Various
Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 305
R. C.
THE RETURN OF THE COMPAGNON
A SWISS TALE
The early darkness of a winter twilight had already set in, the wind was blowing boisterously, and the snow rapidly descending, when Herman the carpenter reached his cottage after a hard day's toil, there to receive the fond caresses of his children. His wife exchanged his wet clothes for such as were warm and dry, and little Catherine drew his arm-chair to the side of the fire, while the boys, anxious to do their part, brought his large pipe.
'Now, father,' said little Frank, when he saw a column of smoke issuing forth, 'you are happy and comfortable; what shall we do while mother gets supper ready? Tell us a tale.'
'Yes, tell us a story,' repeated the other children with delight.
They were on the point of clustering round, when something passing caught little Catherine's eye. 'Oh,' said the child, 'here is such a poor man in the street, all covered with snow, and who does not seem to know where to go!'
'He is a compagnon' (journeyman), said Frank – 'a whitesmith; I see his tools in his bag. Why does he stop in the street in such weather?'
'He plainly knows not his way,' Catherine replied. 'Shall I go and ask him what he wants?'
'Do so, my child; and give him this small coin, for perhaps he is poor, as I have been, and it will serve to pay for his bed, and something to warm him. Show him the Compagnon's Inn at the end of the street.'
When the child had returned, the clamour was again raised for the story.
'What shall it be?'
'Daniel?'
'No.'
'Perhaps the Black Hunter?'
'Neither of these to-night, my children. I will tell you about the "Return of the Compagnon."'
The children gladly drew round their father to hear his new story, which was as follows: —
It was a beautiful spring morning: the sun had begun to show his radiant face on the summits of the mountains; the little birds cried for their food; the insects of every kind, shaking their wings, began humming among the foliage; the sheep, penned up, were bleating; and the labourers were preparing to resume their toil. A young man, laden with a heavy bag, walked gaily along the road leading to one of the little towns of Swissland, his dusty feet showing that he had come from afar, and his sunburnt face exhibiting the effects of more southern climes. He was a compagnon carpenter returning to his country after years of absence, and impatient to see his home again. He had walked all night, and now a brilliant sun embellished each successive object that offered itself to his anxious view. He had already seen the steeple of the church of his beloved town, and his true Swiss heart bounded with joy. 'Ha!' exclaimed he, 'how beautiful is the country where we have lived from childhood to manhood! How clear and limpid its waters, how pure its air, how smiling its meadows! My feet have trodden the soil of France, where grows the grape, and Italy, the land of figs and oranges: I have rested under groves of roses, and the sweet lemon-tree has bent over my head, laden with its golden fruits and perfumed flowers: I have, at the sound of the guitar and the castanet, joined at night in the dance with people for whom the middle of the day is the time for repose, and the absence of the sun the signal for labour or pleasure – people whose life flows on in cheerful contentment, because light work suffices for their wants under so warm a sky, and possessed of a soil that nature has covered with her choicest gifts, and does not desolate with the north winds, frosts, and snows. Yes, the poor Swiss compagnon has seen all these things, and has admired them, but never has he wished to live and die among them. He has always sighed for the pale rays of his northern sun, the steep rocks of his mountains, the uniform colour of his dark pines, and the pointed roof of his cottage, where he still hopes to receive his mother's blessing.'
