[Illustration:

CHAMBERS’S JOURNAL

OF

POPULAR

LITERATURE, SCIENCE, AND ART

Fifth Series

ESTABLISHED BY WILLIAM AND ROBERT CHAMBERS, 1832

CONDUCTED BY R. CHAMBERS (SECUNDUS)

NO. 18.—VOL. I.      SATURDAY, MAY 3, 1884.       PRICE 1½_d._]




NORFOLK BROADS AND RIVERS.


To many, the wild solitudes of marsh and mere, the rivers and ‘broads’
of Norfolk, are almost as entirely unknown as the arid solitudes of
the unexplored Australian deserts. Yet there are few spots where
the holiday-seeker can find more easily and cheaply relaxation and
enjoyment than in these vast reedy wildernesses of East Anglia. Mr
G. Christopher Davies, in his interesting book, _Norfolk Broads and
Rivers_ (Blackwood and Sons), paints in a graphic manner the engrossing
charm of these placid inland seas, with their reedy margins shimmering
softly green in the gray morning mists, or flushing into warm tints of
beauty beneath the smile of sunset. A stranger is apt to fancy that
marsh scenery is uninteresting; but the very reverse is the case; it
has a beauty of its own, which is seldom even monotonous, so incessant
is the play of sunshine and shadow over the wide sedgy flats and
shallows. The marsh vegetation is luxuriant, even tropical in some of
the more sheltered nooks among the reeds; grasses are abundant, and so
are flowers, which often grow in broad patches, and warm with vivid
gleams of colour the low-toned landscape. In May and June, the banks
are gay with the vivid gold of the yellow iris and marsh buttercup;
then come the crimson glow of the ragged-robin, the delicate blue of
the forget-me-not, the deep purple flush of the loosestrife, and the
creamy white of the water-lilies, which spread till they almost cover
the shallow bays with their broad glossy leaves and shining cups of
white and gold.

The reedy capes and bays, the sedgy islets, with the green park lands
and wooded glades beyond, give an irresistible charm to these broads,
which is enhanced by the soft stillness of their utter solitude and
loneliness. The passing clouds and rising wind give a certain motion
and variety to the great marsh plain; but nothing speaks of the busy
world beyond save the white sail of a solitary yacht, or the rich
red-brown canvas of a gliding wherry; and not a sound falls on the
listening ear except the monotonous measured plash of the oars or
the wild scream of the startled waterfowl. These wide watery plains,
interesting at all seasons, are often extremely beautiful at sunrise
and sunset. Then gorgeous sky-tints of gold and crimson are flashed
back from the wide mirror-like expanse of the still lagoons with a
vivid glow of colouring which is almost painful in its intensity. The
great forests of reeds gleam like bundles of spears tipped with lambent
flame, and the patches of feathery grasses and flowers are lit up with
weird glimmers of rose-red and gold, glorious but evanescent. Light
gray mists float up from the marshy hollows, mellowing the sunset glow
with an indistinct quivering haze, which, mirage-like, cheats the
wondering gazer with visions of ships and islands and wooded knolls,
which he will search for in vain on the morrow.

A ‘broad’ is a term peculiar to Norfolk; it means the broadening out
of the rivers into lakes, which is very common all over the marsh
district. These broads abound in fish, and afford capital sport to
the angler. Bream and roach are abundant; and carp, although not so
plentiful, are to be found, and grow to a large size. The rudd, or
red-eye, a beautiful active fish, is very abundant; and few things are
more enjoyable, when the weather is good and the fish rise easily, than
a day’s rudd-fishing on the broads. The paying fish of these marsh
meres are, however, the pike and eel; and a great number of fishermen
live by eel-fishing. Eels are netted, speared, and caught in eel-pots;
and after a flood, when eels are what is called ‘on the move,’ a single
fisherman will often catch as many as four or five stone-weight in a
night.

The pike is, however, Mr Davies says, ‘the monarch of the Norfolk
waters, and at one time was supremely abundant; but the natives harried
him to their utmost.’ The best way to enjoy pike-fishing and the
scenery of the broads is to take an excursion for a few days in a small
yacht, either alone or with a companion. Human habitations are few and
far between on the banks of the sluggish rivers; but every now and
then one comes upon a cluster of picturesque old-world buildings, or
an ancient primitive village, with small houses furnished with quaint
dormer windows and fantastic gables, and here and there a gray old
church, finely set down on a rising ground amid a clump of ancient
spreading elms. Beyond the broad belt of reeds that fringe the water
are green meadows, dotted with red-and-white cattle, whose effect
from an artistic point of view is very good, but from an angler’s
standpoint is sometimes rather trying, as there is generally a bull,
and as often as not he is a vicious and combative specimen of the
bovine tribe. On this red-letter day, however, even the inevitable
bull was quiet, and our author was left undisturbed to thread his
way, on a soft warm afternoon, through the glowing beauties of an
October landscape. In the marshes, all the seasons have their peculiar
glory; but the autumnal colouring stands out with a vivid distinctness
unknown elsewhere. Beyond the screen of reeds, a belt of wood fringes
the river-bank—beech, alder, and elm, each tree glowing with its own
autumnal tint of red or yellow or russet brown.

Mr Davies, who had seldom the luck to go a-fishing when pike were
on the move, had two special pools in view, on one or both of which
he relied to fill his basket. Around the first of these the margin
was very soft and wet, and he was daintily picking his steps from
one tussock of grass to another, when whiz went a wild-duck from the
sedges, and in a moment he was floundering up to the knees in mud.
There were, however, pike in the pool when he reached it—great sluggish
beauties, lazily lying under the gleaming, swaying leaves of the
water-lilies. For once, he was in luck, to use his own words: ‘As our
bait traversed the deep back-water, we felt the indescribable thrill,
or rather shock, which proceeds from a decided run, and a three-pound
pike fights as gamely as a ten-pounder.’ The small fish caught, he
trudged on in the waning afternoon sunshine to the second pool;
startling a kingfisher, which flashed out of the reeds behind him like
a veritable gem of living colour. The second pool was closely fringed
with trees and bushes, the dusk-red gold of whose leaves was mirrored
in its placid depths; while every few minutes a crisp leaf-hail dropped
in the level sunshine like Danaë’s fabled showers of gold. Pike,
however, and not artistic effects, were for the moment in our author’s
eye, and pike he was sure there were, lurking under the mass of leaves
which covered the gleaming waters of the pool. ‘Seizing the exact
moment when there was a clear track across the leaf-strewn water, we
cast our bait, and worked it with every sense agog with expectation.
Ah! there is a welcome check at last. We strike hard, and find that
we are fast in a good-sized fish.’ Up and down, round and round, he
goes, floundering wildly about, now in one direction, now in another.
There is a pause of excited uncertainty, during which the line becomes
heavily clogged with leaves. To have, or not to have, the scaly monarch
of the silent pool? that is the question. It was ticklish work for a
few minutes; but at last he turned suddenly on his side, and was towed
into the shallow below, and landed in triumph.

Pike in these broads sometimes attain a great size, and have been
taken weighing between thirty and forty pounds. The reeds, which
with their bright green and purple fringes form such a prominent
feature in the marsh scenery, are yearly cut and gathered, and are
a really valuable crop. They are used for thatching, making fences,
and supporting plaster-work. Whittlesea Mere, before it was drained,
produced annually a thousand bundles of reeds, which were sold at one
pound per bundle. The men forsake all their other avocations to join in
the reed-harvest, which yields them while it lasts very good wages.

On some of the broads there is still to be seen an industry fast
falling into decay—decoys with decoy ducks and dogs. These require
to be worked with the utmost silence and caution. One winter-night
in 1881 Mr Davies inspected in company with the keeper the decoy at
Fritton Broad. The night was cold and dark, and each of the men had
to carry a piece of smouldering turf in his hand to destroy the human
scent, which would otherwise have alarmed the wary ducks. This made
their eyes water; and the decoy-dog, a large red retriever, being in
high spirits, insisted on tripping them up repeatedly, as they crawled
along in the darkness bent almost double. The interest of the sight,
however, when at length they reached the decoy, fully made up for
these petty discomforts. Peeping through an eyehole, a flock of teal
were to be seen paddling about quite close to them; while beyond these
were several decoy-ducks, and beyond these again a large flock of
mallards. The decoy-ducks are trained to come for food whenever they
see the dog or hear a whistle from the decoy-man. The dog now showed
himself obedient to a sign from his master, and in an instant every
head among the teal was up, and every bright shy eye twinkling with
pleased curiosity. Impelled by curiosity, they slowly swim towards
the dog, which, slowly retiring, leads them towards the mouth of the
decoy-pipe, showing himself at intervals till they were well within it.
The keeper then ran silently to the mouth of the pipe, and waving his
handkerchief, forced them, frightened and reluctant, to flutter forward
into the tunnel. He then detached a hoop from the grooves, gave it a
twist, and secured them by cutting off their return. This seemed the
last act of the drama, and Mr Davies took the opportunity to straighten
his back, which was aching dreadfully, ‘immediately there was a rush
of wings, and the flock of mallards left the decoy. “There, now, you
ha’ done it!” exclaimed the keeper excitedly. “All them mallards
were following the dog into the pipe, and we could ha’ got a second
lot.” We expressed our sorrow in becoming terms, and watched the very
expeditious way in which he extracted the birds from the tunnel net,
wrung their necks, and flung them into a heap.’ Few places now are
suitable for decoys, for even life in the marshes is not so quiet as it
used to be.

In all these broads and meres and the rivers which intersect them,
bird-life abounds, and an almost incredible number of eggs are
collected for the market, every egg which resembles a plover’s being
collected and sold as such. Of the bird-dwellers in the marshes, herons
are the most conspicuous; bitterns were also once common, but there
are now few of them, and their singular booming cry is but seldom
heard. The great crested grebe is still plentiful; but the ruff, which
was once very abundant, is now seldom seen. Of the smaller birds,
the graceful bearded tit has become very rare; but willow-wrens and
reed-buntings, jays, and cuckoos and king-fishers find their respective
habitats.

There are swans to be found all over the broads, particularly on the
river Yare; but they are not plentiful anywhere. A pair take possession
of a particular portion of the river, and defend their proprietary
rights in it with the utmost fierceness. They will not suffer the
intrusion of any other swans, and will very often attack human beings,
if they see any reasonable prospect of success. ‘A swan will not
exactly attack a wherry or even a pleasure-boat; but a canoe comes
within his capacity; and once while rowing down the river Yare in our
small canvas jolly-boat, a cock-swan chased us for half a mile, and
threatened every moment to drive his beak through the canvas.’

