Tredger that's our lady's-maid; only
this is a secret says it's all settled: she
knows it for certain fact; only there's
nothing to be said about it yet: she's so
young, you know."

"Who was the man that sat nearly oppo-
site my lady, on the other side of the
table?" asked Malcolm.

not

of the marquisate as on one of the lower
orders - ignorant, vulgar, even dirty.

They had already gazed together upon
not a few of the marvels of London, but
nothing had hitherto moved or drawn them
| so much as the ordinary flow of the cur-
rents of life through the veins of the huge
city. Upon Malcolm, however, this had
now begun to pall, while Peter already
found it worse than irksome, and longed
for Scaurnose. At the same time loyalty
to Malcolm kept him from uttering a whis-
per of his homesickness. It was yet but
the fourth day they had been in London.

"I know who you mean. Didn't look
as if he'd got any business there
like the rest of them did he? No, they
never do. Odd-and-end sort of people,
like he is, never do look the right thing,
let them try ever so. How can they when
they ain't it? That's a fellow that's paint- "Eh, my lord," said Blue Peter, when
ing Lady Lossie's portrait. Why he should by chance they found themselves in the
be asked to dinner for that, I'm sure I lull of a little quiet court somewhere about
can't tell. He ain't paid for it in victuals, Gray's Inn, with the roar of Holborn in
is he? I never saw such land-leapers let their ears, "it's like a month, sin' I was
into Lossie House, I know. But London's at the kirk. I'm feart the din's gotten
an awful place. There's no such a thing as into my heid, an' I'll never get it oot again.
respect of persons here. Here you meet I cud maist wuss I was a mackerel, for
the butcher, the baker, the candlestick- they tell me the fish hears naething. I
maker any night in my lady's drawing- ken weel noo what ye meant, my lord,
room. I declare to you, Ma'colm Mac-whan ye said ye dreidit the din micht gar
Phail, it makes me quite uncomfortable at ye forget yer Macker."
times to think who I may have been wait-
ing upon without knowing it. For that
painter-fellow Lenorme they call him -
I could knock him on the teeth with the
dish every time I hold it to him. And
to see him stare at Lady Lossie as he
does!"

"A painter must want to get a right good hold of the face he's got to paint," said Malcolm. "Is he here often?"

"He's been here five or six times already," answered Wallis, "and how many more times I may have to fill his glass I don't know. I always give him second-best sherry, I know. I'm sure the time that pictur' 's been on hand! He ought to be ashamed of himself. If she's been once to his studio, she's been twenty times to give him sittings, as they call it. He's making a pretty penny of it, I'll be bound. I wonder he has the cheek to show himself when my lady treats him so haughtily. But those sort of people have no proper feelin's, you see: it's not to be expected of such."

"I hae been wussin' sair mysel', this
last twa days," responded Malcolm, "'at I
cud get ae sicht o' the jaws clashin' upo'
the Scaurnose or rowin' up upo' the edge
o' the links. The din o' natur' never
troubles the guid thouchts in ye. I reckon
it's 'cause it's a kin' o' a harmony in 'tsel',
an' a' harmony's jist, as the maister used
to say, a higher kin' o' a peace.
Yon or-
gan 'at we hearkent till ae day ootside the
kirk- -ye min', man it was a quaietness
in 'tsel', an' cam' throu' the din like a
bonny silence- like a lull i' the win' o'
this warl'. It wasna a din at a', but a
gran' repose, like. But this noise tumul-
tuous o' human strife, this din o' iron
shune an' iron wheels, this whurr an'
whuzz o' buyin' an' sellin' an' gettin' gain
it disna help a body to their prayers."
"Eh, na, my lord. Jist think o' the
preevilege - I never saw nor thoucht o' 't
afore-o' haein' 'ti' yer pooer, ony nicht
'at ye're no efter the fish, to stap oot at
yer ain door an' be i' the mids o' the tem-
ple. Be 't licht or dark, be 't foul or fair,
the sea sleepin' or ragin', ye hae aye room,
an' naething atween ye an' the throne o'
the Almichty, to the whilk yer prayers ken
the gait as weel's the herrin' to the shores
o' Scotlan': ye hae but to lat them flee,
an' they gang straucht there. But here ye
hae to luik sae gleg efter yer boady, 'at, as
ye say, my lord, yer sowl's like to come aff
the waur, gien it binna clean forgotten."