While these thoughts, and many like them, were crowding into the mind of the young workman, his steps became more and more rapid, and his tired feet seemed to recover their swiftness. All on a sudden, a turn of the road showed him the roofs of his native village, from which curled some clouds of smoke. There was the old church wall, there was the steeple stretching towards heaven. At the sight of this the young traveller stopped short; the tears trickled down his cheek; he exclaimed in a voice broken with emotion, 'I thank thee, my God, for permitting my eyes once more to see these things.' He pursued his walk, devouring with his eyes all he saw. 'Ah, here,' said he, 'is the white wall marking the terrace of the public walk where I used to play so joyfully! ah, there is the arch of the little bridge where we have so often fished! Now I can see the head of the old lime-tree which shades the church: only twenty paces farther is the cottage in which I was born, where I grew up, where I lost my poor father, and where I hope to see my dear mother. It is not in vain I have laboured so long: I have that with me which will comfort her old age.' As he spoke, a small flower attracted his attention: it was a daisy. He stooped down and gathered it, and commenced plucking its leaflets away one after the other. 'It was thus,' he said smiling, 'the day before my departure, that Gertrude gathered a daisy from the bank of the river, and bending her pretty face over the flower to conceal the emotion my departure occasioned, she pulled out the leaflets in silence, and arriving at the last one, she said to me in a low voice, "Adieu, Herman, I shall never marry till you return;" and so saying, fled away, as if she feared having said too much. Soon shall I see her little window with the blue curtain! Oh that I may see my Gertrude there as I used, her eyes rejoicing at my return! Happy the moment when I shall say to her, "Gertrude, here is Herman returned, faithful to his promises, as you have been to yours. Come and share the little wealth I have acquired: come and aid me in rendering my aged mother happy."'
Under the influence of these thoughts the young workman rapidly approached his native town. As he advanced, he interrogated the countenances of those he met, hoping to meet with friendly looks, a recollection of the past, or a few words of welcome, but in vain. At last, as he passed the gates, he saw a man walking gravely to and fro as he smoked his pipe: it was the toll-keeper. Herman, looking at him closely, easily recognised Rodolphe, his playfellow, his earliest friend. He was on the point of rushing into his arms, and exclaiming, 'Here I am again!' – but the tollman looked coldly at him as he passed, and left a cloud of tobacco-smoke behind him. Poor compagnon! the sun of the south has shone too long on thy face; he has made thee a stranger even to those who loved thee: thy best friend knows thee not. Herman's heart sank within him, and he resumed his journey with a sigh. A little farther on he saw a new building in course of erection. An aged man was directing the carpenters in their work, and at the sight of him Herman's heart again rejoiced: it was his old master, whose advice and kindness had made him an honest man and skilful mechanic. To him he chiefly owed his success in life, and he was, moreover, Gertrude's father. 'Ha,' said he, 'if Rodolphe so soon forgets the faces of his friends, my old master will recollect me;' and so saying, he approached him respectfully, hat in hand, and inquired whether he could obtain work for him. The old man looked at him a while before replying; and Herman's heart beat so quickly, that he could scarce conceal his feelings. 'Come to me to-morrow,' at last said the old man; 'I will then examine your certificates: work is not scarce for good hands;' and turning towards his men, resumed his occupations. 'What!' exclaimed the poor compagnon to himself as he turned away, 'am I so changed that my features are not recognised by my old master? What if Gertrude herself – But no, that is impossible! She who could distinguish me in a crowd a hundred paces off, will surely know her Herman again, in spite of his sunburnt face: besides, if her eyes failed her, her heart would prompt her of my presence!' So thinking, he rapidly traversed the little town. There was the old lime-tree, with the rustic seat beneath it; there the fountain, where many women were washing; and there stood the neat little cottage, upon which the young man's eyes now became rivetted. The blue curtain and pots of carnations were there, as they ever had been; and oh, joy, there sat a young woman spinning! Herman's heart bounded with joy; he rushed forward, and then stopped opposite the window, a few steps only separating him from Gertrude. He remained immovable, so powerful were his emotions, and admired the ripening of her charms which had taken place during his absence: no longer the slender girl of fifteen, but a young woman in all the fulness of her beauty; her whole appearance denoting strength, health, and freshness. 