Mephistopheles had quitted him in disgust; but even the absence of that disreputable guardian angel had brought him no change of fortune. He was playing wildly and madly—staking no longer on the even chance, but putting down the largest permitted sums on single numbers, which of course never turned up at the time they were wanted. The fat pocket-book had grown marvellously thin; great drops of black sweat were trickling down the unhappy man’s face, and every moment I expected to see him fall in an apoplectic fit. At last he staked what apparently was his last note; the zero turned up, and the stake was remorselessly swept up by the croupier’s rake. There was a sort of hush, and everybody turned towards the ruined man. Happily, the scene—instead of ending, as I feared, in a tragedy—had a termination which was grimly comic. By the side of the table there stood a mild little English curate, with the glossiest of black coats, the neatest of white ties, and that ineffable look of self-satisfaction which only a popular clergyman can attain to. What he was doing there I cannot tell. I hope he had not won his money; but there is no doubt that an imbecile smirk was on his face. Of a sudden Faust staggered up from the table: his eye caught that of the parson. I cannot wonder if that smirk grated irresistibly upon his feelings. At any rate, he sprang forward, grasped the wretched curate by the collar, spun him round as he would a child, and asked him what he meant by laughing at his misfortunes. “Come into the garden, sir!” he shouted, “and fight me with swords or pistols, and I will kill you like a dog.” Of course the poor little clergyman, being very diminutive, had an immensely tall wife. This valiant British matron, seeing her husband’s life in peril, rushed up, threw her arms round Faust’s neck from behind, and screamed out to him to let her lord and master go.
Meanwhile the waiters had been summoned hastily; the curate was rescued, and Faust was led away, not unkindly, and given water to drink, and a few pounds to take himself off where he liked, so long as he did not kill himself on the premises. I believe, however, that this vent of anger saved him from a fit. Wiesbaden saw him no more. Both he and Mephistopheles disappeared as mysteriously as they came, and the accounts of the bank showed an additional two or three hundred thousand francs to the credit side.
A CUMBERLAND FUNERAL.
I well remember while staying at Penrith with my father, many years ago, a characteristic instance of an old-fashioned funeral as observed in that part. In the morning the town bellman tolled his three preliminary peals of the hand-bell before our inn, and proclaimed as follows:
“Oyez, Oyez, Oyez! this is to give notice that the funeral of Adam Lethwaite is to take place this day, and all friends and neighbours are invited to attend. The lifting to take place at twelve o’clock at noon precisely.”
At that time we proceeded to the scene of the funeral. Lethwaite was a very old man, and had enjoined that he should he interred strictly according to ancient usage. I dare say such observances are altogether forgotten now that a railway gradient crosses Shap Fell, but at that time they still lingered. The coffin was placed upon a deal table in front of the cottage which the old man had long tenanted, and upon it, over the breast, was a pewter plate containing salt, a type of the immortality of the spirit; a candle was placed on either side at the head of the coffin, and the table was strewed with sprigs of rosemary. The company gathered round the table, and the parish-clerk who attended raised a hymn in which they all joined; a dram of brandy was handed round, and after this the corpse was lifted, and each of the party took a sprig of the rosemary which he carried between his lips, and followed to the churchyard. Here the solemn service of the Church was pronounced, and after this the clerk led another psalm; then, before the sexton had begun to fill the grave, each stepped forward for a last look, throwing into the grave his sprig of rosemary, and the funeral rites were complete.
SICILIAN NOTES.
Having spent some years in Sicily before the late revolution, I had been much interested in observing the many national customs still lingering in an island which so seldom becomes the residence of foreigners, except of those engaged in business, or possessing local ties. On returning there last winter, I found some of these had entirely disappeared, others were gradually being abandoned under the present rule, and I have thought that an account of these fast-fading relics of the middle ages might prove interesting. The most important national festival, the “Festino” (as it is called) of Santa Rosalia, has been given up for two or three years, on the plea that the Cassaro, or, as it is now called, the Corso Vittor Emanuele, is under repair, and will probably never be resumed. Santa Rosalia was the daughter of a rich and powerful Sicilian baron, descended from Charlemagne. At an early age she renounced all the grandeurs of her home, and retired to a solitary life in a cavern of Quisquina, which she subsequently left to practise still greater austerities in a grotto on Monte Pellegrino, where she died. Her remembrance had well-nigh been lost when, in 1624, a dreadful plague broke out in Palermo, during which she appeared to a certain Bonelli, and commanded him to inform the archbishop and the senate that the plague would cease as soon as her relics were transported into the city. This was done, the plague immediately stopped, and this festival was established in commemoration of the miracle.
It lasted five days, beginning the 11th of July and ending on the night of the 15th; it cost annually 10,000 ducats, which the state expended on it, being the produce of a tax, voluntarily imposed by the people themselves, on all the grain and wine which enters the town.
Great preparations had been made for some time previously. The Cassaro had been decorated with wreaths of artificial flowers suspended from one