Title: Chambers's Journal of Popular Literature, Science, and Art, Fifth Series, No. 3, Vol. I, January 19, 1884
Author: Various
Language: English
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LITERATURE, SCIENCE, AND ART, FIFTH SERIES, NO. 3, VOL. I, JANUARY 19,
1884 ***



[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. 3.—VOL. I.      SATURDAY, JANUARY 19, 1884.      PRICE 1½_d._]



GIRLS, WIVES, AND MOTHERS.

A WORD TO THE MIDDLE CLASSES.


There may be theoretically much to sympathise with in the cry for the
yet higher culture of the women of our middle classes, but at the
same time not a little to find fault with in practice. While it is
difficult to believe that there can be such a thing as over-education
of the human subject, male or female, there may yet be false lines
of training, which lead to a dainty misplaced refinement, quite
incompatible with the social position the woman may be called to fill
in after-life, and which too often presupposes, what even education has
a difficulty in supplying—a subsistence in life. Where we equip, we too
frequently impede. In the hurry to be intelligent and accomplished, the
glitter of drawing-room graces is an object of greater desire than the
more homely but not less estimable virtues identified with the kitchen.
Our young housewives are imbued with far too much of the æsthete at the
expense of the cook; too much of the stage, and too little of the home.
In abandoning the equally mistaken views of our grandfathers on women’s
up-bringing, we have gone to the opposite extreme, to the exclusion of
anything like a means to an end; and in the blindest disregard of the
recipients’ circumstances in life, present and prospective.

In considering what the aim of female education ought to be, it is
surely not too much to expect that of all things it should mentally
and physically fit our women for the battle of life. Its application
and utility should not have to end where they practically do at
present—at the altar. While it is necessary to provide a common armour
for purposes of general defence, there certainly ought to be a special
strengthening of the harness where most blows are to be anticipated;
and if not to all, certainly to middle-class women, the years of battle
come _after_, not before marriage. Every one of them, then, ought to
be trained in conformity with the supreme law of her being, to prove
a real helpmate to the man that takes her to wife. Make sure that she
is first of all thoroughly qualified for a mother’s part, in what may
be called a working sphere of life; then add whatever graces may be
desirable as a sweetening, according to taste, means, and opportunity.
It is in this happy blending of abstract knowledge with the economy of
a home, that true success in the education of middle-class women must
be sought.

In the training of our boys, utility in after-life is seldom lost
sight of. Why should it be too often the reverse in the education of
our girls, whose great vocation in life, as wives and mothers, is a
birthright they cannot renounce, which no lord of creation can deprive
them of, and which no sticklers for what they are pleased to call the
rights of women can logically disown? No doubt, among the last-named
there are extreme people, who cannot, from the very nature of their
own individual circumstances, see anything in wifely cares save the
shackles of an old-world civilisation. In their eyes, motherhood is a
tax upon pleasure, and an abasement of the sex. With them, there need
be no parley. There is no pursuit under the sun that a woman will not
freely forsake—often at a sacrifice—for the wifely cares that supervene
on marriage; and therein, few will deny, lies her great and natural
sphere in life. Than it, there is no nobler. In it, she can encounter
no rival; and any attempt to divest herself of nature’s charge can
have but one ending. The blandishments of a cold æstheticism can never
soothe, animate, and brighten the human soul, like the warm, suffusive
joys which cluster round the married state.

Here we may briefly digress to remark, that in our opinion, no valid
objections can be urged against women entering professional life,
_provided they stick to it_. They already teach, and that is neither
the lightest nor least important of masculine pursuits. Why should they
not prescribe for body and soul? why not turn their proverbial gifts
of speech to a golden account at the bar? It would be in quitting any
of these professions, and taking up the _rôle_ of wife and mother,
which they would have to learn at the expense of their own and others’
happiness, that the real mischief of the liberty would lie. In nine
cases out of ten, their failure in the second choice would be assured,
thereby poisoning all social well-being at its very source.

The woman not over- but mis-educated is becoming an alarmingly fruitful
cause of the downward tendencies of much of our middle-class society.
She herself is less to blame for this, than the short-sighted, though
possibly well-meant policy of her parents and guardians, who, in the
worst spirit of the age, veneer their own flesh and blood, as they do
their furniture, for appearance’ sake. Let us glance at the educational
equipment they provide their girls with, always premising that our
remarks are to be held as strictly applicable only to the middle ranks
of our complex society.

Our typical young woman receives a large amount of miscellaneous
education, extending far through her teens, and amounting to a very
fair mastery of the _R_s. If she limp in any of these, it will be
in the admittedly vexatious processes of arithmetic. She will have
a pretty ready command of the grammatical and idiomatic uses of her
mother-tongue; a fairly firm hold of the geography of this planet, and
an intelligent conception of the extra-terrestrial system. She will
have plodded through piles of French and German courses, learning many
things from them but the language. She will have a fair if not profound
knowledge of history. She can, in all likelihood, draw a little, and
even paint; but of all her accomplishments, what she must imperatively
excel in is music. From tender years, she will have diligently laboured
at all the musical profundities; and her chances in the matrimonial
market of the future are probably regarded as being in proportion to
her proficient manipulation of the keyboard. If she can sing, well and
good; play on the piano she must. If, as a girl, she has no taste for
instrumental music, and no ear to guide her flights in harmony, the
more reason why she should, with the perseverance of despair, thump
away on the irresponsive ivories, in defiance of every instinct in her
being. The result at twenty _may_ be something tangible in some cases,
but extremely unsatisfactory at the price.

During all these years, she has been systematically kept ignorant of
almost every domestic care. Of the commonplaces of cookery she has
not the remotest idea. A great educationist, whose statement we have
good reason to indorse, asserts that there are thousands of our young
housewives that do not know how to cook a potato. This may seem satire.
It is, we fear, in too many cases, true, and we quote it with a view to
correct rather than chastise.

The misapplications of young miss’s upbringing do not end here. She
cannot sew to any purpose. If she deign to use a needle at all, it
is to embroider a smoking-cap for a lover or a pair of slippers for
papa. To sew on a button, or cut out and unite the plainest piece of
male or female clothing, is not always within her powers, or at least
her inclinations. Prosaic vulgar work, fit only for dressmakers and
milliners! She will spend weeks and months over eighteen inches of
what she is pleased to call lace, while the neighbouring seamstress is
making up all her underclothing, to pay for which, papa has not too
much money; but then it is genteel.

She cannot knit. A pair of worsted cuffs or a lanky cravat is something
great to attain to; while a stocking, even were the charwomen less
easily paid, is sure to come off the needles right-lined as any of
Euclid’s parallelograms—all leg and no ankle—a suspicion of foot, but
never a vestige of heel. To darn the hole that so soon appears in the
loosely knitted fabric, would be a servile, reproachful task, quite
staggering to the sentimental aspirations of our engaged Angelina.
Yet darning and the divine art of mending will one day be to her a
veritable philosopher’s stone, whose magic influences will shed beams
of happiness over her household, and fortunate will she be if she have
not to seek it with tears.

By the sick-bed, where she ought to be supreme, she is often worse
than useless. The pillows that harden on the couch of convalescence,
too rarely know her softening touch. She may be all kindness and
attention—for the natural currents of her being are full to repletion
of sweetness and sympathy—yet as incapable of really skilled service
as an artist’s lay-figure. And, as a last touch to the sorry picture,
instead of being in any way a source of comfort to the bread-winners of
her family, or a lessening of the strain on their purse-strings, she is
a continual cause of extra work to servants, of anxiety to her parents,
of _ennui_ to herself.

Apparently, the chief mission of the young lady to whom we
address ourselves, is to entice some eligible young man into the
responsibilities of wedlock. He, poor fellow, succumbs not so much
to intrinsic merits, as to fine lady-like airs. He sees the polish
on the surface, and takes for granted that there is good solid wear
underneath. Our young miss has conquered, and quits the family
roof-tree, sweetly conscious of her orange wreath of victory; but
alas!—we are sorry to say it—do not her conquests too often end at
the altar, unless she resolutely set herself to learn the exacting
mysteries of her new sphere, and, what is far more difficult, to
unlearn much that she has acquired? That she often does at this stage
make a bold and firm departure from the toyish fancies of her training,
and makes, from the sheer plasticity and devotion of her character,
wonderful strides in the housewife’s craft, we cheerfully confess. Were
it otherwise, the domestic framework of society would be in a far more
disorganised condition than it happily is. But why handicap her for the
most important, most arduous portion of her race in life? Why train her
to be the vapid fine lady, with almost the certainty that, by so doing,
you are taking the surest means of rendering her an insufficient wife
and mother? And, unfortunately, not always, in fact but seldom, is she
able, when she crosses her husband’s threshold, to tear herself away
from her omnivorous novel-reading, piano-playing, and all the other
alleviations of confirmed idleness.

The sweets of the honeymoon and an undefined vacation beyond make no
great calls on her as a helpmate and wife. If her husband’s means
permit of a servant or two, the smoother the water and the plainer
the sailing for the nonce; although these keen-scented critics in
the kitchen will, in a very short time, detect and take the grossest
advantage of their mistress’s inexperience. Besides, if we reflect
that among our middle classes more marry on an income of two hundred
pounds than on a higher, it becomes painfully apparent that two or
three servants are the one thing our young housewife needs, but cannot
possibly afford.

She is now, however, only about to begin her life-work, and if there is
such a thing clearly marked out for a being on this globe, it is for
woman. By birthright, she is the mother of the human race. Could she
have a greater, grander field for enterprise? How admirably has nature
fitted her for performing the functions of the mother and adorning the
province of the wife! Hence, there devolves upon her a responsibility
which no extraneous labour in more inviting fields can excuse. No
philosophy, no tinkering of the constitution, no success in the
misnamed higher walks of life and knowledge, will atone for the failure
of the mother. Let her shine a social star of the first magnitude, let
her be supreme in every intellectual circle, and then marry, as she
is ever prone to do, in spite of all theories; and if she fail as a
mother, she fails as a woman and as a human being. She becomes a mere
rag, a tatter of nature’s cast-off clothing, spiritless, aimless, a
failure in this great world of work.

