Flaxius

It happened once in the days of sword-songs and sagas, runic sorcery and sea-dragons, that Flaxius found himself in Sweden on a summer eve, gazing at the town of Upsala. He sat upon the little hill before it, where, as tradition tells, Odin was buried. Ye may see his bones, to-day, in a paste-board box in a case in the Stockholm Museum, where I who write these lines was allowed to reverently touch them, which is indeed a favour only accorded to a pious few who still worship the gods, disguised as folk-lorists and archæologists—quorum pars sum.

Now as Flaxius looked upon the strange city, and the old tower, with its eight arches typifying the eight rings or armlets of the All-Father, he observed here and there on the walls, swinging in the wind, the corpses of the strangers who were caught straying about the country, and were then sentenced to sus per coll, or be hanged, slung up, or hitched to swing, dangle, swaggle, and go bibbety-bob in the breezes, as a sacrifice to Odin.

‘A somewhat severe custom,’ mused Flaxius gently, ‘yet doubtless not without its peculiar advantages. The stranger within our gates often seems to us well worthy of being gated, when he gets the entire government of cities into his hands, and runs the taxes—into his own pocket; as I with eye prophetic do foresee will be the case one day in Western lands, but late discovered by these valiant Norse.

‘But for the Sacrificed on yonder walls. I remember how upon a time in Rome when Nero made full oft grim martyrdoms, that a disciple of Paulus asked—hearing me declare that there was humour in all things—if it could be found in the awful conception of a God dying as a criminal to show his humility and love for the world? And I can recall how Odin once coming as stranger, or in some disguise, into this very town, he being their god, was seized at once and hung on yonder wall, as a due sacrifice unto himself. Over which thing he merrily exults as if it were a wondrous racy joke, as we may read in the Edda:

‘“For nine nights,
I hung on the wind-rocked tree
A sacrifice unto myself.”

‘Truly the idea was too much for me, but not for the All-Father of the Northern gods, who found a grotesque humour in the conception of a Creator baffled by his own work. So he carried out the jest by being hung. Ah well! he lost the game after all, which shows that the Scandinavians were not good myth-makers. We managed these things much better in Etruria, Greece, and Rome. “There’s nothing sacred to a pioneer,” says a French proverb, and Odin was the Sapeur and leader, and discoverer for all the North. The Norseman and Norman were his children. Od or Hud was his name as “the traveller,” and Henry Hudson was of the blood. Like an old traveller, Odin would have his joke.

‘But as to this custom of stringing up, or scragging strangers, and making them dance upon nothing in honour of the Lord Odin, it behoves me to look to myself with care unless I too would wear a tight cravat, and I care not for such worldly vanities.’

Saying this he wandered on and away, till he came to a lonely place amid rocks and trees by a headlong stream, where he paused. Suddenly his attention was caught by a cry, which he found came from a pit hard by. It was a deep and powerful voice. And to it Flaxius replied:

‘Who calls?’

The voice answered:

‘I am one who has fallen into this pit, and have not the power to come forth.’ Then he sang in staff-rhyme:

‘“To catch the Band-olf,
To take the Adelolf,
Bertolf, Eginolf,
Frekulf, Aistolf,
Hedenolf, Ingolf,
Kelolf and Kunolf,
Orkulf, Ordulf,
Ludolf and Rachulf,
Ralf and Ranulf,
Wolfram and Tackolf,
Theodolf, Unolf,
Wolfart and many a wolf,
Men with the sword,
Bearers of Lances,
Go forth to battle.
To catch the Were-wolf,
They dig the pit-fall,
With runes and sorcery,
Witch-rhyme and magic,
So well they guard it
That the wild wolf-man
Falling into it,
There must remain,
Starving, a prisoner,
Until a sorcerer,
Pitying, comes to him,
Breaking the witch-spell.”’

