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Green Republican John Saylor and the Preservation of
America s Wilderness 1st Edition Thomas G. Smith
Digital Instant Download
Author(s): Thomas G. Smith
ISBN(s): 9780822971054, 0822971054
Edition: 1
File Details: PDF, 3.08 MB
Year: 2006
Language: english
green REPUBLICAN
Qgreen REPUBLICAN
JOHN SAYLOR AND

TH E PR E S E RVAT ION OF

AMERICA’S WILDERNESS

Thomas G. Smith

UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH PRESS

Published by the University of Pittsburgh Press, Pittsburgh, PA 
Copyright © , University of Pittsburgh Press
All rights reserved
Manufactured in the United States of America
Printed on acid-free paper
         

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Smith, Thomas G.
Green republican : John Saylor and the preservation of America’s wilderness /
Thomas G. Smith.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN --- (cloth : alk. paper)
. Saylor, John P. (John Phillips), -. . Conservationists—United States—
Biography. I. Title.
QH.SS 
.’—dc

for Sandra
 contents

Acknowledgments ix

Trailblazer 
. Headwaters 
. Political and Environmental Trailhead 
. Maverick Republican 
. Dinosaur Canyons 
. Big Dam Foolishness 
. Wilderness and Park Advocate 
. Coal, the C&O Canal, and Kinzua 
. The Rainbow Connection 
. Passage of the Wilderness Bill 
. The Battle to Save Grand Canyon 
. Wild and Scenic Rivers 
. Base Camp 
. Greening America 
. Saving the Redwoods 
. Congressman for Conservation 
. Alaska 
. Trail’s End 

Notes 
Bibliography 
Index 
Photographs follow page 
Courtesy Special Collections and Archives, Stapleton Library,
Indiana University of Pennsylvania.
 acknowledgments

D the decade it has taken me to complete this study, I have amassed
enormous scholarly debts. I am grateful, first, to the Saylor family. Anna
Catherine Saylor Bennett, a radiant octogenarian, guided me to family haunts
and homesteads and spoke spiritedly about her brother. John Saylor’s daughter
Susan, son Phil, son-in-law Russell, and nephew David also took time to talk
with me. So, too, did former congressional colleagues, staff members on the
House Interior Committee, federal officials, and Saylor’s legislative and per-
sonal assistants.
Former leaders of the environmental community, who hold Saylor in es-
teem, continuously offered encouragement and support for this project. In the
spirit of former Wilderness Society president Olaus Murie, one even offered
the use of his retreat. This act of generosity gave my wife, Sandra, and me our
first chance to stay in a “gated community,” the gate protecting a five-mile-
long logging road that led to a lone cabin on the edge of a national wilderness
area. The cabin lacked electricity but had plenty of firewood, an adjacent me-
andering stream, and an assortment of wildlife neighbors. Our host had in-
structed us to help ourselves to the contents of the “refrigerator,” which turned
out to be a large, hollowed-out, shaded stump well stocked with cooled bever-
ages appropriate for a campfire celebration of our wedding anniversary.
As most writers realize, librarians are national treasures. From Boston to
San Francisco, the archivists with whom I worked were gracious and knowl-
edgeable. Phil Zorich and his successor, Theresa McDevitt, who now heads
Special Collections at Indiana University of Pennsylvania, where the Saylor
Papers are housed, could not have been more gracious or accommodating. Al-
though I am sure I tried their patience, Jim Douglas and Laura Robinson at
the Nichols College Library never balked at my requests for material, and Jim
helped me with computer issues. Other archivists, too numerous to mention
here, also helped guide my research.
Members of the tightly knit Nichols College community also offered en-
couragement. Academic dean Alan Rinehardt, with good humor and a poet’s
heart, has championed this project from the beginning, as have colleagues Jim

ix
Conrad, Paul Lambert, Don Leonard, Karen Tipper, and Ed Warren. I am
indebted to my friend and officemate Don Leonard for advice and fun-filled
diversions, especially at his place on Cape Cod. Andrea Becker and Kathy
Piniarski cheerfully provided an assortment of administrative support. I am
also grateful to the college for twice granting me yearlong sabbatical leaves
and for financial assistance. The college is blessed with a trustee, Robert Kup-
penheimer, who has established a fund that allows faculty members to attend
conferences and conduct research. Besides the “Kuppy Fund,” I have benefited
from a Morris K. Udall Research Grant.
I would be remiss if I did not express gratitude to three outstanding “trail
guides”: Wayne Bowdish, a high school English teacher, encouraged my earliest
feeble attempt at biography; the late Ralph Adams Brown at SUNY Cortland
inspired me to become a teacher; and the University of Connecticut’s Thomas
G. Paterson, my mentor and friend, is an exemplar of the history profession.
I am indebted to the editors of the following publications for giving me
permission to reprint portions of previously published articles: “Voice for
Wild and Scenic Rivers,” Pennsylvania History  (Autumn ): –; and
“John Kennedy, Stewart Udall, and New Frontier Conservation,” Pacific His-
torical Review  (August ); –.
Cynthia Miller, director of the University of Pittsburgh Press, encour-
aged my proposal early on and sent a supportive e-mail at an important time.
Kendra Boileau Stokes, who guided the project for a year before moving on
to another press, was a patient, skillful, good-natured editor. Deborah Meade,
Carol Sickman-Garner, and the other editors at the University of Pittsburgh
Press deftly and thoughtfully shepherded the book to publication. The anony-
mous reviewers offered valuable suggestions. And my son Tom Jr., who works
for a publisher, read the entire manuscript and improved it immeasurably. Any
errors and shortcomings that remain are mine alone.
My four children, their spouses, my in-laws, and my sister have been stal-
wart in their support. My six young grandchildren, like some of my students,
have been sources of joy and comic relief, simultaneously exhausting and en-
ergizing me. My everlasting gratitude goes to my wife, Sandra, for her many
sacrifices, for her laughter and loving support, for saving the manuscript from
errors, and for trying to save me from myself. To her I dedicate this book.