Wallis liked the sound of his own
sentences, and a great deal more talk of
similar character followed before they got
back from the tailor's. Malcolm was tired
enough of him, and never felt the differ-
ence between man and man more strongly
than when, after leaving him, he set out
for a walk with Blue Peter, whom he found
waiting him at his lodging. On this same
Blue Peter, however, Wallis would have "I doobt there's something no richt
looked down from the height of his share | aboot it, Peter," returned Malcolm.

"There maun be a heap no richt aboot | maisters, or sic as cares for naething but it," answered Peter. coontin' an' Laitin, an' the likes o' that!"

From The Fortnightly Review.

QUESTION.

Ay, but I'm no meanin' 't jist as ye du. I had the haill thing throu' my heid last nicht, an' I canna but think there's something wrang wi' a man gien he canna hear the word o' God as weel i' the mids o' a multitude no man can number, a' made ilk PRESENT ASPECTS OF THE EASTERN ane i' the image o' the Father as weel, I say, as i' the hert o' win' an' watter, an' the lift an' the starns an' a'. Ye canna say 'at thae things are a' made i' the image o' God-i' the same w'y, at least, 'at ye can say 'to' the body an' face o' a man, for throu' them the God o' the whole earth revealed himsel' in Christ."

"Ow weel, I wad alloo what ye say, gien they war a' to be considered Christians."

"Ow, I grant we canna weel du that i' the full sense, but I doobt, gien they bena a' Christians 'at ca's themsel's that, there's a hep mair Christi-anity nor gets the credit o' its ain name. I min' weel hoo Maister Graham said to me ance 'at hoo there was something o' Him 'at made him luikin' oot o' the een o' ilka man 'at He had made; an' what wad ye ca' that but a scart or a straik o' Christi-anity?"

Weel, I kenna; but, ony gait, I canna think it can be again' the trowth o' the gospel to wuss yersel' mair alane wi yer God nor ye ever can be in sic an awfu' Babylon o' a place as this."

YEARS instead of months seem to have passed since, in last December, I wrote in this review under the heading, The True Eastern Question." A revolt against Turkish oppression was then going on in Bosnia and Herzegovina, a revolt which showed to all who kept their eyes open that the long-oppressed Slavonic subjects of the Turk had fully made up their minds to throw off his yoke once and forever. To those who had eyes to see, the insurrection which began last summer marked the beginning of an era in the history of the world. It marked that the wicked power of the Turk was doomed. From the stern determination with which the insurgents drew the sword, from the deep and universal sympathy with their cause among their free neighbors of the same blood and speech, it was plain that this revolt was no mere local or casual disturbance, but the beginning of a great uprising of a mighty people. It was plain that a ball had been sent rolling which would grow as it rolled; it was plain that a storm had burst which must in the end sweep away before it the foul fabric of oppression which European diplomatists had been so long vainly and wickedly striving to prop up. When I wrote in December last, as when I wrote on these matters twenty years back, I wrote as one of a small band, maintaining an unpopular view. We looked for no general approval; we were rejoiced if we could find so much as a stray listener here and there. The cause which I had then in hand was one which governments pooh-poohed and about which the world in general was careless. I then set forth, as I had often set forth before, as I do not doubt that I shall often have to set forth again, the "Ay ye're richt there, Peter," answered true nature of Ottoman rule, the causes Malcolm; "but there's ae p'int in 't ye which make it hopeless to look for any maunna forget; an' that is, 'at it was never reform in Ottoman rule, the one remedy i' the daytime, sae far's I min', 'at he did by which only the evils of Ottoman rule sae. The lee-lang day he was amon''s can be got rid of by getting rid of the fowk workin' his michty wark. Whan the Ottoman rule itself. In that article, I nicht cam', in which no man could work, pleaded for the oppressed Christian; but he gaed hame till's Father, as 'twar. Eh I also bore in mind the danger lest, in me! but it's weel to hae a man like the delivering the oppressed Christian, a way schuilmaister to put trowth intill ye. I might be opened for the oppression of the kenna what comes o' them 'at hae drucken | Mussulman. I said then that the direct

Na, na, Peter: I'm no sayin' that. I ken weel we're to gang intill the closet an' shut to the door. I'm only feart 'at there be something wrang in mysel' 'at taks 't ill to be amon' sae mony neibors. I'm thinkin' 'at, gien a' was richt 'ithin me, gien I lo'ed my neibor as the Lord wad hae them 'at lo'ed him lo'e ilk ane his brither, I micht be better able to pray among themay, i' the verra face of the bargainin' an' leein' a' aboot me."

