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LITERATURE, ART, SCIENCE, & POPULAR INFORMATION
VOLUME XI
JUNE TO DECEMBER, 1864.
LONDON
BRADBURY & EVANS, 11, BOUVERIE STREET.
[The Right of traudUing Article* from “ Once a Week ” is ratrooi by the Author*.]
Digitized by
LONDON
BRADBURY AND EVANS, PRINTERS, WHITEFRIARB.
•TAN FORD UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES
sr;.c«
SEP 12 1303
/\?£i
C
Digitized by
PACE
Academy, The French . . . 686
Ad Misericordiam . . . 004
Adventures in Connemara . 51, 03
Albert Durer 39*2
• Allan Ramsay .... 013
Alps, Piercing the . . . . 415
Among the Reeds .... *206
Among the Sheaves . . . . 32*2
Ana . . 446, 461, 59S, 053, CSC, 712
Angela 6
Annette, Mad 305
Archery 64, 107
Arethusa 403
Arrow, The Silver . . . 107
Autumn Day at Winchilsca, An . 004
Autumn Time 336
Auvergne, Legend of . . . . 223
Barber, A Poetical . . 613
“ Behind the Scenes ” ... ‘2*24
Bet, Our ‘29
Between Tragedy and Comedy . . 69*2
Beyond Gower's Land . . 575
Biography of a Plant, The . . 8 Birds, A Chapter on 347
Black Forest, Days in tho . . . 670
Bleeding Cave at Pendine . 698
Blow to “the Profession,” A . . *233
Blundell, Frank .... 708
Bohemia, Midsummer Eve in 54
Boleyn, Lament of Anne . . . 425
Bramber *253
Bride of on Hour, The . . . 09
Brion, Fredcrika .... 858
“ Brothers Davenport ” . . . 689
Buckingham, Death of . . . 334
By the Night Train . ... 553
By the Sea *280
“ Bye-and-bye ” 682
Cana vam, Mary .... 723 Cape de Verdes, Whaling at the . 194 Case of Mons. D’Egville, The . . 41S Chapter on Birds, A 347
Charlemagne’s City, Legends
of 2*28, 484, 643
Charles I., Who was Executioner
of 14
Childe Roland 451
Church at Yarmouth . . . 542
Circassian Exodus, The . . 302
City Companies, The . . . 871
Clytie 163
Companies, City . .371
Connemara, Adventures in . 51, 93
Corner of Essex Revisited, A 515
Country Parsonage, The . . . 191
Court Etiquette .... 658 Cumcean Sibyl, The . ... 60*2
Dace, The 152
Daily Life of Plants, Tho 119
Dangerous Dresses . . 710
Davenport, Brothers . . 080
Days in the Black Forest . . . 676
PAGE
Death of Buckingham, Tho . . 384
Declaration, A . . . . . 54
De Clare, Dirge of . . . .41
D’Egville. Mons 418
Delsthorpe Sands .... 5S*2 Deserted House on the Landes,
The 37
De Verdes, Whaling at the Cape . 104 Diamond Bracelets of Madame La
Baronne 474
Dirge of Do Clare, The . . . 41
Dord, Gustave .... 83
Dovcrcourt 515
Dresses, Dangerous . . . 719
Durer, Albert 39*2
Ear for Eye 80
Earl Eirok’s Voyage . . . . 545
Earl Pembroke’s Monument . . * 181
Earl Strong bow’s Beacon . . 707
Earlswood Asylum . . . . 174
Eastern Travel . . . ..331
Egypt in 1864 179
Eriphanls 659
Erl King> Dying, The . . . 672
Essex, a Comer of . . . . 615
Etiquette, Court .... 653
Evening 112
Exhibition, The Painter Stainers’. 34 Exodus, Circassian . ‘ . *.* 302
Eyes . . . « . . 344
Family Fix, A . . . . 258
Farms and Farmers . . . 580
Fetters of a German, Tho . . 202
Few Days at Lyons, A . . . 598
Fight at Sea, A 6S7
Fossil Man 403
Frank Blundell 708
Fraser, Fate of Philip . . 57, 85
French Academy, Tho . . . 686
French Palmer, The . . . 66*2
From Canada to Liverpool . . 340
From Darkness into Light . . 136
Furniture, Our 90
Gabledom. The Metropolis of . 628 Gentle Lady Married to a Moor, A 113 Gentleman with the Camellias,
The 284
German. Fetters of a . . 202
Ghost, No 447
Gipsies, Transformation of the . 498 Goethe and Fredorika Brion . . 358
Gower’s Land .... 575
Grouse Hills, My First Days on
the 143
Guernsey 398
Hake, The 820
Hamlet, The Stage . . .622
Hampstead . . ' . . . 169
Harp of Invermorn, Tho . . 19.3
Harvest Memories . . . 237
Harwich 515
PAGE
“Hd Lambert!” . . . . 544
Heather Bells . . . .110
Highwaymen 666
Heffie’s Trouble .... 24
Horso-flesb, My First Deal in . . *2
Horses and Horse Copers . 453
Hounds in the 17th Century . . 446
How to Deal with our London
Poor 315
Hunt at Portskowitt, The . . 1*25
Human Wasters .... 174
Ice Cavern in the Justis-Thal,
An 639
“In tho Beck” .... 517 Invermorn, The Harp of . . . *293
Irish Convict in the Federal Army,
An 275
Johann Zoffany . ... 307
King’s Daughter, Tho . . . 153
Kitty 722
Lambert, Hd .... 544
Lament of Anne Boleyn on tho Evo of Execution . . . 4*25
L’Ancresse, Guernsey . . . 398
“Late” is not “ Never” . . 141
Legend of St Gabriel’s, The . . 1
Legend of St Vitus, The . . 405
Legend of the Bleeding Cave of
Pendine 698
Legends of Charlemagne’s City
*2*28, 484, G43
Leigh, Theo. — See Theo Leigh.
“Lesser Light, The” . . 654, 683
Lima, A Romance of ... 469 London Poor, How to Deal with . 315
Long Expected .... 11
Long Firm, The . . 89 J
Lord Oakburn’s Daughters, 15, 43,
71, 99, 1*27, 155, 183, 211, 239,
267, 295, 325, 351, 379, 407, 435
Lost Syrinx 438
Loup-Garou, The . . . . ‘2*28
Love Tale, A 631
Love’s Ending 308
Lyons, A Few Days at . . 598
Mad Annette .... 365
Madame La Baronne De V ’s
Diamond Bracelets . . . 474
Martyr, A Moorish . . . 4*25
Mary Canavan . . , . 7*23
Mastai Family, The . . 653
Mechanical Sempstress, Tho 229, 448 Meteorology in 1864 . . . 400
Metropolis of Gabledom, The . . 628
Midsummer-Eve in Bohemia . 54
Miriam’s Birthday . . . . 337
Moon, The ... 654, 683
Moon Fay, The 876
Moorish Martyr, A . . .4*25
Morgue, The 714
Digitized by Caooole
INDEX.
PAOK
“Mrs. Smith” .... 597 My Grandfather’s Narrow Escape . 443 My First Deal in Horse-Flesh . . 2
My First Two Days on the Grouse Hills 143
New Era in Portraiture, A . .
Night Train, By the
Nile, Sailors of the . . . .
No Ghost
Northern Wedding, A . . .
Oakburn, Lord.— See Lord Oak- hum.
Ol>cah, a Story of .
Odeuwald and Lindenfcls, The . Olaf, Sir . .
Old Church at Great Yarmouth .
Old Wit
One Hour *
Our Bet [
Our Farms and our Formers . . Our Furniture
Pacific, Islands in the . Painter-Stainers’ Exhibition, The Palmer, The French . . .
Palmerston, Lord .... Parsonage, the Country . . .
Pear, The . .
Peep at somo Islands in the West- ern Pacific, A .... Pendine, Legend of the Bleeding Cave at . . . .
Perfect General Secretary, The Philip Fraser’s Fate . . .5!
Photography, A now Era in . Pictures
Piercing the Alps Pilchards .
Plant, Biography of a .
Plants, Daily Life of . ...
Poetical Barber, A .
Poisoning by Tobacco . . .
Police and Mechanism of Railway Trains, The . . . ..
3GS
553
«N)
447
200
44.1
197
346
542
107
308
29
580
90
509
34
06*!
712
191
247
509
530
85
368
190
415
467
8
119
613
446
337
Polish Statistics Pt>or, How to Doal with our
London
Poor Woman, The Portraiture, A new Era in Portskcwitt, The Hunt at Procession, A Pytchlcy Hunt, The .
Railway Trains, Police of Ramsay, Allan .
Real Social Evil. A Recruiting in Olden Time Relic, A .
Roland, Childe .
Komanco of Lima, A Rosette ....
Royal Sovereign, The .
Rubens in the Cloister
Sailors of tho Nilo .
St. Alban's St David’s .
St. Eloi, The Shrine of .
St Gabriel’s, Legend of St. Vitus, Legend of Sark ....
Savoy, Tho Sea, By the Secretary, The Porfect General Sempstress, The Mechanical Sesouheim
Sowing Machine, The Shorehaui
Shrine of St Eloi, The . Sibyl, The Cumtean Silver Arrow, Tho Sir Olaf . .
Skedaddlers from the Nortl Army ....
“ Slave or Free .
Smith, Mrs.
Social Evil, A Rail 8tagu Hamlet, The Steve Lidyard’s Adventure
pAOK | PAGE
598 Strongbow. Earl . . . . 707
I “Stumpy Brown” . . . . fill
815 8ummer Day at Hampstead, A 109
1 19 Summer Day at St. Alban’s, A . 309 368 | Summer Day at St. David’s, A . 477 1-5 | Summer Day at Shorebam and 252 I Brambor, A .... 253 291 Swiss Lakes, Two . . . . 550
| Syrinx, Lost 433
SS7
618 j Theo Leigh, 505, 533, 561, 589, 617,
645, 673, 701
jh‘3 I Tintoret 07
| Tipperary Shot, A . . 491, 519, 547
Tobacco, Poisoning by . .446
; ; Tragedy and Comedy, Between . 692 1 13 Two Lives in One . . . . 459
u»6v» Two Swiss Lakes .... 550
i j Transformation of the Gipsies . . 498
,1 .
293.
hern
COO
309
477
421
1
405
449
163
280
530
448
358
448
253
421
602
107
346
340
476
597
278
622
219
Una, tho Moon-Fay
Waterloo and Wellington . .
Wasters, Human .... Wedding, A Northern . .
Weibertreu and Weinsberg . Wellington, Tho Duke of .
Whaler Fleet, The .... Whaling at tho Cape do Verdes “ What is my Love Like ?” . .
Who was tho Executioner of King Charles the First?
Wigs
Winchilsea
Windows of the Soul, Tho . . Wit, Old .
Wolfe, Charles .
Work of Time, The
Yapahoo .
Yarmouth, Church at
Zoetany, J.
S76
C81
174 200 389 681 638 194 532
14
. . 287 . 604 . . 344
. 167
501, 572
2*25, 281 . 542
. . 307
INDEX TO ILLUSTRATIONS.
BARNES, R —29.
BURTON. W. S.— 14, 210, 638.
DU MAURIER, G — 57, 85.
ELTZE, F. —70, 112, 238, 266, 322, 406, 597, 722.
FAIRFIELD, A. R.— 42, 154, 558, 631. FROLICH, L. — 659, 661.
’ GREEN, C.— 126.
KNEWSTUB, W. J.— 337.
LAMONT, T. R.— 294, 378, 434, 546, 674, 687, 710.
LUCAS, H.— 447.
MORTEN, T.— 141, 603.
PASQUIER, J. A.— 9S.
PINWELL, G. J.— 26, 586, 713, 699, 713. PRITCHETT, R. T.— 253, 255, 362, 98, 399, 449, 513.
8KELT0N, P. J.— 169, 309.
8LINGER, F. A.— 113, 182, 462, 491, 519, 549.
i SULMAN, T.— 1, 163. 197, 225, 220, 227, , 281, 282, 283, 389, 391, 477, 479, 606,
! 007, 671.
; WOLF, J.— 350.
I
MISCELLANEOUS. — S3, 279, S3 5, 426, 427, 514, 543, 664, 657, 658, 683.
DIAGRAMS — 388, 567, 689.
The ruins of the little chapel of St. Gabriel’*, which !if&lr ^8ti“0ny troth of, at least, some part of
the following legend (well known amongst the country people of the neighbourhood), are still to be found in a pansh of the same name, situated at the foot of Golden tap— the highest of a range of beautiful cliffs border*
BridpTfc001*4 °f I)oraetaJlire> Lymo Begis and
the waves beat high about the ship,
A goodly ship, and strong ;
The captain sends a cheering word Th’ affrighted crew among.
The waves beat wild upon the ship,
And howling blows the wind ;
the crew can read in the captain s face The anguish of his mind 1
The vessel drifts on the open sea,
Her masts, her compass gone ;
And the foaming, seething billows now Are fearful to look upon.
She beareth weight of precious freight,
Of gold and gems good store ;
She beareth Bertram and his bride Back to old England's shore.
“ 0 captain, give me the ship's small boat 1 " Young Bertram loud he cried ;
“ Oh ! give me straight the ship's small boat, To save my fair young bride ! ”
41 1 will not give thee the ship's small boat,
To sink in such a sea ;
For, be thy bride or drown'd or saved,
Ye shall not part from me.’*
“ 0 captain, change that cruel worl,
For the ship is lost I wot ;
But the little boat may rise and float Where the vessel riseth not.5*
The captain look’d at the broken ship,
He look'd at the lady pale.
He heard the roaring of the sea.
The howling of the gale :
VOL, XL
Digitized by ' No. 261.
THE LEGEND OF ST. GABRIEL’S.
ONCE A WEEK.
[ J UN'F. 25, ISM.
44 Ay, take the host, and the saints thee save, And bring thee safe to shore ;
For of crew and captain never a man Shall live to tread it more ! ”
Then Bertram took hi* bride in hit arms ;
Into the boat leapt he ; —
Bat the waves dragg’d down the doomed ship, To the prison-house of the sea 1
The ship’s small boat rides well, rides well, Over the waves so high ;
The lady she trembles and weeps for fear,
And moans with piteous cry.
41 Oh ! hash thee, 11 Bertram said, “dear love, And pray our Lord,” quoth he ;
41 Pray good 8t. Gabriel send us help Id this neoessity 1 ”
Then he aloud, and she at heart,
The self-same words they spake.
44 Oh I save us, Christ, as thou didst save On Galiltta's lake 1
44 Oh I save us, Gabriel, saint adored 1 And still this raging sea ;
And wheresoe'er the boat bo oast We’ll raise a shrine to thee,—
44 A beauteous altar, gold bedeck'd,
Whero niuht and morn shall shine A silver lamp, to tell to all This gracious deed of thine.”
And through the night he prayed thus ;
But loud the wind did rage,
And the awful anger of the sea Bid uot with dawn assuage.
The second night he proyhd thus ;
And as he closed each prayer,
His bride grew pale, and wrung her hands, And wept in dire despair !
The third night that he praydd thus,
His voice was weak and worn ;
But stars on high gemm'd all the sky,
And calmly broke the morn.
41 Now praise we good St Gabriel,
My bonnie bride and I 1 My dearest love, so still and pale,
Why dost thou silent lie ! ”
He kiss'd her lips, be call'd her name,
But answer gave she none ;
He wept aloud with bitter cry,—
** Bear love ! my life is gone !**
He spied upon th’ horiion dear A line of unknown land,
And knew that the gently flowing tide Would drift them to the strand.
And ere the sun had sunk behind The waste of watery store,
With sighs, his burdened boat he drew Upon the desolate shore —
A rugged coast, a belt of sand,
A cavern dark and dree,
With sea-mews sending, as they wheel'd, Their cries across the sea.
He paced the belt of red-ribb’d sand.
He clomb the rugged cliff ; ne look’d below on his pale, pale bride,
And on the broken skiff.
He kneel’d him down on the barren rock, With bis face toward the sea ;
44 0 Gabriel ! send me help, to keep The vow we vow'd to thee !”
And while he spake, from far and near The people of the land
Came running o’er the bleak sea-shore, Across the ribb'd sea-sand :
They lifted the lovely lady high,
As in the boat she lay ;
They bare her up the pathway steep,
Nor rested by the way ;
They took the granite from the cliff,
And quarried marble fine.
They hew'd, they built from night to morn, And raised a goodly Bhrine ;
They made an altar, and beneath They laid the lady fair.
And lighted there a lamp that gleam’d Like the gleams on her golden hair I
And there the chapel, to this day,
Braves the rough storm-wind well,
And proves the vow fulfill’d, I trow,
To good Saint Gabriel 1
MY FIRST DEAL IN HORSE-FLESH.
When the Pet began to kneel and use her beseeching eyes, I knew full well that, although I may pretend to make a fight, the battle was really finished.
44 But,” I said, 44 I really don’t think, Beaty, that it’s quite consistent in a country parson’s daughter to go scampering about the country on horseback. You know how cen- sorious people are. There are the Misses ”
Pet put her hand upon my mouth at once, tossed back the bush of golden, silken hair from either cheek, and held up her finger, —
44 Now, that is all nonsense, papa dear ; besides, you know you are always talking about Mr. Kiugsley and the value of muscular Chris- tianity, and plunder his ideas for Sunday use sometimes,” she said, screwing up her violet eyes in the most comical manner ; 44 and now you have an opportunity of putting these ideas in practice, you put me off with what the
Misses will say. Is it fair now, sir, that
you men-folk should keep all the muscular Christianity to yourselves, and not spare a little bit to the women-folk ? ”
This was touching me hard, so I gave in at once.
44 But supposing, Beaty, we could find you
this fancy steed you talk about ”
44 Supposing, papa ! — there is no supposing about the matter. All you are asked to do, is to find the money, and Pll find the dear delightful little horse so that’s settled. And, you know, it will be a positive saving, papa ; for that beautiful habit of mamma’s, which cost
Digitized by ^.ooQle
June 25, 1864.]
ONCE A WEEK.
3
thirty-five guineas, will be perfectly destroyed by the moths, unless it is taken out and worn ; so, you see, the cost of the horse will be more than saved, after all.”
I did not see the cogency of the argument, it is true ; but who ever thought of arguing with Beaty when she looked you through with her large and fathomless violet eyes? At least, not her papa ; and possibly another, one of these days, will feel inclined to forget his logic also.