As her family increases, the household shadows deepen, where all
should be purity, sweetness, and light. The domestic ship may even
founder through the downright, culpable incapacity of her that takes
the helm. Her children never have the air of comfort and cleanliness.
In their clothes, the stitch is never in time. The wilful neglect, and
consequent waste, in this one matter of half-worn clothing is almost
incredible. A slatternly atmosphere pervades her entire home. With the
lapse of time our young wife becomes gradually untidy, dishevelled,
and even dirty, in her own person; and at last sits down for good,
disconsolate and overwhelmed by her unseen foe. Her husband can find no
pleasure in the ‘hugger-mugger,’ as Carlyle phrases it, of his home;
there is no brightness in it to cheer his hours of rest. He returns
from his daily labours to a chaos, which he shuns by going elsewhere;
and so the sequel of misery and neglect takes form.

As a first precaution against such a calamity, let us strip our
home-life of every taint of quackery. Let us regard women’s education,
like that of men, as a means to a lifelong end, never forgetting that
if we unfit it for everyday practice, we render it a mere useless gem,
valuable in a sense, but unset. Middle-class women will be the better
educated, in every sense, the more skilled they are in the functions
of the mother and the duties of the wife. Give them every chance of
proving thrifty wives and good mothers, in addition to, or, where
that is impossible, to the exclusion of accomplished brides. Let some
part of their training as presently constituted, such as the rigours
of music, and the fritterings of embroidery, give way, in part, to
the essential acquirements which every woman, every mother should
possess, and which no gold can buy. Give us a woman, then, natural in
her studies, her training, her vocations, and her dress, and in the
words of the wisest of men, who certainly had a varied experience of
womankind, we shall have something ‘far more precious than rubies. She
will not be afraid of the snow for her household; strength and honour
will be her clothing; her husband shall have no need of spoil; he shall
be known in the gates, when he sitteth among the elders; he shall
praise her; and her children shall call her blessed.’



BY MEAD AND STREAM.


CHAPTER IV.—IN THE OAK PARLOUR.

And so, it had been only a bit of Uncle Dick’s kindly forethought and
common-sense which had prompted the alarming words he had spoken to
Madge. How she and Philip laughed at the chimerical idea that there
could be any possible combination of circumstances in time or space
which could alter their thoughts regarding each other! The birds in
the orchard, in the intervals of pecking the fruit, seemed to sing a
joyous laughing chorus at the absurdity of it—notwithstanding that the
admission of it might be prudent.

But when they came down to the point of vague admission that in the
abstract and in relation to other couples—of course it could not apply
to their own case—Uncle Dick’s counsel was such as prudent young people
about to separate should keep in mind, an expression of perplexity
flitted across Madge’s face. She looked at him with those tenderly
wistful serious eyes, half doubting whether or not to utter the thought
which had come to her.

‘But what I cannot understand,’ she said slowly, ‘is why Uncle Dick
should have been in such a temper. You know that although he may fly
into a passion at anything that seems to him wrong, he never keeps it
up. Now he had all the time riding home from Kingshope to cool, and yet
when he spoke to me he seemed to be as angry as if he had just come out
of the room where the quarrel took place.’

‘What can it matter to us?’ was the blithe response. ‘He is not angry
with me or with you, and so long as that is the case we need not mind
if he should quarrel with all creation.’

‘I’ll tell you what we will do,’ she said, and the disappearance of
all perplexity from her face showed that she was quite of his opinion,
although she wanted to have it supported by another authority.

‘What is that?’

‘We will go in and ask Aunt Hessy what she thinks about it.... Are you
aware, sir’ (this with a pretty assumption of severity), ‘that you have
not seen aunty to-day, and that you have not even inquired about her?’

‘That _is_ bad,’ he muttered; but it was evident that the badness which
he felt was the interruption of the happy wandering through the orchard
by this summary recall to duty.

In his remorse, however, he was ready to sacrifice his present
pleasure; for Aunt Hessy was a stanch friend of theirs, and it
might be that her cheery way of looking at things would dispel
the last lingering cloud of doubt from Madge’s mind regarding the
misunderstanding between his father and Uncle Dick.

‘Then we had better go in at once; we shall find her in the dairy.’

Mrs Crawshay was superintending the operations of three buxom maidens
who were scalding the large cans in which the milk was conveyed every
morning to the metropolis. Her ruddy face with the quiet, kindly gray
eyes was that of a woman in her prime, and even her perfectly white
hair did not detract from the sense of youth which was expressed in her
appearance: it was an additional charm. She was nearly sixty. Her age
was a standing joke of Uncle Dick’s. He had made the discovery that she
was a month older than himself, and he magnified it into a year.

‘Can’t you see?’ he would say, ‘if you are born in December and I am
born in January, that makes exactly a year’s difference?’

Then there would be a loud guffaw, and Uncle Dick would feel that he
had completely overcome the Missus. The words and the guffaw were as
a rule simultaneous, and if nobody happened to be present, it usually
ended in Uncle Dick putting his arm round her neck and saying with a
lump in his throat: ‘My old lass—young always to me.’

He had not the slightest notion of the poetry that was in his soul
whilst he spoke.

Mrs Crawshay believed in young love. She had been very happy in hers.
She had been brought up on a farm. Lads had come about her of course,
and she had put them aside with a—‘Nay, lad, I’m not for thee,’ and had
thought no more about them. Then Dick Crawshay had come, and—she did
not know why—she had said: ‘Yes, thou art my lad.’

They had been very happy notwithstanding their losses—indeed the losses
seemed to have drawn them closer together.

‘It’s only you and me, my old lass,’ he would say in their privacy.

‘Only you and me, Dick,’ she would say as her gray head rested on his
breast with all the emotion of youth in her heart.

       *       *       *       *       *

‘Go into the oak parlour,’ said Mrs Crawshay cheerily to the young
folks, when she understood their mission; ‘and I’ll be with you in a
minute.’

The oak parlour was the stateroom of the house. It was long and high;
the oak of the panels and beams which supported the pointed roof were
of that dark hue which only time can impart. The three narrow windows
had been lengthened by Dick’s father, and when the moon shone through
them they were like three white ghosts looking in upon the dark
chamber. But the moon did not often get a chance of doing this, for
there was only a brief period of the year during which there was not
a huge fire blazing in the great old-fashioned ingle. There were four
portraits of former Crawshays and three of famous horses; with these
exceptions the walls were bare, for none of the family had ever been
endowed with much love of art.

There were some legends still current about the mysteries hidden
behind the sombre panels. One of the panels was specially honoured
because it was reputed to have a recess behind it in which the king had
found shelter for a time during his flight from the Roundheads. But
owing to the indifference or carelessness of successive generations,
nobody was now quite sure to which of the panels this honour properly
belonged. There had been occasional attempts made to discover the royal
hiding-place, but they had hitherto failed.

The furniture was plain and substantial, displaying the styles of
several periods of manufacture. In spite of the stiff straight lines of
most of the things in the room, the red curtains, the red table-cover,
the odd variety of the chairs gave the place a homely and, when the
fire was ablaze, a cosy expression. This stateroom was correctly called
‘parlour,’ and it had been the scene of many a revel.

As Philip and Madge were on their way to the oak parlour, a servant
presented a card to the latter.

‘He asked for you, miss,’ said the girl, and passed on to the kitchen.

Madge looked at the card, and instantly held it out to Philip.

‘Hullo!—my father,’ ejaculated he, adding with a laugh: ‘Now you can
see that this mountain of yours is not even a molehill.’

‘How can you tell that?’

‘Because my father is the reverse of Uncle Dick. He never forgets—I
doubt if he ever forgives—an unpleasant word. And yet here he is. Come
along at once—but we had better say nothing to him about the affair
unless he speaks of it himself.’

They entered the room together, smiling hopefully.

Mr Lloyd Hadleigh was standing at a window, hat in one hand, slim
umbrella in the other, and staring hard at the shrubs. He had a way of
staring hard at everything, and yet the way was so calm and thoughtful
that he did not appear to see anything or anybody, and thus the stare
was not offensive.

‘The guv’nor always seems to be dreaming about you when he looks at
you, and you never know when he’s going to speak—that’s awk’ard,’ was
the description of his expression given by Caleb Kersey, one of the
occasional labourers on Ringsford.

He was a man of average height, firmly built; square face; thick
black moustache; close cropped black hair, with only an indication of
thinning on the top and showing few streaks of white. His age was not
more than fifty, and he had attained the full vigour of life.

‘People talk about the fire and “go” of thirty,’ he would say in his
dry way. ‘It is nonsense. At that age a man is either going downhill or
going up it, and in either case he is too much occupied and worried to
have time to be happy. That was the most miserable period of my life.’

Coldness was the first impression of his outward character. No one had
ever seen him in a passion. Successful in business, he had provided
well for the five children of a very early marriage. He never referred
to that event, and had been long a widower without showing the
slightest inclination to establish a new mistress at Ringsford.

He turned on the entrance of Madge and Philip, saluting the former with
grave politeness; then to the latter: ‘There are some letters for you
at home, Philip.’

‘Thank you, sir; but I have no doubt they can wait. I am to stay for
dinner here.’

‘From the postmarks I judge they are of importance.’

‘Ah—then I know who they are from, and in that case there is no hurry
at all, for the mail does not leave until Monday.’

Mr Hadleigh addressed himself to Madge—no sign of annoyance in voice or
manner.

‘May I be permitted to have a few minutes’ conversation with you in
private, Miss Heathcote?’

‘I beg your pardon, sir,’ broke in Philip hastily; ‘I did not
understand you to mean that you found me in the way.—If your aunt
should ask for me, Miss Heathcote, I shall be in the garden.’

With a good-natured inclination of the head, he went out. And as he
walked down the garden path filling his pipe, he muttered to himself
thoughtfully: ‘Seems to me he grows queerer and queerer every day. What
_can_ be the matter with him? If anybody else had asked for a private
interview so solemnly, I should have taken it for granted that he was
going to propose.... Daresay he wants to give some explanation of that
confounded row, and make his apologies through Madge. I should like him
to do that.’

But Mr Hadleigh was neither going to propose nor to make apologies.
He smiled, a curious sort of half-sad, half-amused smile, and there
was really something interesting in the expression of his eyes at the
moment.

‘The truth is, Miss Heathcote, that I cannot acknowledge weakness
before Philip. He is such a reckless fellow about money, that he would
tell me I ought to give in at once to the labourers.’