‘Which means in prose,’ said Flaxius, ‘that a poor devil of a sheep-stealer, alias a were-wolf, is here in the pit—more’s the pity! There is to my mind indeed—I know not why—something less of crime in stealing mutton and venison than some other things; in fact I remember that a great Etruscan dramatist, now forgotten, once made deer-poaching almost sacred. And I recall how a bold, brave man said to a judge in my hearing: “Jedge, I’m glad you punished that mizzable creeter so severely for stealing hens. Being naterally strong in the back, it hes befel at times when the country was thinly settled, that I myself have now and then inadvertently stolen a sheep, but I allays had the moral grandeur to refrain from Hens. Hens! O the low, poor, ornery, medium-minded cuss!—he orter to be ashamed of himself!”’

The man in the pit uttered an exclamation not over-pious.

‘It would serve these Swedes right, for their hanging strangers at Upsala,’ pursued Flaxius, ‘if I were to pull this poor devil up into the light of day. Let us see how they have laid their hocus-pocus of runes and witch-knots! Why rubbish and trash!’ he exclaimed with a scornful laugh, ‘an old Roman witch who tells fortunes for a penny would undo this sorcery with a pin! Ahem, let me try:

‘Aldebarantiphoscophornio!
Bombochidescluninstaridé sarchides!
Tarchun, Hinthial, Tara!

There—the charm is broken! Were-wolf, my son, come forth!’

And sure enough the pittite came forth. His appearance was not, to draw it mildly, as Flaxius observed unto himself, ‘absolutely prepossessing.’ Punchius, a celebrated Roman jester of the Lower Empire, once remarked of such an appearance, ‘that he would not be a nice customer to meet of a dark night in a lonely lane, on the loose.’ For he was red all over, as if with excessive health, and awful in muscle, an over-done Hercules, like to the Cacus of Baccio or Bandinell in the Signoria of Florence. His arms hung out from his sides like a turtle’s fins, because the bulging biceps were so great. His hair was red and dishevelled, and his eyes glared from under it with unmitigated ferocity, like those of a wild cat staring from a pig-pen. He bore on his left arm a wolf’s skin.

But suddenly, ere Flaxius could speak a word, the two found themselves surrounded by a crowd of furious rustics, who had evidently been ambushed on the watch, in the forest, about the pit. They rushed upon the pair with angry cries, accusing Flaxius of having delivered the Were-wolf, also of being a stranger, and ere they were aware, cast over them a net in which they were helpless.

‘Flagrante delicto,’ thought Flaxius. ‘Misplaced humanity oft leads to woe. He who lets a rat out of a trap loses his cheese. What next?’

The next was that the culprits found themselves imprisoned in the witch-tower. Its walls were about twenty-five feet in thickness; there was just room in it for two to sit on a bench, and there was one grated window to admit air.

They looked at one another. Flaxius began to sing a song written some time after by the Trouvère, Marie de France:

‘“When lays abound, ’twould ill beseem
Bisclaveret were not a theme;
Such is the name by Bretons sung,
And Gar-wal in the Norman tongue.”’

‘Gar-wal!’ exclaimed the other prisoner. ‘That means me—a were-wolf. ’Tis not our tongue, and yet I know the word.’

‘So I suppose, my son, therefore I sang,’ rejoined Flaxius. ‘So now while we are resting a space, from our romantic adventure, ere we get out of this somewhat limited apartment, I pray you tell me all your story clearly … in simple words, and few.’

‘By Fenris!’ exclaimed the Were-wolf, ‘I will tell you the truth. Loki and Hela take me if I lie! I was a free, simple bonde, a plain small farmer, and I lived from a flock of sheep. It was my all, and hard was my life withal. Now I had a rich neighbour, and one year my pasture was ruined by flood and storm, and this man being crafty, and I as simple as a child, he persuaded me to pasture my sheep on his farm for half the lambs to come. But he so managed by head-craft and law-craft, as to take from me all I had; and when I followed my claim at the Thing or court, it went even worse with me, and I was cast into debt, and made a thrall or slave.

