Full text of "Household words"

I he University oi

BUCKINGHAM

UNIVERSITY OF BUCKINGHAM

8113268

Familiar in their Mouths as HOUSEHOLD WORDS" SHAKESPEARE.

HOUSEHOLD WORDS.

SournaL

CONDUCTED BY

CHARLES DICKENS.

VOLUME XI.

FROM THE SRD OF FEBRUARY TO THE 2STH OF JULY.
Being from No. 254 to No. 279.

LONDON:
OFFICE, 16, WELLINGTON STREET NORTH.

1855.

LONDON
I'.RADBl'EY AND EVANS, rKlNTKHS, WHITEFBIAES.

CONTENTS.

ACCIDENTS by Machinery, 241, 337,

494, 605

Adam, The Chinese ... 67

Adulterations 214

Advice . . . . . .73

Alchemists, Specimens of the, 457,

448, 540

Alderman, Starvation of an . . 214

Alexander the First . . 573

Algiers, the Game of Yadace" in 319

American Opinion of England, An 255

Ancestors 380

Anchovies 216

Arctic Voyagers, The Lost . . 12
Audit Board, The . . .543
Australia, Gold Discovered by a

Convict in 1788 . . . . 682

Australian Carriers . . . 420

BACK at Trinity . . . . 519

Back from the Crimea. . . 119
Balloon, Death of Du Rosier and

Romain . . . . . . 149

Barmecide Feast, Story of the . 315

Bedfordshire Farmer . . . 162

Bethnal Green, The Poor of . 193

Birthdays 238

Black Sea Five Centuries Ago,

The 62

Board of Trade . . . . 101

Bohemian Story of a Signboard 418

Boots and Corns . . . 348

Bottle of Champagne, A . . . 51

Brandy 301

Bread Cast on the Waters . . 326

Bright Chanticleer . . . 204

Brimstone . . . . 398

Brine 561

Bucharest 82

Bulgarian Posthouse, A . . 335

Bulgarians 465

Bull, Prince. A Fairy Tale . 49

Burgundy Wines . . . . 28

By Rail to Parnassus . . . 477

CALF'S SKIN, Stealing a . . . 140
California, Mr. F. Marryat's Ex-
periences of .... 88
Camel Troop Contingent, The . 225
Camp of Honvaiilt, The . . 483
Casaubon, Isaac . . . . 76
Cats and Dogs . . . .516
Cayenne Pepper . . . . 216
Ceylon in Olden Times . . 523
Chambers in the Temple . . 132

Champagne 61

Charles the Second, A Birthday

of 240

Cheap Patriotism . . . 433

Children, The Education of . . 577

Children of the Czar 108, 227, 286

Chinaman's Parson . . . 202

Chinese Adam, The . . . . 67

Chinese Postman .... 259

Chips . . 20, 67, 140, 379, 398, 494

Civil Service Appointment, A . 433

Clergyman, The Petition of a . 453

Coffee Adulteration . . . . 215

Coffee Adulteration, A Tale about 506

Cognac 361

Colonel Grunpeck and Mr. Per-
kinson . . . . . . 254

Colours from Electricity . . 252
College Invitation, A . . . 520

Commerce 323

Constantinople to Varua . . 142
Convicts, English aud French . 85
Convict, Story of a . . . 582
Cookery Book of 1660 . . . 21

Cote-d'Or 29

Countess d'Aultioy's Tales 493, 509

County Guy 599

Crits from the Past . . .607
Crimea, A Dinner in tke t . 191
Crimea, Returned from the . . 119
Criminal Lunatics . . . . 141
Criminal Process in 1690 . . 356
Curiosities of London . . 495, 607

DANUBE, The Passage of the . 465
Deadly Shafts . . 241, 337, 494

Dear Cup of Coffee, A . . . 505

Death's Ciphering-book . . 337

Diggings, Carriers to the . . 420

Dip in the Brine, A ... 561

Divers 502

Doctor Dubois .... 429

Dodsley, Robert . . . . 309

Dogs 518

Droitwich, The Salt Mines at . 561

EDINBURGH. The Houses of . . 183
Electric L'ght . . . .251
Elizabethan Reformer, A . . 553
Embarkation .... 354

FACES 261

Factory Accidents . 241,337, 494, 605
Factory Occupiers, National As-
sociation of . . . . . 605
Fairy Tales . . . .493,509
Falstaff, Death of ... 549
Farming in Bedfordshire . . 162
Fast and Loose .... 169

Fatalism 167

Fencing with Humanity, 241, 337, 494
Fenton, Elijah .... 44
Few More Leeches, A . . . Ill
Fiend-Fancy . . . 492, 509
Fifty-two, Wriothesley Place . 36
" Flare Up I " . . . . 607

Flats, Houses in . . 182

Flemish Gardens . . .603
Food and its Adulterations . . 214

Forefathers 380

France, Poultry in . . . . 399
Franklin's, Sir John, Expedition 12
French Convicts .... 80
French Court ot Justice . . . 506
French Criminal Process, A . 356
French Farmers, Two . . . 105
French Love .... 442
French Soldiers in Camp . . 483
French Wines . . .28,51,439
Froebel's Infant Gardens . . 577
Frost-bitten Homes . . .193

GAMBLING 280

Gardens in Belgium . . . 602
Garden Walks . . . . 601

Gaslight Fairies .

Ghost Story, A ....

Gibraltar, The Sappers and

Miners at the Siege of
Gold Discoverer, Story of a . .
Government Clerk, A .
Gone to the Dogs . . . .

Giurgevo

Giurgevo to Bucharest . . .

I'ACK

25
170

433
121
467
558

HABSALI.'S (Dr. Book on Adul-

terations .... 214
Herbert, Mr. Sidney, and the

English Soldier . . 48

Hill of Gold, The. . 28

Hood (Dr.) on Lunacy . . . 141

Houses in Flats . . 1S2
Humbugs, The Thousand and

One .... 265, 289, 313

Hunt's, Leigh, Stories in Verse 478

IGNORANT MAN and tho Genie

Story of the .
Important Kubbish .
India Pickle
India, Kesources of .
Indian Promotion*
Indian Kice

266
376
446
446
379
522

Infant Gardens .... 577

Iron Works, Refuse of the . . 37S

JOAK of ARC, The Sign of the . 418
Justice, A French Picture of, in

1690 ...... 356

LADIES' SCHOOL, A . . .36
Latest Intelligence from the

Spirits . .... 513

Law of Storms . . . 188

Leeches ...... 141

Legal Fiction, A . . . .598

Leigh Hunt's Stories in Verse . 478

Letter Carriers in China . . 260
Letter from a Candidate for Office

to a Board of Guardians . . 495

Leviathian Indeed, A . . . 406

Locusts ...... 67

London, Curiosities of . . . 495

London, The Plagues of . . . 316
London Thieves . . . .317

Long Life of Locusts . . . 67

Louis Qnatorze and his Wig . 620

I Love in France .... 442

j Lunacy ...... 141

Lyons, Admiral Sir E., A Yarn

about ...... 145

MACHINERY Accidents 211,337,494,605

Madame Tartine . . . . 494

Maxims of the Chinese . . 203

Mechanics in Uniform . . . 409
Medical Prescriptions, An Old

Book of ..... 304

Militia, Dress of the . . . 599

Misprints ..... 232

Monsters ...... 196

More Alchemy .... 540

More Children of the Czar . . 227

More Grist to the Mill . . 605

iv CONTENTS.

FA8

Mother and Stepmother
Part 1 341

Roving Englishman continued.
Prom Varna to Rustchuk . 307
A Bulgarian Post-house . . 335
Rustchuk 427

Tom D'Urfey ... 186
Trade, The Board of . . 101
Trade 323

Part II 367

Part I [I . . . 387

Two French Farmers . . . 105
Two Nephews .... 526

UNDER the Sea . . . . 502
Unfenced Machinery, 241, 337, 494, 605
Unfortunate James Daley . . 582

VAILS to Servants ... 10
Vampyres 39
Varna to Balaklava . . . 153
Varna to Rustchuk . . . . 307
Very Advisable .... 73
Very Little House, A . . . 470
Very Little Town, A . . .209
Vesuvius in Eruption . . . 435

WASTE 376

Mr. Philip Stubbos . . .553
Mr. Pope's Friend . . . . 43
Muse in Livery, The . . .308
My Confession . . . . 93
My Garden Walks ... 601

NOTHING Like Russia-Leather . 286

OBSOLETE Cookery ... 21
Old Boar's Head, The . . 546
Old Ladies 97
Old Picture of Justice, An . . 356
Old Scholar, An . . . .76
Our Bedfordshire Farmer . . 162
Overpunished Crime . . . 140
Oxford and Cambridge Men . . 520

PAPER MAKING, Straw Pulp for > 20
Passing Faces .... 261
Penny Wisdom . . . . 376
Pensioners, Employment for . 573
Pere Panpau 68
Periwigs 620
Petition Extraordinary . . . 453
Philosophers Stone, The 458,488,540
Physic a-Field .... 304
Pickles, Adulterations in . . 216
Plagues of London . . . 316
Poetry on the Railway . . . 414
Poetry by Railway . . .477
Poor, The Frostbitten Homes of
the 193
Pope's Friend .... 43
Post-cart Travelling in Wallachia 558
Postmen in China . ... 259
Potichomania .... 129
Poultry Abroad . . . . 399
Prescriptions, An Old Book of . 304
Prevention better than Cure . 141
Prince Bull. A Fairy Tale . 49
Promotion in India . . . 379
Public, That other .... 1
Public Ledger, The . . . 323
Pulp 20

The Passage of the Danube . 465
From Giurgevo to Bucharest . 558
Royal Balloon, The . . .149
Royal Engineers, The . . . 409
Royal Exchange, The . . . 326
Rubbish 376

Rustchuk . . . 427

Ruined by Railways . . . 114
Russia, Alexander the First of 673
Russia, Social Condition of, 108, 227,
286

SALT MINES at Droitwich. . . 561
Sappers and Miners, The . . 409
Sardinian Forests and Fisheries 58i
Scale of Promotion, The . . 379
Scarli Tapa and the Forty
Thieves, Story of the . . . 289
School of the Fairies, The . . 609
Secret of the Well, The ... 4
Servants, Vails to ... 10
Servia, Whittington in . . . 539
Set of Odd Fellows, A . . 196
Seven Dials 204
Signboard, Story of a . . . 418
Sir John Franklin and his Crews 12
Sister of the Spirits, The . . 124
Sister Rose-
Part 1 217

Water Carriers, Parable of the . 550
Water Magnitted . . . . 215
What it is to have Forefathers . 380
What my Landlord Believed . 418
When the Wind Blows . . 188
Whittington in Servia . '. . 539
Wigs 619

Wine-duty, The .... 439
Wines of France . . 28, 51, 439
Wives of Soldiers . . .278
Wives, The Wrongs of . . . 598
Workhouse, A Candidate for
Office in a . . . .495
Wounded Soldiers from the
Crimea 119
Wriothesley Place, A Ladies'
School in 36

Part II 244
Part III 267
Part IV 292
Slag . 376

Yadacd 319
Yarn about Young Lions . . 145
Yellow Mask, The
Part 1 520

Slang Sayings . . . . 608
Smith, Sir Sidney . . .132
Smuggled Relations . . . 481
Soldiers' Costume . . . 600
Soldiers from the War . . . 119
Soldier's Wife, The . . .278
Specimens of the Alchemists 457, 488,
540
Spirits, Latest Intelligence from
the 513

Part II 565

Part III 587
Part IV 609

POETRY.

ANGEL, The 540
Aspiration and Duty . . . 108
Baby Beatrice . . . .303
Banoolah . . . . . . 57

QOITE Revolutionary . . . 474

RAE'S (Dr.) Report of Sir John
Franklin's Expedition . . 12
Railway, Poetry on the . . . 414
Ralph, the Naturalist . . . 157
Relations in the Background . 481
Revolutions 474
Rice 522
Right Man in the Right Place,
The 495

Starvation of an Alderman . . 213
Stealing a Calf s Skin . . 140
Steam Ship, The Leviathan . 406
St. Nicholas 493
Storms and Wind Roads . . 188
Story of a King, The . . . 402
Strictly Financial . . 439
Stubbes, Mr. Philip . . . 653
Supposing 48

Before Sebastopol ... 85
False Genius, A . . . . 254
First Death, The . . .468
First Sorrow, A . . . . 376
Flower's Petition, The . . 278
Footman, The 309
God's Gifts 319

TALKATIVE BAEBEB, The Story of
the ... . 313

River Picture in Summer . . 379
Kosendacl 604

Tea, Adulteration of ... 215
Terraces, Parable of the . . 551
That other Public .... 1
Theatre, Fairies at the . . 25
Thieves of London . . . . 317
Thousand and One Humbugs,
The .... 265, 28?, 3)3
Tinder from a Californian Fire . 88
Timbs's (Mr.) Curiosities of Lon-
don 497

Lesson of the War ... 12
Madame Tartine . . . . 494
One by One 157

Rogues and Sharpers . . . 317
Routine ..... 550

Passing Clouds . . . . 132
Poet's Home, A . . . .609
Spring Lights and Shadows . 181
Strive, Wait, and Pray . . . 448
Time's Cure 565
Unknown Grave, The . . . 226
Vision of Hours, A ... 615
Wind, The 420

Roving Englishman
Very Cold at Bucharest . . 82
The Theatre .... 83
The Terrible Officer . . . 84
From Constantinople to Vama 142
From Varna to Balaklava . 163
A Dinner in Camp . . . 191

Toady-Tree, The . . . . 385

"Familiar in tJteir Mouths as HOUSEHOLD WORDS"

HOUSEHOLD WORDS.

A WEEKLY JOUKNAL
CONDUCTED BY CHARLES DICKENS.

254.]

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 3, 1855.

2cZ.

THAT OTHER PUBLIC.

IN our ninth volume,* it fell naturally in
our way to make a few inquiries as to the
abiding place of that vague uoun of multi-
tude signifying many, The Public. We re-
minded our readers that it is never forthcom-
ing when it is the subject of a joke at the
theatre : which is always perceived to be a
hit at some other Public richly deserving
it, but not present. The circumstances of
this time considered, we cannot better
commence our eleventh volume, than by
gently jogging the memory of that other
Public : which ia often culpably oblivious of
its own duties, rights, and interests : and to
which it is perfectly clear that neither we nor
our readers are in the least degree related.
We are the sensible, reflecting, prompt Public,
always up to the mark whereas that other
Public persists in supinely lagging behind,
and behaving in an inconsiderate manner.

To begin with a small example lately
revived by our friend, THE EXAMINER news-
paper. "What can. that other Public
mean, by allowing itself to be fleeced every
night of its life, by responsible persons
whom it accepts for its servants ? The case
stands thus. Bribes and fees to small officials,
had become quite insupportable at the time
when the great Eailway Companies sprang
into existence. All such abuses they immedi-
ately and very much to their credit, struck out
of their system of management; the keepers of
hotels were soon generally obliged to follow in
this rational direction ; the Public (meaning
always, that other one, of course) were relieved
from a most annoying and exasperating addi-
tion to the hurry and worry of travel ; and
the reform, as is in the nature of every re-
form that is necessary and sensible, extended
in many smaller directions, and was benefi-
cially felt in many smaller ways. The one,
persistent and unabashed defyer of it, at this
moment, is the Theatre which pursues its
old obsolete course of refusing to fulfil its
contract with that other Public, unless
that other Public, after paying for its
box-seats or stalls, will also pay the wages
of theatre servants who buy their places
that they may prey upon that other Public.

Household Words, volume IX. page 156.

As if we should sell our publisher's post to
the highest bidder, leaving him to charge an
additional penny or twopence, or as much
as he could get, on every number, of House-
hold Words with which he should gra-
ciously favour that other Public ! Within
a week or two of this present writing, we
paid five shillings, at nine o'clock in the
evening, for our one seat at a pantomime; after
our cheerful compliance with which demand, a
hungry footpad clapped a rolled-up playbill
to our breast, like the muzzle of a pistol, and
positively stood before the door of which he
was the keeper, to prevent our access (without
forfeiture of another shilling for his benefit)
to the seat we had purchased. Now, that
other Public still submits to the gross impo-
sition, notwithstanding that its most popular
entertainer has abandoned all the profit de-
rivable from it, and has plainly pointed out
its manifest absurdity and extortion. And
although to be sure it is universally known that
the Theatre, as an Institution, is in a highly
thriving and promising state, and although wo
have only to see a play, hap-hazard, to per-
ceive that the great body of ladies and gentle-
men representing it, have educated themselves
with infinite labour and expense in a variety
of accomplishments, and have really quali-
fied for their calling in the true spirit of stu-
dents of the Fine Arts ; yet, we take leave to
suggest to that other Public with which our
readers and we are wholly unconnected, that
these are no reasons for its being so egregi-
ously gulled.

We just now mentioned Eailway Com-
panies. That other Public is very jealous of
Railway Companies. It is not unreasonable
in being so, for, it is quite at their mercy ;
we merely observe that it is not usually slow-
to complain of them when it has any cause.
It has remonstrated, in its time, about rates
of Fares, and has adduced instances of their
being undoubtedly too high. But, has that
other Public ever heard of a preliminary sys-
tem from which the Eailway Companies have
no escape, and which runs riot in squander-
ing treasure to an incredible amount, before
they have excavated one foot of earth or laid
a bar of iron on the ground ? Why does that
other Public never begin at the beginning, and
raise its voice against the monstrous charges
of soliciting private bills in Parliament,

VOL. XI.

254

HOUSEHOLD WORDS.

[Conducted bjr

and conducting inquiries before Committees
of the House of Commons allowed on all
hands to be the very worst tribunals con-
ceivable by the mind of man ? Has that
other Public any adequate idea of the corrup-
tion, profusion, and waste, occasioned by
this process of misgovernment ? Supposing
it were informed that, ten years ago, the
average Parliamentary and Law expenses of
all the then existing Railway Companies
amounted to a charge of seven hundred
pounds a mile on every mile of railway made
in the United Kingdom, would it be startled 1
But, supposing it were told in the next breath,
that this charge was really not seven, but

SEVENTEEN HUNDRED POUNDS A MILE, what

would that other Public (on whom, of course,
every farthing of it falls), say then i Yet this
is the statement, in so many words and
figures, of a document issued by the Board of
Trade, and which is now rather scarce as
well it may be, being a perilous curiosity.
That other Public may learn from the same
pages, that on the Law and Parliamentary
expenses of a certain Stone and Rugby Line,
the Bill for which was lost (and the Line
consequently not made after all), there was
expended the modest little preliminary total
of one hundred and forty-six thousand !
pounds ! That was in the joyful days when
counsel learned in Parliamentary Law, re-
fused briefs marked with one hundred guinea
fees, and accepted the same briefs marked ;
with one thousand guinea fees ; the attorney !
making the neat addition of a third cipher,
on the spot, with a presence of mind sug-;
gestive of his own little bill against that j
other Public (quite dissociated from us as j
aforesaid), at whom our readers and we are j
now bitterly smiling. That was also in the j
blessed times when, there being no Public [
Health Act, Whitechapel paid to the tutelary !
deities, Law and Parliament, six thousand
five hundred pounds, to be graciously allowed
to pull down, for the public good, a dozen
odious streets inhabited by Vice and Fever.

Our Public know all about these things,
and our Public are not blind to their enor-
mity. It is that other Public, somewhere or
other where can it be 1 which is always

fetting itself humbugged and talked over.
t has been in a maze of doubt and con-
fusion, for the laet three or four years, on
that vexed question, the Liberty of the
Press. It has been told by Noble Lords
that the said Liberty is vastly inconve-
nient. No doubt it is. No doubt all
Liberty is to some people. Light is highly
inconvenient to such as have their sufficient
reasons for preferring darkness ; and soap
and water is observed to be a particular
inconvenience to those who would rather be
dirty than clean. But, that other Public find-
ing the Noble Lords much given to harping
betweenwhiles, in a sly dull way, on this
string, became uneasy about it, and wanted to
Jtuow what the harpers would have wanted

to know, for instance, how they would direct
and guide this dangerous Press. "Well, now
they may know. If that other Public will
ever learn, their instruction-book, very
lately published, is open before them. Chapter
one is a High Court of Justice ; chapter two
is a history of personal adventure, whereof
they may hear more, perhaps, one of these
days. The Queen's Representative in a most
important part of the United Kingdom a
thorough gentleman, and a man of unim-
peachable honour beyond all kind of doubt
knows so little of this Press, that he is
seen in secret personal communication with
tainted and vile instruments which it rejects,
buying their praise with the public money,
overlooking their dirty work, and setting
them their disgraceful tasks. One of the great
national departments in Downing Street is
exhibited under strong suspicion of like igno-
rant and disreputable dealing, to purchase
remote puffery among the most puff-ridden
people ever propagated on the face of this
earth. Our Public know this very well, and
have, of course,%iken it thoroughly to heart, in
itsmanysuggestiveaspects ; but, when will that
other Public always lagging behindhand in
some out of the way place become informed
about it, and consider it, and act upon it ?

It is impossible to over-state the complete-
ness with which our Public have got to the
marrow of the true question arising out of
the condition of the British Army before
Sebastopol. Our Public know perfectly,
that, making every deduction for haste, ob-
struction, and natural strength of feeling in
the midst of goading experiences, the cor-
respondence of THE TIMES has revealed a
confused heap of mismanagement, imbe-
cility, and disorder, under which the nation's
bravery lies crushed and withered. Our Public
is profoundly acquainted with the fact that
this is not a new kind of disclosure, but, that
similar defection and incapacity have be-
fore prevailed at similar periods until the
labouring age has heaved up a man strong
enough to wrestle with the Misgoverument of
England and throw it on its back. WEL-
LINGTON and NELSON both did this, and the
next great General and Admiral for whom
we now impatiently wait, but may wait some
time, content (if we can be) to know that
it is not the tendency of our service, by sea or
land, to help the greatest Merit to rise must
do the same, and will assuredly do it, and by
that sign ye shall know them. Our Public
reflecting deeply on these materials for co-
gitation, will henceforth hold fast by the
truth, that the system of administering their
aifairs is innately bad ; that classes -and
families and interests, have brought them to a
very low pass ; that the intelligence, stead-
fastness, foresight, and wonderful power of
resource, which in private undertakings dis-
tinguish England from all other countries,
have no vitality in its public business ; that
while every merchant and trader has en-

Charles Dickens.]

THAT OTHER PUBLIC.

larged his grasp and quickened his faculties,
the Public Departments have been drearily
lying iu state, a mere stupid pageant of
gorgeous coffins and feebly-burning lights ;
and that the windows must now be opened
wide, and the candles put out, and the
coffins buried, and the daylight freely ad-
mitted, and the furniture made firewood, and
the dirt clean swept away. This is the lesson
from which our Public is nevermore to be dis-
tracted by any artifice, we all know. But, that
other Public. What will they do 1 They are
a humane, generous, ardent Public ; but, will
they hold like grim Death to the flower
Warning, we have plucked from this nettle
War ? Will they steadily reply to all
cajolers, that though every flannel waist-
coat in the civilized, and every bearskin and
buffalo-skin in the uncivilized, world, had been
sent out in these days to our ill-clad country-
men (and never reached them), they would
not in the least affect the lasting question, or
dispense with a single item of the amendment
proved to be needful, and, until made, to be
severely demanded, in the whole household
and system of Britannia ? When the war
is over, and that other Public, always
ready for a demonstration, shall be busy
throwing up caps, lighting up houses, beating
drums, blowing trumpets, and making hun-
dreds of miles of printed columns of speeches,
will they be flattered and wordily- pumped
dry of the one plain issue left, or will they re-
member it ? O that other Public ! If we
you, and I, and all the rest of us could only
make sure of that other Public !