"An' min' ye," said Peter, pursuing the train of his own thoughts, and heedless of Malcolm's, "'at oor Lord himsel' bude whiles to win' awa', even frae his disciples, to be him-lane wi' the Father o' 'im."

rule of the Turk must cease in every land | many merely a petty strife in lands whose whose inhabitants had risen against his names they had hardly heard. The old rule. I said that, as Bosnia and Herze- traditions also had to be struggled with. govina had risen, his rule must at once Englishmen had to be taught what their cease in Bosnia and Herzegovina; that dear ally the Turk was, what he had ever when Albania and Bulgaria should rise, been, what he ever must be. The "Rushis rule must cease in Albania and Bulga- sian hobgoblin" had to be laid, and with ria also. I said that the least that could many minds it was hard work to lay it. be accepted was the practical setting free For months and months the few who had of the revolted lands by making them trib- their eyes open were still preaching in the utary states like Servia and Roumania. wilderness. At last the Turk did our But I also proposed, in the special inter- work for us. He told a shuddering world est of the large Mahometan minority in what he really was in words stronger than Bosnia, that that particular province any that we could put together. He painted should be annexed to the Austro-Hunga- his own picture on the bloody fields of rian monarchy, as a power strong enough Bulgaria in clearer colors than we could to hinder the professors of either religion have painted it. The common heart of from doing any wrong to the professors of mankind was stirred. We who had before the other. When I said this, there was beén preaching in the wilderness found still only a local warfare in two provinces, a hearing in market-places and in couna warfare waged by the people of those cil-chambers. What we had whispered in provinces, goaded to revolt by intolerable the ear in closets was now preached on wrongs, and strengthened only by private volunteers from the lands immediately around them. It was not till several months later that there was any Bulgarian insurrection, any national war on the part of Servia and Montenegro. Meanwhile the Turk was engaged in his usual work of putting forth lying promises, promises in which the men who had arisen against him were far too wise to put trust for a moment. Meanwhile diplomatists were engaged in their usual work of pooh-poohing the great events whose greatness they could not understand. They were busy with their usual nostrums, their petty palliatives, their Andrassy notes and their Berlin memorandums. Feeble attempts indeed to stop the torrent were their proposals for this and that reform, for this and that guaranty. Such were the sops which they thought might be swallowed either by the tyrant whose one object was to get back his victims into his clutches, or by the men who had sworn to die rather than again bow their heads under his yoke. While diplomatists were wondering and pottering, men were acting. Servia and Montenegro at last came openly to the help of their brethren, and helpless ambassadors and foreign secretaries found themselves face to face with a national war and no longer with a local insurrection. And meanwhile, if men had been acting, fiends had been acting also. Bulgaria rose; how its rising was put down the world knows, in spite of the self-made Earl of Beaconsfield. And, when the world knew, the world shuddered and the world spoke. It had been hard to call public attention to what seemed to

the housetops by a mighty company of preachers. Great statesmen put forth with voice and pen the same facts, the same arguments, for which, nine months before, it was hard to get a hearing. All England spoke with one voice, a voice which spoke in the same tones in every corner of the land save two. It was only from the beershops of Oxford and the Foreign Office at Westminster that discordant notes came up. While the rest of England was speaking the words of truth and righteousness, Lord Derby was still putting forth fallacies, while his Oxford admirers raised an inarticulate howl which was not more unreasonable than the fallacies of their chief. Those who, in season and out of season, have fought this battle for twenty years and more, may perhaps be indulged in a little feeling of triumph when they see that the world has at last come round to their side. England, so long the abettor of the Turk, has at last found out what the Turk is. The nation has awakened from its slumber; it has cast away its fetters; it has dared to open its eyes and to use its reason; it has declared as one man that England will no longer have a share in maintaining that foul fabric of wrong, that Englishmen will put up with nothing short of the deliverance of the brethren against whom they have, as a nation, so deeply sinned.

