry of the other Euro- effectually alienated the affections of that noble pean Powers would allow it to be done. Yet race, that, instead of being, as formerly, the unless this be done, we may be perfectly certain strength of the Empire, they have become its that Russian encroachments will never cease-weakness-instead of being its great defenders, that the seizure of Constantinople will never be they have become its bitterest enemies. So long abandoned. There remains, then, only the third as this alienation continues, it is perfectly certain alternative—to enable some other State to be- that Austria must remain too feeble and precari come the guarantee of Turkish independence ous to be the rival and barrier to Russia which and the barrier to Russian aggression. the safety of Europe demands;-nay more, it is Now this is clearly the natural function of certain that she can never do more than lanAustria. It is imposed upon her by her position. guidly remonstrate against Muscovite crime, and She has more to dread than any other Empire pitifully implore Muscovite assistance. So long from Russian aggression. The completion of as Austria is weak Turkey will be in danger, and Russian designs on the Ottoman dominions England will be in trouble. So long as Francis would be her death-warrant or degradation. Her Joseph persists in trampling on the chartered great river would be entirely in Russian hands. liberties and withholding the ancient constitution Her great eastern outlet would be entirely com- of his Hungarian subjects, so long Austria will manded by Russian forts and Russian fleets, continue weak; Russia will continue her inTrieste would become her only port. Then. trigues against the Porte; and England and again, half her subjects are Sclavonians, and al- France will continue constantly liable to take ready more disposed to look to St. Petersburg up arms for its defence. We have, therefore, than to Vienna for their inspiration. Nicholas not only a philanthropic and sympathizing, but has already the command of Servia: if Molda- a direct and selfish interest in the reestablished via and Wallachia were his likewise, the sympa- liberties of Hungary-not in the establishment thies of race would soon enable him to raise of such a republican independence as Kossuth insurrectionary troubles in Austria as he has done in Turkey, then to interfere as Protector and Mediator, and finally to reduce Francis Joseph to the same position as the Sultan or the Shah of Persia. Austria might retain her 'integrity,' but her independence would be gone for ever. and a handful of his friends desire-and which could not possibly maintain itself without foreign aid-but in such a bona fide restoration of the old constitution under ample guarantees against future insidious assaults, as should onco more unite to Austria her richest territory and her strongest arm. Such a reconciliation as Austria sees all this clearly enough, and feels might be effected on this footing would at once it painfully enough. Why, then, is she not now, give to Austria 200,000 armed friends in the why has she not always been, the principal an-place of 200,000 secret foes; would emancipate tagonist of Muscovite aggression? Why is she her from the necessity of Russian friendship and fallen so much under Russian influence? Why the dread of Russian enmity; would constitute is she too weak to dispense with Russian aid? her the natural defender of the Danubian ProvWhy is she compelled to purchase it so dearly? And why, instead of being the controller of Russia, has she sunk almost into the position of her vassal? And-for this is the practical pointhow can she emancipate herself from this fatal and ignominious servitude, and become once again the bulwark of the West against the Northern barbarian, and the preserver of the peace of Europe in the East? The answer is obvious. Austria is weak because she is divided against herself. Her Government cannot set itself in opposition to Russian encroachments, because it EPITAPH IN TORRINGTON CHURCHYARD, "She was-my words are wanting to say what. Which provoked the following reply:- A SPIDER'S WEB.