Weird Tales of Creepy Crawlies - A Fine Selection of Fantastical Short Stories of Mysterious Insects and Spiders (Cryptofiction Classics - Weird Tales of Strange Creatures)

By Read Books Ltd.

These early works by various authors were originally published in the late 19th century and early 20th century and we are now republishing them with a brand new introduction as part of our Cryptofiction Classics series. 'Weird Tales of Creepy Crawlies' contains a collection of short stories about mysterious insects and arachnids, and includes 'The Strong Spider' by Edgar Allan Poe (1846), 'The Messenger' by Robert W. Chambers (1897), 'The Empire of the Ants' by by H. G. Wells (1905), and many more. The stories in this collection were mostly written around the turn of the century. And most of them reflect what has been a pretty consistent human reaction to insects, as evidenced throughout the literary tradition – fascination and disgust, in equal measure. Despite the Romantics' best efforts, the perception of insects as repulsive, threatening and unclean – the carriers of pestilence and plague in the bible; the exemplifiers of foulness in Shakespeare – has never quite gone away. The Cryptofiction Classics series contains a collection of wonderful stories from some of the greatest authors in the genre, including Ambrose Bierce, Arthur Conan Doyle, Robert Louis Stevenson, and Jack London. From its roots in cryptozoology, this genre features bizarre, fantastical, and often terrifying tales of mythical and legendary creatures. Whether it be giant spiders, werewolves, lake monsters, or dinosaurs, the Cryptofiction Classics series offers a fantastic introduction to the world of weird creatures in fiction.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Read Books Ltd.
• Release date: Feb 17, 2015
• ISBN: 9781473399983

Book preview

Weird Tales of Creepy Crawlies

A Fine Selection of Fantastical Short Stories of Mysterious Insects and Spiders

By Various Authors

Cryptofiction Classics

Copyright © 2013 Read Books Ltd.

This book is copyright and may not be

reproduced or copied in any way without

the express permission of the publisher in writing

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Contents

Introduction

The Sphinx

The Strong Spider.

I.THE CHIEF’S DAUGHTER.

II.THE SPIDER.

The Queen of the Bees

A Moth – Genus Novo

The Purple Emperor

I.

II.

III.

The Messenger

THE MESSENGER.

II.

III.

IV.

THE KING’S CRADLE SONG.

The Valley of the Spiders

The Great White Moth

 Chapter I.

Chapter II.

The Ash-Tree

The Green Spider

The Empire of the Ants

II.

III.

IV.

The Feather Pillow

The Golden Fly

Caterpillars

An Egyptian Hornet

The Spider

The Eggs of the Silver Moon

The Blue Cockroach

The Gold-Seekers

The Spectre Spiders

Vampires of the Desert

The Worm

Biographies

Henry Abbey

E.F. Benson

Algernon Blackwood

Robert W. Chambers

Alexandre Chatrian

Émile Erckmann

Hanns Heinz Ewers

Edward Heron-Allen

M. R. James

David H. Keller

Edgar Allan Poe

Horacio Quiroga

Sax Rohmer

A. Hyatt Verrill

H. G. Wells

Fred M. White

William J. Wintle

Look out for more books in the Series

Introduction

If asked to list the most famous animals in the literary tradition, most people probably wouldn’t name many insects. From Narnia to the Land of Oz to Toad Hall, it tends to be lions, wolves, toads and other members of the animal kingdom that vie for supremacy in the popular imagination. It’s probably safe to assume, for example, that Anna Sewell’s bestselling 1877 novel would have been less of a success had it been entitled not Black Beauty, but Black Widow.

However, despite the fact that they don’t also easily tap into human sympathies, insects have a long and colourful relationship with the literary tradition. They appear in some of the earliest known cave paintings, and many early civilisations, while developing systems of linguistic signs, actually utilised them directly – witness the scarab, bee and grasshopper of the Ancient Egyptian alphabet. Aristophanes, one of the great comic playwrights of Ancient Athens, titled his most famous play The Wasps, and a few centuries later, the Bible featured insects as the carriers of various devastating plagues.