Beaty was as good as her word. One morn- ing, at breakfast, she came running up with the Times, and, throwing herself down on her knees, in the old cuddling, irresistible fashion, exclaimed, —
44 Pve found him ! I believe my 4 good fairy * has put this advertisement in on purpose to please me ; ” and she began to read, —
TO BE SOLD, a HORSE OF GREAT BEAUTY, late the property of a deceased Gentleman. He is a beautiful Bay, with Black Legs, by Emelius, per* fectly quiet to ride and drive, and has carried a Lady. Apply, before 10 a. m., at — Mews.
44 There, papa, if you are a good boy, you shall have a ride sometimes ; and he will do for pic-nics, and to drive you over to Grimsby, where that tiresome old vicar always wants you to do duty for him. Did you ever hear of such a perfect animal ? ”
44 Softly, Miss Beatrice,” I said ; 44 1 am afraid all this is too good to be true. I shall be quite satisfied if he carries you.”
44 Now then, dear papa, see that you go early, as such an animal is sure to be snapped up directly in London, where a good horse is always worth his money.”
I took the morning-train the very next day, after many injunctions that I must on no account let the 44 horse of great beauty ” slip through my fingers. I arrived at the mews in question at the appointed time. It was situated in a very quiet and respectable neighbourhood, and was in itself a very orderly-looking place. Why do grooms take such pride in the windows of their sleeping-rooms ? Every other window that I looked at was fenced in with a mimic five-barred gate, the palings painted white, and the five-barred gate green. No doubt, these are but expressions of the country taste of the country-bred lads who come up to town to seek their fortunes, and sink down into the cunning grooms one meets with at the comers of streets in May Fair, plotting treason against . their masters with the com- chandler. I asked in vain, for a long time, for the handsome hor3e, but no one seemed to know anything about him. At last I was told to apply at a particularly quiet and orderly-looking stable, where my informant told me he had 44 heerd of
such a boss” as I was looking for. Accord- ingly I knocked, but there was no answer. Tired of repeatedly knocking, I at last took the liberty of opening the door and walking in. The only person visible was a venerable-looking groom, who was engaged in cleaning a horse. 44 Wis’ss, wis’ss, wis’ss,” went the rheumatic old man, either not heariug me enter or not deign- ing to take any notice of me, whilst intently engaged upon his duties. He was dressed in an old purple plush waistcoat, with old silver buttons with a crest upon them, and his neck was incased in a neatly-pinned white cravat. Evidently he belonged to some old household, where a certain traditional dress was main- tained, even reaching to the stable-man. There was something in the old man that spoke of better days, and I was at once prepossessed in his favour. At last, as he took no notice of me, I went up closer to him, and asked if that was the horse advertised in the Times for sale ; but the only response that he made was the same 4 4 wis’ss, wis’ss, wis’ss,” his body bent quite double. At last, thinking he might be deaf, I slapped him gently on the back, on which he slowly rose up to his full height, adjusted his footing in a rickety manner, and exclaimed, —
44 Yes, sir, they be, worse luck, and I wish I was going to be sold wi’ ’em,” and immedi- ately renewed his eternal 44wis’ss, wis’ss, wis’ss,” | as though he considered it an intrusion on my part to interrupt him in his duties.
44 Qome,” I said to myself, 44 1 must mollify | this crusty, sterling old* retainer, or I shall got | nothing out of him. He evidently takes me I for a Cockney. I tried what effect a shilling ! would have upon him, and immediately found i that his country bluntness was no proof against the charm ; in fact, he became quite com- municative.
44 Ye 8, gemman,” he said, resuming for good his upright position, as well as his rheu- matics would let him, 44 all these ’ere hosses | in this stable is to be sold, and, as I said be- 1 fore, I wish I was going to be sold wi’ ’em. j They have all been under my hands ever since they was foaled. They are, or was, the pro- perty of Squire , of Hall, in North-
amptonshire, God bless him. He has now been dead three months, and his hosses was as much to him as his own childer. They tells me as how he left it in his will that they was | all to be sold without reserve, by his dear old
! friend, Squire , but they was only to go
I into good hands. If a good home was offered
| to ’em, the price was to be no consideration. He was a merciful man to his beasts, was t’ ould squire.”
The old man, like an old horse, began to
Digitized by ^.ooQle
ONCE A WEEK.
warm to his work, and he took me round the stables, with that peculiar loose hobble which grooms somehow seem to acquire in the stable.
“ Ah ! that were the master’s own hoss,” he exclaimed, affectionately patting an old hunter, “ and this ’ere one carried the missus ; she were a rare comely lady, and wanted some good stuff to be up to her weight, she did ; and this was the pony that the young squire as was to be, used to ride, only he died ; and poor master, he took on so about it, I do believe it was the death on him.”
u And this one,” said I, espying the bay with the black legs.
“ Ah ! sir,” he said, u now you have hit it. I see you baint a bad judge of bosses. I see this ain’t the first time you have had to do wi’ ’em.”
“ Well,” thought I to myself, “ if this ex- cellent old man wants to be sold with the lot, I won’t object. He’s just the sterling trust- worthy old man I would like to trust my Beaty to.”
It would almost seem as though the old servitor divined my thoughts, for he said, —
“ Ain’t he handsome as paint, sir ? That was he as carried Miss Grace, she as is dead and gone now, sir, wi’ her first babe. Lord, sir, the whole village used to come out to see Miss Grace a-riding, and I scarcely knowed which looked the handsomest, she or this ’ere hoss ; ” and the old man rubbed his eyes with his sleeve.
I stopped for a moment, and whilst I ap- peared to be busy looWng over the animals, I was thinking to myself what a wide difference there was between servants. Here was an old fellow, as rough and as dry, to all outward appearance, as the bark of a tree, yet as tender- hearted as a child. What a contrast, I thought, to the “ spick-and-span-new ” grooms of the present day, whose only thought is, how they can do the animals out of their oats ! There can be no doubt here, I thought, of the rare service of the antique world. This is one of the good old servants we used to hear our fathers talk about.
To return to business, however, the “ horse of great beauty ” was in a loose box, which showed off his points to perfection. He was a small horse, splendidly groomed, and in superb condition. He was, in short, the ideal horse for my Beaty ; and I flattered myself that she would look quite as becoming upon him as Miss Grace.
“ I suppose Squire will allow a trial
and give a warranty with him,” I said, care- lessly, and as a mere matter of form.
“ In course,” said the old man ; “the con- ditions is, that anybody that is likely to suit
[Ju»b 25, 1854.
may have him as long as they like, to try ’un, and if they don’t like ’un, they have only to bring ’un back and have their money.”
Nothing could be more straightforward.
“ When will Squire be here,” I in-
quired.
“ Well, sir, I did hear tell that he had to attend a Bible meeting, at Exeter Hall, and that he might look in as he came by, about one ; but, Lord bless’e, sir, they kind of gem- men as goes to the hall don’t take no count of hoss-flesh ; and all he cares about is, that they shall get into some kind hand as likes hosses. Besides, sir, he don’t much care about selling this ’ere one, as he thinks he has a friend who will take the lot.”
“ Very well, John,” I said, liking the look of the affair more and more, “I will be here at one.”
At the appointed time I was at the stable, and, fortunately, the squire looked in.
He saw me, but took not the slightest notice of my presence, but conversed with the old groom in an undertone, and was evidently giving some directions to him about one of the animals. He was on the point of going away, when the old groom hinted to me that that was the squire, and if I had anything to say I had better make haste, as he was off again to an afternoon prayer-meeting at the hall.
Having apologised for my intrusion, I at once explained the object of my visit ; and, as I did so, I could not help remarking the appearance of the squire and executor. He was dressed in black, and wore a white cravat, with an old-fashioned deep frill to his shirt, and gave me the idea of belonging to one of the learned professions — either a clergyman or physician of the old school ; there was a lean- ness about liis face, too, which gave him the air of an ascetic, but that his nimble eyes somewhat belied that character.
The principal gave me the same story about the horses as the old groom. He should be glad to get them off his hands, if he could find a good master for them ; and, really, he knew very little about horses, and the charge of them interfered with business on which he had come up to town, which, he gave me to understand, was to attend the May meetings. At the same time, he felt it a duty to attend to the last wishes of his old friend, who was, he thought, a little sentimental about his horses, but these little weaknesses were just the things that ought to be respected. Ho said this very carelessly, as though he were talking to himself rather than to me.
Everything was so fair and above-board, that I determined to conclude the deal at once.
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I felt I was in such highly respectable hands, that I thought it would look like an insult to ask for a trial before paying, especially as I was to have a written warranty. Just by way of airing him, he was trotted up and down the yard ; and he certainly went superbly, with fine high action, and with eyes foil of courage. The money was paid, and the stamped warranty was given, and I directed the groom to send him to my own stable in town, and returned by the evening-train to the rectory. “ Well, papa, what about the horse ? ” were the first words with which I was greeted by Miss Beaty. “ Well, my darling, it really is a superb crea- ture, and will become you mightily.” “ Didn’t I tell you, papa,” said she, kissing me, “that it would turn out well ? You know I have a kind of presentiment about these things. You know I always get just what I want, just in the nick of time.” " Well, well, my dear, we shall see,” I re- plied, pleased with myself and her also. The next morning, on returning to town, I thought that, just for form’s sake, I would have his paces tried by a good rider, before ordering him to be sent home. Accordingly, I got a groom from a neighbouring mews. After giving my new purchase a good feed of corn, the groom mounted him. He certainly did not start very well ; he swerved right round to begin with. “He was only having a bit of play,” the groom said, “ after his com.” He was trotted up and down, and the groom thought that, with regular work, he would go very well. At the same time, he gave “ the office,” as it is termed, to a fellow-groom that was standing by. Presently he said the horse had suddenly hurt his foot on a stone ; and he certainly flinched with one foot whenever it was brought down on the hard road. It was very provoking ; besides, why should the groom have winked in the way he did ? It was all right, of course ; but, perhaps, it would be but fair to have the opinion of a “ vet.” at once, instead of waiting for the three weeks’ stipulated trial. Accordingly, the “ vet.” was sent for, and came. The moment he entered the stable, he gave the same comical sort of grin the groom had done. “ Ah 1 an old acquaintance,” he exclaimed. “ Impossible,” I said, somewhat hurt at his familiarity ; “ he has just come out of North- amptonshire.” “ At all events, I have seen him bought and |
sold, over and over again, at Aldridge’s,” he rejoined. “ Why, he was late the property of Squire , of Hall,” I said, in amazement. “Yery good,” replied the “vet.”; “but if you will be kind enough to inspect his near forefoot, you will find a sand* crack — a split hoof, — very cleverly disguised with coloured wax.” I did look at his foot, as desired ; and there was the crack, so artfully filled up that I never should have discovered it myself. “ Why, I know the horse to be dead-lame,” said the “ vet.”, “ and there is no cure for it.” Dear me, how my old friend, the groom, must have been deceived ; but, at least, I had a written warranty, and I determined to see him again. The old groom was busy as before, “wis’ss, wis’ss, wis’ss.” I told him what I had dis- covered, but he was as calm and stolid as ever. “ Well, you know, gemman, what Squire said. If you don’t like ’un, return ’un, and there’s your money for you.” I almost felt indignant with the “ vet.” for creating any suspicion on my mind as to the transaction ; and I mildly communicated to him, when I next saw him, my belief that the very respectable vendor was perfectly innocent in the matter, and that my money was quite safe. “ If you send back the horse,” he replied, “you will never see either it or your money again. Take my advice, and send him to the next sale at Aldridge’s, and put up with the first loss.” Against my will, I was at length convinced, and the “ horse of great beauty ” was knocked down for seven pounds. I am ashamed to say how much I gave for him ; but let that pass. I have every reason to believe that he fell into the old hands, to whom, in fact, he was a regular annuity. I see the same advertise- ment appearing at regular intervals in the Times, and I have no manner of doubt that the old groom, the old physician, and the “ horse of great beauty,” with the wax-dressed hoof, go through their parts, during the season, with as much success and aplomb as on the occasion when I was the audience and the victim. What Beaty said to me when I got home, and how I twitted her about her presentiment, it is not necessary to repeat. But this I know, the very respectable horse-coper must bait his hook with something different from a “home of great beauty ” before he gets another bito from the Country Parson. |
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ANGELN.
It has been said that the Russian War revealed to the majority of Englishmen the existence of the Crimea. The Slesvig-Holstein question has been too long before the world, and has been used too much by the lightest of litterateurs as a synonym for something utterly incomprehensible, to allow me to say that the Dano- German war will be for my countrymen the epoch of the discovery of Slesvig. But its exploration will certainly date from the Austro- Prussian invasion. Thousands of tourists will trace this autumn the path of the German hosts, wander over the ground where the Dannevirke stood for well nigh a thousand years, maim their feet upon the execrable pavement of the long dull street of Slesvig town, look through the hue (as far as the interior is concerned) Dom Kirche, drive along the road to Flensburg, on which the out- numbered Danes made their retreat, stop at Oversee to note the spot where they made such a gallant stand, and dealt such slaughter amongst the impetuous Styrians, lounge along the quays of Flensburg, or sail upon its beauti- ful inlet, and, as the term of their journey, revisit, as it were, Sundewitt and Alsen, with which the vivid descriptions of special corre- spondents have already made them well ac- quainted.
I cannot tell how Slesvig may look this autumn, after the tornado of war has swept across it, but if the recuperative power of nature is strong enough to give it anything like the same smiling aspect it presented last year, the tourists cannot fail to find much to delight them. Very easy of access, Slesvig, which no one formerly 'visited, because it led nowhere and had no special attractions, could boast no mountains or waterfalls, no world-compelling ruins or galleries, will now draw the curious who delight to gaze upon the theatre of impor- tant events, and charm while it fills with wonder all those Englishmen who love the rural beauty of their native land. For, but that the people speak platt deutsch and dialects in which it is difficult to say, bo philologists tell us, whether German or Danish more predominates, but that they dress a little differently, an Englishmen fancies himself at home in Slesvig. As long as he keeps out of doors it is hard for him — in the summer time — to believe that he is not in England. In winter the bitterness of the cold would remind him that he was in another clime, and the blank, dreary appearance of the snow-covered laud would strike him with no similitude to the English landscape.
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able that unless he has some suggestion to do so he will pass by the most interesting district, and come away with an indifferent opinion of the duchy. I know Sundewitt, which he is sure to visit, would please him well enough if it were in its natural condition, but it has been the great theatre of war, the camping-ground of sixty or seventy thousand soldiers, and when the armies withdraw it must change from a scene of animation to one of desolation. The rest of the duchy that he is likely to see, if he follows the track of the war or of the railway, is one long unbroken stretch of heath and marsh, very good to fatten cattle for the London market, but very cheerless to look upon.
The interesting portion of Slesvig lies aside from the railway and from the war. The turn- pike road from SleBvig to Flensburg, of which I have spoken, may be said to form its boundary. The traveller who, instead of making his way from Slesvig to Flensburg by the rail, chooses, perhaps from a desire to follow in the steps of the armies, the road, will find himself after he gets a mile or two out of Slesvig on a heath, broken only two or three times on the whole of the rest of the distance — some twenty miles — by villages, cultivated land, and bits of wood. On his left hand the moor will stretch as far as his eye can reach, and if his vision were powerful enough, he would follow it to the North Sea. On his right hand, however, it is stopped in less than a mile by hillocks covered with wood. Sheltered by those hil- locks, and stretching from them to the sea, forming a semicircle of which this road may be called the line, and the sea, the inlet of Flens- burg, and the Slei the outside, lies Angeln, a country which possesses even a greater interest to Englishmen than the quiet beauty which it shows to all comers, inasmuch as it is the re- puted home of the race which gave their land its back-bone and its name.
I am no ethnologist ; I do not pretend to offer an opinion upon the merits of the argu- ments which have been brought forward in the controversy whether the Angles did come from Angeln, but I have acquired a conviction that they did, which no force of argument, I will even say no proof, however strong, can shake. I was at home there. As I wandered through the narrow roads, with their thick, luxurious fences, in which the blackberries invited me to feast, as I was wont to do when a schoolboy ; as I turned aside to ramble without purpose or goal up the green lanes, with their even taller and more unkempt hedges ; as I strolled in pleasant footpaths across fields of about five or six acres, in which the oats stood in shocks waiting to be carted, or the ploughman whistled [ after his horses ; as I caught every now and
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then a glimpse of a lowly church peeping out in about equal proportions Dan:sh or Low- of the trees, and close by it the substantial German.
house of the gutslwitzer , or squire ; as I walked I have no intention of describing Angeln in through the villages by the well-built cottages any detail, I desire only to state the impres- — the walls and porches covered with trailing sion it made upon me, for the benefit of flowers, the gardens neat and well kept up — I those of my countrymen who, passing by could hardly believe that I was not after all Hamburg next autumn, may diverge from their in East Anglia, somewhere on the coast of route for a few days to visit the scene of Norfolk. Almost everything I saw assisted to what I hope may then be called the late war. heighten the illusion. There was the black- But there is one spot of which I must make smith’s forge by the road side, with the gossips brief mention — Glucksburg, or Lyksborg, the standing about it ; there was the beer-house in favourite residence of the late King of Den- the middle of the village, and the little general mark ; and I do so, the more especially that shop, where everything was to be bought ; there it is within an easy walk from Flensburg. were the guide-posts at every crossway, with A very pleasant walk I found it ; the road, unmistakeable English names upon them — at well kept, as becomes a road to a royal resi- least half the villages in Angeln seemed to me dence, runs through a country which presents to end in “by” — there were the boundary- the usual features of an Angeln landscape, the stones marking the limits of the parishes, and distance being about six or seven miles. The chubby, flaxen-headed children, — non Angli palace is built in a small lake of a circular sed Angeli — who bowed and curtseyed to the shape, and rises out of the waters at a short stranger just as if they had been trained by distance from the shore. It is entirely sur- the parish schoolmistress. The only things rounded by water ; there is no embankment — that struck me at all strangely were the stone not even a gallery ; steps lead down to a landing causeways, which commence at the first and place on the main front towards the park, and finish at the last house of each village, the a bridge connects it on one side with the land, numbers on the houses — a police regulation — on which are the stables and other outbuildings, and the remarkable civility of the people. A The house is a very large one, with no pre- stranger who strolls through an English village tension to architectural beauty, but evidently has to run the gauntlet of something more than very solidly built. Round the lake, except for curiosity ; it is quite possible that he will be the small distance along which the road runs, greeted with a stone or two, and if half-a-dozen stretches a beautiful park, open to all, through fellows are lounging together in front of the which the visitor must perforce ramble. A beer-house or on the church-yard wall, a few beautiful bright afternoon had succeeded a wet coarse jeers are certain to be bestowed upon morning, and a more delightful spot than him. I met with nothing of the kind in An-> Glucksburg I have seldom seen. All was so geln, and choose to account for the difference quiet and yet so bright. Here fine masses of by the mixture of races in England. The only trees came down into the lake, and there the impertinence I did experience was familiar waters forced their way into the forest, and enough. From almost every farmyard a couple formed little bays shut in by dense foliage ; and of dogs rushed out and barked me beyond the the old house which looked into them all, with bounds. The people looked strong and healthy, its three-gable roofs, held together as it were the young women were comely and ruddy as by the round towers which kept guard each English peasant girls. The servant girls of at a corner, for all its ugliness had a charming Flensburg, drawn, I suppose, from Angeln, were look. It seemed just the place to live a lazy, among the prettiest I have seen out of or even lounging life, free from all care or trouble, in England. The country is pleasantly undu- one’s hardest work to float in a canoe across lating and fairly wooded, and the larger part the lake, and there, under the shelter of some belongs to noble proprietors, as is also the case giant trees, and lulled by the rippling of the in Holstein, with the exception of the rich water, sleeping or waking, dream away. Be- marsh district, Dithmarschen. Iti the rest of hind the park and on towards the sea were Slesvig the land belongs to peasant proprietors, woods in which a sportsman would find, no but these peasaut proprietors are really large doubt, plenty of amusement. The village is a yeomen, and own farms of three or four hundred long one, and as a royal residence should be acres. The language spoken by the inhabitants clean and well-to-do-looking, with some good | of Angeln was one of the most vexed disputes houses of much higher pretensions than peasants* between the Germans and the Danish Govern- cottages. On the other side of the road is ment. As far as I could form a judgment, another and smaller lake, connected with the whilst the land-owners are Germans, and speak larger one by a stream which turns a mill, and High-German, the population generally speak j upon this lake stands another large house.
