Читать книгу: «The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, May 1844», страница 6
After speaking of the general ignorance of the Papists, and the general diffusion of knowledge among the Protestants, ‘insomuch that scarce a cobbler but is able to baffle any Roman priest that ever I saw or met with,’ he goes on; ‘and after this I wonder that a man who hath been bred up in the Protestant religion, (as I have reason to believe that you, Mr. Coleman, have been, for if I am not misinformed your father was a minister in Suffolk,) for such a one to depart from it, is an evidence against you to prove the indictment. I must make a difference between us and those who have been always educated that way. No man of understanding, but for by-ends, would have left his religion to be a Papist. And for you, Mr. Coleman, who are a man of reason and subtilty, I must tell you, (to bring this to yourself,) upon this account, that it could not be conscience; I cannot think it to be conscience. Your pension was your conscience, and your secretary’s place your bait. I do acknowledge many of the popish priests formerly were learned men, and may be so still beyond the seas; but I could never yet meet with any here, that had any other learning or ability but artificial, only to delude weak women and weaker men.
‘They have indeed ways of conversion and conviction by enlightening our understandings with a faggot, and by the powerful and irresistible arguments of a dagger. But these are such wicked solecisms in their religion, that they seem to have left them neither natural sense nor natural conscience. Not natural sense, by their absurdity in so unreasonable a belief as of the wine turned into blood: not natural conscience, by their cruelty, who make the Protestant’s blood as wine, and these priests thirst after it. Tantum religio potuit suadere malorum.
‘Mr. Coleman, in one of his letters, speaks of rooting out our religion and our party; and he is in the right, for they can never root out the Protestant religion but they must kill the Protestants. But let him and them know, if ever they shall endeavor to bring popery in by destroying of the king, they shall find that the Papists will thereby bring destruction upon themselves, so that not a man of them would escape.
‘Ne catulus quidem relinquendus.’
‘Our execution shall be as quick as their gunpowder, but more effectual. And so, gentlemen, I shall leave it to you to consider what his letters prove him guilty of directly, and what by consequence what he plainly would have done, and then how he would have done it, and whether you think his fiery zeal had so much cold blood in it as to spare any others.
‘For the other part of the evidence, which is by the testimony of the present witnesses, you have heard them: I will not detain you longer now; the day is going out.’
Mr. Justice Jones. ‘You must find the prisoner guilty, or bring in two persons perjured.’
The verdict was what might have been anticipated from such a charge. Coleman was found guilty, and the next day sentenced. After sentence had been pronounced, he protested his innocence, but was brutally interrupted by the Chief Justice: ‘I am sorry, Mr. Coleman, that I have not charity enough to believe the words of a dying man.’
In answer to Coleman’s request that his wife might visit him in prison, he at first seemed disposed to deny it, and said: ‘You say well, and it is a hard case to deny it; but I tell you what hardens my heart: the insolencies of your party, (the Roman Catholics I mean,) that they every day offer, which is indeed a proof of their Plot, that they are so bold and impudent, and such secret murders committed by them as would harden any man’s heart to do the common favors of justice and charity that to mankind are usually done. They are so bold and insolent that I think it is not to be endured in a Protestant kingdom.’
His request however was granted. He was executed the third of December following.
We have dwelt with some particularity upon this trial, not because it is by any means the most flagrant for the contemptuous disregard shown by the judges, not only to the legal rights, but to the feelings of the prisoner, but because it came first in the order of time, and serves in a good measure to explain all the trials that follow it. Comment upon it is needless. Such a mockery of justice would disgrace the tribunals of savages. Whatever seems unfavorable to the prisoner is pressed home by the Chief Justice, most strongly against him. Whatever makes for him is kept out of sight. To have been born a Roman Catholic is a crime; to have deliberately adopted that faith, is a damnable sin; one for which there is no expiation. The absurd fictions of Oates and Bedlow are commended to the jury as worthy of implicit credence. The whole weight of judicial authority and influence is thrown into the scale of condemnation.