Insects continued to capture literary interest throughout the following centuries. Many Renaissance era authors were fascinated by the intricacy and mechanics of spiders and butterflies, and this interest was keenly reflected in work of Shakespeare, where words such as waspish were popularised. Later, with the birth of the Romantic movement and its intense interest in the natural world, insects had arguably their most popular poetic moment. Some more famous examples include To a Louse by Robert Burns; To-day, this Insect, and the World I Breath, by Dylan Thomas; and To a Butterfly by William Wordsworth.

The stories in this collection were mostly written around the turn of the century. And most of them reflect what has been a pretty consistent human reaction to insects, as evidenced throughout the literary tradition – fascination and disgust, in equal measure. Despite the Romantics’ best efforts, the perception of insects as repulsive, threatening and unclean – the carriers of pestilence and plague in the bible; the exemplifiers of foulness in Shakespeare – has never quite gone away.

In Poe’s The Sphinx, we see how the physical characteristics of insects can unsettle our aesthetic tastes, and H. G. Well’s The Moth and M. R. James’ The Ash Tree dramatise how their elusive, flittering can play havoc with the senses. Horacio Quiroga’s The Feather Pillow touches on how insects – unlike larger creatures – possess a special terror by virtue of their ability to infiltrate the domestic sphere, and Edward Heron-Allen’s The Blue Cockroach plays off their ability to transport weird and exotic diseases. The final story, David H. Keller’s The Worm, poses an interesting hypothetical question: how long would you remain in your home if it was gradually being eaten by a giant earthworm?

Taken as a group, the stories here speak to the ways in which the literary imagination has dealt with the figure of the insect. Usually, spiders and the like have been met with a good degree of disgust and fear. However, running like a faint thread through these tales is the quiet understanding that insects are an integral part of our world; that they are just as much a part of existence as we are – a sort of foreshadowing of the words of the great biologist Jonas Salk: If all insects on Earth disappeared, within fifty years all life on Earth would end. If all human beings disappeared from the Earth, within fifty years all forms of life would flourish.

The Sphinx

by Edgar Allan Poe

DURING the dread reign of the Cholera in New York, I had accepted the invitation of a relative to spend a fortnight with him in the retirement of his cottage ornee on the banks of the Hudson. We had here around us all the ordinary means of summer amusement; and what with rambling in the woods, sketching, boating, fishing, bathing, music, and books, we should have passed the time pleasantly enough, but for the fearful intelligence which reached us every morning from the populous city. Not a day elapsed which did not bring us news of the decease of some acquaintance. Then as the fatality increased, we learned to expect daily the loss of some friend. At length we trembled at the approach of every messenger. The very air from the South seemed to us redolent with death. That palsying thought, indeed, took entire posession of my soul. I could neither speak, think, nor dream of any thing else. My host was of a less excitable temperament, and, although greatly depressed in spirits, exerted himself to sustain my own. His richly philosophical intellect was not at any time affected by unrealities. To the substances of terror he was sufficiently alive, but of its shadows he had no apprehension.

His endeavors to arouse me from the condition of abnormal gloom into which I had fAllan, were frustrated, in great measure, by certain volumes which I had found in his library. These were of a character to force into germination whatever seeds of hereditary superstition lay latent in my bosom. I had been reading these books without his knowledge, and thus he was often at a loss to account for the forcible impressions which had been made upon my fancy.

A favorite topic with me was the popular belief in omens-a belief which, at this one epoch of my life, I was almost seriously disposed to defend. On this subject we had long and animated discussions-he maintaining the utter groundlessness of faith in such matters,-I contending that a popular sentiment arising with absolute spontaneity- that is to say, without apparent traces of suggestion-had in itself the unmistakable elements of truth, and was entitled to as much respect as that intuition which is the idiosyncrasy of the individual man of genius.