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The castle was formerly the seat of the Glucks- burg dukes, and King Christian, who belongs to that house, resumes, therefore, an old family possession. Let us hope that he will soon be able to enjoy it. At present the Prussians are masters at Glucksburg, and they are “ men in possession ” of whom it is very difficult to get rid. Burton S. Blyth.
THE BIOGRAPHY OF A PLANT.
When wo compare human life with plant life it is astonishing to what an extent their vital phenomena resemble each other. All the stages of human life, of infancy, youth, man- hood, and old age, are well-defined in plant life. About this there can be no mistake. The life of man compared with that of a plant ! Are 1 then the ties which unite us to plants so inti- mate 1 Yes ! far more intimate than is commonly believed ! To convince my readers of this, to strengthen their love of nature, and to make to them the plant-world more interesting, is my object in thus comparing our own life- changes with those of plants.
From the abundance which nature furnishes, we shall select — not a tree, for that sometimes outlives successive generations of men ; besides, there is something strong, as well as enduring about a tree ; — no ! we must give the life-his- tory of something in the vegetable kingdom far more frail and perishable ; the biography, for example, of an annual plant, one of those flowers which adorn the garden or the land- scape for a few months or weeks, and then pass away for ever, to be replaced by other floral forms as the seasons change, equally grace- ful, beautiful, and perishable.
The Stage op Infancy. — This commences with the first movement of re-awakening life in the seed, and closes with the fall of the cotyledons or nursing leaves. If we plant the I seed of such an annual in a suitable soil when 1 Spring and warm weather come it will begin to germinate, or its life-movements will re- com- mence. It first attracts the moisture from the soil to itself. This produces the softening and swelling of its outer covering, which is finally ruptured by the growth of the embryo in its interior, which sends downwards through the torn seed-cover a little rootlet, and upwards a young stem, to which are attached the first pair of leaves. . These leaves, which are thick and fleshy, form the great bulk of the seed, and are called by botanists cotyledons : they are, in reality, the nursing leaves of the young embryo. We call them nursing leaves because they perform a duty quite peculiar to them- selves, and therefore different to the work done by the other leaves which subsequently appear
above them. They are thick and fleshy because they contain a store of starch, provisions elabo- rated by the parent plant which produced the seed, and whose last vital movements were expended in making this food for its offspring ! On this store of starch, the infant plant, with its little root, and its stem bearing towards its summit the first true aerial leaves, is at first wholly parasitic, until it is sufficiently grown to attract from the earth and atmosphere a sufficiency of food for its support, and can do without the nursing leaves. It is quite obvious, therefore, that our plant must pass gradually from the stage of parasitism to that of independency.
During the first stages of its life, our little annual attracts oxygen from the air ; this enters the nursing leaves, and through its influ- ence, the starch which they contain is con- verted into a soluble sugary gum called dextrine, which the water absorbed during germination conveys to the rootlets in the soil, and to the young leaves forming in the atmosphere. Thus nourished, both grow, and the young leaves speedily expand and take the form peculiar to the plant.
With the progress of growth, the nursing leaves also undergo a great change in their appearance. Lifted above the ground and exposed to the light of the sun, they speedily expand and take a green leaf-like colour, becom- ing so much enlarged that they present quite a different appearance to that which they had when folded together and enveloped by the seed-skin. There can be no doubt that this change of colour enables them to discharge their nutritive duties more effectively. Now as the first rootlets and aerial leaves are formed prin- cipally out of the nutritive matter with which the cotyledons are furnished, they become gradually atrophied, or waste away and shrivel up, as the nutritious store in them disappears, and finally fall from off the stem. With the full development of the aerial leaves and the fall of the nursing leaves, the first stage of vegetable life, the stage op infancy, is closed.
It is thus that Nature, like an affectionate mother, cares for the life of all her plant-chil- dren, and gently weans them, first gradually altering their organism so as to adapt it to a change of diet, *uid then by degrees with- drawing the sustenance afforded by the nursing leaves. Surely, nothing can be more perfect or natural than this analogy between these early stages of plant life and those of human life!
The Stage of Youth. — This is the proper vegetable stage, throughout which the plant is wholly independent of the nursing leaves, and draws its nutritious material entirely from
a
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the earth and atmosphere, those two grand and inexhaustible store-houses of vegetable food. The commencement of this epoch is therefore marked by the atrophy and fall of the nursing leaves. See, how admirably the two extremi- ties of our plant are organically adapted to the earth and atmosphere l A rootlet and a leaf, how different in form and colour ! yet both are absorbents beautifully adapted to the two media into which they develops themselves. Their functions are the same. We cannot, in a paper like the present, undertake to enter minutely into the anatomy and physiology of these organs. Let it be remembered that this is only a brief outline of plant-life, sufficient to awaken, we hope, a pleasing train of thought in the mind of the reader. It is enough then if we simply state the facts. The little root- lets descend into the soil, and put forth from their surface innumerable fine white, hair-like fibres, which are the instruments by means of which the plant takes up its food ; its young stem ascends into the air, and its bark and fibre, arranged cylindrically in separate beds or layers in the stem, are spread out horizontally at definite points along its stem, in the form of numerous flat, horizontal, green plates, or ab- sorbent surfaces, called leaves. The bark or cellular tissue of these leaves is penetrated by the fibres of the wood in the shape of veins, veinlets and capillaries, which communicate directly with the fibres of the stem and roots, and thus act as conduits of the sap from one ex- tremity of the plant to the other. In this man- ner the sap brought from all the other parts of the plant is conducted to all parts of the leaf by these veins, veinlets and capillaries, to be thoroughly spread out and aerated in the leaves.
The processes of evaporation and absorption are greatly facilitated by the organisation of the skin, or epidermal covering of the leaves. This skin, with its porous openings, is adapted to the aerial medium by which the leaves are surrounded. The porous openings are called stomata. They are, in fact, self-acting valves, and consist of two cells together, usually of an oval figure, with a slit in the middle. They are so situated as to open directly into the hollow chambers, or air cavities, in the interior of the leaf. It is through these pores that the superfluous water of the sap is evaporated, and such gases absorbed from the atmosphere as are nutritious to the plant.
The structure of the stomata, or pores, may be readily perceived on the epidermis of the lily, where they are unusually large. The epidermis must be carefully removed, and having been freed from its chlorophyl or leaf- green, it must be placed between two strips of
glass, with a drop of water between them, so as to give it the necessary degree of trans- parency. Water ought, for this reason, always to be used, whenever objects selected from the tissues of vegetables are examined microscopi- cally. The epidermis thus prepared will ex- hibit the pores, and the nature and beauty of their mechanism will be better understood and appreciated.
Hence, when fully formed, these aerial leaves aerate and elaborate the sap or nutri- tive fluid, in a much more perfect manner than the nursing leaves ; and the growth of the plant is consequently more rapid after their evolution.
The leaves now contribute individually to each other’s support, the lower leaves aiding in the growth of those that are above them, and con- tributing also to the development of that portion of the stem which is below them, and to the increase of the number of rootlets in the soil, and thus vegetative power gradually increases. We have a manifest proof of this in the in- crease in size of the leaves from below upwards, and also in the increase in the length of the intemodes, or naked intervals of stem which separate them. For the size of the leaves and the length of their intemodes depend wholly on the vegetative activity of the leaves themselves ; and as those leaves situated to- wards the middle of the stem are not only larger, but more wide apart, than the leaves above and below them, it is evident that the growth of the plant is first accelerated and then retarded, and that the vegetative force is greatest about the middle of the stem. It is here, therefore, that the wave of growth cul- minates. From this point upwards the vege- tative force diminishes, the leaves decrease in size, their intemodes shorten, until finally the vegetative force is reduced to zero, and the leaves are crowded into those beautiful meta- morphosed clusters, or rosettes, popularly called flowers. In the flower the wave of growth is depressed to a minimum, for when the flower appears, growth invariably ceases in that direction.
Our plant has now entered upon that interesting period which has been emphatically called “ the change of life.” We notice a peculiar altera- tion in its habits and structure. Another force has come into play — that of reproduction — which gradually gains the ascendency, checks the growth of the plant, brings the leaves to- gether, and finally culminates in the produc- tion of flower-buds. These differ only from leaf-buds in having no power of extension, for as in the flower the vegetative powers of the leaves are reduced to zero, the axis of the floral leaves necessarily retains its rudimentary
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condition, and no intervals of stem whatever are formed between them. The vegetative stage of youth is passed away for ever, and the plant has now entered upon the reproductive period of its life, or the Period op Puberty. — This epoch in plant life clearly corresponds to the same interesting and critical period in human life, when man attains his greatest strength, and woman is most gentle, graceful, beautiful. “All flesh is as grass, and all the goodliness thereof is as the flower of ike field.” Isaiah xl. 6. In the flower the leaves are crowded together in order that they may communicate in a pecu- liar manner with each other, and in consequence of the gradual expiration of the vegetative force in that direction. Hence the change of struc- ture or departure from the ordinary type of leaf increases as we pass from the outside to the inside of the flower ; for the vegetative foroes are gradually enfeebled in the flower, and reduced to zero in the centre, where the metamorphosis of the leaf is at a maximum, or the leaf attains its highest stage of organic perfection. We select for analysis one of the more highly organised flowers, where all the parts usually described are present. We must however say that these parts, though well defined in some flowers, are more or less blended together in others. Nature laughs at all such distinctions, and we seek in vain to confine her within the fetters of an artificial nomenclature. The follow- ing distinction of parts, is, however, very con- venient for beginners. The flower, then, consists of four sets of progressively metamorphosed leaves. The two outer sets which are generally the most showy, are simply the envelopes which surround the true botanical flower. They are called the calyx and corolla. Let us con- sider each. The Calyx. — This, when well-defined, con- stitutes the outermost cluster of the floral leaves. Although greatly diminished in size, the leaves of the calyx not unfrequently retain their green colour. Individually they are called sepals (iat. sepalum , a leaf), collectively the calyx (gr. k6Xv^ a cup), because they form a cup-like involucre around the next set of leaves, which are called collectively The Corolla (lat. corolla , a garland), and individually petals (wcraXov, a leaf). These are the most showy leaves in the cluster, consti- tuting the part which is popularly considered as the flower. Thus the red petals of the rose, the yellow petals of the butter-cup, the white petals of the lily, constitute the corolla of those plants. The Stamens. — These are situated imme- diately within the corolla. In the stamen the stalk of the leaf is converted into a filament, |
and the delicate portion or blade into a dub- I like body called an anther. This anther con- | sists of two lobes or cells, which correspond j to either side of the lamina leaf-blade, and ! lying between them you will notice a prolon- j gation of the filament called the c onnectivum f or connective, which answers to the middle of j the leaf. The inside of the anther is filled 1 j with fertilising matter called pollen. The J stamens are called collectively the Andriecium I (ayijp, a man, oTato?, habitation). 1 The Pistil. — This consists of a leaf folded on its midrib, the two sides of the lamina or blade of which are united at their margins to form the ovary. The summit of this folded leaf denuded of its epidermis corresponds to the stigma of the pistil. The interjacent portion between the ovary and stigma is called the style. The pistils are always situated in the centre of the flower ; when both stamens and pistils are present in the same flower the former always surround the latter. The ovary of the pistil is so named, because it contains the ovules, which after fertilisation are trans- formed into seed. The process of fertilisation. — This takes place when all the floral leaves have arrived at matu- rity, and is as follows : — When the flower is fully expanded, at first the anthers of the stamens are unruptured, moist, and closed ; but, as the stamens approach maturity, the anthers become dry, open their cells, and discharge their pollen on the stig- matic surface of the pistils, which about this time exudes a clammy fluid which serves to retain the pollen-grains. These grains absorb the exuded fluid, swell out, and finally emit delicate tubes, which penetrate the loose cellu- lar tissue of the style, and convey the fertilis- ing fluid contents of the pollen-grains to the ovules in the ovary of the pistil The ovules having received the impregnating matter, the embryos or miniature-plants begin to form in them, and the ovules are then gradually trans- formed into seed. With the discharge of the pollen, the act of fertilisation is accomplished. The vital forces from this period begin to be enfeebled, and all the phenomena mark another well-marked change in plant life, a gradual subsiding of all energetic life movements, which culminates in death and disorganisation. Our plant therefore clearly enters upon The Period ofOldAgr. — In all the previous stages of its existence it was a beautiful sub- ject for contemplation, but it is particularly interesting as a study when it approaches the dose of its allotted period of life. What! when its leaves are withering and falling from its stem, when its flowers are losing their bril- liant hues and inimitable colouring, and when |
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the whole vegetative economy is languishing ? Yes, even then it becomes, if possible, an object of deeper admiration ! Why do the flowers lose their beauty, the petals detach themselves and fall, the stamens experience the same degradation, the stigmas and styles of the pistils disappear equally with the other parts 1 It is because these parts have done the work which was assigned them by nature ; and also, for this reason, a new vitality has now been established in the impregnated parts to their detriment. Take, as an example, the forming pod of the common garden pea, which every- body knows makes its appearance after the flowers have faded and fallen. That pod is the ovary of a pistil The calyx will be found at the bottom of that pod, and at its top the remains of the style and stigma. Its two surfaces are at first flat and parallel with each other, but as the ovules in its interior grow in size, they become convex. The sap from the leaves now passes through what was formerly the peduncle or flower-stalk into the green walls of this pod or ovary, which acts like a leaf on the atmosphere, and having been rendered there additionally nutritious, the currents finally meet and pour their contents together into the little cord of vessels, or seed-stalk, which attaches the ovale, or forming seed, to the maternal wall of the ovary, and which may be very properly called the umbilical cord, or vegetable navel-string. The currents of sap are all converging to those little seed-stalks, to those forming plant embryos contained in the seed, and the little store of starch is being prepared which is to support their infant-life. Nature carries on this process until the em- bryos, their food, and the wrappers, or seed- covers, are all perfected, the transformation of the ovule into the seed is then accomplished, and all the movements of life cease.
We must add that the seed-vessel as it matures always assumes such an organisation as is calculated to effect the dispersion of the seed which has been thus brought to maturity. Sometimes the seed-vessel opens with a spring- like mechanism, as in the furze-bush and garden balsam, and the seeds are projected to a considerable distance from the plant. Who has not seen the wind performing its duties as a faithful servant of Nature, and transporting the seeds of the willow-herb and dandelion from their parent plants ? The beautiful stellate down attached to those seeds — what is this but a contrivance to catch the breeze ? Here we must stop. We are entering a new and vast field where Nature displays her usual provident care. If any of the in- numerable seeds thus scattered abroad find a suitable home, all is quiet until the return of
the proper conditions of temperature, air, and moisture, when our little friend wakes up, re-appears on the earth’s surface, running through precisely the same instructive and ever deeply interesting life-movements. And we must add, in conclusion, we are alwayB glad to see our little friend, to whom we are becoming every season increasingly attached.
Harland Coultas.
LONG EXPECTED.
In expectation, all the year,
I watch and wait, I watch and wait ; I keep within a court of state ; Perchance, e’en now, the time is near.
For who can tell the very day When be shall sail love’s tropic seas, Borne on by sweetest fantasies To golden regions far away I
The spring-time comes, and hope is high, For winter’s snows are past and gone, The summer seems to call me on,
The violets whisper “ She is nigh.”
Sweet summer cometh, crowned with flowers, And then my heart of hearts is gay,
For to myself I often say,
1 My love will choose the summer hours.”
But summer fades to autumn’s gold,
Yet still I watch and still I wait ;
I think— * * My love, she cometh late, The days are short, the nights are cold.”
Then winter follows, dark and sere,
And then I trim my beacon-light,
To guide her through the darkest night, And so I measure out the year.
And thus the rolling years pass by :
At times I think u She will not come, Perchance the way is wearisome And dark, beneath a wintry sky.”
viii.
But yet I know she comes from far,
As surely as the silver light,
Flashing for ages through the night, From some yet undiscovered star.
And so I keep my court of state,
With all my heart in solemn dress ; With everything in readiuess,
I watch and wait, I watch and wait ;
Gaxing towards the eastern sky, Waiting the coming of the morn, The first faint flushing of the dawn, Waiting and watching — till I die.
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WHO WAS THE EXECUTIONER OF KING CHARLES THE FIRST ?