The people of England have spoken; but it is not enough that the people should speak. Their rulers must be made to act; and just now we have rulers whom it is very hard to goad to action - at all events to action on behalf of right. The Times says that Lord Derby must be "educated,"

and it even implies that the work of his | for the better. I am beginning to think "education" has already begun. The that a man whom I had for ten years process seems likely to be a slow one. looked on as wicked may perhaps after all When the proposal was laid before him have been only stupid. It is a fact, and a that the revolted lands should be set free very ugly fact, that we have to look to the from the rule of the Turk, he said that he betrayer of Crete for the redress of the had no objection to such an arrangement, wrongs of Bulgaria. A good deal of edubut that there were "difficulties." Of cation will certainly be needed before we course there are difficulties in the way of so make such an instrument serve our purdoing, as in the way of everything else. pose. But as regards the man himself, The world is full of difficulties. Human life his treatment of the whole matter since chiefly consists in meeting with difficulties, the summer of the last year suggests the and in yielding to them or overcoming thought that, even in the Cretan business, them as the case may happen. Only with Lord Derby may have been simply frightmen the existence of difficulties is some- ened and puzzled, and may not have thing which stirs them up to grapple with meant any active mischief. But the misthe difficulties, and to overcome them; chief was done all the same; it may have with diplomatists the existence of diffi- been only in fright and puzzledom that he culties is thought reason enough for draw- gave the order; but the order was given ing back and doing nothing. And there is none the less; the women and children of one difficulty above all difficulties in the Crete were none the less left, and left by way of vigorous and righteous action on his bidding, to the mercy of their Turkish the part of England in this matter. That destroyers. Lord Derby, in the face of difficulty is the existence of Lord Beacons- one of the great epochs of the world's field and Lord Derby. Lord Beaconsfield history, reminds one of nothing so much we all know; Lord Derby most of us are as the lord mayor before whom Jeffreys beginning to know. A few zealous county was brought after the flight of James the members still express their confidence in Second. "The mayor," says Lord Mahim but they express it in that peculiar caulay, "was a simple man who had spent tone which men put on when they are his whole life in obscurity, and was betrying to persuade themselves that they wildered by finding himself an important still put confidence in something in which actor in a mighty revolution." they have really ceased to put confidence. Derby had not passed his whole life in But with the world in general the strange obscurity; but he seemed just as much superstition that Lord Derby is a great bewildered at finding that he had to play and wise statesmen is swiftly and openly a part in a great European crisis as ever crumbling away. It is wonderful indeed to see the change of public opinion on this head. Two or three months back it was the acknowledged creed of Liberals as well as of Conservatives that Lord Derby was to be treated with a degree of respect with which there was no need to treat any of his colleagues. Things are indeed changed now that the Times talks of "educating" him, now that the comic papers jeer at him, now that his name is spoken of, certainly not with any great respect, in writing and in speech throughout the whole land. The sagacious minister, respected on both sides, trusted on both sides, is no longer spoken of with the bated breath which was held to be the right thing even when the present year was a good deal advanced. When the English people are driven really to look into any matter, their sight is sharp enough, and they can see that a man whose one object is to do nothing is not the right man to be at the helm when there is a great work to be done. For my own part, if my own opinion of Lord Derby has changed, it has rather changed

Lord

the simple mayor could have been. The result in the two cases is indeed different. The lord mayor, being doubtless an im pulsive man, "fell into fits and was carried to his bed, whence he never rose." Lord Derby is not impulsive; so he bore up, and made speeches for Mr. Gladstone to tear into shreds.

