Title: Chambers's Journal of Popular Literature, Science, and Art, Fifth Series, No. 12, Vol. I, March 22, 1884
Author: Various
Language: English
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LITERATURE, SCIENCE, AND ART, FIFTH SERIES, NO. 12, VOL. I, MARCH 22,
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. 12.—VOL. I.      SATURDAY, MARCH 22, 1884.      PRICE 1½_d._]



THE TRANSVAAL GOLD-FIELDS.

BY ONE ON THE SPOT.


The gold-fields of the Transvaal, which have been heard of by fits
and starts during the last twelve years, have of late begun to excite
considerable attention both at home and in South Africa; and as the
future of the Transvaal, and indeed a great portion of South-eastern
Africa, depends very much on their proper development, a short
description of the gold-bearing region may prove interesting to readers
of this _Journal_.

Gold has been found scattered over a considerable extent of country
here, and indeed is known to extend up to the Zambesi; but the part
most frequented by the gold-seeker is a belt of country running
almost north and south, commencing on the Kaap River, a few miles
east of the village of Middleburg, in the Transvaal, and terminating
about ten miles north of Pilgrim’s Rest, in the Lydenburg district.
The principal ‘farms’ on which gold has been found in the Lydenburg
district are Pilgrim’s Rest, Berlin, Lisbon, Graskop, Mac-Mac,
Spitzkop, Elandsdrift, and Hendriksdal—these so-called ‘farms’ being
merely tracts of ground surveyed, but in scarcely any case used for
actual farming purposes. There are numerous other ‘farms’ on which
gold has been found; but the above-named have, up to the present time,
produced the largest quantity. From the Kaap River gold-fields, about
fifty miles from Lydenburg, a considerable quantity of gold has also
been extracted, partly on unallotted government ground, and partly
from the ‘farms’ of private owners; but this district has not been so
extensively worked of late, owing to its unhealthiness in the lower
reaches of the river, and also to the difficulty of working in such a
broken country.

At the present time, comparatively little work is being carried on in
either of the above districts, from causes which will be explained
presently; but that gold exists in considerable quantities, there is
not the shadow of a doubt, as the returns of banks and merchants
for native gold purchased can show; and although no capitalists
have until recently made their appearance on the gold-fields, yet
several exceptionally lucky diggers who came here with nothing beyond
experience and stout hearts, have realised a competence, in spite of
the disadvantages and troubles which such a rough life implies.

All the gold hitherto found, with very few exceptions, has been of the
kind known as alluvial—that is, existing in the ground, and capable
of being extracted by means of water alone, without the intervention
of machinery; but at present there are two Companies with machinery
starting work-crushing quartz, the returns from which are looked
forward to with much interest, as it will then be seen whether it will
pay to import machinery on a large scale or not. When the gold-bearing
ground lies at a comparatively low level, enabling water from any of
the numerous streams running through the country to be brought on it,
the process of gold-washing is very simple, the ground being merely
picked loose and thrown into the water, or washed away by the water,
which is then conducted through a long box, or race, about eighteen
inches in width and depth, open on top, and paved with hard rock or
quartz on the bottom, falling gradually for a distance of from twenty
to two hundred feet in length, according to the strength of the stream
running through the ground, and the quantity of ground washed per
day. Once or twice a day the water is turned off from this race and a
small stream of clean water run through it; the race is then carefully
examined from end to end; and any nuggets or particles of gold which,
by the action of the water and their greater specific gravity, may have
been deposited in the ripples or inequalities of the bottom-paving,
are then picked up, and the work resumed. In cases where the gold is
of a fine nature, and liable to be carried away if the race alone were
used, the coarser stones are sifted from the ground, and the combined
ground and water run over coarse blankets, which, from the nature of
their texture, catch all the fine particles of gold and allow the
lighter soil to flow away. These blankets are periodically washed out;
and the fine particles of gold resulting are combined with quicksilver,
which, from its affinity to gold, brings the whole into one mass, which
is then placed in a retort, and the quicksilver evaporated off and
recaught for future use, leaving the gold in a solid mass behind.

The above process, costing very little in the way of outlay, has been
of necessity almost the only one adopted by the diggers, who for the
most part have been working-men, with little or no money; and in
cases where the alluvial ground has lain so high above the level of
the rivers as to prevent it being worked in the same way, the only
difference has been that the ground has had to be excavated and brought
to the water-race by carting or otherwise, the process of washing
being the same. But in the case of quartz containing gold, the quartz
has to be reduced almost to a powder in water by means of machinery;
the crushed quartz then flows over plates coated with quicksilver,
which catch the greater part of the gold; and that which escapes the
quicksilver is caught by means of the blankets before mentioned, which
receive it after passing the silvered plates.

It has struck many people who are acquainted with gold-mining in both
Australia and California, that in no two places in the Transvaal are
the indications of gold the same. In one place it is in vain to look
for it except on the top of a hill; in another, the valley alone will
yield gold; and not a few geologists and so-called mining experts who
have visited the gold-fields lately, for the purpose of reporting
on properties for intending purchasers, have been much at fault
regarding the possibility of finding payable gold, and confessed that
it is necessary to spend a considerable time before a property can
be even cursorily examined. In most cases, it seems that the diggers
themselves, through their actual experience, are better acquainted
with the payable and non-payable ground than any stranger, however
experienced otherwise, can be.

From 1873, the gold-laws of the Transvaal permitted a digger to take
out a license for a claim on any gold-bearing property held to be the
property of the government, and the digger paying the amount of this
license for his right to dig for gold. When a claim was exhausted or
found not payable, the digger was at liberty to abandon it and mark out
another, in the event of this other not being occupied. This law, in a
sparsely populated country, where scarcely any agriculture was carried
on, worked very well and harmoniously; but on the retrocession of the
Transvaal by the British government, a new order of things sprang into
existence. In order to increase the revenue—which fell rapidly off on
the departure of the British government, and has in consequence caused
a widespread distress ever since amongst those who were the first to
rise against British authority—the Volksraad or Boer Parliament granted
concessions for every manufacture that could be carried on in the
Transvaal—that is, allowing one man, on the payment of a certain sum
per annum, the sole right to manufacture spirits; another, gunpowder;
another, wool, &c.—in each case imposing a countervailing duty on
articles of the same kind coming from Europe, so as, if possible, to
insure the sale of the Transvaal-made article. It is to be remarked,
_en passant_, that the European articles, though thus hampered, still
continue to have by far the largest sale. Amongst other concessions,
a gold concession law was passed, specifying that the owner of any
gold-bearing farm could, on the payment of a sum to be agreed upon per
annum, obtain the sole right to work for gold on his farm, on condition
that he compensated any diggers who might be on his property, working
under the old government license.

The consequence of the promulgation of this last law has been that
nearly every owner of a gold-bearing farm who could pay a year or two’s
concession rental for his property, has taken out a concession, with
the idea of disposing of both concession and farm at a high profit in
the European market, and in few cases with the intention of digging
for gold. As nothing is stated in the gold concessions about the time
in which the original diggers are to be compensated, or any fixed
basis on which their claims are to be valued, this has almost led to
a dead-lock in the gold production, and caused much litigation in the
High Court at Pretoria. The diggers decline to enhance the value of
any concessionaire’s property by further exploring and opening it up,
and the concessionaires in but few cases have the capital wherewith
to compensate the diggers. As European investors, however, are not
so easily influenced by a high-flown prospectus as formerly, it is
probable that before long the owners of the farms bearing gold will see
the propriety of again throwing them open at a rental to diggers, and
thereby increasing their own revenue and that of the country generally;
for, with a large mining population, both merchants and farmers find a
ready sale for their goods and produce; the natives are taught to work,
which is by far the most civilising influence that can be brought to
bear upon them; and money will be circulated in a country where the
want of it has never been felt more than at present.

There is not throughout the country what can be called a mining town,
the nearest approach to one being Pilgrim’s Rest, about thirty-five
miles from the district of Lydenburg. This is on the property of a
London firm, who appear to be sparing no expense, either in money or
machinery, to test their property thoroughly. The town is situated
in a most picturesque valley, reminding one more of Switzerland than
South Africa; and the old fashion amongst Australians and Californians
of giving odd names to places is observable here, in such names as
Jerusalem Gully, Tiger Creek, &c. As usual, the Scotsman is here in
force, as may be naturally expected in the most out-of-the-way place
where there is a chance of making money. Indeed, one of the camps
near Pilgrim’s Rest is named Mac-Mac, after the number of Macs who
formerly lived there; one of them, who is buried near here, being the
unfortunate Mac whose strange story was related in the account of St
Kilda published some years ago in this _Journal_.

The country, although very picturesque and well watered in the valleys,
is very rough to travel over, and, without exception, has the worst
roads traversing it in South Africa. From Lydenburg to Spitzkop,
another mining camp, the road would make a London cab-driver’s hair
stand on end; and the trouble and danger of conveying machinery along
these roads by the cumbersome bullock-wagon can only be understood by
those having experience of South Africa. From May till October it is
possible to obtain goods from Delagoa Bay through the Portuguese port
of Lorenco Marques, the road being fairly good in that direction; but
during the remainder of the year, the dreaded tsetse fly abounds on
the road, and the rivers are so swollen by the rains that transport is
impossible.

Those Companies intending to start work on the gold-fields are
endeavouring to arrange to work their machinery by water-power, the
cost of fuel being very great here. Timber exists in considerable
quantities in the kloofs or valleys of the mountains, but of a kind
of little use for fuel, and almost inaccessible. Coal is found near
Middleburg; but the cost of transport along these roads would almost
prevent its use, although the distance does not exceed one hundred
miles. Water, apparently, will be the greatest difficulty in regard to
any scheme of comprehensive working here, as for gold-working generally
it is necessary to obtain a good water-supply at a high level, which
is extremely difficult to obtain. There are numerous streams in the
valleys; but their sources at a high level are very few, and owing to
the broken and diversified nature of the ground, would cost large sums
of money to convey to any distance.

One very striking instance of perseverance in the above way is that
of a miner over sixty years of age, who, unaided, has spent five
years in bringing a watercourse on towards his claims at Spitzkop,
and expects to take three years longer to finish it. In spite of
numerous difficulties in the way of rocks and boulders, he has steadily
persevered, and has now got through the worst of the work, and makes
good progress, taking his age into consideration. The length of this
watercourse will be about eleven miles when finished, although the
distance from point to point does not exceed four.