Would it not be a most extraordinary re-
missuess on the part of that other Public, if
it were content, in a crisis of uncommon
difficulty, to laugh at a Ministry without a
Head, and leave it alone 1 Would it not be a
wonderful instance of the shortcomings of
that other Public, if it were never seen to
stand aghast at the supernatural imbecility of
that authority to which, in a dangerous hour, it
<x>ufided the body and soul of the nation 1
We know what a sight it would be to behold
that miserable patient, Mr. Cabinet, specially
calling his relations and friends together
before Christmas, tottering on his emaciated
legs in the last stage of paralysis, and feebly
piping that if such and such powers were not
entrusted to him for instant use, he would
certainly go raving mad of defeated pa-
triotism, and pluck his poor old wretched
eyes out iu despair ; we know with what dis-
dainful emotions we should see him gratified
and then shuffle away and go to sleep : to
make no use of what he had got, and be heard
of no more until one of his nurses, more irri-
table than the rest, should pull his weazen
nose and make him whine we know what
these experiences would be to us, and Bless
us ! we should act upon them iu round ear-
nest but, where is that other Public, whose
indifference is the life of such scarecrows, and
whom it would seem that not even plague

pestilence and famine, battle murder and
sudden death, can rouse ?

There is one comfort in all this. We
English are not the only victims of that
other Public. It is to be heard of, else-
where. It got across the Atlantic, in the
train of the Pilgrim Fathers, and has fre-
quently been achieving wonders in America.
Ten or eleven years ago, one Chuzzlewit
was heard to say, that he had found
it on that side of the water, doing the
strangest things. The assertion made all
sorts of Publics angry, and there was
quite a cordial combination of Publics to
resent it and disprove it. But there is a
little book of Memoirs to be heard of at the
present time, which looks as if young
Chuzzlewit had reason in him too. Does the
" smart " Showman, who makes such a Mer-
maid, and makes such a Washington's Nurse,
and makes such a Dwarf, and makes such a
Singing Angel upon earth, and makes such a
fortune, and, above all, makes such a
book does he address the free and en-
lightened Public of the great United States :
the Public of State Schools, Liberal Tickets,
First - chop Intelligence, and Universal
Education ? No, no. That other Public
is the sharks'-prey. It is that other
Public, down somewhere or other, whose
bright particular star and stripe are not yet
ascertained, which is so transparently cheated
and so hardily outfaced. For that other
Public, the hatter of New York outbid
Creation at the auction of the first Lind seat.
For that other Public, the Lind speeches were
made, the tears shed, the serenades given. It
is that other Public, always on the boil and
ferment about anything or nothing, whom the
travelling companion shone down upon from
the high Hotel-Balconies. It is that other
Public who will read, and even buy, the
smart book in which they have so proud a
share, and who will fly into raptures about
its being circulated from the old Ocean
Cliffs of the Old Granite State to the Eocky
Mountains. It is indubitably in reference to
that other Public that we find the following
passage in a book called AMERICAN NOTES.
" Another prominent feature is the love of
' smart ' dealing, which gilds over many a
swindle and gross breach of trust, many a
defalcation, public and private ; and enables
many a knave to hold his head up with the
best, who well deserves a halter though it
has not been without its retributive opera-
tion ; for, this smartness has done more in a
few years to impair the public credit and to
cripple the public resources, than dull
honesty, however rash, could have effected
in a century. The merits of ( a broken specu-
lation, or a bankruptcy, or of a successful
scoundrel, are not gauged by its or his ob-
servance of the golden rule, ' Do as you
would be done by,' but are considered with
reference to their smartness. The following
dialogue I have held a hundred times : ' Is

HOUSEHOLD WOEDS.

[Conducted liy

it not a very disgraceful circumstance that j
such a man as So and So should be acquiring |
a large property by the most infamous and
odious means ; and, notwithstanding all the
crimes of which he has been guilty, should be
tolerated and abetted by your Citizens ? He
is a public nuisance, is he not ? ' ' Yes, sir.'
' A convicted liar ? ' ' Yes, sir.' ' He has
been kicked and cuffed and caned 1 ' ' Yes,
sir.' ' And he is utterly dishonourable,
debased, and profligate 'I ' ' Yes, sir." ' In
the name of wonder, then, what is his
merit 1 ' ' Well, sir, he is a smart man.' "

That other Public of our own bore their
full share, and more, of bowing down before
the Dwarf aforesaid, in despite of his obviously
being too young a child to speak plainly : and
we, the Public who are never taken in, will
not excuse their folly. So, if John on this
shore, and Jonathan over there, could each
only get at that troublesome other Public of
his, and brighten them up a little, it would
be very much the better for both brothers.

THE SECRET OF THE WELL.

OUTSIDE the gate of Sitt Zeyneb, lead-
ing from New Cairo to the old city was
a cluster of buildings that became cele-
brated in their day. They wore the aspect
rather of a fortress than of the habita-
tions of quiet peaceable people ; and were
principally occupied by sly Copts and very
poor Muslems. The backs of the houses were
turned towards the fields, and exhibited
nothing but great bare walls with a few win-
dows pierced high up. The fronts looked upon
an irregular court and a few blind alleys,
some of which were vaulted over. A low
gateway, closed at night and in times of dis-
turbance, admitted those who had business
there from the dirty road. Other mode of
ingress there was none ; so that when, what
you may call the little garrison was united,
even collectors of taxes sometimes in vain de-
manded admittance. By agreement based
ou mutual interest, importunate creditors
were either locked out by common consent;
or, so ill-received, that they never cared to re-
turn again. The children and the dogs that
lay together all day long on the only spot
where the sun shone upon the court, were
sufficient to worry an ordinary man to
death.

From time immemorial there had been a
large house to let in this out-of-the-way place.
The family to whom it belonged must have
had some other good source of revenue ; for
generation after generation passed and no
tenant appeared. Once every twenty years or
so probably when son succeeded to father
some one came from the city with the keys,
went in, remained a little while, made in-
quiries about the salubrity of the place as if
debating whether to live there or not, and
went away with vague talk, never fulfilled, of
returning. The neighbours, not very inquisi-

tive people, had learned that the owners were
Copts, but nothing more. As to the fact
that the house remained empty, no one won-
dered at it. The cluster of habitations con-
tained many deserted dwelling-places besides,
and several single old men occupied premises
capable of containing five families. What
slightly astonished the gossips was, that any
one should ever recur to the idea of letting
that great tottering house.

Tt was situated in the extensive depths of
the Cassar, as the place was called ; and the
lane leading to its great arched doorway, be-
ing half choked with rubbish, was seldom
visited, save by some sulky boy truant from
the morning school of Dando the Copt barber-
or by some young couple who had contrived,
Heaven knows how. to give one another
rendezvous there. On all sides it rose high
and vast above the other dwellings, with not
a window by which light could penetrate into
the interior. Those who took the trouble to
reflect on this circumstance guessed that its
great circuit contained a court-yard, or, if not,
that the chambers were dark. But in general
the good folks of the Cassar lived as indiffer-
ently by the side of that vast mysterious,
edifice as the fox between the stones that
have tumbled from the great Pyramid. It
was part of the natural order of things.

As the court of the Cassar contained three
shops, it was called the bazaar. By the side
of Dando, barber and schoolmaster, was
Sohmed, the Muslem tobacco merchant, who
also dealt in ready-made clothes ; and over
the way Ibn Daood kept a sort of general
warehouse, in which most necessary things,
from pumpkins to pistols, from water-melons-
to coffee-pots, could be obtained. It seemed
to be the refuge of all rejected furniture and
unsold provisions. Strangers who wandered
into the place positively avowed that they
never saw a single customer at any one of
these shops ; and it is certain that Sohmed
and Daood spent the chief part of their time
on the bench in front of Dando's s"hop, on
what conversing it is difficult to say, for one
of the party being a Christian, controversial
topics and sacred legends were necessarily
excluded. In the East no propagandism is al-
lowed in private life; and theological fisticuff*
are not exchanged over a cup of coffee.

From the little I have said it may be
imagined, that life in the Cassar was a
steady hum-drum sort of thing. The people
got up with the sun and went forth to the
city or field to work, and came back with the
sun to go to bed. They ate as they were able,
and dressed with perfect indifference to the
world's opinion. Their sons and daughters
grew, and loved, and married, much like other
folk. Now and then there was a wedding ;
and now and then a funeral. But it seemed
never likely that the whole of that sober po-
pulation could suddenly be roused into painful
anxiety, disturbed with horrid fears perpetu-
ally increasing, and hurried day after day,

Charles Dickens.]

THE SECEET OF THE WELL.

week after week, more rapidly down a
stream of tragic excitement, such as some-
times seizes and bears along resistless the
population of whole cities.

On a bright, scorching, dusty day in
August, the triumvirate in the bazaar,
moved by the exclamation of an old woman
who passed with a tray of bread upon her
head, left the bench where they were lazily
smoking, and advanced to a point whence they
could look out beneath the broad arched gate-
way down a dark lane, as through a telescope,
into the sunny country. There was no doubt
about the matter. A small caravan of
camels, attended by some gaudily decked-
out servants, had certainly halted there. Pre-
sently a tall, handsome young man, dressed
in a garb that seemed Persian, stooped to
enter, and came rapidly towards the court-
yard accompanied by a little, shrivelled, old
man with a black turban. The three gossips
made way, but stared with all their eyes.

" Is that the shed 1 " enquired the young
man, looking with half-closed eyes and a
contemptuous curl of the lip at the walls of
the uninhabited house.

"A large shed," suggested Dando, across
whose mind vague visions of a customer be-
gan to float.

The stranger acknowledged this interrup-
tion by a slash with a little whip which he
twirled in his hand. Daudo dispersed in the
direction of his shop, Sohmed and Ibn Daood
followed. The old man, who carried a vast
wooden key like a club, went down the im-
pregnated lane, and, after some fumbling
contrived to open the door of the house. The
barber, rubbing his shoulder with one hand,
stretched out his neck and opened his eyes,
but saw nothing but a gulf of darkness for a
moment and then the solid planks of wood
again.

Soon afterwards a procession of servants,
all black, and too terrible-looking to en-
courage familiarity, passed by like shadows,
bearing heavy burdens. They went back-
ward and forward for some time. Then the
old man with the black turban made his ap-
pearance once more, hastened across the
courtyard, mounted a mule held by a slave
near the gate, and rode away. The camels
had already disappeared ; so that within an
hour after the Cassar had been thus disturbed
there was no sign whatever of the new arri-
val, except that the three tradesmen, a few old
men too weak to go forth to work, and all the
women of the place usually so silent and
sad were eagerly discussing this remarkable
occurrence. The eastern narrators will have
it that, by a kind of instinctive revelation, all
knew that they were soon to become the
neighbours of strange actions, perhaps the
victims of terrible disaster.

Early rising was the rule in the Cassar,
but next day everybody was astir an hour
before the usual time. Great was the rumour
and greater the conversation ; but there is so

much news, and, above all, so much wisdom
current in the world, that it would be fastidi-
ous to repeat anything that was said. "We all
know the rich variety of surmise that can be
based on a fact comprehended by nobody. In.
this case even Dando who, within an hour,
was equally positive that the new tenant of
the great house was a Persian physician, an
Indian juggler, a Chinese shawl-merchant,
and a Muscovite emissary, never approached
within a parasang of the truth.

A provoking circumstance was that the
day passed by, and the great time-stained
door of the old house never opened. No
loquacious black, no garrulous servant-girl
appeared. "And, by the by," observed the
barber, "we saw no woman enter. This is
against the rule. There are no harims in the
Cassar. We live here in no Wakalah. It is
not the custom for bachelors to lodge in the
midst of families. Some bold man should
go and make this representation. It would be
a good opportunity to see what is passing be-
behind that door."

The Muslem crowd, for mfhsual circum-
stance a crowd had collected, thanked
Dando for his solicitude ; and suggested that
he was the identical bold man wanted at this
critical conjuncture. But his shoulder still
felt the smack of the whip ; and he very
humbly admitted that he was not a lion. In
Egypt no man loses his own esteem or that of
others by pleading guilty to cowardice. It is
considered a mark of taste and piety to be
chary of that inestimable possession life.

Next day a very old black man with fierce
rolling eyes came out of the house and went
rapidly across the little square. A number
of women who were laying in wait addressed
him as " My Lord Steward," aud proposed
dealings in eggs, butter, milk, and other pro-
visions. They had stopped up the way, not
at all frightened by his fiery eyes aud bright
teeth, nor discouraged by his obstinate reply,
that he wanted nothing. "But your master
cannot live without eating," exclaimed the bar-
ber's wife. " Perhaps he does'nt eat bread,"
replied the black man with a horrid leer.
The crowd fell back and allowed him to pass.
In an incredibly short space of time it was
known that a cannibal had come to inhabit
the Cassar ; and mothers began to call their
children within doors, and to count them
anxiously.

In a couple of hours the black old man
returned followed by a porter, who grunted
under a huge basket of provisions, as Egyp-
tian porters usually grunt when they are near
the end of their journey, and are calculating
the amount of the present they are about to
receive. He was not allowed to enter the
house, but emptied his basket and received
his money at the door. It appears that he wag
well paid ; for whilst the women, who deter-
mined not to abandon the charge of canni-
balism, were crying out against the wretch
who despised to buy of his neighbours, the

HOUSEHOLD WORDS.

[Conducted by

porter, wiping his brow with his sleeve, went
away murmuring : " O prince, O generous

11KU1 ! "

For a long time matters continued in this
position, so that, although the population of
the Cassar continued uneasy, ana mothers no
longer fearful but spiteful, still maliciously
affected to count their children morning and
evening, they sank back perforce into their
old jog-trot style of life. The three trades-
men alone persisted hi making the old house
and its servants the object of their conver-
sation, because they had nothing else to talk
about ; and their eyes were often raised to-
wards the vast silent walls that overlooked
like a precipice the whole of the Cassar. At
length, new food was supplied to their
curiosity.

Strangers began to make their appearance,
sometimes guided by the old black man ;
sometimes alone. The latter would ask for
the House of Gamadel, by which outlandish
came it appeared the new tenant, whom
nobody had ever seen after the first day, was
known. Alf seemed eager to arrive, and
not by any means eager to go away. At
whatever tune they came, it was never until
long after dark that they departed ; and one
of the earliest observations made in the Cassar
was, that the more remarkable the visitor, the
later the hour of departure. Sometimes the
porter who slept on a bench behind the door,
always closed at nightfall, tried to keep awake
until some very noble stranger issued forth ;
but it always happened that the bars were
taken down before he could well open his eyes.
He never, therefore, saw more than a robe or
the back of a turban, disappearing through
the door ; and the old black man, with the
rolling eyes and bright teeth, preparing to
shut it. On these occasions, however, the
steward was particularly soft-spoken and even
humble in his politeness. He seemed afraid
to excite the anger or the curiosity of
Bawab Ali ; and now and then dropped a
piece of money into his hand, saying : "This
is from my master's guest."

Now, it happened that near the very ancient
and sacred mosque of Sitt Zeyneb, within the
gate of the city, dwelt an old man who had
an only sou named Cathalla, celebrated in the
quarter for his singular disposition. In
Cairo, as elsewhere, reputations are oftener
based on reprehensible than on admirable
qualities. Cathalla became talked of among
the neighbours, because, his father being mo-
derately rich, he took it into his head that he
was not bound to enter into the contest for
wealth. Some foolish old book had told him
that the sole object of life was not to add
piastre upon piastre, and heap dollar upon
dollar. Man, according to him, was created
for other objects than to gather stores which
he could never consume. The pursuit of
knowledge and the acquisition of wisdom, the
search after the nature and the reasons of
things, were not to be abandoned only to men

of feeble body and wandering intellects, inca-
pable of overreaching a customer or grappling
with the intricacies of a bargain. Study was
not quite unworthy of a noble spirit ; and the
sentences garnered up by the wise, of times
gone by, were sometimes of more value than
gold and silver.

These odd notions led Cathalla to adopt a
singular kind of life. His father, whose ap-
proval he had won as much by obstinacy as by
reason, allowed him to purchase all the old
manuscripts he could find, and to fit up a
room in a retired part of the house they in-
habited, where he spent the greater portion of
his time, growing paler as he grew wiser.
What he learned it would be too long to-
relate. The general result was that he
acquired a very different mode of viewing
thoughts and actions from all around him,,
and came to consider things unlawful, which
everybody else regarded as perfectly proper.
But he did not crave happiness. It is a terri-
ble thing to make a code of morals for one-
self, and to quit the path of custom. Medita-
tion easily finds truth ; but the will is not
always strong enough to obey it. Cathalla.
became soon dissatisfied with himself as he
was with the world. He lost the health
of his mind as well as that of his body.

Suddenly, he threw his books aside and
took to wandering forth through the city,,
especially by night, when the narrow streets
were deserted, save by some unhappy man in
search of rest or booty, or by an occasional
party of worthy citizens protected by lanterns
and the loudness of their voices, or by the
watch moving along with heavy tramp. At
such times, when the tranquil moon threw
down patches of silver between the near
houses, and the starry sky could be seen in
stripe over head; when the sound softly shook
the leaves of the palm trees that drooped
over the lofty walls, and the owl hooted from
the pinnacle of some ruined building ; Cathalla
thought that he felt his mind enlarge and rise-
in stature, so that high-placed truth was
nearer to his grasp. But, he did not quite
understand all the emotions that troubled
him. There were times when he yearned after
something different from the old aphorisms of
philosophy when " to know " appeared no
longer all in all, and he aspired likewise " to
be." " Is this existence ? " he would say.
" What purpose do I fulfil in this world ? The
men whom I disdain, belong to the great ma-
chine of humanity. They buy, they sell, they
cultivate, they go forth in ships, they tread
the desert, they govern and give judgment in
causes. When they disappear, there is joy
or sorrow. But, if I go to sleep under this
dark archway, who will miss me but the old
man living in alonely house, too far on the way
to Paradise for bitter regret ? " In truth, Ca-
Ui.-illa yearned to love and to be loved ; and in
such moods of mind, from every lattice over-
head, he thought he heard passionate whis-
pers, and soft salutations, and tender sighs,

Charles Dickens.l

THE SECRET OF THE "WELL.

and half audible kisses crossing to and fro, in-
terlacing, as it were, in an exquisite roof,
beneath which he lingered for a while with
ineffable delight that soon turned to despair.

One day, tire young man wandered forth
into the country, and strolled on the banks of
the Nile, until its waters grew dark and became
dotted with the reflections of stars. Then, he
thought of returning homeward ; but the
city gates were closed when he reached them,
and the guards refused to admit him. He was
not at all disturbed by the idea of passing a
night in the open air ;, but, being tired, wished
to find a place where he could lie down and
rest undisturbed. Chance directed him to a
ruined tomb near the back of the Cassar
under the walls of the house of Gamadel.
He entered, and lying down, slept. Towards
midnight he was awakened by the sound of
voices. He listened at first without moving,
thinking he was in the neighbourhood of
robbers.

ei Show thy face, O Suliman Ebn Suliman,"
said a voice from some high position in a
jeering tone. " If it be not now black, thou
art not to be admitted."

" It is black as blackness," was the reply.
" Great is the power that can effect this
change."

Cathalla looked cautiously through a break
in the ruined tomb, and beheld by the light
of the moon, which shone brilliantly, a tall
negro standing at the foot of the wall, looking
up. He was dressed in the garments ot a
distinguished person, and seemed to wait im-
patiently to seize the first round of a rope-
ladder that was being let down from above.
Presently he began to ascend, and soon disap-
peared through a small window near the
summit of the lofty wall.

" This is a strange occurrence." thought
Cathalla, trying to account for it by reasoning,
but in vain.

Next day, just as the Damascus caravan
was about to start, great search was made
after a wealthy merchant named Suliman
Ebn Suliman, a Turk. A crier perambulated
the streets, announcing that his friends were
distressed at his disappearance ; but Cathalla
was again wandering forth ; and even if he
had heard the inquiry, having impiously
learned to disbelieve in magical transforma-
tions, would never have thought of connecting
the white merchant, whose face he well knew,
with the black man he had seen entering in a
mysterious manner the house of Gamadel.

By this time, however, the Cassar was in a
state of terrible excitement. No one can tell
how the report got abroad, or on what it was
founded. It seemed to be one of those reve-
lations, which Providence sometimes mys-
teriously puts into the mouths of common
people, who shout the truths they do not
understand through the streets and fields.
Certain it is, however, that from the barber
to the porter, every one began to say that the
strangers who entered the house of Gamadel

nearly every day never came forth again.
Some people personating them, wearing their
garments or mysteriously assuming their
shape, did pass through the gate frequently
whilst the bawab was in hia heavy sleep, and
never returned. But Dando maintained, with
great appearance of truth, that the real per-
sonages would be less careful to conceal their
faces, and was perhaps the first to cry out
that the house of Gamadel was a house of
slaughter an idea readily accepted* for the
popular mind willingly infers that a man who
disappears is dead.

If the people of the Cassar had been quite
persuaded of what seemed to be likely under
this supposition that the strangers whose
fate interested them were murdered for the
purpose of robbery they would probably
have been less disquieted. Being all poor,
they could have nothing to fear for them-
selves. But their imaginations were fertile.
Gamadel, the strong-armed, as they now
thought they remembered the ferocious-
looking young man, might be a terrible
magician who had need of human blood for
his incantations. Their turn might come next.
At any rate, this supposed neighbourhood of
crime disquieted them, even w T hile they had
reason to think that they themselves were safe.

At length even this consolation was taken
from them. A half-witted youth one morning
went chuckling about the Cassar, intimating
that he could say strange things if he chose,
that he had passed the night outside the
gates, and had seen he would not say what.
They pestered him to speak, but with a
cunning stupidity he refused. ''Let him
alone," said Dando. " This evening, if we
turn our backs on him, he will tell all of his
own accord/' The half-witted lad went forth ;
but was found about midday in a field of
sugar-canes, killed by a single stroke of a
sword.

When this fact became known, the people
of the Cassar assembled tumultuously ; and
although there seemed no positive reason to
say that death had been dealt by any of the
people of the house of Gamadel, no one
doubted that such was the case. The mur-
dered lad had boasted of having noticed some
suspicious circumstance, and had died without
saying what it was. Who could be interested
in slaying him, save some servant of the
house 1 Less conclusive reasoning has often
urged a crowd to the most terrible excesses.
An old woman the mother of the victim-
pointing with her lean fingers to the corpse,
which lay on some straw in a corner of the
court, croaked for vengeance. The men of the '
Cassar were not usually brave, but they were-
goaded on by despair. One after the other,
they might all fall beneath the assassin's
knife, if they dared to reveal any frightful
secret that might come to them without their
will. Some old guns, several rusty swords^
and many spears, began to make their ap-
pearance. The butcher wielded a prodigious

HOUSEHOLD WORDS.

