ures for his own defence. He armed his and his servants, taken by surprise, were servants; he caused holes to be made in too completely overawed and overpowered the walls of his house in such places as to offer the least resistance. The unlucky he considered desirable for the more effec- gentleman woke from his slumbers only tual use of firearms; and is said to have to find his bed surrounded by armed men. offered bountiful entertainment to all those He was ordered to rise, and the horses of his neighbors who by lodging for a having been put to his own coach, he was night in Quex might aid in his protection. placed within and escorted by his captors But the scare blew by. It seemed as if to the beach. When he became aware it had been a mere idle and groundless that he was to be carried beyond the seas, alarm. Indeed, the times were not now he made earnest entreaty to be allowed to such as to favor any scheme of lawless take one of his own servants with him; violence. Oliver had seated himself firmly but this was refused, though the state of in the place of supreme power, and main- his health rendered such an indulgence tained order throughout the land with a very desirable. He was thrust into an hand of iron. Mr. Crispe allowed his pre-open boat and carried off to Captain Goldcautions to be relaxed, and life at Quex resumed its ordinary calm. uncertain. ing's ship, in which he was at once con- How or by whom the mysterious warning had been conveyed to Mr. Crispe is But it was no idle rumor; nor was the danger by any means past. His enemies were simply waiting for a convenient season in which to put their plans in practice; for a plot had actually been arranged in which this unfortunate gentleman had been marked out as a victim, The unfortunate Mr. Crispe was conand that plot was under the direction of a leader of no ordinary qualities or character. veyed to Ostend, and thence to Bruges, Among the daring spirits developed by both of which places were then subject to the great civil war there was no loyalist Spain, a power against which the English to the Commonwealth was at that time at war. more enthusiastically devoted crown, more fertile in expedient, or of No redress was therefore to be hoped for more dashing bravery, than Captain Gold- through the intervention of the Spanish ing of Ramsgate. Had he been a rider government, and indeed, as will be seen instead of a sailor, he would have been a in the sequel, it was in his own governcavalier after Prince Rupert's own heart. ment that the prisoner found his worst One of his exploits during the Common- obstacle to the recovery of liberty. Howwealth had been carrying off a rich mer-ever, from his prison-house in Bruges Mr. chantman, the Blackamoor Queen; and after converting both ship and cargo into money, handing over the proceeds to the exiled Prince Charles, to whom at that time, perhaps, a proof of loyalty in no other form could have been so welcome. Captain Golding it was who was the originator and moving spirit of the plot, and as a Thanet man, the house of Quex and all its surroundings were perfectly familiar to him. He proceeded to carry One night in out his plans in due time. the month of August, 1657, Golding with a number of resolute men, partly English and partly foreigners, landed unobserved at Gore-end, near Birchington-un Sea, and marched to Quex. So well did he order matters that he was able to reach it and force an entrance without giving any alarm to the neighborhood. None of those who had feasted on Mr. Crispe's good cheer were there to defend him; not a shot was fired through the loopholes he had made ; Crispe was allowed to communicate with his friends, and in especial to inform them that a sum of three thousand pounds would be required for his ransom. Mr. Crispe had an only son, Sir Nicholas Crispe; but for some reason — probably owing to the declining health of Sir a nephew who resided not far Nicholas from Quex, a Mr. Thomas Crispe, appears to have been the relative upon whose good offices the captive chiefly relied. This nephew at once set out for the Low Countries. Arrived at Bruges, he found no difficulty in obtaining access to his uncle, to whom indeed, apart from the deprivation of liberty, no ill treatment appears to have been offered; and after due consultation, it was determined to agree to the terms proposed. Thomas Crispe accordingly returned to England to ar a far range with his cousin, Sir Nicholas, the means of raising the sum required more serious matter in those days than it E would be now-and to take whatever steps might be desirable to facilitate the payment of it. But the unhappy squire was far from the end of his troubles; an unlooked-for difficulty was about to arise. Various as may be the advantages of standing well with both parties, it has one disadvantage the trimmer can expect to be trusted by neither side; and so found prudent Mr. Crispe. Whilst the Royalists regarded him as no better than a rebel and a fit subject for spoliation, Cromwell, on the other hand, suspected him of collusion with the king's friends; that he had, in brief, been a consenting party to his own abduction, and that the whole affair had been arranged to afford a colorable pretext for supplying the exiled Charles with English money. All power was now in the Protector's hands, and he caused an order in Council to be issued in which any ransom whatever was forbidden to be paid for Mr. Crispe. Between Royalists and Cromwellians the poor gentleman was indeed in an evil case. A prisoner he had to remain; and whilst bribes and indirect influence of various kinds were being employed in all promising quarters to obtain a revocation of the vexatious order, matters were still further complicated by the death of the heir, Sir Nicholas Crispe. The whole burden of his uncle's affairs now fell upon Thomas, who appears to have shown most praiseworthy zeal in their management. Six times in the autumn and winter of 1657-58 did he cross and recross the narrow seas to confer with and to console his afflicted relative. At last the desired license from govern. ment was obtained; but the cost of obtaining it, with other necessary expenses, had so much impoverished the Crispes that it was no longer