The diggers are a wonderfully law-abiding community as a whole; and it
is astonishing to see what a slender staff under the Boer government
is employed to maintain order, one solitary constable at Pilgrim’s
Rest being sufficient for twenty miles round. Much trouble was caused
from 1876 to 1879 through the war with the native chief Secocoeni, and
digging operations were almost suspended; but his defeat by Sir Garnet
Wolseley in 1879 left them free to work again until the end of 1880,
when the war between the Boers and the British caused another cessation
of work. All these things, together with their present troubles with
the concessionaires, before alluded to, would naturally lead one to
expect impatience and turbulence amongst a community many of whom come
from Australian and Californian diggings, where the revolver is the
readiest argument; but, strange to say, it is not the case here.

Unless the working of the gold-fields brings more money into the
country, it is very difficult to see what the future of the Transvaal
will be. The late war with the native chief Mapoch has considerably
impoverished the people; the exports of the country are very trifling,
and the low state of the market at the Diamond Fields has done away
with a large source of income in the sale of produce and coal. The
revenue of the country has steadily fallen since the retirement of
the British troops; the natives are either unable or unwilling to pay
taxes; and the Boers themselves, with very few exceptions, wish the
British were back again. Pretoria and Potchefstroom, the two principal
towns, look almost deserted, and have numerous empty buildings. When
we add to this the high price of living, owing to the duties imposed
on goods, &c., the lookout does not seem cheerful. It is not probable
that the British government will again resume its sway here, even
if invited unanimously by the Boers, but it is possible that some
system of Union or Confederation will before long take place amongst
the different states of South Africa; and should the railway be
constructed from Delagoa Bay, _viâ_ Pretoria, to Kimberley, it is
certain that the country would benefit much by the improved means of
communication. These, however, are prospects of the far future; and
until the gold-fields are further developed by the present owners, and
the government capable of paying its way and seeing its course fairly
before it on a firm basis, it would be unwise for intending investors
to place too much faith on the representations of promoters. Gold _is_
in the Transvaal, and in considerable quantities, but not everywhere,
and as yet comparatively little real exploration has been carried
on below the surface to any depth. The crushing now commencing at
Pilgrim’s Rest and Ross Hill will be the first real test as to the gold
in the quartz, and it is to be hoped will be satisfactory to those who
have had the courage to lead the way.



BY MEAD AND STREAM.


CHAPTER XVIII.—THE SEALED LETTER.

Philip drew his breath more freely. He experienced that delightful
sense of relief which rewards one who has been long overstrained, when
the strain is relaxed before the stage of exhaustion is reached. But
such is the perversity of human nature, that his gladness was tinged
with something resembling a degree of disappointment. Certainly the
tinge was so delicate that he was not thoroughly aware of its real
character. To Madge the shade was revealed in this way.

‘I wish the accident had been a little more serious,’ he said.

She opened her eyes in astonishment. ‘What a wicked wish,’ was her
reproachful comment.

‘We have made such a fuss about my going,’ he went on, turning things
over in his mind, ‘that we shall look ridiculous to everybody when it
becomes known that a stupid tumble off a horse has stopped me.’

‘I think we should only be ridiculous if we minded the foolish people
who thought us so,’ she answered very wisely.

‘Ah, you never heard the story of the curate who in a moment of
enthusiasm declared his intention of making a pilgrimage to Jerusalem.’

‘What about him?’

‘“What about him?” The poor beggar was so worried by everybody he
met afterwards asking in surprise how he had managed to get back
from Jerusalem so soon—then why he hadn’t gone—when he was going—and
looking as if he had perpetrated a fraud—that he was forced to make the
pilgrimage in order to escape being called a humbug.’

‘But you are not a curate, and—I don’t think you are a humbug, Philip,’
she said with a twinkle of fun in her eyes.

‘I hope not,’ he rejoined, laughing. ‘But what _can_ have induced Uncle
Shield to change all his plans so suddenly?’

That question was a source of much marvel to them both. During the
afternoon, an idea occurred to Madge, which seemed so extravagant, that
at first she only smiled at it, as one smiles at the revelation of some
pretty but absurd dream.

This was the idea: that in some way this sudden change of plans by
Mr Shield was associated with her and the memory of her mother. She
was nearer the truth than she imagined, although the more she thought
over it, the more she was impressed by the possibility of the surmise
finding some foundation in the motives which actuated Mr Shield’s
present conduct.

She did not, however, think the surmise of sufficient importance to
speak about yet; but she asked Aunt Hessy to tell Philip on the first
opportune occasion about her mother and his uncle. Philip ought to know
about it, whether or not there was anything in her fanciful idea.

Aunt Hessy, with a little smile of approval, gave the promise, and,
passing her hand affectionately over the girl’s head, added: ‘Thou’lt
be a happy woman, dearie; and bring peace to sore troubled breasts.
There never was ill but good lay behind it, if we would only seek and
find it. That’s an old saying; but there’s a deal of comfort in most
old sayings. Seems to me as if they were the cries of folk that had
proved them through suffering.’

‘What did Mr Shield say in his letter to you, aunt?’

The dame shook her head, and although still smiling, looked as she
felt, awkward.

‘I am not to tell thee—anyway, not now. By-and-by, when I come to
understand it myself, I will tell thee; but do not thou ask again until
I speak. It will be best.’

And Madge knew that whatever Aunt Hessy chose to do—whether to speak or
be silent—would be best. So she said simply: ‘Very well, aunt.’

‘I am going into the oak room to wrestle with the spirit, as my father
used to say when he wanted to be left quite by himself. I want to be
quite by myself till I get the right end of this riddle. I have been
trying it two or three times since you went out, but the answer has not
come yet. I am to try again. Be not you afraid, though I do not come
out till tea-time.’

She spoke as if amused at herself; but when she had closed the door of
the oak room and seated herself in a big armchair beside one of the
gaunt windows, the smile faded from her kindly face, and her expression
became one of mingled sadness and perplexity.

But everything Dame Crawshay had to do was done sedately—with that
perfect composure which can be obtained only by a mind at rest with
itself and innocent of all evil intention. She put on her spectacles,
and quietly took from her pocket the two letters she had received from
Mr Shield. One was open, and she had studied it many times that day,
for it presented the riddle she had not yet been able to solve: the
other, which had been inclosed in the first, was still unopened.

She settled herself down to make one more effort to find the right
thing to do.

‘Dear Friend,’ said the open letter, ‘in telling me that I have still
a kindly place in your memory, you have given me a pleasure which I am
glad to have lived long enough to experience. Thank you. And I ask you
to take this “Thank you” in its full sense of respect and gratitude.

‘I knew that’—here there was a word scored out, but the dame deciphered
it to be ‘Lucy’—‘_she_ had left a daughter under your care. I have
thought of her—very often thought of her; and wished that it might be
in my power to serve her as I would have served her mother, had I known
of her misfortunes in time. But whenever I thought of writing to you
about her, my pen was stopped by the same strange stupor—paralysis or
whatever it may be that affects my brains whenever certain memories
are stirred—the same which rendered me dumb and incapable of listening
to you, when you might have given me explanations that would no doubt
have made my suffering less. I do not ask for explanations now; perhaps
it would be best to give me none. I am sure it would be best; and
yet I have a longing to know anything you may have to tell me about
Lucy. Time has taken the sting from memory: there is no bitterness in
my thought of her—I do not think there ever was any bitterness in my
thoughts about her. Looking back, I only see the bright days when we
were so happy together, dreaming of our future. Then there is the black
day when you told me she was married. Somebody died that day—my better
self, I always think. Since then, I seem to have been toiling through a
long tunnel, so numbed with cold and sunk in darkness that I have felt
nothing and seen nothing.

‘But the information contained in your note about the intended
marriage of Lucy’s child to Philip Hadleigh has brought me back into
the daylight. The change was so sudden, that for a little while my
eyes were dazzled and my mind confused. I see clearly now. Here is my
opportunity to serve Lucy. There can be nothing you can tell me which
can affect my craving to serve her; and I can only do it by guarding
her daughter. I proceed to England by the next steamer which leaves the
nearest port.

‘I am aware that you will find it difficult to understand me from what
I have written here. I have tried to make my purpose plain to you in
the packet which is inclosed with this; but what is put down there is
for the present intended only for you. Before you break the seal, I
ask you, in Lucy’s name, to keep my confidence from your niece, and
even from your husband, until we meet. Should this be asking too much,
I beseech you to put the packet into the fire without opening it. Let
me assure you at once that in withholding my purpose for a time from
others, you will in nowise harm—or even run the risk of harming the
living or the dead, whilst you may be able to assist me greatly in the
service I wish to do for your sister’s child.

‘Decide as you will: I trust you shall be satisfied that the grounds
for your decision are as sufficient as mine are for the course I have
adopted.’

Here was the question she found it so difficult to answer: could she
accept this trust? It was contrary to all her notions of right that she
should have any thought which she might not communicate to her husband.
She had never had a secret; her life had run so smoothly that there had
been no occasion for one. She was grateful for having been spared the
temptations to falsehood, which a secret, however trifling in itself,
entails. But she took no special credit to herself on this account.
Indeed, the good woman found it hard to understand why there should
be any mysteries in the conduct of people at all. The straightforward
course appeared to her so much easier to travel than the crooked ways
which some choose or fall into unawares, that she wondered why, on
purely selfish grounds, they should continue in them, when the way out
was so simple.

At this moment her theory was put to a severe test. She was asked to
keep a secret, but it was not her own or of her seeking. Then she
should refuse to accept the trust. On the other hand, she was assured
by one in whose honesty she had every reason to place implicit faith,
that the secret meant no harm to any one—that she was only required to
keep it for a time, and that by so doing she would aid him in carrying
into effect his design for the welfare of Madge.

She took a practical view of the mode in which he proposed to benefit
the child of the woman he had loved long ago. He was rich, he was
childless: of course his purpose must be to make her his heiress. Then
why should he make such a mystery of such a generous act? She had heard
of people who took the drollest possible way of bequeathing their
fortunes. Maybe it amused them: maybe they were a little wrong in the
head, and were therefore to be pitied. Why, then, should she not humour
him, by letting him have his own way so long as it was harmless, as
she would do with any person whose eccentricity could not be agreeably
dealt with otherwise? This was coming nearer to a settlement of her
doubts.

