The Project Gutenberg eBook of Chambers's Journal of Popular Literature, Science, and Art, No. 743, March 23, 1878
    
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Title: Chambers's Journal of Popular Literature, Science, and Art, No. 743, March 23, 1878

Author: Various

Editor: Robert Chambers
        William Chambers

Release date: August 7, 2020 [eBook #62863]

Language: English

Credits: Produced by Susan Skinner and the Online Distributed
        Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL OF POPULAR LITERATURE, SCIENCE, AND ART, NO. 743, MARCH 23, 1878 ***




Produced by Susan Skinner and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net









[Illustration: CHAMBERS’S JOURNAL

OF

POPULAR

LITERATURE, SCIENCE, AND ART.

Fourth Series
CONDUCTED BY WILLIAM AND ROBERT CHAMBERS.

NO. 743.      SATURDAY, MARCH 23, 1878.      PRICE 1½_d._]




TOBY.


Toby was a sheep of middling size, lightly built, finely limbed, as
agile as a deer, with dark intelligent gazelle-like eyes, and a small
pair of neatly curled horns, with the points protruding about an inch
from his forehead. His colour was white except on the face, which was
slightly darker.

As an old sailor I wish to say something of Toby’s history. I was
on board the good brig _Reliance_ of Arbroath, bound from Cork to
Galatz, on the left bank of the Danube. All went well with the little
ship until she reached the Grecian Archipelago, and here she was
detained by adverse winds and contrary currents, making the passage
through the islands both a dangerous and a difficult one. When the
mariners at length reached Tenedos, it was found that the current
from the Dardanelles was running out like a mill-stream, which made
it impossible to proceed; and accordingly the anchor was cast, the
jolly-boat was lowered, and the captain took the opportunity of going
on shore for fresh water, of which they were scarce. Having filled his
casks, it was only natural for a sailor to long to treat himself to
a mess of fresh meat as well as water. He accordingly strolled away
through the little town; but soon found that butchers were as yet
unknown in Tenedos. Presently, however, a man came up with a sheep,
which the captain at once purchased for five shillings. This was Toby,
with whom, his casks of water, and a large basket of ripe fruit, the
skipper returned to his vessel. There happened to be on board this
ship a large and rather useless half-bred Newfoundland. This dog was
the very first to receive the attentions of Master Toby, for no sooner
had he placed foot on the deck, than he ran full tilt at the poor
Newfoundland, hitting him square on the ribs and banishing almost every
bit of breath from his body. ‘Only a sheep,’ thought the dog, and flew
at Toby at once. But Toby was too nimble to be caught, and he planted
his blows with such force and precision, that at last the poor dog was
fain to take to his heels, howling with pain, and closely pursued by
Toby. The dog only escaped by getting out on to the bowsprit, where of
course Toby could not follow, but quietly lay down in a safe place to
wait and watch for him.

This first adventure shewed that Toby was no ordinary sheep. How he
had been trained to act an independent part no one could tell. His
education, certainly, had not been neglected. That same evening the
captain was strolling on the quarter-deck eating a bunch of grapes,
when Toby came up to him, and standing on one end, planted his
fore-feet on his shoulders, and looked into his face, as much as to
say: ‘I’ll have some of those, please.’

And he was not disappointed, for the captain amicably went shares
with Toby. Toby appeared so grateful for even little favours, and so
attached to his new master, that Captain Brown had not the heart to
kill him. He would rather, he thought, go without fresh meat all his
life. So Toby was installed as ship’s pet. Ill-fared it then with the
poor Newfoundland; he was so battered and cowed, that for dear life’s
sake he dared not leave his kennel even to take his food. It was
determined, therefore, to put an end to the poor fellow’s misery, and
he was accordingly shot. This may seem cruel, but it was kind in the
main.

Now there was on board the _Reliance_ an old Irish cook. One morning
soon after the arrival of Toby, Paddy, who had a round bald pate, be
it remembered, was bending down over a wooden platter cleaning the
vegetables for dinner, when Toby took the liberty of insinuating his
woolly nose to help himself. The cook naturally enough struck Toby
on the snout with the flat of the knife and went on with his work.
Toby backed astern at once; a blow he never could and never did
receive without taking vengeance. Besides, he imagined, no doubt, that
holding down his bald head as he did, the cook was desirous of trying
the strength of their respective skulls. When he had backed astern
sufficiently for his purpose, Toby gave a spring: the two heads came
into violent collision, and down rolled poor Paddy on the deck. Then
Toby coolly finished all the vegetables, and walked off as if nothing
had happened out of the usual.

Toby’s hatred of the whole canine race was invincible. One day when
the captain and his pet were taking their usual walk on the promenade,
there came on shore the skipper of a Falmouth ship, accompanied by
a very large formidable-looking dog. And the dog only resembled his
master, as you observe dogs usually do. As soon as he saw Toby he
commenced to set his dog upon him; but Toby had seen him coming and
was quite _en garde_; so a long and fierce battle ensued, in which
Toby was slightly wounded and the dog’s head was severely cut. Quite a
multitude had assembled to witness the fight, and the ships’ riggings
were alive with sailors. At one time the brutal owner of the dog,
seeing his pet getting worsted, attempted to assist him; but the
crowd would have pitched him neck and crop into the river, had he not
desisted. At last both dog and sheep were exhausted, and drew off, as
if by mutual consent. The dog seated himself close to the outer edge of
the platform, which was about three feet higher than the river’s bank,
and Toby went, as he was wont to do, and stood between his master’s
legs, resting his head fondly on the captain’s clasped hands, but never
took his eyes off the foe. Just then a dog on board one of the ships
happened to bark, and the Falmouth dog looked round. This was Toby’s
chance, and he did not miss it or his enemy either. He was upon him
like a bolt from a catapult. One furious blow knocked the dog off the
platform, next moment Toby had leaped on top of him, and was chasing
the yelling animal towards his own ship. There is no doubt Toby would
have crossed the plank and followed him on board, had not his feet
slipped and precipitated him into the river. A few minutes afterwards,
when Toby, dripping with wet, returned to the platform to look for his
master, he was greeted with ringing cheers; and many was the piastre
spent in treating our woolly friend to fruit. Toby was the hero of
Galatz from that hour; but the Falmouth dog never ventured on shore
again, and his master as seldom as possible.

On her downward voyage, when the vessel reached Sulina, at the mouth
of the river, it became necessary to lighten her in order to get her
over the bar. This took some time, and Toby’s master frequently had
to go on shore; but Toby himself was not permitted to accompany him,
on account of the filth and muddiness of the place. When the captain
wished to return he came down to the river-side and hailed the ship to
send a boat. And poor Toby was always on the watch for his master if no
one else was. He used to place his fore-feet on the bulwarks and bleat
loudly towards the shore, as much as to say: ‘I see you, master, and
you’ll have a boat in a brace of shakes.’ Then if no one was on deck,
Toby would at once proceed to rouse all hands fore and aft. If the mate
Mr Gilbert pretended to be asleep on a locker, he would fairly roll him
off on to the deck.

Toby was revengeful to a degree, and if any one struck him, he would
wait his chance, even if for days, to pay him out with interest in his
own coin. He was at first very jealous of two little pigs which were
bought as companions to him; but latterly he grew fond of them, and
as they soon got very fat, Toby used to roll them along the deck like
a couple of foot-balls. There were two parties on board that Toby did
not like, or rather that he liked to annoy whenever he got the chance,
namely the cook and the cat. He used to cheat the former and chase
the latter on every possible occasion. If his master took pussy and
sat down with him on his knee, Toby would at once commence to strike
it off with his head. Finding that she was so soft and yielding that
this did not hurt her, he would then lift his fore-foot and attempt to
strike her down with that; failing in that, he would bite viciously
at her; and if the captain laughed at him, then all Toby’s vengeance
would be wreaked on his master. But after a little scene like this,
the sheep would always come and coax for forgiveness. Our hero was
taught a great many tricks, among others to leap backward and forward
through a life-buoy. When his hay and fresh provisions went done, Toby
would eat pea-soup, invariably slobbering all his face in so doing,
and even pick a bone like a dog. He was likewise very fond of boiled
rice, and his drink was water, although he preferred porter and ale;
but while allowing him a reasonable quantity of beer, the captain never
encouraged him in the bad habit, the sailors had taught him, of chewing
tobacco.

It is supposed that some animals have a prescience of coming storms.
Toby used to go regularly to the bulwarks every night, and placing his
feet against them snuff all around him. If content, he would go and lie
down and fall fast asleep; but it was a sure sign of bad weather coming
before morning when Toby kept wandering by his master’s side and would
not go to rest.

One day Captain Brown was going up the steps of the Custom-house, when
he found that not only Toby but Toby’s two pigs were following close
at his heels. He turned round to drive them all back; but Toby never
thought for a moment that his master meant that _he_ should return.

‘It is these two awkward creatures of pigs,’ thought Toby, ‘that master
can’t bear the sight of.’

So Toby went to work at once, and first rolled one piggie down-stairs,
then went up and rolled the other piggie down-stairs; but the one
piggie always got to the top of the stair again by the time his
brother piggie was rolled down to the bottom. Thinking that as far as
appearances went, Toby had his work cut out for the next half-hour,
his master entered the Custom-house. But Toby and his friends soon
found some more congenial employment; and when Captain Brown returned,
he found them all together in an outer room, dancing about with the
remains of a new mat about their necks, which they had just succeeded
in tearing to pieces.

Their practical jokes cost the captain some money one way or another.

One day the three friends made a combined attack on a woman, who was
carrying a young pig in a sack; this little pig happened to squeak,
when Toby and his pigs went to the rescue. They tore the woman’s dress
to atoms and delivered the little pig. Toby was very much addicted to
describing the arc of a circle; that was all very good when it was
merely a fence he was flying over, but when it happened that a window
was in the centre of the arc, then it came rather hard on the captain’s
pocket.

In order to enable him to pick up a little after his long voyage,
Toby was sent to country lodgings at a farmer’s. But barely a week
had elapsed when the farmer sent him back again with his compliments,
saying that he would not keep him for his weight in gold. He led the
farmer’s sheep into all sorts of mischief that they had never dreamed
of before, and had defied the dogs, and half-killed one or two of them.

Toby returned like himself, for when he saw his master in the distance
he bleated aloud for joy, and flew towards him like a wild thing,
dragging the poor boy in the mud behind him.

Toby was taken on board a vessel which was carrying out emigrants to
New York, and was constantly employed all day in driving the steerage
passengers off the quarter-deck. He never hurt the children, however,
but contented himself by tumbling them along the deck and stealing
their bread and butter.