[Conducted by

cleaver. They advanced with furious shouts passed by. He heard the muezzins from the
towards the great door of the house no mosques calling to prayer long after the hum

sound emanating from within, no sign re-
vealing that it was inhabited.

An unexpected circumstance put a stop to
the meditated assault. A lady followed by a
slave, and at a little distance by a young
man, appeared in the court of the Cassar,
advancing towards the house of Gamadel.
She was carelessly veiled ; and what could be
seen of her countenance was so beautiful,
that the most furious of the crowd stopped ;
presently all ranged themselves on either
hand, to let her pass. She advanced at first
boldly and then seemed to hesitate, as if
uncertain whither she was going.

" Is this the house of Gamadel 1 " s
inquired.

They answered that it was ; but, their anger
and their terror reviving at that word, all
implored her not to enter, repeating the ter-
rible suspicions that had troubled them for
so many months past. She smiled incredu-
lously, and announced her intention to enter,
with so much confidence, that the people
began to doubt what they had previously
seemed so certain about. This lady spoke
of Gamadel so tenderly, and as if from so
complete a knowledge, that all marvelled.

Suddenly the young man whom we have
mentioned came forward. It was no other
than Cathalla. He had seen the lady riding
slowly along the street, and having been
smitten with love for her had followed, not
knowing what he desired or what he hoped.
With passionate entreaties he also besought
her not to enter ; and his words and manner
showed clearly what was the reason of his
interference. The lady looked benevolently
at him and smiled sadly ; but without an-
swering advanced towards the great doorway.
Cathalla would have followed ; but the crowd
surrounded him ; and when he succeeded in
passing through, thrusting back their hands
on either side, the grim vast door had closed
upon the form, the image of which remained
like a burning coal in his breast.

He listened gloomily to the horrible stories,
or rather the horrible surmises related to
him, and then went away. But he could not
leave the neighbourhood of the place where
the object of his sudden love had disappeared
beneath a roof of terror, like a bright stream
leaping into a yawning chasm of the earth.
Going round the Cassar by the fields, he
recognised the tomb where he had once
passed a night, and the great wall of the
house which the black man had entered in
so strange a manner. What he had just heard
seemed a comment on what he had seen for-
merly.

" I will retui-n," he said, " when darkness
comes, and watch."

So, he wandered away to the river side, and
remaining there until an hour after sunset,

came back by moonlight to the tomb,
he lay down and waited patiently.

Here

of the great city near at hand had died away.
Occasionally in the suburbs and in the vil-
lages scattered over the fields, packs of dogs
barked at some wayfarer. The wind that
blew sometimes seemed to sing amongst the
sugar-canes. The monotony of watchful:
ness ovei-came him, and he slept. But,
as before, he was awakened by the sound of
voices :

" Look around," said some one overhead
" I saw that young dreamer prowl in this
direction. What ii' he play the spy ? "

" Does he wish to go with the other ? "
growled the black man, looking to the right
and to the left, and then advancing towards
the tomb. Cathalla beheld the gleam of a
sword, and knew that he must kill or be
killed. He drew a dagger and stood inside
the ruined doorway, breathless as one watch-
ing by a sick bedside. The black man, who
strange to say wore the mantle of a woman,
entered without much caution, and fell on his
face dead ; for, the dagger of Cathalla at the
first blow pierced him to the heart. The
young man, made reckless by the excess of
his passion for the unknown lady, instantly
tore off the mantle, threw it over his own
head, and taking the dead man's sword, went
forth towards the house to the place where
the ladder was let down as before. He
mounted eagerly, no one speaking to him,
and reaching the window entered and stood
nrmly on the floor before the other black took
notice of him. A cry of terror and warning
was interrupted by death ; and Cathalla
stepped over this second corpse and pro-
ceeded to explore the interior of the house.

A long passage, at the extremity of which
burned a light, pi'esented itself to him. It
led to a chamber with a lamp in a niche
opening upon a kind of terrace. Advancing
cautiously, Cathalla leaned over the parapet,
and looking down beheld a sight that con-
vinced him how unfounded had been the
suspicions of the people of the Cassar at any
rate in one instance. A veil seemed to drop
from before his eyes. Had he been a mur-
derer without just cause ? Were the two
lives he had taken, innocent ? He might
have retired with fear and trembling, but
a stronger passion than remorse restrained
him.

He beheld the lady who, according to the
villagers, had gone to certain death, sitting
dressed in splendid garments on a kind of
raised throne in the centre of a little garden,
beautifully shaded by trees and cooled by a
fountain that gushed amidst flowers. Near
her feet, reclining on a low divan, was the
young man known as Gamadel. He seemed
to gaze at her with passionate adoration, and
now and then uttered a few words the sense
of which did not come to the ears of Cathalla.
Probably, however, he was pressing her to

Time I sing ; for, presently she took a lute, and

Charles DicVens.]

THE SECEET OF THE WELL.

having tuned it, in a voice of marvellous
sweetness chanted the following verses :

" In absence I longed for thee as the thirsty flowers
long for the dews of night ;

" As the Arab longs to Bee the white sides of his
tent gleaming in the deserts afar off; as the mother for
the first kiss of her first-bora ; as the soul of the faith-
ful for paradise.

" Food was not pleasant to me, for the sweetest
viands seemed bitter.

" Kest was not pleasant to me, for I feared that thy
feet were weary.

" Sleep stayed no longer on my eyelids than does the
nestward-bound bird ou the branch where it alights to
rest its wings.

" I rose to escape from my dreams, and I lay down
to escape from my waking thoughts.

" "Without thee I cannot live, and with thee I ain
content to die."

As she concluded she stooped towards
Gamadel and touched his brow fondly with
her hand. Cathalla dared not advance and
could not retire.

Then the master of the house took the lute,
and having tuned it, sang in a voice that
resounded like the clang of cymbals :

" For the love of thee I have steeped my hands in
blood ; and the wealth which I lay at thy feet is
gathered by the strength of my arm.

" I have not measured yards of cloth nor weighed
the teeth of dead beasts in scales.

" I have not lied to foolish men nor deceived silly
women.

" They come with their hands full of gold ; some to
buy more gold, and others to buy more life.

" Not one has returned except in semblance.

" What matters it that the people murmur? Now
thou art come we will away to the land of Ajem, and
the secret of the well will never be known."

Cathalla learned from these words that he
had really penetrated into a house of crime,
and regretted not that he had put the two
blacks to death. Ordinary prudence would
have counselled him to retire whilst it Avas
yet time ; but although the lady was evidently
associated with Gamadel in crime, her fascina-
tionremained powerful. Curiosity, also, to learn
more of this strange history, urged Cathalla on-
wards. No other person save the two lovers
seemed astir in the house. On all sides the doors
of chambers well-lighted were open, but no one
moved. The young man, casting aside his
mantle and firmly grasping his sword, de-
scended a narrow staircase, and soon found
himself on a level with the garden in a dark
corner where he was concealed by trees.
From what they said, it seemed that they
were cousins ; that they had lived formerly at
Stamboul, from which city they had been
forced suddenly to fly, by different ways ; that
the young man had continued m various
places his terrible mode of life decoying rich
men by secret emissaries to his house by
the promise of unlimited wealth procured
magically and that the lady had long
searched for hirh in vain.

" Whisper into their ears," said Gamadel,
with terrible knowledge of human nature ;

" though they be rich as Suliman ben Daood,
with not a month of life before them ; tell
them that there is a way to get more money
without work, and that the grave may be
spurned back as I spurn this cushion. Not
one will disbelieve ! All come here with pearls
and jewels ; all come and die and go to their
paradise, which they would exchange for one
hour of basking at thy feet."

Gamadel was about to say further impious
things ; but the sword of Cathalla gleamed
over his head, and he fell and spoke no more.
The lady became white with terror, and
looked to the right and to the left for help ;
but seeing none, tried to smile the smile of
one upon the rack, who will not allow his
torturer to know that he has power over him.
Then she spoke the sweetest words she could |
remember, so that Cathalla, who had medi-
tated doing vengeance on her likewise,
dropped the point of his sword arid listened.
She feigned to be glad of her deliverance
from a monster like Gamadel, and offered to
follow Cathalla. But he now loathed her
even because she was so submissive, and im-
periously commanded her to say how many
more slaves were in the house. Two, she
said, the steward and the porter ; and offered
to lead him where he might slay them. She
kept her promise ; for she had formed a plan
to kill Cathalla afterwards, and take to flight
alone with a casket containing all the wealth
of Gamadel in jewels of prodigious value.
"With this," said she, exhibiting it, "we
will fly to the world's end." She beckoned
to the young man to follow her into a room ;
so fascinating was her smile, that in
spite of his good resolutions he was about to
follow ; when, as if by a miracle, a line of
Gamadel's song flashed across his mind :
" The secret of the well will never be
known."

" Lad} r ," said he, " wherefore didst thou
avoid that great stone in the doorway ? Is
the well beneath ? Come towards me across
it ; else I will slay thee with this sword."

Upon this, seeing that she was discovered,
the face of the woman changed to that of a
fury, and she began to utter horrible male-
dictions. The choice of death was before her.
She endeavoured bravely to meet the sharp
edge of the sword, but could not ; and leaping
with a fearful cry upon the stone, that gave
way at once, she fell to join the numerous
victims on whose spoils the wealth of her
lover was based. Cathalla stood a moment
horror-stricken ; but the wicked woman,
thinking to get rid of her enemy and escape
at once, had thrown fire into a room full of
rich stuffs, the spoils of the murdered. Smoke
and flames began to rise on every side : the
crackling of burning wood showed how
rapidly the conflagration spread. The young
man snatched up the casket and made his
escape in time ; but, the house of Gamadel,
with the whole of the Cassai-, was destroyed
that night. The poor people, suddenly

HOUSEHOLD WORDS.

[Conducted by

awakened, rushed forth into the fields and
stood helpless, beholding the flames devoui
all they possessed. According to their belief
fire hail descended from heaveu to punish th<
wicked.

Not long afterwards, a new village haa
risen on the same spot by the munificence o:
a stranger whose name was never known,
and all the inhabitants had reason to rejoice
over what had seemed at first an irreparable
disaster. As for Cathalla, strongly impressed
with the wickedness and avarice of the world,
he retired with his father to a lonely spot
with his strangely acquired wealth, and built
a house and devoted himself entirely to acts
of charity. When he told this story he
pretended that the conduct of the cousin of
Gamadel had so disgusted him with women,
that he had resolved never to marry ; but
some believing, what may be true, that love
is a kind of madness, said that no other
woman could make him forget that one.
And after all, how many great passions would
be born in this world if only good women
were their object ?

VAILS TO SERVANTS.

HAVING been from year to year an unmoved
spectator of the indignant face of, and an
amused listener to the lamentations over the
decay of vails to servants, made by the head
.messenger of my office (I sit in the shadow
of Inigo's banqueting hovise), I have been
looking of late into a box I possess, of
anecdotes relating to English manners and
customs, to see what I can find on a subject,
the decay and almost entire abolition of which
-elicits every Christmas sour looks and sour
words from the well-fed, well-lodged, and
not at all ill-salaried Ephraim Easeinsleep
head messenger and ofticekeeper of one of
her Majesty's offices of state.

Amused with what I have found, I will
group together briefly, but accurately, all
[ know upon the subject. I will only
premise that vails to servants were of a like
nature with fees to officials looked upon as
perquisites appertaining to wages and salaries;
and that it is only within the last few years'
that Christmas boxes to servants, and fees to
officers of state, have been, as far as the
public accounts are concerned, publicly
abolished and forbidden by the Lords Com-
missioners of her Majesty's Treasury. A few
perhaps remain, such as fees on venison
warrants, but their number must be very
few. Hence Ephraim's ill-humour.

I read (to use one of old Stow's expres-
sions), that the servants of our portrait
painters were the greatest exacters of vails
Few sitters escaped. When Villiers. Duke of
Buckmghaui (the Buckingham who was assas-
sinated), sat to Mr. afterwards Sir Balthazar
Gerbier, the bearer of the Duke's privv purse,
bir backville Crowe, was indignant at" the ex-
.actions made upon his master. Sir Sackville's

entry of the payments made on this occasion
will excite a smile :

Given to Mr. Geibier's servants uhen his Lordship
sat there for his picture, viz., to the two maids, 2 ;
to the two men that pretended to take pains about his
picture, 5. In all, 7.

The first painter in this country to forbid
the custom of giving vails to servants, was
that great pourtrayer of manners, William
Hogarth. When I sat to Hogarth," said
painstaking William Cole, "the custom of
giving vails to servants was not discontinued.
On taking leave of the painter at the door I
offered his servant a small gratuity, but the
man very politely refused it, telling me it
would be as much as the loss of his place if
his master knew it. This,* adds Cole, " was
so uncommon and so liberal in a man of
Hogarth's profession at that time of day,
that it much struck me, as nothing of the
kind had happened to me before." ft is told
of Sir Joshua Eeynolds, that he gave his
servant six pounds annually of wages, and
offered him one hundred pounds a year for
the door! But Ealph knew better than to
go halves with his master in such a matter.

My next memorandum leads us to a cha-
racteristic story of Sir Eichard Steele, who
was always liberal and always poor. Steele
was at Blenheim at the performance of a
;ragedy by Dryden. It was got up to amuse
the great Duke of Marlborough in his dotage,
and Steele sat next to the famous Hoadfy,
then only Bishop of Bangor. The liveried
army alarmed Sir Eichard. "Does your
ordship give money to all these fellows in
aced coats and ruffles?" asked the discon-
certed essayist and theatrical patentee. " No
doubt," replied the bishop. "I have not
enough," whispered the knight, and walked
on. Hoadly watched him, and heard him
accost the bevy of menials in the hall, telling
them that he had found them men of taste
and as such invited them all to Drury Lane
Theatre to any play they should bespeak.
My theatrical reading has not enabled me to
discover if Sir Eichard was called upon to
make good the promise of his witty escape
from vails on this occasion.

The people who have been most indignant
against vails to servants have been the mean
and the necessitous. Of the latter class was
Eichard Savage. His wants made him seek
access to the titled, and his poverty prohi-
bited him from acting up to the liveried
notion of the complete gentleman. He com-
plained in print. Queen Caroline allowed
Merlin's Cave and other torn-fooleries of the
kind, at Eichmond, to be shown for money.
This was too much for Savage, who in a
poem "On Public Spirit with regard to
Public Works," inserted these lines :
But what the flowering pride of gardens rare,
However royal, or however fair,
If gates, which to access should still give way,
Ope but, like Peter's Paradise, for pay?
If perquisited varlets frequent stand,
And each new walk must a new tax demand,

Charles Dickens.]

VAILS TO SERVANTS.

What foreign eye but with contempt surveys ?

What muse shall from oblivion snatch their praise ?
These, however, for fear of offending the
Queen, he was prudent enough to cancel ;
and thus his vigorous vferse was of no use in
removing an absurd custom then prevalent
in England.

The next memorandum in my box refers
to Henry Fielding, and leads us to an anec-
dote not unlike that I have just told of Sir
Richard Steele. It is this. At one of Gar-
rick's many dinners, Fielding was present^
and vails to servants being still in fashion,
each of the guests at parting made a present
to the man servant of the great actor, David,
a "Welshman, and a wit in his way. When
the company had gone, the lesser David being
in high glee, was asked by his master how
much he had got. " I can't tell you yet, sir,"
was the man's reply. " Here is half-a-crown
from Mrs. Gibber, Got pless hur ! here is a
shilling from Mr. Macklin ; here are two from
Mr. Havard ; here is and here is some-
thing more from Mr. Fielding, Got pless his
merry heart ! " By this time, the expectant
Welshman wearing the great actor's livery
-had unfolded the paper, when, to his great
astonishment, he saw that it contained a
vulgar and unmistakeable penny and no
more. Garrick, it is said, was nettled at this,
and spoke next day to Fielding about the
impropriety of jesting with a servant. " Jest-
ing ! " said the author of Tom Jones, with
seeming surprise. "So far from it, that I
meant to do the fellow a real service, for
had I given him a shilling, or half-a-crown, I
knew you would have taken it from him ;
but by giving him only a penny, he had a
chance of calling it his own." Garrick's
alleged parsimony was long the subject of
sarcastic observation among his contempora-
ries. That the two Davids the master and the
man divided vails it is impossible to believe.

If Sir Richard Steele was witty in his
escape from this black-mail levied by men in
livery, Sir Timothy Waldo, Baronet, of whom
I know nothing mor% was at least manly on
a similar occasion. He had been dining with
the minister Duke of Newcastle, I suppose
in that large red house in the north-west
corner of Lincoln's Inn Fields still known to
antiquaries as Newcastle House. On leaving,
Sir Timothy was pressed by the domestics of
the Duke, who lined the hall with eager faces
and extended hands. He had made his way
as far as the cook, and apparently had satisfied
the servants of his host, when a crown put
into the hand of the cook was returned with
" Sir, I do not take silver." " Don't you in-
deed ! " said the baronet, putting it into his
pocket, " then I do not give gold."

From these exactions poor peers suffered
still more than poor commoners. Here is a
case in point, told of a Roman Catholic peer
and the attainted Duke of Ormond. " 1 re-
member," says Dr. King, " a Lord Poor, a
Koman Catholic peer of Ireland, who lived

upon a small pension which Queen Anne had
granted him. He was a man of honour and
well esteemed, and had formerly been an
officer of some distinction in the service of
France. The Duke of Ormond had often in-
vited him to dinner, and he had as often excused
himself. At last the Duke kindly expostu-
lated with him, and would know the reason
why he so constantly refused to be one of his
guests. My Lord Poor then honestly con-
fessed that he could not afford it. "But,"
says he, "if your Grace will put a guinea
into my hands as often as you are pleased to
invite me to dine, I will not decline the
honour of waiting on you." This was done,
says Dr. King, and my Lord was afterwards
a frequent guest in St. James's Square.

This levy of vails had grown to such a nui-
sance early in the reign of King George the
Third, that serious attempts were made to
resist the tax. In this resistance, no one
seems to have behaved better than a gentle-
man whose name has unluckily not reached
us. He was paying the servants of a friend
for a dinner which their master had invited
him to. One by one they appeared with
"Sir, your great coat," and a shilling was
given; "Sir, your hat," another shilling;
" Sir, your stick," a third shilling ; " Sir,
your umbrella," a fourth shilling ; " Sir,
your gloves." "Why, friend, you may keep
the gloves ; they are not worth a shilling ! "

A still more active opponent of the scan-
dalous custom of vails was the benevolent
Jonas Hauway, whose name still lingers
pleasantly round many of our London cha-
rities. He not only wrote against it, but
answered a friend in high station, who re-
proached him for not coming oftener to dine
with him, by saying, " Indeed I cannot
afford it."

Han way moved in good society; and his
letters, and, above all, his example, did much
to remove this indecent tax upon good nature
and good sense. The Duke of Norfolk, Mr.
Spencer, Sir Francis Dashwood, and others,
increased their servants' wages in proportion
to the alleged value of their vails. The famous
farce of High Life Below Stairs caused ser-
vants to be looked upon in a light unfavour-
able to the custom, and by degrees the tax
was no longer demanded as a right. The
discontinuance first, it is said, commenced
seriously in Scotland. " I boasted," says
Boswell, "that the Scotch had the honour of
being the first to abolish the inhospitable,
troublesome, and ungracious custom of giving
vails to servants. "Sir," said Johnson, in
reply, " you abolished vails because you were
too poor to be able to give them."

The first attempt made to discontinue so
scandalous a custom, led to a serious disturb-
ance. The scene was Ranelagh, and the time
the eleventh of August, seventeen hundred
and sixty-four. Such of the nobility and
gentry as would not suffer their servants to
take vails, were hooted and hissed on that

HOUSEHOLD WORDS.

[Conductedbj

occasion by their own coachmen and foot-
men. From hissing they proceeded to break
the lamps and outside windows. They then
extinguished their flambeaux and pelted the
company with brickbats. Swords were drawn ;
in the scuffle one servant was run through
the thigh, another through the arm, and many
others were wounded. Four were seized
and being carried before the justices, one was
committed to Newgate, one discharged by his
master and bound to good behaviour, one set
at liberty on his asking pardon and promising
to discover his accomplices, and one dis-
charged, no person appearing against him.

I long to see Ephraiui's face when he reads
this paper.

THE LESSON OF THE WAR.

THE feast is spread through England

For rich and poor to-day ;
Greetings and laughter may be there,

But thoughts are far away,
Over the stormy ocean,

Over the dreary track,
Where some are gone whom England

Will never welcome back.
Breathless she waits, and listens

For every eastern breeze
That bears upon its bloody wings

News from beyond the seas.
The leafless branches stirring

Make many a watcher start,
The distant tramp of steed may send

A throb from heart to heart.
The rulers of the nation,

The poor ones at their gate,
With the same eager wonder

The same great news await !
The poor man's stay and comfort,

The rich roan's joy arid pride,
Upon the bleak Crimean shore

Are fighting side by side.
The bullet comes and either

A desolate hearth ma}' see ;
And God alone to-night knows where

The vacant place may be !
The dread that stirs the peasant

Thrills nobles' hearts with fear,
Yet above selfish sorrow

Both hold their country dear.
The rich man who reposes

In his ancestral shade,
The peasant at his plough =1,. ire,

The worker at his trade,
Each one his all has perilled,

Each has the same great stake,
Each soul can but have patience,

Each heart can only break !
Hushed is all party clamour ;

One thought in every he-art,
One dread in every household,

lias bid such strife depart.
England has called her children,

Long silent the word camo
That lit the smouldering ubhes

Through all the land to f'auie.
you who toil and suffer,

You gladly heard the call ;

But those you sometimes envy

Have they not given their all ?
O you who rule the nation,

Take now the toil-worn hand,
Brothers you are in sorrow

In duty to your land.
Learn but this noble lesson

Ere Peace returns again,
And the lifeblood of OKI England

Will not be shed in vain !

SIR JOHN FRANKLIN AND HIS
CREWS.

IN order that our readers, at a future time,
when the Esquimaux stories shall have been
further tested, may be in possession of them
as originally brought home, we have pro-
cured from DR. RAE a faithful copy of his
Report for publication. We do not feel
justified in omitting or condensing any part
of it ; believing, as we do, that it is a very
unsatisfactory document on which to found
. such strong conclusions as it takes for granted.
I The preoccupation of the public mind has
! dismissed this subject easily for the present ;
but, we assume its great interest, and the
serious doubts we hold of its having been
convincingly set at rest, to be absolutely
certain to revive.

York Factory, Hudson's Bay, 1st Sept., 1854.
I have the honour to report, for the
information of the Governor, Deputy Go-
vernor, and Committee, that I arrived here
I yesterday with my party, all in good health ;
j but, from causes which will be explained
! hereafter, without having effected the object
of the expedition. At the same time
information has been obtained, and articles
j purchased from the natives, which prove
beyond a doubt that a portion, if not all, of
the survivors of the long lost and unfortunate
party under Sir John Franklin had met with.
a fate as melancholy and dreadful as it is
possible to imagine.