Cases of 44 historic doubt” seem to be the legitimate property of the novelist. The mystery which has enveloped the executioner of King Charles the First, the apparent impos- sibility of fixing the act of beheading upon any man for certain, have opened to the writers of historical romance a fair field for the exhi- bition of their art. And they have availed themselves of the opportunity. To mention one or two instances : the author of 44 White- hall,” M. Alexandre Dumas in his 44 Yingt-ans- Aprfcs,” and Mr. Sala in his novel of 44 Captain Dangerous,” have introduced to the public various candidates for the distinction of having killed a king. The generally accepted theory, however, is to the effect that the deed was done by the common hangman of the period for a reward of thirty pounds. But the name of the hangman has been less clearly ascer- tained. Jack Ketch, 44 a wretch,” says Macaulay, 44 who had butchered many brave and noble victims, and whose name has during a century and a half been vulgarly given to all I who have succeeded him in his odious office,” was not appointed until about 1682. 44 While Jefferies on the bench, Ketch on the gibbet sits,” says a lampoon of the time. The bung- ling cruelty exhibited on the occasion of the execution of the unfortunate Duke of Mon- mouth, nearly led to the destruction of Ketch by the infuriated mob ; a strong guard was necessary to save the executioner being torn in pieces. Ketch had succeeded a man named Dun, who is addressed as Squire Dun in a poem by Butler.
44 The addition of 4 squire,1 ” says au authority,
44 with which Mr. Dun is dignified, is a mark that he had beheaded some state criminal for high treason, an operation which, according to custom for time out of mind, has always entitled the operator to that distinction.” Tho predecessor of Dun was Gregory Brandon, after whom the gallows was sometimes called the Gregorian tree, as in the prologue to 44 Mercurius Brittanicus,” acted at Paris, 1641 :
This trembles under the black rod, and be
Doth fear his fate from the Gregorian tree.
An earlier hangman was named Derrick ; pos- sibly, from his name tho tackle employed in raising heavy weights on board ship is still known nautically as a dcirick. j
The executioner of King Charles was pro- I bably either Dun or Brandon ; yet various 1 authorities, at different times, have charged | with the deed, William Walker, Richard 1 Brandon, Hugh Peters, Colonel Joyce, William J
Hewlet, and lastly, Lord Stair. Against some of these the accusation is, of course, utterly groundless ; but on the trial of the regicides after the Restoration, a distinct attempt was made to fix the act of beheading on William Hewlet. The evidence for the prosecution was worthless enough, but the court had quite made up its mind on the subject beforehand, and a verdict of guilty was returned. Hewlet was not executed, however ; the insufficiency of proof was too remarkable, and the restored government had some sense of shame.
44 Many have curiously inquired,” says William Lilly in the 4 History of his Life and Times/ 44 who it was that cut off the king’s head ; I have no permission to speak of such things, but he that did it is valiant, resolute, and of a competent fortune.” After the Resto- ration, Lilly was examined before Parliament on the subject. 44 At my first appearance,” he goes on, 44 1 was affronted by the young members, who demanded several scurrilous questions, and I should have been sorely troubled but for the assistance of Mr. Prinn and Mr. Weston, who whispered to mo occa- sionally, holding a paper before their mouths. Liberty being at last given to me to speak, I delivered what follows : 4 The next Sunday
but. one after the execution of King Charles the First, Robert Spavin, secretary to General Cromwell, and several others, dined with me, when the whole of our discourse was only who it was that beheaded the king ; some said
i the common hangman, some Hugh Peters, and several others were named, but none con- cluded. After dinner was over, Robert Spavin retiring with me to the south window, took my hand and said : 4 These are all mistaken, Lieutenant-Colonel Joyce was the man, for I was in the room when he fitted himself for the work, and stood by him when he did it ; no one knows this but my master, Commissary Ireton, and myself.* ”
I It is certain that Lilly, although originally a royalist, was afterwards actively engaged in the cause of tho Parliament, and was one of tho close committee to consult upon the proper carrying out of the king’s execution. He was celebrated as an astrologer and impostor, and amassed a fortune by casting nativities and foretelling events, and preying generally upon the weakness and superstition of all ranks of society. In the words of Dr. Nash, ,in his 44 Notes to Hudibras,” Lilly was 44 a time- serving rascal,” and it is necessary to use caution in placing credit upon any narrative proceeding from him.
According to Sir Nathaniel Wraxall, George Selwyn, that insatiable amateur of executions, had a different story, however, on this subject.
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He professed to have obtained bis information from the Duchess of Portsmouth, who, he said, always asserted, on the authority of Charles the Second, that the king his father was not beheaded by either Colonel Joyce or Colonel Pride, as was then commonly believed ; but that the name of the real executioner was Gregory Brandon ; that this man had worn a black crape stretched over his face, and had no sooner taken off the king’s head than he was put into a boat at Whitehall Stairs, together with the block, the black cloth that covered it, the axe, and every other article that had been stained with the royal blood. Being conveyed to the Tower, all the implements used in the decapitation had been immediately reduced to ashes. A purse, containing one hundred broad pieces of gold, was then de- livered to Brandon, and he was dismissed. He survived the transaction many years ; but divulged it a short time before he died. “ This account,” Wraxall adds, u as coming from the Duchess of Portsmouth, challenges great respect.”
A curious miscellany, called the “ Lounger’s Common Place Book,” published in 1793, a favourite work with Leigh Hunt, and often quoted by him in his u History of the Town,” adds to the stock of stories on the subject of Charles the First’s execution, an extract from a French work called “ Ddlassemeuts de 1’ Homme Sensible, ’’professing to be written by a Monsieur d’Arnaud. It will be as well perhaps to warn the reader at the outset that the Lounger is by no means an authority upon any subject, and that his appetite for the apocryphal is almost without bounds.
The Frenchman relates, according to the Lounger, that Lord Stair, once the favourite minister of King George the Second, retiring in disgust in consequence of some real or imaginary affront received after the battle of Dettingen, and on his way to Scotland, made a short stay in London to settle some regimental accounts, when an anonymous letter in a strange hand was sent to him, requesting that he would favour the writer with an interview at a particular time and place, as he had certain information of the most singular im- portance to communicate. Prompted by curiosity, and moved by the tone of entreaty of the letter, the Earl, taking some precautions to ensure his own safety, went to the place appointed. He knocked at the door of a corner house adjoining an obscure alley in a remote quarter of the town. He was admitted by a ragged and forlorn-looking wretch, who conducted him up a narrow tortuous staircase to a dingy garret, dimly lighted, in one corner of which he perceived the figure of a very old
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man stretched upon a narrow bed. His lord- ship was loaded with thanks for having conde- scended to comply with the request contained in the letter, which the old man avowed he had written. He offered many apologies for the trouble he had occasioned his lordship. He then made mention of many curious facts not generally known in connection with the Stair family, the Dalrymples, and finally inquired of the Earl whether he had not recently expe- rienced much inconvenience from the want of certain title-deeds and conveyances relating to his paternal estates. His lordship admitted that such was the case, adding that for want of some particular documents he was in great danger of losing a large portion of his inheri- tance. The old* man then pointed to a box which stood by his bedside, “ There,” he said, “ are the writings you require. You will ask how they came into my possession, — who lam? I have led a wandering and miserable life, strangely prolonged to one hundred and twenty- five years, and I now live to behold in you a lineal descendant from me in the third genera- tion. The fame of your gallantry has reached me. I resolved to place in your hands the contents of that box. The wretched old man you see before you was a subject, a friend, and favourite of King Charles the First ; but suspecting him of having wronged, most cruelly wronged, the woman I loved, my loyalty turned to hatred, an insatiable thirst for revenge possessed me. After his trial and deposition, I requested permission to be my sovereign’s executioner. This was granted to me. A moment before raising the fatal axe, I whispered in his ear the name of his victim and her avenger. But from the hour of the king’s death I have been a prey to the keenest remorse, an outcast and exile in different parts of Europe and Asia ; and as though to increase my punishment, Heaven has seen fit to prolong my life far beyond the common age of man. Now leave me to my fate ; ask me no more ; forget that you have ever seen me.” Lord Stair quitted the house, to return the next day in the hope of rendering some assis- tance to the mysterious old man. He had disappeared, however ; no trace of him could be discovered, and he was never heard of more.
M. d’ Arnaud’s story is curious, but, of course, worthless from an historical point of view ; it will not bear the test of the simplest critical analysis. The secret as to the executioner of King Charles has been well kept, probably from its being very little of a secret at all, and capable of a solution so simple, that people in such a case were rather inclined to avoid than accept it. It was no doubt difficult to credit that a prisoner so extraordinary should
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fall by tho hands of the ordinary executioner of the time, like any other prisoner sentenced to death. But that this was really the case there can be little question. It is worth while to remark, however, as an element in the con- sideration of the trustworthiness of history, how very soon, as in this case, doubt and mystery collect round and obscure an event of
singular importance. Less than twelve years after the death of the king, the commissioners j appointed to bring the regicides to judgment could not clearly ascertain who wa3 the actual executioner, and notwithstanding that they find a prisoner guilty of tho offence, doubt on still, and scruple to inflict the punishment to which they had sentenced him. Dutton Cook.
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LORD 0 AKBURN S DAUGHTERS.
BY THE AUTHOR
CHAPTER XXIX. A8 IRON ENTERING INTO
THE SOUL.
The Earl of Oakburn was in a bustle. The earl was one of those people who always are in a bustle when starting upon a journey, be it ever so short a one. Ho was going on a visit to Sir James Marden at Chesney Oaks, and he was putting himself in a commotion over it.
To Jane’s surprise he had announced an intention not to take Pompey. J ane wondered how he would get on without that faithful and brow-beaten follower, if only in the light of an . object to roar at ; and when she asked the earl the reason for not taking him, he had civilly replied that it was no business of hers. Jane felt sorry for the decision, for she believed Pompey to be essential to her father’s com- forts ; and she knew the earl, with all his temper, liked the old servant, and was glad to have him about him ; but otherwise Jane attached no importance to the matter. So the earl was driven to the Paddington station, and Pompey, after seeing his master and his carpet-bag safely in an express train, returned with the carriage to Portland Place.
Jane Chesney was a little busy on her own score just now, for she was seeking a governess to replace Miss Lethwait ; one who should prove to be a more desirable inmate than that lady had been. Jane blamed herself greatly for not having inquired more minutely into Miss Lethwait’s antecedents ; she had been, as she thought now, too much prepossessed in her favour at first sight, had taken her too entirely upon trust. That Jane would not err again on that score, her present occupation was proving — that of searching out the smallest details in connection with the lady now recom- mended to her, a Miss Snow. Not many days yet had Mias Lethwait quitted the house, but Jane had forcibly put her out of remem- brance. Never, willingly, would she think again upon one, whose conduct in that one particular, the episode to which Jane had been a witness the night of the party, had been so entirely obnoxious.
Lord Oakburn was whirled ^long that desir- able line for travellers, the Great Western. In the opposite comer of the comfortable car- riage there happened to be another old naval commander sitting, and the terms that the two got upon were so good, that his lordship could not believe his eyes when he saw the well-
OF “EAST LYNNE.”
known station at Pembury, or believe that they had already reached it.
He had, however, to part with his new acquaintance, for Pembury station was his alighting point. He found Sir James Marden’s carriage waiting for him, a sort of mail phaeton, Sir James himself, a little man with a yellow face, seated in the box seat. The earl and his carpet-bag were duly installed in it, and Sir James drove out of the station.
As they were proceeding up the street to take the avenue for Chesney Oaks, — the pleasant avenue, less green now than it had been in spring, which wound through the park to the house, — a small carriage, drawn by a pair of beautiful ponies, came rapidly down upon them. Not more beautiful in their way, those ponies, than were the ladies seated in the car- riage. Two gay, lovely ladies, laughing and talking with each other, their veils and their streamers and their other furbelows, flying behind them in the wind. The one, driving, was Colonel Marden’s wife, and she was about to rein in and greet Sir James, when her com- panion, with a half- smothered cry and a sudden paleness displacing the rich bloom on her cheeks, seized the reins and sent the ponies | onward at a gallop. It was Lady Laura Carlton.
“ Holloa ! ” exclaimed Sir James, “ what was that for ? ”
Lord Oakburn, in his surprise, had started up iu the phaeton. About the last person he had been thinking of was Laura, and Pembury was about the last place he would have expected to see her in. The fact was, Laura had recently met Mrs. Marden at a friend’s | house near Great Wennock ; the two ladies had struck up a sudden friendship, and Laura j had come back with her for a few days’ visit.
| “ She was evidently scared at the sight of
one of us, and I’m sure I never met her before to my knowledge,” cried Sir James, alluding to the lady seated with Mrs. Marden. “Do you know her, Lord Oakburn ? ”
! “ Know her ! ” repeated the earl, rather
explosively. “ I’m sorry to say I do know her, sir. She is an ungrateful daughter of | mine, who ran away from her home to be married to a fellow, and never asked my leave.”
j “It must be Lady Laura Carlton ! ” quickly , exclaimed Sir James Marden. j “ It is,” said the earl. “ And I assure you
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I’d give a great deal out of my pocket if she were Lady Laura Anybody- else.”
“ You’ll have to forgive her, I suppose. W hat a handsome girl she is ! ”
“ No, I shan’t have to forgive her,” returned the earl, much offended at the suggestion.
“ I don’t intend to forgive her.”
Brave words, no doubt. But who knows what might have come of the interview had that pony carriage been allowed to stop 1 It might have been a turning point in Laura’s life, might have led to a reconciliation — for Lord Oakbum’s bark was worse than his bite, and he did love his children. But Laura Carlton, in her startled fear at seeing him so close to her, had herself given the check and the impetus, and the opportunity w as gone by for ever.
“ What brings her at Pembury ? ” growled the earl, as they drove through the park.
“ I can’t tell,” replied Sir James. “ I con- clude she must be visiting at my brother’s.”
“ I didn’t know she knew them,” was the comment of the earl. “ Forgive a clandestine marriage ! No, never ! ”
Brave words again of the Earl of Oakbum’s. Clandestine marriages are not good in them- selves, and they often work incalculable ill, entailing embarrassing consequences on more than one generation. But the condemnation would have come with better grace from another than Lord Oakburn, seeing that he was contemplating something of the sort on his own account.
He slept one night at Chcsney Oaks, and then he concluded his visit. Sir James Alarden was surprised and vexed at the abrupt teimination. He set it down to the unwel- come presence of the earl’s rebellious daughter at Pembury, $nd he pressed Lord Oakbum’s hand at parting, and begged him to come again shortly, at a more convenient period.
But most likely Lord Oakbum had never intended a longer stay. The probabilities were — it’s hard, you know, to have to write it of a middle-aged earl, a member of the sedate and honourable Upper House — that he had only taken Chesney Oaks as a blind to his daughters on his way to Miss Lethwait. For his real visit was to her.
Chesney Oaks was situated in quite an opposite part of the kingdom to TwifTord vicarage, but by taking advantage of cross rails, Lord Oakbum contrived to reach Twif- ford late that same night. He did not intrude on them until the following morning. The house, a low one, covered with ivy, was small and unpretending, but exceedingly picturesque ; its garden was beautiful, and the birds made their nests and sang in the
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clustering trees that surrounded the lawn and flowers.
In features they were very much alike, but in figure no two could be much more dissimilar than the father and daughter. The vicar was a little shruken man, particularly timid in manner ; his daughter magnificent as a queen.
If she had looked queenly in the handsomely proportioned rooms of the earl’s town house, how much more so did she look in the minia- ture little parlour of the vicarage.
Lord Oakburn entered upon his business in his usual blunt fashion. He had come down, he said, to make acquaintance with Mr. Leth- wait, and to know when the wedding was to be.
The vicar replied by stating that Eliza had told him all. And he, tho father, was deeply sensible of the honour done her by the Earl of Oakburn, and that he himself should be proud • and pleased to see her his wife ; but that ho felt a scruple upon the point, as did Eliza. He felt that her entrance into the family might be very objectionable to the earl’s daughters.
And, knowing what you do know of the earl, you may be sure that that speech was the signal for an outburst He poured forth a torrent of angry eloquence in his peculiar manner, so completely annihilating every argu- ment but his own, that the timid clergyman never dared to utter another word of objection. The earl must have it his own way : as it had been pretty sure from the first he would have it.
“Eliza has been a good and dutiful daugh- ter, my lord,” &id the vicar, who in his retired life, his humble home, had hardly ever been brought into contact with ono of the earl’s social degree. “My living has been very small, and my expenses have been inevit- ably large — that is, large for one in my posi- tion. The last years of my wife’s life were years of illness ; she suffered from a complaint that required constant medical attendance and expensive nourishment, and Eliza was to us throughout almost as a guardian angel. Every penny she could spare from her own absoluto expenses, Bhe sent to us. She has put up with undesirable places where the discomforts were great, the insults hard to be borne, and would not throw herself out, lest we might suffer. She has been a good daughter,” he emphati- cally added ; “ she will, I hesitate not to say it, make a good wife. And if only your lord- ship’s daughters w’ill ”
Another interrupting burst from his lord- ship : his daughters had nothing to do with it, and he did not intend that they should have. And the vicar was finally silenced.
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The earl did tilings like nobody else. He j had spent the best part of his life at sea, and : shore ideas and proprieties were still almost to | him as a closed book. In discussing the arrangements of the marriage with Miss Leth- wait — for he compelled her to discuss them, and he did it in a perfectly matter-of-fact manner, just as he might have discussed a debate in the Lords — she found herself obliged to hint, as he did not, that a tour, long or I short, inland or foreign, as might be conve- nient, was usually deemed eligible on that auspicious occasion. The earl could not be brought to see it ; did not understand it. What on earth was the matter with his house at home that they could not proceed direct to it on their wedding day ? he demanded. Were there a brig convenient they might enjoy a month’s cruize in her, and he’d say something , to it, or even a well-built yacht ; but he hated land travelling, aud was not going to en- counter it. J
Miss Lethwait thought of the horrors of sea-sickness, and left the brig and the yacht to drop into abeyance. Neither dared she, in j the timidity of her new position, urge the tour further upon him ; but she did shrink from | being taken home to the midst of his daugh- ters on the marriage day.
On the following day the earl went back to town, Miss Lethwait having succeeded in postponing the period of the marriage until | October. j
September was a busy month with Jane ! Chesney. The term for which they had engaged their present furnished residence was expiring, and Lord Oakburn took on lease one of the neighbouring houses in Portland Place.