x 
green REPUBLICAN
Q
Trailblazer

S    the title of this book, Green Republican, a con-
tradiction in terms. In recent history, the Republican Party has (probably
fairly) gained a reputation for putting economic development far ahead of
environmental issues. But the Republican Party, as historians and other ob-
servers have noted, has a rich conservation tradition. At the turn of the twen-
tieth century, President Theodore Roosevelt championed the wise use of natural
resources, rather than their plunder. Through executive action, the Roosevelt
administration set aside wildlife refuges and millions of acres of timberland as
national forests and promoted aesthetic conservation by preserving natural
scenic treasures such as Grand Canyon. John Saylor, a congressman represent-
ing a western Pennsylvania coal-mining district from  to , built upon
this earlier Republican legacy.¹
John Saylor was an exceptional member of Congress who championed
conservation and environmental initiatives during the three decades follow-
ing World War II. He was far more vigorous in his support for national parks,
wilderness, and environmental protection than most of his congressional col-
leagues. Indeed, Saylor was one of the most important environmentalists of
his generation and the leading conservationist in Congress in the twentieth
century. Morris Udall (D-AZ), Frank Church (D-ID), Henry “Scoop” Jackson
(D-WA), and Clinton Anderson (D-NM) also established strong records, but
they lacked Saylor’s pioneering spirit and commitment to the cause.


 Saylor believed that once national parks and monuments had been estab-
lished, they became sacrosanct. During the s and s, when federal
dam building flourished, he helped block proposals by the powerful Bureau
of Reclamation to build dams in Dinosaur National Monument and Grand
Canyon. He was also a fervid protector of wilderness areas. In the House of
Representatives, he was the driving force behind legislation establishing the
National Wilderness Preservation System in  and the National Wild and
Scenic Rivers System of . Known as a maverick and pioneer, he battled for
national parks and wilderness at a time when such positions were unpopular.²
Several factors shaped Saylor’s evolution as an environmental activist. His
parents instilled in him a love of nature, John inheriting from his father a pas-
sion for hunting and angling. They also provided him with a strong religious
base that emphasized earth stewardship. America’s natural wonders, he once
said, stood “as special monuments to the Divine Being”: “To permit the de-
spoilment of our natural resources would be to desecrate a divine inheritance.
It is thus incumbent upon us to make provisions . . . to safeguard for succeed-
ing generations the natural endowments that are our trust.” Protecting natu-
ral splendors, he believed, would bring present and future generations closer
to the Creator.³
A World War II veteran, Saylor was intensely nationalistic and patriotic.
He believed that America’s sublime landscapes, especially its national parks,
glorified the country’s people, as well as God. A  New York Times editorial
reflected his sentiments, he said, when it spoke of the national parks as the cit-
izenry’s wisest investment: “It is an investment in health, recreation, education
and in something as simple and as profound as love of country—love of the
unique and wonderful natural fabric that is the foundation of America.” This
equation of patriotism and conservation was a pillar of Saylor’s perspective.
He was unstinting in his support of wilderness preservation, believing that the
noted historian Frederick Jackson Turner was right when he asserted in the early
s that America’s distinct democratic, enterprising, individualistic spirit had
been shaped by the wilderness experience. Because wilderness had helped
forge the American identity, large tracts should be preserved to inspire future
generations.⁴
Like many wilderness advocates of his era, Saylor viewed wilderness as an
uninhabited and untamed natural landscape, downplaying or ignoring the fact
that Native Americans had earlier inhabited and abandoned these wild areas.
Indeed, as historian Mark Spence has shown, in creating some of the earliest

 
national parks, such as Yellowstone, federal officials dispossessed Native people
so that the reserves would be more “wild.” Saylor, although typical of his time
in insisting that new parks and wilderness areas be uninhabited, did not ad-
vocate the dispossession of Native Americans.⁵
Theodore Roosevelt served as Saylor’s political and environmental hero.
Like Roosevelt, Saylor sought as a policy maker to strike a balance between the
use and the preservation of federally controlled natural resources, insisting that
the two goals were not inherently in conflict: “Through wise planning and use
we can both preserve and develop. The problem with which we are faced is,
of course, how to achieve the requisite planning and proper use for the great-
est benefit.” Too often, he maintained, federal planners slighted the goal of
preservation.⁶
Saylor took a proprietary interest in public lands. Though located mainly
in the West, these  million acres, he insisted, belonged to the American
people, not just to the residents of the states where the lands were located.
Given constitutional authority to make laws and regulations relating to these
lands, Congress, he said, should act in the national interest. Representatives
should not allow the public domain in the West to be ravaged as it had been
in the East. Paved roads, commercial enterprises, cities, and modern conven-
iences are “good,” he once said, “but they are not good enough.” Americans
also need natural landscapes for beauty, inspiration, and solitude; consequently,
large tracts of unspoiled Western terrain should be preserved for aesthetic and
recreational purposes.⁷
Early in his career, Saylor had some encounters with nature that reinforced
his commitment to the protection of national parks and wilderness areas. His
most enriching experience occurred in  when he visited Dinosaur National
Monument on the Colorado-Utah border. After rafting down the Yampa and
Green rivers, he became convinced that a proposed federal dam would dese-
crate “one of the most impressive wilderness areas in all the world . . . with its
tremendous canyons of unparalleled beauty.” At the conclusion of that raft
trip, river guide Bus Hatch informed the Sierra Club’s David Brower: “I think
Congressman Saylor is going to help us out.” As Brower later recalled, “Never
did the word ‘help’ have so much territory to cover as in what was about to be
done to save rivers, national parks, wilderness, and an over-all sane view to-
wards a beautiful planet.” Saylor thus helped save the Dinosaur canyons and
several other primeval landscapes.⁸ Over the next two decades, Saylor acted as
a towering figure in environmental policy making. He could be intimidating:

 
he was blunt, forceful and—at six feet, four inches—physically imposing. But
he was also well liked and respected on both sides of the aisle as an affable,
hardworking congressman who was knowledgeable about environmental is-
sues. Generally bipartisan, he worked comfortably with Democrats and Repub-
licans, conservatives and liberals, and was adept at compromise and coalition
building.⁹
Throughout his legislative career, Saylor served on the House Committee
on Interior and Insular Affairs. This committee, dominated by Westerners,
held jurisdiction over legislation relating to Native Americans, public lands,
conservation, national parks, and irrigation. During the s and early s,
Saylor, as the ranking minority member on the committee, wielded great in-
fluence. During this time period, as political scientist Richard F. Fenno has ob-
served, regional differences outweighed party affiliation on the committee. Even
though Saylor was one of the few Easterners on the committee, Westerners
were forced to cooperate with him because they were vastly outnumbered on
the House floor. If Saylor opposed a committee bill, he could round up enough
Republican and non-Western votes on the floor to kill it.¹⁰
Since there were no Native Americans, federal lands, or national parks in
his district, Saylor could generally vote his conscience on environmental legis-
lation. “Of course,” as one former legislator observed, “every Congressman
likes to vote his convictions when he can, but he also wants to keep his seat.”
Thus, like all successful politicians, Saylor also worked diligently to retain his
position.¹¹
As the representative of a major coal-producing area, he had to balance
his concern for wilderness and the environment with his goal of protecting
the economic livelihood of his constituents. Fortunately for Saylor, preserva-
tion concerns at large often coincided with interests at home. He opposed fed-
eral hydroelectric and atomic power plants, in large measure, because they
competed with coal as an energy source, referring to them as “miner displace-
ment programs.” In  alone, he pointed out, the Bureau of Reclamation
built hydroelectric plants that produced . million kilowatts of electricity: “As
a consequence, the coal industry will lose about  million tons of business,
with a wage loss of $ million to miners.” The industry was further injured
by public power plants constructed by the Army Corps of Engineers and the
Atomic Energy Commission. Saylor, a Westerner grumbled, “is against hydro-
power dams as much as a man can be. He is against them  hours a day, seven
days a week, forever and ever. He is against hydropower dams because they os-

 
tensibly do violence to pretty canyons. But he also is against them because they
allegedly compete with coal-fired electric plants fed by his state’s coal diggers
who live in his district. And he would not be much of a congressman if he was
any other way either.”¹²
Nevertheless, while Saylor was a fervent defender of coal and private power,
his environmental activism went far beyond the narrow scope of his district.
He loved the rugged outdoors and was passionate about defending national
parks, preserving wilderness, and protecting the environment. He supported
air and water quality legislation even though it proved burdensome to the coal,
steel, and utility industries. In short, Saylor’s environmentalism was genuine,
rooted in his patriotism, his religion, and his upbringing.
In spite of his membership in the Republican Party, Saylor’s commitment
to the cause was seldom, if ever, doubted by conservation leaders, who devel-
oped a friendly working relationship with him. He was especially close with Joe
Penfold of the Izaak Walton League, Charles Callison of the National Wildlife
Federation and later the Audubon Society, Howard Zahniser of the Wilderness
Society, and David Brower of the Sierra Club. During the late s and early
s, Saylor also built a trusting relationship with Stewart Brandborg and
Michael McCloskey, who succeeded Zahniser and Brower in leadership posi-
tions with the Wilderness Society and the Sierra Club. Saylor communicated
with these individuals, read their organizations’ publications, and rarely de-
parted from the positions they took. Indeed, national conservation leaders often
met in Saylor’s office: “People would leave messages there for us, we would
leave them for others, and we would get news and advice from Mr. Saylor’s
top assistants, Ann Dunbar . . . and Harry Fox,” Brower recalled. “Then Coach
Saylor would come in and we would talk about our plans and hopes and learn
of his, and why ours might or might not work. There is nothing uncommon
about this relationship,” he continued, “but it becomes extraordinary when it
goes on for two decades, and when you count up the conservation victories
that simply would not have happened without the counsel, encouragement,
and loving kindness . . . that John Saylor gave.”¹³
While this book carries no political agenda, it is difficult to resist specu-
lating on how Saylor would view the modern conservation movement. He most
assuredly would be displeased with the degree of rancor and partisanship that
has beset congressional discourse. He would certainly berate zealous environ-
mentalists who engage in monkey wrenching and other acts of eco-violence.
And he would be disenchanted with his party’s environmental record over the

 
past three decades. He decried the lack of funding for the National Park Ser-
vice as a member of Congress, deplored attempted raids on the national parks
by timber companies, and opposed drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife
Refuge during the energy crisis of the early s; it is safe to assume he would
probably maintain these positions today. Above all, he would no doubt en-
courage Democrats and Republicans to put aside party differences and work
to protect the national park system, wilderness, and the planet. And he would
be pleased if Democrats and Republicans alike took inspiration from his envi-
ronmental record.

 
Q one
Headwaters

A    depicting grazing livestock marked the dirt road to
Bellevue Farm in the elegant horse and cattle country of northern Virginia. A
stocky, eighty-seven-year-old man with lush white hair emerged from the ranch
house to greet the visitor and direct him to the garage. The inside of the build-
ing was empty except for the walls, which were covered with framed photo-
graphs of prominent political personalities of the s and s. “This is my
rogue’s gallery, and here is the chief rogue,” declared Floyd Dominy, pointing
to Republican representative John P. Saylor of Pennsylvania. The picture fea-
tured a smiling Saylor holding a clenched fist in Dominy’s face. That image,
Dominy recalled, perfectly captured Saylor’s “bombast and amicable nature.”
Unlike some leading conservationists of the day, Dominy observed, Saylor was
“earthy, unsanctimonious, likable, and a real man” who liked to hunt and fish.
While good-natured, Saylor was also strong in his convictions and impossible
to bully.¹
During the s and s, Dominy and Saylor represented opposite posi-
tions in the American conservation movement. As head of the Interior Depart-
ment’s Bureau of Reclamation, Dominy generally favored the development of
public resources, especially federally constructed hydroelectric dams on West-
ern rivers. Saylor, on the other hand, championed the inviolability of the na-
tional park system, the preservation of wilderness, and the protection of the
environment, long before any of these causes became fashionable. From the
mid-s to the mid-s, he was the preeminent preservationist in the House