From New York Toby went to St Stephens. There a dog flew out and bit
Captain Brown in the leg. It was a dear bite, however, for the dog, for
Toby caught it in the act and hardly left life enough in it to crawl
away. At St Stephens Toby was shorn, the weather being oppressively
hot. No greater insult could have been offered him. His anger and
chagrin were quite ludicrous to witness. He examined himself a dozen
times, and every time he looked round and saw his naked back he tried
to run away from himself. But when his master, highly amused at his
antics, attempted to add insult to injury, by pointing his finger at
him and laughing him to scorn, Toby’s wrath knew no bounds, and he
attacked the captain on the spot. He managed, however, to elude the
blow, and Toby walked on shore in a pet. Whether it was that he was
ashamed of his ridiculous appearance, or of attempting to strike his
kind master in anger, cannot be known, but for three days and nights
Toby never appeared, and the captain was very wretched indeed. But when
he did return, he was so exceedingly penitent and so loving and coaxing
that he was forgiven on the spot.

When Toby arrived with his vessel in Queen’s Dock, Liverpool, on a
rainy morning, some nice fresh hay was brought on board. This was a
great treat for our pet, and after he had eaten his fill, he thought he
could not do better than sleep among it, which thought he immediately
transmuted to action, covering himself all up except the head.
By-and-by the owner of the ship came on board, and taking a survey of
things in general he spied Toby’s head.

‘Hollo!’ he said, ‘what’s that?’ striking Toby’s nose with his
umbrella. ‘Stuffed, isn’t it?’

Stuffed or not stuffed, there was a body behind it—as the owner soon
knew to his cost—and a spirit that never brooked a blow, for next
moment he found himself lying on his back with his legs waggling in the
air in the most expressive manner, while Toby stood triumphantly over
him waiting to repeat the dose if required.

The following anecdote shews Toby’s reasoning powers. He was standing
one day near the dockyard foreman’s house, when the dinner bell rang,
and just at the same time a servant came out with a piece of bread for
Toby. Every day after this, as soon as the same bell rang—‘That calls
me,’ said Toby to himself, and off he would trot to the foreman’s
door. If the door was not at once opened he used to knock with his
head; and he would knock and knock again until the servant, for
peace-sake, presented him with a slice of bread.

And now Toby’s tale draws near its close. The owner never forgave that
blow, and one day coming by chance across the following entry in the
ship’s books, ‘Tenedos—to one sheep, 5s.,’ he immediately claimed Toby
as his rightful property. It was all in vain that the captain begged
hard for his poor pet, and even offered ten times his nominal value
for him. The owner was deaf to all entreaties and obdurate. So the
two friends were parted. Toby was sent a long way into the country to
Carnoustie, in Forfarshire, to amuse some of the owner’s children, who
were at school there. But the sequel shews how very deeply and dearly
even a sheep can love a kind-hearted master. After the captain left
him, poor Toby refused all food and _died of grief in one week’s time_.

‘I have had many pets,’ says Captain Brown, ‘but only one Toby.’




HELENA, LADY HARROGATE.


CHAPTER XVI.—LIFTS A CORNER OF THE MASK.

Ruth Willis bending forward, her gloved fingers clasped upon the open
letter that she held, and her pale face on fire, as it were, with eager
passion, seemed sadly out of tune with the still beauty of that silvan
spot, where first the crystal Start, freed from its moorland cradle,
gushed forth as a real river, although of puny dimensions, bearing
its watery tribute to the sea. Above, arched the feathery larch, the
slender hazel, and the tapering ash. Branches of the mountain-ash
projected like the stone frettings of some medieval belfrey. The clear
sweet warble of mavis and merle came throbbing softly to the ear
from the dim green heart of the summer woodlands. The letter which
she had purloined—the theft may have been prompted by the impulse of
the moment, and it is charitable to hope that such deeds were new to
her—was now hers, to peruse at her leisure. She read it then, did
Ruth Willis, again and again, slowly and deliberately, scanning and
weighing every word, as though she had been a student of the cuneiform
character, puzzling out Babylonian tablets by the aid of vague and
tentative keys to the long-dead language of which they bore the impress.

The letter ran thus:

              8 BOND’S CHAMBERS,
        ST NICHOLAS POULTNEY, LONDON.

    DEAR SIR SYKES—It might be as well perhaps that we should come
    to an understanding at once respecting the business on which I
    spoke to you at the _De Vere Arms_ some days since. I do not
    know whether you are aware that I hold evidence substantiating
    the entire circumstances of the case, which I could at any time
    reveal. I will mention no names of place or person, since this
    is unwelcome to you; but in return for my consideration for
    your interests, and for those whose prosperity and good name
    are _now_ knit up in yours, I consider myself to possess a
    claim upon your confidence. I therefore permit myself to think
    that as your legal adviser I could conduct your affairs so that
    you should be under no apprehension for the future, provided
    always that the entire management (professionally) of your
    estate and property should be placed in my hands. This, after
    due consideration, I think would be the most expedient manner
    of settling matters for the advantage of all parties concerned.

    Trusting that you may see this arrangement in the same light as
    myself, and that it may meet with your approval, as the only
    means of arriving at a definitive understanding, I shall await
    your reply. I beg to remain, my dear sir, very obediently and
    faithfully yours,

        ENOCH WILKINS, _Solicitor_.

Such was the letter which Sir Sykes Denzil had unguardedly left upon
his library table; and it may be admitted that a more impudent epistle
has rarely been addressed to a gentleman of equal station to that of
the proprietor of Carbery. It was difficult at first sight to believe
that a demand so audacious in itself, and so offensively urged, could
be intended as anything else than a sorry jest. Yet that the writer was
quite in earnest, nay more, that he felt himself assured of not craving
in vain for the coveted boon, was palpable to so attentive a critic as
was Ruth Willis.

‘If any man had dared to write thus to me,’ she said, slowly hissing
out the words between her half-shut teeth, ‘and I had filled the
position held by yonder pompous dolt, I would have—ay, given him cause
to repent it.’

And the lurid light that glimmered in her dark eyes, and the hardening
of her shrewd pale face until it seemed as though of chiselled marble
rather than sentient flesh, and the swift and sudden gesture with
which she raised and shook her clenched hand, as though it held a
dagger—these signs were the revelation of a fierce and unscrupulous
nature, kept down by the pressure of circumstances, but ready at pinch
of need to flame forth, as the hot lava bubbles and seethes beneath
the crust of cold ashes in which the vines of the Italian peasant have
struck root.

Again and with deliberate care did the baronet’s ward read the letter
through. Then she refolded it and replaced it in her pocket, and then
consulted her watch. Only a few minutes had as yet elapsed since her
escape—for it was little else—from the mansion.

‘I must not go back as yet,’ she said thoughtfully. ‘By this time the
whole household will be astir like a hive of angry bees, if, as is all
but certain, Sir Sykes has not had self-control enough to keep his own
counsel as to the loss he has sustained. He should have burned this
choice epistle the moment he had made himself master of its purport;
but he is of that order of men who treasure up the very proofs that
sooner or later overwhelm them with a weight of silent evidence. Was it
not the learned forger, silver-tongued, plausible Dr Dodd, who was left
alone with the fatal document that brought him to the gallows, alone
in a room where a brisk fire was blazing? One flash of mother-wit,
one motion of the hand, and nothing but a heap of tinder would have
remained to bear witness of the fraud. But no! The doomed wretch waited
passive for the hangman’s fingers to adjust the hempen noose about his
miserable neck. So would not I!’

Again the girl glanced impatiently at her watch.

‘How Time lags!’ she exclaimed petulantly, as she marked the slow
crawling of the thin black minute-hand around the dial; ‘heeding
nothing, influenced by nothing, inexorable in his measured pace. It is
a pain to such as I am to be forced to loiter here inactive, when there
is a foe to cope with, a peril to avert.’

She said no more, but paced restlessly to and fro along the river-bank,
beneath the arching boughs, with somewhat of the air and tread of a
caged panther wearing away the sullen hours of captivity behind the
restraining bars. Her very step had in it somewhat of the litheness
which we notice in the movements of the savage, and the working of
her keen features told how deeply her busy brain was pondering on the
events of the day. Ruth’s face, when once it was withdrawn from the
observation of others, was a singularly expressive one. When she had
left the room wherein Jasper had fallen asleep among his pillows,
the countenance of Sir Sykes’s ward had been eloquent with weariness
and contempt. Now it told of resentment restrained, but only in part
restrained, by a caution that was rather of habit than of instinct.

‘An hour more! yet an hour,’ said the girl at length, again looking
at her watch, and then she stood leaning against the tough stem of a
quivering mountain-ash that almost overhung the brawling torrent. She
still kept in her left hand the book which she had had with her when
entering the library at Carbery; but even had not the volume been
one which she had lately perused, she was in no mood for reading.
Manifestly her mind was shaping out some desperate resolution.

‘I will do it!’ she said at last, lifting her head with a defiant
glitter in her lustrous eyes; ‘before I sleep it shall be written. I
know and gauge beforehand the risk of such a course; know too that I
am loosening my own grasp on the helm if I invite another to aid me.
But that is better than to be foiled at the outset, and after weeks
spent in this self-schooling, and in the sickening task of cajoling a
shallow, knavish egotist, such as the future Sir Jasper will be until
his dying day. Let those look to it who for their own schemes venture
to cross my path!’

The hour, however slowly it might appear to pass in the estimation of
one whose nerves were on fire with excitement, nevertheless did wear
itself out, and there was an end of waiting. With tranquil step and
unruffled brow, Sir Sykes’s ward returned to her guardian’s house, to
find, as she had anticipated, confusion and dismay prevalent there; the
servants sullen or clamorous, the baronet’s daughters distressed, and
Sir Sykes himself in a state of feverish suspicion, which almost made
him forget the traditions of good-breeding.

‘Do you, Miss Willis, know anything of this?’ he asked half rudely, the
instant that he caught sight of his ward.

‘I—know of what?’ returned Ruth innocently, as she lifted her eyes,
with a startled look, to his.

‘You forget, papa,’ said Lucy Denzil, almost indignantly, ‘that Ruth
has heard of nothing. She was away from the house all the time.’

‘Yes, yes; I beg pardon of course,’ exclaimed the baronet reddening,
but still fixing his eyes searchingly on the placid face of his ward.