The fact is, that soon after my arrival at the cottage there had occurred to myself an incident so entirely inexplicable, and which had in it so much of the portentous character, that I might well have been excused for regarding it as an omen. It appalled, and at the same time so confounded and bewildered me, that many days elapsed before I could make up my mind to communicate the circumstances to my friend.

Near the close of exceedingly warm day, I was sitting, book in hand, at an open window, commanding, through a long vista of the river banks, a view of a distant hill, the face of which nearest my position had been denuded by what is termed a land-slide, of the principal portion of its trees. My thoughts had been long wandering from the volume before me to the gloom and desolation of the neighboring city. Uplifting my eyes from the page, they fell upon the naked face of the bill, and upon an object-upon some living monster of hideous conformation, which very rapidly made its way from the summit to the bottom, disappearing finally in the dense forest below. As this creature first came in sight, I doubted my own sanity-or at least the evidence of my own eyes; and many minutes passed before I succeeded in convincing myself that I was neither mad nor in a dream. Yet when I described the monster (which I distinctly saw, and calmly surveyed through the whole period of its progress), my readers, I fear, will feel more difficulty in being convinced of these points than even I did myself.

Estimating the size of the creature by comparison with the diameter of the large trees near which it passed-the few giants of the forest which had escaped the fury of the land-slide-I concluded it to be far larger than any ship of the line in existence. I say ship of the line, because the shape of the monster suggested the idea- the hull of one of our seventy-four might convey a very tolerable conception of the general outline. The mouth of the animal was situated at the extremity of a proboscis some sixty or seventy feet in length, and about as thick as the body of an ordinary elephant. Near the root of this trunk was an immense quantity of black shaggy hair- more than could have been supplied by the coats of a score of buffaloes; and projecting from this hair downwardly and laterally, sprang two gleaming tusks not unlike those of the wild boar, but of infinitely greater dimensions. Extending forward, parallel with the proboscis, and on each side of it, was a gigantic staff, thirty or forty feet in length, formed seemingly of pure crystal and in shape a perfect prism,-it reflected in the most gorgeous manner the rays of the declining sun. The trunk was fashioned like a wedge with the apex to the earth. From it there were outspread two pairs of wings- each wing nearly one hundred yards in length-one pair being placed above the other, and all thickly covered with metal scales; each scale apparently some ten or twelve feet in diameter. I observed that the upper and lower tiers of wings were connected by a strong chain. But the chief peculiarity of this horrible thing was the representation of a Death’s Head, which covered nearly the whole surface of its breast, and which was as accurately traced in glaring white, upon the dark ground of the body, as if it had been there carefully designed by an artist. While I regarded the terrific animal, and more especially the appearance on its breast, with a feeling or horror and awe-with a sentiment of forthcoming evil, which I found it impossible to quell by any effort of the reason, I perceived the huge jaws at the extremity of the proboscis suddenly expand themselves, and from them there proceeded a sound so loud and so expressive of wo, that it struck upon my nerves like a knell and as the monster disappeared at the foot of the hill, I fell at once, fainting, to the floor.

Upon recovering, my first impulse, of course, was to inform my friend of what I had seen and heard-and I can scarcely explain what feeling of repugnance it was which, in the end, operated to prevent me.

At length, one evening, some three or four days after the occurrence, we were sitting together in the room in which I had seen the apparition-I occupying the same seat at the same window, and he lounging on a sofa near at hand. The association of the place and time impelled me to give him an account of the phenomenon. He heard me to the end-at first laughed heartily-and then lapsed into an excessively grave demeanor, as if my insanity was a thing beyond suspicion. At this instant I again had a distinct view of the monster- to which, with a shout of absolute terror, I now directed his attention. He looked eagerly-but maintained that he saw nothing- although I designated minutely the course of the creature, as it made its way down the naked face of the hill.

I was now immeasurably alarmed, for I considered the vision either as an omen of my death, or, worse, as the fore-runner of an attack of mania. I threw myself passionately back in my chair, and for some moments buried my face in my hands. When I uncovered my eyes, the apparition was no longer apparent.