‘Then I was mad with rage. Short words, master—I met a witch who gave me a spell, and I made myself a were-wolf. Then I slew all that man’s sheep … one by one … I set fire to his home—his family all perished in the flame—he escaped, lame and a beggar. And I was made a Wolf’s Head.’

‘Truly a pretty tale!’ remarked Flaxius. ‘Apuleius might have made something of it. Entre chien et loup in this twilight, my son—or entre nous—hast thou more to narrate?’

‘Yes. I had taken from my foe’s house a goodly treasure of gold rings and coin, which I have concealed. Now, if any sorcerer would take the wolf-spell from me and change my face, I would buy me a ship and go a-pirating as a Viking, and so reform and lead an honest life.’

‘Truly men’s ideas as to honesty,’ reflected Flaxius, ‘are indeed somewhat involved—or as we may say—conventional. But what dost thou think, my son,’ he said aloud, ‘as to our present prospects?’

‘Simply, my lord, that we shall be burned alive to-morrow in honour of Odin.’

‘All lost—except honour,’ quoth Flaxius. ‘But, my son, I have no fancy to figure as a rôti, albeit I propose to be a pièce de résistance. Let us for once in our harmless and innocent lives vary the monotony of moral goodness by evading the law. All novelty is pleasing.’

‘And how shall we do it?’ asked the man amazed.

‘Thou art a strong carl,’ replied Flaxius, ‘and I warrant me that thou couldst tear yon window grating out of its place. And I—’tis a mere trick, my son—can increase thy strength ten-fold. Only drink now and then from this flask. So, so! bully boy, to work! Work while I sing to thee a magic spell taught by the great Ir-Ving.

‘“Hinculus dinculus trinculus!
Holy boly bum!
The Latin for chain is Vinculus
Nunc inspiratus sum!”’

It was with intense awe that the Were-wolf listened to these words, and in full faith that he attacked the grating, which he pulled away as if it were straw.

‘Now try a stone, my son!’ exclaimed Flaxius. ‘Nay—take a pull first from the flask. There is a spirit therein, unknown to thee—spiritus vini Gallici, duæ unciæ, fiat potatio!’

Crash came a stone weighing a ton, then another, then a third. The Berserker rage was on the giant. Soon he had made a hole through which one could have driven a coach, but he kept on.

‘Softly, softly, my dear boy!’ interposed Flaxius. ‘Thou art too good an actor, and wilt bring down the whole house about our ears. Now, if thou art ready, I see the new moon rising o’er yon trees. Ha! Hesperus! I give thee greeting fond! Come to the green wood; let us haste away!’

It was a drop of twenty feet from the window, but the red man took it like a mountain goat, and then caught Flaxius in his arms, like a ball, albeit the latter was none of your light-weights, neither was he small. Now, as the Wolf was still berserk-wode, or half-mad with the tremendous magic potion, he gave a fearful yell, turning townwards,

‘And shook his gauntlet at the towers,’

when catching up Flaxius on his back, he ran with him, ‘as a fox might run with a goose,’ thought the passenger, at headlong speed, along the road and into the woods, crashing through boughs and thickets, over rocks leaping, through torrents splashing; a-down a force or waterfall here, up a hill there, while Flaxius sang:

‘“Va petit postillon!
Va en avant, vite, vite!
Tu vas comme l’aquilon
Sur ta jument favorite?

Go on, my postillion!
Before thee lies the way!
And thou art like an eagle fleet
Upon thy gallant grey!”’

Truly the similes were all a little mixed, but they were in a devil of a shaking, jumbling hurry, and there was no pause till they found themselves far away in a lonely land, where it seemed as if the cock never crew, the sun never shone, and the wind never blew. There the Berserker threw himself matt and flat on the ground, out of wind, and dead broke. And then Flaxius noticed that he had in his right hand a sheep, which he had caught up on the way as he ran.