-On stepping out of the house, my attention was attracted by a spider's inces against their present perils; would make her find in a close and honorable alliance with Turkey the guarantee of their common safety; and would enable France and England to sheath the sword, and withdraw in future from the distant contest. To such a desirable consummation the efforts of every English statesman should be directed, however little he may sympathize with the cause of nationality or liberty in the abstract, and however great may be his dread of insurrec tionary patriots and revolutionary dangers. web covering the whole of a large lemon tree, nearly. The tree was oval and well shaped, and the web was thrown over it in the most artistic manner, and with the finest effect. Broad flat cords were stretched out, like the cords of a tent, from its circumference to the neighboring bushes and it looked as if some genius of the lamp, at the command of its master, had exhausted taste and skill to cover with this delicate drapery the rich looking fruit beneath. I think the web would have measured full ten yards in diameter. Herndon's Valley of the Amazon. THE LOCK KEEPER. hood; it was to him that people addressed them Translated from the French of Emile Souvestre, for the selves to read the rare missives received by the Living Age. BY ANNE I. WILBUR. CHAPTER I. THE grand western canal, which connects the sea with La Vilaine and opens to navigation a path interrupted from the Upper Loire to Brest, traverses, in the latter part of its journey towards the ocean, a wild country, scarcely relieved, here and there, by a few solitary farms. The eye seeks in vain for villages or cultivated fields; it encounters everywhere only immense heaths interspersed with thickets of shrubs, and long marshy steppes, over which flocks of aquatic birds are hovering. In vain have attempts been made to revive these dull countries by making commerce and industry circulate through them in a new artery; everything remains motionless, as in the past. No barque furrows these slug gish waters; tufts of alder or thorn-broom are rapidly invading the turf-covered banks; grass grows among the stones of the locks, and the houses built for the lock keepers alone announce the presence of man in these austere solitudes. At the door of one of these habitations, situated at some distance from the point de partage of Glomel, a young girl of about twenty-two years was seated, with her head bent over a book with soiled margins, which a little old man was holding before her, on her knees. The master and scholar presented a contrast with which the eye was involuntarily struck. The latter had the laughing countenance and peach-bloom complexion which at once reveal robust health and laborious youth. Clad in a Kernewote* costume of simplicity but of unexceptionable neatness, she wore brown thread stockings and sabots without straw, a luxury almost unknown in the mountains. Her white coif, disarranged by the wind, revealed her brown hair, whose floating waves swelled the muslin tissue as if they would have escaped from it. The master was a little man, poorly clad; his feet were bare and his head covered with a brown cap almost worn out by age. He might have sat for an Esop, had not his head, buried in a double hump, expressed more of simplicity than malice; but, unlike most deformed people, Perr Balibonlik had nothing ironical or aggressive in his expression; far from this, his large eyes, always in motion, his half-open mouth and his tuft of gray hair raised at the summit of his forehead, gave him an air of cowardly credulity which provoked a smile. One divined at a first glance that he had nothing to fear from this creature, whom his deformity had intimidated instead of souring. So it was commonly said in the parishes, that Balibonlik "was born on the day of the Holy Innocents." Too feeble to engage in rustic labor, the rector of his village had taken pity on him and taught him to read, write, and cipher. Thanks to his benevolent preceptor, the hunch-back had become the incarnate science of all the neighbor *The Kernewotes are the inhabitants of La Cornouaille. DXXXI. LIVING AGE. VOL. VI. 12 farmers, and in case of necessity to reply to them. He was also occupied in teaching the children the catechism or their prayers, and even attempted to initiate the most curious into the mysteries of the Croix de Dieu;* but his pupils, dispersed over a tract of several leagues, and whom he was obliged to seek at the threshold of the farm-houses or in the pastures, necessarily escaped him on the return of winter. The class, reciting in the open air, in the furrows, or beneath the hedges, was interrupted until the return of the hawthorns; the little hunchback found himself, for some months, without occupation and without a shelter. He then returned to the lock, where his relative Hoarne Gravelot welcomed him always with the same cordiality. Balibonlik was approaching the termination of one of those forced retreats which he had sought to make useful by laboring to instruct the daughter of the lock-keeper. The latter had just finished the page of the spelling-book from which she was reading; she raised towards her master a smiling glance which seemed