My host, however, had in some degree resumed the calmness of his demeanor, and questioned me very rigorously in respect to the conformation of the visionary creature. When I had fully satisfied him on this head, he sighed deeply, as if relieved of some intolerable burden, and went on to talk, with what I thought a cruel calmness, of various points of speculative philosophy, which had heretofore formed subject of discussion between us. I remember his insisting very especially (among other things) upon the idea that the principle source of error in all human investigations lay in the liability of the understanding to under-rate or to over-value the importance of an object, through mere mis-admeasurement of its propinquity. To estimate properly, for example, he said, the influence to be exercised on mankind at large by the thorough diffusion of Democracy, the distance of the epoch at which such diffusion may possibly be accomplished should not fail to form an item in the estimate. Yet can you tell me one writer on the subject of government who has ever thought this particular branch of the subject worthy of discussion at all?

He here paused for a moment, stepped to a book-case, and brought forth one of the ordinary synopses of Natural History. Requesting me then to exchange seats with him, that he might the better distinguish the fine print of the volume, he took my armchair at the window, and, opening the book, resumed his discourse very much in the same tone as before.

But for your exceeding minuteness, he said, "in describing the monster, I might never have had it in my power to demonstrate to you what it was. In the first place, let me read to you a schoolboy account of the genus Sphinx, of the family Crepuscularia of the order Lepidoptera, of the class of Insecta-or insects. The account runs thus:

’Four membranous wings covered with little colored scales of metallic appearance; mouth forming a rolled proboscis, produced by an elongation of the jaws, upon the sides of which are found the rudiments of mandibles and downy palpi; the inferior wings retained to the superior by a stiff hair; antennae in the form of an elongated club, prismatic; abdomen pointed, The Death’s-headed Sphinx has occasioned much terror among the vulgar, at times, by the melancholy kind of cry which it utters, and the insignia of death which it wears upon its corslet.’

He here closed the book and leaned forward in the chair, placing himself accurately in the position which I had occupied at the moment of beholding the monster.

Ah, here it is, he presently exclaimed-it is reascending the face of the hill, and a very remarkable looking creature I admit it to be. Still, it is by no means so large or so distant as you imagined it,-for the fact is that, as it wriggles its way up this thread, which some spider has wrought along the window-sash, I find it to be about the sixteenth of an inch in its extreme length, and also about the sixteenth of an inch distant from the pupil of my eye.

The Strong Spider.

by Henry Abbey

I.THE CHIEF’S DAUGHTER.

I was a naturalist, and had crossed the sea

And come to Theodosia, to find

A monstrous spider of which I had heard.

The people of the town wagged doubting heads, When asked about it; but one day I met

A sturdy fisherman who once had seen

The spider, though he knew not his abode.

He said the spider was as long as he,

And that the woof whereof he wove his web,

Was thick as any cordage on his boat.

At night, belated ‘mid the tumuli

That mound the hill-side and the vernal vale,

Like the raised letters of an ancient page

Made for the blind gropers of to-day to read,

He entered a dark tomb, and therein slept,

Until the world, like some round shield upraised, Splintered the thrown spears of dawn. As he woke, He found himself ensnared in some thick web,

Yet reached his knife, and slowly cut it through; Then when he stood, a monstrous spider fled.

At this recital on the slanted shore,

Another joined us from the cottage near—

A vine-clad cottage, lit for love’s abode.

A lily-croft, with trees, encinctured it;

Like Ahab in his house of ivory

Dining on sweets, the king bee here

Sipped in the snowy lily’s palace hall;

And here were yellow lilies strewn about,

As though the place had been the banquet grove

Of Shishak, king of Egypt; for the flowers

Seemed like the cups of gold that Solomon

Wrought for the holy service of the Lord.

This is my daughter, said the fisherman.

Her head and face were covered with a scarf,

But large dark eyes looked forth, and in their depths I saw a soul all tenderness and truth.