The Indian orphan bore his scrutiny with an admirable composure. Her
lower lip trembled a little, as was natural, when she turned towards
Lucy. ‘Pray do tell me,’ she said, ‘what has happened? for it really
does seem as though I had been unfortunate enough to make Sir Sykes
angry with me.’

‘Papa has lost a letter—a letter of importance,’ said Lucy, blushing
as she spoke; ‘and as the servants deny all knowledge of it, and its
loss’——

‘Say theft, not loss!’ interrupted the baronet with unwonted harshness.
‘I make no doubt that the letter was stolen from my desk in the
library, on which I had left it for but some two minutes, while I went
to speak with my son in the White Room. The French window nearest to
the fireplace was open, giving an easy means of entry, as of egress,
for the purloiner of this letter, who must have been on the watch for
an opportunity of surprising my secrets—that is to say,’ stammered Sir
Sykes, who felt the imprudence of these last words—‘of basely prying
into my private correspondence.’

‘Are you quite, quite sure, papa dear,’ pleaded Blanche, ‘that you
left the letter there, instead of bestowing it in some safe place for
safe keeping, which may afterwards have escaped your memory, and will
presently be recollected? Such things have happened often and often,
even to the most methodical, and’——

‘There, there, my girl!’ broke in the baronet peevishly. ‘Have I not
heard that argument repeated _ad nauseam_ by every man and maid that I
have questioned; and is it not the stock answer to all inquiries after
missing trinkets or valuables unaccounted for? I grant that I can prove
nothing. If I could’——

He did not complete the sentence, but crushing down the wrath that
almost choked his voice, turned away. Nothing, at this unpleasant
conjuncture, could be in better taste, or more simple, than Ruth’s
demeanour. She began to cry. It was the first time since the day of her
arrival that any one at Carbery had seen her in tears, and now both
Blanche and Lucy came kindly to kiss her and console her with whispered
entreaties to excuse Sir Sykes for an indiscriminate anger which there
was much to palliate. But Ruth soon dried her eyes, and going up to her
guardian laid her hand upon his arm and looked up timidly in his face.

‘Let me be useful,’ she said. ‘Let me help in hunting high and low for
this letter; pray, pray do, dear Sir Sykes, you who have been so very,
very kind to me since I have been here.’

Nothing could be prettier. And Sir Sykes, though in his present
irritable condition he actually shuddered at her light touch upon his
arm, as though he had been in contact with a snake, was compelled to
say a word or two of apology.

‘I am greatly annoyed,’ he said awkwardly, ‘and have been unjust and
inhospitable, I fear, and must ask you to forget my rudeness. I am best
alone.’

Sir Sykes therefore withdrew, and for some time was seen no more; while
Jasper, who had been an amused spectator of the turmoil, sauntered
back to the White Room, muttering as he went: ‘Lucky, rather, that
this child had so perfect an alibi, or the governor would have tried,
convicted, and sentenced his only son and heir as the light-fingered
captor of his lost property. A new sensation, it strikes me, that of
injured innocence. And talking of that—how nicely Miss Ruth, be she
who she may, played her part—not one bit overdone—it was perfect! We
breathe here an atmosphere of mystery; but it will be strange if, when
I am all right again, I do not make a push to get at the governor’s
secret, whatever it may be.’

The letter, it need hardly be said, remained undiscovered by the
volunteer searchers who undertook the quest of it; but gradually the
indignant household became more calm, and the general voice confirmed
the comfortable opinion, that Sir Sykes had unwittingly locked up the
missing document in some desk or drawer, whence it would one day be
satisfactorily extracted.




CURIOUS RESEARCHES INTO HUMAN CHARACTER.


There can be little doubt that the domain of mental science is
being invaded on more than one side by the sciences which deal more
especially with the material world and with the physical universe
around us. When physiologists discovered that the force or impulse
which travels along a nerve, which originates in the brain, and which
represents the transformation of thought into action, is nearly allied
to the electrical force—now one of man’s most useful and obedient
ministers—one avenue to the domain of mind was opened up. And when
physiologists, through the aid of delicate apparatus, were actually
enabled to measure the rate at which this nerve-force travels along
the nerve-fibres, it may again be said that physical science was
encroaching on the domain of mind, being in a certain sense thus
enabled to measure the rapidity of thought.

A study, exemplifying in a more than ordinary degree the application of
the methods of physical science to the explanation of states of mind,
was brought under the notice of the members of the British Association
at the last meeting of that body. In the department of Anthropology, or
the science investigating the physical and mental constitution of the
races of man, Mr Francis Galton, as president of this section, devoted
his address to an exposition of the classification or arrangement of
groups of men, according to their habits of mind, and their physiognomy.

Of the curious and absorbing nature of such a study nothing need be
said. Lavater’s method of pursuing the study of character through the
investigation of the features of the human face has long been known.
But Lavater’s system is on the whole much too loose and elementary to
be regarded as satisfactory by modern scientists, whose repudiation
of phrenology as a system capable of explaining the exact disposition
of the brain functions, has unquestionably affected Lavater’s method
also. Mr Galton refers at the outset of his address to the fact we have
already alluded to—namely, that physiologists have determined the rate
at which nerve-force, representing a sensation or impulse of thought
and action, travels along the nerves. The common phrase ‘as quick as
thought’ is found to be by no means so applicable as is generally
supposed, especially when it is discovered that thought or nervous
impulse, as compared with light or electricity, appears as a veritable
laggard. For whilst light travels at the rate of many thousands of
miles—about one hundred and eighty-six thousand miles according to the
latest researches—in a second of time, nerve-force in man passes along
his nerves at a rate varying from one hundred and ten or one hundred
and twenty to two hundred feet per second. Or, to use Mr Galton’s
words, nerve-force is ‘far from instantaneous’ in its action, and has
‘indeed no higher velocity than that of a railway express train.’

As we could naturally suppose from a consideration of this fact,
small animals presenting us with a limited distance for nerve-force
to travel, will avoid rapid blows and shift for themselves in the
struggle for existence at a much quicker rate than large animals.
Take two extreme cases in illustration of this fact. A mouse hears a
suspicious or threatening sound, and at once, so to speak, accommodates
its actions and movements to its protection. The ear of the mouse, as
one of its ‘gateways of knowledge,’ is situated so close to the brain
that the interval which elapses between the reception of the sound
by the ear, or between its transmission as an impulse to the brain
and the issue of a command or second impulse from the brain to the
muscles of the body for the purpose of movement, is too short to be
perfectly appreciated by the observer. In a whale, on the contrary,
which may attain a length of eighty feet, a much longer interval will
elapse before action of body follows on nervous impulse, seeing that
the nerve-impulse has a longer distance to travel. Assuming that in
such animals as the whales the nerve-action travels at the rate of
seventy or eighty feet per second, it follows that in a large whale
which has been struck near the tail by a harpoon, a second or so will
elapse before the impulse is transmitted to the brain, whilst another
second will pass before the second impulse is sent from the brain to
put the muscles of the tail in action for the purpose of retaliating
upon the harpooner. In such a case it is assumed that the brain of the
animal will be the nervous centre or station at which information is
received, and from which instructions are in turn telegraphed to the
various organs and parts of the body. In the actual details of the
case, however, it is probable that the spinal marrow of the animal
or some part of it would act as the ‘head-office’ for receiving and
issuing commands. We know that a headless frog will wipe off with one
foot a drop of vinegar that has been placed on the other, and in the
absence of the brain we thus assume that the spinal cord may act as a
nerve-centre.

Doubtless the spinal marrow discharges this function naturally; and in
view of this latter supposition, the interval between the reception of
a blow and the muscular actions of an animal would be of less duration
than in the case we have just supposed, where the brain is regarded as
the central station of the nervous system. As an eminent authority in
physical science has remarked, ‘the interval required for the kindling
of consciousness would probably more than suffice for the destruction
of the brain by lightning, or even by a rifle-bullet. Before the organ
(that is, the brain) can arrange itself, it may therefore be destroyed,
and in such a case we may safely conclude that death is painless.’

But confining ourselves to the domain of human thought, it seems
perfectly clear that the differences between persons of different
temperament are in reality referable in great part to the varying
rates at which nervous impulses are transmitted through the nerves, and
to or from the brain. The difference between a person of phlegmatic
disposition and a person of sanguine temperament, may thus be properly
enough referred to the varying rates with which sensations and feelings
are appreciated and acted upon. Disposition or temperament thus becomes
referred, secondarily, to the manner in which and aptitude with which
nerves receive and transmit impressions. Primarily, of course, we
must refer the exact causes of the quicker or slower transmission of
impulses to the constitution of the individual who exhibits them.

Mr Galton gives a very interesting example of the differences to be
observed between various individuals in the respects just noted, by a
reference to a practice common amongst astronomers. He says: ‘It is
a well-known fact that different observers make different estimates
of the exact moment of the occurrence of any event. There is,’ he
continues, ‘a common astronomical observation in which the moment
has to be recorded at which a star that is travelling athwart the
field of view of a fixed telescope, crosses the fine vertical wire by
which that field of view is intersected. In making this observation
it is found that some observers are over-sanguine and anticipate the
event, whilst others are sluggish, and allow the event to pass by
before they succeed in noting it.’ This tendency of each individual is
clearly not the result either of inexperience or carelessness, since,
as astronomers well know, ‘it is a persistent characteristic of each
individual, however practised in the art of making observations or
however attentive he may be.’ And so accustomed indeed are astronomers
to these differences in observers, that a definite and standing
phrase—that of the ‘personal equation’—is used in that science to
express the difference between the time of a man’s noting the event
and that of its actual occurrence. Every assistant in an observatory
has his ‘personal equation’ duly ascertained, and has this correction
applied to each of his observations. This most interesting fact
relates exact or mathematical science in the most curious manner to
the mental character of an individual. Mr Galton, however, does not
rest merely with the announcement of this latter result. He goes much
further in his theoretical inquiry, and suggests that peculiarities in
the respect just noted might be found to be related to special points
in the conformation of the body. Thus could the ‘personal equations’
of astronomers be related to the height of body, age, colour of hair
and eyes, weight, and temperament, some valuable facts might be
deduced regarding the union of definite characters to form a special
constitution.

Some other methods may be cited of estimating the differences between
various temperaments in appreciating sensations and in acting upon
them. If a person is prepared to give an instantaneous opinion as
to the colour of a certain signal—black or white—but is unaware of
the particular colour which is to be exhibited, and if he is further
instructed to press a stop with his right hand for the one colour
and a left-hand stop for the other, the act of judgment necessary to
determine the particular stop in each instance, is found to occupy an
appreciable interval. This is particularly the case if a single signal
has been previously shewn, and the observer’s quickness of sight has
been tested and calculated by his pressing a single stop whenever he
saw the object. The comparison between the interval elapsing between
the mere sensation of sight and the act of pressing the stop in the
latter case, and the interval which elapses when the observer has to
make up his mind as to the difference between two signals, is seen to
be very marked.