to solicit approbation: the little hunchback did not make her wait for it. "God be merciful to us!" said he, placing between the leaves of the book the nose-pinchers which served him for spectacles; "surely you will read, this year, as fluently as the chorister of Gourin." "That is a question," replied the young peasant; "it is now the end of the month of March the cuckoo will soon resume its song, and you will quit the lock in search of your scholars." "No matter, no matter," replied the hunchback; "from this time, you can go on alone. I will leave you my Livre de grand lecture." "And what will your scholars do?" "Never mind them. Most of my pupils cannot distinguish their right hand from their left; the Croix de Dieu will suffice for the rest until the return of the icicles." "And then you will come to learn whether I have profited by the long days?" Balibonlik shrugged his shoulders. "Does not the red-breast seek his winter nest beneath a christian thatch?" replied he gently. "If I did not come to the house of my cousin Gravelot, I should have no shelter for my old cap but open barns and forsaken ruins; but thanks to God, there is always for me here a porringer and a stool. The house of the lock may be small, but it justifies the proverb that where the master of the dwelling has a large heart, the fireside is never too narrow." "Peace, peace, old master!" said Nicola smiling; "you well know that your company, during the days of eight hours is to us a pleasure and a solace. The gayest become sad at last at seeing no human creature; and it is a miracle if one Christian passes by here each day of high mass. The house of the lock has no neighbors but the birds of the marsh and the game of the prairies." The spelling-book in which country schoolmasters taught their pupils to read; the more advanced read in the Livre de grand lecture. *You forget the people of the burnt heath," | Laouik, he would turn his head in order not to said the hunchback, lowering his voice. Nicola started. "Ah, Virgin Mary! have you seen them this morning?" asked she precipitately. "Not yet," replied Balibonlik;" only we may expect them, like a malady, every minute. God forgive me for wishing them evil, Cola; but their vicinity is too great a trial; and, if I ever meet at the corner the yellow woman who breathes pestilence, and she asks me the road, as usual, I think I should point out the path which leads to the house of the Guivarchs." see the mocking look, or hear the insult which saluted his passage. Thus condemned to perpetual prudence, constrained in all his movements, and tormented by constant anxiety, he was slowly amassing in his heart against his persecutors, arrears of anger each day more difficult to repress. As for Nicola, she lived in constant terror. After having reminded Perr Balibonlik of the last attacks of the Guivarchs, she asked, with a sigh, what was to become of her father, should he be left alone at the lock with such neighbors ? "Is it then certain that Alann will take you away after the marriage ceremony?" asked the hunchback. "Do not pronounce that name, or some one of them will come," interrupted Nicola, looking around her;" I have an idea that God placed them on the burnt heath for the punishment of our "It will be as he pleases, old master," replied sins. Because those who dug the canal drove the young girl; "the wife must follow him from them from the spot which the lock now occupies, whom she receives the silver ring, and Alann's where their ancestors had built a cabin without mother has said that she has, in her house at any right to do so, they make war upon us as ene-Gourin, a place for her new daughter; but if it mies; you will scarcely believe me, poor man; but, is his will that I go, I shall have a heart-ache." when I think of them, a shudder passes over me, and I say to myself.always that they will bring us misfortune." Balibonlik reassured her so feebly that it was easy to divine his own fears. In truth, the firmest courage must have been shaken by the incessant and increasingly bold attacks of the Guivarchs. Expulsed, as Nicola had said, from grounds usurped by them on the public lands, they had taken refuge at a short distance from the lock of the canal, and had constructed a new hut in one of the hollows which furrowed the sterile plain. Before the construction of the lock, they lived on the corner of cultivated land on the banks of the river, by fishing, poaching, and nocturnal depredations in the valley; suddenly deprived of most of these resources, they ascribed the fault to the lock-keeper, and ravaged his garden, killed his pigs, and plundered his poultry-yard. Hoarne complained, and officers were