(Often, in dreams, I thought it sweet to die,

And reft of this gross vision, see at last,

As the large soul, quit of the body can,

Another soul set free and purified.)

The modest maid a crimson jacket wore,

And to her knee the broidered skirt hung down; While ‘neath, the Turkish garment was confined

In plaits about the ankles; but her shoes

Revealed the naked insteps of her feet.

I bade her there adieu, upon the shore

Of the clear Bospore. As I wandered back,

I thought much of the spider that I sought;

But more of two dark eyes, that seemed two stars Which shone down in my heart; while the far space Behind them, pure, but unknown, was the soul.

I thought to test this maiden’s charity;

And so, one friendly day, put on a robe

Tattered and soiled with use. As she went by,

I strode abruptly from behind a wall,

And faced her with a face disguised, and held

My hand out while I begged for some small alms. She gave abundantly from her lean purse,

And with a look of tender pity, passed.

It matters little who it is that asks,

Or whether he deserves the alms or not;

That given with free heart, is given to God,

And not to him who takes.

Day after day,

Henceforth, I strode a coastward way, to meet

The dark-eyed daughter of the fisherman.

Beneath her roof she made my welcome sweet,

And yielded both her hands, and drew the scarf

That veiled the wondrous beauty of her face.

If painter, or if sculptor, in some dream,

Could mingle Faith with Love and Charity,

And give them utterance in one pure face,

I know the face would be a face like hers.

Her eyes were diamond doors of her true soul,

And with their silken latches softly closed,

When, couched beneath his poppy parachute, Inactive Sleep came by. Her glances seemed

Like gold-winged angels sent from heavenly doors. Yet she was often sad when I was near.

Once, tarrying late, I told her of my life,

And of the monster I had come to find;

But now, lo! she around my heart had wound

The close web of her love, and held me fast

As any fly caught in a spider’s toils.

Clothed in the sackcloth of regret, she said,

She long had wept the past; but for my sake

She now would cast it off, and live for me.

I said that few could exculpate the past

From stormy doing with the ships of hope.

She said it made her sad to think upon

Their present dwindled fortune, and the yoke

Her people chafed their necks in, on the hills.

Her father was a brave Circassian chief;

But here he dwelt disguised, till once again

He could lead on his race, and wound the heel

That ground them to the dust.

Our hearts made new,

We kissed good-night, and parted. As I went,

A distant hill, all shadow, took new shape,

And seemed a sprawling spider, while two trees

That grew upon it, were his upraised arms

Clutching at two red fire-flies, that were stars.

II.THE SPIDER.

With day-break came a knuckle at my door;

I rose, and opened, and upon the porch,

His face like strange death’s, and his dark eyes wide With some vague horror, stood the fisherman. Come, hasten with me, were his only words.

We ran our best along the barren shore,

And gained his silent cottage. Entering,

He led me to his daughter’s vacant couch.

The room had but one window, and the sash

Was raised. I looked out to the ground beneath.

A vine crept up, and with long fingers made

Abode secure upon the cottage side,

And o’er the window threw a leafy scarf.

But what was this, that fastened to the ledge

Trailed to the ground? A glutinous rope

Twisted with five strands. This the fisherman

Saw with new horror, while between white lips

He gasped, The Spider!

What was best to do?

We saw strange foot-prints on the moistened beach, But these were lost soon in a wooded dell

Where all trace had an end. The long day through We sought among the tombs, up from the dell;

But unrewarded, when the sun was quenched,

Sat down to weep. So darkness dropped,

And like an awful spider, o’er the earth

Crawled with gaunt legs of shadow. Then our homes We sadly sought, to meet again at morn.

The night was warm, and with my window raised,

I sat and mourned, and wrung my hopeless hands. No light was in the house. I half reclined—

My back toward the window. Something shut

The puny sheen of starlight from the room.