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 As he stood for a moment looking out upon the sea, which was
one mass of silvery ripples, he heard himself called by name. He
looked up. The Gobellis had a private sitting-room facing the Digue
on the ground floor, and the Baroness was leaning out of the open
window, and beckoning to him.
“Won’t you come in and ’ave a whiskey and soda?” she asked.
“The Baron ’as ’is own whiskey ’ere, real Scotch, none of your nasty
Belgian stuff, ’alf spirits of wine and ’alf varnish! Come along! We’ve
got a jolly little parlour, and my little friend ’Arriet Brandt shall sing to
you! Unless you’re off on some lark of your own, eh?”
“No! indeed,” replied Ralph, “I was only wondering what I should
do with myself for the next hour. Thank you so much! I’ll come with
pleasure.”
And in another minute he was seated in the company of the Baron
and Baroness and Harriet Brandt.
 CHAPTER VI.
The day had heralded in the Bataille de Fleurs and all Heyst was
en fête. The little furnished villas, hired for the season, were all built
alike, with a balcony, on the ground floor, which was transformed into
a veritable bower for the occasion. Villa Imperatrice vied with Villa
Mentone and Villa Sebastien, as to which decoration should be the
most beautiful and effective, and the result was a long line of arbours
garlanded with every sort of blossom. From early morning, the
occupants were busy, entwining their pillars with evergreens,
interspersed with flags and knots of ribbon, whilst the balustrades
were laden with growing flowers and the tables inside bore vases of
severed blooms. One balcony was decorated with corn, poppies and
bluets, whilst the next would display pink roses mixed with the
delicate blue of the sea-nettle, and the third would be all yellow silk
and white marguerites. The procession of charrettes, and the Bataille
itself was not to commence till the afternoon, so the visitors crowded
the sands as usual in the morning, leaving the temporary owners of
the various villas, to toil for their gratification, during their absence.
Margaret Pullen felt sad as she sat in the hotel balcony, watching the
proceedings on each side of her. She had intended her baby’s
perambulator to take part in the procession of charrettes, and had
ordered a quantity of white field-lilies with which to decorate it. It was
to be a veritable triumph—so she and Miss Leyton had decided
between themselves—and she had fondly pictured how lovely little
Ethel would look with her fluffy yellow hair, lying amongst the
blossoms, but now baby was too languid and ill to be taken out of
doors, and Margaret had given all the flowers to the little Montagues,
who were trimming their mail-cart with them, in their own fashion. As
she sat there, with a pensive, thoughtful look upon her face, Harriet
Brandt, dressed in a costume of grass-cloth, with a broad-brimmed
hat, nodding with poppies and green leaves, that wonderfully
became her, on her head, entered the balcony with an eager, excited
appearance.
 “O! Mrs. Pullen! have you seen the Baroness?” she exclaimed.
“We are going to bathe this morning. Aren’t you coming down to the
sands?”
“No! Miss Brandt, not to-day. I am unhappy about my dear baby! I
am sure you will be sorry to hear that she has been quite ill all night
—so restless and feverish!”
“O! she’ll be all right directly her teeth come through!” replied
Harriet indifferently, as her eyes scanned the scene before them.
“There’s the Baroness! She’s beckoning to me! Good-bye!” and
without a word of sympathy or comfort, she rushed away to join her
friends.
“Like the way of the world!” thought Margaret, as she watched the
girl skimming over the sands, “but somehow—I didn’t think she
would be so heartless!”
Miss Leyton and her fiancé had strolled off after breakfast to take
a walk, and Mrs. Pullen went back to her own room, and sat down
quietly to needlework. She was becoming very anxious for Doctor
Phillips’ arrival; had even written to England to ask him to hurry it if
possible—for her infant, though not positively ill, rejected her food so
often that she was palpably thinner and weaker.
After she had sat there for some time, she took up her field
glasses, to survey the bathers on the beach. She had often done so
before, when confined to the hotel—it afforded her amusement to
watch their faces and antics. On the present occasion, she had no
difficulty in distinguishing the form of the Baroness Gobelli, looking
enormous as, clad in a most conspicuous bathing costume, she
waddled from her machine into the water, loudly calling attention to
her appearance, from all assembled on the sands, as she went. The
Baron, looking little less comical, advanced to conduct his spouse
down to the water, whilst after them flew a slight boyish figure in
yellow, with a mane of dark hair hanging down her back, which
Margaret immediately recognised as that of Harriet Brandt.
She was dancing about in the shallow water, shrieking whenever
she made a false step, and clinging hold of the Baron’s hand, when
Margaret saw another gentleman come up to them, and join in the
ring. She turned the glasses upon him and saw to her amazement
that it was her brother-in-law. Her first feeling was that of annoyance.
There was nothing extraordinary or improper, in his joining the
Baroness’s party—men and women bathed promiscuously in Heyst,
and no one thought anything of it. But that Ralph should voluntarily
mix himself up with the Gobellis, after Elinor’s particular request that
he should keep aloof from them, was a much more serious matter.
And by the way, that reminded her, where was Elinor the while?
Margaret could not discern her anywhere upon the sands, and
wondered if she had also been persuaded to bathe. She watched
Captain Pullen, evidently trying to induce Miss Brandt to venture
further into the water, holding out both hands for her protection,—she
also saw her yield to his persuasion, and leaving go of her hold on
the Herr Baron, trust herself entirely to the stranger’s care. Mrs.
Pullen turned from the window with a sigh. She hoped there were not
going to be any “ructions” between Ralph and Elinor—but she would
not have liked her to see him at that moment. She bestowed a silent
benediction, “not loud but deep” on the foreign fashion of
promiscuous bathing, and walked across the corridor to her friend’s
room, to see if she had returned to the Hotel. To her surprise, she
found Miss Leyton dismantled of her walking attire, soberly seated at
her table, writing letters.
“Why! Elinor,” she said, “I thought you were out with Ralph!”
The young lady was quite composed.
“So I was,” she answered, “until half an hour ago! But as he then
expressed his determination to bathe, I left him to his own devices
and came back to write my letters.”
“Would he not have preferred your waiting on the sands till he
could join you again?”
“I did not ask him! I should think he would hardly care for me to
watch him whilst bathing, and I am sure I should not consent to do
so!”