Jane was in her element. Choosing furni- ture and planning out arrangements for their new home was welcome work, all being done with one primary object — the comfort of her father. The best rooms were appropriated to him, the best things were placed in them, j Jane thought how happy they should be toge- j ther, she and her father, in tills settled home- j stead. They did not intend to go out of town that year : why should they ? they had but a few months entered it. Custom ? Fashion ? The earl did not understand cus- tom, and fashion was as a foreign ship to him. Jane only cared for what he cared.
They moved into the house the last week in September, Jane anxious with loving cares still. But for the mysterious and prolonged absence of Clarice, she would have been thoroughly and completely happy. Miss Snow was proving an efficient governess for Lucy, and Jane had leisure on her hands. The unpleasant episode in the reign of the last
governess, Eliza Lethwait, had nearly faded from Jane Chesney’ s memory, and she no more dreamt of connecting that condemned lady with certain occasional short absences of the earl in the country, than she dreamt of attributing them to visits paid to the Great Mogul.
The first week in October came in, and the evenings were getting wintry. Lord Oakburn had been away from home three days, and Jane, who had just got the house into nice condition, and was resting from her labours, had leisure to feel ill. Not actually ill, perhaps ; but anything but well. She had felt so all day, a sick shivery feeling that she could not account for, a low-spirited sensation, as of some approaching evil. Do coming events thus cast their shadows before ? There are those who tell us that they do. Not in that way, however, was Jane Chesney super- stitious, or did she think of attributing her sensations to any such mystical cause. She “ felt out of sorts ” she said to Lucy’s gover- ness, and supposed she had caught cold.
Causing a fire to be lighted in her dressing- room, a little snuggery on the second floor adjoining her bed-room, she resolved to make herself comfortable there for the evening. She ordered the tea-tray to be brought up, and sent a message for Miss Snow and Lucy.
Miss Snow, a little, lively, warm-mannered woman, the very reverse of the dignified Miss Lethwait, was full of trifling cares for Lady Jane. She threw a warm shawl on her shoulders, she insisted on wrapping her feet in flannel as they rested on the footstool before the fire, and she asked permission to make and pour out the tea.
Judith was at that moment bringing in the tea-tray. Judith — I’m sure I forget whether this has been mentioned before — had taken the place of own maid to Jane and Lucy when the change occurred in their fortunes. Jane valued her greatly, and the girl was deserving of it.
“ A gentleman has called to inquire when the earl will be at home, my lady,” she said, as she put down the tray. “ He wishes very particularly to see him.”
“I’m sure I don’t know,” said Jane, rather listlessly. “ Who is it ? ”
“ It is that same gentleman who has been here occasionally on Sir James Marden’s busi- ness,” replied Judith. “ I heard him say to Wilson as I came through the hall that he had had a communication from Chesney Oaks which he wished the earl to see as soon as possible. Wilson asked me if I’d bring the message to your ladyship.”
Jane turnod her head in some slight sur-
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prise. “ A communication from Chesney Oaks?” she repeated. 44 But papa is at Chesney Oaks. You can tell the gentleman so, Judith.”
44 No, Jane, papa’s not at Chesney Oaks,” interposed Lucy, who was dancing about the room with her usual restlessness. “ If he had been going to Chesney Oaks he would have gone from the Paddington Station, wouldn’t he?”
“Well? "said Jane.
“ Well, he went to the King’s Cross Station.^
44 How do you know ? ” asked Jane.
Lucy gave a deprecatory glance at Miss i Snow ere she entered on her confession. She ! had run out to her papa after he was in the carriage for a last last kiss, and heard Pompey give the order to the coachman, “ The King’s Cross Station.”
Jane shook her head. 44 You must have been mistaken, Lucy,” she said. “I asked papa whether he was going to Chesney Oaks, and he — he — ” Jane stopped a moment in recollection — “ he nodded his head in the affirmative. It must have meant the affirms*
| tive,” she added, slowly, as if debating the point with herself. “I am sure he is at | Chesney Oaks.”
. “Shall I inquire of the ooachman, my lady?”
; asked Judith. “ He is down stairs.” j
“Yes, do,” replied Jane. “And you can , I tell the gentleman, Sir James Marden’s agent, that I shall expect Lord Oakbura home daily until I see him. He seldom remains away above three days.”
Judith went down on her errand, and came up again. Lucy was right. The ooachman | had driven his master to the King’s Cross Station : the ooachman further said that it was “to the King’s Cross Station that he had driven ; ^iis master on his recent absences. Jane -wondered. She was not aware that Lord 4^)akburn knew any one on that line. This ! -Mime he had taken Pompey with him.
Miss Snow busied herself with the tea ; ^^jucy talked ; Jane sat in listless idleness. ; ^^Lnd thus the time wont on until a loud knock ^^ud ring resounded through the house. Jane ^;iftcd her oyos to the clock on the mantel- piece, and saw that it wanted ten minutes to ^iuo.
44 Visitors to-night!” she exclaimed, with ^c*ation.
44 Don’t admit them, Lady Jane,” spoke up i*s Snow impulsively, in her sympathy for udy Jane. “ You are not well enough.” lAicy had escaped from the room, and Miss caught her at tho dignified pastime of -*?«niug. Stretched over tho balustrades as ,
far as Bhe could stretch, her ears and eyes were riveted to what was going on in the hall below. The governess administered a sharp reprimand and ordered her to come away. But Lucy was absorbed, and altogether ignored both Miss Snow and the mandate.
“Do you hear me speak to you, Lady Lucy? Must I come for you, then ?”
Lucy drew away now, but not, as it appeared, in obedience to the governess. Her face wore a puzzled look of surprise, and she went back to the room on tiptoe.
“ Jane,” said she, scarcely above her breath, 44 Jane what do you think ? It is papa and Miss Lethwait.”
Jane turned round on her chair. “What nonsense, Lucy ! Miss Lethwait ! ”
“It is indeed, J ane. It looks just as though papa had brought her on a visit, and there’s some luggage coming into the halL Miss Lethwait ”
44 It cannot be Miss Lethwait,” sharply in- terrupted Lady Jane, her tone betraying annoy- ance at the very mistake.
4‘ Ye3 it is Miss Lethwait,” persisted Lucy. 44 She is dressed so well ! — in a rich damask dress and a white bonnet, and an Indian shawl with a gold border. It is just like that Indian shawl of mamma’s that you never remove from the drawer and never wear, because you say it puts you too much in mind of her.”
“ Lucy, you must certainly be dreaming ! ” reiterated Jane. 44 Miss Lethwait would never dare to step inside our house again. If ”
Jane stopped. Wilson the footman had come up the stairs, and his face wore a blank look.
44 1 beg your pardon, my lady ; the earl has arrived.”
44 Well ? ” said Jane.
44 He ordered me to come up to you, my lady, and ask whether there was nobody to receive him and — and — Lady Oakbum.”
44 Bade you ask what?” demanded Jane, bending her haughty eyelids on the servant.
44 My lady,” returned the man, thinking he would give the words as they were given to him, and then perhaps he should escape anger, 4 4 what his lordship said was this : 4 Go up and see where they are, and ask what’s the reason that nobody is about, to receive Lady Oakburn.’ They were the exact words, my lady.”
44 Is it my aunt, the Dowager Lady Oak- burn ? ” asked Jane in her wonder.
44 It is Miss Lethwait, my lady. That is to say, she as was Miss Lethwait when she lived here.”
Lucy was right, then ! A ghastly hue over- spread the face of Jane Chesney. Not at the unhappy fact — which as yet, strange to say,
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liad not dawned on her mind — but at the insult offered to her by this re-entrance of the governess into their house. Who was she, this Eliza Lethwait, that she should come again, and beard her in her home ? Had he, her father, brought her — brought her on a visit, as surmised by Lucy ?
The footman had already gone down stairs again. Jane flung aside Miss Snow's wrapper- ings and prepared to descend. The governess had stood in a state of puzzled amazement, wondering what it all meant. On the stairs Jane encountered Judith. The girl was paler than usual, and very grave.
“My lady,” she whispered, arresting Jane’s progress, “ do you know what has occurred ? ”
“ I know that that person whom I turned from my house has dared to intrude into it again,” answered Lady Jane in her wrath, speaking far more openly than it was her custom to speak before a servant. “ But she shall not stop in it ; no, not for an hour. Let me pass, Judith.”
“ Oh, my lady, hear the worst before you go in ; before you enter upon a contest with her that perhaps she’d gain,” implored Judith, in her eager sympathy for her mistress. “ My lord has married her, and has brought her home.”
Jane fell against the wall and looked at Judith, a pitiable expression of helplessness on her face. The girl resumed.
“ Pompey says they were married yesterday j morning ; were married by Miss Lethwait’s father in his own church. He says, my lady, he finds it is to Miss Lethwait’B the earl has gone lately when he has been absent from town ; not to Chesney Oaks.”
“ Support me, Judith,” was the feeble prayer of the unhappy daughter.
Utterly sick and faint was she, and but for Judith’s help she would have fallen. She sunk down on the friendly stairs, and let her head rest on them until the faintness had passed. Then she rose, staggering, and went on with what feeble strength was left her.
“I must know the worst,” she moaned. “I must know the worst.”
Lucy, wondering and timid, stole into the drawing-room after her. Standing by its fire, her face turned to the door in expectation, was she who had quitted the house as Miss Leth- wait, only six or seven weeks before. Jane’s oyes fell on her dress, as mentioned by Lucy, the rich sweeping silk, the pretty white bonnet, and the costly shawl — their own mother's shawl ! taken by the earl from its resting place to bestow on his new bride. Woman’s mind is a strange compound of strength and littleness ; and to see that shawl on her shoulders brought
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to Jane’s heart perhaps the keenest pang of all. The earl was striding the room ; his stick, sus- piciously restless, coming down loudly with each step. He confronted his two daughters.
“ So ! here you are at last ! And nothing ready, that I see, in the shape of welcome. Not so much as the tea laid ! What’s the reason, Lady Jane?”
“We did not expect you,” replied Jane iu a low tone, her back turned on the ex-governess.
“ You got my letter. Wasn’t it plain
enough ? ”
“ I have not received any letter.”
“ Not received any letter ! By Jove ! I’ll prosecute the post-office ! Girls,” with a flourish of his hand towards his wife — “here’s your new mother, Lady Oakburn. You don’t want a letter to welcome her.”
It seemed that Jane, at any rate, wanted something, if not a letter. She persistently ignored the presence of the lady, keeping her face turned to her father. But when she tried to address him, no sound issued from her white and quivering lips. The new I countess came forward, and humbly, depre- catingly, held out her hand to Jane.
“ Lady Jane, I implore you, let there be peace between us. Suffer me to sue for it. It has pleased Lord Oakburn to make me his wife ; but indeed I have not come here to interfere with his daughters’ privileges or to sow dissension in their home. Try and like me, Lady Jane ! It will not be difficult to me to love you.”
Jane wheeled round, her white lips trembling, her face ablaze with scorn.
“ Like you ! ” she repeated, her voice, in her terrible emotion, rising to a hiss. “ Like you! Can we like the serpent that entwines its deadly coils around its victim ? You have brought your arts to bear on my unsuspicious father, and tom him from his children. As you have dealt with us, Eliza Lethwait, may you so be dealt with when your turn shall come ! ”
The countess drew back in agitation. She laid her hand on Lucy.
“ You at least will let me love you, Lucy 1 I loved you when I was with you, and I will endeavour to be to you a second mother. This entrance into your home is as embarrassing and painful to me as to you.”
Lucy burst into tears as she received the kiss pressed upon her lips. She had liked Miss Lethwait very much, but she did not like her to bring upon them this discomfort.
The earl and his stick, neither of them quite so brave as usual, went off to take refuge in the small room that thoy had made the library ; glad perhaps, if the truth could bo
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known, that he had a refuge just then to hide himself in.
“It’s new lines to them yet, Eliza,” he called out as he went, for the benefit of his rebellious daughters. “To Jane especially. They haven’t got their sea-legs on at present ; but it will be all right in a day or two. Or you shall ask them the reason why.”
An exceedingly smart lady’s maid brushed past the earl, brushed past Jane, and addressed her mistress, with whom she had arrived.
44 Your chamber is in order now, my lady, and what you’ll want to-night unpacked. I thought your ladyship might like a fire, so I have had one lighted.”
The countess passed out of the room, glad as the earl, perhaps, to make her escape. Jane grasped a chair in her heart-sickness.
Oh, reader ! surely you can feel for her ! I She was hurled without warning from the post of authority in her father’s home, in which she had been mistress for years ; she was hurled from the chief place in her father’s heart. One whom she regarded as in every way beneath her, whom she disliked and despised, over whom she had held control, was exalted into her place ; raised over her. She might j have borne that bitterness : not patiently, but still she might have borne it : but what she | could not bear was that another should | become more to her father than she was. He ! whom she had so revered and loved, he in I whom her very life had been bound up, had now taken to himself an idol — and Jane hence- forth was nothing.
She dragged her aching limbs back to her dressing-room and cowered down before the fire with a low moan. Judith found her there. The girl had a letter in her hand.
44 My lady, Pompey’s nearly out of his mind with alarm. He says he’d rather run away back to Africa than that his fault should become known to his master. My lord gave him a letter to post for you yesterday, and he forgot it, and has just found it in his pocket.”
Jane mechanically stretched out her hand for the letter ; mechanically opened it. It was short and pithy.
44 Dear Jane: — I married Miss Lethwait this morning, and we shall be home to tea to- morrow : hare things ship-shape. You be- haved ill to her when she was with us, and she felt it keenly, but you’ll take care to steer clear of that quicksand for the future ; for remember she’s my wife now, and will be the mistress of my home.
44 Your affectionate father,
44 OaKBURN. ”
J ane crushed the letter in her hand and let her head fall, a convulsive sob that arose in her throat from time to time alone betraying her anguish. If ever the iron entered into the soul of woman, it had surely entered into that of Jane Chesuey.
CHAPTER XXX. BACK AT THE OLD HOME.
They stood together in the library — the earl and his daughter Jane. The morning sun streamed in at the window, playing on the fair smooth hair of Jane, showing all too conspi- cuously the paleness of her cheek, the utter misery of her countenance. The earl, looking bluff and uncomfortable, paced the carpet rest- lessly, his stick, for a wonder, lying unheeded in a corner.
It was their first meeting since the moment of his return the previous night Ah, what a night it had been for Jane ! Never for an instant had she closed her eyes. As she went to bed, so she rose ; not having once lost con- sciousness of the blow that had been dealt out to her.
She had heard the earl go into the library, after his breakfast. He had taken it with the countess and Lucy. And Jane, drinking at a gulp the cup of tea brought to her, and which had stood neglected until it was cold, went down stairs and followed him in.
Not to reproach him ; not to cast a word of indignation on the usurping countess ; simply to speak of herself, and what her future course must be.
44 This is no longer a home for me, papa,” j she quietly began, striving to subdue all out- ward token of emotion, of the bitter pain that I was struggling within her. 44 I think you must see that it is not. Will you help me to another?”
1 44 Don’t talk nonsense, Jane,” said the earl,
testily, wishing he was breasting the waves in 1 a hurricane off the Cape, rather than in this dilemma. 44 It will all smooth down in a fow | days, if you’ll only let it.”
| Jane lifted her eyes to him, a whole world of anguish in their depths. 44 I could not stop 1 here,” she said, in a low tone, quite painful from its earnestness. 44 Papa, it would kill me.”
And it seemed os if it really would kill her. Lord Oakbum grunted something unintelligible, and looked uncommonly ill-at-ease.
44 You must let me go away, papa. Per- haps you will help me to another home ? ”
44 What home ? Where d’ye want to go ?” he crossly asked.
44 1 have been thinking that I could go to South Wennock,” she said. 44 1 cannot re- main in London. The house at South Wennock
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has not let since we left it ; it is lying useless there, with its furniture ; and, now that the winter is approaching, it will not be likely to let. Suffer me to go back there.”
Lord Oakbum took a few strides up and down without reply. Jane stood, as before, near the table, one hand leaning on it, as if for support
“ It’s the most rubbishing folly in the world, Jane ! You’d be as comfortable at home as ever you were, if you’d only bring your mind to it. Do you suppose she has come into the house to make things unpleasant for us ? You don’t know her, if you think that. But there ! — have it your own way ! If you’d like to go back to South Wennock for the winter, you can.”
“Thank you,” answered Jane, with a sup- I pressed sob. * ‘ You will allow me sufficient to live upon, papa ? ” j
“ I’ll see about that,” said the earl, testily. “Let me know what you want, and I’ll do , what I can.”
“ I should like' to continue in it, papa : to . make it my home for life.” !
“ Stuff, Jane ! Before you have been there six months you’ll be right glad to come back to us.”
“You will let me take Lucy, papa ?”
“ No ; I’ll be shot if I do ! ” returned the earl, raising his voice in choler. “ I don’t approve of your decamping off at all, though I give in to it ; but I will never permit Lucy to 1 share in such rebellion. You needn’t say more, Jane. If my other daughters leave me,
I will keep her.”
Jane sighed as she gave up the thought of Lucy. She moved from the table and held out her hand.
“Good-by, papa. I shall go to-day.” i
“ Short work, my young lady,” was the an- swer. “ You’ll come to see the folly of your whim speedily, I hope.” |
He shook hands. But, in his vexation and annoyance, he did not offer to kiss her, and he j did not say “ Good-by.” Perhaps he felt I vexed at himself as much as at Jane.
She went up to her room. Judith was busy at the dressing-table, and a maid was making I the bed. Jane motioned to the latter to quit j the chamber. i
“I am going back to South Wennock, Judith, to live at the old house on the Rise.
I leave for it to-day. Would you like to go, and remain with me 1 ”
Judith looked too surprised to speak. She had a glass toilette-bottle in her hand, dusting it, and she laid it down in wonder. Jane continued.
“If you do not wish to go with me, I
suppose you can remain here with Lady Lucy. They will want a maid for her, unless Lady Oakburn’s is to attend on her. That can be ascertained.”
“ I will go with you, my lady,” said Judith.
“ I shall be glad if you will. But mine will be a very quiet household. Only you and another, at the most.”
“ I would prefer to go with you, my lady.”
“ Then, Judith, let us make haste with the preparations. We must be away from this house to-day.”
Scarcely had she spoken when Lucy came dancing in, her cheeks and her eyes glowing.
“ 0 Jane ! I hope we shall all be happy together ! ” she exclaimed. “ I think we can be. Lady Oakburn is so kind. She means to get Miss Snow a nice situation, and to teach me herself. She says she will not entrust my education to anybody else.”