By a letter dated Chesterfield Inlet,
ninth of August, eighteen hundred and fiftv-
three, you are in possession of my proceed-
ings up to that time. Late on the evening of
that day we parted company with our small
consort, she steering down to the southward,
whilst we took the opposite direction to
Repulse Bay.

Light and variable winds sadly retarded
our advance northward ; but by anchoring
during the flood, and sailing or rowing with
the tide, we gained some ground daily. On
the eleventh we met with upwards of three
hundred walrus, lying on a rock a few milea
off shore. They were not at all shy, and
several were mortally wounded, but one only
(an immensely large fellow) was shot dead
by myself. The greater part of the fat was
cut off and taken on board, which supplied
usabundantly with oil for our lamps all winter.
On the forenoon of the fourteenth, having
a fair wind, we rounded Cape Horn, and ran
up Repulse Bay ; but as the weather was

Charles Dickens.]

SIR JOHN FRANKLIN AND HIS CREWS.

very foggy, completely hiding every object at
the distance of a quarter-of'-a-mile, \ve made
the laud about seven miles east of my old
winter quarters ; next day, midst heavy rain,
we ran down to North Pole River, moored
the boat, aud pitched the tents.

The weather being still dark and gloomy,
the surrounding country presented a most
dreary aspect. Thick masses of ice clung to
the shore, whilst immense drifts of snow
filled each ravine, and lined every steep bank
that had a southerly exposure. No Esqui-
maux were to be seen, nor any recent traces
of them. Appearances could not be less
promising for wintering safely ; yet I deter-
mined to remain until the first of September ;
by which date some opinion could be formed
as to the practicability of procuring sufficient
food and fuel for our support during the
winter: all the provisions on hand at that
time being equal to only three months'
consumption.

The weather fortunately improved, and not
a moment was lost. Nets were set ; hunters
were sent out to procure venison ; and the
majority of the party was constantly em-
ployed collecting fuel. By the end of August
a supply of the latter essential article (An-
dromeda Tetragona) for fourteen weeks was
laid up, thirteen deer and one musk-bull had
been shot, aud one hundred and thirty-
six salmon caught. Some of the favourite
haunts of the Esquimaux had been visited,
but no indications were seen to lead us to
suppose that they had been lately in the
neighbourhood.

The absence of the natives caused me some
anxiety ; not that I expected any aid from
them, but because I could attribute their
having abandoned so favourable a locality
to no other cause than a scarcity of food,
arising from the deer having taken another
route in their migrations to and from the
north.

On the first of September I explained our
position to the men ; the quantity of pro-
Visions we had, and the prospects, which
were far from flattering, of getting more.
They all most readily volunteered to remain,
and our preparations for a nine months'
winter were continued with unabated energy.
The weather, generally speaking, was favour-
able, and our exertions were so successful,
that by the end of the month we had a
quantity of provisions . and fuel collected
adequate to our wants up to the period of
the spring migrations of the deer.

One hundred and nine deer, one musk-ox
(including those killed in August) fifty-three
brace of ptarmigan, and one seal, had been
shot ; and the nets produced fifty-four
salmon. Of the larger animals above enu-
merated, forty-nine' deer and the musk-ox
were shot by myself ; twenty-one deer by
Mistegan, the deer-hunter ; fourteen by
another of the men ; nine by William Oulig-
back ; and sixteen by the remaining four men.

The cold weather set in very early, and
with great severity. On the twentieth, all
the smaller, and some of the larger lakes,
were covered with ice four to six inches
thick. This was far from advantageous for
deer shooting, as these animals were enabled
to cross the country in all directions, instead
of following their accustomed passes.

October was very stormy and cold. About
the fifteenth, the migrations of the deer
terminated, and twenty-five more were added
to our stock. Forty-two salmon, and twenty
trout, were caught with nets and hooks set
in lakes under the ice. On the twenty-
. eighth, the snow was packed hard enough
for building ; and we were glad to exchange
the cold and dismal tents (in which the tem-
perature had latterly been thirty-six or
thirty-seven degrees below the freezing
point) for the more comfortable shelter of
snow-houses, which were built on the south
south-east side of Beacon Hill, by which
they were well protected from the pre-
vailing north-west gales. The houses were
nearly half a mile south of my winter
quarters of eighteen hundred and forty-six
and eighteen hundred and forty-seven.

The weather in November was com-
paratively fine, but cold, the highest, lowest,
and mean temperature being, respectively,
thirty-eight degrees, eighteen degrees, and
three degrees below zero. Some deer were
occasionally seen, but only four were shot ;
some wolves, several foxes, and one wolve-
rine were killed ; aud from the nets fifty-
nine salmon and twenty-two trout were
obtained.

Our most productive fishery was in a lake
about three miles distant, bearing east
(magnetic) from Beacon Hill, or the mouth
of the North Pole River.

The whole of December, a very few days
excepted, was one continued gale with snow
and drift. When practicable, the men were
occupied scraping under snow for fuel, by
which means our stock of that very essential
article was kept up. The mean temperature
of the month was twenty-three degrees below
zero. The produce of our nets and guns was
extremely small, amounting to one partridge,
one wolf, and twenty-seven fish.

On the first of January, eighteen hundred
aucl fifty-four, the temperature rose to the
very unusual height of eighteen degrees
above zero, the wind at the time being
south-east, with snow. Our nets, after being
set ill different lakes without success, were
finally taken up on the twelfth, only five
small fish having been caught. The ther-
mometer was tested by freezing mercury, and
found to be in error, the temperature indi-
cated by it being four degrees five minutes
too high.

The cold during February was steady and
severe, but there were fewer storms than
usual. Deer were more numerous, and gene-
rally were travelling northward. One or two

HOUSEHOLD WOEDS.

[Conducted by

were wounded, but none killed. On two
occasions (the first and twenty-seventh), that
beautiful but rare appearance of the clouds
near the sun, with three fringes of pink and
green, following the outline of the cloud, was
seen, and I may add that the same splendid
phenomenon was frequently observed during
the spring, and was generally followed by a
day or two of fine weather.

During the latter part of the month, pre-
parations were being made for our spring
journeys. A carpenter's workshop was built
of snow, and our sledges were taken to pieces,
reduced to as light a weight as possible,
and then reunited more securely than be-
fore. The mean temperature of February,
corrected for error of thermometer, was
thirty-nine degrees below zero. The highest
and lowest being twenty degrees and fifty-
three degrees.

On the first of March a female deer in
fine condition was shot, and on the ninth and
tenth two more were killed. Three men
were absent some days during this month, in
search of Esquimaux, from whom we wished
to obtain dogs. They went as far as the head
of Ross Bay, but found no traces of these
people.

On the fourteenth I started with three
men hauling sledges with provisions, to be
placed in " cache" for the long spring journey.
Owing to the stormy state of the weather we
got no farther than Cape Lady Pelly, on the
most northerly point of which our stores were
placed, under a heap of large stones, secure
from any animal except man or the bear.
We returned on the twenty-fourth, the dis-
tance walked together being a hundred and
seventy miles.

On the thirty-first of March, leaving three
men in charge of the boat and stores, I set
out with the other four, including the inter-
preter, with the view of tracing the west
coast of Boothia, from the Castor and Pollux
River to Bellot Strait. The weight of our
provisions, &c., with those deposited on the
way, amounted to eight hundred and sixty-
five pounds, an ample supply for sixty-five
days.

The route followed for part of the journey
being exactly the same as that of spring,
eighteen hundred and forty-seven, it is un-
necessary to describe it. During the two
first days, although we did not travel more
than fifteen miles per day, th men found the
work extremely hard, and as I perceived that
one of them (a fine, active young fellow, but a
light weight) would be unable to keep pace
with the others, he was sent back, and re-
placed by Mistegan, a very able man, and an
experienced sledge-hauler. More than a day
was lost in making this exchange, but there
was still abundance of time to complete our
work, if not opposed by more than common
obstacles.

On the sixth of April we arrived at our
provision cache, and fouud it all sate. Hav-

ing placed the additional stores on the
sledges, which made those of the men weigh
more than a hundred and sixty pounds each,
and my own about a hundred and ten pounds,
we travelled seven miles further, then built
a snow house on the ice two miles from shore.
We had passed among much rough ice, but
hitherto the drift banks of snow, by lying in
the same direction in which we were travel-
ling, made the walking tolerably good. As
we advanced to the northward, however,
these crossed our track (showing that the
prevailing winter gales had been from the
westward), and together with stormy weather,
impeded us so much that we did not reach
Colville Bay until the tenth. The position of
our snow house was in latitude sixty-eight
degrees thirteen minutes five seconds north,
longitude by chronometer eighty-eight de-
grees fourteen minutes "fifty-one seconds west,
the-variation of the compass being eighty-six
degrees twenty minutes west. From this
place it was my intention to strike across
land as straight as possible for the Castor and
Pollux River.

The eleventh was so stormy that we could
not move, and the next day, after placing en
cache two days provisions, we had walked
only six miles in a westerly direction, when a
gale of wind compelled us to get under
shelter. The weather improved in the even-
ing, and having the benefit of the full moon,
we started again at a few minutes to eight
P.M. Our course at first was the same as it
had been in the morning, but the snow soon
became so soft and so deep that I turned
more to the northward in search of firmer
footing. The walking was excessively fa-
tiguing, and would have been so even to
persons travelling unencumbered, as we sank
at every step, nearly ankle deep in snow.
Eight and a half miles were accomplished in
six and a half hours, at the end of which as
we required some rest, a small snow house
was built, and we had some tea and frozen
pemican.

After resting three hours we resumed our
march, and by making long detours, found
the snow occasionally hard enough to support
our weight. At thirty minutes to noon on
the thirteenth, our day's journey terminated
in latitude sixty-eight degrees twenty-three
minutes thirty seconds north, longitude
eighty-nine degrees three minutes fifty-three
seconds west, variation of compass eighty-
three degrees thirty minutes west. At a
mile and a half from our bivouac, we had
crossed the arm of a lake of considerable
extent, but the country around was so fiat,
and so completely covered with snow, that
its limits could not be easily defined, and our
snow hut was on the borders of another lake
apparently somewhat smaller.

A snow etorrn of great violence raged
during the whole of the fourteenth, which did
not prevent us from making an attempt to
get forward. After persevering two and a

Cbarles Dickens.]

SIR JOHN FRANKLIN AND HIS CREWS.

half hours, and gaining a mile and a half
distance, we were again forced to take shelter.

The fifteenth was very beautiful, with a
temperature of only eight degrees below zero.
The heavy fall of snow had made the walking
and sledge-hauling worse than before. It was
impossible to keep a straight course, and we
had to turn much out of our way, so as to
select the hardest drift banks. After advanc-
ing several miles, we fortunately reached a
large lake containing a number of islands, on
one of which I noticed an old Esquimaux
tent site. The fresh footmarks of a partridge
(Tetrao rupestris) were also seen, being the
only signs of living thing (a few tracks of
foxes excepted) that we had observed since
-commencing the traverse of this dreary waste
of snow-clad country. To the lake above
mentioned, and to those seen previously, the
name of Barrow was given, as a mark of
respect to John Barrow, Esquire, of the
Admiralty ; whose zeal in promoting, and
liberality in supporting, many of the expedi-
tions to the Arctic Sea are too well known to
require any comment, further than that he
presented a very valuable Halkett's boat for
the service of my party, which unfortunately
by some irregularity in the railway baggage
trains between London and Liverpool did not j
reach the latter place in time for the steamer, \
although sent from London some days before, j
Our snow hut was built on the edge of a !
small lake in latitude sixty-eight degrees
thirty-one minutes thirty-eight seconds north, j
longitude eighty-nine degrees eleven minutes
fifty-five seconds west, valuation of com-
pass eighty-three degrees thirty minutes
west.

The difficulties of walking were some-
what diminished on the sixteenth by a
fresli breeze of wind, which drifted the snow
off the higher ground, and we were enabled
to make a fair day's journey. Early on the
seventeenth we reached the shore of Pelly
Bay, but had barely got a view of its rugged
ice covering before a dense fog came on. We
had to steer by compass for a large rocky
island, some miles to the westward ; and we
stopped on an islet near its east shore until
the fog cleared away. This luckily hap-
pened some time before noon, and afforded
an opportunity of obtaining observations,
the results of which were latitude sixty-
eight degrees forty-four minutes fifty-three
seconds north, longitude by chronometer
eighty-nine degrees thirty-four minutes forty-
seven seconds west, and variation eighty-four
degrees twenty minutes west.

Even on the iee we found the snow soft
and deep, a most unusual circumstance. The
many detentions I had met with caused me
now, instead of making for the Castor and
Pollux Eiver, to attempt a direct course
towards the magnetic pole, should the land
westof the bay be smooth enough for travelling
over. The large island west of us was so
rugged and steep that there was no crossing

it with sledges ; we therefoi'e travelled along
its shores to the northward, and stopped for
the night within a few miles of the northern
extremity. The track of an Esquimaux
sledge drawn by dogs was observed to-day,
but it was of old date.

The morning of the eighteenth was very
foggy ; but after rounding the north point
of the island it became clear, and we tra-
velled due west, or very nearly so, until
within three miles of the west shore of the
bay, which presented an appearance so rocky
and mountainous, that it was evident we
could not traverse it without loss of time.
As the country towards the head of the bay
looked more level, I turned to the southward,
and, after a circuitous walk of more than
sixteen miles, we built our snow house on
the ice, five miles from shore. Many old
traces of Esquimaux were seen on the ice
to-day.

On the nineteenth we continued travelling
southward, and our day's journey (about
equal to that of yesterday) terminated near
the head of the bay.

Twentieth of April. The fresh foot-
marks of Esquimaux, with a sledge, having
been seen yesterday on the ice within a short
distance of our resting-place, the interpreter
and one man were sent to look for them, the
other two being employed in hunting and
collecting fuel, whilst I obtained excellent
observations, the results of which were
latitude sixty-eight degrees twenty-eight
minutes twenty-nine seconds north, longi-
tude by chronometer ninety degrees eighteen
minutes thirty-two seconds west, variation of
compass ninety-eight degrees thirty minutes
west. The latter is apparently erroneous,
probably caused by much local attraction.

After an absence of eleven hours the men
sent in search of Esquimaux returned in
company with seventeen natives (five of
whom were women), and several of them
had been at Repulse Bay when I was there
in eighteen hundred and forty-seven. Most
of the others had never before seen " whites,"
and were extremely forward and trouble-
some. They would give us no information
on which any reliance could be placed, and
none of them would consent to accompany
us for a day or two, although I promised to
reward them liberally.

Apparently, there was a great objection
to our travelling across the country in a
westerly direction. Finding that it was their
object to puzzle the interpreter and mislead
us, I declined purchasing more than a small
piece of seal from them, and sent them away
not, however, without some difficulty, as
they lingered about with the hope of stealing
something ; and, notwithstanding our vigi-
lance, succeeded in abstracting from one of
the sledges a few pounds of biscuit and
grease.

The morning of the twenty-first was ex-
tremely fine ; and at three A.M. we started

HOUSEHOLD WORDS.

[Conducted by

across land towards a very conspicuous hill,
bearing west of us. Oix a rocky eminence,
some miles inland, we made a cache of the
seal's flesh we had purchased. Whilst doing
this, our interpreter made an attempt to join
his countrymen. Fortunately, his absence
was observed before he had gone far ; and
he was overtaken after a sharp race of four
or five miles. He was in a great fright when
we came up to him, and was crying like a
child, but expressed his readiness to return,
and pleaded sickness as an excuse for his
conduct. I believe he was really unwell
probably from having eaten too much boiled
seal's flesh, with which he had been regaled
at the snow huts of the natives.

Having taken some of the lading off
Ouligback's sledge, we had barely resumed
our journey when we were met by a very
intelligent Esquimaux, driving a dog-sledge
laden with musk-ox beef. This man at once
consented to accompany us two days' journey,
and in a few minutes had deposited his load
on the snow, and was ready to join us.
Having explained my object to him, he said
that the road by which he had come was the
best for us ; and, having lightened the men's
sledges, we travelled with more facility.

We were now joined by another of the
natives, who had been absent seal-hunting
yesterday ; but being anxious to see us had
visited our snow-house early this morning,
and then followed our track. This man was
very communicative, and on putting to him
the usual questions as to his having seen
white men before, or any ships or boats, he
replied in the negative ; but said that a
party of kabloonans had died of starvation
a long distance to the west of where we then
were, and beyond a large river. He stated
that he did not know the exact place that
he had never been there, and that he could
not accompany us so far.

The substance of the information then and
subsequently obtained from various sources
was to the following effect.

In the spring, four winters past (eighteen
hundred and fifty), whilst some Esquimaux
families were killing seals near the northern
shore of a large island, named in Arrowsmith's
charts King William's Land, about forty white
men were seen travelling in company south-
ward over the ice, and dragging a boat anc
sledges with them. They were passing along
the west shore of the above-named island
None of the party could speak the Esquimaux
language so well as to be understood ; but by
signs the natives were led to believe that the
ship or ships had been crushed by ice, anc
that they were then going to where they
expected to find deer to shoot. From the
appearance of the men all of whom, with
the exception of an officer, were hauling on
the drag-ropes of the sledge, and were lookin^
thin they were then supposed to be getting
short of provisions ; and they purchased a
small seal, or piece of seal, from the natives

The officer was described as being a tall,
stout, middle-aged man. When their day's
ourney terminated, they pitched tents to
rest in.

At a later date, the same season, but pre-
vious to the disruption of the ice, the corpses
of some thirty persons and some graves were
discovered on the continent, and five dead
jodies on an island near it, about a long day's
ourney to the north- west of the mouth of a
.arge stream, which can be no other than
Back's Great Fish Eiver (named by the
Esquimaux Oot-koo-hi-ca-lik), as its descrip-
tion, and that of the low shore in the neigh-
bourhood of Point Ogle and Montreal Island,
agree exactly with that of Sir George Back.
Some of the bodies were in a tent or tents ;
others were under the boat, which had been
turned over to form a shelter ; and some lay
scattered about in different directions. Of
those seen on the island, it was supposed that
one was that of an officer (chief), as he
had a telescope strapped over his shoulders,
and his double-barrelled gun lay underneath
him.

From the mutilated state of many of the
bodies, and the contents of the kettles, it is
evident that our wretched countrymen had
been driven to the last dread alternative as a
means of sustaining life.

A few of the unfortunate men must have
survived until the arrival of the wild fowl
(say until the end of May), as shots were
heard, and fish-bones and feathers of geese
were noticed near the scene of the sad
event.

There appears to have been an abundant
store of ammunition, as the gunpowder was
emptied by the natives in a heap on the
ground out of the kegs or cases containing it ;
and a quantity of shot and ball was found
below high-water mark, having probably been
left on the ice close to the beach before the
spring thaw commenced. There must have
been a number of telescopes, guns (several of
them double-barrelled), watches, compasses,
&c. ; all of which seem to have been broken
up, as I saw pieces of these different articles
with the natives, and I purchased as many
as possible, together with some silver spoons
and forks, an order of merit in the form of a
star, and a small silver plate engraved " Sir
John Franklin, K.C.H."

Enclosed is a list of the principal articles
bought, with a note of the initials, and a
rough pen-and-ink sketch of the crests on the
foi'ks and spoons. The articles themselves I
shall have the honour of handing over to
you on my arrival in London.

None of the Esquimaux with whom I had
communication saw the white men, either
when living or after death, nor had they ever
been at the place where the corpses were
found, but had their information from natives
who had been there, and who had seen the
party when travelling over the ice. From
what I could learn, there is no reason to

Charles Dickens.]

SIR JOHN FRANKLIN AND HIS CREWS.

suspect that any violence had been offered to
the sufferers by the natives.

As the dogs in the sledge were fatigued
before they joined us, our day's journey was
a short one. Our snow-house was built in lati-
tude sixty-eight degrees twenty-nine seconds
north, and longitude ninety degrees forty-two
minutes forty-two seconds west, on the bed of
a river having high mud banks, and which
falls into the west side of Pelly Bay, about
latitude sixty-eight degrees forty-seven mi-
nutes north, and longitude ninety degrees
twenty-five minutes west.

On the twenty -second, we travelled along
the north bank of the river (which I named
after Captain Beecher, of the Admiralty), in
a westerly direction, for seven or eight miles,
until abreast of the lofty and peculiarly
shaped hill already alluded to, and which I
named Ellice Mountain, when we turned
more to the northward.

We soon arrived at a long narrow lake, on
which we encamped a few miles from its east
end, our day's march being little more than
thirteen miles. Our Esquimaux auxiliaries
were now anxious to return, being in dread,
or professing to be so, that the wolves or
wolverines would find their " cache" of meat,
and destroy it. Having paid them liberally
for their aid and information, and having
bade them a most friendly farewell, they
set out for home as we were preparing to go
to bed.

Next morning provisions for six days were
secured under a heap of ponderous stones, and
we resumed our march along the lake.

Thick weather, snow-storms, and heavy
walking, sadly retarded our advance. The
Esquimaux had recommended me, after
reaching the end of the chain of lakes (which
ran in north-westerly direction for nearly
twenty miles, and then turned sharply to the
southward) to follow the windings of a brook
that flowed from them. This I attempted to
do, until finding that we should be led thereby
far to the south, we struck across land to the
west among a series of hills and valleys.

Tracks of deer now became numerous, and
a few traces of musk cattle were observed.

At two A.M., on the twenty-sixth, we fell upon
a river with banks of mud and gravel twenty
to forty feet high, and about a quarter of a
mile in width. After a most laborious walk
of more than eighteen miles, we found an old
snow-hut, which after a few repairs was made
habitable, and we were snugly housed at
forty minutes past six A.M. Our position
was in latitude sixty-eight degrees twenty-
five minutes twenty-seven seconds north,
longitude ninety- two degrees fifty-three
minutes fourteen seconds west.

One of our men who, from carelessness
some weeks before, had severely frozen two
of his toes, was now scarcely able to walk ;
and as, by Esquimaux report, we could not
be very far from the sea, I prepared to start
in the evening with two men and four days'

provisions for the Castor and Pollux River,
leaving the lame man and another to follow,
at their leisure a few miles on our track, to
some rocks that lay on our route where they
were more likely to find both fuel and game,
than on the bare flat ground where we then
were.

The morning of the twenty-sixth was very
fine as we commenced tracing the course ot
the river seaward ; sometimes following its
course, at other times travelling on its left or
right bank to cut off points.

At four A.M., on the twenty-seventh, we
reached the mouth of the river, which, by
subsequent observation, I found to be situated
in latitude sixty-eight degrees thirty-two
minutes north, and longitude ninety-three
degrees twenty minutes west. It was rather
difficult to discover when we had reached the
sea, until a mass of rough ice settled the
question beyond a doubt. After leaving the
river we walked rapidly due west for six
miles, then built our usual snug habitation
on the ice, three miles from shore, and had
some partridges (Tetrao mutus) for supper, at
the unseasonable hour of eight A.M. We had
seen great numbers of these birds during the
night.