Setting thus before his mind a certain number of tests of individual
temperament and character such as have been illustrated, the observer
may next proceed to the task of discovering whether persons who exhibit
similar qualities of mind in these experiments, can be proved to be
related to each other in other particulars of their physical or mental
disposition. Mr Galton has ingeniously suggested that by an arrangement
of mirrors, four views of a person’s head might be taken at once, and
would thus afford an ordinary photographic portrait, a portrait of a
three-quarter face, a profile view, and a figure of the top of the head
respectively. Such a series of views would present all the aspects
required for a comparison of the general as well as special contour of
the head of the individual with the heads of others photographed in
like manner.

Our author, whose researches on the heredity of men of genius and the
transmission from one generation to another of qualities belonging
to the highest development of man’s estate, are well known, turned
his attention to the opposite phase of human life and character, and
investigated in an avowedly casual, but still important manner, the
likenesses and differences between members of the criminal classes
of England. The social and practical importance of a study such as
the present may be readily estimated. There are few persons who have
not considered the bearings and influence of criminal antecedents
upon the offenders of the present day. Although to a very large
extent our temperaments and dispositions are of our own making, and
are susceptible of the favouring influences of education and moral
training, there can be no doubt of the truth of the converse remark,
that to a very great extent the traits of character we inherit from our
parents exercise an undeniable influence over us for weal or for woe.
If, therefore, through research in the direction we have indicated, it
can be shewn that criminality runs in types, our notions of criminal
responsibility, and our ideas regarding the punishment, deterrent and
otherwise, of the criminal classes, must be affected and ameliorated
thereby.

That criminality, like moral greatness, ‘runs in the blood,’ there
can be no doubt. It would in fact be a most unwonted violation of the
commonest law of nature, were we to find the children of criminals
free from the moral taints of their parents. As physical disease
is transmissible, and as the conditions regulating its descent are
now tolerably well ascertained, so moral infirmities pass from one
generation to another, and the ‘law of likeness’ is thus seen to hold
true of mind as well as of body. Numerous instances might be cited of
the transmission of criminal traits of character, often of very marked
and special kind. Dr Despine, a continental writer, gives one very
remarkable case illustrating the transmission from one generation to
another of an extraordinary tendency to thieve and steal. The subjects
of the memoir in question were a family named Chrétien, of which the
common ancestor, so to speak, Jean Chrétien by name, had three sons,
Pierre, Thomas, and Jean-Baptiste. Pierre in his turn had one son,
who was sentenced to penal servitude for life for robbery and murder.
Thomas had two sons, one of whom was condemned to a like sentence for
murder; the other being sentenced to death for a like crime. Of the
children of Jean-Baptiste, one son (Jean-François) married one Marie
Tauré, who came of a family noted for their tendency to the crime of
incendiarism. Seven children were born to this couple with avowedly
criminal antecedents on both sides. Of these, one son, Jean-François,
named after his father, died in prison after undergoing various
sentences for robberies. Another son, Benoist, was killed by falling
off a house-roof which he had scaled in the act of theft; and a third
son, ‘Clain’ by nickname, after being convicted of several robberies,
died at the age of twenty-five. Victor, a fourth son, was also a
criminal; Marie-Reine, a daughter, died in prison—as also did her
sister Marie-Rose—whither both had been sent for theft. The remaining
daughter Victorine, married a man named Lemarre, the son of this couple
being sentenced to death for robbery and murder.

This hideous and sad record of whole generations being impelled, as it
were, hereditarily to crime, is paralleled by the case of the notorious
Jukes-family, whose doings are still matters of comment amongst the
legal and police authorities of New York. A long and carefully compiled
pedigree of this family shews the sad but striking fact, that in the
course of seven generations no fewer than five hundred and forty
individuals of Jukes blood were included amongst the criminal and
pauper classes. The account appears in the Thirty-first Annual Report
of the Prison Association of New York (1876); and the results of an
investigation into the history of the fifth generation alone, may be
shortly referred to in the present instance as presenting us with a
companion case to that of the somewhat inaptly named Chrétien family.
This fifth generation of the Jukes tribe sprang from the eldest of the
five daughters of the common ancestor of the race. One hundred and
three individuals are included in this generation; thirty-eight of
these coming through an illegitimate grand-daughter, and eighty-five
through legitimate grand-children. The great majority of the females
consorted with criminals: sixteen of the thirty-eight have been
convicted—one nine times—some of heinous crimes: eleven are paupers
and led dissolute or criminal lives: four were inveterate drunkards:
the history of three is unknown; and a small minority of four are
known to have lived respectable and honest lives. Of the eighty-five
legitimate descendants, only five were incorrigible criminals, and only
some thirteen were paupers or dissolute. Jukes himself, the founder of
this prolific criminal community, was born about 1730, and is described
as a curious unsteady man of gipsy descent, but apparently without
deliberately bad or intently vicious instincts. Through unfavourable
marriages, the undecided character of the father ripened into the
criminal traits of his descendants. The moral surroundings being of the
worst description, the beginnings of criminality became intensified,
and hence arose naturally, and as time passed, the graver symptoms of
diseased morality and criminal disposition.

The data upon which a true classification of criminals may be founded
are as yet few and imperfect, but Mr Galton mentions it as a hopeful
fact, that physiognomy and the general contour of the head can be shewn
to afford valuable evidence of the grouping of criminals into classes.
This method of investigation, however, it must be noted, is by no means
a return to the old standing of phrenology, which, as all readers know,
boasts its ability to mark out the surface of the brain itself into
a large number of different faculties. The most that anthropologists
would contend for, according to the data laid down, is, that certain
general types of head and face are peculiar to certain types of
criminals. Physical conformation of a general kind becomes thus in a
general manner related to the mental type.

The practical outcome of such a subject may be readily found in the
ultimate attention which morality, education, and the state itself, may
give to the reclaiming of youthful criminals and to the fostering, from
an early period in their history, of those tendencies of good which
even the most degraded may be shewn to possess. If it be true that we
are largely the products of past time, and that our physical and mental
constitutions are in great measure woven for us and independently of
us, it is none the less a stable fact, that there exists a margin
of free-will, which, however limited in extent, may be made in the
criminal and debased, and under proper training and encouragement, the
foundation of a new and better life.




MONSIEUR HOULOT.

IN THREE CHAPTERS.


CHAPTER II.—TO-DAY—TROUBLE.

Winter came and passed away without anything happening to break the
even tenor of existence. Spring came, and with spring the appearance of
a new novel of Mr Collingwood Dawson. Having had a considerable share
in its manufacture, I felt naturally anxious to know the result of its
appearance. I had an encouraging note from Mrs Collingwood Dawson:
‘Much liked—goes off very well:’ and I saw from the advertisements in
the papers that the notices of the press were generally favourable. At
the head of them all was the following extract from the _Hebdomadal
Review_: ‘High capacity—very good—many readers—enticing interest.’
Tributes of appreciation that were valuable from a periodical rarely
given to praise overmuch any one unconnected with the house it
represents.

Soon after I had another note from my employer: ‘I am coming over
to confer with you on literary and other matters; please make all
necessary arrangements. I shall be accompanied by a female friend, but
not, alas, by Mr Collingwood Dawson!’

The steamer that plies the Lower Seine in the summer months, came
puffing up the river one fine breezy morning, and dropped into a little
boat that put off to meet her, two female passengers, a quantity of
boxes, and a little white dog. I recognised my expected visitors, and
hastened down to the landing-place to meet them. I explained that my
house was not big enough to take them in; but that I had secured rooms
at the hotel close by, and that my wife and I hoped to have as much of
their society as they could give us.

After they had settled down in their new abode, Mrs Collingwood Dawson
came over to see me, and was shewn into the pavilion.

‘I am in a good deal of doubt and difficulty,’ she said; ‘and I have
come to ask your opinion and discuss matters with you. But as it is no
use putting half-confidence in you, and your opinion will be of little
good unless you know fully all the circumstances of the case, I mean
to tell you everything; and will first begin, if you please, and if it
does not bore you too much, with a little sketch of my life.’

I assured her that I should have great pleasure in listening to her, as
anything connected with her was of interest to me.

‘I am,’ she began, ‘the daughter of an official of the old India
House; and my father, who had held a good position there, and enjoyed
a good income, left at his death no other provision for his widow and
only child, myself, but the pensions to which we were entitled—a very
handsome one indeed for my mother; and for myself some seventy pounds
a year, which ceased at my marriage. He had been during his lifetime
very fond of good society, especially literary society; and thus from
early years I had been acquainted with many people who followed that
profession. Consequently it is not surprising that I tried to add to
an income sufficiently narrow by literary work, although I confess
that I had no particular talent, and certainly no enthusiasm for the
task, and met with little success. In this way I became acquainted with
several publishers and many authors; among others was my first husband.
He was a man of great intellectual power and force of will, but quite
without any ballast of judgment or common-sense. Still I was very much
enthralled by his influence, and he having formed a violent passion
for me, insisted on marrying me. Young and ill-advised, I gave way to
his impetuosity, and married we were. I soon had cause to repent the
hasty step. He had been a man of most irregular habits; and after a
brief period of devotion to me, he resumed them. Our household became
a scene of constant jars and quarrels; he wearied out my life, and I
must have wearied out his. The beautiful soul that I thought I had
recognised as enshrined in his somewhat ill-formed and stunted figure,
had no existence for me. He was malignant and detestable, utterly—most
utterly.’

Her voice trembled with anger at the retrospect, whilst her eyes filled
with indignant tears.

‘It was an ill-assorted match evidently,’ I said. ‘But why did you not
agree to separate?’

‘I shrank from mentioning such a thing; with all his faults, I believed
that he was still at the bottom devotedly attached to me. Besides, such
a step is always distressing and compromising. No; I went on bearing my
troubles, not silently indeed, for I have too much spirit, I confess,
to make a meek and uncomplaining wife; but I bore them anyhow, although
I confess that any affection I ever had for him had been lost in the
embroilments of our married life. You may think that I was to blame,
and that if there were a real attachment on his part towards me, I
ought to have been able to manage him; but I tell you no! There was a
certain malignity in his nature that made him spiteful and tormenting
even to those whom he loved. Anyhow, life was a sorrowful burden to me
whilst he was with me.’