sent to the burnt heath. They seized Guivarch and his eldest son, who were sentenced to an imprisonment of several months; but, when they were released, the lock-keeper perceived that the chastisement inflicted had embittered rather than terrified them. Hope in the mercy of Christ, my daughter," said the hunchback; "you have not long to wait for your fate. Is it not about this time that your cousin is to arrive at the lock?" "Say tomorrow, old Perr," replied Nicola, laughing. "O, I am very sure of it, for before he departed, Alann gave me a printed calendar, on which he had marked the period of his return; every morning since, I have pricked the day with the pin taken nearest my heart, for fear he would forget me, and I have arrived at that which is to bring me joy. At the first rising sun, if God permits, I shall see my best beloved descend the canal on his boat." "Till then, have patience," returned Balibonlik;" perhaps everything will be arranged to your satisfaction, and, as the proverb says, we must not sound the knell before the burial.' Nicola sighed without replying; and the old schoolmaster, having looked at the shadow which the great arm of the lock projected on the steps, hastened to replace his spectacles in their case, and to shut up the spelling-book; "God help me! my sun-dial warns me that it is late," said he, pointing out to his pupil the dark line of shadow which was shortening; "each of us should be already at work." "My master has then some nets to be raised near the light-house?" asked Nicola. "Who would think of catching fish in such Those who have lived in solitude far enough from the action of the laws to find them weak and powerless, know to what a degree isolation may make us dependant on a single audacious man. Master at every moment of our property weather?" replied Balibonlik. "Do you not and our lives, he wearies the most persevering see, foolish girl, that the river has risen to the patience and courage. Gravelot experienced tow-path, and passed above the light-house with this. The presence of the Guivarchs became for a thundering sound? In this rush of water, the him an incessant oppression. Each day some current would carry off my nets like a blade of new attempt on his repose or his property re- grass, not to mention that the fish would be too minded him of this dangerous proximity. In- near the bottom to allow themselves to be taken. cessantly struck, he felt himself incessantly No, no, my daughter; I do not promise you tothreatened by a new blow. The family of burnt day food for a fast; but say that I lie worse than heath had enclosed him in a circle of vexations a miller's boy, if I do not bring you this evening and rapine whence he could not escape. If he a string of little birds." perceived afar on the heath, Konan Guivarch, "I shall expect them,” replied the young girl, with his long gun on his shoulder, or his son" for I know that you have a way of charming Guy-d'hu, armed with a short cudgel, he was everything which can be caught living, on the forced to take another direction to avoid quar- land or in the water; go, then, with certainty; rels; if he encountered the old blind grandmother, as for me, I will go in to sift the oatmeal.” conducted by the little soize of her brother, She was lightly rising, and had stretched out her hand towards the half-open door of the house, when her eyes rested on the tow-path which bordered the canal; she uttered an exclamation of surprise, and hastily descended the two steps in order to see better. "What is it?" asked the hunchback, who had just risen more slowly. "Look!" said Nicola, stretching out her arm in the direction of the canal. "Something has happened to Pen-Ru." The cow?" interrupted the schoolmaster, contracting his eyes the better to distinguish afar-off. You are right, she is running along the banks as if mad! "Ah! I understand," exclaimed the young girl. "Look! look! some one is frightening her. It is the boy of the burnt heath, it is Laouik! ah! demon! he is throwing stones at her!" A child of a dozen years, clad in a ragged linen costume, and wearing a coarse straw hat, of which only the crown remained, was running along the heath and throwing at the terrified animal everything which came to hand. The cow, placed between the canal and himself, was flying hither and thither, uttering bellowings of distress, and in vain attempting to escape this double danger. The more frightened she became, the more ardent was the pursuit of the boy; he terrified her by his cries, and showered upon her a hail of clods and pebbles, by which she was soon so bewildered that she rushed up the declivity of the tow-path, now almost inundated. which