Our latitude was sixty-eight degrees thirty-
two minutes one second north, and about
forty minutes east of Simpson's position of
the mouth of the Castor and Pollux iiiver.

The weather was overcast with snow
when we resumed our journey, at thirty
minutes past eight P.M., on the twenty-seventh;
we directed our course directly for the shore,
which we reached after a sharp walk of one
and a half hours, in doing which we crossed
a long stony island of some miles in extent.
As by this time it was snowing heavily, I
made my men travel on the ice, the walking
being better there, whilst I followed the
winding of the shore, closely examining every
object along the beach.

After passing several heaps of stones, which
had evidently formed Esquimaux caches, I
came to a collection larger than any I had
yet seen, and clearly not intended for the
protection of property of any kind. The
stones, generally speaking, were small, and
had been built in the form of a pillar, but the
top had fallen down, as the Esquimaux had
previously given me to understand was the
case.

Calling my men to land, I sent one to trace
what looked like the bed of a small river
immediately west of us, whilst I and the
other man cleared away the pile of stones in
search of a document. Although no docu-
ment was found, there could be no doubt in
my own mind, and in that of my companion,
that its construction was not that of the
natives. My belief that we had arrived at
the Castor and Pollux River was confirmed
when the person who had been sent to trace
the apparent stream-bed returned with the
information that it was a river.

HOUSEHOLD WORDS.

[Conducted by

My latitude of the Castor and Pollux is
sixty-eight degrees twenty-eight minutes
thirty-seven seconds, west ; agreeing within
a quarter of a mile with that of Simpson ;
but our longitudes differ considerably, hia
being ninety-four degrees fourteen minutes
west, whilst mine was ninety-three degrees
forty-two minutes west. My longitude is
nearly intermediate between that of Simpson
and Sir George Back, supposing the latter to
have carried on his survey eastward from
Montreal Island. A number of rocky eleva-
tions to the north of the river were mistaken
by Simpson for islands, and named by him
the Committee.

Having spent upwards of an hour in fruit-
less search for a memorandum of some kind,
we began to retrace our steps ; and after a
most fatiguing march of fifteen hours, during
which we walked at least thirty miles, we
arrived at the snow-hut of the men left be-
hind. They had shot nothing, and had not
collected sufficient andromeda for cooking,
but had been compelled to use some grease.
The frost-bitten man could scarcely move.

Early on the morning of the twenty-ninth,
during a heavy fall of snow, we set out for
the mouth of the river, which was named in
honour of Sir Frederick Murchison, the late
President of the Royal Geographical Society ;
and after losing our way occasionally in
attempting to make short cuts, we arrived at
Cache Island, so named from an Esquimaux
cache that was on it, within two miles of the
sea, at eight A.M., and stopped there, as it
blew a gale with drift.

As soon as we got shelter, and had supped,
preparations were made for starting in the
evening for Bellot Strait. An ample stock of
provisions and fuel for twenty-two days were
placed on two of our best sledgea, and I
hauled on my own small sledge my instru-
ments, books, bedding, &c., as usual.

On the evening of the twenty-ninth, the
weather was so stormy, that although we were
prepared to start at eight o'clock, we could
not get away until past two on the following
morning, when after travelling little more than
five miles, a heavy fall of snow and strong
wind caused us again to take shelter.

Our advance was so much impeded by thick
weather and soft snow, that we did not arrive
within a few miles of Cape Porter of Sir John
Ross, until the sixth of May. In doing this
we had traversed a bay, the head of which
was afterwards found to extend as far north
as latitude sixty-eight degrees four minutes
north. Point Sir H. Dryden, its western
boundary, is in latitude sixty-eight degrees
forty-four minutes north, longitude ninety-
four degrees west. To this bay, the name of
Shepherd was given, in honour of the Deputy
Governor of the Honourable Hudson's Bay
Company, and an island near its head, was
called Bence Jones, after the distinguished me-
dical man and analytical chemist of that name
to whose kindness I and my party were much

indebted, for having proposed the use and pre-
pared some extract of tea, for the expedition.

This article we found extremely portable,
and as the tea could be made without boiling
water, we often enjoyed a cup of that refresh-
ing beverage, when otherwise from want of
fuel, we must have been satisfied with cold
water.

From Point Dryden, the coast which is low
and stony, runs in a succession of small points
and bays about ten miles nearly due west,
then turns sharply up to the north in latitude
sixty-eight degrees forty-five minutes north,
longitude ninety-four degrees twenty-seven
minutes fifty seconds west, which was ascer-
tained by observations obtained on an island
near the shore. The point was called Cape
Colvile, after the Governor of the Company,
and the island, Stanley. To the west, at the
distance of seven or eight miles, land was seen,
which received the appellation of Matheson
Island, as a mark of respect to one of the
Directors of the Company.

Our snow-hut on the sixth of May, situate
on Pointe de la Guiche was by good observa-
tions found to be in latitude sixty-eight de-
grees fifty-seven minutes fifty-two seconds
north, longitude ninety-four degrees twenty-
two minutes fifty-eight seconds west. One of
my men, Mistegan, an Indian of great intel-
ligence and activity, was sent six miles farther
along the coast northwards ; by ascending
some rough ice at its extreme point, he could
see about five miles farther, the land was still
trending northward, whilst to the north-west,
at a considerable distance, perhaps twelve or
fourteen miles, there was an appearance of
land, the channel between which and the point
where he stood, being full of rough ice. This
land, if it was such, is probably part of Matty
Island, or King William's Land, which latter
is also clearly an island.

I am happy to say that on this present, as
on a former, occasion, where my survey met
that of Sir James C. Ross, a very singular
agreement exists, considering the circum-
stances under which our surveys have been
taken.

The foggy and snowy weather, which con-
tinued upwards of four days, had occasioned
the loss of so much time, that, although I
could easily have completed a part (perhaps
the half) of the survey of the coast, between
the Magnetic Pole and Bellot Strait, or
Brentford Bay, I could not do the whole with-
out great risk to my party, and I therefore
decided upon returning.

Having taken possession of our discoveries
in the usual form, and built a cairn, we com-
menced our return on the night of the sixth.
Having fine, clear weather, we made long
marches, and at Shepherd Bay, having got rid
of the sledge, which I had hitherto hauled, I
detached myself from the party, and ex-
amined the bay within a mile or two of
the shore, whilst my men took a straighter
route.

Charles Dickens.]

SIR JOHN FEANKLIN AND HIS CEEWS.

Thick weather again came on as we en-
tered the bay (named in honour of Sir Eobert
H. Inglis) into which the Murchison Eiver
falls, and we had much trouble in finding the
mouth of the river. Here the services of my
Cree hunter were of much value, as custom
had caused him to notice indications and
marks, which would have escaped the ob-
servation of a person less acute and ex-
perienced.

On the eleventh of May, at three A.M., we
reached the place where our two men had
been left. Both were as well as I could hope
for, the one whose great toe had been frozen,
and which was about to slough off at the first
joint, thereby rendering the foot very tender
and painful when walking in deep snow, had
too much spirit to allow himself to be hauled.
One deer, and eighteen partridges had been
shot ; but, notwithstanding, I found a greater
reduction in our stock of provisions than I
had anticipated, and I felt confirmed in the
course I had taken.

The day became very fine, and observations
were taken, which gave the position of Cache
Island, where our snow-hut was latitude
sixty - eight degrees thirty - two minutes
two seconds north, longitude ninety-three
degrees thirteen minutes eighteen seconds
west.

Having completed my observations, and
filled in rough tracings of the coast line,
which I generally did from day to day, we
started for home at eight thirty, P.M. The
weather being now fine, and the snow harder
than when outward bound, we advanced more
rapidly and in a straighter direction, until we
came to the lakes, about midway in the
Isthmus, after which, as far as Pelly Bay, our
outward and homeward route were exactly
alike. We reached Pelly Bay at one A.M., on
the seventeenth, and built a snow-house about
two and a half miles south, and the same dis-
tance west, of my observations of the twentieth
of April.

Observing traces of Esquimaux, two men
were sent, after supper, to look for them.
After eight hours absence they returned with
ten or twelve native men, women, and child-
ren. From these people I bought a silver
spoon and fork. The initials F. E. M. C., not
engraved, but scratched with a sharp instru-
ment, on the spoon, puzzled me much, as I
knew not at the time the Christian names of
the officers of Sir John Franklin's expedition;
and thought that the letters above-named
might possibly be the initials of Captain
M'Clure, the small c between M C being
omitted.

Two of the Esquimaux (one of them I had
seen iu eighteen hundred and forty-seven)
offered for a consideration to accompany us a
day or two's march with a sledge and dogs.
We were detained some time by the slow
preparations of our new allies ; but we soon
made up for lost time, and, after a journey of
sixteen geographical or about eighteen and a

half statute miles, we arrived at the east side
of the bay, in latitude by reduction to the
meridian sixty-eight degrees twenty-three
minutes ten seconds north, longitude eighty-
nine degrees fifty-eight minutes thirty-nine
seconds west.

It may be remembered that in the spring
of eighteen forty-seven I did not trace the
shore of Pelly Bay, but saw it from the summit
of one of the lofty islands in the bay. Desirous
of being always within, rather than of exceed-
ing the limits of truth, I that year placed the
head of the bay about ten miles north of what
it ought to have been, a mistake which will
be easily accounted for by those who know
the difficulties of estimating distances in a
snow-clad country, where the height of the
land is unknown.

The width of the isthmus separating Pelly
and Shepherd's Bays is fully sixty geogra-
phical miles.

In the evening before parting with our
Esquimaux assistants, we bought a dog from
them, and after a most friendly farewell,
resumed our journey eastward, and found, on
a long lake, some old snow-houses, in which
we took up our lodgings. Here a set of good
observations placed us in latitude sixty-eight
degrees twelve minutes eighteen seconds
north, longitude eighty-nine degrees twenty-
four minutes fifty-one degrees west ; varia-
tion eighteen-one degrees west.

On the morning of the twenty-first, we
arrived at Committee Bay. From thenee our
route to Eepulse Bay was almost the same as
before ; and I shall not, therefore, advert to it
further than to mention that we arrived at
our winter home at five, A.M., on the twenty-
sixth of May, having, from the better walk-
ing, travelled in twenty days the distance
(less forty or fifty miles) which had taken us
thirty-six days to accomplish on our outward
journey.

$%I found the three men who had been left in
charge of the property quite well, living in
abundance, and on the most friendly terms
with a number of Esquimaux families, who
had pitched their tents near them.

The natives had behaved in the most ex-
emplary manner ; and many of them who
were short of food, in compliance with my
orders to that effect, had been supplied with
venison from our stores.

It was from this time until August that I
had opportunities of questioning the Esqui-
maux regarding the information which I had
already obtained, of the party of whites who
had perished of starvation, and of eliciting
the particulars connected with that sad
event, the substance of which I have already
stated.

In the early part of July, the salmon came
from the sea to the mouths of the rivers and
brooks which were at that date open ; and
we caught numbers of them. So that occa-
sionally we could afford to supply our native
friends with fifty or one hundred in a night.

HOUSEHOLD WORDS.

[Conducted by

As is the usual custom at the Hudson's Bay
Company's inland trading posts, all provisions
were given gratis ; and they were much more

gratefully received by the Esquimaux than
y the more southerly and more favoured
red man.

We had still on hand half of our three
months' stock of pemican, and a sufficiency
of ammunition to provide for the wants of
another winter. We were all in excellent
health, and could get as many dogs as we
required : so that (D.V.) there was little
doubt that a second attempt to complete the
survey would be successful ; but I now
thought that I had a higher duty to attend
to, that duty being to communicate, with as
little loss of time as possible, the melancholy
tidings which I had heard, and thereby save
the risk of more valuable lives being jeo-
pardised in a fruitless search, in a direction
where there was not the slightest prospect of
obtaining any information. I trust this will
be deemed a sufficiently good reason for my
z'eturn.

The summer was extremely cold and back-
ward ; we could not leave Repulse Bay until
the fourth of August, and on the sixth had
much difficulty in rounding Cape Hope. From
thence, as far as Cape Fullerton, the strait
between Southampton Island and the main
shore was fully packed with ice, which gave
us great trouble. South of Cape Fullerton
we got into open water. On the evening of
the nineteenth instant, calms and head winds
much retarded us, so that we did not enter
Churchill River until the morning of the
twenty-eighth of August. There we were
detained all day by a storm of wind. My
good interpreter, William Ouligback, was
landed, and before bidding him farewell, I
presented him with a very handsomely
mounted hunting knife, intrusted to me by
Captain Sir George Back for his former
travelling companion, Ouligback ; but as the
old man was dead, I took the liberty of giving
it to his son, as an inducement to future good
conduct should his services be again required.

A three days' run brought us to York
Factory, at which place we landed all well
on the forenoon of the 31st of August. I
am happy to say that the conduct of my
men, under circumstances often very trying,
was generally speaking extremely good and
praiseworthy ; and although their wages were
higher than those of any party who have
hitherto been employed on boat expeditions,
I- thought it advisable, after consulting with
Chief Factor William Mactavish, to give each
a small gratuity, varying the amount accord-
ing to merit.

In conclusion, I have to express my regret
that I was unable, on this occasion, to bring
to a successful termination an expedition
which I had myself planned and projected;
but in extenuation of my failure, I may men-
tion that I was met by an accumulation of
obstacles, beyond the usual ones of storms

and rough ice, which my former experience
in Arctic travelling had not led me to
anticipate.

CHIP.

PULP.

THE possibility of making paper from any-
thing but rags has only been mooted since
the rag-famine set in. It was amongst the
good old manufacturing prejudices, that pulp
for paper-making could only be formed from
flax or cotton which had been spun, woven,
made into garments or napery, worn out,
cast off, had the best price given for it at the
Black Doll ; picked, sorted, washed, torn to
tatters, and smashed into pulp at the mill.
The manufacturing mind has only recently
become awake to the probability that pulp
might be made out of fibre that has never
passed through the rag-shop.

The idea of making paper from raw flax
is neither new nor startling At present
the flax plant is only used for two pur-
poses its straw is reduced to fibre, and
then spun and woven into textile fabrics ;
and its seed, besides propagating it, yields
painter's oil. Yet the same plant can never
be used for both purposes. To produce
good flax, it must be cut down before the
seed is ripe; and, when fully matured to
yield oil, the straw fibre cannot be spun.
But it can be converted into the best possible
pulp. Unlimited supplies of this straw is
wasted in India, whence it might be im-
ported into this country ; and, mixed with in-
ferior cotton and linen rags to soften and econo-
mise it, be converted into a tougher, whiter,
and cheaper paper than we can at present
afford for common use. On such paper the
second edition of the "Times" newspaper of
Monday the seventeenth of July last was
printed.

There are besides, coarser varieties of the
flax-plant that might be cultivated to yield
paper-pulp of the first quality. The experiment
has been tried with a success which proves that
vast expanses of marshy lands in this country,
and a large proportion of the Irish soil, not
now productive, might be made to grow in-
ferior species of flax convertible into unlimited
supplies of pulp. There is only one barrier to
the immediate solution of the great paper
difficulty. A few gentlemen with capital
and enterprise have associated themselves
for the supply of flax pulp to paper makers,
and some of the principal paper-makers have
agreed to become their customers. Their
object being, however, one of those which can
only be carried out on a large and expansive
scale, it is beyond the means of "a few"
gentlemen. With broad acres to purchase
or to rent, with mills and machinery to pro-
vide ; or, with vast purchases to make of the
coarser flax from the Indian, Australian, or
New Zealand markets, the capital required
could only be commanded by an extensive
company j and, whoever enters upon the

Charles Dickets.]

OBSOLETE COOKERY.

scheme must be prepared to incur enormous
liabilities. This no man in his senses will
do, in the present absurd and crippling state
of the law of partnership even to confer
the greatest blessing on his fellow men ; for
he would place everything he possessed in
jeopardy, from his bank-stock to his boots.

Here then, is an instance of a most useful
and beneficial project being paralysed from an
. irrational and unjust law alaw which exists in
' no other country than England : alaw which
discourages habits of prudence and saving
among the humbler orders (for it shuts out
every profitable investment from the small
capitalist) and which nips every comprehen-
sive and beneficent enterprise in the bud.
Mr. Cardwell has promised an alteration of
this anomalous statute ; let us hope that
he will keep his word early in the present
Session.

OBSOLETE COOKERY.

THE cookery of mummers and morris-
dancers, of abbots of unreason and licensed
jesters what can it be but grotesque, like
the rest ; full of quaint humour without
elegance, and of gross lavishness without real
luxury 1 So, in fact, we find it in Robert
May's queer book ; " The Accomplisht Cook ;
printed for Nath. Brooke, at the Sign of the
Angel, Cornhill, 1660." Robert May seems
to have been great in his time, in his attempt
to popularise the art and mystery of cookery ;
and in his address to the master cooks
and young practitioners which is as much
a defence as an address he deprecates the
wrath of the protectionists of that art in
consequence. He takes high ground, though.
He says that though " he may be envied by
some that only value their private Interests
above Posterity and the publick good; yet
God and his own Conscience would not per-
mit him to bury these his Experiences with
his Silver Hairs in the Grave." An expression
that gives one an affectionate kind of reve-
rence for the brave old cook the " artist "
as he calls himself and his confrdres. He is
intensely English, among <bther things. He
abuses the French for their " Epigram dishes,
smoak't rather than dress't their Mush-
room 'd Experiences for Sauce rather than
Diet," and ungraciously says, that though
"whatever he found good in their Manu-
scripts and printed Authours he inserted
in this volume," yet their books were but
" empty and unprofitable treatises, of as little
use as some Niggards' Kitchens : " wherein we
see the shadow of that fatal spirit of expendi-
ture, the ill effects of which we feel to this day.

We have directions for carving, and the
terms of carving; an account of sundry
" triumphs and trophies in cookery, to be used
at festival times, as Twelfth Day, etc." ; the
service (or order of meats); a list of sauce
for all manner of fowls ; showing " how with
all meats sauce shall have the opperatiou ;"

bills of fare for every season in the year ;
also " how to set forth the meat in order for
that service, as it was used before hospitality
left this nation." And finally a mass of recipes
and such recipes ! Shade of Lucullus! what
clumsy messes, and what strange material !

The directions for carving are very quaint,
You are to break a deer and to leach brawn
(leche, a thin slice ?) You are to spoil a
hen, unbiane a mallard, display a crane,
disfigure, a peacock, border a pasty, tire an
egg, tame a crab, tusk a barbel, culpon a
trout, fin a chevin (chub), trauson an eel,
tranch a sturgeon, under tranch a porpoise,
and barb a lobster. Also, which is not ex-
actly carving, you are to timber the fire. la
the service or order of serving you are to
have first mustard and brawn, then pottage,
then meat, fowl or game, fish, sweets; you
are to have stork and crane and heron and
peacock with his tail on, and larks and
dowcets (custard), and pampuff (pancakes ?)
j and white leach which we leave to our
readers to interpret into modern English
amber-jelly, and then curlews and snites, alias
snipes, and sparrows and martins, and pearch
in jelly, and petty pervis which is also to be
interpreted according to pleasure and a good
dictionary and dewgard or dewberries, und
fruter-sage, and blandrells, and pippins, with
carraways in comfits, and wafers and hip-
pocras. Then you are to have as sauce
verjuice for chickens, and chaldrons orgiblets
very likely with swan : mustard and sugar
with lamb and pig ; sauce gumeliu whatever
that may be with bustard and bittern and
spoonbill; with cranes and herons, salt and
sugar ; with sparrows and thrushes, salt and
cinaou (cinnamon). Sprats is good in stew,
says Robert May ; pears and quinces in
syrrup with parsley roots, and a mortus of
houudfish is to be raised standing. Which
last seems to mean pounded or perhaps potted
fish, turned out of a deep dish.

You are to carve cleanly and handsomely,
and not break the meat ; you are to lay
the slices in a fair charger generally, and
lace the breasts of poultry with your knife ;
you are to gobbin a salt lamprey and
other things, and dight the brain of a wood-
cock (gobbin seems to mean, cut up into
small pieces, and to dight is to dress) ;
you are to roast a porpos and cut him
about ; when you unbrane a mallard you
are to lace it down on each side with your
knife, bending it to and fro like waves ; and
you are to array forth a capon on your
platter as though he should fly.

But listen to Robert May's description of
"a triumph and trophy in cookery," such as
was " formerly the delight of the nobility
before good housekeeping had left England,
and the sword really acted that which was
only counterfeited in such honest and laud-
able exercises as these." You are to make
the likeness of a ship in pasteboard, with
flags and streamers, with guns of kiekses

HOUSEHOLD WORDS.

[Conducted br

(kickshaws?) charged with trams of gun-
powder. This ship you are to place in a
great charger with salt round about, and
stick therein egg-shells full of sweet water.
Then in another charger you are to have a
stag made in coarse paste, with a broad
arrow in the side of him, and his body filled
up with claret wine. In another charger,
after the stag, you are to have a castle with
battlements, percullices, gates, and draw-
bridges of pasteboard, the guns of kickses as
in the former instance. The castle is also
surrounded with salt, stuck with egg-shells
full of rose-water. On each side of the stag
have a pie one filled with live frogs, the
other with live birds. Ship, stag, castle, and
pies are to be gilded and adorned with gilt
bay leaves. Being all placed in order upon
the table, the ladies are to be persuaded to
pluck the arrow out of the stag ; then will
the claret wine follow as blood running out
of a wound. This being done with admi-
ration of the beholders, after a short pause
fire the train of the castle, answering with
that of the ship, as in a battle. Then the
ladies, "to sweeten the stinck of the powder,"
are to take the egg-shells full of sweet waters
and throw them at each other. All danger
being now over, by this time it is supposed
that you will desire to see what is in the
pies ; " when, lifting off the lid of one, out skip
the frogs, which makes the ladies to skip and
shreek ; next after the other pie, whence
comes out the birds." The birds by natural
instinct will fly high and put out the
candles ; so that what with the flying birds
and skipping frogs, the one above, the other
beneath, and total darkness for the romp, we are
told this trophy and triumph will cause much
delight and pleasure to the whole company.

