sharp piteous cry of the squirrel—echoed by the
youth's merry laugh—and down, through that
maze of green, Margrave came, dropping on the
grass and bounding up, as Mercury might have
bounded with his wings at his heels.

"I have caught him—what pretty brown
eyes!"

Suddenly the gay expression of his face changed
to that of a savage; the squirrel had wrenched
itself half-loose, and bitten him. The poor brute!
In an instant its neck was wrung—its body dashed
on the ground; and that fair young creature,
every feature quivering with rage, was stamping
his foot on his victim again and again! It was
horrible. I caught him by the arm indignantly.
He turned round on me like a wild beast
disturbed from its prey. His teeth set, his hand
lifted, his eyes like balls of fire.

"Shame!" said I, calmly; "shame on you!"

He continued to gaze on me a moment or so;
his eye glaring—his breath panting—and then, as
if mastering himself with an involuntary effort,
his arm dropped to his side, and he said, quite
humbly, "I beg your pardon; indeed I do. I
was beside myself for a moment; I cannot bear
pain:" and he looked in deep compassion for
himself at his wounded hand. "Venomous
brute!" And he stamped again on the body of
the squirrel, already crushed out of shape.

I moved away in disgust, and walked on.

But presently I felt my arm softly drawn aside,
and a voice, dulcet as the coo of a dove, stole
its way into my ears. There was no resisting
the charm with which this extraordinary mortal
could fascinate even the hard and the cold; nor
them, perhaps, the least. For as you see in
extreme old age, when the heart seems to have
shrunk into itself, and to leave but meagre and
nipped affections for the nearest relations if grown
up, the indurated egotism softens at once towards
a playful child; or as you see in middle life, some
misanthrope, whose nature has been soured by
wrong and sorrow, shrink from his own species,
yet make friends with inferior races and respond
to the caress of a dog,—so, for the worldling or
the cynic, there was an attraction in the freshness
of this joyous favourite of Nature;—an
attraction like that of a beautiful child, spoilt
and wayward, or of a graceful animal, half
docile, half fierce.

"But," said I, with a smile, as I felt all
displeasure gone, "such indulgence of passion for
such a trifle is surely unworthy a student of
philosophy!"

"Trifle," he said, dolorously. "But I tell you
it is pain; pain is no trifle. I suffer. Look!"

I looked at the hand, which I took in mine.
The bite no doubt had been sharp; but the hand
that lay in my own was that which the Greek
sculptor gives to a gladiator; not large (the
extremities are never large in persons whose
strength comes from the just proportion of all
the members, rather than the factitious and
partial force which continued muscular
exertion will give to one part of the frame, to the
comparative weakening of the rest), but with
the firm-knit joints, the solid fingers, the finished
nails, the massive palm, the supple polished skin
in which we recognise what Nature designs the
human hand to be—the skilled, swift, mighty
doer of all those marvels which win Nature
herself from the wilderness.

"It is strange," said I, thoughtfully; "but
your susceptibility to suffering confirms my
opinion, which is different from the popular belief,
viz. that pain is most acutely felt by those
in whom the animal organisation being perfect,
and the sense of vitality exquisitely keen, every
injury or lesion finds the whole system rise,
as it were, to repel the mischief, and
communicate the consciousness of it to all those
nerves which are the sentinels to the garrison
of life. Yet my theory is scarcely borne out by
general fact. The Indian savages must have a
health as perfect as yours; a nervous system as
fine. Witness their marvellous accuracy of ear,
of eye, of scent, probably also of touch, yet they
are indifferent to physical pain; or must I
mortify your pride by saying that they have some
moral quality defective in you which enables
them to rise superior to it?"

"The Indian savages," said Margrave, sullenly,
"have not a health as perfect as mine, and in
what you call vitality—the blissful consciousness
of life—they are as sticks and stones compared
to me."

"How do you know?"

"Because I have lived with them. It is a
fallacy to suppose that the savage has a health
superior to that of the civilised man,—if the
civilised man be but temperate;—and even if
not, he has the stamina that can resist for years
what would destroy the savage in a month. As
to their fine perceptions of sense, such do not
come from exquisite equilibrium of system, but
are hereditary attributes transmitted from race
to race, and strengthened by training from
infancy. But is a pointer stronger and healthier
than a mastiff, because the pointer through long
descent and early teaching creeps stealthily to
his game and stands to it motionless? I will
talk of this later; now I suffer! Pain, pain!
Has life any ill but pain?"

It so happened that I had about me some roots
of the white lily, which I meant, before returning
home, to leave with a patient suffering from one
of those acute local inflammations, in which that
simple remedy often affords great relief. I cut
up one of these roots, and bound the cooling
leaves to the wounded hand with my handkerchief.

"There," said I. " Fortunately, if you feel pain
more sensibly than others, you will recover from
it more quickly."

And in a few minutes my companion felt
perfectly relieved, and poured out his gratitude with
an extravagance of expression and a beaming
delight of countenance which positively touched me.

"I almost feel," said I, "as I do when I have
stilled an infant's wailing, and restored it smiling
to its mother's breast."