The appearance of the country around these broads has changed very
much during the last half-century, and this change is still going on.
Wherever it seems possible, drainage-works are attempted and carried
out; and acres upon acres of valuable meadow-land have been and are in
process of being reclaimed from the marsh. Some of these flat green
meadows, which a century back were sodden quagmires covered with
stagnant water, now pasture large herds of cattle, and are let at four
pounds an acre for grazing purposes. At the outlet of the drains into
the river, drainage windmills are erected of every size and shape, from
the brick tower to the skeleton wooden erection painted a brilliant red
or green. These windmills form a striking and picturesque addition to
the background of a marsh picture, but, like the decoys, they will soon
be a thing of the past, as they are now beginning to be superseded by
steam, which does the work required much more efficiently and quickly.

Otters abound in the pathless forests of reeds which fringe the meres,
and are often bold and familiar. One night while sleeping on board his
yacht at Cantley, Mr Davies was awakened by the noise of something
heavy jumping on board. The boat rocked violently, and the disturbance
was so sudden and inexplicable, that he got up just in time to see a
large dark object plunge overboard and disappear. On striking a light,
the broad and unmistakable track of an otter, was visible, imprinted
wherever his moist feet had been, and that seemed to be everywhere, for
he had evidently made a round in search of something eatable.

The whole marsh district is subject to destructive floods and high
tides, which rush up the rivers, driving back the fresh water and
destroying vast quantities of fish. The whole coast also suffers much
from sea-breaches. ‘Between Winterton and Waxham, hard by Hornsea Mere,
the only barrier between sea and lake is a line of what are called
“miel” banks, which are simply banks of sand held together by marum
grasses. Upon this marum grass, which grows in the loosest sand, the
welfare of a wide district depends. In 1781, there were many breaches
of the sea between Waxham and Winterton, so that every tide the salt
water and sands destroyed the marshes and the fish in the broads and
river; and if the wind blew briskly from the north-west, by which the
quantity of water in the North Sea was largely increased from the
Atlantic, the salt water drowned all the low country even as far as
Norwich.’ In the following eight years, the breaches were seriously
widened, the largest being two hundred yards in width, through which a
vast body of water poured.

In a country so open, wind-storms are very frequent; and what
are called ‘Rodges blasts,’ rotatory whirlwinds, often occasion
great damage, wrecking the windmills, uprooting trees, convulsing
the grasses, and lifting the reed-stacks high into the air.
Will-o’-the-wisps, once very common, are now comparatively rare, having
been exorcised by drainage. Mr Davies only once saw one at Hickling
over a wet bit of meadow. ‘The sportive fiend that haunts the mead’
appeared to him as a small flickering phosphorescent light faintly
visible in the darkness.

Another peculiar and uncomfortable phenomenon of the marshes is the
water-eynd or sea-smoke, which, rolling up from the ocean, covers the
whole landscape with a dense watery vapour, shutting out the placid
beauty of lagoon and mere, and reed-bed and coppice, and putting an end
to all pleasure, till the sun shines out again in a blaze of glory,
bathing the drenched flats in a warm flush of colour. The reeds on the
wide margins of the meres then quiver in the sunlight, which shimmers
down into their dark-green recesses; the still water gleams in the
shallow bays, where the cattle stand knee deep; and the warm air is
redolent of the odour of meadow-sweet and thyme: all is motion and
colour and fragrance, as if Nature were visibly rejoicing at having got
quit of the uncomfortable bath of the water-eynd.




BY MEAD AND STREAM.

BY CHARLES GIBBON.


CHAPTER XXVI.—A QUESTION OF DIVISION.

Philip locked his desk, after placing Mr Shield’s letter in his
pocket-book, locked his door, and hastened to the station in time to
catch one of the afternoon fast trains to Dunthorpe. As he was in a
hurry, he hired a fly to Ringsford. On the way down, he had made up his
mind to get over what he anticipated would be a disagreeable interview
with his father, before going to Willowmere. Then he would be able to
tell Madge all about it, and receive comfort from her.

He alighted at the gate, and walked swiftly up the avenue. The sun was
out of sight; but it had left behind a soft red glow, which warmed and
brightened the blackened landscape. Peering through the dark lacework
formed by the bare branches of the trees, he saw a figure standing as
it were in the centre of that red glow: the shadows which surrounded
Philip making the figure on the higher ground beyond appear to be a
long way off. A melancholy figure: light all round him, darkness within
himself.

Philip quickened his steps, and taking a footpath through the
shrubbery, advanced to his father, as he was beginning to move slowly
from the position in which he had halted.

‘Glad to see you, Philip,’ said Mr Hadleigh, whilst he did what he
had rarely done before—took his son’s arm. There was also a touch
of unusual kindliness in his voice and manner. ‘I have missed you
the last few evenings more than I fancied I should do. You have been
enjoying yourself, no doubt—theatres, clubs, friends and cards perhaps.
Well, enjoy these things whilst you may. You have the means and the
opportunity. I never had; and it is singular how soon the capacity for
enjoyment is extinguished. Like everything else—capacity or faculty—it
requires exercise, if it is to be kept in good condition.’

Philip was relieved, but considerably puzzled by his father’s strange
humour.

‘I have been enjoying myself; but not in the way you mention. I have
been harder at work than I have ever been, except when preparing for
the last exam.’

‘Ah, and you did not make so very much out of that hard work after all.’

‘Not so much as I ought to have done, certainly; but I hope to make
more out of this effort,’ said Philip, with an attempt to pass lightly
by the uncomfortable reminder that he had failed to take his degree.
‘Have you read the papers I sent you?’

‘Yes.’

Mr Hadleigh spoke as if reluctant to make the admission, and his brows
contracted slightly, but his arm rested more kindly on that of his son,
as if to make amends for this apparent want of sympathy. Philip was
unconscious of these signs of varying moods.

‘I am glad of that—now you will be able to give me the benefit of your
advice. Wrentham fancies I am running after a chimera, and will come to
grief. He has not said that precisely; but what he has said, and his
manner, convince me that that is his notion; and I am afraid that it
will materially affect the value of his help to me. I should like you
to tell me what you think.’

Mr Hadleigh was silent; and they walked on towards the sheltered grove,
where, during his convalescence, Philip had spent so many pleasant
hours with Madge. As they were passing through it, the father spoke:

‘I did not want to read those papers, Philip, but—weakness, perhaps—a
little anxiety on your account, possibly, compelled me to look over
them. I have nothing to say further than this—the experiment is worth
making, when you have the means at command. I should have invested
the money, and enjoyed myself on the interest. You see’ (there was a
curious half-sad, half-mocking smile on his face), ‘I who have known
so little pleasure in life, am a strong advocate for the pleasure of
others.’

‘And that is very much the same theory which I am trying to work out.’

‘Yes; and I hope you will succeed, but—you are forgetting _yourself_.’

‘Not at all—my pleasure will be found in my success.’

‘Success,’ muttered Mr Hadleigh, speaking to himself; ‘that is our one
cry—let me succeed in this, and I shall be happy!... We must all work
it out for ourselves.’ Then, as if rousing from a dream: ‘I hope you
will succeed, Philip; but I have no advice to give beyond this—take
care of yourself.’

‘That is just what I am anxious for you and’—(he was about to say
‘and Mr Shield;’ but desirous of avoiding any unpleasant element,
he quickly altered the phrase)—‘you and everybody to understand. My
object is not to establish a new charity, but a business which will
yield me a satisfactory income for my personal labour, and a sufficient
interest on the capital invested, whilst it provides the same for my
work-people, or, as I should prefer to call them, my fellow-labourers.
As my returns increase, theirs should increase’——

‘Or diminish according to the result of your speculation?’ interrupted
Mr Hadleigh drily.

‘Of course—that is taken for granted. Now, I want you to tell me, do
you think this is folly?’

‘No, not folly,’ was the slow meditative reply, ‘if you find pleasure
in doing it. My theory is doubtless a selfish one, but it is the
simplest rule to walk by—that is, do what is best for yourself in the
meantime, and in the end, the chances are that you will find you have
also done the best for others. If you believe that this experiment is
the most satisfactory thing you can do for yourself, then, it is not
folly, even if it should fail.’

‘Thank you. I cannot tell you how much you relieve my mind. I am
convinced that in making this experiment I am dealing with a problem
of great importance. It is a system by which capital and labour shall
have an equal interest in working earnestly for the same end. I want to
set about it on business principles. You are the only man of practical
experience who has spoken a word of comfort on the subject.’

‘I am dealing with it from a selfish point of view—considering only
how you can obtain most pleasure, comfort, happiness—call it what you
may—for yourself out of your fortune. I should never have entered on
such a scheme. You tell me that it was optional on your part to go into
business or to live on the interest of the money?’

‘Quite optional; but of course I could not accept the trust and do
nothing.’

‘Ah, I think my advice would have been that you should have accepted
the trust, as you call it, invested it in safe securities, married, and
basked in the sunshine of life—an easy mind, and a substantial balance
at your banker’s.’

‘But my mind would not have been easy if I had done that.’

‘Then you were right not to do it. Every man has his own way of seeking
happiness. You have yours; and I shall watch the progress of your work
with attentive interest.—But we have other matters to speak about. I
have done something of which I hope you will approve.’

Philip could not help smiling at this intimation. Mr Hadleigh had never
before suggested that he desired or required the approval of any one in
whatever he chose to do.

‘You can be sure of what my opinion will be of anything you do, sir.’

‘Perhaps.’

They walked on in silence, and passed Culver’s cottage. They met Pansy
coming from the well with a pail of water. She put down the pail, and
courtesied to the master and his son. She was on Philip’s side of the
path, and he whispered in passing:

‘There is good news for you by-and-by, Pansy.’

She smiled vaguely, and blushed—she blushed at everything, this little
wood-nymph.

‘What is the good news you have for the girl?’ asked Mr Hadleigh
sharply, although he had not appeared to be observing anything.

‘I suppose there can be no harm in telling you, although it is a kind
of a secret.’

‘What is it?’

‘Caleb Kersey is making up to Pansy; but old Sam does not like it, as
the young man is so unsettled. The good news I have for her is that
Kersey has joined me, and will have good wages and good prospects.’

‘You might have told her at once.’

‘I thought it better that the man himself should do that.... But you
had something to say about yourself.’

‘It concerns you more than me,’ said Mr Hadleigh, resuming his low
meditative tone. ‘I have been altering my will.’

There are few generous-minded men who like to hear anything about
even a friend’s will, and much less about that of a parent who in all
probability has a good many years still to live. Philip was extremely
sensitive on the subject, and therefore found it difficult to say
anything at all when his father paused.