‘Truly there is a good soldier lost in this man,’ said Flaxius. ‘He can forage even during a retreat.’ So there was resting, cooking, and camping au clair de la lune; and the next day they went on, and so to the North for many days more. The wolf-man seemed to be bound for a certain place, and Flaxius followed to see what would come thereout.

When on a time as they sat in a sunset on a headland overlooking a fiord, and far away from Upsala, the Wolf-man said:

‘Master, wilt thou take from me the spell which forces me when the moon is full to don this skin and raven as a wolf? For, anon, I shall begin to feel fierce convulsions throbbing, and wild commotion in all my blood, and raging madness for murder in my whole soul, the time for it being nearly come, and then I spare neither beast nor human being. Now, if thou dost not care to work the charm, there lives near this place, a-down in yonder dale, a Finn who is a famed sorcerer, and to him will I go for relief.’

Flaxius replied musingly, more to himself than to his follower:

‘Yes, it is true. Long, long ago in Greece, I made research into the Lycanthropia, which is one of the oldest mysteries of mad humanity. And it was in happy, sunny Arcady—et in Arcadia ego—where all was like a proverb of sweet peace, that it first showed itself to the world.

‘In that land, my son, was a wicked king named Lycaon. Once it happened that the great god, who was as the Odin and Frey of your faith in one, whose name was Zeus or Jupiter, and in Etruscan, Tinia, came in disguise to this Lycaon, who, to test the divinity or magic of his visitor, set before him human flesh cooked as mutton.’

‘But that was a great sin!’ exclaimed the Wolf-man, who was listening with round eyes and full belief. ‘To treat a guest, who should be sacred to the vilest of the vile, in such wise was nidering.’

‘It was très low-flung, my son,’ said Flaxius, who had a habit of prophetically borrowing phrases from vocabularies of the future. ‘Yes, niederträchtig, scandalous, ribald, scrubby, pitiful, vile, infamous conduct—infra dignitatem regis. And it was promptly punished, for Zeus, on the spot, turned the king and his sons, who had had a hand in the little game, all into wolves—the first wolves ever seen—and they ran howling away through the door into the darkness, like mad.’

‘’Tis a fine tale,’ said the Wolf-man. ‘And so the first of us was a king, and if he was wicked, he was bold to dare such a deed.’

‘But whence came this mania,’ continued Flaxius, talking to himself, ‘since there is a scientific cause for all things? H’m‑h’m! the Arcadians were of the primæval race of the Pelasgi, who dwelt secluded from the mob of Asiatics, Egyptians, Levantines, and God knows what all, who fused into Greeks in time. In lonely valleys, deep in mountain dales, they pastured flocks, fought with the beasts of prey, and kept unchanged a mass of the wildest tales of sorcery and witchcraft in freshest faith. So they knew fear in its strangest form—the panicus terror—which seizes on mobs of men or beasts, and the deliria of spectres, as no other Greeks knew them. Out of such fear grew the bewildering insania zoanthropica, and the awful insania metamorphosis of which Nebuchadnezzar was the prototype. Finally we get to the dementia lycanthropia, so interestingly exemplified in thee—O my son!’ he exclaimed, turning to the other, who had sat open-mouthed with wonder and admiration at the speech, of which he had not understood one word. ‘By the way, what is thy name, my son?’ he continued.

‘Ranulf, the mad wolf, is what men call me,’ said the other proudly.

‘Mon fils, ce n’est pas l’instant pour la vanité humaine,’ rejoined Flaxius mildly; ‘but as regards removing this disorder of thine, I would fain see how thy Finn will work it. I promise thee a cure in any case.’

They went down and on, till they came to a large, low cottage, buried amid birch-trees and willows. At the door sat an old man weaving baskets, droning to himself an ancient lay, while by him crouched an immense cat of some wild kind. The Finn was dressed in furs and woven bast, or softened willow wood in strips; his face was withered, but his eye was keen as an eagle’s, and as his glance met Flaxius, the two understood one another,

‘The curse of Ilmarin, or of Fenris, lies heavily on him,’ said the Finn, indicating Ranulf.