On the seventeenth of the same December, Whitebread, Fenwick, Ireland, Pickering and Grove, were brought to trial. The chief witnesses against them were Oates and Bedlow. The counsel for the crown thus opened the case: ‘May it please your lordships, and you gentlemen of the jury, the persons here before you stand indicted of high treason; they are five in number; three of them are Jesuits, one is a priest, the fifth is a layman; persons fitly prepared for the work in hand.’ After a few other observations, he proceeds to institute a comparison between this Plot and the famous Gunpowder Plot. The second and third points of resemblance in the two, he thus states: ‘Secondly, the great actors in the design were priests and Jesuits, that came from Valladolid in Spain, and other places beyond the seas. And the great actors in this Plot are priests and Jesuits that are come from St. Omers and other places beyond the seas, nearer home than Spain.
‘Thirdly, that Plot was chiefly guided and managed by Henry Garnet, superior and provincial of the Jesuits then in England; and the great actor in this design is Mr. Whitebread, superior and provincial of the Jesuits now in England.’
The evidence of Oates was the same in substance that he gave at Coleman’s trial, but with such additional particulars as he judged necessary to keep the popular excitement alive. Thus, in answering the question, what he knew of any attempts to kill the king at St. James’ park, he said: ‘I saw Pickering and Grove several times walking in the park together, with their secured pistols, which were longer than ordinary pistols, and shorter than some carbines. They had silver bullets to shoot with, and Grove would have had the bullets to be champt for fear that if he should shoot, if the bullets were round, the wound that might be given might be cured.’
Att. Gen. ‘Do you know any thing of Pickering’s doing penance, and for what?’
‘Yes, my lord. In the month of March last, (for these persons have followed the king several years;) but he at that time had not looked to the flint of his pistol, but it was loose, and he durst not venture to give fire. He had a fair opportunity, as Whitebread said; and because he missed it through his own negligence he underwent penance, and had twenty or thirty strokes of discipline, and Grove was chidden for his carelessness.’
Of the ‘four Irish ruffians’ that went to Windsor to kill the king, Oates could give no account. How he could reconcile it with his duty to His Majesty to let these assassins lie in wait from August to October, without notifying any one of their murderous intentions, he did not see fit to explain, and of course the attorney general and the judges forgot to ask him.
Not the least wonderful part of his evidence is that which he speaks of the ill usage he received from Whitebread in September, who charged him with having betrayed them: ‘So, my lord, I did profess a great deal of innocency, because I had not then been with the king, but he gave me very ill language, and abused me, and I was afraid of a worse mischief from them. And though, my lord, they could not prove that I had discovered it, yet upon the bare suspicion, I was beaten and affronted, and reviled, and commanded to go beyond sea again; nay, my lord, I had my lodgings assaulted to have murdered me if they could.’
This is certainly the strangest way to conciliate a disaffected conspirator, that we ever heard of! Most men would have preferred to use bribes and caresses; but the Jesuits, it seems, knew their man, and chose to beat him into secrecy and submission!
Bedlow’s evidence, as usual, was mainly confirmatory of the statements of Oates, embellished by such new incidents as his feebler powers of invention could frame. He was, however, not quite satisfied with this subordinate part; and therefore at the close of his evidence pretends to recollect that he had omitted one thing very material: ‘At the same time that there was a discourse about these three gentleman being to destroy the king at New-Market, there was a discourse of a design to kill several noble persons, and the several parts assigned to every one. Knight was to kill the Earl of Shaftsbury, Pritchard, the Duke of Buckingham, Oniel, the Earl of Ossory, Obrian, the Duke of Ormond,’ An assassination of noblemen on a truly magnificent scale!
Nothing appearing in Bedlow’s evidence to implicate Fenwick and Whitebread, and two witnesses being necessary to prove the charge, they were sent back to prison. When they were subsequently brought up for trial for the same offence, and pleaded that they could not a second time be tried, their plea was overruled, although founded on one of the commonest principles of law, and sanctioned by a thousand precedents. The reasoning of Scroggs and North, the Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, is so curious that it is worth quoting. Whitebread, after objecting that he is informed that no man can be put in jeopardy of his life the second time for the same cause: ‘I speak it not for my sake only, but for the sake of the whole nation; no man should be tried twice for the same cause; by the same reason a man may be tried twenty or one hundred times.’
Scroggs. ‘You say well, it is observed, Mr. Whitebread; but you must know that you were not put in jeopardy of your life for the same thing, for first the jury were discharged of you; it is true, it was supposed when you were indicted that there would be two witnesses against you, but that fell out otherwise, and the law of the land requiring two witnesses to prove you guilty of treason, it was thought reasonable that you should not be put upon the jury at all, but you were discharged, and then you were in no jeopardy of your life.’