Now she could either burn the sealed letter, or send it to him at his
lawyer’s, whose address he gave her for further communications. But the
argument was in favour of opening it; and what lingering hesitation she
might have on the subject was decided by that strain of curiosity which
the best of women have inherited.

She deliberately cut the envelope with her scissors and unfolded
the paper on her lap. The contents were somewhat of the nature she
expected; but the way in which he purposed benefiting Madge was
different from anything she could have guessed.

‘Although events which in the first hours of their occurrence appeared
to be too hard for me to live through have become in time only sad
memories, flitting at intervals across my mind without causing pain
or interfering with my ordinary ways, your letter has brought me so
close to the old times, that I seem to be living in them again. The old
interests—the old passions are as strong upon me at this moment as they
were when I still possessed the greatest of all fortunes—Youth and Hope.

‘Even when I knew that _she_ was lost to me, there remained the
prospect that some day she might need my help, and I should find
consolation in giving it. Her death took that comfort from me, and I
settled down to the dull business of living without a purpose. Luck,
not labour, brought me _money_—that is why I am indifferent to it. This
was how it came.

‘You remember the old hawthorn tree in your father’s garden, where so
many glad hours were spent with Lucy? Well, on a green patch of this
land which I was lazily farming here was an old hawthorn tree, and
associating it with the one which had such deep root in my memory, it
became my favourite resting-place. I made a seat beneath it as like the
old one as possible, and there I used to sit reading or thinking of the
dead man who was my former self. Under this tree I found a diamond: it
was the first of many. But you have read about the diamond fields—and
now you know the source of my wealth.

‘My intention has been from the first that Lucy’s daughter should
benefit by my luck. I could not feel, and you could not expect me to
feel, much active interest in her childhood, knowing that she was
under your protection, and therefore well cared for. Your information
that she is engaged to marry Philip Hadleigh has roused me from a long
sleep. I have formed a good opinion of the young man from his letters.
I purposed having him here with me for a year or so, in order to judge
of his character before deciding in what manner I should best fulfil
the promise given to my sister, to do what I could for him in the
future. The fact that you and your husband regard him with so much
favour as to give your niece to him, would be in the case of another a
sufficient guarantee that he is worthy of all trust.

‘_But he is Lloyd Hadleigh’s son._

‘What that means to me, I do not care to explain, and it is unnecessary
to do so. It is sufficient to tell you that it compels me to make him
_prove_ that he is worthy of trust—above all, that he is worthy of
Madge Heathcote.

‘I intended to judge of him by observing his ways during his stay with
me. Now I intend to put him to the severest test of human nature—the
test of what is called Good Fortune.

‘You love your niece. You cannot trust the man if you object to let him
prove his worth.

    AUSTIN SHIELD.’


CHAPTER XIX.—THE FIRST INTERVIEW.

A few days had passed when Philip startled little Dr Joy with the
information that he had walked two miles and felt equal to two more.

‘But you must not try it, though,’ said the doctor quickly; ‘you are a
strong fellow, but you must not be in too great a hurry to prove it. We
must be economical of our strength, you know, as well as of everything
else. You are getting on nicely—very nicely and with wonderful
rapidity. Don’t spoil it all by too much eagerness.’

‘Don’t be afraid—I’ll take care.’

The afternoon post brought him a note from Mr Shield, announcing his
arrival at the _Langham Hotel_, and inquiring if he felt strong enough
to call there next day at eleven.

‘I am quite strong enough to be with you at the time mentioned,’ was
Philip’s prompt reply; and he kept the engagement punctually.

Being expected, he was conducted immediately to the sitting-room of one
of the finest suites of apartments on the first floor. Evidently Mr
Shield had an idea of taking advantage of all the comforts of the old
country, to make up for whatever inconveniences he had submitted to in
his colonial life.

Standing at one of the windows was a big brawny man, dressed in
dark-brown tweed. He turned as Philip entered, and showed a face
covered with thick, shaggy hair, which had been black, but was now
plentifully streaked with silver. Of his features, only the eyes and
nose were distinguishable, for the shaggy hair fell over his brow, too,
in defiance of combs and brushes.

Philip’s idea of Mr Shield’s appearance had been vague enough; but
somehow this man was so unlike every preconceived notion of him, that
he would have fancied there was a mistake, had not all doubt been at
once removed by the greeting he received.

‘How do you do, Philip? Glad to see you.’

He held out a big horny hand, which betokened a long friendship with
pickaxe and spade. His manner was somewhat rough, but it was frank and
good-natured. Still it was unlike the manner of one who had received
some education and had been accustomed to move in ordinary society.
All this, however, Philip quickly accounted for by recalling the
fact, that Mr Shield had been living so many years on the outskirts
of civilisation, that he must have forgotten much, and unconsciously
adopted some of the characteristics of his uncouth associates.

‘I am glad to see you at last, sir,’ he said, grasping the extended
hand cordially.

‘That’s right. I like a man who can give you a grip when he does shake
hands. If he can’t, he ought to leave it alone. I don’t bother much
with hand-shaking. A nod’s as good in our part. But coming so far, you
see—— Oh, all right’ (the last phrase was like a private exclamation,
as he suddenly remembered something).... ‘Sit down. Have anything?’

‘No; thank you.’

‘Ah, right, right. Under orders, I suppose. Forgot your accident. How’s
the ribs?’

‘Pretty well, I am happy to say,’ answered Philip, smiling at the
droll, gruff, abrupt style of his uncle, and appreciating the
kindliness which was clearly visible through it. ‘The doctors tell me I
shall never know that the accident happened.’

‘That’s good. Now you know what we are not to speak about, and what we
are to speak about is yourself.’

‘That is generally an agreeable subject.’

‘Should be always to a youngster like you. Now, I want to start you
in life. That was my promise, and I am able to keep it. What is your
notion of a start?’

‘I have not decided yet. The result of my journey to you was to settle
what was to follow. As that journey is now unnecessary, I think of
entering for the bar or medicine.’

‘Stuff. Too many lawyers and doctors already. You keep in mind who it
was wished you to come to me?... You needn’t speak.—I see you do. Then
will you obey her, and become my partner?’

‘Your partner!’ ejaculated Philip, astounded by the abruptness of this
extraordinary proposal.

‘Don’t you like the notion? Most young fellows would snap at it.’

‘I am aware of that, Mr Shield; but I have no capital except what my
fa’——

‘That’s all right. You go to Hawkins and Jackson. They will satisfy you
that you have plenty of capital, and will explain to you that there is
a chance for you to become one of the biggest men in London—M.P.—Lord
Mayor—anything you like, if you only enter into partnership with me.’

‘I am a little bewildered, sir, and would like to understand exactly’——

‘Hawkins is waiting for you,’ said Mr Shield, looking at his watch; ‘he
will make everything plain to you before you leave him. He has full
orders—instructions, that is to say. I have somebody else to see now.
You’ll write and tell me how you take to the plan, and I’ll let you
know when we are to meet again.’

‘I ought to thank you; but’——

‘Don’t bother about that—time enough for it—time enough. Good-bye.’

The interview was over. Philip was metaphorically hustled out of the
room by the brusque, good-natured relative he had just found. He felt
confused and bewildered as he walked slowly down Regent Street, trying
to realise the meaning of all the suggestions which had been made to
him. There was something humorous, too, in having a fortune thrust upon
him in this singular fashion. For he knew that to become the partner of
Austin Shield was equivalent to inheriting a large fortune.

In their correspondence of course, Mr Shield had told him that he meant
to ‘see what could be done for him;’ but he had added that everything
would depend upon how they got on together, after they had lived for a
time under the same roof. Now everything was given to him when they had
been only a few minutes together—indeed had been given before they met
at all, for all arrangements in reference to the partnership had been
already made, and only awaited his acceptance.

‘He is an odder fish in person than he has shown himself in his
letters,’ thought Philip. ‘We’ll see what Hawkins says.’

He took a cab, and as he was driving to the office of the solicitors,
his thoughts cleared. There was no doubt that the prospect so freely
offered him was a brilliant one; but there was a cloud upon it. How
would his father regard this arrangement?



A PRACTICAL SCIENCE AND ART SCHOOL.

GORDON’S COLLEGE, ABERDEEN.


Our Minister for Education, Mr Mundella, in a recent visit to Glasgow
and Edinburgh, delivered a series of speeches remarkable not only
for the interesting accounts he gave of the progress of elementary
education under the national system established by the Education Acts,
but for their strong advocacy of the necessity of providing still
higher and more useful education by means of secondary and technical
schools. He indicated that this might in some measure be attained by a
judicious reform of existing educational endowments, and he instanced
one case of such reorganisation, which he held up as a model worthy
of imitation. The case referred to was that of the institution now
known as Robert Gordon’s College, Aberdeen. The ‘reform’ achieved by
this institution has been so thorough and so successful, and has been
conducted so much in the direction indicated by Mr Mundella, that some
details of its nature and the work now being accomplished by its agency
may prove interesting in themselves, and advantageous as furnishing an
illustration of how our general educational system may be improved and
perfected.

The institution was founded by a Robert Gordon, who had been at one
time a merchant in Danzig, but ultimately settled in Aberdeen, where
he died in 1731. He bequeathed all his property to certain trustees,
for the building of a hospital, and for the maintenance and education
of young boys whose parents were poor and indigent, and not able to
maintain them at school or put them to trades and employments. Owing to
the civil disorders of the time, the hospital was not opened till 1750.
The trust funds, together with the value and revenue of a separate
estate bequeathed in 1816 by a Mr Alexander Simpson of Collyhill,
now amount to an annual revenue of over eight thousand pounds. There
were latterly two hundred boys in the hospital, forty of these being
nominated by the Collyhill trustees. The period of residence was five
years; the education imparted was a fairly good, sound, elementary
one, with a little instruction in mathematics and chemistry, and a
smattering of Latin and French. The bulk of the boys drifted into
mercantile pursuits.

The passing of the Educational Endowments Act of 1878 opened up for
the institution a new and wider sphere of usefulness. In June 1881,
the governing body obtained a Provisional Order under the Act, greatly
altering the constitution and objects of the original trust, and
constituting the hospital a College, in which the chief subjects of
study shall be English Language and Literature, History and Geography,
Modern Languages, Mathematics, and the Elements of Physical and Natural
Science. The number of foundationers was reduced to one hundred and
twenty, and the ‘hospital’ system was almost entirely abolished. The
hospital buildings were converted into a day school; the standard of
education was raised; evening classes were established; and provision
was made for the amalgamation with the College of any mechanics’
institute, scientific or technical school, or other educational
institution.