‘He hath a double curse,’ replied Flaxius, ‘with him it is at leysa or laedingi eda at drepa or droma,—the wolf hath two fetters to break—for he is firstly mad, and secondly outlawed, so that he must be mentally cured, and then disguised so as to escape the law. And I would fain see, my brother, how thou workest thy spell.’

‘By the Great Oak!’ exclaimed the sorcerer with a shrewd twinkle of his eye, ‘I doubt not that our methods are much alike. But if it please you, O wise lord from the far Out-gard, to see my simple work, I will most willingly do my best.’

Saying this he took them into a room which was closed and windowless, but in which burned a large, rude Lapland lamp; and having made Ranulf drink of a certain potion, he rubbed him over with an ointment, in the smell of which Flaxius detected certain ingredients which were to him far from being unknown.

‘Ahem!’ he reflected, ‘extract of mandragora, opium, henbane (order solanaceæ), sulphur, bitumen, verbena, amico mio, dove diavolo avete pigliato tutte queste coglionerie—where the devil didst rake up all this stuff? Yea, from the very ends of the earth do these Voodoos and conjurors correspond, and the Shaman of Kamtschatka sends the Ammanita muscaria unto Timbuctoo for sorceries. Proceed, O friend, I pray thee with thy work!’

The Finn laid the patient on a bed, lighted a pan, in which were strange fumigants, and bade the Were-wolf look him long and steadily in the eyes; which he did with ten owl-power till he began to blink like a judge after luncheon, and finally went into a deep sleep. Then the shaman, taking a kind of large, oval-shaped tambourine, covered with reindeer skin, on which were drawn many mysterious, rude figures, began to beat it gently, while he sang in strange and evidently carefully measured and elaborately trained tones, the following:

‘By the soul of him the father!
By the mighty Wainamoinen!
By the sun and moon and planets,
And their light upon the water!
And the water all surrounding,
And the forest by the seashore,
And the bear within the forest!
And the runic mystery written
On his paw, and by the letters,
Which the lightning writes in darkness,
Only read by Ilmarinen!
By the One, Three, Five and Seven,
And the Four which causes growing,
Ever giving, life-begetting:
Wolf, I charge thee leave this mortal!

Fly along the running river,
Fly across the ferny mountains,
Fly into the pine-tree forest!
Flee across the birch-edged meadows!
Hasten to the oak-bound valley,
Or where slopes are dense with beeches,
Wade in haste through shallow water,
Where the fishes dart in terror!
By the rock on which the warriors
Cut of yore their strongest record,
With the mesh of interlaces,
Which avert the witches’ glances:
Wolf, I charge thee, leave this mortal!
Leave him so that when awaking,
He shall never more remember,
That he ever wore the wolf hide!’

Thereupon was heard near by the sound of a wolf howling, and, as one would think, praying and expostulating with the shaman, who was, however, very firm, and when the Wolf was over bold, began to sing again:

‘Fly along the running river!’

Till at last the Wolf was heard at some distance, and then still further away; his voice ever less audible, until it seem to disappear amid rustling leaves, and mingle with the wind.

‘Admirably played, my brother,’ exclaimed Flaxius; ‘Apollo never did the trick better. Hypnotized to perfection and cured—like a ham! Yes, the wolf will be no longer at his door. And, my dear doctor, I like your mise en scène, your drum and your poetry and perfumery. By the way I can give you a hint or two as to improving the narcotics in your ointment, and yet, who knows? perhaps for your rough folk you have the best fiat lotio Cras mane sumendus.’

‘And if Ranulf would like to go a-Viking,’ said the shaman, ‘there is a rich man hard by who has a fine ship to sell cheap, with forty men all armed, and well.’