‘I would rather you did not speak about it,’ he said awkwardly. ‘There
is and there can be no necessity to do so. You have many years before
you yet, and in any case I shall be content with whatever arrangement
you make.’

‘Many years before me still,’ continued Mr Hadleigh musingly, repeating
his son’s words. ‘True; I believe I have; it is possible even that I
might marry again, and begin a new life altogether with prospects of
happiness, since it would be guided by the experience of the past. Most
people have a longing at some time or other that they might begin all
over again; and why should not a man of, say middle age, take a fresh
start, and realise in the new life the happiness he has missed—by his
own folly or that of others—in the old one?’

Philip did not understand, and so remained silent.

Was there ever a grown-up son or daughter who felt quite pleased with
the idea of a parent’s second marriage? When the marriage cannot be
prevented, the sensible ones assume a graciousness, if they do not feel
it, and go on their way with varying degrees of comfort in being on
friendly terms with their parent; the foolish ones sulk, suffer, cause
annoyance, and derive no benefit from their ill-humour. Philip was
surprised and a little amused at the suggestion of his father marrying
again. The idea had never occurred to him before; and now, when it was
presented, the memory of his mother stirred in him what he owned at
once was an unreasonable feeling of disapproval. To his youthful mind,
a man nearly fifty was old; he had not yet reached the period at which
the number of years required to make a man old begins to extend up to,
and even beyond the threescore and ten. When he came to think of it,
however, he could recollect numerous instances of men much older than
his father marrying for the second, third, or fourth time.

‘Yes, it is possible to make a fresh start,’ Mr Hadleigh went on, still
musing; ‘and one may learn to forget the past. Did you ever consider,
Philip, what a tyrant memory is?’

‘I cannot say that I have, sir.’

‘No; you are too young—by-and-by you will understand.... But this is
not what I wanted to speak about.’

He rested a little more on his son’s arm, as if he were in that way
desirous of giving him a kindly pressure, whilst he recalled his
thoughts to the immediate subject he wished to explain.

‘It is about the will. I have made a new one. I suppose you are aware
that although my fortune is considerable whilst it remains in the hands
of one person, it dwindles down to a moderate portion when divided
amongst four or five?’

‘Clearly.’

‘Then suppose you and I reverse our positions for a time. You have five
children, three of them being girls. You wish to leave each of them
as well provided for as possible. One of the sons becomes by peculiar
circumstances the possessor of a fortune almost equal to your own. Tell
me how you would divide your property?’

Philip reflected for a few moments, and then with a bright look, which
showed that he had taken in the whole problem, replied:

‘The thing is quite simple. I should leave the son who had been so
lucky only a trifle of some sort, in token of good-will; and I should
divide the whole of the property amongst the other four. That would be
the right thing to do; would it not?’

The father halted, grasped his hand, and looked at him with a smile.
This was such an unusual sign of emotion, that Philip was for an
instant taken aback.

‘That is almost precisely what I have done,’ said Mr Hadleigh calmly;
‘and your answer is what I expected. Still, it pleases me to learn from
your own lips that you are satisfied.’

‘Not only satisfied, but delighted that you should have had so much
confidence in me as to know I should be.’

‘A few words more and I shall release you.—Oh, I know that you are
eager to be off, and where you wish to be off to. Right, right—seek
the sweets of life, the bitters come.... You are separating yourself
from me. That is natural, and follows as a matter of course. I would
have liked it better if the circumstances had been different. Enough of
that. Your rooms at the house will be always ready for you, and come
when you may, you will be welcome to me. Now, go: be happy.’

He pointed towards the Forest in the direction of Willowmere. He looked
older than usual: in his movement and attitude there was an unconscious
solemnity, as if he were giving his favourite son a blessing while
sending him forth into the world.

Philip bowed. He saw that his father was strangely agitated, and so
turned away without speaking.

What was in the man’s mind, as he watched the stalwart figure rapidly
disappear into the shadows of the Forest? Hitherto, he had been walking
and standing erect, although his head was bent a little, as usual.
Now his whole form appeared to collapse, as if its strength had been
suddenly withdrawn, and he dwindled, as it were, in height and breadth.

The shadows deepened upon him as he stood there; stars began to appear;
a branch of an elm-tree close by began to creak monotonously—betokening
the gathering strength of the wind, although at present it seemed
light; and still he remained in that dejected attitude, gazing vacantly
in the direction taken by Philip, long after Philip had disappeared.

He roused from his trance, looked round him, then clasping hands at his
back, walked dreamily after his son.




QUEER LODGERS.


Scientific research, especially when directed to the more obscure
and remote conditions of animal life, has often a twofold interest.
In itself, and in the marvellous structural adaptations revealed by
the microscope, the pursuit has its own special attraction; while, in
addition, the information thus obtained may be so practically utilised
as to minister to the preservation of health, and to the improved
rearing and cultivation of animals and plants. An inquiry, conducted
three years ago, by Professor A. P. Thomas, at the instance of the
Royal Agricultural Society of England, is noticeable in both these
respects. The inquiry extended over a period of more than two years,
and the object in view throughout was the discovery of the origin and
possible prevention of a well-known and destructive disease affecting
sheep and other grazing animals, both in this country and abroad;
and during the course of the inquiry, which was a painstaking and
exhaustive one, facts of no small interest, from the view-point of
natural history alone, have been elicited.

By this disease—Liver-fluke, Fluke Disease, Liver-rot, as it is
variously termed—it has been estimated that as many as one million
sheep perished annually, in this country alone, from the effects of
the malady—a loss which was doubled, if not sometimes trebled, by the
advent of a wet season such as 1879, and which does not include the
large percentage of animals annually dying in America, Australia, and
elsewhere from the same cause. It was known that the disease was due
to the presence of a parasitic flat worm in greater or lesser numbers,
together with its eggs, in the entrails of infected sheep, and also
that flocks grazing habitually in low and marshy pasture-grounds were
generally more liable than others to be attacked; but it was not known
precisely in what manner the disease was incurred.

It was not until 1882 that careful experiment finally succeeded in
tracing throughout the wonderful life-career of the liver-fluke, and
shedding light upon the possibility of the prevention of the scourge.
Into this latter question of prevention, we do not enter at present.
Those who are interested, practically or otherwise, in this branch of
the subject may consult for full particulars the scientific journals
in which the results of this inquiry first appeared. (See _Journal
of Royal Agricultural Society_, No. 28; also _Quarterly Journal of
Microscopical Science_ for January 1883. For the history of the
disease, see _The Rot in Sheep_, by Professor Simonds; London: John
Murray, 1880.) Even from a dietetic point of view, it is for the public
good that the disease should be extirpated, as it is well known that
unwholesome dropsical meat, from the bodies of fluke-infested sheep,
is frequently pushed on the market. Nor is this parasite exclusively
confined to the lower animals. It has been communicated to human
beings, doubtless from the consumption of infected meat producing cysts
in the liver, &c.

But it is the initial results of Professor Thomas’s experiments, those
which trace the progress of the fluke from the embryo to the adult
stage, with which we have to do at present.

Starting from the previously observed but obscure relationship said
to exist between the larval forms of certain snails or slugs and the
liver-fluke, as found in the carcases of sheep and other infected
back-boned animals, it was discovered, after much careful examination,
that a certain connection _did_ exist between them, with this
remarkable circumstance in addition—that the minute cysts, or bags,
which contain the embryo fluke, and which are to be found adhering to
grass stalks in some sheep-pastures, emanated, indeed, from the body
of one particular description of snail, but that this embryo parasite
was undoubtedly derived—several generations previously, and in quite
another form—from the sheep itself!

The _original_ embryo—not that which clings to grass stalks, but the
embryo three or four generations before, born of the adult fluke’s
egg—is hatched after the egg drops from the sheep’s body, in marshy
ground, ditches, or ponds. It then attaches itself to the snail,
produces in the snail’s body two, and sometimes three generations of
successors, all totally dissimilar from the original fluke. The last
generation alone quits the snail, and, assuming the ‘cyst’ form, waits
to be swallowed by the grazing animal, in order to become a full-grown
fluke. The fluke’s progeny again go through the transformation changes
of their predecessors.

Once more, in order to render the process clear. Taking the adult
fluke—laying its eggs principally in the bile-ducts of the sheep, which
it never leaves—as the original parent, its children, grandchildren,
and great-grandchildren, inhabiting the snail, are all totally
different in appearance from their original progenitor—most of the
generations differing also from each other. It is only the fourth,
though sometimes the third generation, which, changing its form to a
migratory one, is enabled thereby to leave the snail, and ultimately to
assume the cyst form, adapted to produce in time the veritable fluke
once more. Naturalists term this process, one not unknown in other
forms of life, ‘alternation of generation,’ or metagenesis.

The appearance of the full-grown fluke (_Fasciola hepatica_) is well
known to sheep-farmers and others. It is of an oval or leaf-like
shape, not unlike a small flounder or fluke (hence the name of the
worm), pale brown in colour, and ranging in size from an inch to an
inch and a third in length—though occasionally much smaller, even the
twenty-fourth of an inch—and in breadth about half its own length. A
projecting portion is seen at the head, with a mouth placed in the
centre of a small sucker at the tip, by which the fluke attaches
itself. Over two hundred flukes have been found in the liver of a
single sheep. Each one is estimated to produce some hundreds of
thousands of eggs. Each of the eggs contains one embryo, which when
full grown is nearly the length of the egg—the spare egg-space up to
that time being filled with the food-stuff to support it till hatched.
As long as the egg continues in the body of the sheep, it remains
inert. It is only when dropped—as they are from time to time in great
numbers by the animal—and alighting upon wet ground, or on water in
ditches or drains, that, under favourable conditions of heat, &c., the
embryo at length comes forth. The time which elapses before the egg is
hatched is extremely variable.

Viewed through a microscope, the egg, which is only the two-hundredth
of an inch in diameter, may be seen to contain the embryo, which is
unlike its parent in every way, and will never show any trace of family
likeness to it. It is in the shape of a sugar-loaf, with a slight
projecting point at the broader end, and two rudimentary eyes near the
same. When hatched on damp ground or in water, it swims freely about
with the broader end forward, like a boat propelled stern foremost. The
whole of its body, except the projecting horn, which is drawn in when
swimming, is covered with long waving hairs, or _cilia_, which, being
moved backwards and forwards, serve as oars, or paddles, to propel it
through the water.