'How beautiful she is!' exclaimed Herman in a low voice. Gertrude did not catch the words, but the voice struck her ear; and seeing a traveller but poorly clad with his eyes fixed on her, said to herself with a sigh, 'Poor fellow, he looks in want;' and throwing him a coin with Heaven's blessing, she shut the window, and disappeared. Alas! the sun of the south has too long shone on the face of the compagnon; his best friends know him not, and his beloved regards him as a stranger! Had she remained at the window, Gertrude must have remarked the expression of the poignant grief Herman endured; and her heart would have divined, that under those toilworn clothes and sunburnt face was concealed him for whose advent she had so often prayed. After long remaining on the same spot, as if his feet were rivetted to the ground, the compagnon tore himself away, and turned towards his home. But how changed in appearance! That buoyant step which, a few moments before, had trod the ground so lightly, was now slow and heavy; excessive fatigue overcame him. The weight of the bag he carried – not felt before – now seemed excessive; his head hung down on his chest, his hopes seemed blasted, and that native land which, a few hours since, he saluted with such joy, now seemed indifferent to him. In vain did the old lime-tree, with its majestic foliage, meet his eyes; in vain did the antique fountain, with its grotesque figures, that should have called to his mind so many childish recollections, stand before him. He saw nothing; his wounded heart felt nothing but sorrow. However, he still advanced towards his home, and a few steps only separated him from the old churchyard wall, near which he had passed so many happy days of boyhood, when he saw an aged woman come tottering down the steps of the portico of the church, supported by a stick. It was his mother returning from offering her daily prayer for his return. 'Oh, how altered is she!' he sorrowfully exclaimed: 'how can I hope her feeble eyes should know her child, when mine can scarcely recognise her timeworn frame!' But no sooner had she approached him, and raised her head, than she fell into his arms, sobbing through her tears, 'My son, my beloved son!' Herman pressed her closely to his breast, and falteringly exclaimed, 'My mother, thou at least hast not forgotten me. Years of absence, the scorching sun, and toilsome labour, conceal me not from you!'
Yes, if the sun of the south had rendered the face of the compagnon a stranger to his dearest friends and his beloved, but one look sufficed to make his mother exclaim, 'My son – my Herman! God be praised that he has restored him to me!'
The narrator here seemed to have concluded his story, and remained lost in the emotion he had depicted. Such a conclusion, however, did not satisfy his listeners.
'But what became of the compagnon?' they demanded.
'Oh,' said the father, recollecting himself, 'he went home with his mother, and said to her, "Here, mother, take what I have earned, and live happily the rest of your days with your child," and to the last breath the old woman blessed the return of her only son.' So saying, he sorrowfully cast his eyes towards the corner of the room where hung a distaff, surmounted by a crown of everlasting flowers. The children followed their father's eyes, and long maintained a respectful silence.
'So,' Frank at last suddenly exclaimed, 'Gertrude did not love the beautiful things he brought for her?'
'Why did she shut the window then?' said another child.
'Perhaps,' added Catherine, 'she opened it again?'
'Yes, my Catherine,' said the carpenter smiling, 'she did open it again: and it was with the compagnon and his Gertrude that their old mother passed her days, blessing them both until she left this world for a better.' At this moment his wife Gertrude, still in the prime of life, entered with their homely supper.
THE ALBATROSS
Of all the interesting objects which present themselves to the eye of the voyager in the southern hemisphere, the albatross is among the most noteworthy. Apart from its relieving the monotony of the watery expanse, this bird, by its extraordinary characteristics, seldom fails of exciting a lively degree of astonishment in the spectator – for what can be thought of a bird which apparently requires neither rest nor sleep? It is perhaps owing to this peculiarity that sailors and others have regarded the albatross with mingled feelings of awe and wonder: its presence was an omen, but rather of good than evil. The weary crew of Bartholomew Diaz doubtless looked on the swift air-cleaving creature as an appropriate scout from the Cape of Storms, while Vasco de Gama may have hailed it as the herald of his hope and success. Coleridge has very happily availed himself of these different aspects in his 'Ancient Mariner,' where he makes the aged seaman, with 'long gray beard and glittering eye,' relate how, from out the dismal mists —
'At length did cross an albatross,
Thorough the fog it came;
As if it had been a Christian soul,
We hailed it in God's name.