‘Just like your provident kindness,’ responded Flaxius. ‘Always the same thoughtful old chap. And now for your fee—you won’t take it—ah yes, inter doctores, among us members of the Faculty, of course. But permit me,’ he said, producing from his pocket a second flask of the mystic alchemical, spagirical essence, ‘to present to you a medicine which is as yet unknown in the North. Taste it and try its virtue on yourself! Jameson, Dublin.’

Saying this he uncorked the bottle, presented it, and the Finnic sorcerer, as the saying is, ‘took a sight’; that is to say, the bottle ascended at an angle of forty-five degrees from his mouth, so that his vision glanced exactly in a line with the side, as if it were a pistol. He took very deliberate aim, was in no hurry, being evidently determined to make a line-shot, hit the bull’s eye and bring down the game, and then clucked. The shot had been fired. Then turning to Flaxius he spoke no word, but uttered a wink, and such a wink as Flaxius had never seen before in all his mighty experience. The charge had gone home, and he had brought down his racoon, killing him dead at a shot.[6]

There was a Finnish shaman sorcerer who had a wondrous interview with Hibernian spirits all that night, and who was found next morning buried in a magic trance. And far out at sea there was a solitary Viking sail bearing southward, and from the oarsmen came the chorus of a song in Icelandic:

‘Sing hey! sing ho! for the land of flowers!’

---

Ages had come and gone, and the cobwebs and dust had gathered three inches deep in crust on many an old bottle of wine in many an ancient cellar, when Flaxius found himself of a bright, crisp, autumn day in the city of New York, presenting a letter of introduction to a retired stockbroker, whose home was situated up the river, in the Catskills. This gentleman was named Randolph, and Flaxius was much pleased with him. He was a genial, jovial, merry-go-tumble man in a general way, with a quaint American mot for every circumstance, and quick at filling the kettle whenever there was any fun to be boiled; but he had withal evidently a tremendous hard pan, or substratum, of what is called horse-sense, which is a sixth sense supplied by nature to her Western children. He was immensely powerful, in fact a perfect picture of excessive ruddy health, being one of those enviable muscular beasts who can bend a horse-shoe, or tear in two a pack of cards; and he had a tremendous shock of red hair.

This ‘powerful party’ took a great liking in turn to Flaxius, forcing him to come at once, ‘to stay his time and plenty of it,’ at his villa on the Hudson; where, what between reed-bird, venison, soft shell crab, terrapin and snapper soup, Spanish mackerel and blue-fish banquets, pretty faces, festivities, drives, and gaieties, the guest drew comparisons with the pleasures of ancient Rome and Paris, not in all respects favourable to the latter.

It is an invariable rule in life, that however powerful and reticent a nature like that of Randolph’s may be, it inevitably runs into intimate confidence when it meets with another of the kind of Flaxius. Mercury does not melt more surely into lead than the strong animal soul combines with a stronger intellectual power. And the end of it was, to abridge the tale, that one day Mr. Randolph told to his guest the story of his life.

‘I was the son,’ he said, ‘of a farmer who lived in one of the eastern counties of Massachusetts, and who, being favoured by fortune, accumulated about one hundred thousand dollars. I was an only son; was sent to Harvard, graduated, and went to practise law in New York.

‘Now with all these advantages, and some plain, hard-working common sense to boot, I still fell into the teeth and claws of a rascal. All that I can say in my own defence was that he took in and ruined many a far shrewder and more experienced man than I was. He was eminently pious, having what we here call ‘New Jersey piety,’ the kind which forms a part of every-day life, even as the skin does of the body. It is never laid aside, even by the thief in prison or by the keeper of the lowest den of iniquity, as was shown in the case of the Wickedest Man in New York, who was withal perfectly sincere in his piety and neither a Pharisee nor a hypocrite.

‘This man was a stockbroker, and he induced me by a series of marvellously ingenious tricks and devices to intrust to him the whole of my property. He was one of those great ‘operators’ who are technically said to live by slaughtering sheep or lambs.’