The College, therefore, as now constituted consists of a day school
and an evening school. It is not necessary for our purposes to detail
the work of the day school in the junior department; but in the
senior, the work branches off into three divisions, the studies being
specialised with a regard to the line of work the boys intend pursuing
on leaving school. In the Commercial School prominent attention is
given to modern languages (French and German), mathematics, arithmetic,
book-keeping, and letter and précis writing, the studies in science
being also continued. In the Trade and Engineering School the studies
carried forward are English and one foreign language (French or
German); but most of the time is devoted to mathematics, experimental
science, and drawing; applied science and technical drawing being the
features of the second year. The teaching in both years is accompanied
by systematic instruction in the workshop (in wood and iron); while
for intending young engineers there is a special course in steam and
the steam-engine; and for those aiming at the building trades, a
special course in building construction and drawing. The workshop,
which is under the superintendence of a practical man, is large and
well equipped. It has thirteen benches and a lathe, and a forge and
three vice-benches; and a proposal is about to be submitted to the
governing body for the further development of this practical department
by providing a steam-engine and other appliances. The third division
of the school—the Classical—is for boys intending to proceed to the
university.

At the present time, there are five hundred and eighty day scholars,
one hundred and twenty of whom are foundationers. Ninety day scholars
are receiving instruction in the workshop in relays of fifteen at
a time, one hour being devoted to the workshop, and four hours to
ordinary teaching. The school-hours are five per day, and most of the
school-work is done in that time, the pupils, though not altogether
exempt from home-work, not being oppressed by it. Plenty of time is
thus given for exercise and enjoyment; and there is no complaint of
‘over-pressure,’ either on the part of teachers or taught.

The evening school, which is open to adults, and to girls as well
as to boys, is divided into two sections. There is a General and
Commercial section, in which instruction is given in such subjects as
English, arithmetic, French, German, theory of music, phonography, and
political economy. Then there is a Science and Technology section,
having classes for practical plane and solid geometry, machine and
building construction and drawing, applied mechanics and steam, metal
working tools, carpentry and joinery, magnetism and electricity,
electrical engineering, inorganic chemistry, and botany. To the Physics
and Chemistry lecture-rooms are attached a large apparatus-room and
commodious laboratories; and the means and appliances are enlarged
from time to time, one hundred pounds being devoted this year to
the purchase of scientific apparatus and chemicals. In the Applied
Mechanics class, the strength of materials and the strains in
structures are investigated experimentally; while the class meets
occasionally on Saturday afternoons for experiments in practical
mechanics in the laboratory, or to study the actual applications of
mechanics in some of the engineering works in the town.

The classes in the Science section are specially adapted for students
qualifying for the examinations of the Science and Art Department
and of the Society of Arts, and for the City and Guilds of London
examinations in Technology; and the College—under the able direction of
the head-master, the Rev. Alexander Ogilvie, LL.D.—is now beginning to
take a high position in connection with these examinations. Dr Ogilvie
first instituted Science and Art classes in Gordon’s Hospital in 1875,
not only for boys in the hospital, but also for those who had completed
their education there and were serving apprenticeships in Aberdeen.
The beginnings were small, classes for magnetism and electricity and
physical geography being first started. In course of time, however,
botany was added, followed by mathematics, theoretical mechanics, and
inorganic chemistry; and soon half-a-dozen classes were in full swing,
yielding by-and-by very satisfactory results, all the more satisfactory
as teaching in these special subjects was given out of school-hours,
or, as the inspector reported, ‘Science has taken its place in the
institution, and has displaced nothing.’

The reorganisation of the College, which came into practical operation
in August 1881, gave a new impetus to the evening classes and the
science teaching. During session 1881-82, two hundred and four scholars
attended the evening classes, of whom one hundred and seventy-one
presented themselves at the examinations of the Science and Art
Department. Of these, sixty-nine gained eighty-eight Queen’s prizes,
value twenty-eight pounds ten shillings, and first-class certificates;
eighty-seven gained second-class certificates; and fifteen failed.
The total Department (government) grants that fell to the teachers
amounted to three hundred and forty-six pounds ten shillings. In
session 1882-83, the number of tickets issued for the evening classes
was—For General and Commercial classes, six hundred and eighty-two; for
Science classes, five hundred and eighty-seven: total, twelve hundred
and sixty-nine. Of this number, three hundred and eighty-one individual
students attended the Science classes, of whom two hundred and
thirty-five were present at the examinations. Ninety of these gained
one hundred and twenty-two Queen’s prizes, of the value of thirty-nine
pounds five shillings, with first-class certificates; one hundred and
four gained second-class certificates; and forty-one failed. The grants
earned from the Department amounted to three hundred and sixty-five
pounds. In the Society of Arts’ examinations, sixty-nine candidates
were examined—the largest number from any institution, except the
Birmingham and Midland Institute—and fifty-three passed, four gaining
first-class certificates, and twenty second-class certificates. In the
City and Guilds’ examination, the number presented in technology—metal
working tools—was eight, of whom two gained first-class honours, five
stood first-class in the ordinary grade, and one second-class. One
student so distinguished himself, being second in the examination of
all the candidates in the United Kingdom, that he was awarded a prize
of three pounds and a bronze medal.

Within the past year, the Science teaching in the College has been
largely developed by a provisional amalgamation with the Aberdeen
Mechanics’ Institution, in connection with which there has been for
many years a School of Art and Science classes. The Science classes
and the scientific apparatus of the Mechanics’ Institution have been
transferred to the College, which has become thereby the Science
school for the city. The amalgamation—almost certain to be permanently
ratified—coupled with the more complete and systematic instruction in
Gordon’s College, promises to be fruitful of good results, which may,
indeed, be already anticipated, for no fewer than fifteen hundred and
forty-seven students have enrolled themselves in the various evening
classes for the current session.

The value of the work which the College is accomplishing can hardly be
over-estimated. The objects of the institution, as now recast, are—in
addition to the education of foundationers—to afford a good elementary
education at fees so small as to make it within the reach of the sons
of working-men even; to help its own scholars, and boys leaving Board
Schools, to a knowledge of subjects not otherwise readily attainable;
and to furnish to the apprentice and the artisan instruction in
science and technology of a higher grade. The College, in short, aims
at being a complete and efficient secondary school, and really forms
for the city of Aberdeen the much-desiderated link between elementary
and university education—a link that will be more apparent and more
serviceable when the universities come to be reformed, and when more
attention will likely be paid to scientific than to classical studies.
Even as things are, a number of the scholars have already found their
way to the university, and have been successful in gaining bursaries
and other honours; and two of them—educated partly in the Hospital and
partly in the College—have recently passed the competitions for the
Indian Civil Service without the preliminary ‘coaching’ in London,
generally regarded as essential. One of the two is now in receipt of
one hundred and fifty pounds a year during his two years of probation,
after which he will become one of Her Majesty’s civil servants in
India. The Commercial School provides an education well suited for
young men who intend engaging in the various occupations and industries
of the town and district; while in the evening classes they have every
opportunity of continuing their studies as their inclinations or their
pursuits dictate.

But the most important work of the College is the scientific and
technical education it imparts. The object here is to furnish in the
day school such an elementary practical knowledge as will prepare boys
to become intelligent apprentices; in the evening school, on the other
hand, to furnish higher theoretical instruction to boys and men really
at work. The workshop is for the use of day scholars only; the evening
pupils find their practical training in their daily work, and come to
the College to learn the theory. The day school aims at teaching the
pupils on the technical side the elements of the constructive arts and
the character of materials, concurrently with thorough education in the
interpretation of working drawings. It is explicitly intimated that
‘it is by no means intended that a boy should learn his trade in the
College, but only that he should lay the foundation of the scientific
and technical knowledge which has become an essential concomitant of
trade experience and manual dexterity.’ This distinction has to be
borne in mind; for Gordon’s College is not an ‘apprenticeship school,’
such, for instance, as the one maintained by the Paris municipality in
the Boulevard de la Villette, which turns out its pupils, at the end of
a three years’ course, as having finished their apprenticeship, and as
being ready for employment as journeymen, or even as foremen. The fault
of this system of training artisans is that it underrates what is to be
learned in the ordinary workshop; and instead of having recourse to it,
the governing body of Gordon’s College set to work on the lines just
mentioned.

It is obviously impossible as yet to discern the effect which this
improved technical education will have upon the arts and industries
of the town; but some estimate of the actual work accomplished may
be formed from the following account of models exhibited at the last
distribution of prizes, which we take from a local paper:

‘A large number of drawings by the pupils attracted much attention, and
a special feature was an exhibition of models executed in the workshop
in the course of the year. These models were the work of the pupils,
and an examination showed that they were highly finished, and that
in every instance the greatest care had been taken, down even to the
most minute detail. The models were large in number, and diverse in
character. One was a very fine sample of a suspension bridge, measuring
twelve feet in length, and weighted so as to show the strain it was
capable of sustaining. There was also what is known as a roof-truss, an
arrangement for finding what, under given circumstances, would be the
strain put upon the rafters and the rods. Then there was a model crane
adjusted for a precisely similar purpose, and very neatly finished
apparatus for experimenting with the inclined plane, the lever, and
friction coil, &c. A number of well-finished specimens of electrical
apparatus formed part of the exhibits, including one or two very good
galvanometers and a small electrical engine. In woodwork the variety
was large. A walking-stick was shown which on occasion could be
transformed into a tripod stand for surveying. There were also models
of the various jointings employed in woodwork, and several excellent
specimens of work both in wood and iron. Possibly the most striking
feature of the whole display was a sectional model of a steam-engine,
which measured some thirteen feet in length and showed all the working
parts. It was also provided with means of adjustment to find by
experiment the effect of varying the dimensions of the various parts.
The entire model was coloured in accordance with the ordinary rule in
engineering works. Among the ordinary articles shown were a grindstone
frame, a vice-bench, and a number of smithy tools. It may be mentioned
that the whole of the work in connection with the models was not only
executed by the boys themselves, but that in every case they had also
prepared the working drawings.’