he was armed, when two vigorous hands seized him. The child raised his head, and his eyes encountered the angry visage of the lockkeeper, Hoarne Gravelot, who was on his way from the heath, laden with a bundle of faggots, and, having seen from a distance all that was passing, had hastened to the spot without Laouik's hearing the sound of his footsteps, deadened by the carpet of short heath. "On my life! you shall pay me this time," exclaimed he; "you and yours have too long been a nest of vipers; always ready to bite. Since patience has had no effect upon you, let us see what a cudgel will do." He dropped the fagot which he bore on his shoulder, took from it a strong and flexible stick, and, holding the child with the left hand, began to strike him with the right. Each blow left a streak on his worn garments, and the whizzing of the green branch seemed to be extinguished in the flagellated flesh. Laouik at first uttered piercing cries; but, on hearing Gravelot rally him for his cowardice, he remained silent and motionless. The lock-keeper had been until then animated by the resistance of the culprit; his silence and immobility stopped him. "Well! is this enough, robber, vagabond, brigand?" exclaimed he, shaking the boy, "will you come again to steal my fruit as you did the other day, or drown my cattle as you would have done just now?" By way of reply, the child cast on him a ferocious look and tried to extricate his arm; Hoarne detained him, drawing him roughly towards him. At this sight, Nicola and the hunchback quickened their pace; but Laouik had already crossed "Listen, wicked beggar," resumed he angrily; the tow-path, brandishing a knotty branch of "this, do you see, is but a first warning; but the thorn-broom. Pen-Ru, affrighted, attempted to stick has tasted your flesh, and, if I find you tryretreat, slipped on the moist declivity and disap-ing to injure me, you shall not leave my hands peared in the canal. till your skin is the color of a poppy." "It seems you are braving me!" exclaimed he; "speak quickly then; repeat aloud your thoughts while you look at me thus!" At the sound of her fall, the lock keeper's Laouik looked him in the face; there was in daughter and her companion sprang towards the his piercing eye, in his low forehead, garnished brink with an exclamation; they perceived the with bristling hair, something so audacious and cow, whose black head had just re-appeared so revengeful, that the lock-keeper felt himself, above the waters, and who was swimming to- as it were, wounded. His hand was instinctivewards them. The boy of the burnt-heath, who ly raised, prepared to strike anew. had burst into a wild laugh at the moment the animal was engulfed in the stream, continued to follow her along the tow-path and to drive her with stones towards the middle of the current; but the instinct of preservation, stronger than fear, brought Pen-Ru towards the shore. Meanwhile she was beginning to falter, and her eye was growing dim when she reached a little projection where Nicola awaited her. The young girl called her by her name, and, after some vain efforts, succeeded in reaching the cord which served as a halter. The animal, drawn towards the shore, landed, notwithstanding the redoubled cries of Laouik, climbed up the miry bank and reached at last the tow-path, where she stopped dripping and covered with foam, with a long bellow of deliverance. "My thoughts," repeated Laouik with suppressed anger," the lock-keeper shall know them when I am grown up. I will carry off the branch of broom, with which he has beaten me, I will plant it at the burnt heath, and with time it will become stout enough to kill “ a man." "It would be better then to break it over you immediately," exclaimed Gravelot, exasperated. And he was preparing to resume the correction, when Nicola interfered. "Let the boy go, father," said she;" he has been punished enough for this time, especially as Pen-Ru is now in safety and uninjured; see how heartily she is browsing along the path." Balibonlik had just rejoined Nicola, and shook The lock-keeper raised his head to look at his his fist at the boy of the burnt-heath; but the lat-cow, who had indeed returned to her pasturing. ter, stopping at a dozen paces distance, with The young girl profited by this moment gently high head, right foot planted forward, and a to disengage Laouik, to whom she made a sign pebble in each hand, replied to the threat of the to escape; but, whether from pride or inability, hunchback by a laugh of defiance. He was even the child contented himself with removing a few preparing to throw at him one of the stones with paces and sitting down on the edge of the heath. |