possible to raise the ransom without selling some part of the estate. To procure from his uncle the necessary legal authority for doing this involved another journey to Bruges on the part of Thomas Crispe. Eventually, by the sale of certain lands and the mortgage of the estate of Stonar in the isle of Thanet, the money was procured and paid over. Whether any part of it found its way into the coffers of Prince Charles is a matter of conjecture merely. It was only after a captivity of eight months that Mr. Crispe was allowed to return to his home a free man. It is recorded that after all his troubles he again lived in peace at Quex for several years. He died at that place on the 25th of July, 1663, leaving, it is satisfac tory to learn, his estate to that nephew who had so well done a kinsman's part by him. It is satisfactory also to learn that Captain Golding closed his adventurous but somewhat dubious career with honor. Whilst Cromwell lived, he took good care to keep beyond his reach, and remained in high favor with Prince Charles throughout his exile. At the Restoration in 1660 he returned with his master to England, and, as his share of the good things at that time showered upon his party, received command of the Diamond man-of-war. In 1665 he fell bravely in battle whilst fighting his ship against four Dutch frigates. In the church of Birchington-on-Sea, of which parish the manor of Quex forms a portion, there is a Quex Chapel. It contains monumental brasses and other memorials of the houses of Quekes and Crispe. Noticeable among them is the fine tomb of Henry Crispe. The brasses, six in number, are to the earlier line. Since the extinction of the male line of the Crispes in 1680, Quex has had many owners. It was once purchased by the first Lord Holland for his famous son, Charles James Fox. But that nobleman soon found himself obliged to sell it again; hence, among the associations of Quex it is unable to number that of having ever been the residence of the great Whig orator and statesman. From The Spectator. CASTELLAR AND GORBIO. I MAY probably be told that these vil lages are well known to most people. But to judge from one's own experience, those who know them already will be glad to see them again; and for those who do not, no excuse is necessary. From the old town of Mentone, with its narrow, climbing streets, its deep archways and flights of worn steps, where at every turn you see a picture, where the dark Italian faces smile on you, and bright color breaks in wherever it is wanted, and the warm sun and deep shadow, with the clear, dazzling air, enter into your cold northern nature, and teach it all the wonder of the south, from this town, with its neighboring gardens of palms and aloes, with its setting of flowers, of oliveyards, of woods, of golden lemon and orange trees, with its red and brown roofs and white or painted walls, and its great foreground of blue sea, always changing One must suppose that these Mentone valleys have lost a good deal of their old free character since the days when Mr. Symonds wrote of them, and told us of that well with violets and maidenhair dropping into it. Since then, the Mentonese have become more practical and more civilized; wells with violets and maidenhair seem mostly to have gone the way of unlimited wanderings in the valleys, and unchecked gathering of flowers under the lemons and olives, also of any real enjoyment of the Cap St. Martin; but that is a painful subject, and need not be entered on now. If there are wire fences in the valleys, and if the lemon orchards are generally shut in by gates, still the most fascinating mule-paths, rough and stony, go wandering in all directions, high up into the hills, where no carriage-road is to be found; and still the groves of grey-green olives on their green terraces, some of them old and far-branching, have their own solemnity, and give this brilliant landscape the softness and shadow that it wants. It would be hard to imagine anything more beautiful than the shadowy, silvery shades of the olives, as they stand contrasted with the bright coloring of oranges or lemons; behind, perhaps, a deep-blue mountain, if the day is cloudy, or a more brilliantly blue sea. Our young driver beguiled the way by telling us his history. He was an Italian from Como, and very proud of his nation. He had no relations, and since he was a boy had lived with his present old master, whom he ungratefully described as un petit peu fou. We were not surprised, having seen the old master in rags in the market-place. The driver was a well grown, handsome young fellow. As we dawdled up the good but steep road that winds through the vallée de Menton to Castellar, he was here, there, and every. where about the road, singing and whistling to himself, gathering wild flowers for us, while his horse, a skinny animal, toiled steadily on. All the lower part of the road ran above and under terraces of lemon-trees, loaded with fruit; the size and the quantity of lemons seems this year to be something unusual. Higher up, the olives had it all to themselves, except a few fir-trees on a rocky point; the forests of olives in this country are hardly to be understood without being seen. The wells, built in and over with stone; the terraces, green and stony; the little streams that run in their stone watercourses all about the mountain-side, all have an Eastern, almost a sacred effect. "Green terraces and arched fountains cold," some such words as these forever haunt one in the long, slow climb. And if we turn round, over the long descent of grey and green and gold there rises the great blue wall of the sea. For some distance, under the olives, the ground was blue with violets. Then a few sharp windings brought us to the mountain spur on which Castellar stands, looking down the valley, seeming itself not far from the level of those snowy mountain peaks and slopes behind, towards which a rough mule-path goes wandering on. Castellar is a strange little village, with two piazzas, and two streets running parallel with each other, very nar row, very Italian, very dirty. It has a large white church, now being restored, at the end nearer the mountains, and near this are the remains of the old house of