She rose, looking quite overcome by the recital of her troubles. Her
eyes were filled with tears; her hands trembled nervously, as she
raised them to press the hair back from her forehead. I murmured a few
words expressive of sympathy and good-will.

‘Well!’ she said, sitting down and wiping her eyes with a pretty
embroidered handkerchief; ‘not to dwell upon my troubles. I was at
last relieved from the hateful knot by his death—a death I believe
he contrived in a way that should leave me in as cruel and doubtful
a position as possible. He left home one day without giving me any
intimation that he would stay away—that was his general practice—or
leaving me any money to carry on the household expenses. And the next
thing I heard of him was from a little village on the coast, that he
had been drowned while bathing. I believe that he committed suicide. I
ascertained that he had been informing himself most minutely of the set
of the tides and currents about the coast, and with fiendish ingenuity
had taken to the water at a time when the tide was certain to carry his
body far out to sea.’

‘But what object could he have had in that, madam?’

‘Don’t you see? The pension which I had lost in marrying revived on my
widowhood. But he had contrived that his body should never be found. In
vain I applied to the authorities to renew my pension. There had been
several cases of attempted personation and fraud about these pensions,
and they utterly refused to renew mine without absolute proof of my
husband’s death. This I was unable to afford to their satisfaction, his
body never having been discovered. Still the circumstantial evidence
was most strong, and I was advised to bring an action in the way of a
petition of right. A circumstance, however, occurred,’ said the widow
with a slight blush, ‘which rendered such a step unnecessary.’

‘Ah! I see,’ I cried; ‘you married again?’

‘Yes; and this time my venture was more fortunate. My second husband
was an officer in the army, frank and free and brave. No young couple
could have been happier. But alas! we were neither of us prudent in the
management of our affairs. We had small means in the present, but great
expectations, and we were too sanguine to think of the possibility of
disappointment. Life became a series of feasts and fêtes. My husband
sold out of the army, and we lived gaily enough on the proceeds of his
commission, till that was all gone, and we saw ourselves brought to the
verge of ruin. I must tell you that my husband was also of a literary
turn, and wrote military sketches and so on, that brought in a little
money, but nothing substantial.

‘We had one resource still left—the house in which we lived; it had
been my mother’s, and at her death she left it to me. It was a pretty
little house in the neighbourhood of St John’s Wood; but it was
leasehold only, and the lease had not more than ten years to run. We
had found it under these circumstances impossible to mortgage our
interest. We might have sold the lease; and that with the furniture,
which had also been my mother’s, would have realised five or six
hundred pounds. But when that was gone, where should we look for
shelter? Charles’s great expectations’——

‘Pardon me for interrupting you. You have mentioned your husband’s
Christian name: it will make your narrative clearer if you tell me also
his surname.’

‘Collingwood was his name—Charles Collingwood.’

‘And the name of the first one was Dawson?’

‘You have guessed rightly. To continue. Charles’s great expectations
had all come to a bad end. A rich relative, who had brought him up for
his heir, took a great dislike to me, and cut him out of his will,
for no reason in the world but that he had married me, and that we
were very poor. When he died, and we found this out, it seemed that
the world had come to an end for us. What was to be done? Live in the
most niggardly way we might, but we could not live on nothing. First
we began to sell the less essential parts of our belongings. We lived
on old china for three months; and then we began on our paintings.
We had some good ones by English artists, which my father had left
behind him, and these kept us for a while. But this was like burning
the planks of the ship to keep the engines going. Charles had tried
hard for employment in the meantime. For the governorship of a colony;
for a consulship; the post of adjutant of militia; the same thing in a
Volunteer regiment; for the chief-constableship of a large town; for
the management of a brewery; and ever so many things besides. All of no
use.

“We must take in washing,” said Charles; “and I will become a second
Mantilini, and turn the mangle.”

‘Lodgers were our next thought, and that seemed more feasible. Then
some one advised us to let our house furnished. We put an advertisement
in the papers, and by great good luck we had an offer for the whole of
the house at once. Six guineas a week for May, June, and July. We made
up our minds to take cheap lodgings somewhere on the coast, and spend
only half our weekly six guineas, which would thus last us six months
instead of three. As we were packing up our belongings and storing away
the packages in the lumber-room, Charles stumbled over a lot of old
boxes, from which arose a cloud of dust.

“What are these old things?” he cried.

“I don’t know anything about them. They were my first husband’s books
and papers.”

“Books, eh?” said Charles. “Let’s have a look at ’em;” and broke open
one of the boxes. This, however, turned out to be full of packets of
manuscripts. Charles made a wry face over them, but he took out a
packet and began to read it. I went on with the work. I had everything
to do then, I must tell you, for we had dismissed our servants, and
lived in the house by ourselves with only a char-woman to help—quite in
picnic style.

‘Well dinner-time came, and Charles, who was still up-stairs reading
his manuscript, brought it down with him and laid it beside his plate,
and went on again reading directly after dinner.

“I tell you what it is, old woman,” he said, as we went to bed, “I feel
muddled with it all, and rather as if I’d been supping off pork chops
and Welsh-rabbit; but there’s something in that fellow’s writings, only
they are coarse, decidedly coarse.”

‘But I am tiring you,’ said Mrs Collingwood, looking up with a smile.

‘Not at all. I am highly interested. Go on, please.’

‘We went away to the sea-side, and Charles took several packets of
manuscript with him to amuse him, as he said, during the long days.

“Do you know,” he said to me one evening, “I think one could make
something out of these things. If we cut out the objectionable passages
which I expect were in the way of their publication”——

“My dear Charles,” I said, “these were his religion, and he would not
have touched a word for worlds to make them more acceptable.”

“And died a martyr to the faith, eh?” said Charles. “Well, I shan’t be
so very particular. There’s enough for a three-volume novel here, and I
shall expurgate it and try its luck.”

‘Charles was never much of a penman, but I was a neat quick writer, and
thus the copying fell upon me. Charlie did the botching and patching,
and dictated as I copied. But what a task it was! I am sure the mere
writing of it was worth all we were destined to get for it, let alone
the author’s work and our amendments. Then we got a lot of the most
taking three-volume novels from the library, and counted the words and
lines, so as to get ours about the right length. It was finished at
last, just as our house became vacant; and as soon as we got back to
town I took it to a publisher. It was agreed that I was to do all this
part of the work, for my poor Charlie used to say that if anything
happened to him, I should find the use of these habits of business.’
Here she paused.

I coughed doubtfully. My knowledge of human nature led me to attribute
the arrangement to shyness and laziness on his part. I did not,
however, venture to disturb Mrs Collingwood’s illusions.

She resumed: ‘To our surprise and joy, after a delay of not more than
three or four months, we heard from the publishers accepting our novel.
We did not get any large sum for it, it is true, but it was highly
thought of, and was to be well advertised; and that was the chief
point. Whenever the author was inquired for, I gave out that he was my
husband, but that he was an invalid. Charlie really was poorly at the
time,’ she said blushing. ‘Ah, you shake your head; but in these days,
my dear M——, it is necessary to be _rusé_ as well as clever.’

‘But why not have given it out as the work of a deceased author?’

‘Ah, that would never have done! A publisher takes a first novel
because he hopes for another and a better. Of what use is it to puff
the one golden egg of a dead goose? No; we were right there—events have
shewn it. Well, our novel was, as you know, a success. It went off
like wild-fire, and our publishers fed the flame adroitly by issuing
one edition after another—all of the same impression. All this time we
were at work upon another, which also went down, although not so much
relished as the first. I think we had purified it a little too much.
Avoiding this error in a third, we again made a hit. Our fortune was
now made and publishers were at our feet. But we were in this strait:
we had come to an end of our finished works; all that were left
now were mere sketches and outlines, many too vague, and others too
extravagant to be of much use to us. Charles had good judgment and some
critical power, but he had no creative faculty, neither had I. Happily
we did not deceive ourselves on this point. The question to be solved
was how to supply the want. To Charles the idea first suggested itself
of trying to secure assistance from outside. It was quite evident that
it would be useless to think of any person well known in the world of
letters. We set ourselves to study the more obscure literature of the
day.’

I bowed politely, but with some inward mortification.

‘Oh, don’t think _you_ are in question now,’ said the lady with an
arch smile; ‘wait to the end of the story. My husband came home one
day in a state of great excitement. He had in his pocket a copy of the
_Weekly Dredger_, which contained an instalment of a serial story just
commenced.

“Read that,” he cried. When I had finished: “Now, what do you think?”

‘But I was trembling all over with terror.

“What’s the matter?” he cried.

“O Charles!” I said, “if I did not know it was impossible, I should say
that no one but my late husband could have written this.”

‘So strongly was I penetrated with this idea, that for a long time I
forbade him to make any inquiry after the author. At last we were so
pressed to supply another novel that I consented that he should make
inquiries. The story in the _Weekly Dredger_, we found, had become
so grotesque and bizarre, that finally the editor brought it to an
abrupt close himself, refusing to take any more of it; and he made no
difficulty whatever about telling our business agent in confidence the
name of the writer. I must tell you we had found it necessary to employ
an agent, Mr Smith, who has served us faithfully enough, but who was
never permitted to see my husband. Well, Charles wrote cautiously to
the author of this queer story, who, it seemed, lived in France; asking
him to send specimens of his stories, and specifying the quantity
required for possible publication, with his terms. We had in reply a
pile of manuscript. Judge of the relief I felt when I found that the
handwriting was quite unfamiliar to me. His terms were so low that
we had no difficulty in undertaking to accept all his work. For some
seventy pounds a year we secured everything he wrote. A great deal of
the stuff was utterly useless to us, but every now and then he gave us
the framework of a powerful story. Well, all of a sudden he turns sulky
and refuses to send any more. Charlie would have found some one to
supply his place, no doubt. But now I come to the great misfortune of
my life’—with faltering voice—‘the death of my dear husband.’

‘Your husband dead!’ I cried, quite unprepared for the announcement.

‘Yes, he is dead; and unhappy me, I have not been able to mourn his
loss except in secret and with precautions. The funeral even was
conducted with as much caution as if he had been a felon, and we had
been ashamed of having to own that he had belonged to us. And he was
the kindest, most affectionate——

‘But it was his own wish,’ she went on after a pause. ‘He planned out
everything. You see that although our writings—compilations should I
call them?’ she said with a faint attempt at a smile—‘brought us in a
nice income, yet we were pleasure-loving people, and had always been
accustomed to plenty of society, and we had saved nothing out of it.
We have two children, a boy at Rugby, and a daughter at an expensive
school; and there is poor Charlie’s sister, the lady who accompanies
me, and she has no one else to depend upon but me. Besides, as Charlie
urged before he died: “_I_ am not Collingwood Dawson,” he said; “why
should my death be the cause of his? Keep him alive, old woman, to be
a support to you and the children and Lizzie.” Those were almost his
last words, dear brave fellow!’ She rose and left the room, overcome by
uncontrollable emotion.