‘I am sure he would not, Mr Hadleigh, if he thought you were in the
right.’

‘I am not one likely to hold out if convinced that I am in the wrong.’

‘Few men do under these conditions, Mr Hadleigh,’ said Madge, smiling.

‘Well, at anyrate, I want your assistance very much; will you give it?’

‘With great pleasure, if it is worth anything to you.’

‘It is worth everything; for what harvest I might have on the
home-farm—and I understand it promises to be a good one—is likely to be
lost unless you help me.’

‘How can that be, Mr Hadleigh?’

‘Through beer. This is how the matter stands. You know the dispute
about the wages, and I am willing to give in to that. But on this
question of beer in the field I am firm. The men and women shall have
the price of it; but I will neither give beer on the field nor permit
them to bring it there. A great reform is to be worked in this matter,
and I mean to do what little I can to advance it. I am sure, Miss
Heathcote, you must acknowledge that I am right in adhering to this
resolution.’

‘I have been brought up in some very old-fashioned notions, Mr
Hadleigh,’ she answered with pretty evasiveness.

‘There is a high principle at stake in it, my dear Miss Heathcote, and
it is worth fighting for.’

‘But I do not yet see how my services are to be of use to you,’ she
said, anxious to avoid this debatable subject. It was one on which
her uncle had quite different views from those of Mr Hadleigh. And,
therefore, she could not altogether sympathise with the latter’s
enthusiasm, eager as she was to see the people steady and sober, for
she remembered at the moment that he had made a considerable portion of
his fortune out of a brewery.

‘That was exactly what I was about to explain,’ he replied. ‘I came to
beg you to speak to Caleb Kersey.’

‘Caleb!—why, he never touches anything stronger than tea.’

‘That may be; but he believes that other people have a right to do so
if they like. He has persuaded every man and woman who comes to me
or my bailiff to put the question: “Is there to be beer?” When they
are answered: “No; but the money,” they turn on their heels and march
off, so that at this moment we have only two men. Now, my dear Miss
Heathcote, will you persuade Kersey to stop his interference?’

‘I do not see that he is interfering; but I will speak to him.’

‘Thanks, thanks. If you were with me I should have no difficulty.’

‘You would find me a very bad second,’ she answered, laughing, ‘for I
should say—submit to old customs until persuasion alters them, since
force never can.’

Two things struck Madge during this interview and the commonplaces
about nothing which followed it: The first, how much more frank and at
ease he seemed to be with her than with any one else; and the second
was, how loath he seemed to go.

The owner of Ringsford said to himself as he was driven away: ‘I shall
be glad when she is Philip’s wife.’


CHAPTER V.—A NEW EDEN.

She was still standing at the door to which she had accompanied Mr
Hadleigh, and was looking after him, when a kindly voice behind her
said: ‘He does look a woeful man. I wonder if he has any real friends.’

Madge turned. Aunt Hessy was standing there, a pitying expression on
her comely face, and she was wiping her hands in her apron. There was
nothing in Mrs Crawshay’s manner or appearance to indicate her Quaker
antecedents, except the frequent use of thee and thou—she did not
always use that form of speech—and the quiet tone of all the colours
of her dress. Yet, until her marriage she had been, like her father,
a good Wesleyan; after her marriage she accompanied her husband to
the church in which his family had kept their place for so many
generations. To her simple faith it was the same whether she worshipped
in church or chapel.

‘Why do you say that, aunt?’

‘Because he seems to be so much alone.’

‘Mr Hadleigh alone! What about all the people who visit the manor?’

‘Ay, they visit the manor,’ answered Aunt Hessy, with a slight shake of
the head and a quiet smile.

That set Madge thinking. He did impress her as a solitary man,
notwithstanding his family, his many visitors, his school treats, his
flower-shows, and other signs of a busy and what ought to be a happy
life. Then there was the strange thing that he should come to ask her
assistance to enable him to come to terms with the harvesters.

‘I believe you are right, aunt. He is very much alone, and I suppose
that was why he came to me to-day.’

‘What did he want?’ asked Dame Crawshay, with unusual quickness and an
expression of anxiety Madge could not remember ever having seen on her
face before. She did not understand it until long afterwards.

Having explained the object of Mr Hadleigh’s visit, as she understood
it, she was surprised to see how much relieved her aunt looked. Knowing
that that good woman had never had a secret in her life, and never made
the least mystery about anything, she put the question direct: ‘Did you
expect him to say anything else?’

‘I don’t know, Madge. He is a queer man, Mr Hadleigh, in a-many ways.
He spoke to your uncle about this, and he would have nothing to do with
it.’

‘And that is why they fell out at the market, I suppose.’

‘Where is Philip? He must take after his mother, for he is
straightforward in everything.’

‘He is out in the garden. Shall I go for him?’

‘Nay. I want more peas, so we can find him on our way for them.’

Philip had not gone far. He had walked down to the duck-pond; but after
that distant excursion, he kept near the little gate beside the dairy,
glancing frequently at the house-door. He was dallying with the last
hours of the bright morning of his love, and he grudged every moment
that Madge was away from him. A few days hence he would be looking back
to this one with longing eyes. How miserable he would be on board that
ship! How he would hate the sound of the machinery, knowing that every
stroke of the piston was taking him so much farther away from her. And
then, as the waters widened and stretched into the sky, would not his
heart sink, and would he not wish that he had never started on this
weary journey?

In response to that lover-like question, he heard the echo of Madge’s
voice in his brain: ‘It was your mother’s wish.’

This simple reminder was enough, for he cherished the sad memory of
that sweet pale face, which smiled upon him hopefully a moment before
it became calm in death.

He sprang away from these sorrowful reflections. Yes; he would look
back longingly to this day when sea and sky shut out Willowmere and
Madge from sight. But they would both be palpable to his mental vision;
and he would look forward to that still brighter day of his return, his
mission fulfilled, and nothing to do but marry Madge and live happy
ever after. Ay, that should comfort him and make the present parting
bearable.

Besides, who could say with what fortune he might come back? The uncle
to whom he was going was rumoured to be the possessor of fabulous
wealth, and although married he was childless. True, also, he was
reported to be so eccentric that nobody could understand him, or
form the slightest conception of how he would act under any given
circumstances. But it was known that before he went abroad, his
sister—Philip’s mother—had been the one creature in whom all his
affection seemed to be concentrated. An inexplicable coldness appeared
in his conduct towards her after her marriage. The reason had never
been explained.

Shortly before her death, however, there had come a letter from him,
which made her very happy. But she had burned the letter, by his
instructions, without showing it to any one or revealing its contents.
Evidently it was this letter which induced her to lay upon her son
the charge of going to her brother Austin Shield, whenever he should
be summoned. But the uncle held no correspondence with any one at
Ringsford. That he was still alive, could be only surmised from vague
reports and the fact that on every anniversary of Mrs Hadleigh’s
birthday, with one exception, a fresh wreath of flowers was found on
her grave—placed there, it was believed, by his orders. Then a few
months ago, a letter had come to Philip, containing an invitation from
his uncle, suggesting possible advantages, and inclosing a draft for
expenses. So, being summoned, he was going; and whether the result
should be good or ill fortune, his mother’s last command would be
obeyed, and he would return with a clear conscience to marry Madge.

That thought kept him in good-humour throughout the weary ages which
seemed to elapse before he saw Madge and her aunt approaching. He ran
to meet them.

‘I thought you were never coming,’ was his exclamation.

‘Thou’lt be able to do without her for a longer time than this without
troubling thyself, by-and-by,’ said Dame Crawshay with one of her
pleasant smiles.

‘When that day comes, I will say you are a prophetess of evil,’ he
retorted, laughing, but with an air of affectionate respect. That was
the feeling with which she inspired everybody.

‘Nay, lad; but it need not be evil, for you may be apart, surely, doing
good for each other.’

‘Yes; but not without wishing we were together.’

‘Wilt ever be wishing that?’

‘For ever and ever.’

He answered with burlesque solemnity outwardly; but Madge knew that he
spoke from his heart, and in the full faith of his words. She gave him
a quiet glance with those soft wistful eyes, and he was very happy.

They had reached a tall row of peas, at which Dame Crawshay had
been already busy that morning, as a wooden chair placed beside it
indicated. Here she seated herself, and began to pluck the peas,
shelling them as she plucked; then dropping the pods into her lap and
the peas into a basin. She performed the operation with mechanical
regularity, which did not in any way interfere with conversation.

Madge, kneeling beside her, helped with nimble fingers; and Philip,
hands clasped behind him, stood looking on admiringly. The sun was
shining upon them; and, darting shafts of light through the surrounding
trees, made bright spots amidst the moving shadows underneath.
Everything seemed to be still and sleepy. The breeze was so light that
there was only a gentle rustle of leaves, and through it was heard
the occasional thud of an over-ripe apple or pear as it fell, and the
drowsy hum of the bees.

Light, warmth, peace. ‘Ah,’ thought Philip, ‘if we could only go on
this way always! If we could fix ourselves thus as in a photograph,
what a blessed Eden this would be!’

‘Thou’dst find it dull soon, Philip, standing there looking at us
shelling peas, if thou wert forced to do it,’ said Dame Crawshay,
looking up at him with a curious smile.

‘That shows you cannot guess my thoughts. They were of quite a
different nature, for I was wishing that there had been some fixing
process in nature, so that there might never be any change in our
present positions.’

Madge looked as if she had been thinking something very similar; but
she went on silently shelling peas; and a sunbeam shooting through a
gap in the green pea hedge, made a golden radiance on her face.

‘Eh, deary me, what love will do!’ exclaimed the dame, laughing, but
shaking her head regretfully, as if sorry that she could not look at
things in the same hopeful humour. ‘Other people have talked like
that in the heyday of life. Some have found a little of their hope
fulfilled; many have found none of it: all have found that they had to
give up the thought of a great deal of what they expected. Some take
their disappointment with wise content and make the best of things as
they find them. They jog along as happily as mortals may, like Dick and
me; a-many kick against the pricks and suffer sorely for it; but all
have to give in sooner or later, and own that the world could not get
along if everybody could arrange it to suit his own pleasure.’

How gently this good-natured philosopher brought them down from
the clouds to what foolish enthusiasts call contemptuously ‘the
common earth.’ Sensible people use the same phrase, but they use it
respectfully, knowing that this ‘common earth’ may be made beautiful or
ugly as their own actions instruct their vision.