It is not too much to infer that elementary instruction which produces
such results as these will prove an important factor in the work of
after-life; and we may safely conclude that the College is not unlikely
to realise a large measure of the success which it deserves, besides
serving as an example to other scholastic and commercial communities.



THE MINER’S PARTNER.


IN FOUR CHAPTERS.—CONCLUSION.

Never before had Ben from mental excitement passed a sleepless night;
his seasoned, iron nerves had borne him through a multitude of
perils—from hostile Indians, from white enemies; from the bear, the
wolf, the snake; from fire and flood; and when the time had come for
him to sleep, he slept soundly; when his rough meals were prepared, he
ate well. But it was different now. The recollection of the face which
confronted his own at the restaurant, haunted him, broke his sleep into
fitful dozing, and filled these unrefreshing snatches with terrible
dreams. Yet, when the bright morning came, he persuaded himself that he
must have been mistaken—that he had exaggerated some chance resemblance
into the identity of his dead partner.

Ben’s reflections touched upon what was growing into another dreadful
form of mental excitement. He began to fear that he had not seen the
man at all, that it was merely a delusion, a vision of the brain.
And that such a delusion should take the form of Rube Steele was not
surprising, bearing in mind the fact, which was never long absent from
his thoughts, that he had given this man a blow which, if it had not,
as he formerly supposed, caused the man’s death, must have very nearly
done so. No doubt the blow was struck in self-defence; but even murder
in self-defence is not a thing which a man can in his calmer moments
recall without some sense of remorse.

He was early at the hotel, and taking his regular seat, waited
with a nervous anxiety, such as he had rarely experienced before,
the appearance of the stranger. He had not long to wait. Almost as
soon as he was seated, a figure entered the saloon which there was
no mistaking, and all Ben’s consolatory theories as to a casual
resemblance deceiving him, fled on the instant. The stoop of the long
body and neck, the crafty glance the man threw around on entering, his
very step—these were all Rube Steele’s; and to the dismay of Ben, the
new-comer evidently glanced round the saloon in search of _him_, for
the moment he saw him, his face lighted up with a smile, and he came to
the table.

‘Glad to see you again!’ said he, extending a hand which a horrible
fascination compelled Ben to seize and shake; but the familiarity of
the touch was more horrible still. He felt—he knew for a certainty, he
had touched that hand a thousand times.

‘I thought mebbe you made this your regular dining location,’ continued
the other; ‘and I have kinder taken a fancy to you.’

‘In-deed!’ gasped Ben, wondering as to what would come next.

‘Yes, I have; that is so,’ replied the stranger. ‘I reckon you have not
been located in this city very long?’

‘Not very long,’ said Ben, who had not once removed his eyes from the
other’s face. ‘I came from the West—from the mining country.’

‘Possible!’ ejaculated the stranger. ‘Wal, now, I take a great interest
in the mining countries, and like to hear tell of them. Were you from
Californy, or Nevady, or’——

‘From Colorado,’ gasped Ben, who almost began to fancy that he was
losing his senses, so certain was he that the man was Rube, and yet
so inconsistent with this belief was the whole of his conversation,
especially his liking for Ben, and his anxiety to hear of the mines.

When they separated, it was with another shake of the hand, and a
strongly expressed hope on the part of the stranger that they might
meet again the next day. ‘Either the critter is a ghost,’ thought
Ben—‘and in that case there _are_ ghosts—or I am going crazy; or he is
Rube Steele; and I know that is impossible. I won’t go to this hotel
any more; and soon as we get married, Ruth and I will live out of the
city, and that is a comfort.’

Fortified by this reflection, he was able to bear up somewhat better on
this day, and to accept Mr Showle’s invitation with a calmer mind. He
arrived early at the merchant’s house. Ruth came in soon afterwards,
and he was pleased to see that she, too, looked more cheerful. Ruth had
relieved her mind, as she confessed to Ben, by telling him her trouble;
and now he knew it, she felt that the worst was over. It was to avoid
her half-brother, she owned, that she had wished Ben to live so far
from town, and as he had now really arrived, he was glad they had
agreed upon this precaution.

They were conversing cheerfully enough, when a knock was heard at the
outer door, and Mr Showle, rising, exclaimed: ‘There is Morede! I know
his knock. Indeed, he takes care we shall hear him.—I am sure you will
like him, Creelock, and he is very anxious to see you.—Ah! Mr Morede!
you are punctual, then! Come in, and let me introduce you to our friend
Creelock.’ Saying this, he shook hands with the new arrival, and led
him to where Ben was standing.

‘I think,’ said Mr Morede, as he took Ben’s hand with a smile, ‘I am
not entirely a stranger to Mr Creelock. I have had the pleasure of
dining with him more than once at the _Ocean House_.’

Yes, he had; of course he had. Of course he was not a stranger to
Ben—far from it, and Ben knew it well; for here was his mysterious
companion at dinner, the new partner in Showle and Bynnes, and Ruth’s
half-brother, all turning out to be not only one and the same person,
but were also each and every one Rube Steele, his treacherous partner,
whom he had left for dead in Colorado! And why did he not recognise
Ben, as Ben had recognised him? Of all the strange features in this
bewildering matter, this was the strangest.

Ben shook hands, as an automaton might have done, and spoke as though
in a trance; the odd tone and character of his replies, and his fixed
stare, evidently attracting the notice of Ruth and Mr Showle.

‘Come, Creelock!’ cried the latter presently; ‘you are not yourself
to-night. Where are your mining stories and your prairie adventures?
I have been praising you all the time to our friend Morede here, as a
sort of live volume of entertainment on these matters, and you are not
saying a word about them.’

‘Mr Showle is entirely right; he is so,’ said Morede; ‘and I reckon
I shall be quite pleased to sit around and hear somethin’ about the
western mines. I always do like to hear tell of them.’

‘Do you?’ exclaimed Ben, rousing himself in a species of desperation,
and resolving to bring this horrible torture to a finish. ‘Shall I tell
you an adventure of my own?’

‘Just so,’ returned Morede, with a pleased smile. ‘I should like it
above all things.’

‘Then,’ said Ben—and his answering smile was of a somewhat grimmer
character, in spite of himself, than Morede’s had been—‘then I will
tell you how my pardner at the mines introduced a stranger, who robbed
me of fifteen hundred dollars. This stranger came, I should tell you,
with information about Indians, on the war-path who were likely to
be around our camp. But it was an arranged plot. He was a mean cuss,
this stranger; he or his friends robbed the placers and broke the
stamp-mill. It was either him or my pardner that shot at me from a
gully; and the bullet went through my hat and cut away some of my hair.
That was not the only time my pardner got his desperadoes to shoot at
me; so I will tell you about _him_.’

Thereupon, stimulated by the desperate impulse we have alluded to,
Ben proceeded to relate a part of the plot which had been devised
for his ruin by his crafty partner; the incidents attendant on which
greatly excited, and sometimes almost appalled his hearers, none
among whom listened with more palpable interest than did Mr Morede.
Ben told all, up to the action of the Vigilantes, but could not bring
himself to speak of the final scene at the pool; there was something
too horrible in the idea of describing _that_ to his listeners. When
Ben had finished, which he did by saying, ‘What do you think of that,
Mr Morede?’ and looking his new partner straight in the face, the
latter exclaimed, in what seemed the most genuine manner possible:
‘First-rate, Mr Creelock! I admire you. I see you have the real grit;
and I wish I had been there to help you in such a fix. But, to my
thinking, your partner was the worse of the two.’

‘He was,’ said Ben drily.

‘And he ought to have had his reward,’ continued Morede.

‘He had it,’ said Ben, with increased dryness.

‘Good! Good!’ cried Morede; and other comments being made, the
conversation became general.

Morede bore his part all through the evening without a single allusion
which could induce Ben to suppose he had the slightest remembrance of
him, or had ever before heard a syllable relating to the dangerous
stranger or the robberies. When they parted for the night, too, he
was particularly demonstrative in his friendliness to Creelock,
making quite a ‘smart oration,’ as Mr Showle afterwards remarked, on
the agreeable evening he had passed, and the pleasure it would give
him to be associated in business, and as he hoped, in still closer
relationship with a man whom he admired and liked so much at first
sight as he did Mr Creelock. Ben went home after this speech in doubt
as to whether it was himself or every one around him that was going mad.

Day after day passed, and the new partners in the firm met frequently,
with no diminution in the friendship which Mr Morede had from the first
professed for Ben. They did not meet at the hotel, however; the strain
on Ben’s nerves was bad enough when they met as part of a group. A
_tête-à-tête_ was more than he could stand with a man whom he believed
to have killed, but who was now walking about as unconcernedly as
though he had never been stretched by the side of that Colorado pool.

So confounded had Ben been by the apparition, that he had never thought
of asking the Christian name of Mr Morede, and it came upon him as a
new shock when he received a note from the warehouse on some business
matters signed ‘Reuben Morede,’ while he could have sworn to the
handwriting in a court of justice. This did not increase his certainty,
for it could admit of no increase; he _was_ certain, and could not
go beyond that; but it seemed to make the position more dreadful and
complicated. Now and then, too, he would find, if he turned quickly
round, Mr Morede gazing fixedly upon him—an earnest gaze, as though
he were striving to recall something to his memory; and this was not
agreeable to Creelock.

He asked Ruth, as guardedly as possible, about her brother’s past
career; but she knew nothing of it since he had left home. He had gone
West, she knew; but he would not now utter a syllable in explanation,
or even say how he had been employed. Ben could not press her very much
upon the subject, as it was evidently a painful one. His departure from
home had been caused by some disgraceful, possibly fatal broil—that was
clear; so Ben forbore to question her.

The day of his wedding drew nigh. Ruth had left her school; their
home was so far advanced in its improvements that it would be quite
ready by the time they returned from their trip; and then—to add still
greater pleasure and éclat to the festivities—the gallant energetic
old gentleman Mr Bynnes paid a short visit to Cincinnati. Like the
restless Yankee he was, he had already sold his new estate at a very
considerable profit; so was now, at seventy years of age, looking out
for some fresh investment for his dollars, and employment for his time.
He had seen Ben before leaving Cincinnati, and appeared to like him
then; and seeing him a little more at leisure now, he liked him more.
The bluff, straightforward, perhaps rough manner, which Creelock could
never shake off, seemed to please the old man mightily, and he was
never so happy as when in his company. Ben, with his nightmare always
oppressing him, had asked a little about Reuben Morede, who he knew was
a connection of Mr Bynnes. But the latter was not communicative about
the new partner, although there was a tantalising hesitation in his
manner, which made Ben think he could a tale unfold, did he choose.