It ate the food it ne'er had ate,
And round and round it flew;
* * * *
And a good south wind sprung up behind,
The albatross did follow,
And every day, for food or play,
Came to the mariner's hollo!'
And then the disasters which ensued when
– 'With his cross-bow
He shot the albatross.'
Whatever delight might be experienced in contemplating the bird under the mysterious point of view suggested by the poet, would be rather heightened than diminished by a knowledge of its real natural character; and this we may obtain from that valuable and highly-meritorious work, 'The Birds of Australia,' by Mr Gould. According to this enterprising naturalist —
'The Diomedea exulans (wandering albatross) is by far the largest and most powerful species of its tribe; and, from its great strength and ferocious disposition, is held in terror by every other bird with which it is surrounded. It is even said that it will fearlessly attack and tear out the eyes of a drowning man, a feat, from what I have observed of it, I can readily imagine it would attempt. It is most abundant between the 30th and 60th degrees of south latitude, and appears to be equally numerous in all parts of the ocean bounded by those degrees; and I feel assured that it is confined to no one part, but is constantly engaged in making a circuit of the globe in that particular zone allotted by nature for its habitation. The open sea is in fact its natural home; and this it never leaves, except for the purpose of breeding, when it usually resorts to rocky islands the most difficult of access.
'The powers of flight of the wandering albatross are much greater than those of any other bird that has come under my observation. Although, during calm or moderate weather, it sometimes rests on the surface of the water, it is almost constantly on the wing, and is equally at ease while passing over the glassy surface during the stillest calm, or sweeping, with arrow-like swiftness, before the most furious gale; and the way in which it just tops the raging billows, and sweeps between the gulfy waves, has a hundred times called forth my wonder and admiration. Although a vessel running before the wind frequently sails more than 200 miles in the twenty-four hours, and that for days together, still the albatross has not the slightest difficulty in keeping up with the ship, but also performs circles of many miles in extent, returning again to hunt up the wake of the vessel for any substances thrown overboard.
'Like the other species of the genus, it is nocturnal as well as diurnal, and no bird with which I am acquainted takes so little repose. It appears to be perpetually on the wing, scanning the surface of the ocean for molluscs and medusæ, and the other marine animals that constitute its food. So frequently does the boldness of this species cost it its life, that hundreds are annually killed, without, however, its numbers being apparently in any degree lessened. It readily seizes a hook baited with fat of any kind; and if a boat be lowered, its attention is immediately attracted, and while flying round, it is easily shot.' It is not surprising that a poetical imagination should have been excited by such a subject, and Coleridge is not the only bard who has shaped it into verse. Another writes —
'Now upon Australian seas,
Wafted by the tropic breeze,
We salute the southern cross,
Watch the wondrous albatross —
Circling round in orbits vast,
Pausing now above the mast,
Laving now his snowy breast
Where the billows sleeping rest.
Now he skims the surface o'er,
Rising, falling evermore:
Floating high on stillest wing,
Now he seems a guardian thing,
Now a messenger of wrath,
Cleaving swift his airy path;
Bearing o'er the liquid plain
Warning of the hurricane.'
Mr Gould's description of the Diomedea melanophrys, black-eyebrowed albatross, exhibits other characteristics: – 'Of all the species,' he observes, 'with which I am acquainted, this is the most fearless of man, and it often approaches many yards nearer the vessel than any other. I have even observed it approach so near, that the tips of its pinions were not more than two arms' length from the tafferel. It is very easily captured with a hook and line; and as this operation gives not the least pain to the bird, the point of the hook merely taking hold in the horny and insensible tip of the bill, I frequently amused myself in capturing it in this way, and after detaining it sufficiently long to afford me an opportunity for investigating any particular point respecting which I wished to satisfy myself, setting it at liberty again. I also caught numerous examples, marked, and gave them their liberty, in order to ascertain whether the individuals which were flying round the ship at nightfall were the same that were similarly engaged at daylight in the morning, after a night's run of 120 miles, and which, in nearly every instance, proved to be the case.'