They ate such queer things in those
days. Most likely they knew how to make
good dishes out of their grotesque con-
comitants ; but a "jigott" of mutton with
anchove sauce does seem a rather odd com-
pound ; so does a turkey roste and stuck
with cloves, and eight turtle doves and an
olive pie and larded gulls. Snails, too, do
not suit the degenerate palates of the nine-
teenth century. But, Robert May gives nine
receipts for the various dressing of snails.
First as boiled, then broiled, then fried, then
hashed, then in a soup, and lastly baked.
We are told how to bake frogs as well. Take
the recipe as it stands :

" Being fleyed, take the hind legs, cut off
the feet and season them with nutmeg,
pepper, and salt ; put them in a pie with^
some sweet herbs chopped small, large mace,
slic't lemon, gooseberries, grapes, or bar-
berries, pieces of skirret, artichocks, pota-
toes or parsnips, and marrow. Close it up
and bake it ; being baked, liquor it with butter
and juyce of orange, or grape of verjuyce."
Which looks rather as if the frogs were to
be disguised out of all recognition than ap-
preciated and enjoyed. But what would a

" muskle pie " be like ? Would they bake
the beards as well? Has any one eaten a
broiled lobster ? or one hashed, stewed,
baked, or fried 1 Would hashed oyster be
good eating ? There is an oyster pottage
which reads well, and oysters in stoffado,
whatever that may be ; which last receipt
includes wine, vinegar, spices, eggs, cream,
butter and batter, "slic't" oranges, bar-
berries, and " sarsed manchet " which we
should call bread crumbs among its ingre-
dients. There are minced-herring pies and
all sorts of fish pies generally" not bad
things, by the way and there is a stewed
lump, and a baked lump, and chewits,
otherwise minced patties of salmon, and
a lumber pie of salmon, and pike jelly,
and peti poets (petits pates ?) of carp
minced up with eel ; and marinated fish of
every kind, which seems to be fish pickled
and salted in a peculiar way. Porpoise and
whale were familiar things to Robert May.
We believe he would not have declined hip-
popotamus or alligator, or lions and tigers.
He would have made decent stews and
hashes out of snakes and condors, no doubt,
true omniverous old cook that he was. We
protest, though, against his taking a hand-
some carp a special one of eighteen inches
and splitting it down the back alive. Our
crimped cod, and the eels which do'nt get
used to being skinned, are just as bad, and
perhaps worse ; but the originators of these
wicked practices were the Robert Mays of
our ancestors.

We wish we could give the engravings of
this book. There are pictures of fish " splat,"
or in pies the oddest-looking things ima-
ginable, with queer, grave countenances, that
seem to express a stolid objection to their
position. They would be better as portraits
if they were not all alike. A salmon, a
sturgeon, and a carp, have some points of
difference, but Robert May's wood-engraver
ma.kes the same block do for them all, which
rather spoils the likeness. The king of
them all is a lobster. What words can
describe that unhappy crustacean ? It
looks like a spread eagle ; like a goblin born
of dyspepsia and laudanum ; like a fanciful
flower-bed ; like a mythic tortoise with gout
in his fins, for it is splat in halves, as is
the wont with this accomplished cook's fish ;
it is sprawling and floundering across the
page in a wonderful fatehion, not at all after
the manner of modern lobsters. The cut
we refer to heads a recipe for "baked lob-
sters to be eaten hot." It sounds appetising
enough.

" Being boild and cold, take the meat out
of the shells and season it lightly with nut-
meg, pepper, salt, cinamon, and ginger ;
then lay it in a pie made according to this
form" (our spread eagle or goblin), "and
lay on it some dates in halves, large mace,
slic't lemons, barberries, yolks of hard eggs,
and butter. Close it up, and bake it ; and

Charles Dickens.]

OBSOLETE COOKERY.

being baked, liquor it with white wine,
butter and sugar, and ice it. On flesh days
put marrow to it."

If the fish are odd, the pastry is more
so. That section on pastry demands a
volume to itself. To begin with, do our pre-
sent cooks make paste for a pie in this
manner : u Take to a gallon of flour a pound
of butter ; boil it in fair water ; and make
the paste up quick 1 " Or have we eatable
custard paste like this : " Let it be onely boil-
ing water and flour without butter ; or put
sugar to it, which will add to the stifness of
it, and thus likewise all paste for crusts and
orangado tarts and such like ? " If this was
intended to be eaten and digested, they had
good stomachs in those days. The garnish
of dishes, which we make jiow of paste
stamped out by a cutter, was" then made in
moulds. They were called stock fritters or
fritters of arms, and were made of " fine
flower " into a batter no thicker than thin
cream. The brass moulds were heated in
clarified butter ; then dipped half-way in the
batter and fried, to garnish any boiled
fish, meats, or stewed oysters. " View
their form," ends Robert May, garnishing
this recipe with three woodcuts the
first is the likeness of a pike in all the
agonies of acute indigestion ; the second a
cross-bar, like the heraldic sign of a mascle ;
and the third like a grotesque pink or carna-
tion. Then paste was fried out of a scringe,
or butter-squirt, like little worms lying about
the dish. Well, that was only a coarser kind
of vermicelli or macaroni, so we have no right
to laugh at it. " Blamanger " is apparently
always made of capon " boild all to mash,"
or of pike boiled in fair water, very tender,
and chopped small ; boiled on a soft fire,
remember, in a broad, clean-scoured skillet
to the thickness of an apple moise. And
when made, this blamanger, and creams, and
jellies too of all kinds, are served up in forms
and shapes like the most hideous of those
geometrical ravings which artistically-minded
children draw on their slates for ornament.
A pippin pie is to be made of thirty good
large pippins, thirty cloves, a quarter of an
ounce of whole cinamon, and as much pared
and slic't, a quarter of a pound of orangado,
as much of lemon in sucket (sweet-meat), and
a pound and a half of refined sugar ; close it
up and bake it it will ask four hours
baking then ice it with butter, sugar and
rose-water. There is a quince pie that looks
like an unintelligible astronomical figure, with
the signs of the zodiac all round ; and there
are pippin tarts of half-moons, and rounds, and
ninepins with spots all over them ; and other
fruit pies like cathedral windows ; and a tart
of pips ; and a tart of spinage ; and a taffety
tart (apple, lemon- peel, and fennel-seed) ; and
cream tarts made of cream thickened with
muskified bisket-bread, and preserved cit-
teron, and in the middle a preserved orange
with biskets, the garnish of the dish being of

puff-paste ; and receipts for all manner of
tart stuff, that " carries his colour black, or
yellow, or green, or red." There are recipes
for triffels, for sack possets, for wassel, Nor-
folk fools, white-pot, pyramidis cream, me-
theglin, ippocras, jamballs, jemelloes, amber-
greece cakes, marchpanes, paste of violets,
burrage, bugloss, rosemary, cowslips, &c.,
portingall tarts, and many more that we
cannot even allude to. There is a recipe for
a dish of marchpane to look like collops of
bacon ; for making muskedines, called rising
comfits, or kissing comfits, made of " half-a-
pound of refined sugar beaten and searced ;
put into it two grains of musk, a grain of
civet, two grains of amber-juyce, and a
thimble-full of white orris powder ; beat all
these with gum-dragon steeped in rose-
water ; then roul it as thin as you can, and
cut it into little lozenges with your iging-
iron, and stow them in some warm oven or
stove, then box them and keep them all the
year." There is an " Extraordinary Pie, or a
Bride Pie of severall Compounds, being seve-
rall distinct pies on one bottom." One of the
ingredients is a snake or some live birds,
"which will seem strange to the beholders
who cut up the pie at the table." This is
" onely for a wedding, to pass away time."

Then there are " maremaid pyes," made of
pork and eels ; and " minced pyes of calves'
chaldrons, or muggets," made of grapes,
gooseberries, barberries, and bacon ; and
there are "heads" made into pyes, with a wood-
cut underneath that looks literally like half
a carpet rug with a scroll at the two ends ;
and there are recipes for " baking ail manner
of sea-fowl, as swan, whopper, dap-clucks,
&c. ;" and there are marinated pallets, and
lips, and noses ; and Italian chips of different
coloured pastes in layers ; and then there are
sallets.

Here is a grand sallet. A cold roast capon,
or other roast white meat, cut small, mingled
with a little minced tarragon, and an onion,
lettice, olives, samphire, broom-buds, pickled
mushrooms, pickled oysters, lemon, orange,
raisins, almonds, blew figs, Virginia potato,
caperons, crucifex pease, and the like. Gar-
nish this medley with quarters of oranges and
lemons, and pour on oyl and vinegar beaten
together. Another sallet has the following
mixture : " Take all manner of knots of buds
of sallet herbs, buds of potherbs, or any green
herbs, as sage, mint, balm, burnet, violet-
leaves, red coleworta streaked of different
colours, lettice, any flowers, blanched al-
monds, blew figs, raisins of the sun, currans,
capers, olives ; then dish the sallet in a heap
or pile, being mixt with some of the fruits,
and all finely washed and swung in a
napkin ; then about the center lay first slic't
figs, next capers and currans, then almonds
and raisins, next olives, and lastly either
jagged beets, jagged lemons, jagged cucum-
bers, cabbidge-kttice in quarters, good oyl.
and wine vinegar sugar or none."

HOUSEHOLD WORDS.

Now is not this a recipe worth studying ?
If variety has any claim to one's attention, this
mixture ought to stand high in our considera-
tion. Every kind of herb or plant seemed fit for
" sallet," according to our accomplisht cook. If
he had recommended hay-seeds or thistle-
buds we should not have felt surprised.
Purslan, cloves, jilly-flowers, rampons, ellick-
sander buds, samphire, . charvel, cucumber,
boild collyflower, burnet, burrage, endive,
lettice, fruits of all kinds, everything that
grows, in short, mingled. together, and mixed
up with salt, sugar, oil and vinegar. A most
catholic, taste, to say the least of it ; but
really more sensible than our silly daintiness
which permits.a wide wealth of food to rot at
our feet because of some absurd, prejudice or
most unworthy ignorance. Yet, at first sight
and at first taste too, one would imagine
much of the material of that day would be
unpalateable. For who would dream of
shell-bread 1 positively muscle-shells !
muscle-shells "toasted in butter melted, when
they be baked, then boiled in melted sugar,
as you boil a simnell (the present name
for a certain Shrewsbury cake) ; then lay
them on the bottom of a wooden sieve,
and they will eat as crisp as a wafer."
The rest of this shell-bread is made of a
quarter of a pound of rice flower, a quarter
of a pound of fine flower, the yolks of four
new laid eggs, a little rose-water, and a
grain of music ; make these into a paste, then
roul it very thin, and bake it in great muscle-
shells (we have already had the receipt for
the management of these). There is a re-
ceipt, too, for bean-bread, which is made of
aniseeds, musk, and blanched almonds ; why
called bean-bread is difficult to say.

These cinnamon toasts are not bad. " Cut
fine thin toasts, then toast them on a grid-
iron, and lay them in ranks in a dish, put to
them some fine beaten cinamon, mixed with
sugar and some claret, warm them over the
fire, and serve them hot." Here are French
toasts, too, tolerable in their way : " Cut
French bread, and toast it in pretty thick
toasts on a clean gridiron, and serve them
steeped in claret, sack, or any wine, with
sugar and juyce of orange." Do you want a
sauce or souce, as our accomplisht hath it
for a hare ?

" Beaten cinamon, nutmegs, ginger, pepper,
boiled prunes, and corrans strained, muski-
fied bisket ; bread beaten into powder, sugar
and cloves, nil boild up as thick as \vater-
grewel."

Another sauce much like this is to be
"boild up to an indifferency, ; " and another
is to "have a walm or two over the fire."
Mustard is to be ground in a "mustard
quern, or a boul with a cannon-bullet," and
made into little loaves or cakes to carry in
one's pocket. Then, there are odd ways of
making vinegar. You are to take bramble
bryers when they are half ripe, dry them,
and make them into powder ; with a little

strong vinegar, make little balls, and dry
them in the sun, and when you will use
them, take wine and heat it, put in some of
the ball, or a whole one, and it will be turned
very speedily into strong vinegar. This is a
good pendant to the mustard cakes. At this
rate a man might carry his whole store-closet
in his pocket. In making vinegar you are
to put your firkin full of good white wine
in the sun, "on the leads of a house or gut-
ter." Or you are to put into this firkin, a
beet-root, medlars, cervices, mulberries, un-
ripe flowers, a slice of barley bread hot out
of the oven, or the blossoms of cervices in
their season : dry them in the sun in a glass
vessel, in the manner of rose vinegar ; fill
up the glass with clear wine vinegar, white
or claret wine, or set it in the sun or in a
chimney by fhe fire. .There are sugar or
honey sops to be met with in Cumberland to
this day. Very delicious, and uncommonly
bilious eating. Then, there is " broth for a
sick body ;" and to "stew a cock agaihst a con-
sumption ;" and "to distill a pig good against a
consumption ;" and another " excellent broth
or drink for a sick body," and immediately
following, another " strong broth for a sick
party," and an excellent restorative for a
weak back, of, " the .leaves of clary and nepe,
fried with the yolks of eggs, and . eat to
breakfast.

We might multiply Robert May's odditiea
in his Art and Mystery of Cooking, until
we had given every recipe in- his book.
They are all in the same style as those
we have copied. Cumbersome, quaint, pro-
fuse, coarse, they are fit for the time which
countenanced the gross practical jokes and
rough pleasures of ttie Trophy and Triumph
we have spoken of ; but, there is also a lordly
lavish ness about them that brings up pleasant
pictures of the baronial magnificence of olden
times, and somewhat shames the smaller, if
more elegant hospitality of to-day. Live
frogs, live birds, and live snakes, are not the
most pleasant guests at a dinner-table ; but, the
open-handed desire to show honour to their
friends, and to give happiness and pleasure,
was some counterbalance to the coarseness of
our ancestors. Passing by the bad taste
which took delight in such vandalisms, we
might perhaps find some useful hints in our
old cookery-book. Certainly we might learn
one good lesson how to make use of every
available article of food ; how to multiply
our present resources, and turn into nourish-
ment and use, material now left wasting by
the side of men dying of hunger.

This day is published, for greater convenience, and
cheapness of binding,

THE FIRST TEN VOLUMES

HOUSEHOLD WORDS,

IN FIVE HANDSOME VOLUMES,

WITH A GENERAL INDEX TO THE WHOLE.
Price of tho Set, thus bound in Five Double instead of Ten
Single Volumes, 2 10s. Od.

Published at tin Olfcce, -No. ;c, \''cUingt?n Street .North, Strand. Prm'.eii by l?iu*ui & ETAHS, \Vhlterrin, Louitoa

"Familiar in their Mouths as HOUSEHOLD WORDS"

HOUSEHOLD WORDS.

A WEEKLY JOURNAL,
CONDUCTED BY CHARLES DICKENS.

255.]

SATUKDAY, FEBBUARY 10, 1855.

GASLIGHT FAIRIES.

FANCY an order for five-and-thirty Fairies !
Imagine a mortal in a loose-sleeved great
coat, with the mud of London streets upon
his legs, commercially ordering, in the
common-place, raw, foggy forenoon, " five-
and-thirty more Fairies " ! Yet I, the writer,
heard the order given. " Mr. Vernon, let me
have five-and-thirty more Fairies to-morrow
morning and take care they are good ones."

Where was it that, towards the close of
the year one thousand eight hundred and
fifty-four, on a dark December morning, I
overheard this astonishing commission given
to Mr. Vernon, and by Mr. Vernon accepted
without a word of remonstrance and entered
in a note-book ? It was in a dark, deep gulf
of a place, hazy with fog at the bottom of a
sort of immense well without any water in
it ; remote crevices and chinks of daylight
faintly visible on the upper rim ; dusty palls
enveloping the sides ; gas flaring at my feet ;
hammers going, in invisible workshops ;
groups of people hanging about, trying to
keep their toes and fingers warm, what time
their, noses were dimly seen through the
smoke of their own breath. It was in the
strange conventional world where the visible
people only, never advance ; where the
unseen painter learns and changes ; where
the unseen tailor learns and changes ; where
the unseen mechanist adapts to his purpose
the striding ingenuity of the age ; where the
electric light comes, in a box that is carried
under a man's arm; but, where the visible flesh
and blood is so persistent in one routine
that, from the waiting-woman's apron-pockets
(with her hands in them), upward to the
smallest retail article in the "business" of
mad Lear with straws in his wig, and
downward to the last scene but one of the
pantomime, where, for about one hundred
years last past, all the characters have
entered groping, in exactly the same way, in
identically the same places, under precisely
the same circumstances, and without the
smallest reason I say, it was in that strange
world where the visible population have so com-
pletely settled their so-potent art, that when
I pay my money at the door I know before-
hand everything that can possibly happen to
me, iifside. It was in the Theatre, that I

heard this order given for five-and-thirty
Fairies.

And hereby hangs a recollection, not out of
place, though not of a Fairy. Once, on just
such another December morning, I stood on
the same dusty boards, in the same raw
atmosphere, intent upon a pantomime-
rehearsal. A massive giant's castle arose
before me, and the giant's body-guard
marched in to comic music ; twenty grotesque
creatures, with little arms and legs, and enor-
mous faces moulded into twenty varieties of
ridiculous leer. 'One of these faces in par-
ticular an absurdly radiant face, with a
wink upon it, and its tongue in its cheek
elicited much approving notice from the
authorities, and a ready laugh from the or-
chestra, and was, for a full half minute, a special
success. But, it happened that the wearer of
the beaming visage carried a banner ; and, not
to turn a banner as a procession moves, so as
always to keep its decorated side towards the
audience, is one of the deadliest sins a
banner-bearer can commit. This radiant
goblin, being half-blinded by his mask, and
further disconcerted by partial suffocation,
three distinct times omitted the first duty of
man, and petrified us by displaying, with the
greatest ostentation, mere sackcloth and
timber, instead of the giant's armorial bear-
ings. To crown which offence he couldn't
hear when he was called to, but trotted
about in his richest manner, unconscious
of threats and imprecations. Suddenly, a
terrible voice was heard above the music,
crying, " Stop ! " Dead silence, and we
became aware of Jove in the boxes.
" Hatchway," cried Jove to the director,
"who is that man? Show me that man."
Hereupon, Hatchway (who had a wooden
leg), vigorously apostrophising the defaulter
as an " old beast," stumped straight up to
the body-guard now in line before the castle,
and taking the radiant countenance by the
nose, lifted it up as if it were a saucepan-lid
and disclosed below, the features of a bald,
superannuated, aged person, very much in
want of shaving, who looked in the forlornest
way at the spectators, while the large face
aslant on the top of his head mocked him.
" What ! It's you, is it?" said Hatchway, with
dire contempt. " I thought it was you." "I
knew it was that man ! " cried Jove. " I

VOL. XL

255

HOUSEHOLD WOEDS.

[Conducted by

told you yesterday, Hatchway, he was not fit
for it. Take him away, and bring another ! "
He was ejected with every mark of ignominy,
and the inconstant mask was just as funny
on another man's shoulders immediately
afterwards. To the present day, I never see
a very comic pantomime-mask but I wonder
whether this wretched old man can possibly
have got behind it ; and I never think of him
as dead and buried (which is far more likely),
but I make that absurd countenance a part of
his mortality, and picture it to myself as
gone the way of all the winks in the world.

Five-and-thirty more Fairies, and let them
be good ones. I saw them next day. They
ranged from an anxious woman of ten, learned
in the prices of victual and fuel, up to a
conceited young lady of five times that age,
who always persisted in standing on on leg
longer than was necessary, with the deter-
mination (as I was informed), "to make a
Part of it." This Fairy was of long theatrical
descent centuries, I believe and had never
had an ancestor who was entrusted to com-
municate one word to a British audience.
Yet, the whole race had lived and died with
the fixed idea of " making a Part of it" ; and
she, the last of the line, was still unchangeably
resolved to go down on one leg to posterity.
Her father had fallen a victim to the family
ambition ; having become in course of time
so extremely difficult to " get off," as a vil-
lager, seaman, smuggler, or what not, that it
was at length considered unsafe to allow him
to " go on." Consequently, those neat con-
fidences with the public in which he had
displayed the very acm6 of his art usually
consisting of an explanatory tear, or an arch
hint in dumb show of his own personal de-
termination to perish in the attempt then on
foot were regarded, as superfluous, and came
to be dispensed with, exactly at the crisis when
he himself foresaw that he would " be put into
Parts " shortly. I had the pleasure of recog-
nising in the character of an Evil Spirit of
the Marsh, overcome by this lady with one
(as I should else have considered purposeless)
poke of a javelin, an actor whom I had
formerly encountered in the provinces under
circumstances that had fixed him agreeably
in my remembrance. The play, represented
to a nautical audience, was Hamlet ; and this
gentleman having been killed with much credit
as Polonius, reappeared in the part of Osric :
provided against recognition by the removal
of his white wig, and the adjustment round
his waist of an extremely broad belt and
buckle. He was instantly recognized, not-
withstanding these artful precautions, and a
solemn impression was made upon the spec-
tators for which I could not account, until a
sailor in the Pit drew a long breath, said to
himself in a deep voice, " Blowed if here a'nt
another Ghost !" and composed himself to
listen to a second communication from the tomb.
Another personage whom I recognized as
taking refuge under the wings of Pantomime

(she was not a Fairy, to be sure, but she kept
the cottage to which the Fairies came, and
lived in a neat upper bedroom, with her legs
obviously behind the street door), was a
country manager's wife a most estimable
woman of about fifteen stone, with a larger
family than I had ever been able to count :
whom I had last seen in Lincolnshire, playing
Juliet, while her four youngest children (and
nobody else) were in the boxes hanging out
of window, as it were, to trace with their
forefingers the pattern on the front, and
making all Verona uneasy by their imminent
peril of falling into the Pit. Indeed, I had
seen this excellent woman in the whole round
of Shakesperian beauties, and had much
admired her way of getting through the text.
If anybody made any remark to her, in re-
ference to which any sort of answer occurred
to her mind, she made that answer ; other-
wise, as a character in the drama, she preserved
an impressive silence, and, as an individual,
was heard to murmur t'o the unseen person
next in order of appearance, " Come on !" I
found her, now, on good motherly terms with
the Fairies, and kindly disposed to chafe and
warm the fingers of the younger of that race.
Out of Fairy-land, I suppose that so many
shawls and bonnets of a peculiar limpness
were never assembled together. And, as to
shoes and boots, I heartily wished that " the
good people " were better shod, or were as
little liable to take cold as in the sunny days
when they were received at Court as God-
mothers to Princesses.

Twice a-year, upon an average, these gas-
light Fairies appear to us ; but, who knows
what becomes of them at other times ? You
are sure to see them at Christmas, and they
may be looked for hopefully at Easter ; but,
where are they through the eight or nine long
intervening months 1 They cannot find shelter
under mushrooms, they cannot live upon dew;
unable to array themselves in supernatural
green, they must even look to Manchester for
cotton stuffs to wear. When they become
visible, you find them a traditionary people,
with a certain conventional monotony in their
proceedings which prevents their surprising
you very much, save now and then when they
appear in company with Mr. Beverley. In a
general way, they have been sliding out of the
clouds, for some years, like barrels of beer
delivering at a public-house. They sit in the
same little rattling stars, with glorious cork-
screws twirling about them and never
drawing anything, through a good many
successive seasons. They come up in the
same shells out of the same three rows of
gauze water (the little ones lying down in
front, with their heads diverse ways) ; and
you resign yourself to what must infallibly
take place when you see them armed with
garlands. You know all you have to
expect of them by moonlight. In the glowing
day, you are morally certain that the gentle-
man with the muscular legs and ihf short

Charles Dickens.]

GASLIGHT FAIRIES.

tunic (like the Bust at the Hairdresser's, com-
pletely carried out), is coming, when you see
them " getting over " to one side, while the
surprising phenomenon is presented on the
landscape of a vast mortal snadow in a hat of
the present period, violently directing them
so to do. You are acquainted with all these
peculiarities of the gaslight Fairies, and you
know by heart everything that they will do
with their arms and legs, and when they will
do it. But, as to the same good people in their
invisible condition, it is a hundred to one that
you know nothing, and never think of them.