Swimming with a restless revolving motion through the water, the
embryo begins to search for suitable quarters—in other words, to
find a snail wherein to quarter itself. It is not easily satisfied,
although snails, generally speaking, are plentiful enough. Indeed, it
has been definitely ascertained that of all the known descriptions of
snails there are only _two_ which the embryo ever attacks. Of these
two species, only one is apparently suitable as a dwelling, those who
enter the other perishing shortly after admittance. The only suitable
snail is a very insignificant fresh-water one, _Limnæus truncatulus_,
with a brown spiral shell. It is only from a quarter to a half inch in
size, and seems to have no popular name. It is to be found very widely
distributed through the world. Said to breed in mud of ditches and
drains, it is so far amphibious as to wander far from water. It can
also remain dry for a lengthened period; and even when apparently quite
shrivelled up for lack of moisture, revives with a shower of rain.

The embryo knows this snail from all others; placed in a basin of
water, with many other species of snails, it at once singles this one
out, to serve as an intermediate host. Into the soft portion of the
snail’s body, the embryo accordingly begins to make its way. Pressing
the boring horn or tool of its head against the yielding flesh of the
snail, the embryo advances with a rotary motion like a screw-driver,
aided by the constant movement of the _cilia_. The borer, as it pierces
the snail, grows longer and longer, and finally operating as a wedge,
a rent is eventually made sufficiently large to admit the unbidden
guest bodily to the lodgings it will never quit. It settles at once
in or near the lung of the snail, there to feed on the juices of the
animal. The paddle-like cilia, now useless, are thrown off; the eyes
become indistinct; it subsides into a mere bag of germs, as it changes
to a rounder form, and becomes in other words a _sporocyst_, or bladder
of germs—for this animal, unlike its egg-laying parent, produces its
young alive within itself.

This, then, is the first stage—the embryo, from the fluke’s egg,
migrates to, and becomes a sporocyst in the snail’s body.

The germs inside the sporocyst in time come to maturity, commencing the
existence of the _second_ generation, which are called _rediæ_. These
germs number from six to ten in each sporocyst; they grow daily more
elongated in form, and one by one, leave the parent by breaking through
the body-walls, the rent which is thus made closing up behind them.
These _rediæ_ thus born, never leave the snail. They are, however,
different from the sporocyst, being about the twentieth of an inch, in
adult size, sack-like in shape, furnished with a mouth, and also with
an intestine. Two protuberances behind serve the animal for legs; for,
unlike the sporocyst, the _redia_ does not remain in one part of its
house, but travels backwards and forwards, preying chiefly on the liver
of the snail, and generally doing a great deal of damage. Finally,
indeed, these parasites destroy their host altogether.

In the bodies of the _rediæ_—so called after Redi, the anatomist—the
third generation again is formed in germ fashion. The nature of this
third generation varies. _Rediæ_ may in turn produce _rediæ_ like
themselves, tenants of the snail for life; or they may produce another
form, totally dissimilar, one which is fitted for quitting the snail
and entering on another mode of existence. This change, however, takes
place either in the first generation produced by the _rediæ_, or, at
latest, in the second, more frequently in the latter. At first, this
new form appears like the young of the sporocyst. But when either in
the children or the grandchildren of the first _rediæ_, this stage is
reached, the animal undergoes a remarkable change, to fit it for new
surroundings. It is to be an emigrant, and dons for that purpose a tail
twice as long as itself. It is then termed a _cercaria_, and is shaped
like a tadpole.

To recapitulate, then. A _cercaria_ may thus be the young of the
_rediæ_, either of the first or second generation; and the _rediæ_
again sprang from the sporocyst, which is the after-formation of the
fluke’s embryo. These _cercariæ_ or tadpole-shaped animals are flat
and oval in the body, about the ninetieth of an inch in length, and
tail more than twice as long. They escape from the parent _rediæ_ by
a natural orifice, crawl out of the snail, and enter on a new life.
Its existence as a _cercaria_ in this style will much depend on the
locality of the snail for the time being. If it should find itself in
water when quitting the snail, the _cercaria_ attaches itself when
swimming to the stalks of aquatic plants; or if in confinement, to the
walls of the aquarium. If the snail is in a field or on the edge of
a ditch or pool, the _cercaria_ on leaving proceeds to fix itself to
the stalks or lower leaves of grass near the roots. In every case the
result is the same. Gathering itself up into a round ball on coming
to rest, a gummy substance exudes from the body, forming a round
white envelope; the tail, being violently agitated, falls off, and
the round body left, hardening externally with exposure, the cyst or
bladder—measuring about the hundredth of an inch across—is complete.
Every cyst contains a young fluke, ready to be matured _only when
swallowed by some grazing animal, such as a sheep_. Till that happens,
the fluke within remains inert; and if not swallowed thus within a few
weeks, the inmate of the cyst finally perishes. Of this remarkable
family, however, a sufficient number outlive the changes and risks of
their life-history to render the disease caused by the survivors a
serious scourge.

It is to be hoped that the further results of careful inquiry into the
habits of these parasites will have the effect of reducing the evil to
a minimum.




CHEWTON-ABBOT.

BY HUGH CONWAY.


IN THREE CHAPTERS.—CHAPTER I.

The Abbots of Chewton-Abbot, Gloucestershire, were county people, and,
moreover, had always occupied that coveted position. They dreaded
not the researches of the officious antiquary who pokes about in
pedigrees, and finds that, three or four generations ago, the founders
of certain families acquired their wealth by trade. They at least were
independent of money-earning. The fact that Chewton began to be known
as Chewton-Abbot so far back as the fifteenth century, showed they were
no upstarts. Indeed, if not of the very first rank—that rank from which
knights of the shire are chosen—the Abbots, from the antiquity of their
family, and from the centuries that family had owned the same estates,
were entitled to dispute the question of precedence with all save a
few very great magnates. They were undoubtedly people of importance.
The reigning Abbot, it need scarcely be said, was always a county
magistrate, and at some period of his life certain to serve as sheriff.
But for generations the family had occupied exactly the same position,
and exercised exactly the same amount of influence in the land. The
Abbots seemed neither to rise nor fall. If they added nothing to their
estates, they alienated nothing. If they gave no great statesmen,
warriors, or geniuses to the world, they produced, sparingly, highly
respectable members of society, who lived upon the family acres and
spent their revenues in a becoming manner.

The estates were unentailed; but as, so far, no Abbot had incurred
his father’s displeasure, the line of descent from father to eldest
son had been unbroken, and appeared likely to continue so. True, it
was whispered, years ago, that the custom was nearly changed, when Mr
William Abbot, the present owner of the estate, was leading a life in
London very different from the respectable traditions of the family.
But the reports were not authenticated; and as, soon after his father’s
death, he married a member of an equally old, equally respectable, and
equally proud family, all such ill-natured gossip died a natural death;
and at the time this tale opens, William Abbot was leading the same
quiet life his ancestors had led before him.

It was one of the cherished Abbot traditions that the family was not
prolific. So long as the race was kept from disappearing, they were
contented. In this respect the present head of the family showed
himself a true Abbot. He had but one son, a young man who had just
taken a fair degree at Oxford, and who was now staying at Chewton
Hall, before departing on a round of polite travel, which, according
to old-world precedent, his parents considered necessary to crown the
educational edifice.

Mr and Mrs Abbot were in the breakfast-room at Chewton Hall. Mr Abbot
was alone at the table, lazily discussing his breakfast. His wife and
son, who were early risers, had taken that meal nearly an hour before.
The young man being away on some outdoor pursuit, the husband and wife
had the room to themselves. Mr Abbot had just poured out his second
cup of tea, and, according to his usual custom, commenced breaking the
seals of the letters which lay beside his plate. His wife drew near to
him.

‘I am afraid that infatuated boy has in some way entangled himself with
the young woman I told you of,’ she said.

‘What young woman?’ asked Mr Abbot, laying down his letters.

‘I told you last week he was always riding into Bristol—so often, that
I felt sure there was some attraction there.’

‘You did, I remember. But I took little notice of it. Boys will be
boys, you know.’

‘Yes; but it is time we interfered. I found him this morning kissing a
photograph and holding a lock of hair in his hand. I taxed him with his
folly.’

‘My dear Helena,’ said Mr Abbot, with a shade of contempt in his voice,
‘will you forgive my saying, that in matters of this kind it is best to
leave young men alone, and not to see more than can be helped. Leave
the boy alone—that is my advice.’

‘You don’t quite understand me,’ replied Mrs Abbot. ‘He wants to marry
her.’

‘Wants to do what!’ cried her husband, now fully aware of the gravity
of the situation.

‘He told me this morning he had asked her to be his wife. She would, he
knew, consent, if we would welcome her as a daughter.’

‘How kind! How considerate!’ said Mr Abbot scornfully. ‘Who may she be,
and where did Frank meet her?’

‘He saved her from some incivility at the railway station, and so made
her acquaintance. Who she is, he scarcely seems to know, except that
her name is Millicent Keene, and that she lives with an aunt somewhere
in Clifton. Frank gave me the address, and begged me to call—assuring
me that I should take her to my heart the moment I saw her.’

‘He must be mad!’ exclaimed Mr Abbot, rising and pacing the room. ‘Mad,
utterly mad! Does he think that we are going to let him—an Abbot—marry
the first nameless young woman who strikes his fancy? I will talk to
him, and soon bring him to his senses. The estates are unentailed,
thank goodness! so I have some hold over him.’

Mrs Abbot’s lip just curled with scorn, as she heard her husband’s
direct commonplace plan for restoring her son’s wandering senses. She
knew that such parental thunderbolts were apt to do more harm than good.

‘I would not threaten just yet,’ she said. ‘Frank is very self-willed,
and may give us trouble. For my part, I intend to drive into Clifton
this morning and see the girl.’

‘What folly! To give the affair your apparent sanction?’

‘No. To show her how absurd it is to fancy we shall ever allow Frank to
take a wife out of his proper sphere; and to hint that if he marries
against our will, her husband will be a beggar. The fact of her
withholding her consent to marry him until we approve of her, shows me
she is quite able to look after her own interests.’

Mr Abbot, who knew his wife’s skill in social diplomacy, offered no
valid objections; so the horses were ordered, and Mrs Abbot drove to
Clifton.