 “But everybody does it here, Elinor, and if you did not care to go
down to the beach, you might have waited for him on the Digue.”
“My dear Margaret, I am not in the habit of dancing attendance
upon men. It is their business to come after me! If Ralph is eager for
another walk after his dip, he can easily call for me here!”
“True! and he can as easily go for his walk with any stray
acquaintance he may pick up on the sands!”
“O! if he should prefer it, he is welcome to do so,” replied Elinor,
resuming her scribbling.
“My dear Elinor, I don’t think you quite understand Ralph! He has
been terribly spoilt, you know, and when men have been
accustomed to attention they will take it wherever they can get it! He
has come over here expressly to be with you, so I think you should
give him every minute of your time. Men are fickle creatures, my
dear! It will take some time yet to despoil them of the idea that
women were made for their convenience.”
“I am afraid the man is not born yet for whose convenience I was
made!”
“Well! you know the old saying: ‘Most women can catch a man, but
it takes a clever woman to keep him.’ I don’t mean to insinuate that
you are in any danger of losing Ralph, but I think he’s quite worth
keeping, and, I believe, you think so too!”
“And I mean to keep him!” replied Miss Leyton, as she went on
writing.
Margaret did not venture to give her any further hints, but returned
to her own room, and took another look through her spyglass.
The bathers in whom she was interested had returned to their
machines by this time, and presently emerged, “clothed and in their
right minds,” Miss Brandt looking more attractive than before, with
her long hair hanging down her back to dry. And then, that occurred
which she had been anticipating. Captain Pullen, having taken a
survey of the beach, and seeing none of his own party there, climbed
with Harriet Brandt to where they were high and dry above the tide,
and threw himself down on the hot, loose sand by her side, whilst the
Baron and Baroness with a laughing injunction to the two young
people, to take care of themselves, toiled up to the Digue and
walked off in another direction.
When they all met at déjeuner, she attacked her brother-in-law on
the subject.
“Have you been bathing all this while?” she said to him, “you must
have stayed very long in the water!”
“O! dear no!” he replied, “I wasn’t in above a quarter of an hour!”
“And what have you been doing since?”
“Strolling about, looking for you and Elinor!” said Captain Pullen.
“Why the dickens didn’t you come out this lovely morning?”
“I could not leave baby!” cried Margaret shortly.
“And I was writing,” chimed in Elinor.
“Very well, ladies, if you prefer your own company to mine, of
course I have nothing to say against it! But I suppose you are not
going to shut yourselves up this afternoon!”
“O! no. It is a public duty to attend the Bataille de Fleurs. Have you
bought any confetti, Ralph?”
“I have! Miss Brandt was good enough to show me where to get
them, and we are well provided. There is to be a race between lady
jockeys at the end of the Digue too, I perceive!”
“What, with horses?”
“I conclude so. I see they have railed in a portion of ground for the
purpose,” replied Captain Pullen.
“’Ow could they race without ’orses?” called out the Baroness.
Harriet Brandt did not join in the conversation, but she was gazing
all the while at Ralph Pullen—not furtively as she had done the day
before, but openly, and unabashedly, as though she held a
proprietary right in him. Margaret noticed her manner at once and
interpreted it aright, but Miss Leyton, true to her principles, never
raised her eyes in her direction and ignored everything that came
from that side of the table.
Mrs. Pullen was annoyed; she knew how angry Elinor would be if
she intercepted any telegraphic communication between her lover
and Miss Brandt; and she rose from the table as soon as possible, in
order to avert such a catastrophe. She had never considered her
brother-in-law a very warm wooer, and she fancied that his manner
towards Miss Leyton was more indifferent than usual. She took one
turn with them along the Digue to admire the flower-bedecked villas,
which were in full beauty, and then returned to her nursery, glad of
an excuse to leave them together, and give Elinor a chance of
becoming more cordial and affectionate to Ralph, than she had yet
appeared to be. The lovers had not been alone long, however,
before they were waylaid, to the intense disgust of Elinor, by Harriet
Brandt and her friend, Olga Brimont.
Still further to her annoyance, Captain Pullen seemed almost to
welcome the impertinent interference of the two girls, who could
scarcely have had the audacity to join their company, unless he had
invited them to do so.
“The charrettes are just about to start!” exclaimed Harriet. “O! they
are lovely, and such dear little children! I am so glad that the Bataille
de Fleurs takes place to-day, because my friend’s brother, Alfred
Brimont, is coming to take her to Brussels the day after to-morrow!”
“Brussels is a jolly place. Mademoiselle Brimont will enjoy herself
there,” said Ralph. “There are theatres, and balls and picture-
galleries, and every pleasure that a young lady’s heart can desire!”
“Have you been to Brussels?” asked Harriet.
“Yes! when I was a nasty little boy in jacket and trousers. I was
placed at Mr. Jackson’s English school there, in order that I might
learn French, but I’m afraid that was the last thing I acquired. The
Jackson boys were known all over the town for the greatest
nuisances in it!”
“What did you do?”
 “What did we not do? We tore up and down the rue Montagne de
la Cour at all hours of the day, shouting and screaming and getting
into scrapes. We ran up bills at the shops which we had no money to
pay—we appeared at every place of amusement—and we made
love to all the school-girls, till we had become a terror to the school-
mistresses.”
“What naughty boys!” remarked Miss Brandt, with a side glance at
Miss Leyton. She did not like to say all she thought before this very
stiff and proper young English lady. “But Captain Pullen,” she
continued, “where are the confetti? Have you forgotten them? Shall I
go and buy some more?”
“No! no! my pockets are stuffed with them,” he said, producing two
bags, of which he handed Harriet one. Her thanks were conveyed by
throwing a large handful of tiny pieces of blue and white and pink
paper (which do duty for the more dangerous chalk sugar-plums) at
him and which covered his tweed suit and sprinkled his fair hair and
moustaches. He returned the compliment by flying after her
retreating figure, and liberally showering confetti upon her.
“O! Ralph! I do hope you are not going to engage in this horse-
play,” exclaimed Elinor Leyton, “because if so I would rather return to
the Hotel. Surely, we may leave such vulgarities to the common
people, and—Miss Harriet Brandt!”
“What nonsense!” he replied. “It’s evident you’ve never been in
Rome during the Carnival! Why, everyone does it! It’s the national