To Philip it was quite true that most people sought something they
could never attain; that many people fancied they had found the
something they wanted, and discovered afterwards, to their sorrow,
that they had not found the thing at all. But then, you see, it was an
entirely different condition of affairs in his case. He had found what
he wanted, and knew that there could be no mistake about it.

To Madge, her aunt’s wisdom appeared to be very cold and even wrong
in some respects, considering the placid and happy experiences of her
own life. She had her great faith in Philip—her dream of a life which
should be made up of devotion to him under any circumstances of joy
or sorrow, and she could not believe that it was possible that their
experience should be as full of crosses as that of others. And yet
there was a strange faintness at her heart, as if she were vaguely
conscious that there were possibilities which neither she nor Philip
could foresee or understand.

‘We shall be amongst the wise folk,’ said Philip confidently, ‘and
take things as they come, contentedly. We shall be easily contented, so
long as we are true to each other—and I don’t think you imagine there
is any chance of a mistake in that respect.’

Aunt Hessy went on shelling peas for a time in silence. There was
a thoughtful expression on her kindly face, and there was even a
suggestion of sadness in it. Here were two young people—so young, so
happy, so full of faith in each other—just starting on that troublous
journey called Life, and she had to speak those words of warning which
always seem so harsh to the pupils, until, after bitter experience,
they look back and say: ‘If I had only taken the warning in time, what
might have been?’

By-and-by she spoke very softly: ‘Thou art thinking, Madge, that I am
croaking; and thou, Philip, are thinking the same.... Nay, there is no
need to deny it. But I do not mean to dishearten thee. All I want is to
make thee understand that there are many things we reckon as certain in
the heyday of life, that never come to us.’

‘I daresay,’ said Philip, plucking a pea-pod and chewing it savagely;
‘but don’t you think, Mrs Crawshay, that this is very like throwing
cold-water on us, and that throwing cold-water is very apt to produce
the misadventure which you think possible?—that is, that something
might happen to alter our plans?’

‘I am sorry for that, lad; I do not mean to throw cold-water on thee;
but rather to help thee and to help Madge to look at things in a
sensible way. Listen. I had a friend once who was like Madge; and she
had a friend who was, as it might be, like you, Philip. He went away,
as you are going, to seek his fortune in foreign parts. There was a
blunder between them, and she got wedded to another man. Her first lad
came back, and finding how things were, he went away again and never
spoke more to her.’

‘They must have been miserable.’

‘For a while they were miserable enough; but they got over it.’

‘I’ll be bound the man never married.’

‘There thou’dst be bound wrong. He did marry, and is now wealthy and
prosperous, though she was taken away in a fever long ago.’

‘Ay, but is he happy?’

‘That is only known to himself and Him that knows us all.’

‘Well, for our future I will trust Madge,’ said Philip, taking her
hand, ‘in spite of all your forebodings; and she will trust me.’

Dame Crawshay had filled her basin with peas, and she rose.

‘God bless thee, Philip, wherever thou goest, and make thy hopes
realities,’ she said with what seemed to the lovers unnecessary
solemnity.

The dame went into the house. Madge and Philip went down the meadow,
and under the willows by the merry river, forgot that there was any
parting before them or any danger that their fortunes might be crossed.

Those bright days! Can they ever come again, or can any future joy be
so full, so perfect? There are no love-speeches—little talk of any
kind, and what there is, is commonplace enough. There is no need for
speech. There is only—only!—the sense of the dear presence that makes
all the world beautiful, leaving the heart nothing more to desire.

But the dreams in the sunshine there under the willows, with the river
murmuring sympathetic harmonies at their feet! The dreams of a future,
and yet no future; for it is always to be as now. Can it be possible
that this man and woman will ever look coldly on each other—ever speak
angry, passionate words? Can it be possible that there will ever flit
across their minds one instant’s regret that they had come together?

No, no: the dreams are of the future; but the future will be always as
now—full of faith and gladness.



THE CLIFF-HOUSES OF CAÑON DE CHELLY.


The fourth and most southerly iron link of railway which will soon
stretch across the North American continent from ocean to ocean is
rapidly approaching completion along the thirty-fifth parallel;
already it has reached the San Francisco mountains in its course to
the Pacific. While avoiding the chances of blockade by snow, liable in
higher latitudes, it has struck through a little explored region among
the vast plains of Arizona and New Mexico. It is not easy at once to
realise the extent of table-lands, greater in area than Great Britain
and Ireland, upon which no soul has a settled habitation. The sun beats
down with terrible force on these dry undulating plains, where at most
times nothing relieves the eye, as it wanders away to the dim horizon,
save a few cactus and sage-bush plants. But at seasons, heavy rains
change dry gulches into roaring torrents, and parched lowlands into
broad lakes, covering the country with a fine grass, on which millions
of sheep, horses, and cattle are herded by wandering Navajo and Moqui
Indians. To the periodical rains, as well as to geological convulsions,
are traced the causes of those wondrous chasms, which in places break
abruptly the rolling surface of the prairie, and extend in rocky gorges
for many miles. They are called cañons. The grandeur of the scenery
found in one of them, Cañon de Chelly, can scarcely be overstated.

Cañon de Chelly—pronounced Canyon de Shay—is in the north of Arizona.
It takes its name from a Frenchman, who is said to have been the first
white man to set foot within its walls; but except the record of a
recent visit by the United States Geological Survey, no account of
it seems to have hitherto appeared. The picturesque features of this
magnificent ravine are unrivalled; and what lends a more fascinating
interest, is the existence, among its rocky walls, of dwellings once
occupied by a race of men, who, dropping into the ocean of the past
with an unwritten history, are only known to us as cave-dwellers.

In October 1882, an exploring party, headed by Professor Stevenson
of the Ethnological Bureau, Washington, and escorted by a number of
soldiers and Indian guides, set out for this remarkable spot. One of
the party, Lieutenant T. V. Keam, has furnished the following details
of their investigations. After travelling one hundred and twenty miles
out from the nearest military post, Fort Defiance, and crossing a
desert some twenty miles broad, the entrance to Cañon de Chelly was
reached. The bed of the ravine is entirely composed of sand, which is
constantly being blown along it, with pitiless force, by sudden gusts
of wind. The walls of the cañon are red sandstone; at first, but some
fifty feet high, they increase gradually, until at eighteen miles they
reach an elevation of twelve hundred feet, which is about the highest
point, and continue without decreasing for at least thirty miles. The
first night, Professor Stevenson’s party camped three miles from the
mouth of the cañon, under a grove of cotton-wood trees, and near a
clear flowing stream of water. Here the scene was an impressive one.
A side ravine of great magnitude intersected the main cañon, and at
the junction there stood out, like a sentinel, far from the rest of
the cliff, one solemn brown stone shaft eight hundred feet high. In
the morning, continuing the journey through the awful grandeur of the
gorge, the walls still increased in height, some having a smooth and
beautifully coloured surface reaching to one thousand feet; others,
from the action of water, sand storms, and atmospheric effects, cut and
broken into grand arches, battlements, and spires of every conceivable
shape. At times would be seen an immense opening in the wall,
stretching back a quarter of a mile, the sides covered with verdure of
different shades, reaching to the summit, where tall firs with giant
arms seemed dwarfed to the size of a puny gooseberry bush, and the
lordly oak was only distinguished by the beautiful sheen of its leaves.

On the second night the camp was formed at the base of a cliff, in
which were descried, planted along a niche at a height of nearly one
hundred feet, some cliff-dwellings. Next morning, these were reached
after a dangerous climb, by means of a rope thrown across a projecting
stick, up the almost perpendicular sides of this stupendous natural
fortress. The village was perched on its narrow ledge of rock, facing
the south, and was overshadowed by an enormous arch, formed in the
solid side of the cañon. Overlapping the ruins for at least fifty feet,
at a height above them of sixty feet, it spread its protecting roof
five hundred feet from end to end. No moisture ever penetrated beyond
the edge of this red shield of nature; and to its shelter, combined
with the dryness of the atmosphere and preserving nature of the sand,
is to be attributed the remarkable state of preservation, after such a
lapse of time, in which the houses of the cliff-dwellers were found.
Some of them still stood three stories high, built in compact form,
close together within the extremely limited space, the timber used
to support the roof being in some cases perfectly sound. The white
stone employed is gypsum, cut with stone implements, but having the
outer edges smoothly dressed and evenly laid up; the stones of equal
size placed parallel with each other presenting a uniform and pleasing
appearance.

No remains of importance were found here, excepting a finely woven
sandal, and some pieces of netting made from the fibre of the yucca
plant. But on proceeding two miles farther up the cañon, another group
of ruins was discovered, which contained relics of a very interesting
character. The interior of some of the larger houses was painted with
a series of red bands and squares, fresh in colour, and contained
fragments of ornamented pottery, besides what appeared to be pieces
of blankets made from birds’ feathers; these, perhaps, in ages past
bedecked the shoulders of some red beauty, when the grim old walls
echoed the fierce war-songs of a long-lost nation. But the most
fortunate find at this spot, and the first of that description made in
the country, was a cyst, constructed of timber smoothly plastered on
the inside, containing remains of three of the ancient cliff-dwellers.
One was in a sitting posture, the skin of the thighs and legs being in
a perfect state of preservation. These ruins, as in the former case,
were protected from the weather by an overhanging arch of rock.

At several points on the journey through Cañon de Chelly, hieroglyphics
were traced, graven on the cliff wall. Most of the designs were
unintelligible; but figures of animals, such as the bear and mountain
sheep or goat, were prominent. Another cliff village was observed of a
considerable size, but planted three hundred feet above the cañon bed,
in such a position that it is likely to remain sacred from the foot of
man for still further generations. The same elements which in geologic
time fashioned the caves and recesses of the cañon walls, have in later
times worn the approaches away, so that to-day they do not even furnish
a footing for the bear or coyote. In what remote age and for how many
generations the cliff-dwellers lived in these strange fastnesses, will
probably never be determined. Faint traces of still older buildings
are found here and there in the bed of Cañon de Chelly; and it is
conjectured that this region was once densely populated along the
watercourses, and that the tribes having been driven from their homes
by a powerful foe, the remnant sought refuge in the caves of the cañon
walls.