I began this paper with, perhaps, the most
curious trait, after all, in the history of the
race. They are certain to be found when
wanted. Order Mr. Vernon to lay on a
hundred and fifty gaslight Fairies next Mon-
day morning, and they will flow into the
establishment like so many feet of gas. Every
Fairy can bring other Fairies; her sister Jane,
her friend Matilda, her friend Matilda's
friend, her brother's young family, her mother
if Mr. Vernon will allow that respectable
person to pass muster. Summon the Fairies,
and Drury Lane, Soho, Somers' Town, and
the neighbourhood of the obelisk in St.
George's Fields, will become alike prolific in
them. Poor, good-humoured, patiezit, fond
of a little self-display, perhaps, (sometimes,
but far from always), they will come trudging
through the mud, leading brother and sister
lesser Fairies by the hand, and will hover
about in the dark stage-entrances, shivering
and chattering in their shrill way, and earn-
ing their little money hard, idlers and vaga-
bonds though we may be pleased to think
them. I wish, myself, that we were not so often
pleased to think ill of those who minister to
our amusement. I am far from having satis-
fied my heart that either we or they are a
bit the better for it.

Nothing is easier than for any one of us to
get into a pulpit, or upon a tub, or a stump,
or a platform, and blight (so far as with our
bilious and complacent breath we can), any
class of small people we may choose to select.
But, it by no means follows that because it is
easy and safe, it is right. Even these very
gaslight Fairies, now. Why should I be
bitter on them because they are shabby per-
sonages, tawdrily dressed for the passing
hour, and then to be shabby again 1 I have
known very shabby personages indeed the
shabbiest I ever heard of tawdrily dressed
for public performances of other kinds, and
performing marvellously ill too, though trans-
cendently rewarded : yet whom none dispa-
raged ! In even-handed justice, let me render
these little people their due.

Ladies and Gentlemen. Whatever you may
hear to the contrary (and may sometimes
have a strange satisfaction in believing), there
is no lack of virtue and modesty among the
Fairies. All things considered, I doubt if
they be much below our own high level. In
respect of constant acknowledgment of the

claims of kindred, I assert for the Fairies,
that they yield to no grade of humanity. Sad
as it is to say, I have known Fairies even to
fall, through this fidelity of theirs. As to
young children, sick mothers, dissipated
brothers, fathers unfortunate and fathers
undeserving, Heaven and Earth, how many
of these have I seen clinging to the spangled
skirts, and contesting for the nightly shilling
or two, of one little lop-sided, weak-legged
Fairy !

Let me, before I ring the curtain down on
this short piece, take a single Fairy, as Sterne
took his Captive, and sketch the Family-Pic-
ture. I select Miss Fairy, aged three-and-
twenty, lodging within cannon range of Water-
loo Bridge, London not alone, but with her
mother, Mrs. Fairy, disabled by chronic rheu-
matism in the knees; and with her father,
Mr. Fairy, principally employed in lurking
about a public-house, and waylaying the the-
atrical profession for twopence wherewith to
purchase a glass of old ale, that he may have
something warming on his stomach (which
has been cold for fifteen years) ; and with
Miss Eosina Fairy, Miss Angelica Fairy, and
Master Edmund Fairy, aged respectively,
fourteen, ten, and eight. Miss Fairy has an
engagement of twelve shillings a week sole
means of preventing the Fairy family from
coming to a dead lock. To be sure, at this
time of year the three young Fairies have a
nightly engagement to come out of a Pumpkin
as French soldiers ; but, its advantage to the
housekeeping is rendered nominal, by that
dreadful old Mr. Fairy's making it a legal
formality to draw the money himself every
Saturday and never coming home until his
stomach is warmed, and the money gone.
Miss Fairy is pretty too, makes up very
pretty. This is a trying life at the best, but
very trying at the worst. And the worst
is, that that always beery old Fairy, the
father, hovel's about the stage-door four or
five nights a week, and gets his cronies among
the carpenters and footmen to carry in mes-
sages to his daughter (he is not admitted him-
self), representing the urgent coldness of his
stomach and his parental demand for twopence;
failing compliance with which, he creates dis-
turbances ; and getting which, he becomes
maudlin and waitsfor the manager, to whom he
represents with tears that his darling child and
pupil, the pride of his soul, is " kept down in
the Theatre." A hard life this for Miss Fairy,
I say, and a dangerous ! And it is good to
see her, in the midst of it, so watchful of
Eosina Fairy, who otherwise might come to
harm one day. A hard life this, I say again,
even if John Kemble Fairy, the brother, who
sings a good song, and when he gets an
engagement always disappears about the
second week or so and is seen no more, had
not a miraculous property of turning up on a
Saturday without any heels to his boots,
firmly purposing to commit suicide, xinless
bought off with half-a-crown. And yet so

HOUSEHOLD WORDS.

[Conducted by

curious is the gaslighted atmosphere in \vhich
these Fairies dwell ! through all the narrow
ways of such an existence, Miss Fairy never
relinquishes the belief that that incorrigable old
Fairy, the father, is a wonderful man ! She is
immovably convinced that nobody ever can,
or ever could, approach him in Rolla. She
has grown up in this conviction, will never
correct it, will die in it. If, through any
wonderful turn of fortune, she were to arrive
at the emolument and dignity of a Free
Bene6t to-morrow, she would " put up " old
Fairy, red nosed, stammering and imbecile
with delirium tremens shaking his very but-
tons off as the noble Peruvian, and would play
Cora herself, with a profound belief in his
taking the town by storm at last.

THE HILL OF GOLD.

THE alchemists tried hard to discover some
form of aurum potabile, or drinkable gold,
which, when at last brewed in correct and
perfect style, should endow the happy and
learned drinker with unfading youth and in-
terminable length of days. They failed, we
may suppose ; because, although rarely, from
time to time, one or two reputed evergreen
immortals have strutted on the stage whereon
all men and women are the players, they,
like the rest, have made their exit. Them-
selves, as well as the scenes, have been shifted.
We see them not amongst us, to testify to the
potency of their golden potion, in spite of the
daily miracles wrought by hair dyes, supple-
mental teeth, and Tyrian bloom.

It has been reserved for myself to make
the grand discovery which past ages have
been unable to achieve. I not by myself
I, have penetrated to the source whence issue
inexhaustible fountains of potable gold. I
have drunk my fill without stint or limit, and
I feel the invigorating beverage tingling in
every fibre, imparting strength to every
muscle, and even adding energy to every
thought. Not to be selfish and miserly, by
concealing the whereabouts of this liquid
treasure, the true golden beverage is to be
had at springs whose names are Vollenay,
Vougeot, Beaune, Nuits, and many others,
all situated in the eastern region of France,
midway between the Mediterranean and the
English Channel. But, to cut matters short
and to end all mystery, I will precede any
further explanation by a short lecture on
Gallic geography.

France, then, is historically associated in
our minds with the old division into pro-
vinces. We can never forget such memorable
words as Champagne, Burgundy, Langue-
doc. These names have disappeared from
modern maps, and are replaced by others.
It is exactly as if all our counties were swept
clean away, and Great Britain were redistri-
buted into more equal portions, with quite
new denominations attached to them. France
actually and at present is, by decree of the

National Assembly, partitioned into five
regions, very easy to remember in respect to
their relative positions namely, north, south,
east, west, and Central which again are un-
equally divided into eighty-six departments,
including Corsica, ceded to France by the
republic of Genoa so lately as seventeen hun-
dred and sixty-eight, in consideration of a
money payment. This insular department of
course belongs to the south region. As to the
order in which the departments usually
range, some geographers begin at the bottom
of the map, making Corsica number one ;
others at the top, placing the Department du
Nord (in which are the towns of Dunkerque,
Lille, and Valenciennes) at the head of the list.

The names by which the different depart-
ments are distinguished, have been conferred
upon them for different reasons. Many are
known by the name of the principal river or
rivers which run through them ; as the De-
partments de la Sarthe, de PAllier, de Loir-
et-Cher, and de la Seine-Inferieure. Others
derive their titles from the mountains to
which they are contiguous ; as the Depart-
ments du Jura, des Vosges, des Basses-Alpes,
and des Hautes-Pyrenees. Some maritime
departments bring with them an allusion to
the seas which wash their shores ; as those of
de la Manche, du Pas-de-Calais, and des
C6tes-du-Nord ; while remarkable natural
peculiarities of position or constitution, un-
usual and celebrated points of topography,
claim their right to be commemorated in the
household words of the locality. Hence we
have the Departments du Puy-de-D6me, from,
the conical colossus who rears his head above
the other Puys, or volcanic hills, which have
been upraised by subterranean fires in the
neighbourhood of Clermont ; des Landes,
from the vast sandy plains which tire the
eye with little relief, except from ponds and
marshes, and over which the wild inhabitants
stride rapidly on stilts ; du Finisterre, from
the Land's End of France ; and du Calvados,
from a dangerous chain of rocks along the
coast, six leagues in length, extending from
the mouth of the Vire to that of the Orne,
and which owe their own denomination to
the shipwreck of a vessel of that name be-
longing to the squadron which Philip the
Second dispatched for England in fifteen
hundred and eighty-eight. And lastly, as a
crowning example, there is a bit cut out of
Burgundy, the Department de la C6te-d : Or,
or the Hill of Gold.

Gold is really found, then, in that precious
hill ? It is another Australia? a Californian
mountain ? Oh no ! Something far better
than that. Its gold, I repeat, is drinkable ;
producing, when used with due discretion, if
not exactly eternal youth, the nearest ap-
proach to it which human wit has as yet
discovered, the most perennial restorative
allowed to man according to the laws imposed
on nature by the Almighty Controller and
Provider of all things.

Charles Dickens.]

THE HILL OF GOLD.

The C6te-d'Or is\a chain of hills extending
about five-and-thirty English miles in length
from the city of Dijon at its northern end to
Santenay, the last village at its southern
extremity. Along this range are produced
the wines which have conferred on Burgundy
a cosmopolitan reputation as the out-and-out
prince of jollity and good cheer. The line of
this chain runs from north-east to south-
west, in such a way that the first rays of the
rising and the last of the setting sun gild
and warm the outspread vineyards. Once,
the summits of the hills were all crowned
with wood, which now only remains as a rare
exception. The forests were all cut down,
because it was believed they attracted hail-
storms (that -might be merely an excuse for
raising the wind) ; but since their removal
the evil has proved as destructive as ever,
while their shelter and mist-attracting
powers are lost. For the most part, the top
of the Hill of Gold is a lump of cold, grey,
barren limestone, with hardly sufficient
moisture and mould upon it to keep alive a
few half-starved tufts of grass and stunted
bushes. Mosses and lichens, those outcasts
of vegetation, shift for themselves as well as
they can. The vineyards, all along the Cote,
run up to the very verge of this stony
desert ; and within a few feet, sometimes
within a few inches of each other, you see
blushing the grape which produces the most
luscious wine, and the astringent sloe and
the vapid blackberry. Sometimes a low cliff,
a few feet in height, serves as a wall to sepa-
rate the vineyard from the wilderness, and
so causes the transition to appear less abrupt.

As a general rule, the wine-producing por-
tions of Burgundy and Champagne are what
we should call dry, even short of water.
There are neither marshes, lakes, nor consi-
derable rivers, to send up mists which pollute
the atmosphere and screen the vivifying action
of the sun ; and the ocean is too far distant
to overspread the sky with a mantle of sea-
fog night and morning. You can fancy,
therefore, that the grapes (like the cucumbers
from which the Laputa chemist proposed to
extract the sunbeams), imbibe the heat of the
solar rays, and treasure it up, for the purpose
of yielding it back by and by, as they do
when they cause the old man's heart to glow
within him. The C6te-d'Or, in spite of its
gray, barren, bald forehead, looks everywhere
warm, dry, and comfortable. Its slope is
thickly studded with snug villages, whose
names, when you ask them, are familiar
words, Vougeot, Gevrey-Chambertin, and
Voile nay, each with its square, solid steeple,
and dwarf, atubby, would-be spire. Many
present a deceitfully-dilapidated aspect, from
being roofed with shingle of self-splitting
rock ; they nevertheless are weatherproof
habitations of men, wherein dwell wealth,
ease, and good living, besides contented be-
cause constant labour. The Cote, so smiling
upon the whole, every now and then yawns

wide, opening into rocky and precipitous
ravines, tufted and overhung with clumps of
trees, and tempting to penetrate their shady
recesses. But the foot of the Cote is a conti-
nuous carpet of vineyards stretching further
north and south than the eye can follow it
either way. We should wonder what the
inhabitants can do with all the wine pro-
duced (and epochs, as we shall see, have
occurred when they have been sorely puzzled
how to dispose of it), did we not know that
the whole world, just now, like a thousand-
armed Briareus, is constantly holding out
innumerable cups for generous Jean Raisin
to fill with good liquor. In the Department
de la Cote-d'Or alone there are, in round
numbers, sixty-nine thousand English acres
entirely occupied by vineyards. This im-
mense field of viniferous verdure is dotted
with, not broken up by, standard fruit-trees
of various kinds. The vine-forest is over-
topped at distant intervals by vegetable
monsters of colossal growth, the humblest in.
rank, though not in stature, being the walnut,
with its valuable wood. There are a few
apple-trees, more pears, still more cherries,
with apricot and peach-trees in unaccountable
abundance. The fruit from these is in great
part sent off to less favoured regions, and to
the all-consuming metropolis. There are
vignerons who have sold this year six hun-
dred francs' worth of apricots alone, thus
slightly stopping the gap caused by the
failure of the grape-blossoms in spring. And
as to the fruit from the standard peach-trees,
a plein vent, in the full wind, though inferior
in size, they are in flavour what can only be
expressed by smacking the lips with the
accompaniment of a look of ecstacy. Less
pretending intruders are numerous ; aspa-
ragus stools dispersed throughout the vine-
yards to render an acceptable tribute in their
season. Then come undulating tracts, sinking
into valleys of a very Welsh character ; hilla
breaking out into clifEs, with shrubs sprouting
on their perpendicular face ; with vineyards
running merrily to the tops of the respective
portions of Cote, till the bare rock, cropping
out, effectually stops all further progress.
The whole scene fills the mind with that
indescribable complacency which arises from
the contemplation of a lovely landscape. The
best and choicest wine, be it ever remem-
bered, is grown neither at the very top of the
cultivated part, nor yet upon the flat fertile
part which sends forth such abundant streams
of rosy juice. It is found just upon the final
slope by which the hill dissolves and descends
into the plain.

The very fields amidst the vineyards on the
plain are but temporary gaps. Burgundy
does not grow enough wheat for its own con-
sumption, even on the alluvial bottoms that
skirt the Saoue, the Ouche, and the Yonne.
When vines show symptoms of wearing out,
they are stubbed up, and the ground is cul-
tivated with other crops for a few years to

HOUSEHOLD WORDS.

[Conducted by

give it rest ; that is, to allow the bits of rock
in which the vine delights, to decompose and
furnish fresh soil. But such stubbings-up
seldom occur on well-managed ground. On
the Cote is a vineyard called Charlemagne,
because, according to an old tradition, it was
planted by that prince's order. Some vines
at Chablis have lasted from sixty to eighty
years, with care ; others, neglected, fall off
at thirty. As the Burgundians are short of
grain crops, they consequently are short of
manure ; and, in the absence of farm-yard
muck, they sow the land destined for wheat,
with peas, vetches, and other leguminous
plants, sometimes also with raves, or coarse
turnips, to be ploughed in as fertilizers. All
these are allowable make-shifts ; but, apart
from vine-growing, farming is not at high-
water mark. In Basse Bourgogne are to be
seen instructive examples of the evil effects
of stripping beet of its leaves. The root re-
sulting is something resembling a crooked
red walking-stick, instead of the fat honest
corpulence which a well-to-do beet is expected
to protrude. A hundred symptoms, as you
travel along, show that the vine is lord para-
mount of the soil. Thus, all the moist hol-
lows are planted with willows and osiers,
to serve as ligatures to the drooping shoots.

Perhaps the most extraordinary feature of
the best Burgundiau vineyards, is their soil ;
for the rich alluvial loam of the valley only
produces second-rate wine. It is composed
of bits of broken grey or yellow rock, mixed
with a portion of what cannot be called earth
or vegetable mould, but merely rotten stone
in the shape of powder, and hardly that.
You would say that it was only fit to mend
the roads with. I have seen many a good
cartload of the like lying ready prepared by
the wayside, in the midland counties. Mr.
Blueapron who keeps his vinery so moist
that his vines put forth roots, in mid air, the
whole length of their new-wood branches
who manures his vine-borders with quarters
of dead horse, and will not allow even a
mignonnette plant to exhaust their richness
would look aghast if he were told to culti-
vate such compost as that. It is perfectly
true that the two Messieurs B., Blueapron
videlicet, and Bourgignon, grow grapes with
a different object ; table and tub are their
opposite destiny. " My grapes," the former
will boast, "are different to these." To which
B. the second will answer with a shrug
" They are indeed ! The only drink your
dropsical berries would make, is the cru
which the Champagne beasts call Tord-
boyau, or Twistbowel wine. More opposite
conditions of culture can hardly exist. In
one case, the plant has its branches, fruit,
and foliage in the dryest almost of European
air, smd its roots in a stratum of warm well-
ventilated pebbles ; in the other, the vine is
smothered with steam above and choked
with carrion below. The horticultural vine

the vineyards has little other stimulant (save
sunshine) than slowly decomposing mineral
food. The Academy of Salerno have wisely
decided that wine, to be really good, must
possess united the four meritorious qualities
of perfume, savour, brilliancy, and colour.
All these, and more, good burgundy can
boast ; and yet it is produced from a" more
heap of stony rubbish.

In short, it is the rock that makes the
wine. Not that any and every rock will pro-
duce good burgundy ; but, on the quality of
the rock depends the permanent character of
the vintage. Everybody knows that good
champagne ought to have a decided taste of
gun-flint. Sir Humphry Davy has shown
that the nature of the soils defends on the
substratum of rock on which they lie, and by
the decomposition whereof they are mainly
produced. And thus, the wines of the Cote-
d'Or may be classed into groups ; those grow-
ing on the same bed of rock are similar in
flavour and character. As the substratum
varies along the course of the C6te, so do the
wines. Generally, the rock which forms the
base of the Golden Hills, is a coarse sub-carbon-
ate of lime, which furnishes very tolerable stone
for building purposes, and presents, especially
near Santenay, an enormous mass of gryphites
united by a calcareous paste of a grayish tint.
But the prevailing hue is an ochrey yellow ;.
and it is uncertain whether the Cote derives
its name from the colour of its soil or the-
money value of its produce. Examine any one
given hill, and the truth of the above prin-
ciple will be evident. For instance, the hill of
PuJigny and Mursault is all of a piece ; the-
crystallisation is the same, and it is a heap of
the same kind of shells. Whether you take it
at Mursault or at Montrachet, namely, at the
two extremities, it is the same carbonate ot
lime, differing only in slight external pro-
perties, but identical in its internal composi-
tion.

Nevertheless, the wine of Montrachet is
superior to that of the rest of the hill ; but
that is the consequence of its aspect, which
slopes to the south-east. Moreover, the soil
of this canton is fine, light, extremely perme-
able to the action of the air, and is composed
of an admirable mixture of clay, sub-carbonate
of lime, tritoxide of iron, and vegetable
remains. The superiority of the produce is
owing to the fortunate combination of a
favourable aspect and a good soil.

At the valley of Nuits commences the por-
tion of the Cote, which is perhaps the most
celebrated amongst foreigners for its wines,
which have the reputation of being strong, of
keeping well, and of bearing long journeys.
Fashion may have had something to do with
it. Until the beginning of the eighteenth
century they were in less esteem. Their re-
putation seems to date from the illness which
Louis the Fourteenth suffered in sixteen hun-
dred and eighty, when his physician Fagon

is glutted with animal manure ; the vine of ' recommended Nuits wine to restore his

Charles Dickens.]

THE HILL OF GOLD.

strength. Of course, every sick courtier
drank the same beverage ; those that were
not sick fell ill on purpose to follow their
dread sovereign's example. We may add, by
the way, that the failing powers of the same
monarch gave rise to the invention oj
liqueurs by the same medical attendant, as a
cordial wherewith to stimulate the blunt
senses of decrepitude. The rock which forms
the base of this little chain is a very pure
subcarbonate of lime, with but little admix-
ture of foreign substances ; in fact, it is true and
real marble streaked with a few delicate
pinkish veins. It is possible that, hereafter,
the marble of Nuits will stand in almost as
high repute as its wine.

:One October morning I was awakened at
Nmtsby the din of coopers hammer ing the tub
of preparation, and making them fit to receive
the grapes. I dressed myself to the sound oJ
music, whose rhythm corresponded to Dr
Arne's old tune of, " When the hollow drum
doth beat to bed." The streets were full ol
quiet but earnest business ; it was the first
day of the vintage. There were carts going
out of town, on each of which was mounted a
large oval tub called a balonge, to receive and
pai-tially squeeze the grapes in ; there were
the same or similar carts and tubs brimful ol
black grapes returning from the field ; there
were men passing from the vineyards into the
town, laden with hods, or back-baskets, and
also with baskets shaped like Yarmouth
swills, only shallower, all full of the black,
not-at-all-goodlooking pineau grape ; wo-
men also with empty baskets containing
a supply of unshutting priming-knives
to sever poor Jean Raisin from his
parent stem ; gentlemen with choice little
baskets of grapes on their arm, culled before
the vintagers have begun, for their wives to
treasure in moss and paper to produce them
for the Christmas dessert ; or a woman bear-
ing the same on her head, by way of trans-
porting them more steadily ; and vine-
owners, accompanied by their bailiffs or
factotums, seriously walking to the scene of
action; for, they say here, when the cat's
away the rats will dance. Of course there
are parties of young ladies and gentlemen
who must go and see the vintaging, and
neighbours who like to peep at other neigh-
bours' crops. And then contrast with their
neat and spruce attire those three rough
fellows riding inside one balonge, like veritable
children of St. Nicholas in their pickled-pork
tub ; pity, too, the horse who is forced to
drag the cart, laden with the balonge, filled
with as many as eight-and-twenty large
baskets of grapes eight baskets make a
pierce, or hogshead of wine a tolerable
load on a hot autumnal day. I should like
to give that horse a few bunches of grapes, to
moisten his poor dry dusty mouth with. By
the way, dogs are prohibited from entering
the vineyards when the fruit is ripe, for they
are as fond of a good dessert as the fox in

the fable ; sportsmen also can be kept at bay
to the distance of three hundred metres, for,
gunshot wounds are fatal to Jean Eaisin,
both in stem and fruit. If the owner's
longing for game, and not his judgment, con-
sents to or commits the trespass, it is he who
bears the penalty. Another by the way : a
miller's donkey stepped into a vineyard and
drank a full draught out of a tub of new
grape - juice. The owner summoned the
miller before the justice to make him pay
damages. The sentence was, that the donkey
having only swallowed a passing glass of
wine, without sitting down to enjoy himself
in a regular way, the miller was not com-
pelled to pay anything. That justice had
all the wisdom of Solomon. Thou shalt not
muzzle the ox while he treads out the com.
It is odious to see French horses, at harvest
time, with baskets on their mouths like wean-
ling calves. But grapes grapes nothing
but grapes ! All the grapes grown around
Nuits are brought into the town to be made
into wine, excepting always those numerous
basketfuls that are sold to be made into wine
elsewhere ; a passable quantity, altogether,
although, they say, the grape- harvest is a
failure. You can smell the vintage as you
walk along the street exactly the fruity,
cloying kind of smell which delighted the
old woman when she put her nose, with the
./Esopian exclamation, to the bung-hole of the-
empty tub. Grapes, grape-refuse, grape-
produce, grape-odours, grape-tools, and grape-
people !