The mistress of Chewton Hall was a woman of about fifty-five; tall and
stately, noticeably but not attractively handsome. Rising in intellect
far above the level of the family into which she had married, she had
started by endeavouring to mould her husband’s mind to the capacities
of her own. In the early days of their married life, she had urged him
unceasingly to strive for a higher position in the world than that of
a mere country gentleman. She wished him to enter the political arena;
to contest a borough; in fact, to change his way of living entirely.
But she found the task a hopeless one. A docile husband in most things,
nothing could move William Abbot from the easy groove in which his
forefathers had always placidly slidden. The husband and wife were of
very different natures. Perhaps the only common ground between them
was their family pride and the sense of their importance. Yet while
the gentleman was quite contented with the latter as it now stood, and
always had stood, the lady was ambitious, and wished to augment it.
But her efforts were of no avail; so at last, with a feeling touching
dangerously near to contempt, she gave up attempting to sway her
husband in this direction, and centred all her hopes in her only son,
on whom she flattered herself she had bestowed some of her superior
intellect. He should play an important part in the world. At the first
opportunity, he should enter parliament, become a distinguished member
of society, and, so far as possible, satisfy her ambition. Of course
he must marry, but his marriage should be one to strengthen his hands
both by wealth and connections. Now that he was on the threshold of
man’s estate, she had turned her serious attention to this subject, and
had for some time been considering what heiresses she knew who were
worthy of picking up the handkerchief which she meant to let fall on
his behalf. She had postponed her decision until his return from the
contemplated tour. Then she would broach the subject of an advantageous
matrimonial alliance to him. By broaching the subject, Mrs Abbot meant
laying her commands upon her son to wed the lady she had chosen for him.

As she drove along the twelve miles of road to Clifton, and reflected
on all these things, is it any wonder that her frame of mind was an
unpleasant one; that her eyes grew hard, and she felt little disposed
to be merciful to the owner of that pretty face which threatened to
come between her and the cherished schemes of years?

The carriage stopped at the address given her by her son—a quiet
little house in a quiet little street, where the arrival of so grand
an equipage and so fine a pair of horses was an event of sufficient
rarity to make many windows open, and maid-servants, even mistresses,
crane out and wonder what it meant. Mrs Abbot, having ascertained that
Miss Keene was at home, and having made known her wish to see her, was
shown into a room plainly but not untastefully furnished. A piano,
an unfinished drawing, some dainty embroidery, gave evidence of more
refinement than Mrs Abbot expected, or, to tell the truth, hoped to
find in her enemy’s surroundings. A bunch of flowers, artistically
arranged, was in a glass vase on the table; and the visitor felt more
angry and bitter than before, as she recognised many a choice orchid,
and knew by this token that the Chewton hothouses had been robbed for
Miss Keene’s sake. Mrs Abbot tapped her foot impatiently as she awaited
the moment when her youthful enemy should appear and be satisfactorily
crushed.

The mistress of Chewton-Abbot had somehow conceived the idea that the
girl who had won her son’s heart was of a dollish style of beauty.
She may have jumped at this conclusion from the memories of her own
young days, when she found the heart of man was more susceptible to
attractions of this type than to those of her own severer charms.
Pretty enough, after a fashion, she expected to find the girl, but
quite crushable and pliant between her clever and experienced hands.
She had no reason for this impression. She had coldly declined to
look at the portrait which her son, that morning, had wished to show
her. Having formed her own ideal of her would-be successor at Chewton
Hall, she regulated her actions accordingly. Her plan was to begin by
striking terror into the foe. She wished no deception; the amenities of
social warfare might be dispensed with on this occasion. Knowing the
advantage usually gained by a sudden and unexpected attack, she had not
revealed her name. She simply desired the servant to announce a lady to
see Miss Keene.

Hearing a light step approaching the door, Mrs Abbot drew herself up to
her full height and assumed the most majestic attitude she could. It
was as one may imagine a fine three-decker of the old days turning her
broadside, with sixty guns run out and ready for action, upon some puny
foe, to show her that at a word she might be blown out of the water. Or
it was what is called nowadays a demonstration in force.

The door opened, and Millicent Keene entered. Mrs Abbot bowed slightly;
then, without speaking a word, in a deliberate manner looked the
newcomer up and down. She did not for a moment attempt to conceal the
object of her visit. Her offensive scrutiny was an open declaration of
war, and the girl was welcome to construe it as such.

But what did the great lady see as she cast that hostile, but, in spite
of herself, half-curious glance on the girl who came forward to greet
her unexpected visitor? She saw a beautiful girl of about nineteen;
tall, and, making allowances for age, stately as herself. She saw a
figure as near perfection as a young girl’s may be. She saw a sweet
calm face, with regular features and pale pure complexion, yet with
enough colour to speak of perfect health. She saw a pair of dark-brown
truthful eyes—eyes made darker by the long lashes—a mass of brown hair
dressed exactly as it should be. She saw, in fact, the exact opposite
to the picture she had drawn: and as Millicent Keene, with graceful
carriage and a firm but light step, advanced towards her, Mrs Abbot’s
heart sank. She had entirely miscalculated the strength of the enemy,
and she felt that it would be no easy matter to tear a woman such as
this from a young man’s heart.

The girl bore Mrs Abbot’s offensive glance bravely. She returned her
bow, and without embarrassment, begged her to be seated. Then she
waited for her visitor to explain the object of her call.

‘You do not know who I am, I suppose?’ said Mrs Abbot after a pause.

‘I have the pleasure of knowing Mrs Abbot by sight,’ replied Millicent
in a perfectly calm voice.

‘Then you know why I have called upon you?’

The girl made no reply.

Mrs Abbot continued, with unmistakable scorn in her voice: ‘I have
called to see the young lady whom my son tells me he is resolved,
against his parents’ wish, to make his wife.’

‘I am sorry, Mrs Abbot, you should have thought it needful to call and
tell me this.’

‘How could you expect otherwise? Frank Abbot bears one of the oldest
names, and is heir to one of the best estates in the county. When he
marries, he must marry a wife in his own position. What has Miss Keene
to offer in exchange for what he can bestow?’

The girl’s pale face flushed; but her brave brown eyes met those of her
interrogator without flinching. ‘If I thought you would understand me,
Mrs Abbot, I should say that I have a woman’s true love to give him,
and that is enough. He sought me, and won that love. He asked for it,
and I gave it. I can say no more.’

‘In these days,’ said Mrs Abbot contemptuously, ‘persons in our station
require more than love—_that_, a young man like Frank can always have
for the asking.—Of what family are you, Miss Keene?’

‘Of none. My father was a tradesman. He was unfortunate in his
business, and has been many years abroad trying to redeem his fortunes.
With the exception of an education which, I fear, has cost my poor
father many privations, I have nothing to boast of. I live with an
aunt, who has a small income of her own.—Now you know my history.’

Mrs Abbot had soon seen that crushing tactics failed to meet the
exigencies of the case. She put on an appearance of frankness. ‘You are
candid with me, Miss Keene, and it appears to me you have plenty of
common-sense. I put it to you; do you think that Mr Abbot or myself can
lend our sanction to this ill-advised affair?’

The girl’s lip curled in a manner which was particularly galling to Mrs
Abbot. A tradesman’s daughter, whose proper place was behind a counter,
had no right to be able to assume such an expression! ‘That was for
Frank, not for me, to consider, Mrs Abbot.’

‘But surely you will not marry him against our wishes?’

The girl was silent for a minute. An answer to such a question
required consideration. ‘Not yet,’ she said. ‘We are both too young.
But if, in after-years, Frank Abbot wishes me to be his wife, I
will share his lot, let it be high or low.’ She spoke proudly and
decisively, as one who felt that her love was well worth having, and
would make up for much that a man might be called on to resign in order
to enjoy it.

It was this independence, the value the tradesman’s daughter set upon
herself, that annoyed Mrs Abbot, and led her into the mistake of firing
her last and, as she hoped, fatal shot. ‘You are not perhaps aware,’
she said, ‘that the estate is unentailed?’

Millicent, who did not at once catch the drift of her words, looked
inquiringly.

‘I mean,’ explained Mrs Abbot, ‘that my husband may leave it to whom he
likes—that if you marry my son, you will marry a beggar.’

The girl rose. With all her practice, Mrs Abbot herself could not have
spoken or looked more scornfully. ‘How little you know me, madam, to
insult me like that! Have you so poor an opinion of your son as to
fancy I cannot love him for himself? Did you marry Mr Abbot for his
wealth?’—Mrs Abbot winced mentally at the question.—‘Do you think I
wish to marry Francis Abbot only for the position I shall gain? You are
wrong—utterly wrong!’

‘Then,’ said Mrs Abbot with the bitterness of defeat, ‘I suppose you
will persist in this foolish engagement, and the only chance I have is
an appeal to my son?’

‘I have promised to be his wife. He alone shall release me from that
promise. But it may be long before he can claim it, and so your anxiety
may rest for some time, Mrs Abbot. I have this morning received a
letter from my father. He wishes me to join him in Australia. Next
month, I shall sail, and it will probably be three or four years before
I return. Then, if Frank wishes me to be his wife—if he says to me: “I
will risk loss of lands and love of parents for your sake,” I will bid
him take me, and carve out a way in the world for himself.’

A weight was lifted from Mrs Abbot’s mind. She caught the situation at
once. Three or four years’ separation! What might not happen! Although
she strove to speak calmly as a great lady should, she could not keep a
certain eagerness out of her voice. ‘But will you not correspond during
that time?’

This was another important question. Again Millicent paused, and
considered her answer. ‘I will neither write nor be written to. If,
eventually, I marry your son—if his love can stand the test of absence
and silence—at least you shall not say I did not give him every
opportunity of terminating our engagement.’

Mrs Abbot rose and assumed a pleasant manner—so pleasant that,
considering the respective positions of herself and Miss Keene, it
should have been irresistible. ‘I am compelled to say that such a
decision is all I could expect. You must forgive me if, with my views
for my son’s career, I have said anything hasty or unjust. I will
now wish you good-morning; and I am sure, had we met under other
circumstances, we might have been great friends.’

Whatever of dignity and majesty Mrs Abbot dropped as she put on this
appearance of friendliness was taken up by the girl. She took no notice
of her visitor’s outstretched hand. She rang the bell for the servant,
and bowed coldly and haughtily as Mrs Abbot swept from the room.

But bravely as she had borne herself under the eyes of her inquisitor,
when the rumble of the carriage wheels died away from the quiet street,
Millicent Keene threw herself on the sofa and burst into a flood of
tears. ‘O my love!’ she sobbed out. ‘It is hard; but it is right. It
will never be, I know! It is too long—too long to wait and hope. Can
you be true, when everything is brought to bear against me? Will you
forget? Will the love of to-day seem but a boy’s idle dream? Shall _I_
ever forget?’




EPISODES OF LITERARY MANUSCRIPTS.


A great deal might be said on the subject of manuscripts. From the
carefully illuminated specimens of old, preserved in our public
museums, down to the hastily scribbled printer’s ‘copy’ of to-day,
each bears a history, and could contribute to unfold some portion of
the life of the author whose hand had wrought it. Indeed, were it
possible for each written sheet to tell its own story—we here refer
to manuscripts of more modern date—what a picture of intellectual
endurance, disappointments, poverty, and ofttimes despair, would be
brought to light; what tales of huntings amongst publishers, rebuffs
encountered, and hardships undergone, would be added to literary
biography.