Well, the wedding-day came; and the simple ceremony performed in Mr
Showle’s drawing-room, made Ben and Ruth man and wife. Then came what
answers to the wedding-breakfast of the Britisher, and this was on a
scale, for variety and display, to put the old country on its mettle,
although it was only given by an American storekeeper. After the first
part of the feast was over, Mr Bynnes got Ben by himself and insisted
upon having a final glass of champagne with him. ‘I know you have got
just the best wife in the States,’ said the old gentleman; ‘and you are
the kind of man to make a good husband, _I_ can see. I feel as glad to
see little Ruth Alken happily settled, as if she was a gal of my own—I
do. After all these years, too, to think her brother is going to clear
up and quit his tricks! I always liked the boy; but he has had some
real bad ways. You asked me about him, you know.’

‘Yes, I did,’ said Ben.

‘Wal, I did not like to let out agen him,’ pursued Mr Bynnes; ‘but
it can’t do harm now anyway, that I can see. He has been mining in
Colorado, and has been up to some queer tricks there. He was nigh
killed by his partner—he was; that is so.’

‘Nearly killed!’ echoed Ben.

‘Ah! most oncommon nigh,’ said Mr Bynnes. ‘Also he was nigh upon
lynched by the Vigilantes. His partner found out that he was—Rube was,
I mean—playing him false, planning to rob and perhaps murder him; so it
is supposed from the mark on his head that he hit him down with some
blunt instrument, possibly a club, and left him for dead at the mine.
He was found lying by some of the miners, who carried him to Flume
City, and I heard all about it from the doctor who attended him. It is
a real extraordinary case. He recovered, as you see; but his memory
from a certain time has entirely gone. His boyish days he remembers
quite well; but does not appear to have the least idea that he ever
went to the mines or was ever injured. We have tried him in every way;
but his mind is a perfect blank. Strange, is it not?’

‘Very strange,’ assented Ben, who, we need hardly say, was listening
with breathless interest.

‘His brain is injured, no doubt,’ continued the elder; ‘for his skull
was fractured. The doctor says it is to be hoped that he will never
recover his memory; for if he does, he will probably go mad, and do
some more mischief before he dies. It is a strange case.—Here we are!
just having a friendly drink at parting.’ This was in reply to one or
two of the party who came to interrupt the lengthened gossip, and the
conference was broken up.

       *       *       *       *       *

Often, during his eastern trip, did Ben recur to the strange story
he had heard, and often did he debate with himself whether or not he
should tell his wife what he had learned; but he thought it better on
the whole to be silent. It was with a great feeling of relief, however,
that he found, upon his return to Cincinnati, that Morede was absent,
having just left to accompany Mr Bynnes in his inspection of a property
in Colorado.

In about a week after this time, Mr Showle received a letter from Mr
Bynnes announcing the almost sudden death of Morede! ‘And we had a bad
time with him,’ said the writer. ‘Perhaps it was because we came to
Colorado that he all at once got back his mind; but whatever it was,
he woke one morning like a fiend or a wild Indian. He raved about the
mines, talked of horrible things he had done; said the fellows here
would tremble even now at Rube Steele’s name; and we have found out
that he, or some one like him, was known in these parts as Rube Steele,
a year or two back. Tell Mr Creelock that he was frantic against _him_.
He was sensible enough in other things; but he was always calling
for his pistol, and vowed that he would shoot Ben Creelock on sight!
Told me that Ben was the man who had broken his skull and had set
the Vigilantes on his friends. I tell you, Abel Showle, it was real
frightful, and we were all glad when he died; though my heart ached for
him, when I recollected the bright, clever boy he was; his mother’s
only son, too. But he is gone now; and bad as he may have been, I don’t
think we will tell Ruth of his later life, as he had caused her a deal
of misery, and she don’t need to think any worse of him.’[1]

The kindly, shrewd old merchant’s advice was followed; and Ruth
Creelock, although she did not feign passionate grief for the
half-brother who had so injured all who ought to have been dear to him,
yet spoke of him with a softened feeling, which must have been changed
had she known of the deadly enmity which once existed between the dead
man and her husband.

[1] For a similar case of lapsed memory, see Carpenter’s _Mental
Physiology_, 4th edition, pp. 460-465.



MISS MARRABLE’S ELOPEMENT.


IN TWO CHAPTERS.—CHAPTER I.

Miss Martha Marrable, a spinster lady of five-and-fifty, is the last
of her race. Her only brother, Mr Clement Marrable, never married, and
died twenty years ago at Baden-Baden, whither he had gone to drink
the waters; and her two sisters, Maria and Lætitia, although they did
marry, did not live to become middle-aged women. The elder, Maria,
after becoming the wife of Mr Langton Larkspur, of the firm of Scrip,
Larkspur, and Company, bankers, of Threadneedle Street, gave birth to a
single child, a daughter, who was named Lucy; and the younger, Lætitia,
having been led to the altar by Mr Septimus Allerton, of the firm of
Allerton, Bond, and Benedict, brokers, of Pancake Lane, presented
her husband with twin girls, of whom one only—and she was called
Amy—survived her extreme infancy. It is therefore not astonishing
that Miss Martha Marrable, a well-to-do woman without family ties, is
exceedingly fond of the daughters of her two dead sisters. She usually
has them to stay with her at least twice a year—once in the early
summer at her house in Grosvenor Street; and once in the autumn at the
seaside, or in Italy, whither she goes occasionally, accompanied—to
the great wonder of the foreigners—by a courier, a man-servant, two
maids, eleven boxes, and a green parrot. And as she is very kind to
her nieces, and denies them nothing, it is not surprising that they
are fully as fond of her as she is of them. But Miss Martha Marrable
is growing old; whereas Miss Lucy Larkspur and Miss Amy Allerton are
both young, and intend to remain so for some years to come. It is not,
therefore, to be expected that the three ladies should invariably think
exactly alike on all subjects. And indeed, I am happy to say that there
are not many women who do agree with Miss Marrable upon all questions;
for although she is as good-hearted an old spinster as ever breathed,
she is, unfortunately, a man-hater.

I have looked into the dictionary to see what the verb ‘to hate’
signifies, and I find that it means ‘to despise,’ or ‘to dislike
intensely.’ Let it not, however, be supposed that the word ‘man-hater’
is a stronger one than ought to be applied to Miss Marrable; for I
am really not quite certain that it is altogether strong enough. She
regards men as inferior animals, and looks down upon them with lofty
contempt. ‘Who,’ she once said to her niece Lucy, ‘has turned the world
upside down, filled it with poverty and unhappiness, and deluged it
with blood? It is Man, Lucy. If woman had always governed the earth, we
should have had no Cæsar Borgias, no Judge Jefferieses, no Bonapartes,
and no Nana Sahibs.’ And yet Miss Martha Marrable can never see a
vagrant begging in the street without giving him alms. The truth is,
that although she detests and despises man, she pities him; just as she
pities the poor idiot whom she sometimes sees grinning and gibbering by
the wayside in Italy.

These being her sentiments, Miss Marrable has not, of course, many male
acquaintances. She is on good, but not affectionate terms with her
widowed brothers-in-law, Mr Langton Larkspur and Mr Septimus Allerton.
She once a year invites her man of business, Mr John Bones, of Cook’s
Court, to dine with her and them in Grosvenor Street; and she is civil
to the rector of her parish, and to the medical man whom she would
call in to attend her in case of illness. Yet Mr Larkspur once told Mr
Allerton that this feminine dragon had had a violent love-affair when
she was nineteen; and Mr Allerton—whose connection with the Marrable
family is of much more recent date than that of Lucy’s father—actually
declared that he could well believe it. If, however, Miss Marrable did
have a love-affair in her youth, I am not inclined at this time of day
to cast it as a reproach in her teeth. Boys will be boys; and girls, I
suppose, will be girls, though they may live to see the error of their
ways, and be none the worse for their follies. One thing is certain,
and that is, that at the present time, and for at least five-and-twenty
years past, Miss Martha Marrable has ceased to dream of the tender
passion. She still occasionally talks vaguely of going up the Nile,
or of visiting the Yellowstone Region, ere she dies; but she never
contemplates the possibility of getting married; and I believe that she
would as soon think of allowing a man to believe that she regarded him
with anything but polite aversion, as she would think of going into
business as a steeple-jack, and learning to stand on one leg on the top
of the cross at the summit of St Paul’s Cathedral.

And yet Miss Martha Marrable was last year the heroine of a terrible
scandal; and many of her misanthropic female friends have never since
been able to completely believe her professions of hatred of man.
The affair gave rise to many whispers, and was even, I understand,
guardedly alluded to, with just and virtuous deprecation, in the
columns of the _Woman’s Suffrage Journal_, as a terrible but happily
rare instance of womanly weakness and frivolity; and since the true
story has never been told, I feel that it is only fair to tell it, and
by telling it, to defend Miss Marrable from the dastardly charges that
have been made against her established reputation for good sense and
unflinching contempt of the rougher sex.

Towards the end of August, Miss Marrable and her two nieces left
London for North Wales, and after a long and tiresome journey, reached
Abermaw, in Merionethshire, and took rooms at the _Cors-y-Gedol Hotel_.
They were accompanied, as usual, by the two maids and the green parrot;
but the courier and the man-servant, being males, and their services
not being imperatively required, they were left behind in London.
Lucy had just celebrated her twenty-third birthday, and Amy was just
about to celebrate her twenty-first; and—although I am sorry to have
to record it—I am by no means astonished that they were both in love.
Lucy, during the whole of the previous season, had been determinedly
flirting with a designing young artist named Robert Rhodes; and Amy,
younger and less experienced than her cousin, had been carrying on,
even more sentimentally, with Mr Vivian Jellicoe, who, being heir to a
baronetcy, found that position so arduous and fatiguing, that he was
quite unfitted for any active occupation of a laborious character. Of
course Miss Marrable knew nothing of these affairs. Had she suspected
them, she would perhaps have not taken her nieces with her to Abermaw;
for it happened that at that very watering-place, Sir Thomas Jellicoe
and his son Vivian were staying when the three ladies, the two maids,
and the green parrot arrived. But no foresight on Miss Marrable’s part
could have prevented Mr Robert Rhodes from following Lucy to North
Wales. That adventurous artist had made up his mind to spend the autumn
in Miss Larkspur’s neighbourhood; and even if Miss Marrable had carried
off her elder niece to Timbuctoo or the Society Islands, Mr Rhodes
would have gone after the pair by the next train, steamboat, diligence,
or caravan available.