“Iam going away, Lucy,” said Jane, draw- ing the little girl to her. “I wish — I wish I could have had you with me ? But papa will not ”
“ Going away ! ” repeatedLucy. “ Where ?”
“I am going back to South Wennock to live.”
“Oh Jane! And to leave papa! What will he do without you ? ”
A spasm passed over Jane Chesney’s face. “ He has some one else now, Lucy.”
Lucy burst into tears. “ And I, Jane I What shall I do ? You hare never been away from me in all my life ! ”
A struggle with herself, and then Jaue’s tears burst forth. For the first time since the descending of the blow. She laid her face on Lucy’s neck and sobbed aloud.
Only for a few moments did she suffer her- self to indulge the grief. “ I cannot afford this, child,” she said ; “I have neither time nor emotion to spare to-day. You must leave me, or I shall not be ready.”
Lucy went down, her face wet Lady Oak- burn, who seemed to be taking to her new home and its duties quite naturally, was sort- ing some of Lucy’s music in the drawing-room. She looked just as she had used to look as Miss Lethwait ; but she wore this morning a beautiful dress of lama, shot with blue and gold, and a lace cap of guipure. Lucy’s noisy entrance and noisy grief caused her to turn abruptly.
“ My dear child, what is the matter ? ”
“ Jane is going away,” was the sobbing answer.
“ Going away ! ” echoed the countess, not understanding.
“Yes, she is going back to live at South
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Wennock, she says. She and Judith are packing up to go to-day.”
Lady Oakbura was as one struck dumb. For a minute she could neither stir nor speak. Self-reproach was taking possession of her.
‘ ‘ Does your papa know of this, Lucy ! ”
“ Oh yes, I think so,” sobbed Lucy. “ Jane said she had asked papa to let me go with her, and he would not.”
Lady Oakbura quitted the room and went in search of the earL He was in the library still, pacing it with his stick now — the stick having just menaced poor Pompey’s head, who had come in with a message.
“ Lucy tells me that Lady Jane is about to leave,” began the countess. “Oh, Lord Oak- burn, it is what I feared ! I would almost 1 rather have died than come here to sow | dissension in your house. Can nothing be done?”
“No, it can’t,”said the earl. “When Jane’s determined upon a thing, she is determined. It’s the fault of the family, my lady : as you’ll ! find when you have been longer in it”
“ But, Lord Oakbura ”
“ My dear, look here. All the talking in I the world won’t alter it, and I’d rather hear I no more upon the subject Jane will go to | 1 South Wennock ; but I daresay she’ll come to her senses before Bhe has lived there many !| months.”
1 Did a recollection cross the carl’s mind of another of his daughters, of whom he had used the self-same words ? Clarice ! She would come to her senses, he said, if let alone. But it seemed she had not come to them yet
Lady Oakbura, more grieved, more desolate than can well be imagined, for she was feeling herself to be a wretched interloper, in her lively conscientiousness, went upstairs to Jane’s room and knocked at it Jane was alone thon. She was standing before a chest of drawers, taking out their contents. The countess was agitated, even to tears.
“ Oh, Lady Jane, do not inflict this unhappi- ness upon me ! I wish I had never entered the house, if the consequences are to involve your leaving it”
Jane stood, calm, impassive, scarcely deign- ing to raise her haughty eyelids.
“ You should have thought of consequenoes before, madam.”
“ If you could know how very far from my thoughts it would bo to presume iu any way upon my position ! ” continued the couutoss imploringly. “ If you would consent to l>e still tho mistress of the house, Lady Jane ”
14 I beg your pardon,” interrupted Jano, in a haughty tone of reproof, as if she would re- oall her to common sense. 44 My time is very
short,” she continued : “ may I request to be left alone ? ”
Lady Oakbura saw there was no help for it, no remedy ; and she turned to quit the room | with a gesture of grief and pain. 44 1 can only pray that the time may come when you will know me better, Lady Jane. Believe me, I would rather have died, than been the means of turning you from your home.”
Taking leave of none but Lucy and Miss i Snow, Lady Jane quitted the house with Judith | in the course of the afternoon. ' Lord Oak- ! burn had gone out : his wife, Jane would not j see. And in that impromptu fashion Lady Jane returned to South Wennock, and took up j her abode again in the old house, startling the , woman who had charge of it.
The next day Jane wrote to her father. Her | intention was to live as quietly as possible, she told him, keeping only two maids — Judith, to attend upon her personally, aud a general ser- vant— and a very modest sum indeed Jane named as an estimation of what it would cost her to live upon. But Lord Oakbura was more liberal, and exactly doubled it : in his answer he told her, her allowance would be at the rate of five hundred a year.
But the past trouble reacted upon Jane, and she became really ilL Mr. John Grey was called in to her. He found the sickness more of the mind than the body, and knew that time alone could work a cure.
“ My dear lady, if I were to undertake you as a patient I should but be robbing you,” he said to her, at his second interview. “ Tonics ? Well, you shall have some if you wish ; but the best tonic will be time.”
She saw that he divined how cruel had been the blow of the earl’s marriage, the news of which had caused quite a commotion in South Wennock. Even this remote allusion to it Jane would have resented in some ; but there was that about Mr. Grey that seemed to draw her to him as a friend. She sat at the table in the little square drawing-room — little, as 1 compared to some of tho rooms to which she had lately been accustomed — and leaned her i cheek upon her hand. Mr. Grey was seated ! on the other side the hearth, opposite to her. | It was getting towards the dusk of eveuing, ! aud the red blaze of the fire played on Jane’s i pale face. I
“ Yes,” she acknowledged, “ it is time alone that can do much for me, I believe. I feel —
1 feel that I shall never be blithe again. But I should like some tonic medicine, Mr. Grey.”
“ You shall have it, Lady Jaue. I fancy you are naturally not very strong.”
“Not very strong, perhaps. But I have hitherto enjoyed good health. Are there any
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changes at South Wennock ? ” she continued, not sorry to quit the subject of self for some other. “ No, I think not,” he answered ; “ no- thing in particular, that would interest you. A few people have died ; a few have married : as is the case in all places.” “ I) oe8 Mr. Carlton get much practice?” she asked, overcoming her repugnance to speak of that gentleman, in her wish for some informa- tion as to how he and Laura were progressing. “ He gets a great deal,” said Mr. Grey. “ The fact is, quite a tide has set in against my brother, and Mr. Carlton reaps the benefit” “ I do not understand,” said Jane. “ People seem to have taken a dislike to my brother, on account of that unhappy affair in Palace Street,” he explained. “ Or rather, I should say, to distrust him. In short, people won’t have Mr. Stephen Grey to attend them any longer : if I can’t go, they run for Mr. Carlton, and thus he has now a great many of our former patients. South Wennock is a terrible place for gossip ; everybody must interfere with his neighbour’s affairs. Just now,” added Mr. John Grey, with a genial smile, “the town is commenting on Lady Jane Chesney’s having called in me, instead of Mr. Carlton, her sister’s husband.” Jane shook her head. “I dislike Mr. Carlton personally very much,” she said. “Had he never entered our family to sow dissension in it, I should still have disliked him. But this must be a great trouble to Mr. Stephen Grey.” ‘ ‘ It is a great annoyance. I wonder some- times that Stephen puts up with it so patiently. * It will come round with time,’ is all he says.” “ Has any clue been obtained to the un- fortunate lady who died ? ” asked Jane. “ Not the slightest. She lies, poor thing, in the corner of St. Mark’s Churchyard, un- claimed and unknown.” “ But, has her husband never come forward to inquire after her ? ” exclaimed Lady Jane, in wonder. “ It was said at the time, 1 re- member, that he was travelling. Surely he must have returned ? ” “ No one whatever has come forward,” was Mr. Grey’s reply. “ Neither he nor anybody else. In short, Lady Jane, but for that hum- ble grave and the obloquy that has become the property of my brother Stephen, the whole affair might well seem a myth ; a something that had only happened in a dream.” “ Does it not strike you as being altogether very singular ? ” said Lady Jane, after a pause of thought. “ The affair itself, I mean.” |
“ Very much so indeed. It so impressed me at the time of the occurrence ; far more than it did my brother.” “ It would almost seem as though — as though the poor young lady had had no husband,” concluded Lady Jane. “ If it be not uncharitable to the dead to say so.” “ That is the opinion I incline to,” avowed Mr. John Grey. “ My brother, on the con- trary, will not entertain it ; he feels certain, he says, that in that respect things were as straight as they ought to be. But for one thing, I should adopt my opinion indubitably, and go on, as a natural sequence, to the belief that Bhe herself introduced the fatal drops into the draught.” “ And that one thing — what is it ? ” asked Jane, interested in spite of her own cares. But indeed the tragedy from the first had borne much interest for her — as it had for everybody else in South Wennock. “ The face that was seen on the stairs by Mr. Carlton.” “ But I thought Mr. Carlton maintained afterwards that he had not seen any face there — that it was a misapprehension of his own ? ” “Rely upon it, Mr. Carlton did see a face there, Lady Jane. The impression conveyed to his mind at the moment was, that a face — ■ let us say a man — was there ; and I believe it to have been a right one. The doubt arose to him afterwards with the improbability : and, for one thing, he may wish to believe that there was nobody, and to impress that belief upon others. ” “ But why should he wish to do that ? ” asked Jane. “Because he must be aware that it was very careless of him not to have put the matter beyond doubt at the time. To see a man hovering in that stealthy manner near a sick lady’s room would be the signal for un- earthing him to most medical attendants. It ought to have been so to Mr. Carlton ; and he is no doubt secretly taking blame to himself for not having done it.” “ I thought ho did search.” “ Yes, superficially. He carried out a candle and looked around. But he should have re- mained on the landing, and called to those below to bring lights, so as not to allow a chance of escape. Of course, he had no thought of evil.” “And you connect that man with the evil?” “ I do,” said Mr. Grey, as he rose to leave. “ There’s not a shadow of doubt on my mind that that man was the author of Mrs. Crane’s death.” (To be continued.) |
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HEFFIE’S v TROUBLE.
I remember how late we all sat round the fire that night, Aunt Rachel, Cousin Lucy, and I. It was such a cold wild night, and such a tumult was going on out of doors, as made the pleasant cheerful warmth within seem doubly pleasant and cheerful.
My aunt had been left a widow some years since, with two children, a son and a daughter; my cousin Lucy, and Arthur, who was now in a government office in London. I had lived my childish years away, knowing no other home than my aunt’s pretty cottage at Ashwood, no mother’s face but hers. I had been given to her when my parents left England for India, when I was little more than four years old ; it was there my mother died soon after their arrival, leaving my poor father desolate in a strange land. And now, after twelve years of Indian service, he had come back to live in the old Hall at Riverbank, a lovely spot, which had belonged to our family for many generations past.
To that sweet home, one golden June day, he had brought my gentle mother, a pretty bride of seventeen ; and there, about a year after, I, their only child, was born. Being so young when I left it, I had of course little or no recollection of the place, nor do I remember having any desire to see it again. You call this strange and unnatural ; perhaps it was, but then our home at Ashwood was very retired indeed, a sunny nook in a quiet comer of this busy moving world. Beyond the rector and his wife, we had very few neighbours. Lucy and I had only each other to play with while Arthur was away at school ; and when he re- turned for the holidays, we were happy indeed.
So quietly and peacefully the narrow, wave- less stream of our life flowed on, and we were happy and content ; not knowing any other, we cared not to have it widened. I do not think this circumscribed life of ours did any real harm to Lucy ; with me it was otherwise. I suffered, where she escaped untouched ; for we were very different, very unlike each other.
Hers was a frank, sympathetic, trusting nature, that easily attached itself. You could not help loving her if you tried. She would creep into your heart like a little bird, and there make a green little nest for herself, even before you were aware. My disposition, on the contrary, was shy, reserved, and cold ; or, rather, my affections were not easily stirred into warmth. I was Blow to open my heart, and I opened it only to a few ; but for them I had a kind Of passionate worship, that would have considered no sacrifice too great, no self-
renunciation too impossible. But, ah ! at Ash- wood my love had never been put to a severer test than the little daily efforts to please my gentle aunt and cousins. Beyond them I wanted no one else ; I never cared to make friends. Even my father’s name, that name which above all others, should have had a sacred shrine in my heart (I say it now in all the anguish of a sorrowful shame burning at my breast), had little power to kindle any emotion there. And so, when one day the news had come to us that he was going to marry again (a widow lady, with an only daughter a little older than myself) it did not please or trouble me. I received it calmly and quietly, as some- thing I had little concern in. But when, a little later, a letter came telling of their arrival in England, and that now ho had returned home he wished to have his child again, I felt as if a heavy blow had fallen upon my heart, and only yielded as to a cruel necessity. Dreadful to me was the thought of leaving my aunt and cousins, of changing my calm, un- ruffled life at Ashwood for a new existence among strangers, for they were all more or less strangers to me.
And so, as I said before, we three sat round the fire very late that night. We heard the dock in the hall strike the hour of midnight, and still we never moved. I think each of us in her secret heart dreaded to be the first to break up that last home conference. Lucy, with an expression of touching sadness in her sweet face, sat looking into the fire far more gently and submissively than I into my future life ; whilst dear, kind, Aunt Rachel would now and then try to cheer us by some pleasant, hope-assuring word, though I could see that her own eyes were growing dim while she spoke. And so at last we said good night, once more and for the last time ; and once more Cousin Lucy and I lay down to sleep, side by side, in the two little French beds with rosebud cur- tains, in that same dear room we had called the nursery long ago. Before the sun went down again we were many long miles apart. The old life was gone ; and Aunt Rachel’s fond, earnest blessing, and Lucy’s tearful em- brace, were all that remained to me of the happy home days that would never come back.
Well, I arrived at the old house at River- bank, that house which had been my mother’s home for nearly all her married life ; yet my heart refused to recognise it as my own. My father met me in the hall and said, “Heffie, you are quite a woman ; I am glad, very glad, to have my child again.” And my stepmother greeted me kindly, affectionately ; and Agnes took my hand and said (with her eyes looking kindly into mine), “ shall we be sisters ? ”
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And so they took me in among them ; and I day by day they strove, with tender words and j loving deeds, to win my wayward, sullen heart, that still remained shut up within itself, closely as ever door was locked and barred.
Day by day they strove with me, constantly, patiently, but in vain ; because I would not strive with myself. The old life was gone — the old life around and within me ; and in- j stead of trying to read calmly the new leaf that lay open before me, I only stained it with my tears, and kept ever in my memory, turning again and again the pages I had for ever finished. I lived and moved in a kind of dream, seeing and hearing, yet taking no heed of what I saw or heard. I spent hours in my own room, reading over and over again the books Lucy had given to me the night before J. left them. Most of them we had read to- gether, she and I ; and now I must read alone ; j and often, as the short winter afternoon was , growing dark and cold, a sick, dreary feeling 1 would creep over my heart— -of miserable lone- liness, that seemed consuming me in its very - intensity. Ah ! had I not brougnt all my j trouble upon myself ? No j; I was not pretty, j like Agnes. I knew that, .and my father knew j it also ; and he was proud of her, I could see ; but not proud of his poor, pale little Heffie. ( It was always Agues who went out to ride 'with him, who was ready to walk wherever he liked, who read to him in the evening when he was tired. Why was it that I was seldom with him, that I never read or sang to him for hours ! as she did ? Because I had a false feeling in my foolish heart that he could not love me, | could not care for me. How should he, when [ I was so little to him, and she so much ? So days grew into weeks, weeks into months, and i summer came once more, once more to gladden j men and women and childrens hearts, with ! long days of golden sunshine, and soft cool j dewy nights. Yes, summer came once more, and with it came a change in my life, my self- inflicted, lonely life. One morning I received a letter from my Cousin Arthur, saying that his mother and Lucy were going to spend the next three months with some friends in Scot- land ; aud that if his uncle and Mrs. Leigh would kindly receive him for a little while, he would so very much like to come and spend his summer holiday at Eiverbauk. He longed to see me again ; it would be like a coming back of the old days.
“Yes, Heffi9, certainly,” said my father, when I gave him Arthur’s message, “let him come by all means. We shall be delighted to see him ; it will make a pleasant change, a very pleasant change for us all.”
As I rose to leave the room I saw his wife’s
gentle eyes turned on me with a kind, half- pitying look I had often seen there of late, and heard her say (when she thought I was out of hearing), “ Poor child, I am glad she will have this pleasure. I long to see a little colour in that pale face ; it is too young to look so sad.”
And my father answered, “ Yes, it is too young ; life should not be difficult at seven- teen. Oh, Margaret ! I have a great fear haunting me sometimes. ” And here he lowered his voice to almost a whisper, so that I heard no more ; and I hastened up-stairs to write my letter. What was this great fear that haunted my father ? I could not tell. I had often re- marked lately (as I said before) my stepmother’s eyes watching me with an anxious, half-pitying expression ; and once or twice I had seen them All with tears when she thought I was not no- ticing her. Did this great fear haunt her, too ?
Three days passed by, and Arthur came — pleasant, cheerful, kind, Cousin Arthur. How my heart bounded at the sight of him, at the sound of his flue manly voice, that seemed to mo like an echo from the old life, — the old life that was gone. All was changed during the few weeks he stayed at Riverbank. It was as if some kind fairy had come with her magic wand and touched the hours, and turned them into gold. I felt almost quite happy. Something of my old self seemed to have come back. It was a season of strange, wonderful gladness — a short, happy dreaming, that went too quickly by — and 1 awoke crying, to find it over, gone.
I knew he and Agnes liked each other from the beginning ; nothing was more natural. Many of their tastes and pursuits were the same. And so it happened that day by day there grew up between them a sure, yet silent sympathy, so sure and silent that for a long time neither was conscious how much the other was helping to make the sunny June of life more bright and sunny still. Week after week went by, till we counted six, and then Arthur’s leave had expired, and he must return to Lon- don. The last evening came (how far away it seems, now as I look back). I was sitting alone in my own room, not reading or writing, or hardly thinking ; but listening listlessly to the dull patter of the rain against the window, for it had been pouring all day.
Presently I heard a knock at my door, and Arthur entered, saying he wanted to talk with me. He had hardly seen me since the morn- ing. “ Dear Heffie,” he said, “ I want to tell you something, something that I want you to feel glad for. Can you guess 1 ”
“ No. How should 1 1”
“ Well, then, Agnes has promised to-day to be my wife. Say you are glad, Heffie, won’t you ? You used to be glad years ago when I
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brought home a new prize from school ; but now you do not speak.”
