paused within hail. He was often the proposer of those nocturnal expeditions which led to the Brigands' Cave at Bas Bréau-not then the resort of tourists, nor guarded by a stall adorned with picture post-cards, and which were crowned with the drinking of much punch. One or other of the cousins would bulk large in the programme of the evening's amusement, and they set something of a fashion for dancing in the open. Tables and chairs were carried into some convenient clearing; some one, having a certain aptitude for for inducing the minor portable instruments to give forth their melodious notes, was set to play; each member of the company would see to it that he was supplied with the beverage of his choosing; and the makings of an agreeable entertainment were to hand. Yet the Stevensons were not exempt from the common inconveniences which visited the community; they were no luxurious amateurs assuming the prevailing condition of poverty as a fitting pose; not less than their companions they perceived the merit of the Barbizonian habit. Of which fact Madame Siron will supply supporting evidence. One day, so runs her story, after a visit of some length, the pair presented themselves to the hostess. 66 Madame," says Robert Louis, acting spokesman, "we should like to pay our bill." ducing the account; "it is quickly done." "Ah! pardon, Madame," corrects R. L. S. "You deceive yourself. We should like to pay the bill-that would give us satisfaction, but-we cannot." Which, being the essence of an explanation not infrequently offered in this connection, was immediately accepted; and the debtors departed, to settle the obligation at their convenience. Madame Siron, although she has some knowledge of the achievements of her guests, is in ignorance that 'The Epilogue to an Inland Voyage' was ever written, for she will supply an epilogue to this epilogue with the manner of one announcing unrecorded facts. One morning, about the time of the arrival of the diligence from Melun, she was surprised, as she worked in the courtyard, by the appearance of a familiar figure in the gateway. "Tiens, Monsieur Stevenson ! You are returned!" cries she. "I am back in safety," cries Stevenson with much meaning. "Figure to yourself, Madame, that I have suffered an adventure. I have been in prison." Then follows the tale of the incarceration, which, even when rendered in Madame Siron's patois, gives forth faint echoes of the laughter of the victim. And when, later, "the travellers were telling their misadventure in the dining-room at Siron's," the laughter which "But certainly, Messieurs," the recital induced disturbed replies Madame Siron, pro- the clatter in the kitchen. With these and other incidents, Madame Siron would recall the years when Barbizon was given to the artist, when its present invasion was a thing which did not even threaten. Of Millet and of Rousseau she remembers much; and she will throw aside the placid habit which her years have brought her, to combat, with a fine show of heat, the statement that the former was unhappy in his poverty: he had enough, she will maintain, since he cared nothing at all for money. So, from the hired apartment in which she now awaits the finish of her life, this old peasant looks out across the way to where the house, of which she was the foundress and the mistress, flaunts it in new clothing. Yet to her, it would seem, the change is often not apparent: time steps back a year or two, and, obscuring St Hubert and the sham baronial frontage, there shapes a plain and whitewashed building; voices that the grave has quietened laugh and hector in the courtyard; and from the lighted windows of the old diningroom, now little used, there sounds the bustle of a meal in progress. Looking back as the road turns, she sees the valley down which her life has brought her, marks the place where yesterday she stood, and so, cheered by many memories, journeys onward to death's sea. To any one at all acquainted with Barbizon, or with the distriot for some miles around, Apache will be a familiar figure. It is unlikely that you will miss his ungainly body during the first day of your visit; it is impossible, if you happen to be an Englishman, that you shall go more than two or three days without his acquaintance. He is a dog of a most uncommon character, a true bohemian: something of a kindly cynic, I should fancy him, yet tolerant of the folly that he sees about him, and by no means blind to his own faults. The history of his life is full of incident, touching the borderland of tragedy; yet to load him with unseemly pity would be an error in good taste which would, very properly, cause you to be shut out from his companionship. He came, it is reported, to Barbizon in company with an English painter; and since his former master was at the pains to bring him from his English home, it is likely that between the man and dog there did not want affection, on which count the subsequent conduct of both becomes the more inexcusable. The Apache-under what name he walked his native land does not transpire-was born of respectable parents, exhibits the well-mannered ease of polite canine society, and claims to have the blood of the Irish terrier in his veins; but the circumstances of birth often fail to account for character, and, with dogs and men, the carefully nurtured sometimes belie their upbringing. Barbizon Apache entered into a kingdom of many delightsbecame, indeed, so enamoured of the spirit of the place that At the habits of his youth passed from him. After some months, during which he lived in perfect companionship with the man who owned him, this master of his went off to Paris, leaving the dog behind. Being, it may be argued, well meaning, though somewhat lacking in perception, he provided that Apache should be housed and fed at one of the local inns against his coming back. Now, your ordinary dog is a goodhearted fellow: he will smil ingly put up with all manner of folly and selfishness on the part of his master; he will see the man depart for a protracted holiday, and will greet him with undiminished affection on his return; but that which no self-respecting dog can suffer without protest is that he should be put to board in some strange lodging, should be cut off from the companionship of his human friends, should be tended and cared for by strange persons of the servant class. Therefore Apache, when, after many months, his master saw fit to return, greeted him coldly; was more than inclined to dispute his authority; and made small alteration in his wandering, independent habits. The man, no fit owner of a dog at best, resented this; Apache cared nothing for the