‘Ahem!’ interrupted Flaxius, ‘you said lambs, I think. So he got all your flock?’

‘Every handful of wool, and left me as bare as the back of your hand. It was by a very simple swindle. He invested my money, or that of others, in stocks, which were manipulated or depreciated by tricks to far below their value. If a man is a thorough rascal it is easy in the immense range of insecurities to find something which can be thus run down, or up. So my broker, when they were down bought them in for himself—it did not take him long to use up my hundred thousand. When all was gone, one of his clerks told me the whole story.

‘I calmly and deliberately determined that I would devote my life and all its energies, without one qualm of conscience, to revenge. I swore I would hunt him, as a wolf.’

‘Ah! I beg your pardon,’ exclaimed Flaxius. ‘But this is becoming extremely interesting.’

‘As a wolf hunts a deer. So I went into Wall Street and worked as few have ever done to learn all its tricks and devices, and I had a great advantage, for while others worked for money, I only sought to learn how to work.

‘Well, it came to pass in time that I knew that my enemy had invested a very large part of his means in a certain manufactory, which was in a remote district, several days away from New York, with which it had only a partial railroad communication. I managed long and well, till I contrived to have it telegraphed that the entire town had been utterly destroyed by fire, and then we cut the telegraph wire, and tore up the rail. For three days we had that stock down to nothing, and bought it right and left.’

‘The wolf was loose,’ remarked Flaxius.

‘You bet! And the best of it was that we ran it all over town that mine enemy had got up the whole thing himself to bear the stock! So be sure he was tee-totally ruined, but then he had mis‑cal‑cu—lated!’

Mr. Randolph uttered this with an expression which was distinctly lupine, showing his teeth in a style which recalled to Flaxius an ancient witch-tower in Upsala, and corpses hanging on the walls in the evening sunlight, and a story about certain sheep and lambs, et cetera.

‘Yes, it was a glorious, a noble operation,’ continued Mr. Randolph, ‘and perfectly successful. I got my hundred thousand back again with interest, every plunker of it. “Plunker” is Cambridge College for a dollar.’

‘Palanco,’ interpolated Flaxius. ‘The Florentine for a two soldi piece. The same size.’

‘And that was only the beginning of my luck,’ continued Mr. Randolph. ‘For of course the truth oozed out, and it gave me a magnificent reputation, in Wall Street.’

‘Truly enviable,’ remarked Flaxius. ‘Were there many, think you, among your—colleagues—who would have done the same?’

‘No,’ replied Randolph proudly, ‘not a beggar of them. They hadn’t the nerve for it.’

‘It seems to me,’ reflected Flaxius, ‘that the ideas of mankind as to honesty are somewhat conventional. Où, diable, va l’orgueil se nicher?’

A few days after, Mr. Randolph invited Flaxius to take a sail in his yacht. And as they went along before the breeze, the host said:

‘I don’t know why it is, but the being on board my craft and hearing the waves, makes me feel as if I were an old Norse vikingir. Strange, isn’t it? By the way, my family was of Swedish origin, and yet the name Randolph is Virginian.’

‘H’m!’ replied Flaxius, ‘Ranolf is Norse enough. It means a raging wolf.’

---

‘Hæc fabula docet,’ wrote Flaxius on the blank end of the revise, ‘this fable teaches, that life is very much the same old dish over again: the solid beef or game of the dinner in the olden time re-cooked a little and laid lightly on toast for a more refined modern breakfast. And whether it was Thou and I indeed, or the Elements and Forces which make us, this much is certain, that somehow and somewhere we ever were, and as something ever shall be still acting. This is as much of immortality as a wise man requires, and a deal more than most of us deserve. Let us pass on to another story.’

1. Mr. A. Savage Landor, in his very interesting book of travels among the Ainus makes mention of the marvellous power of expressive winking with which these northern savages are gifted, and I have observed the same among Red Indians. They learn it from their pow-wows or shamans. ↩