Thackeray has himself told us how his _Vanity Fair_ was hawked about
from publisher to publisher, and its failure everywhere predicted. For
a long period, Charlotte Brontë’s _Jane Eyre_ shared the same fate.
Again, Mr Kinglake’s carefully composed _Eothen_, the labour of several
years, was destined to go the weary round of publishers in vain; and
it was only when its author induced one of that cautious fraternity to
accept the classic little work as a present, that he at length enjoyed
the gratification of seeing it in print. The first chapter of _The
Diary of a Late Physician_ was offered successively to the conductors
of the three leading London magazines, and rejected as ‘unsuitable to
their pages,’ and ‘not likely to interest the public,’ until Mr Warren,
then a young man of three-and-twenty, and a law student, bethought
himself of _Blackwood_. ‘I remember taking my packet,’ he says, ‘to Mr
Cadell’s in the Strand, with a sad suspicion that I should never see
or hear anything more of it; but shortly after, I received a letter
from Mr Blackwood, informing me that he had inserted the chapter, and
begging me to make arrangements for immediately proceeding regularly
with the series. He expressed his cordial approval of that portion, and
predicted that I was likely to produce a series of papers well suited
to his magazine, and calculated to interest the public.’

Turning now for a moment to the disciples of dramatic authorship, we
discover that their experience is similar to that of many authors.
Poor Tom Robertson—that indefatigable actor and dramatist—sank into
his grave almost before he saw the establishment of his fame; and
John Baldwin Buckstone, during his struggling career, was in the habit
of pawning his manuscripts with Mr Lacy, the theatrical publisher, in
order to procure bread. Upon one occasion, when met by a sympathising
actor in the street, he appeared with scarcely a shoe to his feet, and
almost broken-hearted, declaring that all his earthly anticipations
were centred upon the acceptance of a comedy, the rejection of which
would certainly prove fatal to his existence. In the end, happily for
him, the comedy was accepted.

The following anecdote is connected with the history of the Odéon,
one of the first theatres in Paris. One day a young author came to
ascertain the fate of his piece, which, by the way, had appeared such
a formidable package upon its receipt, that the secretary was not
possessed of sufficient moral courage to untie the tape that bound
it. ‘It is not written in the style to suit the theatre,’ he replied,
handing back the manuscript. ‘It is not bad, but it is deficient in
interest.’ At this juncture, the young man smiled, and untying the
roll, he displayed some quires of blank paper! Thus convicted, the
secretary shook hands with the aspirant, invited him to dinner, and
shortly afterwards assisted him to a successful _début_ at the Odéon.
Another author once waited upon the popular manager of a London theatre
inquiring the result of the perusal of his manuscript; whereupon the
other, having forgotten all about it, carefully opened a large drawer,
exhibiting a heterogeneous mass of documents, and exclaimed: ‘There!
help yourself. I don’t know exactly which is yours; but you may take
any one of them you like!’

In this instance the manager was even more considerate towards the
feelings of an author than that other dramatic demigod who, it is
said, was regularly in receipt of so many new pieces, good, bad,
and indifferent, that he devised an ingenious method of getting rid
of them. During that particular season, the exigencies of the play
required a roll of papers—presumably a will—to be nightly burned in a
candle in full sight of the audience; and in this way he managed to
make room for the numerous manuscripts which young authors only too
eagerly poured in upon him, quite unconscious of their certain fate!

Indeed, volumes might be written upon the difficulties sometimes
encountered in climbing the literary ladder, and whilst the more
persevering have ultimately achieved the goal of their ambition,
others have been fated to see their writings consigned to oblivion,
and have themselves perhaps sunk into an early grave, consequent upon
the disappointments and privations endured. When the poet Chatterton
was found lying dead in his garret in Brook Street, his manuscripts
had been strewn upon the floor, torn into a thousand pieces. Thus
much good literature has often been lost to posterity. A number of
instances, too, might be cited wherein persons have risen from their
deathbed to destroy their manuscripts, and which task has either proved
so distressing to their sensibilities, or fatiguing to their physical
powers, that they immediately afterwards expired. It is placed upon
record how Colardeau, that elegant versifier of Pope’s Epistle of
Eloisa to Abelard, recollected at the approach of his death that he
had not destroyed what was written of a translation of Tasso; and
unwilling to intrust this delicate office to his friends, he raised
himself from his bed, and dragging his feeble frame to the place where
the manuscript was deposited, with a last effort he consumed it in the
flames. In another example, an author of celebrity directed his papers
to be brought to his bed, and there, the attendant holding a light, he
burned them, smiling as the greedy flames devoured what had been his
work for years.

Few authors willingly destroy any manuscript that has cost them a
long period of toil and research, though history records numerous
examples where the loss of certain manuscripts has almost proved an
irremediable misfortune to their author. The story of Mr Carlyle
lending the manuscript of the first volume of his _French Revolution_
to his friend John Stuart Mill, and its accidental destruction by fire,
is well known. A similar disaster once happened to M. Firmin Abauzit, a
philosopher who had applied himself to every branch of human learning,
and to whom the great Newton had remarked, among other compliments:
‘You are worthy to distinguish between Leibnitz and me.’ It happened
on one occasion that he had engaged a fresh female servant, rustic,
simple, and thoughtless, and being left alone in his study for a while,
she declared to herself that she would ‘set his things to rights;’ with
which words she deliberately cleared the table, and swept the whole
of his papers into the fire, thus destroying calculations which had
been the work of upwards of forty years. Without one word, however,
the philosopher calmly recommenced his task, with more pain than can
readily be imagined. Most readers also will remember the similar
misadventure which occurred to Sir Isaac Newton.

Of manuscripts which have perished through the ignorance or malignancy
of the illiterate, there are numerous instances. The original ‘Magna
Charta,’ with all its appendages of seals and signatures, was one day
discovered, by Sir Robert Cotton, in the hands of his tailor, who with
his shears was already in the act of cutting up into measures that
priceless document, which had been so long given up as for ever lost.
He bought the curiosity for a trifle; and caused it to be preserved,
where it is still to be seen, in the Cottonian Library, with the
marks of dilapidation plainly apparent. The immortal works of Agobart
were found by Papirius Masson in the hands of a bookbinder at Lyons,
the mechanic having long been in the habit of using the manuscript
sheets for the purpose of lining the covers of his books. Similarly, a
stray page of the second decade of Livy was found by a man of letters
concealed under the parchment of his battledore, as he was amusing
himself at that pastime in the country. He at once hastened to the
maker of the battledore; but alas! it was too late—the man had used the
last sheet of the manuscript of Livy about a week before!

A treatise printed among the works of Barbosa, a bishop of Ugento, in
1649, fell into the possession of that worthy, it is said, in a rather
singular manner. Having sent out for a fish for his table, his domestic
brought him one rolled up in a piece of written paper, which excited
the bishop’s curiosity so much, that he forthwith rushed out to the
market, just in time to discover and rescue the original manuscript
from which the leaf had been torn. This work he afterwards published
under the title of _De Officio Episcopi_.

The manuscripts of Leonardo da Vinci suffered greatly from the
wilful ignorance of his relatives. Once, when a curious collector of
antiquities chanced to discover a portion of his writings by the merest
accident, he eagerly carried them to one of the descendants of the
great painter; but the man coldly observed that ‘he had a great deal
more in his garret, which had lain there for many years, if the rats
had not destroyed them.’

Cardinal Granville was in the habit of preserving his letters, and
at his death, he left behind him a prodigious number, written in all
languages, and duly noted, underlined, and collated by his own hand.
These relics were left in several immense chests, to the mercy of time
and the rats; and subsequently, five or six of the chestsful were sold
to the grocers as waste paper. It was then that an examination of the
treasure was made; and as the result of the united labours of several
literary men, enough of the papers to fill eight thick folios were
rescued, and afterwards published.

Fire and shipwreck have at various periods caused considerable havoc
among manuscripts. Many of our oldest Anglo-Saxon manuscripts were
consumed some years ago by a fire in the Cottonian Library; and those
which remain present a baked and shrivelled appearance, rendering them
almost unrecognisable. Ben Jonson on one occasion sustained the loss
of the labours of twenty-one years within one short hour, by fire; and
Meninsky’s famous Persian Dictionary met with a like fate from the
effects of a bomb falling upon the roof of his house during the siege
of Vienna by the Turks.

National libraries have occasionally been lost at sea. In the
beginning of last century, a wealthy burgomaster of Middelburg, in
the Netherlands, named Hudde, actuated solely by literary curiosity,
made a journey to China; and after travelling through the whole of the
provinces, he set sail for Europe, laden with a manuscript collection
of his observations, the labour of thirty years, the whole of which
was sunk in the ocean. Again, Guarino Verenese, one of those learned
Italians who volunteered to travel through Greece for the recovery of
ancient manuscripts, had his perseverance repaid by the acquisition
of many priceless treasures. Returning to Italy, however, he was
shipwrecked; and such was his grief at the loss of this collection,
that his hair became suddenly white.

Differing from those authors who have destroyed their manuscripts
before death, are those who have delivered them into the hands of
relatives and friends, together with the fullest instructions as to
their disposal. It is well known that Lord Byron handed the manuscript
of his autobiography to Tom Moore, with the strictest injunctions not
to publish it till after his death. Immediately after he expired, Moore
sold the manuscript to John Murray the publisher for two thousand
pounds; but subsequently knowing something of the nature of the
autobiography, and the effect which its publication would exert upon
the memory of the deceased author, his own better feelings, united to
the persuasions of Byron’s friends, prompted him to regain possession
of the document, which he did, at the same time refunding the money to
Mr Murray. The manuscript was then burned.

In the matter of the manuscripts of musical works, it may be related
that shortly after Handel had settled at Hamburg in the capacity of
conductor of the opera in that city, he cultivated the acquaintance
of a well-known musician named Mattheson, and the two became great
friends. But presently a quarrel arose between them, the result of
which was that they drew their swords; and Mattheson’s weapon might in
all probability have dealt fatally with the other’s life, had it not
chanced to strike and break upon the score of _Almira_, Handel’s first
opera, which he had hurriedly stowed beneath his coat, and over which,
it is said, the quarrel had really arisen. After this, the combatants
became reconciled, and Mattheson eventually bore the principal
character in the opera when it was produced.