custom. If you imagine I’m going to stand by, like a British tourist and
stare at everything, without joining in the fun, you’re very much
mistaken!”
“But is it fun?” questioned Miss Leyton.
“To me it is! Here goes!” he cried, as he threw a handful of paper
into the face of a passing stranger, who gave him as good as she
had got, in return.
“I call it low—positively vulgar,” said Miss Leyton, “to behave so
familiarly with people one has never seen before—of whose
antecedents one knows nothing! I should be very much surprised if
the mob behaved in such a manner towards me. Oh!”
The exclamation was induced by the action of some young épicier,
or hotel garçon, who threw a mass of confetti into her face with such
violence as almost for the moment to blind her.
“Ha! ha! ha!” roared Ralph Pullen with his healthy British lungs, as
he saw her outraged feelings depicted in her countenance.
“I thought you’d get it before long!” he said, as she attempted to
brush the offending paper off her mantle.
“It has not altered my opinion of the indecency of the custom!” she
replied.
“Never mind!” he returned soothingly. “Here come the charrettes.”
They were really a charming sight. On one cart was drawn a boat,
with little children dressed as fishermen and fisherwomen—another
represented a harvest-field, with the tiny haymakers and reapers—
whilst a third was piled with wool to represent snow, on the top of
which were seated three little girls attired as Esquimaux. The mail-
carts, and perambulators belonging to the visitors to Heyst were also
well represented, and beautifully trimmed with flowers. The first prize
was embowered in lilies and white roses, whilst its tiny inmate was
seated in state as the Goddess Flora, with a wreath twined in her
golden curls. The second was taken by a gallant Neapolitan
fisherman of about four years old, who wheeled a mail cart of pink
roses, in which sat his little sisters, dressed as angels with large
white wings. The third was a wheel-barrow hidden in moss and
narcissi, on which reposed a Sleeping Beauty robed in white tissue,
with a coronal of forget-me-nots.
Harriet Brandt fell into ecstasies over everything she saw. When
pleased and surprised, she expressed herself more like a child than
a young woman, and became extravagant and ungovernable. She
tried to kiss each baby that took part in the procession, and thrust
coins into their chubby hands to buy bonbons and confetti with.
Captain Pullen thought her conduct most natural and unaffected; but
Miss Leyton insisted that it was all put on for effect. Olga Brimont
tried to put in a good word for her friend.
“Harriet is very fond of children,” she said, “but she has never seen
any—there were no children at the Convent under ten years of age,
so she does not know how to make enough of them when she meets
them. She wants to kiss every one. Sometimes, I tell her, I think she
would like to eat them. But she only means to be kind!”
“I am sure of that!” said Captain Pullen.
“But she should be told,” interposed Elinor, “that it is not the
custom in civilised countries for strangers to kiss every child they
meet, any more than it is to speak before being introduced, or to
bestow their company where it is not desired. Miss Brandt has a
great deal to learn in that respect before she can enter English
Society!”
As is often the case when a woman becomes unjust in abusing
another, Miss Leyton made Captain Pullen say more to cover her
discourtesy, than, in other circumstances, he would have done.
“Miss Brandt,” he said slowly, “is so beautiful, that she will have a
great deal forgiven her, that would not be overlooked in a plainer
woman.”
“That may be your opinion, but it is not mine,” replied Miss Leyton.
Her tone was so acid, that it sent him flying from her side, to battle
with his confetti against the tribe of Montagues, who fortunately for
the peace of all parties, joined their forces to theirs, and after some
time spent on the Digue, they returned, a large party, to the Hotel.
It was not until they had sat down to dinner, that they remembered
they had never been to see the lady jockey race.
“He! he! he!” laughed Madame Gobelli, “but I did, and you lost
something, I can tell you! We ’ad great difficulty to get seats, but
when we did, it was worth it, wasn’t it, Gustave?”
“You said so, mein tear!” replied the Baron, gravely.
 “And you thought so, you old rascal! don’t you tell me! I saw your
wicked eyes glozing at the gals in their breeches and boots! There
weren’t any ’orses, after all, Captain Pullen, but sixteen gals with
different-coloured jackets on and top boots and tight white breeches
—such a sight you never saw! Gustave ’ere did ’ave a treat! As for
Bobby, when I found we couldn’t get out again, because of the
crowd, I tied my ’andkerchief over ’is eyes, and made him put ’is ’ead
in my lap!”
“Dear! dear!” cried Ralph, laughing, “was it as bad as that,
Madame?”
“Bad! my dear boy! It was as bad as it could be! It’s a mercy you
weren’t there, or we shouldn’t ’ave seen you ’ome again so soon!
There were the sixteen gals, with their tight breeches and their short
racing jackets, and a fat fellow dressed like a huntsman whipping
’em round and round the ring, as if they were so much cattle! You
should ’ave seen them ’op, when he touched ’em up with the lash of
’is whip. I expect they’ve never ’ad such a tingling since the time their
mothers smacked ’em! There was a little fat one, there! I wish you
could ’ave seen ’er, when ’e whipped ’er to make ’er ’urry! It was
comical! She ’opped like a kangaroo!”
“And what was the upshot of it all? Who won?” asked Ralph.
“O! I don’t know! I got Gustave out as soon as I could! I wasn’t
going to let ’im spend the whole afternoon, watching those gals
’opping. There were ’is eyes goggling out of ’is ’ead, and his lips
licking each other, as if ’e was sucking a sugar-stick—”
“Mein tear! mein tear!” interposed the unfortunate Baron.
“You go on with your dinner, Gustave, and leave me alone! I saw
you! And no more lady jockey races do you attend, whilst we’re in
this Popish country. They ain’t good for you.”
“I’m very thankful that I have been saved such a dangerous
experiment,” said Captain Pullen, “though if I thought that you would
tie your handkerchief over my eyes, and put my head in your lap,
Madame, I should feel tempted to try it as soon as dinner is over!”
 “Go along with you, you bad boy!” chuckled the Baroness, “there’s
something else to see this evening! They are going to ’ave a
procession of lanterns as soon as it’s dark!”
“And it is to stop in front of every hotel,” added Harriet, “and the
landlords are going to distribute bonbons and gâteaux amongst the
lantern-bearers.”
“O! we must not miss that on any account!” replied Captain Pullen,
addressing himself to her in reply.
Margaret and Elinor thought, when the time came, that they should
be able to see the procession of lanterns just as well from the
balcony as when mingled with the crowd, so they brought their work
and books down there, and sat with Ralph, drinking coffee and