My thoughts, after Mrs Collingwood quitted me, were rather of a serious
turn. I reflected that my own interests were bound up in the same
cause, and that my own livelihood hung very much upon keeping up Mr
Collingwood Dawson as a going concern. It was too late to go back now.
If I had gained experience I had lost connection. My own place had been
filled up. Mr Collingwood Dawson had become as necessary to me as to
the widow and her family. Still the idea of a person who never died,
who enjoyed a sort of corporate existence, or like the living Buddha,
transferred his identity from one body to another, a being who could go
on writing novels and publishing them till the crack of doom, struck
one with a kind of awe.

As a relief to the troubled current of my thoughts I took up a
newspaper which Mrs Collingwood had brought with her. It was
the _Hebdomadal Review_, the number containing the review of
Collingwood Dawson’s last novel. I turned to the page with a kind
of pleased excitement, for the short abstract that I had seen in
the advertisement, as you have seen, was calculated to give me the
impression that the critique was an appreciative one. It was so short
that I have no scruple in giving it _in extenso_: ‘If it be necessary,
and we suppose it is, that silly ill-educated people should be supplied
with the morbid trash suited to their high capacity, there is no reason
why Mr Collingwood Dawson should not cater for their wants. We can
say of his novel that it is very good stuff of the kind. The pity is
that there should be so many readers for this kind of stuff. We only
hope that young ladies of the class who find Mr Dawson’s compilations
acceptable, will not be unduly led away from the paramount claims of
seam and gusset and band by the enticing interest of his story.’

Satire like this does not hit very hard, however, and my only feeling
after the first disappointment was of amusement at the ingenuity that
had been able to extract the sting from it and secure the latent honey.
One word, however, seemed dangerous—‘compilations.’ Was it possible
that the critic had discovered the composite nature of Mr Collingwood
Dawson?

       *       *       *       *       *

‘Can you lend me five pounds?’ said a gruff voice behind me. I turned
and saw the squat figure of M. Houlot close to my chair.

It was an embarrassing question. There was nothing in M. Houlot’s
appearance to invite confidence—at all events to the extent of five
pounds. At the same time, M. Houlot had in my mind loomed into
considerable importance, for since I had heard Mrs Collingwood’s
story, I had identified him with the third portion of Mr Collingwood
Dawson.

‘Oh, if it requires consideration, don’t think about it,’ said Houlot
roughly. ‘I won’t trouble you.’

‘Stop a minute,’ I replied; ‘wait. I don’t know whether I have the
money. I must ask my wife.’

‘Oh, you are one of the wretched slaves of a petticoat, are you?’ said
Houlot with a rasping laugh. ‘I should have thought you had lived
through _that_ stage of your development.’

‘As she will be the principal sufferer if the money should not be
returned, she is entitled to a voice in the matter.’

‘Look here! If it comes to asking your wife, I’ll withdraw my request.
I know what that means, well enough. But if you are afraid of not
getting your money back, I’ll give you security.—What security? Why,
manuscripts worth ten, twenty pounds. I should say, if I were some
people—of priceless value.’

‘Ah!’ I said to myself, ‘there is Houlot, who has quarrelled with his
bread-and-butter, and now he comes to me to borrow money to go on with.
Would it not be better to send for Mrs Collingwood, to see if this is
really the man who supplies her with her plots; and if so, to make the
peace between them, and get him to continue the supply?’

Mrs Collingwood saved me the trouble of sending for her. I saw her
coming across the garden to the pavilion. She was composed now and
cheerful; she led one of my girls by the hand, and was telling her a
story, I fancy, in which the child seemed uncommonly interested.

Houlot was standing leaning against the mantelpiece with his back to
the doorway, and under his arm his stick, which he was rubbing with the
point of his hook, as was his custom when vexed. I saw Mrs Collingwood
coming in at the doorway—door and windows were wide open. All of a
sudden her face whitened all over, and she tottered backwards. I ran
to her assistance; but when I reached the garden, she had already
disappeared within the house.

‘Am I a hobgoblin, that I frighten people?’ said Houlot savagely,
coming to the door. ‘Where’s that woman who ran away?’

I made no reply; and he went on rubbing his stick with the iron hook,
apparently in a very evil temper.

‘I want that money particularly. I want to go to England and expose
this Collingwood Dawson, to strip him of his borrowed plumes, and shew
the British public what a daw this fellow is whom they admire. Come;
give me this five pounds, and let me go.’

‘I can’t say anything more to you just now,’ I replied. ‘I will let you
know to-morrow.’

‘That will lose me two days; I want to start to-morrow.’

‘I can’t help it. I can’t let you have the money now.’

Houlot saw that I was in some flurry and confusion, and thought
probably that I was afraid of him, and that by bullying me a little he
should get what he wanted.

‘Come now!’ he cried; ‘go and get me that money. I know what I know,
and I am not to be stopped for a paltry five-pound note.’

My reply was to shew him the door. He scowled at me, fingered his stick
as if he had a mind to hit me, thought better of it seemingly, and went
out growling inarticulately.

‘Where is he, that man?’ cried Mrs Collingwood meeting me in the
doorway of the house, looking quite livid with fear. ‘What do you know
of him? Where does he come from?’

‘He is your correspondent, the author of your plots.’

‘Ah, then is he my husband!’ she cried in a voice that, though low and
subdued, was full of anguish. ‘What a wretched being am I, to have seen
him!’

‘It would have been worse still had he seen you,’ I muttered. ‘Come,
Mrs Collingwood—come into the garden, into the open air; you will be
better there. Take my arm; keep up your heart; all will be well yet.’

‘Where is he? where is he?’ was all she could say.

‘He is gone; you are quite safe.’

We began to pace up and down the garden together, she wringing her
hands and writhing with pain and emotion.

‘Do consider,’ I said, ‘that he has kept out of the way all these
years, and that he is not likely to trouble you now.’

‘Oh! I can’t bear to think. The children—poor Charlie, what will become
of us all?’

‘The children will take no harm,’ I said, ‘if you act prudently. All
will be well; and your late husband is out of the reach of any trouble.’

‘Ah yes, poor Charlie! I wish I had died with him. Even now he may be
reproaching me! How dreadful, dreadful it all is!’

I could not give her much consolation; for besides these troubles of
the heart, other and less manageable difficulties I saw were impending.

At the first blush it was impossible to say what would become of us all
in this imbroglio. Certainly if any one were entitled to be considered
Collingwood Dawson, it was the man who had originated the works by
which he had obtained his fame. On the other hand, he would never have
had any success himself. No publisher would have looked twice at books
which were so violent and coarse. All the labour and pains that had
been taken in bringing his writings into an acceptable form, were they
to go for nothing? And was it to be allowed that a man who had thrown
off all ties and abandoned his place in the world, should resume them
when other people had made them worth possessing? It seemed not; and
yet the law would be on his side.

There was only one consoling feature in the position—the man had no
money. He could not move without that; and if he had been able to
obtain it from any other source, he would hardly have come to borrow
from a stranger; but this was a very frail barrier after all. He might,
if he were determined to get back to England, find his way to the
nearest port, and get passed home by the consul as a distressed British
subject. Why he had not gone over to England when he first discovered
the use that had been made of his talents, was probably because he
waited to complete some work he had in hand, which might serve as an
introduction to the publishers, and a sort of voucher for his claim.

Was there, however, no possibility of mistake? Was it perfectly
certain that this was the missing husband? Mrs Collingwood had no hope
that there was any error. She knew him perfectly. It was impossible
that there should be two such people in the world together, identical
in mind and in person. That his handwriting had so completely changed,
seemed to her unaccountable; but it did not move her faith in his
identity. And an explanation was soon found for this; for he had lost
his right hand since his flight, and consequently wrote with his left.

I said just now that I could give Mrs Collingwood no comfort; but there
was one thing that bound us all together and insured sympathy between
us: we were so to speak all in the same boat. Our livelihood depended
upon keeping up the integrity of Collingwood Dawson.




A MOORLAND WEDDING.


It was in the month of June last year, when the days were about their
longest, that the scattered dwellers in the upland parish of L—— were
excited by the intimation of a marriage in one of their glens. Among a
sparse population an event of this sort necessarily happens but rarely,
and as a consequence when it does happen it comes attended by much more
‘pomp and circumstance’ than would otherwise accompany it. As an angel
sent by some gracious fate, it stirs the stagnant pool of existence,
and revives hearts that may have drooped through dreary days of
solitude. The people who have participated in it are livelier in their
talk and wear a blither aspect for days and weeks afterwards.

A breeze was blowing through the bright June sunlight, and the shadows
of a few clouds were moving quietly across the hills, when about
three o’clock in the afternoon I set out on foot for the scene of the
marriage that has been referred to. The point from which I started lay
upon the highest tract of cultivated land at the head of a prettily
wooded valley, and I had to walk seven miles by mountain-side and glen
before reaching the cottage that was my destination. For the first
portion of the way there is an excellent cart-road—excellent for a
hill-country whose pastoral-bred pedestrians do not greatly need roads;
but after some three miles have been got over the traveller finds
himself almost literally at large among the mountains, with but a
feeble indication of a foot-track along the brow of a deep ravine, and
a mountain stream below.

Continuing my course, the glen began to expand again, and its slopes to
lose their covering of brushwood. A strip of level verdure, broadening
as I ascended, stretched on each side of the water; and after following
several windings of the stream without any change in the character of
its banks, the moorland cottage that I was in search of lay before me.

The first thing I observed was an animated crowd of people streaming
out of the door two and two, and setting off for an elevation that
stood some distance to the right. On arriving at the cottage I learned
that these were the bride’s people gone to meet the party of the
bridegroom, and to take part in ‘running the broose,’ which is a
foot-race among the young lads for the bride’s-maid’s handkerchief.
Herself the goal, the bride’s-maid, fluttering in white and scarlet,
had ascended to a knoll before the cottage, and some time afterwards
held up a silk handkerchief to the eyes of the expectant runners.