‘Under favor, my lord, I was in jeopardy, for I was given in charge to the jury; and ’tis the case in Seyer, 31 Eliz., he was indicted for a burglary committed the 31st of August, and pleaded to it, and afterward another indictment was preferred, and all the judges did declare that he could not be indicted the second time for the same fact, because he was in jeopardy of his life again.’
C. J. North. ‘The oath the jury take is, that they shall well and truly try, and true deliverance make of such prisoners as they shall have in charge; the charge of the jury is not full ‘till the court give them a a charge at last, after evidence had; and because there was a mistake in your case, that the evidence was not so full as might be, the jury before they ever considered concerning you at all they were discharged, and so you were not in jeopardy; and, I in my experience, know it to be often done, and ’tis the course of law.’
In this opinion all the judges coincided. Sad indeed was the condition of things in poor England when all her judges could resort to such miserable quibbles; or worse than this, could deliberately falsify the law, to condemn to an ignominious death two defenceless prisoners!
To return from this digression. The three remaining prisoners were found guilty. The Chief Justice in charging the jury was even more violent against the Papists than in his charge at Coleman’s trial: ‘Some hold that the pope in council is infallible; and ask any Popish Jesuit of them all and he will say the pope is himself infallible in council or he is no true Jesuit; and if so, whatever they command is to be justified by their authority; so that if they give a dispensation to kill a king, that king is well killed. They indulge all sorts of sins, and no human bonds can hold them.
‘They have some parts of the foundation ’tis true, but they are adulterated and mixed with horrid principles and impious practises. They eat their God, they kill their king, and saint the murderer. This is a religion that quite unhinges all piety, all morality, all conversation, and to be abominated by all mankind.
‘I return now to the fact which is proved by two witnesses, and by the concurrent evidence of the letter and the maid; and the matter is as plain and notorious as can be, that there was an intention of bringing in popery by a cruel and bloody way; for I believe they never could have prayed us into their religion. I leave it therefore for you to consider whether you have not as much evidence from these two men as can be expected in a case of this nature; and whether Mr. Oates be not rather justified by the testimony offered against him, than discredited. Let prudence and conscience direct your verdict, and you will be too hard for their art and cunning.
‘Gentlemen, if you think you shall be in long we will adjourn the court till the afternoon and take your verdict then.’
Jury. ‘No, my lord, we shall not be long.’
After a very short recess the jury returned with a verdict of guilty against all.
C. J. ‘You have done, gentlemen, like very good subjects and very good Christians; that is to say, like very good Protestants. And now, much good may their thirty thousand masses do them!’
Before the court pronounced sentence Ireland loudly complained that he had had no time to call his witnesses: ‘So that we could have none but only those that came in by chance, and those things they have declared, though true, were not believed.’ His objection was overruled, and the Recorder, Sir George Jeffries, proceeded to pass sentence. The spirit that pervaded his speech may be seen in this extract: ‘I am sure this was so horrid a design, that nothing but a conclave of devils in hell, or a college of such Jesuits as yours on earth, could have thought upon.’
At the trial of Berry, Green and Hill, for the murder of Sir Edmondbury Godfrey, the improbabilities of the testimony and the contradictions of the witnesses were so glaring that it seems incredible that any man could believe them. As a specimen: Praunce, the chief witness, said that the body was taken to Hill’s lodgings where it remained two days in a certain room he mentioned. In defence, it was shown by all the family, that that room was an open one; that scarcely an hour passed but some one went through it. But instead of receiving this testimony, the Chief Justice told the witnesses that it was very suspicious they had not seen the body, and that it was well for them they were not indicted. But we have not space to quote further. The extracts we have already made will be sufficient to show Scrogg’s utter contempt for those duties which the law imposed upon him as the counsel for the prisoners; his abusive and threatening demeanor toward their witnesses; his appeals to the passions of the jury, their bigotry and their fears; and in a word, his total destitution of every quality that marks the honest, fair-minded, and impartial judge.