conversing of all that had occurred. The Baroness had disappeared,
and Harriet Brandt had apparently gone with her—a fact for which
both ladies were inwardly thankful.
Presently, as the dusk fell, the procession of lanterns could be
seen wending its way from the further end of the Digue. It was a very
pretty and fantastical sight. The bearers were not only children—
many grown men and women took part in it, and the devices into
which the Chinese lanterns had been formed were quaint and clever.
Some held a ring around them, as milkmaids carry their pails—
others held crosses and banners designed in tiny lanterns, far above
their heads. One, which could be seen topping all the rest, was
poised like a skipping-rope over the bearer’s shoulders, whilst the
coloured lanterns swung inside it, like a row of bells. The members
of the procession shouted, or sang, or danced, or walked steadily, as
suited their temperaments, and came along, a merry crowd, up and
down the Digue, stopping at the various hotels for largesse in the
shape of cakes and sugar-plums.
Ralph Pullen found his eyes wandering more than once in the
direction of the Baroness’s sitting-room, to see if he could catch a
glimpse of her or her protégée (as Harriet Brandt seemed to be now
universally acknowledged to be), but he heard no sound, nor caught
a glimpse of them, and concluded in consequence that they had left
the hotel again.
 “Whoever is carrying that skipping-rope of lanterns seems to be in
a merry mood,” observed Margaret after a while, “for it is jumping up
and down in the most extravagant manner! She must be dancing! Do
look, Elinor!”
“I see! I suppose this sort of childish performance amuses a
childish people, but for my own part, I think once of it is quite
enough, and am thankful that we are not called upon to admire it in
England!”
“O! I think it is rather interesting,” remarked Margaret, “I only wish
my dear baby had been well enough to enjoy it! How she would have
screamed and cooed at those bright-coloured lanterns! But when I
tried to attract her attention to them just now, she only whined to be
put into her cot again. How thankful I shall be to see dear Doctor
Phillips to-morrow!”
The procession had reached the front of the Hotel by this time,
and halted there for refreshment. The waiters, Jules and Phillippe
and Henri, appeared with plates of dessert and cakes and threw
them indiscriminately amongst the people. One of the foremost to
jump and scramble to catch the falling sweetmeats was the girl who
carried the lantern-skipping rope above her head, and in whom
Ralph Pullen, to his astonishment, recognised Harriet Brandt. There
she was, fantastically dressed in a white frock, and a broad yellow
sash, with her magnificent hair loose and wreathed with scarlet
flowers. She looked amazingly handsome, like a Bacchante, and her
appearance and air of abandon, sent the young man’s blood into his
face and up to the roots of his fair hair.
“Surely!” exclaimed Margaret, “that is never Miss Brandt!”
“Yes! it is,” cried Harriet, “I’m having the most awful fun! Why don’t
you come too? I’ve danced the whole way up the Digue, and it is so
warm! I wish the waiters would give us something to drink! I’ve eaten
so many bonbons I feel quite sick!”
“What will you take, Miss Brandt?” asked Captain Pullen eagerly,
“limonade or soda water?”
 “A limonade, please! You are good!” she replied, as he handed her
the tumbler over the balcony balustrades. “Come along and dance
with me!”
“I cannot! I am with my sister and Miss Leyton!” he replied.
“O! pray do not let us prevent you,” said Elinor in her coldest voice;
“Margaret was just going upstairs and I am quite ready to
accompany her!”
“No, no, Elinor,” whispered Mrs. Pullen with a shake of her head,
“stay here, and keep Ralph company!”
“But it is nearly ten o’clock,” replied Miss Leyton, consulting her
watch, “and I have been on my feet all day! and feel quite ready for
bed. Good-night, Ralph!” she continued, offering him her hand.
“Well! if you two are really going to bed, I shall go too,” said
Captain Pullen, rising, “for there will be nothing for me to do here
after you’re gone!”
“Not even to follow the procession?” suggested Miss Leyton, with
a smile.
“Don’t talk nonsense!” he rejoined crossly. “Am I the sort of man to
go bobbing up and down the Digue amongst a parcel of children?”
He shook hands with them both, and walked away rather sulkily to
his own quarter of the hotel. But he did not go to bed. He waited until
some fifteen minutes had elapsed, and then telling himself that it was
impossible to sleep at that hour, and that if Elinor chose to behave
like a bear, it was not his fault, he came downstairs again and
sauntered out on the sea front.
It was very lonely there at that moment. The procession had
turned and gone down to the other end again, where its lights and
banners could be seen, waving about in the still summer air.
“Why shouldn’t the girl jump about and enjoy herself if she
chooses,” thought Ralph Pullen. “Elinor makes no allowances for
condition or age, but would have everyone as prim and old-maidish
as herself. I declare she gets worse each time I see her! A nice sort
of wife she will make if this kind of thing goes on! But by Jingo! if we
are ever married, I’ll take her prudery out of her, and make her—
what? The woman who commences by pursing her mouth up at
everything, ends by opening it wider than anybody else! There’s
twice as much harm in a prude as in one of these frank open-hearted
girls, whose eyes tell you what they’re thinking of, the first time you
see them!”
He had been strolling down the Digue as he pondered thus, and
now found himself meeting the procession again.
“Come and dance with me,” cried Harriet Brandt, who, apparently
as fresh as ever, was still waving her branch of lanterns to the
measure of her steps. He took her hand and tried to stop her.
“Haven’t you had about enough of this?” he said, “I’m sure you
must be tired. Here’s a little boy without a lantern! Give him yours to
hold, and come for a little walk with me!”
The touch of his cool hand upon her heated palm, seemed to
rouse all the animal in Harriet Brandt’s blood. Her hand, very slight
and lissom, clung to his with a force of which he had not thought it
capable, and he felt it trembling in his clasp.
“Come!” he repeated coaxingly, “you mustn’t dance any more or
you will overtire yourself! Come with me and get cool and rest!”
She threw her branch of lanterns to the boy beside her
impetuously.
“Here!” she cried, “take them! I don’t want them any more! And
take me away,” she continued to Ralph, but without letting go of his
hand. “You are right! I want—I want—rest!”
Her slight figure swayed towards him as he led her out of the
crowd, and across a narrow street, to where the road ran behind all
the houses and hotels, and was dark and empty and void. The din of
the voices, and the trampling of feet, and the echo of the songs still
reached them, but they could see nothing—the world was on the