I fancy there are few spectacles that produce in one’s mind a stronger
sense of savage freedom than that of civilised human beings let
loose, coatless, vestless, bonnetless, to race among the hills. In
less than two minutes from their starting on the homeward race they
had sunk out of view at the foot of the highest hill, and when they
hailed in sight again, they were much more widely scattered than at
the beginning. Two or three in the rear had already dropped out of the
race; but those in the front seemed to be still running with energy
and determination. Once or twice again we lost them in the hollows,
and each time they reappeared we could notice that their number was
gradually getting smaller; so that by the time the leader swept across
the stream in front of us, all other competitors had given up the
contest as hopeless. A cheer broke forth as he struggled up the knoll
panting and bemired to clutch the coveted prize, which, with similar
ones thus gained, I find it is a great ambition among the young men in
some districts to accumulate. The winner of the ‘broose’ was a tall
and finely formed youth of fair complexion; with clear blue eyes and
well-cut features.

As soon as the stragglers had come forward, followed by the bridegroom
and his man, amid tremendous cheering, the marriage ceremony was
proceeded with in the kitchen. It was a long low-roofed apartment,
with innumerable shoulders of mutton in all the stages towards ham,
depending from the rafters. The bride was led out of an anteroom,
resting on her father’s arm. He was a rather oldish man, with the
history of a good many troubles plainly written upon his face. The
bride was a broad-shouldered, brown-visaged, and gray-eyed maiden
of about four-and-twenty; and her future husband, a loose-limbed,
amiable-looking youth in a lavender necktie and fiery red hair,
looked possibly a year or two younger. The service was performed by a
Presbyterian clergyman, and was accordingly a short one. Immediately
it was over there was a multitudinous shaking of hands with the happy
couple. It was interesting to note the various phraseologies in which
the numerous guests severally expressed their good wishes; all the
degrees of feelings from that of ordinary regard to the most ebullient
affection, being apparently represented.

While this process was going forward, the mother of the bride, a
sallow-faced person with kindly black eyes, and gray hair smoothed
neatly across her brow, took up a position by the fire to advance
arrangements for the tea. You could see that the good woman was greatly
excited and confused. Probably she had never had so many people under
her humble roof before; and there were ‘grand folk’ among them too,
the surrounding farmers and their families, for whose (comparatively)
delicate palates she was quite unaccustomed to prepare food. Every
now and then while proceeding with her duties, she would catch up
the corner of her ample white apron, and wiping the perspiration
from her forehead, would draw a long sigh, as of sadness or fatigue.
The movements of the company around her seemed to attract her but
little; all the evening she wore a preoccupied expression, and it was
evident that she had within her mind a picture of her own, on which
her thoughts were dwelling. But what the scene was that was calling
her away from the merriment of the hour I possessed no means of
ascertaining; and the reader is at liberty to fill up this blank in the
narrative as best delights his fancy.

       *       *       *       *       *

A portion of the company now seated itself at a heavily laden tea-table
that was laid out in an adjoining chamber; and here let me remark
that as Scottish weddings are celebrated in the afternoon or evening,
the entertainment known by the English as the déjeûner, is unknown
to their northern neighbours. But there are few such teas served in
cities or even in Lowland dwellings as had been that night prepared for
us. The result of a good week’s labour of several women in carrying,
boiling, and baking, seemed to be placed upon the board. Let the reader
remember that it was in Scotland that this wedding took place, and he
will appreciate the bill of fare the better. It was by no means a much
varied one, but the several articles had been provided in unlimited
supply. Fresh baked scones lined each side of the table in castellated
rows; platefuls of dark-coloured ‘braxy’ ham, cut from the mutton that
hung on the rafters, stood in between them, with here and there a pile
of thick cut, deeply buttered bread. There were also buns, ‘cookies,’
biscuits, and gimcracks, that must have been carried painfully over
miles of moorland; and raised majestically at the head of the table was
a little white bride-cake surmounted by a solitary flag.

When the company had crushed themselves into seats around the
table, and were just going to operate upon the braxy, a big-boned,
bleached-looking old man was furtively led on to the end of a bench
that had been placed near the door. I soon discovered that, after the
minister, this was for the time being the most important of the invited
assembly. He was in fact no less a personage than the fiddler, and
was, as he ought to have been, in keeping with the character of the
traditionary musician, almost stone-blind. This Demodocus had been led
hither from his dwelling five miles over the hills by a little boy,
his grandson, who had fair hair, and wore faded velvet and corduroys.
The heartiness with which the veteran musician laid in a store of
victual against the labour of a long night’s fiddling, was a most
refreshing sight. He was a long-faced, heavy-jawed man, and had rusty
gray hair that fell unkempt upon a much worn velvet collar. A large
scarlet cotton handkerchief was twisted carelessly about his neck,
and came down in a loose fold upon his breast. He wore an aspect of
silent passive misfortune; and as you looked at him it was difficult to
imagine music dwelling in his soul, how much soever it might dwell in
his fiddle.

As soon as the tea was ended, or rather this first instalment of it,
he was guided to an elevated seat that had been prepared for him in a
corner of the kitchen, where he began scraping and preluding with his
fiddle. To many of the lads and lasses this was the first intimation of
the musician’s presence; and it was the signal for a little preliminary
coquetry with the eyes, while it lit up their honest faces with blushes
and expectant smiles.

A Scottish wedding without a dance is next door to no wedding at all,
so little time was lost in stepping to the floor. There were Scotch
reels, country-dances, and polkas, and now and then a quadrille was
decorously walked through by the two or three young farmers and their
sweethearts. But unquestionably the Scotch reel was the favourite, and
maintained the precedence throughout the whole of the entertainment.
As most readers doubtless know, this is a lively and stirring dance,
that permits a good deal of jumping and stamping, and is admirably
adapted to the social requirements of a warm-hearted and excitable
people. Whether its popularity in Scotland has anything to do with the
Celtic origin of the inhabitants, I do not take upon me to suggest;
but certain it is, that after seeing it performed, as on the present
occasion, with all the vivacity that belongs to it, you would not
think of associating it with a grave and solemn-minded race. To the
uninitiated onlooker it is nothing but an indistinguishable confusion;
in which he may observe that there is a great deal of bobbing with the
head and shuffling with the feet, and that it is in nowise adapted to
a staid person of fashion. Nevertheless it stood in high favour on
the present occasion, and seemed to please abundantly the agile young
persons who performed in it. What matter to them though it should be
unfashionable! They had come to this wedding to enjoy themselves; and
much as the horrid crew in ‘Alloway’s auld haunted kirk’ despised
foreign cotillons, so did these children of hills and valleys stick to
their native reels and country-dances.

After a time, when the music had begun to work in his soul, and he had
been set athinking upon ‘the brave days of old,’ you would notice a
reverend senior bravely leading out some gay and handsome maiden, and
challenging another gray-headed veteran to face him in the dance. These
exhibitions of pluck and spirit in the fathers uniformly evoked hearty
plaudits from the company; and some one would call out to ‘Archie’ the
fiddler, ‘to put his best foot foremost this time.’ Archie had by this
time got worked into a state of considerable energy and enthusiasm, and
was in some respects quite a different character from that of two hours
ago at the tea-table. The colour had travelled back to his old withered
cheek, and his features looked a deal more soft and flexible; his
face and form seemed much more indicative of life; youth seemed to be
coming back to him at the call of his own fiddle. It was interesting to
observe as he became enthusiastic in his fiddling, how sympathetic was
his every motion. How his rickety old legs crossed and bobbed up and
down; the body in a tremble, and constant movement in the shoulders;
while the head was perpetual motion, now hanging down upon his breast,
now erect and turning on its socket, now thrown backwards, and such
eyes as were in it—poor ‘ruined orbs’—directed restlessly towards the
ceiling. Archie’s _tout ensemble_ was a visible embodiment of the
doctrine that music incites to motion.

    Music has charms to _stir_ the savage breast

no less than to ‘soothe’ it. Now and then the dancers would cease a
while, and seated in benches round the room, would listen in silence to
a song. A broad-faced, dull-eyed, young shepherd, with more energy than
finish, sang _My Hielan’ Hills_, and a dark pawky little man recited
out of a corner very slyly, _Rabbin Tamson’s Smiddy_. _The Laird o’
Cockpen_, _Why Left I my Hame?_ and _Willie brewed a Peck o’ Maut_,
were also given; the last named being received with great enthusiasm.
There was little culpable indulgence in whisky that I observed. This
may have been owing to the judicious arrangements of the host for
refreshing his guests during the evening with the national ‘toddy’
instead of the more potent undiluted spirit. Several times a tray was
handed round, bearing piles of bread-and-cheese, and a large jug full
of the resuscitating beverage; and though the latter in some cases was
a little freely partaken of, there was no unseemly manifestation of its
effects.

And thus, through the warm hours of that summer’s night, with lonely
hills listening in their dreams, the wedding festival of the shepherd’s
daughter glided merrily along. The sun had been already near two hours
climbing up the east, and the pale morning light had once more shot
its rays into many a glen and hollow, when these mountain merry-makers
ceased their saturnalia. The evening before, they had assembled for
the feast trim, fresh, rosy, and buoyant; and when the ‘garish day’
sent his mocking light through the narrow window-panes and shone upon
the forms of the dancers, they looked rosy and buoyant still. The
smoothness had departed from their hair and the aspect of freshness
from their garments; frills and ribbons had been dragged awry; but
the colour was as fresh in their cheeks, and their eyes were quite as
lustrous as when eight hours before they had stamped and bobbed and
‘_hooch’d_’ through their first Scotch reel. The most of them would
tramp their half-dozen miles and more back over the hills, and go
through the usual labours of the day with hardly a symptom of fatigue.

When all had come out of the cottage, and immediately before the
separation, about three-fourths of the party congregating on the
little knoll before the door where the bride’s-maid had stood with
the handkerchief on the previous evening, sent forth a long-drawn,
far-reverberating cheer. Then followed a tumultuous shaking of hands,
with many a kindly spoken farewell; and then finally they departed,
each group on its own path, for their wide-scattered farms and
cottages. Some days would pass during which the memory of the wedding
would be continually in their thoughts, forming a mental picture that
gave them solace in the midst of outward dreariness. But gradually the
lines of the picture would lose their vividness, and it would be less
frequently recurred to by the fancy, less fervently yearned after by
the heart. Emotions that had been stirred by that night’s entertainment
would after a while subside again; the old duties would present
themselves anew, calling for the old labour and attention; and harmony
would be again established between the inward life and the outward
circumstances.