“ Arthur*, I am very glad.” I said it with
my lips, but a voice in my heart answered, u No, Heffie, you are not glad ; you know you are not.”
a secret it had not dared to discover ; but now it had stolen out from the dark, silent corner where it had hidden itself away, and, standing
“Why not?”
Because that moment had revealed to my heart a secret it had been keeping from itself,
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out like a giant fierce and strong in the broad open daylight, it stared me in the face mock- ingly, cruelly ; and I saw that it was an idol I had been bowing down to, a pillar I had been leaning on for strength ; and the idol was crumbling, the pillar was falling, and I, who had leaned too long on that one support, was weak (oh I how weak) now it was gone.
Arthur stayed with me for a long while that evening, talking of many things, — of Agnes most of all. He asked me to be kind to her when he was gone, to show her love and sym- pathy for his sake.
He knew not he was asking me to do a hard thing. The next day he was gone, and Agnes moved about the house quiet and subdued, as if a little shadow had come to dim her sky for a moment ; while I, who had no right to grieve, yet grieved more hopelessly. Now, at the distance of nearly twenty years, I can look back calmly on that time, as on the recollec- tion of a troubled dream, from which the awakening was tranquil as the clear shining after rain. But then there was no shining, no rest, no comfort. The next few months that passed before the winter came (that was when the wedding was to be) were very dreary ones to me. There was a little brief while indeed, in which Aunt Rachel and Lucy paid us a visit on their way home from Scotland ; but when that was over I felt even more lonely than ever. My heart was more than ever closed to Agnes. I felt towards her as if Bhe had done me a cruel wrong ; as if she had stolen from me something that might have been miue ; that I would have valued, oh how pricelessly!
One afternoon, near the end of November, as 1 was sitting in the library with my father, he looked up from his newspaper suddenly, and said, “ Heffie, my child, I wish I could see you happy, really happy. I cannot bear to see that pale face of yours day after day without a smile upon it. Can you not borrow a little sunshine from Agnes V 9 ^
I did not answer for a few moments. Then a desperate resolve seemed suddenly to shape itself into words on my lips, and I said, “ Let me go away, father ; let me leave Riverbank. I can never be happy while I stay here. Let me go.”
“ Let you go away, Heffie ! What can you mean ? Where do you want to go ? ”
“ Anywhere, father ; anywhere ! I will be a governess, or a companion. I will do any- thing ; only let me go away.”
“ Why, Heffie, you do not know what you are saying. Are you in your senses, child ? What makes you so unhappy ? Tell me.”
“I cannot, father ; I cannot tell any one. But, oh ! I want to go away ! I want to go
away ! ” And in the paasion of my entreaty I sobbed bitterly.
“ Heffie,” my father exclaimed half fright- ened, “ what is the matter ? Are you ill?”
Just then the door opened, and Mrs. Leigh entered the room. She tried to speak to me ; but I rushed wildly past her into the hall and up-stairs, never pausing till I reached my own room, and there, sinking on the floor beside the sofa, I pressed my head against the pillows and wept as I had not wept for a long while.
Presently I heard a step in the passage. Some one knocked at my door. I did not answer, or even raise my head ; I dreaded that they should see my tears. Again the knock was repeated ; but I never moved. At length the door opened, and I knew, without looking back, that it was my stepmother who stood near me. She laid her hand gently on my shoulder, saying, “ Heffie, my poor child, what is the matter ? Are you ill, or in trouble, or has any one been unkind to you ? Do tell me.”
But still I did not move, but kept my face buried in the sofa pillow.
“ Heffie,” she said again, and this time there was even a little sternness in her voice, M Heffie, listen to me. I must speak to you ; I must know what all this means.”
Her manner quieted me in an instant. I let her raise me from the floor, and, seating herself on the sofa, made me sit beside her, put her arm round me, and drew my head to rest on her bosom. She did not try to stop my tears altogether : they were flowing more quietly now ; but I was cold and trembling, though my head was burning ; and, taking one of my hands, she gently chafed it in her own without speaking a word for some time. At last, as I grew calmer still, she spoke again.
“ Heffie, dearest love, why will you not tell me what is troubling this poor little heart so much ? ”
“ Because, because I cannot tell any one. I must not ; indeed I must not. Nobody could help me if I did.”
“Is it so very bad, dear, — so incurable ? Oh, Heffie ! I would be to you in your dear mother’s place if you would let me, — if you would open your heart to me, and trust me as you would have trusted her. You are too young to bear all this grief alone. Will you not trust me with part of it, at least ? ”
What right had I to all this tenderness from her, those words of sympathy, — I who, for nearly a whole year, had coldly cast away the love she would have given me ? Did I deservo it now ? I knew 1 did not ; but that last ap- peal— so tenderly, so earnestly made — seemed to touch somewhere in my heart a chord that had never thrilled before. My proud, wayward
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heart was bowed in a moment, powerless to close itself any longer ; for she had found the right key, and used it skilfully. Yes, after a year’s hard striving (cold and resisting on my side, patient and gentle on hers), I was con- quered at last ; and, subdued and humbled as a penitent child, I lay weeping in her arms, depending on her love. And there, in the shadow of the dark November twilight, I told her all my trouble : no, not all, only a part ; but she (with*the quick insight of her woman’s sympathy) guessed the rest. She did not say many words to comfort me. She only said, “My poor child!” But I could feel her silent sympathy far more than words. I felt it in the closer pressure of her arms round me, in the touch of her hand on my hair as she tenderly stroked it from my forehead, and pressed an earnest kiss upon it.
“You are very young, dear,” she said at length, “for such a hard battle ; but you will gain the victory if you will ask for strength.”
I knew not how long we remained together that evening. I can dimly remember trying to raise my head to ask her forgiveness for the past, and being hardly able to speak for the burning pain in it. And I remember how kindly she helped me to bed, and sat by my side for a long while, till she thought I had fallen asleep ; but the next few days I can very faintly recall : they are almost a blank in my memory. I knew that I was very ill, and at one time in danger of dying. I lay in a half- sleeping, half-waking state, having no part in the life that was going on around me. My dreams were restless and distressed ; always haunted by that one image — the pillar I had leaned on too long for strength. Once I thought my cousin Arthur and I were walking on the side of a precipice : it was dark and foggy, and every step I was afraid of falling. At last I felt the arm I leaned on growing weak ; but I thought it was still strong enough to support me. By degrees, however, it seemed to give way ; my foot slipped, for the mist was in my eyes, and I felt myself falling. I cried out in my agony of fear, “ Oh, Arthur, save me ! do not leave me ! ” And then in my distress I awoke, to see Agnes bending over me, while she bathed my burning forehead.
“ What is the matter ?” I said. “ Have I been ill ? Where am I ? ”
“ In your own room, Heffie dear. You have been ill ; but you are better now,” she answered.
“Oh, yes, I am better now. Have you been near me long ? ”
“ Mamma and I have both been with you. We want to make you well and strong again.”
“ Do you ? I thought you could not love me. Why do you stay with me?”
“ Stay with you, Heffie ! Why should X leave you ? You would not send me away, would you 1 ”
“ I thought you would hate me. I was unkind, cruel to you.”
“Hush, Heffie, that is all over now. Let us try to forget it, shall we ? But here is Dr. White coming to see you.” And at that moment the door opened, and my stepmother and the doctor came in.
I will not dwell on those days of weakness, and weeks of slow recovery, that were ended at last. I have said that that time, as I see it now, was a troubled evil dream, from which the awaking was calm and tranquil as the clear shining after rain. Yes, the shining came at last ; the battle was won, because the strength that w'on it was not my own. Well, the day arrived — the wedding day — his and hers. I saw them kneeling side by side, and heard the words, “ I, Arthur, take thee, Agnes, to be my wedded wife.” And in my heart I blessed them, him and her. And so they went away to London, and I tried to fill her place at home ; tried to bo to them what she had been ; and they were very kind and patient with me, and would not let me see how sadly they missed her.
Nearly twenty years have come and gone since then, and many things are changed. My father and Btepmother are sleeping side by side in the quiet village churchyard at River- bank. The old Hall has been sold ; but, as the new owner is now abroad, it has a melancholy, deserted look.
Arthur and Agnes have a sunny little home in Devonshire. They are very happy in each other ; very happy in their one child, whom they have named Heffie. She is now a fair girl of eighteen, with the image of her mother's youth upon her. And as I gaze into the blue depths of those true, earnest eyes, I think, half-mournfully, half-thankfully, of the old days at Riverbank.
Aunt Rachel has left her pretty cottage at Ash wood, for the new rector and his wife have begged her to make her home with them, the rector’s wife being Cousin Lucy.
And I, reader ? my home is a small lodging in a quiet street in London — London, “ that gathering-place of souls,” as Mrs. Browning has called it. I have only two rooms ; but they are snug and pleasant enough. And here I live, and write books, and make verses, very thankful if now and then I am allowed to add my little drop of help or comfort to the sea of human charity around me. And I am happy ; for though my cup may never be full to the very brim, still I know it is fuller (how much fuller !) than I deserve.
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“ Boat, gentlemen ? It will do you a deal \ of good, Mr. Fred ; and you too, Mr. Wood,” said old Dan, coming across the beach to where wo were lying.
u I can’t go to day,” answered Wood. w I have a confounded engagement. Shall you go, Astloy 1 ”
“Yes, I think so,” I said, looking at the sea, which, just stirred by a slight breeze, rippled and danced in the sunlight.
“ All right, then. I shall have to bolt in a minute. What an awful row there is this morning.”
“ The beach is very full, sir,” said Dan ;
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“and see, you are in the middle of the crowd.”
We were not far from the bathing machines ; and on every side of us were groups of people, laughing, talking, flirting, — all supremely merry, and not over careful about modulating the tones of their voices. The man with the guitar appeared to be the only person on the whole beach who was not making a noise. He, poor fellow, had broken one of the strings of his instrument, and was sitting by himself, disconsolately, trying to mend it. A family of foreign minstrels had settled themselves in front of the lapidary’s shop, and the eldest boy was singing an Italian song, doing his utmost to make himself heard. He was, I own, singing under difficulties. Tho laughter of the bathers and tho buzz of the talkers hardly conduced to render his voice the more audible ; while the old bells of St. Augustine’s church on the cliff above were ringing a loud wedding peal.
“ In the middle of the infernal regions, I should say. I never heard such a horrid Babel in my life,” muttered Wood, as he Btalked off, and I went to the boat.
“ I expected that you would come, Mr. Fred,” said old Dan. He always called me Mr. Fred. We had been great friends ever since he gave me my first lesson in rowing, when I was a very little fellow. I believe I took to him then wonderfully ; and since that time he had never seemed to me to have changed nor to have grown older. He always was, as far back as I could remember, the same sturdy, broad-shouldered man, with the same bronzod face, and the same clear, keen, grey eye. He had been for several years on board a man-of-war, but he was not a great talker on any subject, and never, I believe, spoke of his younger days. A superannuated, half-witted veteran, who lived in the town, declared that he was with Dan Baker on board H.M.S. Etna. But the veteran knew nothing about Dan’s history, and Dan himself never told it to any one. There was something in it he evidently wished to conceal, and the odd name of his boat, the Faithless Maid, was the only ground on which curious people could build. He was, in spite of his taciturnity, a great favourite with us young fellows. We had christened him Cato ; he seemed to have such a kindred spirit to the great Roman censor. He was so unyielding and exact ; so frugal in his diet, never drinking anything but water, eating very little, and never smoking. He always gave one the impression, when he spoke, that he had a vast amount of know- ledge in him, but which he was unwilling to impart to others. He talked very slowly,
[July 2, 1864.
bringing out each word with the greatest deli- beration, as though he chewed and digested it well mentally before uttering it. But he was a good boatman, and was much sought after by the people, who were accustomed to make use of tho pleasure-boats at Cliffgate.
“ Strange scenes in these boats sometimes, Mr. Fred,” the old fellow said suddenly, after he had pulled for some minutes without speaking.
“ Ah, I suppose so,” I answered carelessly, and without thinking what I said. My thoughts were just then turned upon a bet I had made, and which had happened rather oddly. It was between six of us : Ned Dar- well, Wood, Lucas and one of his cousins, Andrews, and myself. And he who shook hands first with a certain young lady was to win the stakes. Ned called my attention to her as we were walking in the Rose Gardens, listening to the band.
“ By Jove ! ” he said, nipping my arm, “ there’s a jolly girl.”
She had very dark hair and eyes* which were rendered the more attractive by a be- witching little mauve hat, with a white veil tied behind in a bow. She was rather tall and slight, but very graceful ; and her little feet as they peeped out every now and then from under her muslin dress — for the grass was rather damp, and the dress had to be held up — seemed perfection. She was accompa- nied by an old, soldierly-looking gentleman, and a young fellow, of about twenty- two or twenty-three years of age, was walking by her other side.
“ Who is she ?” I asked.
i( I don’t know,” answered Ned. “ Some new importation. Hullo ! here’s Lucas ; he is sure to know. I say, Lucas, my boy, who is that dark girl with the hat ? ”
“ Oh, hang the girl with the rum-shaped hat ! She’s Letitia Turner. Everybody knows her ugly phiz.”
“ No ; the one with the mauve hat and white veiL There ! man alive ! can’t you see? There ! just turning round at tho end of the walk. Do you see her now ? ”
“Don’t know her at all,” said the other. “Do you, John?” he asked, turning to his cousin.
“ Never saw her before,” said the cousin* “ But she’s awfully swell.”
Then Wood and Andrews strolled up. They asked us the very question we were going to ask them ; so we discovered that the young lady was a perfect stranger to us all. Where- upon Lucas undertook to rout her out, as he called it, and tell us.
“ I say, Lucas,” said Ned, who was rather
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jealous of the ascendancy Lucas had gained town knew her, so we were thrown upon our I over us in the honour of finding out and own resources.
becoming acquainted with different young la- , She went down to the beach every morning dies, “ I'll bet you anything you like that FU when it was fine, and walked upon the Parade shake hands with her before you wilL There, in the afternoon ; but was always accompanied Lucas, my boy, there’s a fair bet for you.” 1 by either her father or the young fellow i “ Done,” cried Lucas. announced in the Chronicle as Mr. Henry I
Then Wood chimed in. “ So will I, that I’ll shake hands before either of you.”
And then the rest came forward, each will- ing to make the same offer.
So the bet was made ; and it was about it that I was thinking when Dan spoke to me.
“ Very strange scenes,” he said again, nod- ding at me over his oars. I suppose the expression had been well digested and proved wholesome, so he repeated it. “They say a London cabman could tell a good deal,” he continued, still nodding. “But, bless you, sir, what can they see or hear ? There they sit, flogging their poor horses, while the people are behind them, shut up in a rattling, rackety thing. They can’t hear, sir. How can they ? Now we, you see, Mr. Fred, when we come forward like this, we could almost kiss the people, much more hear what they say.” To prove his assertion, old Dan suited his action to his words, and bent over his oars, leaning forward as far as he could. Having finished liis long speech, he nodded again mysteriously, as if to say, “ There, I have enlightened you quite enough for one day,” and then pullod on again.
As he seemed inclined to be silent, and did not speak, my thoughts gradually reverted to our bet. Lucas, had told us that the young lady was Miss Leith, that the old gentleman was Major Leith, and that they and Mr. Henry Leith were living at 6, Marine Gar- dens. So much information he had gathered from the Cliffgate Chronicle ; but that was not an introduction, and M I see no chance of getting one,” he said to me ruefully. All his numerous cousins had proved perfectly useless on this occasion. Among us Ned had been the most lucky. Miss Leith had bowed and thanked him when he picked up a book which she dropped upon the Parade. I came second. In passing once I was honoured with a second look. The rest were nowhere ; and just a week had elapsed since we made the bet. Up to the preseut time Miss Leith had been invin- cible, though we had all done our utmost to obtain an introduction. Not that any of us cared for the stakes ; they were trifling enough ; but there was a spirit of emulation at work within us for the honour of the first shake of the hand of the young lady. The more diffi- cult it became the more eager we all were to win it. We had found out that nobody in the
Leith. Whether Mr. Henry Leith was her | brother or her cousin, and in the latter case | her lover, we conld not find out. But we put him down for a brother.
We had told Dan about our bet, and he had promised to help us if he could. That, per- I haps, was the chief reason why I seized the 1 opportunity of having him to myself for an I hour.
I “ Seen Miss Leith, Dan ?”
* The old fellow shook his head. “Heard I she was fond of pulling, though,” he said, after , a short time.
I “ Oh, indeed ! ” I answered, as a thought struck me. “ I say, Dan, I shall want your boat for two or three hours a-day for the next | week or so.”
! Now Dan had been in the habit of lending me his boat, because he knew that I could | pull aud manage it properly. I did not anti- I cipato any trouble in getting it, so I was sur- j prised when he appeared to hesitate.
“ What are you going to do with it, sir, may I ask ? ”
“ Never you mind, Dan. You lend me the boat. What I do with it is nothing to you ; that is, as long as I don’t damage it.”
“ You are right, sir. You shall have it.”
He smiled as he spoke, and I could easily see that he guessed for what purpose I wanted the boat. However, he said nothing till the hour was up. Then, as I was getting out, he called me by my name, and said in a low tone :
“ I have known you now for a long time, Mr. Fred. Do mind what you are about, sir. Young women are changeable creatures. I should not like you to be taken in.”
His voice was so sad, and his old bronzed face looked so troubled, that I knew he was speaking from experience, — perhaps from some bitter lesson he had learnt in his youth, aud which in some way accounted for the odd name of his boat.
“Come, old Cato,” I said, “it is only to win the bet ; I am not in love with the young lady. See you to-morrow. Tata.”
The next morning, according to our agree- ment, Dan brought the boat round to the part of the beach nearest to my house. I did not live in the town, but some ten minutes’ walk from it, along the cliff; and there was a path from the house down to the beach. He
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found me there, dressed in an old boating suit, with my face hid as much as pos- sible by a large slouching hat. I was then twenty-four, but looked a little older, and I meant in this disguise to lay siege to Miss Leith.