From the first to the last utterance of Lord Derby on these matters, from his despatch of August 12, 1875, to his speech of September II, 1876, the same characteristic reigns throughout. That characteristic is blindness. In the first despatch and in the last speech there is the same. incapacity to understand what it is that is going on. On August 12, 1875, the insurrection had been at work for more than a month, and Consul Holms and Sir Henry Elliot had been sending home accounts, not of course of what really had happened, but of what this and that Turk told them had happened. Turks were of course busy lying, and Safvet Pasha was lying with greater vigor than all the rest; for he was saying that

The

some Turk-who was sent for the pur- to remain in ignorance, must himself know pose of bamboozling men who would not by this time. I will not believe that Lord be bamboozled would "redress well- Derby really wished Herzegovina to be founded complaints." But this Turk had dealt with then as Bulgaria has been dealt clearer notions of what was going on than with since. But that is the literal meanLord Derby had. He writes to say that ing of his words, when he hopes that the the insurrection is daily assuming more revolt may be put down by the resources serious proportions, that Dalmatia sym- of the Turkish government. Lord Derby pathizes and helps, that Dalmatians and could not tell then what was to happen in Montenegrins join the patriot ranks, that Bulgaria months afterwards; but, if he the position of the Servian army looks ever turned a page of modern history, if awkward, that neither Austria nor Monte- the man who talks thus calmly of Turkish negro is acting exactly as the interests of suppression of insurrections had read the Turkish tyranny would have them act. annals of the Turk even in our own cenThat is to say, the die had been cast; tury, he might have known what Turks eastern Europe had risen; warning had have done in suppressing insurrections, been given to the foul despot at the New and even in dealing with lands. where Rome that the hour of vengeance was there had been no insurrections. He had come. The Turk saw and trembled; the same chance as other men of reading Lord Derby shut his eyes and pottered. the bloody annals of Chios and Cyprus All that he could see was a local disturb- and Kassandra. Whether Lord Derby ance in Herzegovina. So when the first little band of the followers of Mahomet drew the sword, the rulers of Rome and Persia saw nothing but disturbances in a distant corner or Arabia. In Lord Derby's eyes all that was to be done was to stop disturbances, to hinder Servians, Montenegrins, and Dalmatians from joining in the disturbances. Then come the memorable words:

knew it or not, it was to the doom which had fallen on Chios and Cyprus and Kassandra, to the doom which was to fall on Bulgaria, that Lord Derby calmly sentenced the patriots of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Let the insurrection be suppressed—that is, in plain words, let every foul deed of malignant fiends be wrought through the length and breadth of the revolted lands; then there would be no difficulties, no complications, no openings. of the Eastern question; the Turk would have his way; the Foreign Office need not

Her Majesty's government are of opinion that the Turkish government should rely on their own resources to suppress the insurrection, and should deal with it as a local out-be troubled, and the foreign secretary of break of disorder, rather than give interna- England might safely slumber at his post. tional importance to it by appealing for support to other powers.

Poor, blind diplomatist! So Leo the Tenth looked calmly on the theological disorder which began with the teaching of a despised monk called Martin Luther. So Antiochos of Syria and Philip of Spain thought for a moment that not much could come of the local disorders which were stirred up by the Maccabees and the Silent Prince. In Lord Derby's eyes the glorious uprising of oppressed nations was simply a thing to be " suppressed." He wished it to be suppressed; he thought that it could be suppressed, he would fain have seen the tyrant again press his yoke upon his victims, without seeking the support of other powers. The very phrase showed that Lord Derby did not shrink from the possibility that the tyrant might be aided by other powers in his work of evil. What is meant by a Turkish government "suppressing a revolt by its own resources we know full well now. Lord Derby himself, in spite of manful efforts VOL. XVI. 803

LIVING AGE.

But so it was not to be. The hopes of Lord Derby were doomed to be disappointed. To suppress the insurrection was not quite so easy a matter as he had deemed and hoped. The mighty outburst of freedom was soon to put on "international importance," even in the eyes of.. diplomatists. The resources of the Turkish government failed to put out the fire which had been kindled. The men who had drawn the sword for right and freedom were not to be overthrown in a moment, even though their overthrow was needed to save the English Foreign Office from difficulties and complications. Deeper and deeper grew the resolve of the champions of right to listen to none of the lying promises of their tyrant, to listen to none of the feeble suggestions of diplomatists, but to fight on in the face of heaven and earth, in the cause of heaven and earth. They have fought on; even before their independent brethren came to their help, they had beaten back every assault of the barbarian invader. For months and months the boasted resources