Upon the morning, therefore, after Miss Marrable’s arrival at Abermaw,
she and her nieces were comfortably installed at the _Cors-y-Gedol
Hotel_; while at the _Red Goat_, close by, Sir Thomas Jellicoe and
Vivian occupied rooms on the first floor, and Mr Rhodes had a bedroom
on the third.

In the course of that afternoon, Miss Martha Marrable, accompanied by
her nieces, and followed at a respectful distance by the two maids,
walked in the sunshine upon the hard sands that stretch, for I do not
know how many hundred yards at low water, between the rocky hills
behind the little town and the margin of Cardigan Bay. The weather was
hot and sultry, and the unrippled sea looked like molten lead in the
glare. Much exercise was therefore out of the question; and ere long,
the three ladies sat down on the seaward side of a rush-grown sandhill
to read, leaving the two maids to stroll farther if they chose to do
so, and to explore at their leisure the unaccustomed wonders of the
seashore.

Miss Martha having arranged her sunshade to her satisfaction, opened
a little volume on _The Rights of the Slaves of England_, while Lucy
devoted herself to one of Ouida’s novels, and Amy plunged deep into
Keats. In five minutes _The Rights of the Slaves of England_ fell
heavily to the sand; and in three minutes more, Miss Marrable was
emitting sounds which, but that I know her to be a woman who has no
weakness, I should call snores. From that moment, Lucy and Amy, as if
by common consent, read no more.

‘Lucy,’ said Amy mysteriously to her cousin, ‘I have seen him.’

‘So have I,’ said Lucy.

‘What a curious coincidence!’

‘Not at all. He told me that he intended to follow us.’

‘What! Vivian told you?’

‘O no! Bother Vivian! You are always thinking of Vivian. I mean Robert.’

‘He here too!’ exclaimed Amy. ‘I meant Vivian. I saw him half an hour
ago, with his father.’

‘Well, I advise you not to let Aunt Martha know too much,’ said Lucy.
‘If she suspects anything, she will take us back to London this
afternoon.’

Miss Marrable murmured uneasily in her sleep. A fly had settled on her
chin.

‘Hush!’ exclaimed the girls in unison, and then they were silent.

Not long afterwards, they caught sight of two young men who were
walking arm-in-arm along the sand, a couple of hundred yards away.

‘Look! There they are!’ whispered Lucy. ‘Aunt must not see them. We
must go and warn them.’ And, stealthily accompanied by her cousin, she
crept away from Miss Marrable, and ran towards the approaching figures.

I need not describe the greetings that ensued. Such things are the
commonplaces of seaside encounters between young men and young women
who have likings for each other, and they have been described a
thousand times. Suffice it to say that, a few minutes later, Lucy and
Robert were sitting together under the shadow of a bathing-machine,
while Amy and Vivian were confidentially talking nonsense a dozen yards
off. More than half an hour elapsed ere the girls returned to Miss
Marrable; but fortunately the excellent spinster was still murmuring
sleepily at the fly on her chin; and when she awoke, she had no
suspicion that she had been deserted by her charges. As she walked back
with them to the hotel, nevertheless, as if with a strange intuitive
comprehension of danger in the air, she held forth to them upon her
favourite topic—the unfathomable baseness of man; and gravely warned
them against ever allowing themselves even for a single moment to
entertain any feeling, save one of polite aversion to the hated sex.

Thus matters went on for a week or more, Lucy and Amy meeting their
lovers every day in secret, and Miss Marrable suspecting nothing.
Although she knew Sir Thomas Jellicoe and his son, she treated them,
whenever she encountered them, with such freezing courtesy, that they
did not seek her society. As for Robert Rhodes, she did not know him;
and he therefore escaped her lofty slights.

But in due time a crisis arrived; and in order that the full bearings
of the situation may be properly understood, I must briefly explain the
characters of Miss Martha Marrable’s undutiful nieces.

Lucy Larkspur has but little romance in her composition; she has strong
feelings, but not much sentiment; and she is one of those girls who are
perfectly open with their hearts. She loved Robert Rhodes, and, as she
knew quite well that he also loved her, she made no secret to him of
her affection for him. Amy Allerton, on the other hand, is, and always
has been, sentimentally inclined. She believes, rightly or wrongly,
that it is a very charming thing to

      Let concealment, like a worm i’ the bud,
    Feed on her damask cheek;

and she would as soon have thought of permitting Vivian Jellicoe to
think that she loved him, as of attempting to win and woo the Sultan
of Turkey. The consequence was that Miss Marrable, who fondly imagined
that she knew all the thoughts of her elder niece, trusted her much
more than she trusted her younger. She regarded Lucy as an open book
that might be easily read, and Amy as a kind of oracular voice that,
while saying or appearing to say one thing, might mean exactly the
opposite. Miss Marrable was destined to discover that she was to
some extent wrong in her estimate, so far, at all events, as Lucy
was concerned; and her discovery of her error was, I grieve to say,
accompanied by a good deal of pain and mortification.

Ten days had passed; and the two pair of lovers had made considerable
progress. Amy, it is true, had not declared herself to Vivian, who,
being a bashful young man, had, perhaps, not pressed her sufficiently;
but Lucy and Robert understood one another completely, and were
secretly engaged to get married at the earliest opportunity. Vivian’s
bashfulness could not, however, endure for an unlimited time. One
morning, he and Amy found themselves together on the rocks behind the
town, and the opportunity being favourable, he screwed up his courage,
told her that he had never loved any one but her; and obtained a coyly
given promise that she would be his.

Natures like Amy’s, when they once take fire, often burn rapidly. On
Monday, she became engaged to Vivian Jellicoe; on Tuesday, Vivian
begged her to name a day for the wedding, and she refused; and on
Wednesday, Vivian, knowing the peculiar sentiments of Miss Martha
Marrable, and doubtful also, perhaps, whether his father would not
throw impediments in the way of his early marriage, proposed an
elopement; and Amy, with some hesitation, consented.

When she returned from her secret meeting with her lover, she of course
confided her plan to her cousin. ‘How foolish you are,’ said Lucy; ‘you
know that your father would not have you do that for the world; and you
will make an enemy of Aunt Martha, who is like a mother to us girls.’

‘But she would never agree to our marrying, if we consulted her,’
objected Amy; ‘and if she knew anything of our plans, I am sure that
she would manage to frustrate them. She is a dear old thing, but——
Well, she is peculiar on those points.’

‘I have told you what I think,’ said Lucy, with an assumption of wisdom
that was perhaps warranted by her superior age. ‘Don’t be foolish.’

But Amy was already beyond the influence of counsel. She persisted in
her intention, and even claimed Lucy’s sympathy and assistance, which,
of course, Lucy could not ultimately withhold.

Ere an elopement can be successfully carried out, in the face
especially of the jealous watchfulness of a man-hating spinster lady
of middle age, numerous preparations have to be made; and, in the
case of Vivian and Amy, the making of these preparations involved
correspondence. Amy, therefore, bribed one of her aunt’s maids to act
as a go-between; and the maid in question, with a fidelity that is
rare, and at the same time a treachery that, I fear, is common in her
kind, promptly carried Vivian’s first letter to her mistress.

Miss Martha Marrable without scruple tore open the envelope and
angrily perused its contents. ‘MY OWN AMY,’ ran the audacious
communication—‘Let us settle, then, to go on Wednesday. At nine o’clock
in the evening, a carriage-and-pair shall be ready to take us to
Harlech, where you can stay for the night with the Joneses, who are
old friends of ours; and on Thursday by mid-day we shall be married,
and, I trust, never afterwards parted again. We can arrange the details
between this and then. But write, and tell me that you agree.—Your ever
devoted

    VIVIAN.’



A FEW WORDS ABOUT THE POLECAT.


Of the several interesting animals which constitute the weasel tribe
in the British Isles, not the least noteworthy is the polecat. It
is at once the largest and most predaceous of the three most common
_mustelidæ_, and one of the greatest natural enemies of game with which
preservers have to contend, and at the same time a most persevering
and successful poultry-yard thief. It is, notwithstanding all these
unfavourable traits in its character, but scantily known as far as its
appearance and general mode of existence are concerned; gamekeepers,
for obvious reasons, not wholly unconnected with the animal’s bodily
discomfort, seeming to possess almost a monopoly of information
concerning the natural characteristics and habits of this somewhat
sturdy varmint.

The polecat is popularly supposed to be, as far as outward form goes,
a larger type of stoat, while actually it is a very different-looking
animal, although possessing the peculiar formation of body and
litheness of limb so typical of the weasel tribe. In several details
it offers some not inconsiderable difference from the generality of
weasels. The somewhat more thickly set head and the bushy tail are the
most prominent divergences. But taken as a whole, its appearance imbues
one with the idea that it might form a very satisfactory connecting
link between the _mustelidæ_ and the _felidæ_—the weasels and the cats.
Hence, probably, its name. In colour, polecats vary to some extent, on
account of the nature of their furry covering. This consists of two
lengths of fur; the one—which lies close to the skin—being thick and
woolly, of a pale yellowish brown; and the other, long and of more
hair-like texture, a bright deep brown, darkening into a shiny black.
As these two furs do not grow and are not shed simultaneously, but are
regulated in this respect by the seasons, it is sufficiently obvious
that superficial observation of these animals at different times of
the year might lead one to suppose that polecats were of various and
irregular colouring.