The Thing, a monstrous shape, was with me there, And two hard arms were thrown about my waist. For very terror I was hushed, nor moved

To cast my foe off. I was in the arms

Of the strong spider. As we went, I grew

Glad, for I thought that now I should be brought

To the great spider’s web, and there, mayhap,

Learn the sad fate of her I loved so well.

Up a stark cliff we went, then crossed the web

Just as the red moon bloomed upon the hills

And silvered all the Panticapean vale.

The funnel of the web was in the mouth

Of a vast tomb, whose outside, hewn on rock, Outlined a Gorgon’s face with jaws agape—

Some stern Medusa, Stheno, or Euryale,

Changed to the stone that in the elder days

She changed the sons of men who looked on her.

We passed the funnel, entering the tomb.

About my arms the spider threw his cords,

And shackled them. I dared not move, but lay

Upon the smooth stone floor, inured to fear.

I fancied now that I was safe till dawn.

If I could use my hands I then might find

Some weapon of defense, some club, or stone,

And so resist with some small chance for life.

The thought bred strength. I slowly drew my arms Upon my sides, and, with persistence, gained

Their freedom; though about the wrists, the flesh Was bruised and harrowed, and my blood made wet The spider’s cord wherewith I had been bound.

The night seemed endless. As it came to dawn,

A faint moan woke an echo in the tomb.

The echo seemed a cry of pity, sent

For solace to the moan. As light grew strong,

I saw, not far from where I had been laid,

A maiden sitting. All her hair set free,

She made of it a pillow as she leaned

Against the painted wall. My heart threw wide

To her my arms, his hospitable doors;

The guest within, at once the doors were shut.

The sun came up, and spread a cloth of gold

Over the sea. We saw the vale beneath,

And there the town, and fancied where, among

The trees upon the shore, her cottage stood;

Then hoped ‘gainst hope to enter it again.

Two thousand years ago, this distant sea

Teemed with the thrifty commerce of the world. When Athens was, and when her scholars cut,

With thoughts of iron, their own deathless names Into the stone page of fame, this vale beneath

Held a great city. These, its tombs, endure.

There is no better scoff at the parade

And vanity of life, than that a tomb suggests.

While we looked forth on the historic view,

We saw the subtle spider throw his cord

Over an eagle tangled in the web.

The eagle fought, not mildly overcome,

And spread his wings, and darted his sharp beak.

At last the spider caught him by the neck,

With his serrated claws that grew like horns,

And killed him; then plucked the vanquished plumes,

And sucked the warm blood from the sundered ends. From this we knew the monster brought us here

To serve a hideous banquet, and that one

Must need be near, and see the other slain.

The web was like the sail of some large ship,

And reached forth from the Gorgon’s open mouth, On either side, to boughs of blighted trees.

Birds were caught in it, and about the place

Wherein the spider hid to watch for prey,

Their bones lay bleaching in the sun and rain.

Upon the web the winds laid violent hands,

And tugged at it, but lacked the sinewed strength

To tear it or divorce it from its place.

The rain left on it when the sun came up,

Dyed the vast cloth with all prismatic hues,

And made it glitter like the silken sail

Of Cleopatra’s barge.

We felt quite sure

The eagle’s death bequeathed new lease of life.

We cast about at once, in hope to find S

ome object for defense. The tomb was strange. Alone the spider could have known of it.

A rich sarcophagus stood in the midst,

Of deftly inlaid woods, or carved, or bronzed. Within, a skeleton, its white skull crowned

With gold bestarred with diamonds, chilled my blood. A bronze lamp, cast to represent the beast Slain by Bellerophon, the Chimæra, Was on the floor; and from its lion’s mouth

The flame had issued, like the flame of life

That flickered and went out with him gold-crowned. A target stood near by, and on it clashed

Griffon and stag, adverse as right and wrong.

About, lay cups of onyx set in gold.

On conic jars were bacchanalian scenes,—

Nude chubby Bacchi, grotesque leering fauns,

All linked ‘neath vines that grew important grapes; And in the jars were rings and flowers of gold.