The newly married couple had arranged to stay at the cottage till the
afternoon, and then to set out for their future home, which lay in the
adjoining parish, and about ten miles away. That parish in its whole
extent was high-lying and pastoral; and therefore the dwelling to which
they were going would be in every way as lonely as the one from which
they were departing. From what I had noticed of the bride’s mother, she
would undoubtedly feel melancholy over the losing of her daughter,
the last that had remained with her out of five; and I can think of
her that afternoon, when the two young people had left her, slipping
out to the door, and having shaded her eyes with her hand, taking a
far look at them as they passed out of her sight among the hills.
Then she would walk pensively back into her now dull-looking kitchen,
and perhaps ponder with some sadness about becoming old. The bride
and bridegroom would arrive at their abode in the gray hours of the
evening, where some relative would be waiting to receive them. It would
be such another cottage as the one we have been visiting; and there, in
the wide wilderness, untamed nature on every side of them, they would
settle down to await the domesticities that fate might send.

Is there not something almost awe-striking in the thought of civilised
human beings settling down to face perhaps half a century of life in
solitudes like these, all unconscious of the mighty pulse-beats of the
world they dwell in? It is to be presumed that this red-haired Briton
who has just led home his bride across ten miles of moorland, possesses
a fair share of practical energy and some fragments of intellect; he
has the faculty of loving his fellow-men and of gaining happiness,
perhaps also wisdom, from hours of bright social intercourse. If he
were now planted amid stimulating circumstances, a fine moral nature
might possibly be developed by the time his years were through. But
immured in this mountain fastness, away from human din, his mind will
probably never be unfolded to the least self-conscious effort; and he
will leave life at seventy little advanced in intellectual attainment
on what he was at twenty-five. For although Nature is an open book,
teeming over with wise and great lessons, it is only after toiling
through initiatory stages of culture that we can intelligently read
her book, or even believe that it exists. The unlettered shepherd
nestling in her shaggy bosom, unless she has gifted him with genius,
rarely dreams of the truths that she is symbolically publishing around
him. And I think of the future life of him whose marriage we have
been celebrating as something far different from that of a home-bred
philosopher or poet. Performing his simple pastoral duties with honesty
of purpose, I can still imagine his life to be monotonous, irksome,
and stagnant; having in it many hours of idleness unillumined by
neighbourly greetings or the mystic gleams of intelligent research.
As he goes his rounds in summer-time, he will see the wide stillness
of morning upon the hills; in winter he will have to battle with the
fury of the storm. The gloaming will find him cultivating an unfruitful
garden, or gathering hay out of morasses for his cow, or sitting over
his peat-fire knitting homespun stockings or reading legends of the
Covenanters. Now and then a distant neighbour, leading a life as lonely
as himself, or some wandering angler, will drop in upon him, and be
treated to a hospitable meal. But he will hardly see another face the
whole year through, except perchance on Sunday—until the ‘clipping’
season comes round, when he will be called away, now in one direction
now in another, to days of social labour.

Some day, let us hope, a wee body will appear upon his hearth—his own
offspring, to be loved, nourished, and instructed; and then probably
there will come another and another till a considerable family is
grouped around him. The care and training of these children will be
a kind of education to himself. The nursing of them will not fail to
develop the womanliness of the wife. Let us hope that she may have
much of a mother’s happiness and little of a mother’s sorrow, and
that rosy health will be ever upon her hearth! May her boys grow up
broad-shouldered and manly; may her girls be handsome, modest, and
fair; and some day or other, a quarter of a century hence, may there
be another moorland wedding, when those of us who have assisted at the
present one, fiddler and dancers, writer and readers, shall be wearing
away or perhaps gathered to ‘the land o’ the leal.’




EGG-CULTURE.


Why do we import seven or eight hundred million eggs every year, and
pay two millions and a half sterling for them? The answer is, that
the demand for eggs is steadily increasing, while the home produce is
either lessening or stationary in amount.

Why the home supply does not advance with the increase of demand, is a
question that calls for a little attention to the commercial aspects of
farming. So many small holdings have been absorbed by large farms, that
many a cottage housewife has been withdrawn from rural life who would
otherwise have reared cottage poultry; neither the allotment-holder nor
the artisan has range and space enough for rearing eggs to advantage.

In a trade journal called _The Grocer_, in which much information
concerning the provision trades is given, the following remarks occur:
‘If a due attention to details were given in this country, the stock of
fowls which roam about the farmyard and gather corn from the thrashing,
instead of being a mere adjunct and perquisite of the servants, would
return sufficient to discharge the rental of many a small holding.
Such, we have understood, has been the case where the experiment has
been fairly tried; and once this becomes an established notion, our
own supplies will increase in a greater ratio than they do at present.
According to a competent authority, at this time—what with improved
native and imported varieties—we possess the best stock of egg-layers
in the world. In no country is the management of our best poultry-yards
excelled. These should serve as a model for the rest; to bring up the
wholesale results to their true national importance, all we require is
an extension of the taste for poultry-farming amongst those who earn
their living on the land.’

The real new-laid eggs of home produce are comparatively few. Their
excellence is best appreciated by obtaining them at country farmhouses.
The small farmers who do not take nor send their eggs to open market
sell them to country shopkeepers, or barter them for other commodities.
Many cottagers contrive to keep a few fowls; and where there is no pig,
these fowls act as scavengers, consuming the scraps of the family, the
outside cabbage-leaves, peelings of boiled potatoes, &c.; if the fowls
are supplied with a little corn, they will lay a good many eggs. This
desultory mode of leaving poultry to find their food as best they may
is, however, quite a mistake, and can never be adequately remunerative.
Fowls, to pay, must be well looked after, and systematically fed and
housed.

Ireland used to supply England with a considerable number of eggs, and
perhaps may continue so to do; but statistical details of the trade
between the two portions of the United Kingdom are not now published.
About thirty years ago, fifty million eggs were annually shipped
from Dublin alone to London and Liverpool, value about a hundred and
twenty thousand pounds; the supply obtained from all Ireland very much
exceeded this amount. Mr Weld, in his description of Roscommon about
that period, noticed some of the features of the egg-trade in the
rural districts of Ireland: ‘The eggs are collected from the cottages
for several miles round by runners, boys nine years old and upwards,
each of whom has a regular beat which he goes over daily, bearing back
the produce of his toil carefully stored in a small hand-basket. I
have frequently met with these boys on their rounds; and the caution
necessary for bringing their brittle ware with safety seemed to have
communicated an air of business and steadiness to their manner unusual
to the ordinary volatile habits of children in Ireland.’

But as we have said, a large supply from abroad has become a necessity;
and the characteristics of this supply are worth knowing; because they
shew that the trade can be conducted profitably without having recourse
to artificial incubation or hatching—a system which has at times had
many advocates in England.

The importation of French eggs into this country has increased in an
almost incredible degree, owing in part to the facilities afforded by
the commercial treaty between England and France. It has risen from
about a hundred and fifty million to six or seven hundred million eggs
annually, since the year 1860; while the value per thousand has also
increased, until at length our importers pay at least two millions
and a half sterling for the yearly import. The eggs are brought over
chiefly in steamers, and landed at Southampton, Folkestone, Arundel,
Newhaven, and Shoreham.

The egg-culture in France is almost exclusively confined to small
farmers, who carry it on in a vigorous and commercial spirit, chiefly
in Burgundy, Normandy, and Picardy. Every village has its weekly
market, to which farmers and their wives bring their produce, in
preference to selling at the farmyard to itinerant dealers. A merchant
will sometimes buy twenty thousand eggs at one market; he takes them
to his warehouse, where they are sorted and packed, and possibly sent
off the same day to Paris or to London. According to the conditions
required by the buyers, the eggs are sometimes counted, sometimes
‘sized’ by passing them through a ring, sometimes bought in bulk. In
many of the north-west districts of France, poultry villages send
almost their whole supply of eggs to England, from Calais, Cherbourg,
and Honfleur, packed in cases containing from six hundred to twelve
hundred each. Nearly all continental countries producing sufficient
eggs for their own supply, the export from France is almost entirely to
England. It is found that the buckwheat districts are those in which
most eggs are reared—possibly a useful hint to English rearers.

The production of eggs for market is one thing, and the hatching
of them another. We do not here go into the question of hatching,
though much that is interesting could be written on the subject. It
is enough to say that all the ingenious plans that have been set on
foot for the artificial hatching and rearing of poultry have broken
down through the costliness of the arrangements and management. Those
who have tried any of these plans have arrived at the conclusion that
both eggs and poultry can only be produced on a cheap scale by farmers
or cottagers. And this opinion stands to reason. About farmyards and
cottages in rural districts, hens can pick up food that would otherwise
be wasted. Besides, let it be kept in mind, that hens like to roam
about scratching for seeds, worms, and particles of lime to furnish
material out of which the shells of their eggs are formed. If kept in
confinement, exceeding care is required to supply the creatures with
such requisites as their maternal instincts seem to require. What we
suggest is, that cottagers, farmers, and others possessing sufficient
scope for keeping poultry, should go far more largely into the business
of egg-culture than they do at present. Why should they allow the
great egg-supply for this country to be in the hands of others? The
answer, we fear, is, that our farming classes generally look down
contemptuously on the supplying of eggs for market. It is too small an
affair to invite consideration. Small! Two millions and a half of money
annually carried off by the French. Is that a trade to be treated with
indifference?

We hear much of women’s work, and of how young ladies should employ
themselves. Here is something, at all events, for farmers’ wives and
daughters to set their face to without the slightest derogation of rank
or character. Let them take up in real earnest the culture of fowls, if
only for the sake of the eggs which on a great and remunerative scale
may be produced. Those farmers’ wives who already appropriate part of
their leisure to this occupation deserve all honour; and we honour them
accordingly.




LINES

TO A YOUNG LADY ON HER BIRTHDAY.

BY J. PITMAN (WHO DIED 1825).


    Encircled thus by those you love,
    May each successive Birthday prove
    A source of new delight, nor cast
    A single shade upon the past.

    Thus ever may thy placid brow
    And playful smile bespeak, as now
    The peace that cheers thy gentle breast,
    And bids thee still in hope be blest.

    And thus may each revolving year
    Still leave thy cheek without a tear;
    Still Virtue strew thy flowery way
    With sweets that never know decay.

       *       *       *       *       *

Printed and Published by W. & R. CHAMBERS, 47 Paternoster Row, LONDON,
and 339 High Street, EDINBURGH.

       *       *       *       *       *

_All Rights Reserved._







*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL OF POPULAR LITERATURE, SCIENCE, AND ART, NO. 743, MARCH 23, 1878 ***


    

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