Of the great antiquity of these structures, there is no question.
The Indian of to-day knows nothing of their history, has not even
traditions concerning them. The Navajo, with a few poles plastered
with a heavy deposit of earth, constructs his _hogan_ or wigwam, and
rarely remains in the same place winter and summer. He has no more idea
of constructing a dwelling like those so perfectly preserved in the
cliffs, than he has of baking specimens of pottery such as are found
in fragments amongst the walls. In the fine quality of paste, in the
animal handles—something like old Japanese ware—and in the general
ornamentation, these exhibit a high order of excellence. Some specimens
of what is called laminated ware are remarkable; threadlike layers of
clay are laid one on each other with admirable delicacy and patience.
In these fragments may yet be read something of the history of a
vanished race. They illuminate a dark corner in the world’s history,
and seem to indicate a people who once felt civilising influences
higher than anything known by those uncouth figures whose camp-fires
now glimmer at night across the silent starlit prairie.



TWO DAYS IN A LIFETIME.

A STORY IN EIGHT CHAPTERS.


CHAPTER III.

Captain Bowood came forward. ‘Sir Frederick, your servant; glad to see
you,’ he said in his hearty sailor-like fashion.

‘I am glad to see you, Captain,’ responded the Baronet as he proffered
his hand. ‘How’s the gout this morning?’

‘So, so. Might be better—might be worse.—You here, Miss Saucebox!’ he
added, turning to Elsie. ‘Why are you not at your lessons—eh, now?’

‘As if anybody could learn Latin roots on a sunny morning like this!’
Then, clasping one of his arms with both her hands, and looking up
coaxingly into his face, she said: ‘You might give me a holiday, nunky
dear.’

‘Why, why? A holiday indeed!—Listen to her, Sir Frederick. The baggage
is always begging for holidays.’

‘But the baggage doesn’t always get them,’ was the answer with a pretty
pout. Then, after another glance at the long-haired stranger, who was
already busy with the piano, she said to herself: ‘It is he; I am sure
of it. And yet if I had not heard his voice, I should not have known
him.’

Captain Bowood at this time had left his sixtieth birthday behind him,
but he carried his years lightly. He was a bluff, hearty-looking,
loud-voiced man, with a very red face, and very white hair and
whiskers. A fever, several years previously, had radically impaired
his eyesight, since which time he had taken to wearing gold-rimmed
spectacles. He had a choleric temper; but his bursts of petulance
were like those summer storms which are over almost as soon as they
have broken, and leave not a cloud behind. Throughout the American
Civil War, Captain Bowood had been known as one of the most daring and
successful blockade-runners, and it was during those days of danger and
excitement that he laid the foundation of the fortune on which he had
since retired. No man was more completely ruled by his wife than the
choleric but generous-hearted Captain, and no man suspected the fact
less than he did.

‘I drove over this morning,’ said Sir Frederick, ‘to see you about that
bay mare which I hear you are desirous of getting rid of.’

‘Yes, yes—just so. We’ll go to the stable and have a look at her.
By-the-bye, I was talking to Boyd just now, when your name cropped up.
It seems he met you when you were both in South America. Oscar Boyd,
engineering fellow and all that. You remember him, eh, now?’

‘I certainly do remember a Mr Boyd; but it is many years since we met.’
Then to himself the Baronet said: ‘Can this be the other man? Oh! Lady
Dimsdale.’

‘A very agreeable fellow,’ said the Captain. ‘Here on a visit for a
couple of days. A little matter of business between him and me to save
lawyers’ expenses.’

‘The other man, without a doubt,’ thought the Baronet. ‘His wife must
be dead.’

Miss Brandon had slipped unobserved out of the room. She was now
sitting in the veranda, making-believe to be intent over her Latin
verbs, but in reality waiting impatiently till the coast should be
clear. She had not long to wait. Presently she heard the Captain say in
his cheery loud-voiced way: ‘Come along, Sir Frederick; we shall just
have time to look at the mare before luncheon;’ and a minute later, she
heard the shutting of a door.

Then she shut her book, rose from her seat, and crossing on tiptoe
to the open French-window, she peeped into the room. ‘Is that you,
Charley?’ she asked in a voice that was little above a whisper.

‘Whom else should it be?’ answered the young man, looking round from
the piano with a smile.

‘I was nearly sure of it from the first; but then you look such a guy!’

‘She calls me a guy! after all the trouble I have taken to get myself
up like a foreign nobleman.’ Speaking thus, he took off his spectacles
and wig, and stood revealed, as pleasant-looking a young fellow as one
would see in a day’s march.

Elsie ran forward with a little cry of surprise and delight. ‘Now I
know you for my own!’ she exclaimed; and when he took her in his arms
and kissed her—more than once—she offered not the slightest resistance.
‘But what a dreadful risk to run!’ she went on as soon as she was set
at liberty. ‘Suppose your uncle—good gracious!’

‘My uncle? He can’t eat me, that’s certain; and he has already cut me
off with the proverbial shilling.’

‘My poor boy! Fate is very, very hard upon you. We are both down
on our luck, Charley; but we can die together, can’t we?’ As she
propounded this question, she held out her box of bon-bons. Charley
took one, she took another, and then the box was put away. ‘A pan of
charcoal’—she went on, giving her sweetmeat a gustatory turn over with
her tongue—‘door and windows close shut—you go to sleep and forget to
wake up. What could be simpler?’

‘Hardly anything. But we have not quite come to that yet. Of course,
that dreadful Vice-chancellor won’t let me marry you for some time to
come; but he can’t help himself when you are one-and-twenty.’

‘That won’t be for nearly four years,’ answered Elsie with a pout.
‘What a long, long time to look forward to!’

‘We have only to be true to each other, which I am sure we shall be,
and it will pass away far more quickly than you imagine. By that time,
I hope to be earning enough money to find you a comfortable home.’

‘There’s my money, you know, Charley dear.’

‘I don’t mean to have anything to do with that. If I can’t earn enough
to keep my wife, I’ll never marry.’

‘Oh!’

‘But I shall do that, dear. Why, I’m getting five guineas a week
already; and if I’m not getting three times as much as that by the time
you are twenty-one, I’ll swallow my wig.’

‘Your uncle will never forgive you for going on the stage.’

‘O yes, he will, by-and-by, when he sees that I am making a fair living
by it and really mean to stick to it—having sown all my wild-oats; and
above all, when he finds how well they speak of me in his favourite
newspaper. And that reminds me that it was what the _Telephone_ said
about me that caused old Brooker our manager to raise my screw from
four guineas a week to five. I cut the notice out of the paper, you
may be sure. Here it is.’ Speaking thus, Master Charles produced
his pocket-book; and drew from it a printed slip of paper, which he
proceeded to read aloud: ‘“Although we have had occasion more than
once to commend the acting of Mr Warden”—that’s me—“we were certainly
surprised last evening by his very masterly rendering of the part
of Captain Cleveland. His byplay was remarkably clever; and his
impassioned love-making in the third act, where timidity or hesitation
would have been fatal to the piece, brought down the house, and earned
him two well-merited recalls. We certainly consider that there is no
more promising _jeune premier_ than Mr Warden now on the stage.” There,
my pet, what do you think of that?’ asked the young actor as he put
back the slip of paper into his pocket-book.

But his pet vouchsafed no answer. Her face was turned from him; a tear
fell from her eye. His arms were round her in a moment. ‘My darling
child, what can be the matter?’ he asked.

‘I—I wish you had never gone on the stage,’ said Elsie, with a sob in
her voice. ‘I—I wish you were still a tea-broker!’

‘Good gracious! what makes you wish anything so absurd?’

‘It’s not absurd. Doesn’t the newspaper speak of your “impassioned
love-making?” And then people—lovers, I mean—are always kissing each
other on the stage.’

‘Just as they do sometimes in real life;’ and with that he suited the
action to the word.

‘Don’t, Mr Summers, please.’ And she pushed him away, and her eyes
flashed through her tears, and she looked very pretty.

Mr Summers sat down on a chair and was unfeeling enough to laugh. ‘Why,
what a little goose you are!’ he said.

‘I don’t see it at all.’ This with a toss of her head. Certainly, it is
not pleasant to be called a goose.

‘You must know, if you come to think of it, that both love-making and
kissing on the stage are only so much make-believe, however real they
may seem to the audience. During the last six months, it has been
my fate to have to make love to about a dozen different ladies; and
during the next six months I shall probably have to do the same thing
to as many more; but to imagine on that account that I really care
for any of them, or that they really care for me, would be as absurd
as to suppose that because in the piece we shall play to-morrow night
I shall hunt Tom Bowles—who is the villain of the drama—through three
long acts, and kill him in the fourth, he and I must necessarily hate
each other. The fact is that Tom and I are the best of friends, and
generally contrive to lodge together when on our travels.’

Elsie was half convinced that she _had_ made a goose of herself, but of
course was not prepared to admit it. ‘I see that Miss Wylie is acting
in your company,’ she said. ‘I saw her in London about a year ago; she
is very, very pretty.’

‘Miss Wylie is a very charming woman.’

‘And you make love to her?’

‘Every night of my life—for a little while.’

Elsie felt her unreasonable mood coming back. ‘Then why don’t you marry
her?’ she asked with a ring of bitterness in her voice.

Again that callous-hearted young man laughed. ‘Considering that she is
married already, and the happy mother of two children, I can hardly see
the feasibility of your suggestion.’

‘Then why does she call herself “Miss Wylie?”’

‘It’s a way they have in the profession. She goes by her maiden name.
In reality, she is Mrs Berrington. Her husband travels with her. He
plays “heavy fathers.”’

Miss Brandon looked mystified. Her lover saw it.

‘You see this suit of clothes,’ he said, ‘and this wig and these
spectacles. They are part of the “make-up” of a certain character I
played last week. I was the Count von Rosenthal, in love with the
beautiful daughter of a poor music-master. In order to be able to make
love to her, and win her for myself, and not for my title and riches,
I go in the guise of a student, and take lodgings in the same house
where she and her father are living. After many mishaps, all ends as
it ought to do. Charlotte and I fall into each other’s arms, and her
father blesses us both with tears in his eyes. Miss Wylie played the
Professor’s daughter, and her husband played the father’s part, and
very well he did it too.’