We found twin ear-drops cut from choicest stone, Metallic mirrors, and a statuette

Of amorous Dido naked to the waist.

Life is a harp, and all its nervous strings, T

ouched by the fingers of the fear of death,

Jar with pathetic music. Having found

No trusty implement to bar the way

Of threatening peril, we embraced,

And kissed with silent kisses mixed with tears,

And waited for the end.

When no more,

Hope, like an eagle in the mountain air,

Soars in time’s future, it mounts up with wings Toward the unmapped city walled by death.

Thither the eagle of our hope took flight.

The sun was in the zenith.

His back Toward us, crouched the spider, at the mouth

Of our strange prison on the towering cliff.

The spider’s shape was full a fathom long.

Two parts it had, the fore part, head and breast;

The hinder part, the trunk. The first was black,

But all the last was covered with short hair,

Yellow and fine. Eight sprawling legs adhered

To his tough breast. Eight eyes were in his head, Two in the front, and three on either side;

They had no eyelids, and were never closed, Protected by a strong transparent nail.

His pincers grew between his foremost eyes—

Were toothed like saws, were venomous, and sharp, With claws on either end. Two arms stretched out From his mailed shoulders, and with these he caught His tangled prey, or guided what he spun.

Slowly the monster turned, and glared at us, Working his arms, and opening his claws,

Then moved toward us fiercely for attack.

We ran to gain the limit of the tomb

Where darkness was; there as we crouched with dread,

My foot struck some hard substance. In despair

I grasped at it, and with great joy upheld

An ancient sword!—surely, a sharp, bold tooth

To bite the spider. I would sink it deep,

Up to the gum of the crossed guard. Alert,

I sprang upon the monster as he came,

And with one blow cut off his brutish head.

He writhed awhile with pain, but in the end,

Drew up the eight long legs and two thick arms,

And rolling over on his useless back,

Died with a pang.

So we issued forth,

And the green earth seemed happy to be free,

And glad the sky cloud-frescoed ‘gainst the blue.

We sought the sea-side cottage, where the chief Clasped once again his daughter to his breast.

Down from the hill we fetched the spider slain,

And I to science gave these simple facts:

Spiders have no antennæ, therefore rank

Not with the insects. As they breathe with gills Beneath the body, they possess a heart.

The treasure of the tomb brought wealth to us,

And we who loved were wed one golden day;

And the great Czar hearing our story told,

Sent presents to the bride of silk and pearls.

The Queen of the Bees

by Emile Erckmann and Alexandre Chatrian

As you go from Motiers-Navers to Boudry, on your way to Neufchatel, said the young professor of botany, "you follow a road between two walls of rocks of immense height; they reach a perpendicular elevation of five or six hundred feet, and are hung with wild plants, the mountain basil (thymus alpinus), ferus (polypodium), the whortleberry (vitis idoea), ground ivy, and other climbing plants producing a wonderful effect.

"The road winds along this defile; it rises, falls, turns, sometimes tolerably level, sometimes broken and abrupt, according to the thousand irregularities of the ground. Grey rocks almost meet in an arch overhead, others stand wide apart, leaving the distant blue visible, and discovering sombre and melancholy-looking depths, and rows of firs as far as the eye could reach.

"The Reuss flows along the bottom, sometimes leaping along in waterfalls, then creeping through thickets, or steaming, foaming, and thundering over precipices, while the echoes prolong the tumult and roar of its torrents in one immense endless hum. Since I left Tubingen the weather had continued fine; but when I reached the summit of this gigantic staircase, about two leagues distant from the little hamlet of Novisaigne, I suddenly noticed great grey clouds begin passing overhead, which soon filled up the defile entirely; this vapour was so dense that it soon penetrated my clothes as a heavy dew would have done.

"Although it was only two in the afternoon, the sky became clouded over as if darkness was coming on; and I foresaw a heavy storm was about to break over my head.