Returning to literature, it is perhaps not generally known that Swift’s
_Tale of a Tub_ was introduced to the world with such cunning secrecy,
that the manuscript was actually thrown from a passing coach into the
doorway of the bookseller who afterwards published it. _Gulliver’s
Travels_ was given to the public in the same mysterious manner. From
one of Swift’s letters to Pope, as well as from another epistle to
Dr T. Sheridan, we learn that during the time occupied in finishing,
revising, and transcribing his manuscript, prior to thinking about a
fitting bookseller to publish it, Tickell, then Secretary of State,
expressed a strong curiosity to see the work concerning which there
was so much secrecy. But the Dean frankly replied that it would be
quite impossible for Mr Tickell to find his ‘treasury of _waste-papers_
without searching through nine different houses,’ inasmuch as he had
his manuscripts conveyed from place to place through nine or ten
different hands; and then it would be necessary to send to him for a
key to the work, else he could not understand a chapter of it. In the
end, _Gulliver_ came forth from its hiding-place through the medium
of Mr Charles Ford, who offered to carry the manuscript to Mr Motte
the bookseller, on behalf of his friend, and to whom he afterwards
complained that the man’s timidity was such as to compel him to make
some important abridgments throughout the work. The book was, however,
no sooner published, than it was received with unlimited acclamation by
all classes.

Of Defoe’s world-famous _Robinson Crusoe_, published in 1719, we are
told that it was only taken up by Taylor—who purchased the manuscript,
and netted one thousand pounds by the publication—after every other
bookseller in town had refused it. In a similar manner, one bookseller
refused to give twenty-five pounds for the manuscript of Fielding’s
_Tom Jones_; while another bought it, and cleared not less than
eighteen thousand pounds by the venture during his lifetime!

With a few particulars touching upon the value of manuscripts which
have at various periods been put up for public sale after the death of
their authors, we will bring our paper to a conclusion.

When, some years ago, the manuscript of Scott’s _Guy Mannering_
came into the market, the United States gladly secured the precious
treasure at a cost of three hundred and eighty guineas; and in 1867,
at a sale of the manuscripts which had belonged to Mr Cadell the
well-known publisher, the _Lady of the Lake_ was sold for two hundred
and seventy-seven guineas, and _Rokeby_ realised one hundred and
thirty-six guineas, both becoming the property of Mr Hope-Scott. At
the same sale, Sir William Fraser paid two hundred guineas for the
manuscript of _Marmion_; whilst the same appreciative collector of
literary antiquities paid, in 1875, so high a price as two hundred and
fifty guineas for Gray’s _Elegy in a Country Churchyard_, a composition
occupying no more than four quarto sheets of manuscript.

Of Charles Dickens’s manuscripts, _The Christmas Carol_ was purchased
by Mr Harvey of St James’s Street for the sum of one hundred and fifty
pounds, and resold by him for two hundred and fifty pounds; _The Battle
of Life_ is still held on sale by that gentleman; and _Our Mutual
Friend_ was purchased, on behalf of Mr George Washington Childs of
Philadelphia, by Mr Hotten, for two hundred pounds. As is well known,
the manuscript of _The Pickwick Papers_ was bequeathed by Mr Forster
to the South Kensington Museum, and will become the property of the
British nation on the death of his widow, who has meanwhile, and in
the most generous manner, permitted it and other manuscripts from the
pen of Charles Dickens to be publicly exhibited where they will become
permanently enshrined.

Not very long ago, the manuscript of a short poem by Burns brought
seventy guineas; yet this sum must be regarded as but a small
proportion of that value which might be realised for only one
line—not to speak of one play—written by Shakspeare’s own hand. In
his _Memorials of Westminster Abbey_, the late Dean Stanley has told
us how Spenser the poet died in King Street, Westminster, and was
solemnly interred in Poets’ Corner, hard by. ‘His hearse,’ he says,
‘was attended by poets; and mournful elegies, together with the pens
that wrote them, were thrown into his tomb. What a funeral was that at
which Beaumont, Fletcher, Jonson, and, in all probability, Shakspeare
attended! what a grave in which the pen of Shakspeare may be mouldering
away!’ Certainly, if but one line of that ‘mournful elegy’ written
by the Immortal Bard could be recovered and offered for sale, we
should then have a pleasing and memorable opportunity of marking the
estimation in which the poet is held by mankind.




ANIMAL MEMORIALS AND MEMENTOES.


Commenting on the honour paid by the Athenians to a dog that followed
his master across the sea to Salamis, Pope says: ‘This respect to a dog
in the most polite people of the world is very observable. A modern
instance of gratitude to a dog, though we have but few such, is, that
the chief Order of Denmark—now called the Order of the Elephant—was
instituted in memory of the fidelity of a dog named Wild-brat to one of
their kings, who had been deserted by his subjects. He gave his Order
this motto, or to this effect (which still remains): “Wild-brat was
faithful.”’

Had Pope been writing half-a-dozen years later, he need not have
gone to Denmark for a modern instance of gratitude to a dog. Mr
Robert—afterwards Viscount—Molesworth being prevented entering an
outhouse by his favourite greyhound pulling him away by his coat
lappet, ordered a footman to examine the place. On opening the
door, the man was shot dead by a hidden robber. The faithful hound
afterwards died in London, and his master sent his body to Yorkshire,
to be inurned in Edglington Wood, near Doncaster; the receptacle of
his remains bearing an inscription in Latin, which has been thus
translated: ‘Stay, traveller! Nor wonder that a lamented Dog is thus
interred with funeral honour. But, ah! what a Dog! His beautiful form
and snow-white colour; pleasing manners and sportive playfulness;
his affection, obedience, and fidelity, made him the delight of his
master, to whom he closely adhered with his eager companions of the
chase, delighted in attending him. Whenever the mind of his lord was
depressed, he would assume fresh spirit and animation. A master, not
ungrateful for his merits, has here, in tears, deposited his remains in
this marble urn.—M. F. C. 1714.’

An Italian greyhound, buried in Earl Temple’s garden at Stowe, had
never saved his master’s life, but was nevertheless held worthy of
a memorial stone, bearing the eulogistic epitaph from the pen of
Arbuthnot:

‘To the Memory of SIGNOR FIDO—An Italian of good extraction, who came
to England not to bite us, like most of his countrymen, but to gain an
honest livelihood. He hunted not for fame, yet acquired it; regardless
of the praises of his friends, but most sensible of their love.
Though he lived among the Great, he neither learned nor flattered any
vice. He was no bigot, though he doubted of none of the Thirty-nine
Articles. And if to follow Nature and to respect the laws of Society
be philosophical, he was a perfect philosopher, a faithful friend, an
agreeable companion, a loving husband, distinguished by a numerous
offspring, all which he lived to see take good courses. In his old
age, he retired to the home of a clergyman in the country, where he
finished his earthly race, and died an honour and an example to his
species. Reader—This stone is guiltless of flattery, for he to whom it
is inscribed was not a Man, but a Greyhound.’

That eulogy is more than could honestly be said of the animal whose
monument proclaims:

    Here lies the body of my dear retriever;
    Of his master alone he was ne’er a deceiver;
    But the Game-laws he hated, and poached out of bounds—
    His spirit now ranges the glad hunting-grounds.

Not in company, we should say, with that of the blameless creature
commemorated by the couplet:

    Beneath this stone, there lies at rest
    BANDY, of all good dogs the best.

Among the sojourners at the _Grand Hôtel Victoria_, Mentone, in the
year 1872, was the Archduchess Marie Régnier, who, during her three
months’ stay there, took such a liking to mine host’s handsome dog
Pietrino, that she begged him of M. Milandi, and carried her prize
with her to Vienna. In less than a fortnight after reaching that
capital, Pietrino was back in his old quarters again, having travelled
eight hundred miles across strange countries, over mountains, through
towns and villages, only to die at his master’s feet five days after
his coming home. He was buried among the rose-bushes in the grounds
so familiar to him, his resting place marked by a marble column,
inscribed, ‘Ci-gît PIETRINO, Ami Fidèle. 1872.’

Exactly a hundred years before that, a dog died at Minorca out of sheer
grief for the loss of his master, who, ordered home to England, did not
care to encumber himself with his canine friend. Honouring the deserted
animal’s unworthily placed affection, his owner’s brother-officers saw
him decently interred, and erected a stone to his memory, bearing an
epitaph written by Lieutenant Erskine, ending:

    His life was shortened by no slothful ease,
    Vice-begot care, or folly-bred disease.
    Forsook by him he valued more than life,
    His generous nature sank beneath the strife.
    Left by his master on a foreign shore,
    New masters offered—but he owned no more;
    The ocean oft with seeming sorrow eyed,
    And pierced by man’s ingratitude, he died.

Of tougher constitution was a small Scotch terrier that, in 1868,
followed his master’s coffin to the churchyard of Old Greyfriars,
Edinburgh, heedless of the notice forbidding entrance to dogs. The
morning after the funeral, Bobby was found lying on the newly-made
mound. He was turned out of the churchyard; but the next morning saw
him upon the grave, and the next and the next. Taking pity upon the
forlorn little creature, the custodian of the burial-ground gave him
some food. From that time, Bobby considered himself privileged, and
was constantly in and about the churchyard, only leaving it at mid-day
to obtain a meal at the expense of a kind-hearted restaurant keeper;
but every night was passed upon the spot holding all he had once held
dear. Many were the attempts to get him to transfer his allegiance
from the dead to the living; but none availed. As long as his life
lasted, and it lasted four years, Bobby stayed by, or in the immediate
neighbourhood of, his master’s grave. Such fidelity, unexampled even
in his faithful race, deserved to be kept in remembrance; and thanks
to the most munificent of Lady Bountifuls, his memory is kept green by
his counterfeit presentment on a drinking-fountain of Peterhead granite
erected on George the Fourth Bridge, as a ‘tribute to the affectionate
fidelity of GREYFRIARS BOBBY. In 1868, the faithful dog followed the
remains of his master to Greyfriars Churchyard, and lingered near the
spot until his death in 1872.’

London is not without its memorials to dogs. On the wall leading to
the Irongate Stairs, near the Tower, may be read: ‘In Memory of EGYPT,
a favourite dog belonging to the Irongate Watermen, killed on the 4th
August 1841, aged 16.

    Here lies interred, beneath this spot,
    A faithful dog, who should not be forgot.
    Full fifteen years he watched here with care,
    Contented with hard bed and harder fare.
    Around the Tower he daily used to roam
    In search of bits so savoury, or a bone.
    A military pet he was, and in the Dock,
    His rounds he always went at twelve o’clock;
    Supplied with cash, which held between his jaws—
    The reason’s plain—he had no hands but paws—
    He’d trot o’er Tower Hill to a favourite shop,
    There eat his meal and down his money drop.
    To club he went on each successive night,
    Where, dressed in jacket gay, he took his pipe;
    With spectacles on nose he played his tricks,
    And pawed the paper, not the politics.
    Going his usual round, near Traitors’ Gate,
    Infirm and almost blind, he met his fate;
    By ruthless kick hurled from the wharf, below
    The stones on which the gentle Thames does flow,
    Mortally injured, soon resigned his breath,
    Thus left his friends, who here record his death.’