‘Her husband allowed you to make love to his wife?’ said Miss Brandon,
with wide-open eyes.

‘Of course he did; and he was not so foolish as to be jealous, like
some people. Why should he be?’

Elsie was fully convinced by this time that she had made a goose of
herself. ‘You may kiss me, Charley,’ she said with much sweetness.
‘Dear boy, I forgive you.’

Suddenly the sound of a footstep caused them to start and fly asunder.
There, close to the open French-window, stood Captain Bowood, glaring
from one to the other of them. Miss Brandon gave vent to a little
shriek and fled from the room. The Captain came forward, a fine frenzy
in his eye. ‘Who the deuce may you be, sir?’ he spluttered, although he
had recognised Charley at the first glance.

‘I have the honour to be your very affectionate and obedient nephew,
sir.’

The Captain’s reply to this was an inarticulate growl. Next moment,
his eye fell on the discarded wig. ‘And what the dickens may this be,
sir?’ he asked as he lifted up the article in question on the end of
his cane.

‘A trifle of property, sir, belonging to your affectionate and obedient
nephew;’ and with that he took the wig off the end of the cane and
crammed it into his pocket.

‘So, so. This is the way, you young jackanapes, that you set my
commands at defiance, and steal into my house after being forbidden
ever to set foot in it again! You young snake-in-the-grass! You
crocodile! It would serve you right to give you in charge to the
police. How do I know that you are not after my spoons and forks? Come
now.’

‘I am glad to find, sir, that your powers of vituperation are in no
way impaired since I had the pleasure of seeing you last. Time cannot
wither them.—Hem! I believe, sir, that you have had the honour of
twice paying my debts, amounting in the aggregate to the trifling sum
of five hundred pounds. In this paper, sir, you will find twenty-five
sovereigns, being my first dividend of one shilling in the pound. A
further dividend will be paid at the earliest possible date.’ As Mr
Summers spoke thus, he drew from his waistcoat pocket a small sealed
packet and placed the same quietly on the table.

The irate Captain glanced at the packet and then at his imperturbable
nephew. The cane trembled in his fingers; for a moment or two he
could not command his voice. ‘What, what!’ he cried at last. ‘The boy
will drive me crazy. What does he mean with his confounded rigmarole?
Dividend! Shilling in the pound! Bother me, if I can make head or tail
of his foolery!’

‘And yet, sir, both my words and my meaning were clear enough, as no
doubt you will find when you come to think them over in your calmer
moments.—And now I have the honour to wish you a very good-morning;
and I hope to afford you the pleasure of seeing me again before long.’
Speaking thus, Charles Summers made his uncle a very low bow, took up
his hat, and walked out of the room.

‘There’s insolence! There’s audacity!’ burst out the Captain as soon as
he found himself alone. ‘The pleasure of seeing him again—eh? Only let
me find him here without my leave—I’ll—I’ll—— I don’t know what I won’t
do!—And now I come to think of it, it looks very much as if he and Miss
Saucebox were making love to each other. How dare they? I’ll haul ’em
both up before the Vice-chancellor.’ Here his eye fell on the packet on
the table. He took it up and examined it. ‘Twenty-five sovereigns, did
he say? As if I was going to take the young idiot’s money! I’ll keep
it for the present, and send it back to him by-and-by. Must teach him
a lesson. Do him all the good in the world. False hair and spectacles,
eh? Deceived his old uncle finely. Just the sort of trick I should
have delighted in when I was a boy. But Master Charley will be clever
if he catches the old fox asleep a second time.’ He had reached the
French-window on his way out, when he came to a sudden stand, and gave
vent to a low whistle. ‘Ha, ha! Lady Dimsdale and Mr Boyd, and mighty
taken up with each other they seem. Well, well. I’m no spoil-sport.
I’ll not let them know I’ve seen them. Looks uncommonly as if Dan Cupid
had got them by the ears. A widow too! All widows ought to be labelled
“Dangerous.”’ Smiling and chuckling to himself, the Captain drew back,
crossed the room, and went out by the opposite door.



THE COLOUR-SENSE.


The phenomenon of Colour is one with which all who are not blind must
of necessity be familiar. So accustomed, indeed, have we been to it
throughout all our lives, that most of us are inclined to take it for
granted, and probably trouble ourselves very seldom as to its true
cause. A brief discussion, therefore, of the nature of the Colour-sense
may, we trust, prove not uninteresting to our readers.

What, then, is colour? It is obvious that it may be considered in two
ways; we may either discuss the impression it makes on the mind, or the
real external causes to which it is due. Viewed in the first light,
colour is as much a sensation as is that of being struck or burnt.
Viewed from the latter stand-point, it is merely a property of light;
hence, in order correctly to understand its nature, we must first
briefly examine the nature of this phenomenon.

According to modern scientific men, light is not a material substance,
but consists of a kind of motion or vibration communicated by the
luminous body to the surrounding medium, and travelling throughout
space with an enormous velocity. The medium, however, through which
light-waves travel is not air, nor any of the ordinary forms of matter.
Of its real nature nothing is known, and its very existence is only
assumed in order to account for the observed phenomena. It must be very
subtle and very elastic; but it is a curious fact that the nature of
the vibrations in question would seem to preclude the supposition that
it is a fluid, these being rather such as would be met with in the case
of a solid. To this medium, whatever its true nature may be, the name
of _ether_ is given.

The sensation, then, which we know by the name of Light is to be
regarded as the effect on the retina of the eye of certain very rapid
vibrations in the _ether_ of the universe. All these waves travel
with the same swiftness; but they are not all of the same length,
nor of the same frequency; and investigation has shown that it is to
this difference of wave-length that difference of colour is due. In
other words, the impression to which we give the name of a certain
colour is due to the effect on the retina of vibrations of a certain
frequency. This conclusion is arrived at by a very simple experiment,
in which advantage is taken of the following principle. So long as a
ray of light is passing through the same medium, it travels in one
straight line; but in passing obliquely from one medium into another of
different density, its path is bent through a certain angle, just as
a column of soldiers has a tendency to change its direction of march
when obliquely entering a wood or other difficult ground. Now, this
angle is naturally greatest in the case of the shortest waves, so that
when a ray of light is thus bent out of its course—or, as it is called,
‘refracted’—the various sets of vibrations of which it is composed all
travel in different directions, and may be separately examined. In fact
the ray of light is analysed, or broken up into its component parts.
The most convenient apparatus to employ for this purpose is a prism
of glass. It is found, as is well known, that if a beam of ordinary
sun-light be allowed to pass through the prism and be then received on
a screen, it is resolved into a band of colours succeeding one another
in the order of those of the rainbow. Such a band of colours is called
a ‘spectrum.’

Now, of the visible portion of the spectrum the red rays are those
which undergo the least refraction, while the violet rays are bent
through the greatest angle, the other colours in their natural order
being intermediate. From what has been said above, it is evident that,
this being the case, the portion of the light consisting of waves of
greatest length and least frequency is that which produces on the eye
the sensation of red, and that each of the other colours is caused
by vibrations of a certain definite length. We are speaking now of
the visible part of the spectrum. As a matter of fact, the waves of
least and greatest frequency make no impression on the eye at all;
but the former have the greatest heating power, while the latter are
those which chiefly produce chemical effects such as are utilised in
photography.

Having now arrived at the nature of colour, we are in a position to
apply these facts to the discussion of coloured substances.

When light falls on a body, a portion of it is turned back or, as it
is called, ‘reflected’ from the surface; another part is taken up or
‘absorbed’ by the substance; while, in the case of a transparent body,
a third portion passes on through it, and is said to be ‘transmitted.’
Most bodies absorb the different parts of the light in different
proportions, and hence their various colours are produced. The colour
of a transparent substance is that of the light which it transmits;
while an opaque body is said to be of the colour of the light which it
reflects, or rather of that part of it which is irregularly scattered.

There are three colours in the solar spectrum which are called
‘primary,’ owing to the fact that they cannot be produced by mixtures.
These are red, violet, and deep olive green. The generally-received
idea that red, blue, and yellow are primary colours, is by recent
scientific authorities not regarded as tenable; it arose from
observations on mixtures of pigments rather than of coloured light. For
instance, objects seen through two plates of glass, one of which is
blue and the other yellow, appear green; but this by no means justifies
us in saying that a mixture of blue and yellow light is green. For
remembering that the two glasses do not appear coloured by reason of
their adding anything to the light, but rather through their stopping
the passage of certain rays, we shall see that the green light which
is finally transmitted is not a mixture of yellow and blue at all, but
is rather that portion of the light which both of the glasses allow to
pass. The blue glass will probably stop all rays except blue, violet,
and green; the yellow glass, all but green, yellow, and orange. The
only light, therefore, which can pass through both glasses is green.
The same remark applies to mixtures of pigments, each particle being
really transparent, though the whole bulk appears opaque. It is easy,
however, to obtain real mixtures of coloured lights by employing
suitable arrangements, of which one of the simplest consists of a disc
painted with alternate bands of colours and rapidly rotated. By such
means it is found that a mixture of blue and yellow is not green, but
white or gray, and that yellow can itself be produced by a mixture of
red and green in proper proportions. The late Professor Clerk Maxwell
made an interesting series of experiments on colour mixtures by means
of an apparatus known as Maxwell’s Colour-box, by which any number of
colours could be combined in any required proportions.

It would, however, be beyond the scope of the present paper to discuss
the many important results which followed from his investigations.
Helmholtz believed the three primary colour sensations to be due to
the action of three sets of nerves at the back of the retina, each
of which is excited only by vibrations within a certain range of
frequency; and this theory is now generally held. In the case of some
persons, the sensation corresponding to red is wholly absent, and the
spectrum appears to consist of two colours with white or gray between.
The nature of these colours is, for obvious reasons, difficult to
determine; but one doubtless nearly corresponds to our sensation of
blue, while the other is a deep colour, probably dark green. Persons
thus affected are usually called ‘colour-blind;’ but this epithet is
a misnomer, and the term ‘dichroic vision’ has been suggested for the
phenomenon instead.

We have already remarked that our range of vision is comparatively
narrow, the extreme portions of the spectrum making no impression on
the retina. But we have no reason to think that these limits have been
the same in all ages. The evidence would rather tend to show that the
human eye is undergoing a slow and gradual development, which enables
it to distinguish between colours which the ancients regarded as
identical, and may in future render it able to perceive some portions
at least of the parts of the spectrum which are now invisible. The
Vedas of India, which are among the most ancient writings known,
attest that in the most remote ages only white and black could be
distinguished.