the Lascaris; for this now degraded village, with its wonderful beauty of situation and view, was one of the many strongholds of that great family, now extinct. The people of Castellar look poor, and dirty, and melancholy; the children even beg in a depressed way; they are much excelled in this art by their grandfathers, two of whom waited on us very anxiously in the piazza. Here, in front of the streets and houses is a curious old lopped tree, with a stone bench all round it, which looks as if the population could be sociable. But it seemed to us that Castellar was mentally a little out of joint; a mountain village of the Middle Ages, such as I have described, with its houses many hundred years old, and yet the streets named, and the houses numbered, in white and blue paint, and large advertisements of chocolat Menier and Le Petit Journal emblazoned here and there on the walls. If these things go much further, Castellar will be demoralized and lost. We began our journey down the mountain road at a spirited pace, but had not gone very far when the horse tumbled down. The poor beast was not hurt, however, and the point of interest was the tragical change in our young Italian, who | It, like Castellar, was a stronghold of the stood lamenting with all the picturesque- Lascaris, and it has its stories of battle ness of his nation, crying out, "Ah, Bel- and siege, which are not very difficult to lottina!" (which we imagined to be the realize, even now, in the gloomy little poor old horse's name), without making labyrinth of dark and cavernous streets, any attempt to get it up again. His rosy deep, black archways, flights of rugged face was pale, and his smiling blue eyes steps. The donkeys of Gorbio, the large, were like thunderclouds. We thought it handsome, intelligent asses of the south, possible that le vieux maître might be came scrambling up and down these more than un petit peu fou, when this streets with their loads of sticks or grass. accident came to his knowledge. We There was not much room for passengers; were confirmed in this idea by the extreme but the ready and kind politeness of the steadiness and solemnity with which, a drivers, men or women, never failed. few days later, the same young man drove The children came cheerfully out to beg; us up the valley towards Gorbio. one special group overflowing from a celThis valley is perhaps more beautiful lar, where several whole families, mothand interesting, because more varied, than ers, babies, boys and girls, were lolling that leading up to Castellar. The woods comfortably about on heaps of dry grass. of lemons and olives are the same; but A crowd of dark heads, bright eyes, and the road is lower down, nearer to the tor-colored handkerchiefs looked up laughing rent, now a peaceful, brown stream splash-out of the darkness as the Inglesi passed ing quietly among great stones, like any by. Gorbio is, on the whole, more conYorkshire river; and the mountains above sistently ancient, and therefore, in spite and beyond look grander, more craggy, of the gloom of its little, dungeon-like and majestic. Several old grey oil-mills streets, a more satisfactory place to visit are at work in this valley, their wooden than Castellar. We saw no advertisewheels going steadily round, their stonements here, no painted names of streets troughs swimming, a great geranium- or numbers of houses. These things, no bush by the door, perhaps, and green doubt, will come with the march of civilthings trailing on the old walls. A back-ization, represented by the road up the ground of grey and gold and purple mountain; in front, over shining trees and red roofs, the sea. This valley is full of pic tures. The road, which is excellent, has only lately been made, and even now stops a good way short of the village of Gorbio, which stands very curiously perched on a hill, not far from the head of the valley, with the mountain wall surrounding it be hind. The last part of the way is a rough and steep up-and-down climb by a mulepath under rocky banks, and above terraces on terraces of olives. A strong wind the day before had strewn the ground with the small black fruit. At length, creeping up behind the hill, we found ourselves at the entrance of ancient Gorbio, which appeared, in these weary windings, quite the inaccessible fortress it was formerly. Gorbio is, in fact, an old castle with its precincts, now all burrowed into dwellings for five or six hundred people. valley, which is only too quickly making its way nearer to Gorbio. A place only accessible by mule-path is still, in 1889, a little out of the world. The most curious view of Gorbio, perhaps, is to be gained from the beautiful sandstone ridge that runs along between the Gorbio and Borrigo valleys. This is one of the most enchanting walks in the neighborhood of Mentone. It is a wilderness of pines, arbutus, myrtle, rosemary, and other spiky and aromatic plants, with large bushes, now in full flower, of the beautiful little white Mediterranean heath. As we walk up the ridge, the great, craggy mountains face us, brown and grey, with purple shadows as the afternoon wears on, and here and there a slope streaked with snow; and we look down towards Gorbio, and see the little old fighting village on its watch-tower hill, still gazing down its subject valley to the sea. THE Journal de la Chambre de Commerce de Constantinople states that a method of solidifying petroleum has just been discovered. A small quantity of soap is added, and the mixture is heated. When the mixture is allowed to cool, the product can be cut into small cubes like those of compressed charcoal. Thus petroleum can be used as a combustible, it being now easy to transport and manipulate it. Nature. For EIGHT DOLLARS, remitted directly to the Publishers, the LIVING AGE will be punctually forwarded for a year, free of postage. Remittances should be made by bank draft or check, or by post-office money-order, if possible. If neither of these can be procured, the money should be sent in a registered letter. All postmasters are obliged to register letters when requested to do so. Drafts, checks, and money-orders should be made payable to the order of LITTELL & Co. Single Numbers of THE LIVING AGE, 18 cents. |