The polecat is yearly becoming rarer and rarer in the more cultivated
districts of the country; while its numbers are also slowly but
seemingly very surely diminishing in those parts which the hand of man
has permitted to remain in a state congenial to its tastes and habits.
We need not be at any pains to enumerate the districts throughout the
United Kingdom where it is still to be found, because, when the nature
of the haunts which it loves are presently set forth, such districts
will naturally suggest themselves. The stoat and the weasel are both to
some extent gregarious; but the polecat seems to prefer a more solitary
mode of existence; and it rarely happens that if some few of them are
found to frequent any particular spot, many more of their kind have
taken up their abode in the near neighbourhood. The polecat chiefly
haunts small dark fir-woods, where the surface is rough and broken, and
much overgrown with tangled and inhospitable brake. If such a clump
of trees be situated at the corner of a field or along some irregular
farm-road, it has additional recommendations. In the hilly uncultivated
parts, the streams invariably pursue a troubled course through rough
and broken ground, where large boulders and low thickly bristling brake
alternate with gorse and bracken-covered level ground. Here the polecat
also finds a congenial haunt, away from the abodes of man, and in a
situation where provender, in the shape of rabbits and hares and winged
game, is likely to be plentiful and easily obtained. When nothing else
will grow on the steep and barren hillside, large areas of oak are
often planted, not to grow into large spreading trees, but only into
oak-coppice, which may afford oak-bark for the tanner, and firewood
for the dwellers in the country. Amongst this copse the polecat has
many inducements to form its lair, and there it will find many animals
and birds upon which to prey. In fact, it is not particular as to its
haunts, if it can only be situated in rough and tree-grown parts, where
it may obtain that security from observation and molestation which
seems a necessity of its existence.

The actual lair of the animal may be anywhere—in any crevice of a rock,
in a hollow tree or hole in the ground; but the place where its young
are born and reared, is chosen after seemingly greater deliberation,
and with an evident object. It prefers for this important purpose a
burrow in the soil, and as a rule, adapts to its use and occupation
that of some departed rabbit. Failing this, it will be at evident
pains to scoop out a burrow for itself; though this is but a poor
affair beside the convenient and more secure subterranean dwelling
usually formed by the ubiquitous and nimble rodent in question. But if
rabbit-burrows be scarce, and the polecat disinclined for burrowing, it
will perforce seek out some warm, secure nook amongst the interstices
of some boulders, or beneath some irregular heap of large stones
collected by the industrious agriculturist, and set about forming its
lair in that. This lair resembles to some extent the breeding-place
formed by the rabbit, but is usually distinguishable from that by the
greater regularity and evenness with which the dry leaves, dry grass,
moss, and the like are formed and worked together to afford a suitable
receptacle for the young when born. These are usually five or six in
number, occasionally more, not unfrequently less. The months of May and
June seem to be about the time when they are brought forth; but they
rarely make their appearance above ground till some time after they are
born. It is uncertain whether, while the young are being reared, the
male becomes the sole provider of food; but we fancy not, and that when
the female can snatch an occasion, she exercises her predatory desires
in common with her mate.

Polecats are not by any means night-hunters, although, no doubt, they
filch a good deal of their prey under cover of the darkness. Their
favourite time for hunting seems to be the early morning; and as soon
as they leave the shelter of their domain they, as a rule, set off for
some rabbit-burrow—whether tenanted or not is immaterial—and indulge
in a run through its winding tunnels. After this, they will get to
some hedgerow, and hunt it down. If there be any old palings or a
gate adjacent, they are sure to stop and rub themselves against the
woodwork; and if several of the varmint be together, they may throw
off their sober exterior, and indulge in a little play; and then they
set off in serious fashion to obtain their food, which they draw, as a
rule, in small portions from many victims. Like all the weasel tribe,
the polecat seems to possess an extreme and bloodthirsty rapacity. It
is never content to capture and kill sufficient for its own immediate
use, but will destroy often as many birds and animals in one day as
would serve it for a week, nay, ofttimes for a month’s sustenance.
Hence the large amount of damage this predaceously inclined little
creature will commit. The catalogue of what is to its taste in the
shape of birds and animals is a long one—all kinds of furred and
feathered game, poultry even, to turkeys; rats and some kinds of mice;
frogs, eels, and fish. The rabbit, where plentiful, is its most common
victim, for it finds bunny a somewhat easy capture in its burrow,
where, lying probably unconscious of impending danger, it may suddenly
find the enemy at its throat, whence in a few seconds the marauder will
have sucked its life-blood.

Possessed of powers of scent far keener than any hound, the polecat
can and will track hares long distances in their wanderings, and
eventually effect their capture. Upon the little nut-brown partridge
or the more sober-looking grouse it will steal in the early dawn or
at ‘even’s stilly hour;’ and sometimes, before the former is aware of
the polecat’s presence, it will have, by a sharp irresistible bite
into its brains, transferred it and perhaps several others beyond the
reach of the sportsman’s gun. Being at need a strong and rapid swimmer,
the polecat has often been known to take eels and other fish from the
streams; but unless other food be scarce, it usually refrains from
entering the unstable element in search of food. Amongst poultry,
its operations are often wholesale, and must be disheartening to a
degree to the industrious henwife; for, as we said before, it does not
confine itself to supplying its actual wants, but, given the chance
of some wholesale killing, it indulges its cruel instincts apparently
more for the pleasure than for the necessity of the thing. It is this
habit, common to all the animals and birds coming under the definition
‘vermin,’ which renders them so extremely destructive. One thing may be
said in the polecat’s favour, which is, that it is a very determined
enemy of the rat, although the latter’s fierceness often prevents the
former from bringing to a successful conclusion any crusade it may have
opened against it. But the polecat is all the same a most courageous
little animal; and its fierceness when attacked, the pluck with which
it will fight against superior odds, and the wonderful amount of
activity it can bring to bear, prove it to be no mean enemy for a
terrier of two or three times its size. Moreover, it does not disdain
when ‘cornered,’ or when its progeny are threatened, to attack human
beings. Under the circumstances, it is a dangerous creature to deal
with, its bite being very painful and lasting.

In addition to these qualities for attack, the polecat is possessed of
a peculiar and very disagreeable means of defence. This consists in
the secretion of a liquid substance of disgustingly fetid odour, which
the animal has the power of emitting at will. This it uses in case of
attack chiefly by men or dogs; and as we fancy it is as objectionable
and intolerable to its canine as to its human enemies, the benefit it
derives from this possession may be better imagined than described.
Owing doubtless to this habit, the animal frequently goes by the name
of foulemart in England, and foumart in Scotland.

No one who has any actual knowledge of the habits of the polecat
can come to any other conclusion than that it is a most destructive
animal, and one whose presence is not to be tolerated, much less
desired, either in the game preserve or in the neighbourhood of the
poultry-yard; and yet one of the most ridiculous of superstitions
obtains amongst many farmers and country-people as to this animal.
It is said to be capable of appreciating hospitality, and acting in
accordance with the unwritten laws of such, so that if one encourage
the animal and afford it shelter, it will refrain from destroying
the live-stock of the person who so amiably entertains it. This
is, one must admit, a very pretty little piece of nonsense. But,
notwithstanding this, polecats are unmistakably becoming fewer and
fewer every year, and we shall soon see it a very rare animal.



AN OLD, OLD STORY.


    A casual meeting—one of merest chance;
    An introduction—bows, a smile, a dance.
    ’Twas thus we met; and little dreamed I then
    He would be more to me than other men.
    Of course I thought him handsome, bright, and gay;
    But so were others—he not more than they.
    My heart, that might the future have revealed,
    Was stilled and sleeping, all its secrets sealed.
    To meet so coolly seems a mystery now;
    To part so gaily—ah, I wonder how!
    To clasp his hand, to lean upon his arm,
    Yet no soft flutterings fill me with alarm;
    To stand beside him, close beside his heart,
    Nor dream that of my own it formed a part—
    ’Twas all so natural! Oh, we little knew
    What fate was shaping out betwixt us two;
    What each to each, what heart to heart might be,
    What I should be to him—what he to me.

           *       *       *       *       *

    A moment when I first had dared to feel
    Emotions which my pride would fain conceal,
    When sudden thoughts across my mind were cast,
    And sudden flutterings made my heart beat fast;
    When fancies strange as sweet, and sweet as strange,
    Sought shy admittance, through my heart to range.
    O timid hopes, soft doubts, and tender fear!
    O coy concealment from the one most dear!
    O burning blushes that unbidden rise!
    O faltering tongue, and traitorous tell-tale eyes!
    O sweet anxiety, and pleasing pain,
    To love—to love; and not to love in vain!
    To watch his eye, and half in wonder see
    ’Twas always brightest when it fell on me;
    To mark, when by my side, his tender tone,
    His hand’s soft pressure when it held my own;
    O thus to watch, and wait for him to tell,
    What my heart whispered that it knew full well!

           *       *       *       *       *

    A summer evening, calm, and bright, and fair;
    A moonlit garden, he beside me there;
    My trembling hand above my heart was pressed,
    To calm its thrills of happy, sweet unrest.
    I longed so much his tale of love to hear,
    Yet when he spoke was filled with fluttering fear—
    A fear lest I might all unworthy prove
    Of his affection true, of his deep love;
    And something of my fears he seemed to know,
    His manly voice had grown so soft and low.
    Ah! what a tale he whispered in my ear,
    So hard to answer, but how sweet to hear!
    I could not answer; all my heart seemed filled
    With language, but my recreant tongue was stilled.
    And oh! so tender was his melting mood!
    He clasped my hand—the clasp I understood;
    He sought my eyes—but oh! I dared not raise
    Those little tell-tales to receive his gaze;
    ‘One little word,’ he said, with fond caress.
    I spoke; that word, that little word was—‘_Yes!_’

           *       *       *       *       *

    A morning when the sunshine seemed to be
    The fairest thing on this fair earth to me,
    For—so at least old tales and stories run—
    The bride is blessèd whom it shines upon.
    Assembled friends with presents rich and rare;
    A laughing group of girlish bridesmaids fair;
    A father—mother, clasping to their heart
    The darling child with whom they fear to part,
    The daughter who, like timid bird caressed,
    Prepares to flutter from the parent nest.
    And dearer, dearest to that blushing bride
    Is he whose place till death is by her side.
    Ah, ever side by side, and hand in hand,
    And heart to heart, henceforth those twain must stand.
    Then many a fond caress mid tearful smiles;
    Bells pealing, holy altar, flower-strewn aisles;
    A wreath—a snowy robe—a bridal veil—
    A happy bride, who tells this ‘old, old tale!’

            FLORENCE NIXON.

       *       *       *       *       *

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

       *       *       *       *       *

_All Rights Reserved._



*** End of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "Chambers's Journal of Popular Literature, Science, and Art, Fifth Series, No. 12, Vol. I, March 22, 1884" ***

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