It would seem as if the perception of different degrees of intensity
of light preceded by a long time the appreciation of various kinds of
colours. After weighing the evidence, Magnus has come to the conclusion
that red was the first colour to become visible, then yellow and
orange; and afterwards, though at a considerable interval, green, blue,
and violet in order. Various passages in the Old Testament have been
cited as proof that the ancients failed to perceive all the colours
seen by us, one of the most remarkable being in Ezekiel i. 27 and 28,
where the prophet compares the appearance of the brightness round
about the fire to that of the ‘bow that is in the cloud in the day of
rain’—which passage has been cited by Mr Gladstone in his article in
the _Nineteenth Century_ for October 1877, as indicating a want of
appreciation of distinct colours among the ancients. This is not quite
clear, however, as the appearance round about the supernatural fire
might have assumed auroral or rainbow tints. But the most important
evidence on the apparent want of capacity among the ancients to
discriminate between colours is that afforded by the writings of
Homer, who, in the opinion of Magnus, could neither have perceived
green nor blue. The point has been carefully examined by Mr Gladstone,
who comes to the conclusion that this estimate is quite within the
mark. Inquiring in detail into each of Homer’s colour-epithets, he
shows that almost all must be in reality regarded as expressing degrees
of intensity rather than of quality, and that the few exceptions
are all confined to red and yellow. The brilliant blue sky of the
southern climes where Homer lived must have appeared to him as of a
neutral gray hue. Of course, the suggestion that the writings usually
assigned to Homer were in reality the productions of many authors,
does not invalidate the reasoning at all, as we do not attribute any
defect in vision to the poet which was not equally manifested by his
contemporaries.

It is curious that the distinction between green and blue is not yet
perfectly developed in all nations. Travellers tell us that the Burmese
often confuse these colours in a remarkable manner. This and other
facts suggest that the development of the colour-sense is not yet
completed; and that in the future our range of perception may be still
further enlarged, so that the now invisible rays may be recognised by
the eye as distinct colours.



‘SO UNREASONABLE OF STEP-MOTHER!’

A SKETCH FROM LIFE.


Not long before the death of George Eliot, on a return trip to London
by the Midland route, I broke my journey at Leicester, to pay a flying
visit to Coventry, where the great writer had spent many of her
happiest days. There I was privileged by having for escort one of her
most valued friends; and many interesting reminiscences were for our
benefit called to mind, especially of a visit paid to Edinburgh, ‘mine
own romantic town,’ and of the impression the beauty of its situation
had made on her mind. Next morning, every favourite haunt of hers was
searched out and commented on, as well as the interesting points of the
quaint old city of Coventry; and bidding good-bye to our hospitable
friends, I departed alone by the evening mail for Leicester, there to
wait for the midnight train to Edinburgh, feeling satisfied that the
hours had been well spent. Arrived in Leicester, I was fortunate in
finding a fellow-countryman in one of the porters, who at once took
me and my belongings under his especial protection, and when he had
seen me comfortably ‘happit up’ on one of the sofas of the luxurious
waiting-room, he retired, bidding me take a quiet forty winks, and keep
my mind quite easy, for he would give me timely notice of the arrival
of the Scotch train. Scarcely had I begun to feel the loneliness of my
situation, when the door opened, and a female figure entered, rather
unwilling, apparently; nay, seemed to be pushed in, while a deep male
voice advised that she should rest by the fire, and not put herself
about so. By a succession of jerks, she advanced to the chair by the
fire opposite to my sofa; and finding that I was not asleep, as
she had supposed, at once, and without any circumlocution, began to
unburden her mind, her words flowing from her mouth at express speed,
regardless of comma or full stop.

‘Not put myself about! Humph! That’s so like men.—Ain’t it now, miss?
Ah, I dessay you’ve ’ad your own share of worriting before now, and
know ’ow downright masterful and provoking they can be at times. I tell
you _w’at_, miss, if you want to be at peace at all, you’ve got to
say black is w’ite, if they ’ave a mind that it should be so.—Not put
myself about! I’d like to know ’ow one with a ’eart and a soul in their
body could ’elp being put about, as I am.’

I ventured to hope nothing serious had occurred to disturb her
composure or to put her about, my voice at once disclosing that I
hailed from the North, and also that I was of a sympathetic nature.

‘Put about!’ she once more exclaimed. ‘Why, I _am_ put about; yes—no
use trying to appear as if I was anything else. Yes; only think, miss!
Not ’alf an hour gone, a telegram was brought to our ’ouse by the
telegraph-boy. His mother, a widow, keeps a little bit of a shop not
many doors from our own. Yes; he ’ands it in saying it was for father.
I opened it; and there, staring me right in the eyes were them words:
“_Step-mother is lying a-dying._”—Not put about! I’d just like to
know ’ow anybody could ’ave been anything else than put about, after
_that_. Now, miss, you must understand that John—that’s my ’usband—is
a great go-to-meeting-man. Why, at that very moment he might be at
the church meeting, or he might ’ave been at the Building meeting, or
he might ’ave been at a Masonic meeting, or he might ’ave been at any
other meeting under the sun. And w’atever was I to do? for there was
the telegraph-boy; there was the telegram, with the words as plain as
plain: “Step-mother is lying a-dying.” I put on my bonnet and shawl;
I ’urried to father’s office—he is a master-builder, is father, with
sixteen men under him and three apprentices; and John, my son, for
partner. I rushed in quite out of breath, not expecting to find any one
there at that time of night; but there I found John—that’s my son—and
says I, without taking time to sit down, though I was like to drop:
“John, w’atever is to be done! Here’s a telegraph-boy has brought a
telegram for father to say, ‘step-mother is a-dying.’”

‘Now, miss, I just put it to you, if them telegrams, coming so sudden
at hours w’en no one expects postmen’s knocks, and bringing such news
as that, ain’t enough to put any one about! Augh! Men are so queer;
there’s no nerves in their bodies, and can’t understand us women. I’ve
no patience with them. There was John—that’s my son—w’at did he do?
Why, look at me quite composed, as if it weren’t no news at all, and
says he: “Don’t put yourself about, mother. Father has gone off not
many minutes ago to the paddock, to give little Bobbie a ride.” And
with that he takes down a time-table, to look at it for the last train,
puts on his hat, calls for a cab, and says quite composed: “Jump in,
mother. We’ll go in pursuit of father, and then we’ll catch the train
quite easily.” It seemed to me the horse just crept up the ’ill like
a snail; only John would ’ave it they were going faster than their
usual pace. W’en we came to our door, w’at do you think we saw, now,
miss?—No; you’ll never guess, I dessay. Why, _father_, to be sure! Yes;
there he was; and there was the pony; and there was little Bobbie—all
three of ’em just about to start for a long ride into the country. I
’ad carried the telegram in my pocket; and do you know, miss, after
all my flurry and worry, w’at did John—that’s my ’usband—say, think
you?—Augh! Men are so unreasonable, and w’at’s more, such cool and
’eartless pieces. Yes; that’s w’at _they_ are; and I don’t care who
hears me a-saying it.

‘John—that’s father—after he had read the telegram, he turns to me,
and says he: “Why, mother, ’ave your senses left your ’ead altogether?
W’atever made you carry off the telegram! Couldn’t you ’ave stayed
quietly at ’ome, instead of putting yourself about in this here
fashion? If you ’ad, we’d ’ave been at the station without any hurry at
all, by this time.”

‘I felt too angry to speak, I do declare, miss. I think the older
men grow, the more aggravating they get to a sensitive nature. So I
gathered the things together father said we’d better take with us,
into my travelling-basket, without as much as a single word—a stranger
coming in would ’ave thought me dumb—while father sent a man back to
the paddock with little Bobbie and the pony. We then got into the cab
once more; and here we are, with John—that’s my son—a-looking after the
tickets and the luggage; and father smoking his pipe outside as cool
as cool. O dear, if they wouldn’t put me out with their “Keep cool,
mother; no need to fluster and flurry so, mother”—“Take it easy, good
ooman; don’t put yourself about”—I’d bear it better, I certainly should.

‘Is step-mother nice? you ask. Oh—well—that’s just as you take it. Some
people say she’s nice; some say she’s quite the opposite. But’—and
here she drew her chair closer to me, and in a more confidential
tone, continued: ‘I tell you _w’at_, miss—I’ve said it before, and
I say it again—step-mother, in spite of her religious pro-fession
and san’timonious ways, is cantankerous. No use a-trying to hide
it—step-mother is just w’at I say, _can-tankerous_. I’ve said it
before; I say it again—she’d show her cantankerousness to the very
last. And han’t my words come true, for here she is lying a-dying, and
Mary-Anne’s wedding fixed for Friday of this very week!—O my—now that
I come to ’ave a quiet moment to think, w’atever am I to do? It’s so
unreasonable of step-mother! Why, the dressmaker was coming this very
evening to fit my dress on for the second time—a new black silk it
is—and w’atever will _she_ think, w’en she finds I’ve gone off without
as much as a good-bye message? You see, miss, Mary-Anne is going to
marry into quite a genteel family. Father, and John—that’s my son—he
comes to me not many weeks gone, and says he: “Mother, I ’ope you are
going to ’ave a nice dress for this wedding. I ’ope it will be a silk
or a satin you decide to buy.” And says I: “John, you know w’at father
is, and ’as been all his life—a just man to all; but a man who looks
upon gay clothes as not necessary. And then, John, you know as well
as I do that father is rather close-fisted w’en money has to be paid
out—like his own father before him, who was looked upon by all as the
most parsimonious man in the town. I don’t say father is quite as bad;
but close-fisted I _do_ say he is, John; and you know it. Were I to
say: ‘Father, I’d like to ’ave a silk dress for this wedding’—and I
don’t hide the fact from _you_, John, that I certainly should—he’d just
laugh. I know it beforehand. He’d say: ‘Why, mother, ’aven’t you been
content with a good stuff-dress all our married life, and can’t you go
on to the end so? I’ve over and over again said my wife looked as well
as most women in the town of Leicester.’”