"I consequently began looking about for shelter, and I saw through one of those wide openings which afford you a perspective view of the Alps, about two or three hundred yards distant on the slope leading down to the lake, an ancient-looking grey châlet, moss-covered, with its small round windows and sloping roof loaded with large stones, its stairs outside the house, with a carved rail, and its basket-shaped balcony, on which the Swiss maidens generally hang their snowy linen and scarlet petticoats to dry.

"Precisely as I was looking down, a tall woman in a black cap was folding and collecting the linen which was blowing about in the wind.

"To the left of this building a very large apiary supported on beams, arranged like a balcony, formed a projection above the valley.

"You may easily believe that without the loss of a moment I set off bounding through the heather to seek for shelter from the coming storm, and well it was I lost no time, for I had hardly laid my hand on the handle of the door before the hurricane burst furiously overhead; every gust of wind seemed about to carry the cottage bodily away; but its foundations were strong, and the security of the good people within, by the warmth of their reception, completely reassured me about the probability of any accident.

"The cottage was inhabited by Walter Young, his wife Catherine, and little Raesel, their only daughter.

"I remained three days with them; for the wind, which went down about midnight, had so filled the valley of Neufchatel with mist, that the mountain where I had taken refuge was completely enveloped in it; it was impossible to walk twenty yards from the door without experiencing great difficulty in finding it again.

"Every morning these good people would say, when they saw me buckle on my knapsack—

"’What are you about, Mr. Hennetius? You cannot mean to go yet; you will never arrive anywhere. In the name of Heaven stay here a little longer!’

"And Young would open the door and exclaim—

"’Look there, sir; you must be tired of your life to risk it among these rocks. Why, the dove itself would be troubled to find the ark again in such a mist as this.’

"One glance at the mountain side was enough for me to make up my mind to put my stick back again in the corner.

"Walter Young was a man of the old times. He was nearly sixty; his grand head wore a calm and benevolent expression—a real Apostle’s head. His wife, who always wore a black silk cap, pale and thoughtful, resembled him much in disposition. Their two profiles, as I looked at them defined sharply against the little panes of glass in the chalet’s windows, recalled to my mind those drawings of Albert Durer the sight of which carried me back to the age of faith and the patriarchal manners of the fifteenth century. The long brown rafters of the ceiling, the deal table, the ashen chairs with the carved backs, the tin drinking-cups, the sideboard with its old-fashioned painted plates and dishes, the crucifix with the Saviour carved in box on an ebony cross, and the worm-eaten clock-case with its many weights and its porcelain dial, completed the illusion.

"But the face of their little daughter Raesel was still more touching. I think I can see her now, with her flat horsehair cap and watered black silk ribbons, her trim bodice and broad blue sash down to her knees, her little white hands crossed in the attitude of a dreamer, her long fair curls—all that was graceful, slender, and ethereal in nature. Yes, I can see Raesel now, sitting in a large leathern arm-chair, close to the blue curtain of the recess at the end of the room, smiling as she listened and meditated.

"Her sweet face had charmed me from the first moment I saw her and I was continually on the point of inquiring why she wore such an habitually melancholy air, why did she hold her pale face down so invariably, and why did she never raise her eyes when spoken to?

"Alas! the poor child had been blind from her birth.

"She had never seen the lake’s vast expanse, nor its blue sheet blending so harmoniously with the sky, the fishermen’s boats which ploughed its surface, the wooded heights which crowned it and cast their quivering reflection on its waters, the rocks covered with moss, the green Alpine plants in their vivid and brilliant colouring; nor had she ever watched the sun set behind the glaciers, nor the long shades of evening draw across the valleys, nor the golden broom, nor the endless heather—nothing. None of these things had she ever seen; nothing of what we saw every day from the windows of the chalet.

"’What an ironical commentary on the gifts of Fortune!’ thought I, as I sat looking out of the window at the mist, in expectation of the sun’s appearing once more, ‘to be blind in this place! here in presence of Nature in its sublimest form, of such limitless grandeur! To be