A tablet placed near the north-east end of the platform of the Edgware
Road Railway Station, is inscribed:

              In Memory of
                Poor FAN,
             Died May 8, 1876.
    For ten years at the Drivers’ call.
               Fed by many,
             Regretted by all.

Poor Fan lies under an evergreen hard by. She was notable for
travelling continually on a railway engine between the Edgware Road
and Hammersmith; occasionally getting off at an intermediate station,
crossing the line, and returning by the next train; never taking any
train but a Hammersmith train when outward bound, or going farther east
than her own particular station when journeying homewards.

An Englishman travelling in France in 1698, was disgusted at seeing,
in a ducal garden, a superb memorial in the shape of a black marble
cat couching on a gilded white marble cushion, on the top of a black
marble pedestal bearing the one word ‘MENINE.’ Such posthumous honour
is rarely paid to puss; but two other instances of it may be cited.
In making excavations near the Place de la Bastille, in the ground
formerly occupied by the gardens of the Hôtel de Lesdiguières, the
workmen brought to light the handsome tomb of a cat which had belonged
to Françoise-Marguerite de Gondy, widow of Emmanuel de Crequi, Duke of
Lesdiguières. It bore no laudatory epitaph, but the odd quatrain:

    Cy-gist une chatte jolie.
    Sa maitresse, qui n’aima rien,
    L’aima jusqu’à la folie.
    Pourquoi le dire? On le voit bien.

Or to put it into English: ‘Here lies a handsome cat. Her mistress, who
loved nothing, loved her out of caprice. Why say so? All the world knew
it well.’

‘Grandfather,’ a feline Nestor, belonging to a lady in Scotland, was
something more than handsome. When he had passed his twenty-first year,
he could climb a tree, catch a bird, hunt a mouse, or kill a rat,
as cleverly as in his younger days; and when he died, at the age of
twenty-two, had well earned himself a memorial stone and an epitaph.
Both were accorded him, the last-named running thus:

    ‘Life to the last enjoyed,’ here Pussy lies,
    Renowned for mousing and for catching flies;
    Loving o’er grass and pliant branch to roam,
    Yet ever constant to the smiles of home.

           .       .       .       .       .

    The Preux Chevalier of the race of Cats,
    He has outlived their customary span,
    As Jenkins and Old Parr had that of Man;
    And might on tiles have murmured in moonshine
    Nestorian tales of youth and Troy divine;
    Of rivals fought; of kitten-martyrdoms;
    While, meekly listening, round sat Tabs and Toms.
    But with the modesty of genuine worth,
    He vaunted not his deeds of ancient birth;
    His whiskers twitched not, at the world’s applause,
    He only yawned, and licked his reverend paws;
    Curled round his head his tail, and fell asleep,
    Lapped in sweet dreams, and left us here to weep.
    Yet pleased to know, that ere he sank to rest,
    As far as mortal cats are, he was blest.

The horse, even though he may have won a fortune for his master, as a
rule goes literally to the dogs at last. Some few of the wonders of
the turf have escaped that indignity. A plain stone inscribed simply
‘SIR PETER,’ tells visitors to Knowsley, Sir Peter Teazle lies beneath
it. A sculptured stone, rifled from a cardinal’s monument, overlooks
the grave of Emilius at Easby Abbey. A cedar, planted by a once famous
jockey, rises hard by the resting-place of Bay-Middleton and Crucifix;
Kingston reposes under the shade of a grand oak at Eltham; Blair-Athol,
the pride of Malton, lies embowered at Cobham; and green is the grave
of Amato, well within hail of the course he traversed triumphantly.
The skeleton of Eclipse is still, we believe, on view at Cannons,
but it must be minus at least one hoof, since King William IV. gave
a piece of plate, with a hoof of Eclipse set in gold, to be run for
at Ascot in 1832; the trophy being carried off by Lord Chesterfield’s
Priam. Equine mementoes usually take this form, and many a sideboard
can show the polished hoof of a famous racehorse. The Prince of Wales
is said to possess a hoof of the charger that bore Nolan to his death
at Balaklava; it is surmounted with a small silver figure of the
Captain, carrying the fatal order for the advance of the Light Brigade.
An interesting military souvenir enough; but not so interesting as a
polished and shod hoof, mounted so as to serve as a snuff-box, the
property of the Guards’ Club; for this bears the inscription: ‘Hoof
of MARENGO, rare charger of Napoleon, ridden by him at Marengo,
Austerlitz, Jena, Wagram, in the campaign of Russia, and lastly at
Waterloo;’ while on the margin of the silver shoe is to be read:
‘Marengo was wounded in the near hip at Waterloo, when his great master
was on him, in the hollow road in advance of the French position. He
had been frequently wounded before in other battles.’




SOME FOOD-NOTES.


We have received the following notes from a gentleman—an occasional
contributor—who devotes much of his attention to such matters, making
them indeed an especial and constant study.

_The Antipodean Rabbit Nuisance._—That which for several years past has
been the bane of agriculturists at the antipodes, is not unlikely to
prove in the end something akin to a blessing. Rabbits in many places,
notwithstanding what has been done to exterminate them, are nearly as
numerous as ever; but instead of killing them by means of poison and
burying them in the ground, they are now systematically ‘trapped,’
and, being cooked and tinned, command a large sale. At the Western
Meat-preserving Company’s Works, Colac, Victoria, as many as seventeen
thousand pairs of rabbits are dealt with in the course of the early
weeks of the season, which, it may be explained, lasts for a period
of seven months; and although the supply diminishes as the season
progresses, over three hundred thousand pairs are annually prepared
for sale, finding a ready market. A large number of persons are
employed during the continuance of this industry; no fewer than three
hundred and fifty people obtaining remunerative work in connection with
this one establishment. On an average, over five thousand two-pound
tins are turned out every day within the period indicated. These are
made up for sale in three different ways—as plain rabbits, as rabbits
cooked with onions, and rabbits done up with bacon; and for each
description there is now setting in a large European demand. Many of
the men engaged in the rabbit-work at Colac are exceedingly dexterous,
and work with great rapidity, some individual hands among them being
able to skin with ease one hundred pairs of rabbits in an hour. In
order to gain a wager, one very expert person skinned four hundred and
twenty-eight of these animals in sixty minutes! It should be mentioned,
that before being skinned, the heads and feet of the conies are chopped
off. Work of every kind is performed by the most cleanly methods, and
only the best animals are selected to be tinned, while none are sent
out without being carefully examined. The trappers are paid by results,
and are, as a rule, welcome to visit those farms which are overrun
with the pest. In the earlier weeks of the season, a gang of expert
trappers will each earn over five pounds a week. The rabbits as they
are caught are slung across poles in convenient places, and then lifted
and conveyed in carts to ‘the works.’ There are several establishments
of the kind in Victoria, and hopes are now being entertained by farmers
of a speedy deliverance from the rabbit nuisance, as the large numbers
which are being killed must in time tell on the breeding supplies.
Similar establishments are also about to be started in New Zealand.

_Edible Snails._—None but those who have made special inquiry into
the subject are aware of the great dimensions which the continental
snail-trade has of late assumed. Many tons of these vine-fed delicacies
reach Paris every year during the snail season, which lasts from
September to about April, during some part of which period under
natural circumstances the animals would be asleep. In this country
there would be a universal shudder, if it were proposed to add the
common garden-snail to the national commissariat, no matter how
attractive might be the shape assumed by the _Escargot de Bourgogne_,
or other snail of the orchard or vineyard; yet we eat countless
quantities of whelks and periwinkles, which are not such clean-feeding
animals as the snails of the garden. A recent authority states that
enormous quantities of snails are forwarded annually from Marseilles
and Genoa to Paris, and that tens of thousands of these creatures
find their way to the markets of Bordeaux, Lyons, Vienna, and Munich.
Such is the demand, that many persons now ‘cultivate’ snails for the
markets, and find the business a remunerative one. As many as twenty or
thirty thousand can be bred in a very small space.

_The Conger Eel._—This fish has of late attracted a good deal of
attention, from its having been asserted that it was frequently made
into turtle-soup. Whether that be so or not, the conger eel is in
reality one of our most valuable food-fishes. There is, unfortunately,
a prejudice in the public mind against it. In all continental
fish-markets—at least in those situated on seas which contain the
fish—a plentiful supply of congers may always be had. The writer has
seen hundreds of them in the markets at Dieppe, Boulogne, and Paris,
and in the _cuisine_ of France the conger occupies a prominent place.
It can be converted into excellent soup, and may be cooked in various
other palatable ways: it may be roasted, stewed, or broiled, or made
into a succulent pie. In Guernsey and Jersey, its flesh is highly
esteemed, as being adaptable to the culinary art in an eminent degree.
This fish ought to be much more plentifully exposed for sale than it
is; and if our fishermen found a market for it, it would no doubt
be so. It is a most prolific animal, yielding its eggs in literal
millions. A specimen which weighed twenty-eight pounds possessed a roe
of the weight of twenty-three ounces, which was computed to contain the
almost incredible number of fifteen millions of eggs! Mr Buckland, in
one of his fishery Reports, says: ‘What becomes of this enormous number
of eggs, is unknown to man; they probably form the food of many small
sea-creatures, especially crabs. They are exceedingly minute.’ How
curious it seems that the common herring, which yields on the average
about thirty thousand ova, should be so plentiful, and the conger,
which contains many millions of eggs, should be comparatively so scarce.




SERENADE.


    Sweet maiden, awake
      From the region of sleep,
    Alone for thy sake
      Here my vigil I keep;
    The moon rides on high,
      The stars shine above,
    Yet sleepless am I
      By the charm of thy love.

    All nature reposes:
      The sun is at rest,
    Fast shut are the roses,
      Each bird in its nest;
    The air is unstirred
      By the drone of the bee,
    Safe penned is each herd—
      And my thoughts are of thee.

    Oh, what is dull Time
      In true love’s estimation?
    Who measures each chime,
      In its rapt contemplation?
    Immortal in birth,
      It descends from above,
    And raises from earth
      The frail creatures who love.

    Oh, spurn me not, maiden!
      Dismiss me not home,
    With misery laden
      Henceforward to roam;
    By the spell of thy power,
      Which has fettered the free,
    Creation’s sweet flower,
      Bend thy fragrance to me!

            ALBERT E. STEMBRIDGE.

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

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