‘“But,” says John—that’s my son—“mother, you owe your duty certainly
to father. I’m not going against it; but w’at I says is: You owe your
duty to your son also; and w’en I wish _my_ mother to look better than
she’s ever done before, why—to oblige me—you’ll go and purchase the
best silk-dress in town, ’ave it made fashionable, with frills and all
the fal-de-rals and etceteras; send in the account in my name; and if
father makes any objections, why, let him settle the matter with _me_.”

‘You see, miss, John is getting to be so like father—both _firm_, very;
and if they take a notion of any kind w’atever into their ’eads, you’d
move this station as soon as move them from their purpose; so the dress
’as been bought; and w’at father will say to it—for it’s to be made in
the height of the fashion—_I_ can’t say.’

A few judicious questions about the step-mother who was lying a-dying,
drew from my companion that the said old lady was rich as well as
cantankerous; and that, as there were other relations who might step in
to the injury of the worthy builder, who was her only stepson, it was,
to say the least, but prudent to be on the spot.

‘Ah, yes, miss,’ she exclaimed, stretching her hands out to keep the
heat of the fire from her face, ‘this is a very strange world. Only
on Sunday, the vicar was preaching to us against worldly-mindedness,
telling us that as we came naked into the world, so we left it,
carrying nothing away. But, miss, step-mother ain’t like the most of
people; and she’s going to manage to take with her as much money as she
possibly can.—How is she going to do it? Why, miss—she’s going to ’ave
a coffin!—No need to look surprised, miss. O yes; we all bury our dead
in coffins; but w’at kind of a coffin is step-mother going to ’ave, do
you think? No; don’t try to guess, for you’d be down to Scotland and up
again before it would ever come into your ’ead.—No; not a velvet one,
nor a satin; but a _hoak_ one.—Yes; I thought you would get a scare. A
_hoak_ coffin is w’at it is to be. And she’s going to ’ave bearers—six
of ’em. Each bearer is to ’ave ’at-bands and scarfs, and two pounds
apiece. And if all that pomp and tomfoolery ain’t taking so much money
out of the world with her, I don’t know w’at _is_. W’en John—that’s
father—heard of it, says he to me: “Mother, if you survives me, bury me
plain, but comf’able;” and says I: “Father, if you survives me, I ’ope
you will do the same by me—plain, but comf’able; for I tell you w’at,
father, I’d not lie easy underground thinking of the waste of good
money over such ’umbug.”’

Here the waiting-room door opened hurriedly, and the worthy woman
bounded to her feet at the one word ‘Mother!’ pronounced in such a
decided tone that I too was standing beside her before I knew what I
was doing, with all my wraps tossed higgledy-piggledy on the floor.
Advancing with her to the door, she got out of me that my immediate
destination was Scotland—a place, to her mind, evidently as remote as
the arctic regions; and in her astonishment, she forgot the necessity
there was to hurry to get in to her train, now ready to start again.
She even seemed to forget that step-mother was lying a-dying, as she
insisted upon introducing me to her husband, whose huge body was
wrapped in a greatcoat, with tippet after tippet on it up to his neck.
‘Only to think, John—this lady is going to Scotland all alone, John!
She’ll be travelling all night.—O dear, however are you to do it, miss;
ain’t you afraid?—Yes, John; I’m coming.—Good-bye, miss; we’ve ’ad
quite a pleasant chat, I do assure you; the time seems to ’ave flown.’

I hurried her along the platform, whispering to her as I did so: ‘I
hope step-mother will rally a bit; that if she must pass away, it may
be next week, so that Mary-Anne may get her wedding comfortably over.’
At the very door of the carriage she paused, seized my hand, shook it
warmly, as she exclaimed: ‘Well, now, you ’ave a feeling ’eart; but I
don’t expect her to be so accommodating. No; I’ve said it before, and I
say it again—step-mother is—_can-ta_—— Why, w’atever is the matter?’

Next thing that happened, the little woman was lifted up bodily in her
son’s arms—a counterpart of his father—and deposited in the carriage;
while her husband, in spite of his lumbering large body, succeeded
in jumping in just as the patience of all the railway officials was
exhausted, and the signal given to start the train. Before it was
lost to view, a white handkerchief fluttered out, by way of good-bye,
causing a smile to rise over the calm features of John the younger,
who, lifting his hat politely to me, bade me good-evening, adding:
‘Mother is no great traveller, so she is easily put about. Dessay if
she went often from ’ome, she’d learn to be more composed.’

From that hour I have never ceased to regret that I did not ask the
good-natured young builder to forward me a local paper with the account
of the death and burial of ‘step-mother.’ No doubt there would be due
notice taken of such an interesting personage, as she lay in state in
her ‘hoak’ coffin, surrounded by her bearers in the flowing scarfs and
hat-bands. Sharp as my friends generally give me credit for being, I
own I committed a grievous blunder; I am therefore obliged to leave
my story without an end, not being able even to add that the fair
Mary-Anne’s wedding came off on the appointed day, or was postponed
till after the complimentary days of mourning were past. I cheer
myself with the thought that ‘John—that’s father’—being a firm man
and a sensible, would insist upon the previous arrangements standing
good, seeing that the bridegroom—a most important fact I have omitted
to record—had a fortnight’s holiday reluctantly granted to him by
his employers. Why, now that I think of it, my countryman the railway
porter would have sent me any number of papers, judging by the kindly
interest he took in my behalf, and the determined manner he fought
for a particular seat for me in a particular carriage when the time
came for my train to start. ‘Na, na, mem; nae need for thanks; blood’s
thicker than water,’ he said. ‘Never you fear, now that the Scotch
guard has ta’en up your cause; you’re a’ right; he’ll see that ye’re
safely housed.’ And safely housed I was, and went steaming out of the
station with my worthy friend hanging on by the door, calling to me:
‘If you’re ever in the town o’ Perth, mem, my auld mother would be
downright pleased to see you, for my sake. Tell her I’m getting on as
weel as can be expeckit, sae far frae hame.’

All night, my disturbed sleep was made doubly so by dreams of old
women of every age and style. Now I was hunting for the porter’s
nameless mother; now I was standing by the bedside of the step-mother
who was lying a-dying. Again I was an active assistant at a marriage
ceremony, with the fair Mary-Anne, surrounded by her genteel relations,
leaning on my shoulder, weeping copiously at the idea of travelling to
Scotland. Once more I stood gazing down on the old step-mother; and
just as the day dawned, I was fairly roused, in my determination not to
be smothered under an oak coffin and a pyramid of scarfs, hat-bands,
and bearers, by the tumbling of my own bonnet-box from the luggage-rack
above me.



FRENCH DETECTIVES.


‘The Secret Police’ in France are not only personally unknown to the
general public, but, save in exceptional cases, even to each other.
It is known where they may be found at a moment’s notice when wanted;
but, as a rule, they do not frequent the prefecture more than can be
helped. They have nothing whatever to do with serving summonses or
executing warrants. There are among them men who have lived in almost
every class of life, and each of them has what may be called a special
line of business of his own. In the course of their duty, some of them
mix with the receivers of stolen goods, others with thieves, many
with what are called in Paris commercial rascals, and not a few with
those whose ‘industry’ it is to melt silver and other property of a
like valuable nature. Forgers, sharpers of all kinds, housebreakers
and horse-stealers—a very numerous class in Paris—have each all their
special agents of the police, who watch them, and know where to lay
hands upon them when they are wanted. A French detective who cannot
assume and act up to any character, and who cannot disguise himself
in any manner so effectually as not to be recognised even by those
who know him best, is not considered fit to hold his appointment.
Their ability in this way is marvellous. Some years ago, one of them
made a bet that he would in the course of the next few days address
a gentleman with whom he was acquainted four times, for at least ten
minutes each time, and that he should not know him on any occasion
until the detective had discovered himself. As a matter of course,
the gentleman was on his guard, and mistrusted every one who came
near him. But the man won his bet. It is needless to enter into the
particulars. Suffice it to say that in the course of the next four days
he presented himself in the character of a bootmaker’s assistant, a
fiacre-driver, a venerable old gentleman with a great interest in the
Bourse, and finally as a waiter in the hotel in which the gentleman was
staying.



‘NOT LOST, BUT GONE BEFORE.’


    My little child, with clustering hair,
      Strewn o’er thy dear, dead brow,
    Though in the past divinely fair,
      More lovely art thou now.
    God bade thy gentle soul depart,
      On brightly shimmering wings;
    Yet near thy clay, thy mother’s heart
      All weakly, fondly clings.

    My beauteous child, with lids of snow
      Closed o’er thy dim blue eyes,
    Should it not soothe my grief to know
      They shine beyond the skies?
    Above thy silent cot I kneel,
      With heart all crushed and sore,
    While through the gloom these sweet words steal:
      ‘Not lost, but gone before.’

    My darling child, these flowers I lay
      On locks too fair, too bright,
    For the damp grave-mist, cold and gray,
      To dim their sunny light.
    Soft baby tresses bathed in tears,
      Your gold was all mine own!
    Ah, weary months! ah, weary years!
      That I must dwell alone.

    My only child, I hold thee still,
      Clasped in my fond embrace!
    My love, my sweet! how fixed, how chill,
      This smile upon thy face!
    The grave is cold, my clasp is warm,
      Yet give thee up I must;
    And birds will sing when thy loved form
      Lies mouldering in the dust.

    My angel child, thy tiny feet
      Dance through my broken dreams;
    Ah me, how joyous, quaint, and sweet,
      Their baby pattering seems!
    I hush my breath, to hear thee speak;
      I see thy red lips part;
    But wake to feel thy cold, cold cheek,
      Close to my breaking heart!

    Soon, soon my burning tears shall fall
      Upon thy coffin lid;
    Nor may those tears thy soul recall
      To earth—nay, God forbid!
    Be happy in His love, for I
      Resigned, though wounded sore,
    Can hear His angels whispering nigh:
      ‘Not lost, but gone before.’

            FANNY FORRESTER.

       *       *       *       *       *

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

       *       *       *       *       *

_All Rights Reserved._

       *       *       *       *       *

[Transcriber’s note: The following changes have been made to this text.

Page 47: wa’t to w’at—“know w’at _is_.”]



*** End of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "Chambers's Journal of Popular Literature, Science, and Art, Fifth Series, No. 3, Vol. I, January 19, 1884" ***

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