resentment; and the two fell out. Off goes the man from Barbizon, and the Apache is cast upon the world to make his way alone: which thing he has accomplished for some years. His meals he takes where he can get them; his walks with any of his many friends; his no sleep at the inn of Siron (under its new name), where the landlord has set him apart a corner of the courtyard. No man pays tax for him, and officer of Inland Revenue would have the temerity to ask for payment. A stranger and an outcast, he yet maintains a decent dignity and eschews the airs of the beggar. He is as well known in all the forest between Barbizon and Fontainebleau as the Bas Bréau or the Long Rocher, and his knowledge of the country surpasses that of any woodman. He will guide you without fault or hesitation wherever you may wish to go; will see that you walk upon a decent track, not stumble awkwardly among the rocks and heather; and should you, foolishly, distrust him, will stand patiently while you seek the blue marks on tree or stone. He is a marauder and a thief, yet never robs his friends; he will fight and put to flight most of the dogs with whom he meets; yet should he have chosen you as his companion for the day, he will treat you with the utmost consideration, and supposing that you have tramped to Fontainebleau and spend an hour or two in the cafés and the shops, he will reassume the habit of his long dead youth, will walk to heel, obey your whistle or your call, and see to it that you are put to no embarrassment on his account. Here, at Fontainebleau, he is no less well known than at Barbizon; the greeting, "Tiens, l'Apache! Bonjour, mon vieux," will be given to him by many passers-by; in other times, other homeless, nomad dogs in Barbizon; there was "the notorious Cocardon, the most ungainly and ill-bred of all the crew," but Apache is not of these: even this dog, the last of the true bohemian Barbizonians, is changed from the light-hearted mongrels who once fought and yapped at the entrance to the forest. Amongst the picnic parties and the shouting tourists he shows sadly out of place: in the village of yesterday he had found a more congenial home. yet he will do no more than smile at these acquaintances, having a nice regard for the companion of the day. Bleareyed, sadly out-at-elbows, with scarred, misshapen paws, the pads worn off by frost-bite or by abscess, he yet maintains a bold face on life. It may be, no, I am sure it is, that he has lost much in losing his prestige, in dropping from his accustomed place in his dog's world. It is no strained effort after sentiment to find him aware of his position, resenting the turn of fortune that made him dependent on a casual charity, recalling at times the different life of other days. So to the Englishman, I have already said, he will come with an especial gladness, will talk with him in his own tongue, and will gain some return of an old happiness by the poor play of walking at his heel. The air of Barbizon is good, fresh and sweet beyond its remarkable clarity; children may play about the forest with neither danger to themselves nor yet anxiety to their parents. It may be, therefore, that the future will bring much prosperity to the village in the swelling crowd of summer visitors. mer visitors. For the sake of the present race of innkeepers it is to be hoped that this may come about. But the price paid, seeing that the purchase is so ordinary, would seem too high; and the change that is come, with its careless destruction of so much that is rare, remains a matter heavy-laden with regret. To have been the nursery of high hopes, to have been the cradle of much, and some of it immortal, achievement, is to have played a more important part than the present village can ever hope to Yet the hand of time has set a seal upon the past, so that the door behind may not again be opened. For the Apache, no more than for Barbizon, shall there be any return to the old days. New ways, and with them new happiness as well, are come, and the old may not, however much we wish it, be summoned back again. The Apache, with a wisdom that is sometimes conspicuously lacking in men, takes a grip upon the present, and makes the best of what fill. there is to hand. There were, HUMFREY JORDAN. THE TWYMANS. BY HENRY NEWBOLT. CHAPTER XV. It was full summer when the day came for which Percival had so long been preparing the day when he was to present himself at Downton for his scholarship examination. Right across England he went, and far to the South: indeed he had only once in his life been so far South, and that was long ago. He seemed now to be travelling in a foreign country: his bare wolds and smoky Midlands looked cold and dark in retrospect, as he moved hour by hour down into the rich warm radiance of the West he felt as if he had come into a golden fortune and was leaving years of poverty behind. Last of all came the drive from the station to the school. It was at first uninteresting: but presently the drowsy -paced cab emerged from a terrace into the glare of a wide white road which at first descended by a gentle slope. On the left side of it stood a row of substantial houses, taking the sun comfortably on their backs among lilacs and laburnums: on the right was a long range of black paling with a guard of netting above it, and behind both a line of young lime-trees. Even now, while the leaves still hid the view from him, Percival heard again and again the sweet crack of bat on ball: then as he drew level and looked between the trees he saw that which took his breath with an entirely new delight. In the distance were buildings-large and stately they seemed, but he hardly thought of them-in front lay a wide green sward, level as a lawn, flooded with low sunlight, and covered in every direction with a multitude of white figures, standing, running, walking, bowling, throwing, batting-in every attitude that can express the energy or the expectancy of youth. At the first glance Percival felt his old love of cricket revive in him so strongly that he would at that moment have exchanged all the wolds and woods of Lincolnshire for this one field and what it held. At the second glance something broke over his spirit like a wave: he took it for the tide of joyful anticipation, but I think it was more than that-the inrush of an idea, the sudden perception, however vague and distant, of the meaning of the scene: glimpse, behind the mere beauty of the white young figures shining so coolly in the slant evening sunlight, of the finely planned order and longdescended discipline they symbolised. He enjoyed keenly every minute of the four or five days that followed: the quiet |