“ Be careful, Mr. Fred,” were the only words he said as we exchanged places ; and then I pulled leisurely to where the visitors , generally resorted. How all this would help me to obtain an introduction I was not quite dear ; but I was, to tell the truth, jealous of her having spoken to Ned ; and I thought that, at any rate, I should be able, in my capacity of boatman, to get a word from her. I had also a hazy idea that I might possibly give her hand a little shake as I helped her out of the boat, if ever I were fortunate enough to per- suade her to come in. X thought that it would be extremely agreeable to sit opposite to her for an hour, hearing her talk, and almost near j enough to kiss her, as Dan said, whenever I | leant forward.
I “ Boat this morning, sir 1 ” I said, as I ; pulled past the place wheife Miss Leith and her brother were sitting.
“Not this morning, thank you,” he an- swered. |
I had spoken as much like the Cliffgate boat- j men as I was able. Lucas, too, had heard me, and looked up ; but did not seem to recognise either me or my voice, and that emboldened me. Then the Major came down with his Times, and Mr. Iieith left them for his morning bath. I saw him plunge in and swim out to sea ; and, as I wanted to follow his example,
I determined to pull home and change my clothes.
“ Well, I will have one more try,” I thought, “as I have to pass the Major. Perhaps he may like to go.”
When I came up to him he had put down the paper, and was watching his son through a field-glass. Miss Leith was sitting at his feet, sketching and talking to him.
“ I am afraid Harry is going out too far, I Helen,” I heard him say. i
“ But he is such a capital swimmer, papa, j Where is ho now ? ” She then closed her ( sketch-book and stood by his side, looking across the sunny water for her brother.
“ There ! That little black speck is his head. He is coming back now. ”
“ Oh, what a way he is out ! Oh, papa I what is the matter / ” she said, as a strong cry from Mr. Leith reached her ears,
“ Nothing, nothing. Keep still, girl,” he said, beckoning to me. In a minute he had ecmmbkd into the boat, and we had left the beach.
“ Pull, man ! He has got the cramp ! A hundred pounds if you reach him before he «ink« ! Harry ! Harry ! ” he bawled out,
“ keep up. Oh, my boy ! for God’s sake keep up ! Pull with your left. Now you are straight. Pull both. Hard ! ”
I have often rowed in a race ; but I never pulled with such a will as I did on that day. The boat was the best in Cliffgate ; and it seemed to fly over the water as I put all my strength and weight into each stroke. I have- just a dim recollection of seeing crowds upon the beach running about, while the Major stood in the stem, without moving or speaking, watching his sinking son.
“Oh, my God, he is down!” burst from the old gentleman, as he sank backwards upon the seat and covered his face with his hands.
I can remember dropping the oars and tear- ing off my hat and boots. As I turned round I saw, scarce six yards from the head of the boat, a hand rise, then a head — it was his last struggle — and then both went down together.
A moment afterwards I was in the water, catching hold of something large and white, and rising with it to the surface. How I found it I don’t know ; but I knew that it was the young m&n. I felt his arms cling to my neck, and his weight pull me down. I could swim well ; and as my head rose above the water, and I saw the glorious bright sun, my love of j earth seemed so strong, and the thought of j I death so terrible, that I struggled hard to keep afloat. But my clothes were thick and im- peded my limbs. His arms were tightly clasped round my neck, and his dead yreight was pul- ling, for ever pulling, me down.
Then something dark came between me and l the light ; and the old boat, with the Major in it, glided past almost at arm’s length. I made a clutch — a rope was trailing in the water — and as I caught it, aud pulled myself with my burden to the side, I heard the shout from the beach, and felt the Major’s hand unclasping his son’s arms from my neck.
“I’ll hold him ; you get in at the other side. Come, that’s well done,” he said, as we lifted Mr. Leith into the boat. “Now you row in, and I’ll soon bring him to.”
It was not tho first time, as I afterwards learnt, that the Major had helped to resusci- tate a half-drowned person. He knew exactly what to do ; and under his skilful treatment his son opened his eyes before we reached the shore.
“ I must dress him before I can convey him home,” said the Major.
So I took them to tho young fellow’s ma- chine, and then pulled away, partly to change my clothes and partly to avoid being known.
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I succeeded in the latter, even better than 1 had hoped ; for when I met the Major and his daughter on the Parade, in the afternoon, they did not recognise me. I had left my slouch- ing hat at home, and my hair and whiskers were not then plastered to my face with water.
I also found out that nobody had noticed me in the morning ; so I determined to play on j my new character of boatman. Whereupon, j the next day assuming the old disguise, I went j forth again in search of fresh adventures. J
“Oh ! there he is, papa,” Miss Leith said, i as I passed. ;
“ Ah ! so he is. Here, my man, we will go for a pull to-day. How are you this morning ? ) Caught no cold yesterday, I hope ? ”
“ By Jove ! I don’t know how to thank | you,” said Mr. Henry, shaking my hand as \ soon as he was in the boat. “ But I want to j have a jaw with you some time. ” j
Then the Major, muttering some thanks, 1 held out his hand ; and Miss Leith gave me j her brightest smile, which I prized more than aU.
“How strange, papa,” 3he said, reading the name of the boat. “ You know Miss Hemery told us to have this one before we came.” :
“ Bless me, yes. I have heard a good deal | about you, Mr. Baker. I heard that you wore j very sober, and very respectable, and all that i sort of thing. It seems to me, too, that you j were not always a boatman,” he said, glancing i at my hands, which were rather whiter than the flippers of the sons of Neptune usually are. “So, if you like to give up this sort of life, why, I’ll take care that you always have a snug roof over your head. ”
I thanked him very much ; but I told him that I liked my life very well. In fact I was fairly stumped as to what to say. I felt half inclined to laugh at being taken for old Dan ; and yet I felt that the Major ought not to be allowed to continue in his mistake.
“ You seem very young to be such a hermit. Come, you must marry. I will find you a wife, and keep her well, too.”
“ Yes, you must forget the Faithless Maid now,” said Miss Leith, smiling again. I sup- pose she had heard some of the conjectures about Dan’s life.
“ I do not mean to be inquisitive,” the Major said, “ but I cannot bear to see a young man like you, and one too who is so superior to this sort of work, settling down to such a life. Remember what we owe to you. Will you not tell me your trouble 1 I may be able to help you ; and I swear I won’t spare money or trouble to make you happy.”
Although, of course, I did not want any pecuniary help, his kind way in offering it, and
the fatherly manner in which he put his hand upon my shoulder as I bent forwards, made me ashamed of the trick I had played upon him. He must sooner or later find it out ; and I wondered within myself, as I leant over the oars, looking down, with his hand upon my shoulder, whether he would then be so kind as now.
“ I should like to see you privately to- morrow, sir,” I said, putting off the time as long as I could.
“ Very well, then. Come in the morning at eleven — 6, Marine Gardens. Ask for Major Leith.”
I promised to do so, and nothing more was said about it during our pull.
“ Good-bye,” said Mr. Henry, when he was on the beach. “ The governor has had all the talk to-day ; but I shall see you again soon.”
“ Good-bye,” said Miss Leith with a nod, as her brother helped her out. “ Good-bye.”
“ I wonder if she will nod and smile,” I thought, “ when she finds out who I am. I shall be certain to see her again this afternoon at the band ; but she won’t know me without this hat. I’ll risk it at any rate. What a jolly smile she has ! ”
Though I did not expect to be recognised,
I had, whilst dressing, sundry qualms about going ; and when the time came for me to start I was sitting in the window, still hesitat- * ing. I had just decided that I would not go, when Ned walked up the garden and stepped into the room.
“ Well, old fellow, you’ll be late,” he said, tapping my knees with his stick. “ Don’t be so idle. Come along.”
“ I am not going, Ned.”
“Not going ! Why not ? Miss Leith is sure to be there. Ah ! I see. You find it’s no good struggling against me. I respect your sense of discrimination ; but I can’t walk there without somebody. Just come to keep me company.”
So I took his arm, and we strolled together into the Rose Gardens.
“ There’s that swell girl I met last night,” he said. “ Lucas will be at her side in a minute if I don’t look out. Ta-ta.”
Dropping my arm, he raised his hat to the young lady, and then walked off by her side just as Lucas came up.
“ I don’t thmk Miss Leith is here,” said Lucas to me ; “ but there is Letitia Turner at the other end, looking such an awful fright.”
Letitia, who was the wrong side of thirty, honoured me, when we met, with a most gracious bow. She certainly did look, as Lucas said, “ an awful fright ; ” and whilst I was admiring the gorgeousness of her “get-
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up,” I awkwardly trod upon the dress of a lady who was sitting down.
“ I beg your pardon,” I said, turning round and raising my hat.
It was Miss Leith ; and I saw in a moment, from the blush that coloured her cheeks, that I was recognised. It was my voice, I knew, that had betrayed me ; but I walked on till I came to the railings that bounded the gardens. There was no gate at the side where I was, or I should have gone out ; and the nearest one was ex- actly opposite the seat which the Leiths occu- pied. I waited for some minutes looking over the railings, and then turned round. Stand- ing directly in front of me was the Major, en- tirely cutting off all means of retreat.
“ How do you, Mr. Baker ?” he said, with a grin, while I felt rather uncomfortable.
Then I stammered out something, apologis- ing for the deceit I had practised upon him. “ I was going to tell you to-morrow,” I said ; “ but I hope, sir, that you will not thiuk the worse of me for it.”
“ By my faith, sir, that I won’t. I thought this morning that you looked a devilish gentle- man-like boatman, and said so to my daughter. It is I who have to apologise for calling to you yesterday as I did ; but I had not time to look at you. I only saw a man in boatman’s clothes, and, of course, took you for one.
• Give mo your hand,” he said, stretching out his own, and then adding, with a laugh, “ though, I suppose, now, you will not want me to put a roof over your head ; yet I shall always be heartily glad to see you under mine. By the by, as you are no longer Baker, what name do you mean to assume now ?”
“ Astley.”
“ Well then, Mr. Astley, I hope this will be the beginning of a long friendship.”
“ lam sure, sir, nothing will give me greater pleasure. ”
“ It was Baker’s boat, though, you were in ? ” he said.
j “ Yes, — ‘ The Faithless Maid.’ ”
“ Then, as I live, Baker Bhall have the wife I and the cottage.”
“ I won’t answer for the wife,” I said.
| “ Then he shall have the cottage without
her. He shall have something. I will go and I find him now. You come with me and I’ll introduce you.”
“ My daughter, Mr. 1 beg your pardon,
I have a shocking memory for names. ”
“ Astley,” I suggested.
“Mr. Astley,” he said, “the amateur boatman.”
At this we all laughed, and Miss Leith blushed. Then the Major, with a good hearty farewell, left us, and went on his errand.
[July 2, 1SW.
“ I caught him,” he said, when he returned. “ He has consented, after a slight skirmish, to live with me, and have a place to harbour his old hulk in. We mtxst go now, Helen. Pri- vate to-morrow at eleven, eh, Mr. Astley ? Well, I hope I shall see you soon.”
“ Thank you, Major. Good-bye, Miss Leith.”
“ Good-bye, Mr. Astley,” she said, putting out her hand.
Lucas and Ned, who were wandering about, passed at that moment. They both looked, — the envious wretches, — and actually scowled at me, as I took the little hand and shook it.
So I won our bet.
And besides the bet, I won also that which had caused it. For soon afterwards Miss Leith gave me her hand “to shake,” as she herself said, “ as often as ever I liked.” A. Y. H.
THE PAINTER - STAINERS’ EXHIBITION.
There is now open in London an exhibition, Bmall in kind, perhaps, but possessing interest in so far as it suggests, by actual example, improvement in the management of the City companies. Non-citizens have very little know- ledge of these companies : they hear occa- sionally that the Prince of Wales dines with one company, Garibaldi with a second, some other celebrated personage with a third, and so on ; and that the companies contribute liber- ally to various benevolent institutions, be- sides maintaining almshouses for decayed per- sons. But beyond these limits, little is popularly known of the companies. The truth is, there is little to know. The companies have out- lived the purposes for which they were origin- ally chartered. Each was intended to regulate some particular trade at a time when unfettered commerce was little thought about. It was believed in the days of the Edwards and Henrys that there ought to be some central authority in each trade, to determine wages, prices, quality of goods, quantity of work done in a particular time, number of per- sons free of the craft, number of apprentices, and other such matters. We now know that these things are best left to manage them- selves ; but it was a well-meant and perhaps beneficial system in those days. Wealthy citi- zens left estates to the companies to which they belonged, for appropriation generally to the needs of the poorer members of the craft. These estates have now become enormously valuable ; and as the companies have very few trade privileges to exercise, or trade duties to fulfil, the annual revenues are mainly spent in charities and iu feastings. Parliament has sometimes talked of interfering in the matter,
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but without effect, for the estates are really and legally vested in the companies. Many readers will be surprised to hear that there are eighty City companies, established to con- trol as many different trades. The Painter- Stainers, one of the minor companies, are now attempting some revival of their former trade influence by holding exhibitions of skilled products, drawn forth by the principle of com- petition incited by prizes. The attempt is a small one ; but is worthy of notice, as illus- trating “the thin end of the wedge.”
It would be interesting, perhaps, to trace out what these painter-stainers actually did in their day, what was their exact relation towards artistic painters on the one hand and house- painters on the other. Without going fully into that matter, however, it may suffice to say that they formed a licensed guild long be- fore the reign of Elizabeth ; but their first deed of corporation is dated 1580. The company preserve minutes of their proceedings as far back as the reign of Elizabeth’s successor ; and some of these show that the guild exercised peculiar privileges over foreign artists resident in London. These artists, such as Steenwyck and Gentileschi, were compelled to pay certain fines for following their art without being free of the company. The demand, however, al- though made, does not appear to have been complied with, for the Court painters set the company at defiance. Cornelius Jausen was a member of the company, and Inigo Jones and Vandyck were occasional guests at the ban- quets. Charles Cotton, one of the original members of the Royal Academy, was master of the company in 1784. Camden, the antiquary, whose portrait hangs up in the hall, and whose father was a painter, left 16?. to the painter- stainers to buy a “ loving cup,” which is pro- duced at the annual feast of the company on St. Luke’s day. Samuol Aggas, a landscape- painter of considerable talent, was master of the company in the reign of Charles I. Trevitt, a painter of still-life in Queen Anne’s reign, and Sir James Thornhill, in that of George I., were also members. Sir Godfrey Kneller, Antonio Verrio, Edward Polehampton, Van der Meulen, and Sir Joshua Reynolds are to be found among the list of members. The truth is, decorators and painters were origin- ally the same persons : witness Raffaelle and Michael Angelo, bo many of whose pictures were intended as wall decorations. Little as we may regard it now, the Painter-Stainers’ Company was the precursor to the Royal Academy ; but had mainly in view the purity ami elevation of decorative art. Which of our Royal Academicians would care to belong to it now t
The tendency of the old City guilds to fall behind the level of the age, if not to become actually obsolete, has been fully admitted by Mr. Sewell, the present master of the Painter- Stainers’ Company. In his circular addressed to his own trade, concerning the original idea of the exhibition, he said : — “ The powers of the various guilds are not maintainable under their bye-laws ; and it must be acknowledged they have fallen into desuetude, and operate in re- straint of trade. I consider, however, that by substituting emulation for coercion, the guilds (especially those where skilful handicraft is re- quired) might yet retain, as bodies, a firm and useful position in society ; and my suggestion for effecting this, as relates to this company, consists in inviting the workmen, artificers and artists, connected with painting and decoration, to submit their works annually to public inspec- tion : their merit to be judged by competent persons.” As they have outlived their original uses, and as they will not die, the companies should try to do something to maintain their good name besides banquets and almshouses. “It is with institutions as with great men. If they would preserve their reputation unim- paired they should never survive the loss of their distinguished powers,” as a writer on the City companies has observed ; and Mr. Sewell invites his small guild to make its existence felt through its usefulness.
The company’s first exhibition, in I860, was, as we have implied, planned by Mr. Sewell, and carried out at his own personal expense, the joint clerks of the company, Messrs. Tomlins, rendering their aid as honorary secretaries. The object held in view was stated in a straight- forward way : — “ Without vainly seeking to compete with the national institutions which exist for the encouragement of the fine arts, the Painters’ Company conceive they act in full accordance with their vocation, and with the spirit of the age, in endeavouring to give an artistic impetus to the more mechanical of the decorative arts ; and, as far as is practicable, recruiting them with the higher branches of the art and mystery of painting.” Certainly the company received the warm good wishes of the press, especially that portion of it which takes cognizance of artistic matters. But it tends to show how little the project was known to the general public, that less than 900 per- sons visited the exhibition during the month it was open, or somewhere about thirty per day. “ Who are the painter-stainers ? ” asked many ; and, “Where is their hall?” asked others. Even when the questions were answered, the querists were not likely to be greatly dazzled by what they saw ; for certainly the spot is not a very attractive one. Who but a City man
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knows where Little Trinity Lane is ? Sup- | posing you to proceed to Canuon Street from I St. Paul’s Churchyard, and then to penetrate ! into the region between that thoroughfare and | ! Thames Street, you get into a range of narrow | lanes and streets, many of them os crooked as i they are narrow ; and if you do not mistake Garlick Hill or Old Fish Street for Little Trinity Lane, perhaps it will bo because there is a dusty, brown, German Lutheran church at one corner. Down this little frowsy lane you j turn, wondering whether a “City company’s” j hall can possibly be in such a place. Here you come to a tinplate worker, then to a writer j and grainer, anon to a rag dealer and a coffee j shop, then to a barber’s, a linen-draper’s, a grocer’s, a marine store-shop, a printer’s, and j an eating house ; and among all these you see j on the door-posts of a medium-sized house ; the inscription “ Painter-Stainera’ HalL” The j rooms, with which the public have nothing to j | ^ do, are small and plain, and the hall has barely light enough to display what may happen to be exhibited in it Assuredly a less attractive ' spot for an exhibition could not easily be picked i out in the metropolis. Even the remains of ' venerable antiquity are not there to allure us,
| for the house is not an old one ; and the once ! • | fine church of the Holy Trinity, destroyed by the j| great fire of 1666, is now represented only by ! Ij the very unpicturesque Lutheran chapel The ; collection of pictures, however, is a some- j what curious one, and would be more in- teresting than it is if more light could pene- trate into the halL This hall, like everything else around it, was rebuilt after the great fire. We need not describe it ; but if any visitor should find his way so far east at a time when the June exhibition is not open, he will find about sixty old pictures in the hall, by Kneller, Closterman, Sebastian Francks, Sebastian Ricci, Aggas, and others whose names are not so well known ; together with Smirke’s “ Death of Abel,” presented to the company by one of the members