We intended to speak of the disgraceful and cowardly part which Charles the Second bore in these proceedings. Convinced that the Plot was a mere fiction, he saw day by day his innocent and faithful subjects led to the gallows without making an effort for their safety, or giving utterance to a word of disapprobation. It was not until the Queen was attacked, that the selfish monarch interfered. A word from him turned the abuse of Scroggs into an opposite channel, and Oates and Bedlow were now as bitterly reviled as the Jesuits had been before. We believe that Charles was a willing spectator if not an active promoter of these legal butcheries, hoping that thereby a vent would be given to the popular fury, and he himself, by such a sacrifice, regain the lost affections of his people.
We intended also to speak of the conduct of the leading English statesmen during this period; of Lauderdale, of Shaftsbury, of Danby, and of Buckingham; but our limits are already overpassed. We can only say that the character of the monarch was truly reflected in the character of his counsellors; that as England has never had so faithless and profligate a king, she has never been disgraced by such unscrupulous, despicable, and short-sighted ministers.
THE INFANT’S BURIAL
BY THE SHEPHERD OF SHARONDALE, VALLEY OF VIRGINIA
‘Earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust.’
I
‘Dust unto dust!’ Sweet child!
Was that dark sentence ever meant for thee?
For that bright form, that tablet undefiled,
Creation’s mystery?
No no, it could not be, for God is just;
That beauteous brow! oh, who could call that dust?
And yet methought I heard
Those words slow uttered o’er thy tiny grave,
As though that Eden-calm had e’er been stirred
By Passion’s stormy wave.
It should have been, ‘Angels an Angel meet;
Seraphs on high a sister-seraph greet!’
II
‘Earth unto earth;’ ’tis well
That sordid earth should pass to earth again:
In those dark fanes where truth has ceased to dwell,
Why should the shrine remain?
Deep in the dust let all such pass away;
Why should they not?—clay mingles but with clay:
Such is dark Manhood’s prime,
From whose high nature all of Heaven has past,
Whose once pure mould is deeply dyed with crime;
Bound down with fetters fast:
Gone, gone is all of holiness and worth,
And what remains is naught indeed but earth.
III
‘Ashes to ashes?’ Yes!
Let it be thus with those whom age has chilled,
Whose life is but the dying ember’s glow—
There let it be fulfilled!
Say, ‘When the altar-fires but dimly burn,
‘Ashes to ashes, dust to dust’ return!’
And with that aged band,
The blackened craters of whose hearts are charred
By scathéd hopes and Hate’s undying brand;
Let not this fate be marred:
Ope wide thy portals, Grave! Death, pass them down!
For these, and such as these, are all thine own.
IV
But oh, my beauteous one!
This gloomy path should not by thee be trod;
The grave, the worm, should not by thee be known—
Go thou direct to God!
Thy passport white at Heaven’s gate unroll,
(No dark hand-writing e’er hath soiled that scroll.)
’Twas thus the Saviour spoke:
‘Those little children; suffer them to come.’
The mandate thou didst hear; the fetters broke
Which kept thee from thy home:
Awhile life’s threshhold thou didst press with glee,
Then turned away; this life was not for thee!
A PISCATORIAL ECLOGUE
VEL ISAACUS WALTON IN NOVAM SCALAM REDIVIVUS
BY PETER VON GEIST
Piscator. You are happily met, my fair young lady!
Discipula. A very good morrow to you, Mr. Piscator. You are early a-foot, with your rod and lines.
Piscator. A veteran of the angle will be stirring early; there is a brace of fish waiting for my hook on the other side of our lake. But you, my gentle maiden, have you come down to the beach to see the sun rise? and mayhap to pluck a rose with the dew on’t? I think you have found it; for I think I can see the rose on your cheek, and the dew in your eye. It is sweet to be up betimes in the morning, when the air and the new sunlight are as clear and calm as your own thoughts.
Discipula. It is even so, as you and I know right well. A pleasant sail to you; God send a dozen fish, and may you kill them merrily. But honest Mr. Piscator, do you go alone to-day?
Piscator. I think so to do; for you are to note, a companion of patience and sober demeanor, free from profane jests and scurrilous discourse, is worth gold, but is not so easy to be come at. And none other than such jumps with my humor.
Discipula. And when, my good Mr. Piscator, will you give me another lesson in the art of angling? For you must know the last has only increased my desire to learn something more of it. Or do you think that we women can never attain skill in that noble and gentle art?