Angling for albatrosses is no modern art, as appears from the narrative of Sir Richard Hawkins' voyage to the South Sea in 1593, in which it is pretty certain that these birds are spoken of. 'Certaine great fowles,' says the narrator, 'as bigge as swannes, soared about us, and the winde calming, setled themselves in the sea, and fed upon the sweepings of our ship; which I perceiving, and desirous to see of them, because they seemed farre greater than in truth they were, I caused a hooke and line to be brought me, and with a piece of pilchard I bated the hooke, and a foot from it tied a piece of corke, that it might not sinke deepe, and threw it into the sea, which, our ship driving with the sea, in a little time was a good space from us, and one of the fowles beeing hungry, presently seized upon it, and the hooke in his upper beake. It is like to a faulcon's bill, but that the point is more crooked, in that manner, as by no meanes hee could cleere himselfe, except that the line brake, or the hooke righted: plucking him towards the ship, with the waving of his wings he eased the weight of his body, and being brought to the sterne of our ship, two of our company went downe by the ladder of the poope, and seized on his neck and wings; but such were the blows he gave them with his pinnions, as both left their hand-fast, beeing beaten blacke and blue; we cast a snare about his necke, and so triced him into the ship. By the same manner of fishing we caught so many of them, as refreshed and recreated all my people for that day. Their bodies were great, but of little flesh and tender; in taste answerable to the food whereon they feed. They were of two colours – some white, some gray; they had three joyntes in each wing; and from the pointe of one wing to the pointe of the other, both stretched out, was above two fathoms.'
Similar instances are recorded, though not in language quaint and tedious as the above, in Cook's Voyages. The great circumnavigator's crew were glad to regale themselves on albatross roast and boiled, after having been many weeks at sea, and confined to salt food. Sir James Ross, too, after stating that when off the Aguilhas bank, 'the gigantic albatross was seen in great numbers, and many of them taken by means of a fishing-line,' remarks – 'these birds added a degree of cheerfulness to our solitary wanderings, which contrasted strongly with the dreary and unvarying stillness of the tropical region.'
Most marvellous accounts have been given of the spread of wing of the albatross, rivalling the wonderful roc of the 'Arabian Nights.' Mr Gould took pains to verify the facts. The largest specimen seen by him measured 10 feet 1 inch from tip to tip of the outspread wings, and weighed 17 pounds. But Dr M'Cormick, surgeon of the 'Erebus,' in the Antarctic exploring voyage met with one weighing 20 pounds, and 12 feet stretch of wing. The Auckland Islands, about to become the head-quarters of our southern whale-fishery, are a much-frequented breeding-place for the birds; the others as yet known to naturalists are the Campbell Island – some lonely rocks off the southernmost extremity of Van Diemen's Land – and the islands of Tristan d'Acunha. While at the Aucklands, Dr M'Cormick made himself acquainted with what may be called the bird's domestic habits: – 'The albatross,' he writes, 'during the period of incubation, is frequently found asleep with its head under its wings: its beautiful white head and neck appearing above the grass, betray its situation at a considerable distance off. On the approach of an intruder, it resolutely defends its egg, refusing to quit the nest until forced off, when it slowly waddles away in an awkward manner to a short distance, without attempting to take wing. Its greatest enemy is a fierce species of Lestris, always on the watch for the albatross quitting its nest, when the rapacious pirate instantly pounces down and devours the egg. So well is the poor bird aware of the propensity of its foe, that it snaps the mandibles of its beak violently together whenever it observes the lestris flying overhead.'