Digue, and they were in the dusk and quietude together—and alone.
Ralph felt the slight form beside him lean upon his shoulder till
their faces almost touched. He threw his arm about her waist. Her
hot breath fanned his cheek.
“Kiss me!” she murmured in a dreamy voice.
Captain Pullen was not slow to accept the invitation so confidingly
extended. What Englishman would be? He turned his face to Harriet
Brandt’s, and her full red lips met his own, in a long-drawn kiss, that
seemed to sap his vitality. As he raised his head again, he felt faint
and sick, but quickly recovering himself, he gave her a second kiss
more passionate, if possible, than the first. Then the following
whispered conversation ensued between them.
“Do you know,” he commenced, with his head close to hers, “that
you are the very jolliest little girl that I have ever met!”
“And you—you are the man I have dreamt of, but never seen till
now!”
“How is that? Am I so different from the rest of my sex?”
“Very—very different! So strong and brave and beautiful!”
“Dear little girl! And so you really like me?”
“I love you,” said Harriet feverishly, “I loved you the first minute we
met.”
“And I love you! You’re awfully sweet and pretty, you know!”
“Do you really think so? What would Mrs. Pullen say if she heard
you?”
“Mrs. Pullen is not the keeper of my conscience. But she must not
hear it.”
“O! no! nor Miss Leyton either!”
“Most certainly not Miss Leyton. She is a terrible prude! She would
be awfully shocked!”
“It must be a secret,—just between you and me!” murmured the
girl.
“Just so! A sweet little secret, all our own, and nobody else’s!”
 And then the fair head and the dark one came again in
juxtaposition, and the rest was lost in—Silence!
 CHAPTER VII.
Doctor Phillips had not been in the Hôtel Lion d’Or five minutes
before Margaret Pullen took him upstairs to see her baby. She was
becoming terribly anxious about her. They encountered Captain
Ralph Pullen on the staircase.
“Hullo! young man, and what have you been doing to yourself?”
exclaimed the doctor.
He was certainly looking ill. His face was chalky white, and his
eyes seemed to have lost their brightness and colour.
“Been up racketing late at night?” continued Doctor Phillips. “What
is Miss Leyton about, not to look after you better?”
“No, indeed, Doctor,” replied the young man with a smile, “I am
sure my sister-in-law will testify to the good hours I have kept since
here. But I have a headache this morning—a rather bad one,” he
added, with his hand to the nape of his neck.
“Perhaps this place doesn’t agree with you—it was always rather
famous for its smells, if I remember aright! However, I am going to
see Miss Ethel Pullen now, and when I have finished with her, I will
look after you!”
“No, thank you, Doctor,” said Ralph laughing, as he descended the
stairs. “None of your nostrums for me! Keep them for the baby!”
“He is not looking well,” observed Doctor Phillips to Margaret, as
they walked on together.
“I don’t think he is, now you point it out to me, but I have not
noticed it before,” replied Margaret. “I am sure he has been living
quietly enough whilst here!”
The infant was lying as she had now done for several days past—
quite tranquil and free from pain, but inert and half asleep. The
doctor raised her eyelids and examined her eyeballs—felt her pulse
and listened to her heart—but he did not seem to be satisfied.
 “What has this child been having?” he asked abruptly.
“Having, Doctor? Why! nothing, of course, but her milk, and I have
always that from the same cow!”
“No opium—no soothing syrup, nor quackeries of any kind?”
“Certainly not! You know how often you have warned me against
anything of the sort!”
“And no one has had the charge of her, except you and the nurse
here? You can both swear she has never been tampered with?”
“O! I think so, certainly, yes! Baby has never been from under the
eye of one or the other of us. A young lady resident in the hotel—a
Miss Brandt—has often nursed her and played with her, but one of
us has always been there at the time.”
“A Miss—what did you say?” demanded the doctor, sharply.
“A Miss Brandt—a very good-natured girl, who is fond of children!”
“Very well then! I will go at once to the pharmacien’s, and get a
prescription made up for your baby, and I hope that your anxiety may
soon be relieved!”
“O! thank you, Doctor, so much!” exclaimed Margaret “I knew you
would do her good, as soon as you saw her!”
But the doctor was not so sure of himself. He turned the case over
and over in his mind as he walked to the chemist’s shop, wondering
how such a state of exhaustion and collapse could have been
brought about.
The baby had her first dose and the doctor had just time to wash
and change his travelling suit before they all met at the dinner-table.
Here they found the party opposite augmented by the arrival of
Monsieur Alfred Brimont, a young Brussels tradesman, who had
come over to Heyst to conduct his sister home. He was trying to
persuade Harriet Brandt to accompany Olga and stay a few days
with them, but the girl—with a long look in the direction of Captain
Pullen—shook her head determinedly.
 “O! you might come, Harriet, just for a few days,” argued Olga,
“now that the Bataille de Fleurs is over, there is nothing left to stay
for in Heyst, and Alfred says that Brussels is such a beautiful place.”
“There are the theatres, and the Parc, and the Quinçonce, and
Wauxhall!” said young Brimont, persuasively. “Mademoiselle would
enjoy herself, I have no doubt!”
But Harriet still negatived the proposal.
“Why shouldn’t we make up a party and all go together,”
suggested the Baroness, “me and the Baron and Bobby and ’Arriet?
You would like it then, my dear, wouldn’t you?” she said to the girl,
“and you really should see Brussels before we go ’ome! What do you
say, Gustave? We’d go to the Hôtel de Saxe, and see everything! It
wouldn’t take us more than a week or ten days.”
“Do as you like, mein tear,” acquiesced the Baron.
“And why shouldn’t you come with us, Captain?” continued
Madame Gobelli to Ralph. “You don’t look quite the thing to me! A
little change would do you good. All work and no play makes Jack a
dull boy! ’Ave you been to Brussels?”
“I lived there for years, Madame, and know every part of it!” he
replied.
“Come and renew your acquaintance then, and take me and ’Arriet
about!! The Baron isn’t much good when it comes to sight-seeing,
are you, Gustave? ’E likes ’is pipe and ’is slippers too well! But
you’re young and spry! Well! is it a bargain?”
“I really could not decide in such a hurry,” said Ralph, with a
glance at Margaret and Elinor, “but we might all go on to Brussels
perhaps, a little later on.”
“I don’t think you must buoy up the hopes of the Baroness and
Miss Brandt with that idea,” remarked Miss Leyton, coldly, “because I
am sure that Mrs. Pullen has no intention of doing anything of the
sort. If you wish to accompany Madame Gobelli’s party, you had
better make your arrangements without any reference to us!”
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