Piscator. That it is a noble and a gentle art I am ready to maintain; and that women have attained skill in it is not to be doubted; as you will read in books of old time, that ladies both hunted, and hawked, and fished.
Discipula. But the lesson, my honest master? When shall I have another lesson?
Piscator. You shall even suit your own convenience. And some fine morning, when you are so disposed, we will take a walk down the river; when I will teach you to cast your line for trout; for indeed, it requires a sharp wit and much practice to throw your fly so that the trout will rise at it.
Discipula. Not in the river, if it please you, good Mr. Piscator, not in the river! Teach me to fish in the lake.
Piscator. Without doubt, my fair young lady, it must be as you desire. And yet, it is not every woman that would have the courage to cross the pond in a skiff that rocks to every ripple.
Discipula. Trust me for that. You should know that I am not wont to be frightened at trifles.
Piscator. Truly, it is so; and I do not question your courage. Then on any day that you will appoint, God willing, I will give you a sail; or indeed, this morning, if duty does not incline you in another direction, and you will step with me into my little boat yonder.
Discipula. That shall I with right good will. But I shall have to make you wait while I get my fishing tackle.
Piscator. Of necessity you shall not do that; for I remember now, I can fit you with a spare harness of my own.
Discipula. Then let us be going, say I. And is this the skiff? What a painted little cockle-shell of a boat, with its two masts! I suppose it will bear us both?
Piscator. It will bear twenty like you and me. Please let me help you to step in; and though you feel it to give under your feet, and as it were, slide away from beneath you, yet now when you are set down on the bench, you perceive it is perfectly steady.
Discipula. Oh, I shall not be in the least afraid. What a tiny little schooner! But is it not bold to spread both sails? And see, now that we come round to the wind, how the skiff keels over.
Piscator. It is entirely safe, my fair scholar; for since you have chosen me to be your instructor and master in the science of the angle, you must be content to be called my scholar. It is entirely safe; and you must observe, that however much it may keel over, it cannot upset; for if struck by a sudden squall, or flaw of the wind, the masts will go by the board, and so it will right.
Discipula. Excellently well contrived. But has not the breeze suddenly died away? Yet the sails are distended, and miniature waves are thrown off from either side of the bow.
Piscator. The breeze seems to have decreased, because we are moving in the same direction with it; and you will see, now when I bring the boat more toward the wind, that it blows as strong as before, and our motion is well nigh stopped.
Discipula. That I can very well see; and I pray you, my master, not to bring the skiff so far into the wind to prove your proposition to me as to capsize it. The masts bend over toward the water more than it is pleasant to see.
Piscator. There is no danger; and after half an hour’s experience you will become used to it, and lose all apprehension. I think I will alter our course a couple of points; so if you have a mind, since I cannot well leave the tiller, you may unloose the cord that fastens the forward sail to the side of the boat; wait a moment till we come round, and the sail hangs loose in the wind; now loose the rope, and let it out about a foot; so, wind it round as it was before. Neatly done! Next, let out the other sail in the same way and to the same length. It was well executed! Really, you are destined to become a sailor’s wife after all.
Discipula. Marry, I hope so. But why ‘after all?’
Piscator. Nay, I meant nothing; except, that whereas I formerly thought you rather affected the land, now I find that you are courageous on the water; and therefore, I say you deserve a Commodore. Observe now, we are running more nearly with the wind, and move faster. It is a favorable breeze; for our fishing-ground is in the south-eastern corner of the lake, behind that highland which you see yonder; and this blows from the western quarter. We shall soon be there.
Discipula. Be in no hurry; I am in none. Is it not a fine morning? Those white, high-flying clouds, rolled up into fleeces like wool, with ragged patches of the sky between them, above us, and the broad blue bosom of the lake, with the multitude of little waves leaping up and dancing all over its surface beneath us, and our boat, in the midst of both sky and water, gliding calmly along like a bird with his wings spread floating in the air! Is it not a lovely morning? Yes, yes; I must be a sailor’s wife, and live on the ocean! Or perhaps, rather, a fisherman’s wife, and sail on a lake like this. If I should happen to meet with one of the latter class, of approved character, somewhat mature in years and grave in demeanor, kind of disposition and manly of countenance, one who would let me go sailing with him every day, (of course I am not describing you, Mr. Piscator,) I think—yes, I am quite certain, that he would content me.
Piscator. Nay, nay, my fair young lady, you are pleased to mock! ‘Mature in years and grave in demeanor,’ said you? A gallant young sailor for you, say I! There are many who sigh for the favor which you have so freely granted me to-day. Ah, you should not jeer.
Discipula. I tell you, Mr. Piscator, none but you for me this day! I am not going to think of any body but you; for I tell you plainly, I like you very much.
Piscator. Ah, yes, yes; certainly—without doubt, I hope so; surely, why should you not?
Discipula. And what a beautiful island! The grass grows down almost to the water’s edge, leaving a narrow belt of white sand; how it glistens in the sun-light! and those half-a-dozen tall trees in the centre, how do you suppose they came to grow there alone so?
Piscator. That is a question which I have often asked, but have never been able to satisfy myself, as to how they came there. They have stood for more generations than one, and will cast their shadows on the water when other boats than ours sail past them, and other eyes than ours wonder at them. Now we are nearly at our journey’s end; when we pass through the opening between that island ahead of us, and the main land, we shall be on our fishing-ground.
Discipula. Is it possible that we have reached here so quick? It is not half so far as I thought it was. And yet, on looking back, there is a wide waste lying between us and the cove from which we started. How diminutive the house on the high ground back of the landing-place looks; like a mole-hill, and the trees around it like shrubs! Well sped, little bark! A swift and an easy-paced courser are you; steadily now, through this narrow strait; steadily and gently, for your race is almost run.
Piscator. The channel begins to widen again; and lo! here we are in a lake by itself as it were; a sheet of water full a mile long and a quarter of a mile wide. And herein the fish mostly do congregate. I will hold on to near the middle, and then drop the anchor.
Discipula. It is indeed a fine sheet; smooth as any mirror; clearer than glass. I suppose the fish assemble here when they get tired of the roughness and commotion of the lake without, because it is so calm and still. Is it not so?
Piscator. It may be so; it is a good reason, and I will believe that it is so, since you have supposed it. This is as good a place as any, and here we will cast our lines; and there is so little wind stirring, that we shall only need to furl our sails, and the boat will remain at rest. Now then, here is your rod, nicely put together, with a fly on the hook. A pike will rise as quick at an artificial fly as at a live one; a greedy fish is that pike; and if we should have occasion, I have other kinds of bait. Take it, and throw your line out as I taught you before. But what are you regarding so intently?
Discipula. I am looking at the shadow of the trees in the water; an inverted forest in the lake. Fish a little while alone, and let me look.
Piscator. It has become so late in the day that I have not much hope of taking many now. However, I can but try. This same rod and line have done me good service in this same place, before to-day. Ah, I see a pike! I’ll have him! Look! look how slowly and warily he comes up toward the bait! When he gets within a few feet of it, he will make a dash, and gorge it without stopping to think. Ah, there he goes with it; and here he comes back with it, straight up into the boat. Upon my word, a reasonable fish; he wont weigh short of three pounds.
Discipula. Oh, Mr. Piscator! here’s a new heaven and a new earth beneath us! Waving trees with birds flitting among their branches, and far down below, flying clouds and blue sky. A perfect hemisphere, and we are hanging over it, without any thing to support us! I shouldn’t be surprised, to feel myself this minute tumbling down into it, down to the new heaven! I have been expecting to, for some time past; and what a fall would that be! Do you suppose we should stop when we got there?
Piscator. If we did not, where should we go to?
Discipula. Ah, where!
Piscator. These fish do not seem inclined to bite this morning. Yet there is one larger than that I caught before. I must have him, too. Observe how wistfully he eyes the bait; let the fly skim slowly along the water, just over him; that is the way, Sir, to swallow a hook; and now come up, and slide into the basket, out of sight, and keep your brother company.
Discipula. Mr. Piscator, when you make such a splashing in the water, you ruffle and wrinkle my submarine prospect. Please don’t.
Piscator. I think it will be profitless trying to take any more this forenoon; toward night they will bite again. And what shall we do in the mean time? Usually, when I come out here alone, I go ashore, and rest myself during these hours, amid the fragrant shades of the thick trees, that screen me from the mid-day heat. Would you like to take such a ramble?—or are you inclined to stay here, and gaze into the water?