Nuits is a straggling, loose-built little town
(never having been confined within a corset of
fortifications), situated on one of the gorges
into which the C6te-d'0r is split, and tra-
versed by the bed of what is sometimes
a torrent, and sometimes a dry strip of shingle
and sand, over which then unnecessary bridges
stride. Nuits, with only five thousand in-
habitants, still possesses two public walks ;
but the vineyards were the most tempting
promenade to me. Everybody at Nuits is
either a vine-grower, a wine-merchant, a vin-
tager, or a wine-cooper. The universal popu-
lation are drinkers of wine, from old sealed
bottles to new piquette, and the shop-windows
display a varied assortment of brass and other
taps and syphons. As you walk in the out-
skirts, little symptoms tell eloquent tales
about the climate. You have maize cultivated
with a successful result, sometimes in patches,
sometimes in single plants stuck in to fill the
place of a missing vine ; you have magnificent
heads of drooping millet ; you have melons
ripening on the bare open ground ; you have
comichons or gherkins, growing in a row and
running up sticks like ranks of green peas.
A gardener will tell you what all that means,
if the flavour of your glass of wine does not
give rise to strong suspicions that the summer
here differs a little from the English one.
Quite out of town, you are in a sea of vines.
En general there is no boundary or fence.

HOUSEHOLD WORDS.

[Conducted br

Jean Raisin stands exposed to every enemy.
Land is too valuable to be wasted in hedges,
which, besides, would exhaust the soil, shade
the crop, and harbour weeds and vermin.
Jean, therefore, throws himself entirely on
your honesty and generosity. Paths from the
high road conduct you whithersoever you
choose to roam, whether to the naked brow of
the Cote, or far and wide amidst the vine-
yards. The Burgundian is a bold, bluff,
generous fellow ; his beard comes before his
discretion. If you are a well-known brigand
and thief, he will give you unmistakable
warning to keep out of his vines ; but if you
have the garb and look of an honest man, you
are welcome to peep in, aye, find to taste with
moderation. " Eat, monsieur, eat ! " was the
only warning or prohibition I received during
my strolls in the environs of Nuits. To be
sure, it is easy for vintagers to be liberal with
what is not exactly their own. " That's
tolerably heavy ! " I said to a broad-shouldered
fellow, as he set down a basket of grapes that
would have made many a watering-place
donkey sprawl flat on the ground. "At your
service ! " was his reply, with a gesture
of invitation, stalking away to fetch another.
And he was a garde-champe'tre, too, whose
duty is to watch and keep marauders away
from all sorts of country produce. There is
also another noble custom here ; when once
the first grape-gathering is over, the half-ripe,
unripe, and quite inferior bunches are left to
hang for a while, as vine-gleanings for the
poor to make piquette with. This year, how-
ever, in consequence of the general failure,
Vollenay, and several other communes where
there is a considerable number of late-pro-
duced grapes, have decided to make a second
vintage of them, as a matter of necessity
rather than of custom.

A few of the choicest and most valuable
spots are circumscribed by a wall of stone.
A walled-in vineyard is called a clos. One
of the most famous of these is the Clos
"Vougeot, which suns itself on the gentlest
of slopes, half-way between Nuits and
Dijon. Like almost everything else that
is good, it was once in the grasp of the touch-
and-take-all monks, who made three separate
brewings of the grapes. The produce of the
upper portion of the Clos was never sold, but
was reserved for the abbot (barring what he
treated himself to), as presents to the crowned
heads, princes, and ministers of Catholic
Europe. The wine from the middle part,
almost equal to the first, was sold at exceed-
ingly high prices. The lowest part produced
a sample which, though inferior to the others,
was still very good, and always found ready
purchasers. The Clos Vougeot, with its league
or two of cellarage, has passed into the hands
of lay proprietors ; otherwise, things are much
as they were. Old epicures say that the fla-
vour of the wine is not so good as when the
monks prepared it ; perhaps it is their palates
that have undergone the change.

In Lower Burgundy, the vines are planted
on even ground (leaving the general slope
of the whole out of the question), in rows
which run up-hill and down-hill not across,
a yard wide, and two feet apart from stool
to stool, or thereabouts ; though this varies
according to locality, like most other details
of vine culture. At Chablis, the plants are
four and a half feet from each other, whilst
the ranks are two and a half feet wide.
Some attempts are made to plant in quin-
cunx, which, principally in consequence of
the operation of provignement, or layering
the vines, in a few years become patterns of
irregularity, and at no time are so convenient
either for gathering or tillage. The vines
are supported by stakes about five feet long,
called echalas, sometimes paisseaux, which
are nothing more than laths of split oak-
branches, prepared by workmen known as
fendeurs de merrain, and pointed at each
end, that when one end is rotted off in the
ground, the other may be used and the stake
still remain useful. " As thin as an echalas,"
is a local saying. During winter, the laths
are collected and sheltered somewhere from
the weather, like hop-poles, to save them
from rotting. These vine-props are not stuck
perpendicularly into the ground, but are
made to slope uniformly, all leaning a little
at the same angle, according to the aspect of
the hill and the whim of the vine-dresser,
who is apt to be fanciful in this respect.
The arrangement gives great regularity to
the appearance of the vineyards about Ton-
nerre and Chablis. When the stake slightly
overtops the vine, the effect, seen from below,
is like that of a field of green corn with an
enormous beard. If a vine-stem is so long
that its shoots would rise above its own
stake, it is made to trail about a couple of
inches above the surface of the ground, and
then mount that of one of its neighbours.
This plan is useful in case any of its said
near neighbours should die, as it can then be
inlaid, and so form a new plant. But to keep
home, as the gardeners say, to cut close
back, is the favourite practice. To shorten
the vine, they believe, improves its health.

The planting of a vineyard is an expensive
affair. It gives no return till the fourth year,
and has to be carefully cultivated all the while.
The small profit from cabbages, and other
crops, grown in the intervals of the rows is but
an inconsiderable help to cover the outlay.
The fifth year it begins to produce in good
earnest ; but the wine from young vines is
inferior to that from old ones. The eighth
year, 'it is in its full strength and vigour.
New vineyards here are mostly planted from
rooted cuttings (chevelees), in trenches like
our celery trenches, at the proper intervals.
When the plants are established, the earth
is levelled, and they shoot forth new roots at
the new surface of the ground. On the
C6te-d'Or, in little out-of-the-way nooks, may
be seen vine-cutting nurseries, filled with little

Charles Dickene.l

THE HILL OF GOLD.

vines thickly planted together, which are
intended to be transferred to other ground
next year, or the year after, to supply our
sons and grandsons with a cheerful glass to
drink to the memory of the present gene-
ration. Many Lower Burgundians prefer
planting a new vineyard with unrooted
cuttings, the technical word for which is
chapons. A few of these are sure to fail.
Those that succeed, thrive all the better for
having escaped transplantation, and the
vacancies are filled up the following season
with cheve!6es. The chapons, cut from
healthy young vines of the required sort, are
about eighteen inches long. They are cut off
about Christmas, and the sooner they are got
into the ground afterwards, the better. The
plant, too, succeeds better if buried in the
fresh-dug earth as soon as the trench is
opened. On this account circumstances are
less favourable when the cuttings to be
planted have to be brought from any con-
siderable distance, or when frost sets in
suddenly and prevents all tillage. In such
cases, the chapons are tied in bundles, and
their larger ends are put into buckets of water
to the depth of six inches. But when kept
too long in this way, many of the cuttings
rot, and if the planter does not examine them
carefully the proprietor sustains a heavy
loss. Some better mode might be employed.
Hot water near the boiling point is a well-
known means of reviving languished vege-
tative powers. A curious fact, related by
Klobe, is that when the early colonists of the
Cape of Good Hope failed in their attempts
to propagate the vine, a German conceived the
idea of slightly burning the extremity of the
cuttings which he planted. Observe, those
were cuttings from Vollenay on this very Cote-
d'Or. The pineau of Burgundy produces the
Constantia wine of the Cape. When the
ground is ready, the vintager, working in a
single row, straight from the top to the bottom
of the hill, makes a long trench, and lays the
baby vine reposing sixteen inches under-
ground, with the remaining two peeping
above. If there are more than two eyes, he
prunes them back to that.

The first operation of vine culture the
pulling up of the stakes, begins immedi-
ately after the vintage. They are laid in
heaps at regular distances, after having any
broken or rotten point sharpened by the
women, and are then taken care of to be
replanted in March, April, or the beginning of
May, at the latest. The winter's work con-
sists in separating the rooted layers from the
parent plant, in pruning the cheve!6e or super-
abundant roots, and covering them again with
earth. The plant is thus prepared to resist the
rigours of winter, sometimes with the aid of a
little warm manure. Then, there is the
stubbing-up of bad stools, and the half-
digging of holes to supply their places by
layers. When the cold is so intense that
nothing can be done to the vines themselves,

the vigneron has not the more leisure for that
The soil on a sloping vineyard is washed down
by every shower of rain to the lowest part
of the declivity, where it is stopped by little
walls that are raised for the purpose. The
upper portion of the vineyard, thus denuded
of earth, would at last become so poor that
the vines would perish. To replace the loss,
the vigneron carries on his back hodsful of
earth from the deposit at the bottom, to the
impoverished summit of the hill. He does
his best to oppose the law of nature, which
decrees that every hill shall be levelled with
the plain. This earth-carrying task is of the
greatest utility, and is performed about once
in three years. The new soil is most precious
manure, whose effect is immediately seen in
the produce.

About St. Valentine, pruning commences
on the Cote. It takes place later on the
plain, whei'e frosts are more to be appre-
hended. All the top branches are cut away ;
nothing is left but one or more stems (accord-
ing to the strength of the cep) nearest to the
old wood. Two or three eyes are usually left
to each stem ; greedy vhie-growers leave as
many as five, but they pay for it afterwards by
the speedy exhaustion of the stool. At pruning-
time, choice is made of branches to make
layers with. The best way is to make the
selection just before the vintage, marking the
plants which produce the greatest abundance
of first-rate fruit. The best tool to prune
with is a serpette, or an English pruning-
knife, when it can be had, just such a one as
the good old servant which sometimes cuts
my wayside bread and cheese or thumb-piece,
and sometimes helps me to put rose-trees in
order. There is an instrument called a
secateur, a combination of pincers and
scissors, and a great favourite with ignorant
vine-dressers and lazy gardeners, because it
helps them to get over the ground quickly.
I mention it, in order to advise its utter
rejection for any but the roughest purposes.

Full-grown and established vines, which
are entirely cultivated by hand labour, should
receive a tillage four times during every
summer ; in mid-March or April, in May, in
June or July, and the fourth in August. Il
one of these is more essential than the other,
it is the second. The first, called bScher
though no digging is employed, is performed
with a peculiar hoe, named a meille, whose
iron is perfectly triangular, except that the
point is elongated. The handle of the meille
is slightly curved to help the labourer, and
the iron is bent towards tne handle at a very
sharp angle. It thus forms a sort of hand-
plough as the vigneron draws it towards
himself. This work is performed by men
who toil with naked feet among the rocky
vineyards, where the heat during the summer
tillage sometimes makes it an ordeal, as we
should think, equivalent to walking over
red-hot ploughshares. After the belcher, the
stakes are planted, which enter more readily

HOUSEHOLD WOEDS.

[Conducted by

the fresh-stirred earth. This task mostly
lulls to the lot of the women. It is their
office also to tie up the viues with rye-straw
or osier two or three times iu the course of
the season, as well as to disbud and remove
all troublesome aud unnecessary shoots. If
the vine-shoot is long and weak, and if it is
not carefully tied to its stake, at the first
storm alter the appearance of the blossom-
bud and the development of the earliest
leaves, the twigs beat one against the other,
and the ground is covered with their pre-
mature ruins. During summer, the vignerons
are obliged, time after time, mercilessly to
cull back the rampant branches. At hist, by
admitting sunshine and air, and by preventing
the vigour of the vine from exhausting itself
unnecessarily, the berries swell and the
bunches ripen.

On the C6te-d'0r, the vineyards are often
full of little hollows, which are left to nurse
a favourite currant-bush or millet plant in,
or sometimes, I think, for the mere pleasure
of walking up and down hill. The grand
final cause of these numerous hollows is
the necessity of making a preparation
for the layering of vines. That operation
renders the vine immortal, if the soil
on which it is planted is good. There
are renowned vineyards at Vollenay, Poin-
mard, Beaune, and elsewhere, whose plan-
tation dates from time immemorial. But to
insure this happy result, the vines must not
be neglected for a single season. Every year,
layers must be made in proportion to the
number of ceps that have perished, whether
from age, inclement seasons, or the still worse
evil of injudicious management. Note, that
when a layer is well made, it gives a few
grapes the first year ; in the second, it has
attained its full strength.

To make good wine, you must catch Jean
Raisin at the exact point of ripeness. For
red wines, a little too soon is better than a
little too late. When the day is fixed by the
wise men of the village, troops of vintagers
of all ages and sexes throng in, from ten,
twelve, and fifteen leagues distance, to enjoy
the pleasure of eating their fill of grapes
under the pretence of earning wages. The
vintage, in different localities, commences
on a different appointed day. This is
partly a matter of necessity, as the vin-
tagers go in bauds from one place to
another. And to make good wine, it must be
concocted with a certain degree of celerity
aud decision. Good grapes, as in quite the
south of France, often produce bad wine for
no other reason than that the makers are
sluggish about the business ; exactly as, in
the beet-sugar manufacture, the slightest halt
in the march of the establishment brings
about a serious check.

"When these errant ladies and gentlemen
and children are introduced into a viney.-inl,
they are ranged in line, and each individual
walks straight before him, her, or it, cutting

every bunch lie, she, or it, finds under his,
her, or its noses, and putting them into
little flat baskets. One hand ought to
support the bunch, while the other adroitly
severs the stem. When the fruit is over
ripe, the basket should be set at the foot
of the vine, to catch the loose grapes that
would otherwise fall on the ground and
be lost. The little baskets, when full, are
carried off by a man, styled from his office
vide-panier, or basket-emptier, and their
contents are transferred into the grands
paniers or baskets proper, which are pre-
viously set down at proper intervals within
the area of the vineyard. The whole scene
is often overlooked by a stern gaunt woman,
perhaps the proprietor's wife, who sees that
nothing is lost, and who wastes her energies
on the thankless task of persuading the glut-
tons to eat as few grapes as they can.

The baskets proper are then emptied into
balonges, or large oval tubs, each standing
ready upon its own cart. The balonge, when
brimful, is wheeled away to the pressoir, a
word which the dictionary interprets wine-
press, but which on the C6te-d'Or means the
apartment, large or small, wherein wine-
press, tubs, and other wine-making tools are
congregated. The first grapes thrown into
the first balonges, are trampled on by wooden-
shod men upon the spot. The balouges
themselves, arriving at the pressoir, are
emptied into vast round tubs, called cuves.
When the contents of the first balonge are
thrown into the cuve, a vigneron jumps in,
and tramples them as cruelly as he can, to
make what is called the levain, or leaven.
Upon this leaven are cast all the rest of the
slightly crushed or uncrushed grapes as they
are brought from the vineyard. And that is
all that is done to commence or accelerate
the fermentation, the progress of which
is ascertained, amongst other means, by
listening.

Sometimes the grapes are entirely or par-
tially egrappes, or stripped from the stalks be-
fore being put in the cuve. There are occasion-
ally years in which although the bunches are
abundant, each bunch only bears some five
or six berries. Little else is to be seen but
a crop of stalks. Stripping then is necessary,
because the stalks would absorb so much
juice as to occasion great loss. Some propri-
etors, in less disastrous years, remove a cer-
tain proportion of stalks. The grapes are
put into a large concave wicker sieve, called
an egrappoir, the osiers composing which
cross each other at sufficient distances to
allow something larger than the largest
sized grape to pass between them. The
bunches are thrown into this egrappoir and
the vintager's hand roughly rolls them about.
The berries roll off without being too much
crushed, and the stalks remaining are tossed
aside as useless. But most wine-masters do
not egrapper their grapes at all.

In warm weather, fermentation is soon

Charles Dickens.]

THE HILL OF GOLD.

established, and the cuve can be emptied of
its contents in from twenty-four to thirty-six
hours ; but, in cold seasons, fermentation does
not begin till the third or fourth day, and
the emptying of the cuve on the sixth.
When the mass of bunches of fruit has
sufficiently fermented, it is fouled, or trod-
den by a man without clothes (sometimes
there are several), who enters the tub, and
squeezes out the juice as well as he can
for about an hour, by stamping, kicking, and
hugging the fruit, pressing it against his
chest, and embracing it in his arms till he
becomes himself a perfect red-skin. This
vinous bath is sometimes so overpowering
that the treader is obliged to give up the
task through absolute tipsiness, and allow
another andasoberer man to take his place in
the bacchanalian fountain. The operation
lets loose into the cuve a large quantity of
saccharine matter, which has not yet fermented,
and the sweetness of the cuve is much in-
creased. The fermentation re-commences
violently ; and if it is found that the grapes
are still insufficiently crushed, the red-skin
Indians renew their onslaught.

As soon as the treading-out is finished,
the whole contents of the cuve grapes,
stones, stalks, and all are transferred into
the actual pressoir, or wine-press. Pressoirs
vary considerably in construction.

From the pressing-place, the pieces are
carried at once into the cellar, and there
left to fine, perfect, and finish themselves,
with no other interference than what is pro-
duced by the eye of the master, in all cases
a most potent agent.

Simple as the making of burgundy wine
thus appears to be, it requires great nicety,
careful watching, experience, forethought,
and skilful application of the rule of thumb,
to insure success both with the cuve and the
insensible fermentation afterwards in the
cask. Many little precautions and guiding
symptoms are traditionally transmitted from
father to son, from one generation of cellar-
men to that which succeeds it. Bad methods
are also adhered to with equal obstinacy,
which accounts for the permanent unpalata-
bleness of the wine produced in several
favourable localities in France. Large esta-
blishments are able to avail themselves of
mechanical aid. Thus, at Clos Vougeot, the
new wine runs from the pressoir to the
cellars through closely fitted pipes. All the
pure C6te-d'Or burgundies are the wines for
great and wealthy people to drink. For
second-class folk there are second-class wines,
known on the spot as passe-tout-grain, which
are made from vineyards planted with a
mixture, mostly half noirien and half gamay.
In good years, passe-tout-grain is excel-
lent, brilliant in colour and high in flavour.
It is less liable to change, and bears longer
keeping than many of the finer wiues ; nay,
aristocratic liquors are often obliged to call
in the aid and intreat the alliance of the

plebeian fluid, in order to preserve their own.
body and reputation. And the hard-working
vigneron, when he is thirsty, what has he to
drink at home 1 After the grapes are
squeezed in the press, he fills some tubs with
marc or refuse, carefully excluding the air
during winter. In spring, he fills up the
tubs with water, lets them stand a week or
ten days, taps one, and draws a drink which
if it does him no great good, at the same time
does him no great harm.

The management of wine in the caski
infinitely intricate. One wrinkle may be
useful to housekeepers. M. Pomier, an apo-
thecary of Salins, has discovered a simple
mode of removing the odious smell and taste
from wine which has been put into a mouldy
hogshead. It consists in mixing a certain
dose of olive oil with the injured wine, and
agitating the mixture violently. In four-and-
tweuty hours the oil is all at the top, charged
with the ill savours which it has absorbed
from the wine. The experiment has been
repeatedly tested. It has also been recom-
mended to oil the inside of old mouldy casks,
because the tubs thus lose their disagreeable
smell, and the wine put into them acquires
no unpleasant taste. It appears that the
substance which injures the x wine in such
cases is of a nature similar to that of essential
oils. If fixed oils are violently shaken to-
gether with distilled aromatic waters, the
latter entirely lose their aroma, which com-
bines with the fixed oil. One more wrinkle
to amateurs of burgundy. Import your wine
as soon as you can get it out of the grower's
cellar, and let it perfect itself in your own.
At its culminating point of ripeness it is too
delicate to stand a journey, even from one
end of a town to the other.

Though the Burgundy wines are the
most delicious in France, their consumption
is more local and sparse than that of
any others of the first class. You get good
ordinary burgundies in Paris, but not gene-
rally elsewhere. The grand requisite for
a more extended enjoyment of the golden
draught, is a European peace, enabling the
French to make more cross-country railroads,
and allowing the English (though we might
do that at once) to reduce the duties on
French wines to what they ought to be :
namely, to the merest trifle. We shall attain
these happy results "by and by. It ought to be
known that, by opening our cellars, we may
do as much good to our allies and neighbours
as to ourselves. The grand wine-fountain,
though perennial, has its spring-tide ami its
neap. At the present moment, it is at lowest
ebb, and wine is dearer and dearer every day.
Thousands in France will have to go without
it this year. But there occur successive years
of over-abundance,when the owner really does
not know" what to do with the produce ; and
these epochs return from time to time after
an indefinite lapse of years. A tub has been
filled with wine, in exchange for an empty

HOUSEHOLD WOEDS.

[Conducted by

tub ; crops of grapes have been abandoned to
whomsoever chose to help himself, or have
been suffered to fall and rot on the ground,
because wine was (locally) so cheap that it
would not pay to gather them. The revolu-
tion of eighteen hundred and forty-eight was
preceded and followed by five successive very
abundant and consequently very expensive
vintages, which crushed all but large capita-
lists, and filled the cellars to overflowing.
The same state of things is sure to occur again.
The quantity of good second-class wines (as
good as any reasonable man wants), is capable
of incalculable increase in France. London
might drink claret (not burgundy), at a
cheaper rate than Paris does.

I now wish to post two great facts side
by side : Here, is a people who like wine,
who want wine, who will pay for wine, and
who have not wine : There, is another people,
just over the way, a friendly people, a conve-
nient people, who have often much more wine
than they want, who would be glad to sell it,
who cannot sell it. Such a state of things is
an unstable equilibrium, which must set itself
right, sooner or later, by the force of gravity
alone.

FIFTY-TWO, WEIOTHESLEY PLACE.

SOME years ago, more than I care to tell,
Mrs. Euleit was at the head of a very select
ladies' school in Wriothesley Place, Russell
Square. I don't know what she termed it ;
but she would neither have it called a school,
nor an establishment, nor a seminary, nor a
house. Such names she rejected, as low; or, to
use her favourite expression " twopenny." It
was simply Mrs. Euleit's, Wriothesley Place.
On the same principle the girls were not
called young ladies, whatever their rank or
station ; they were only " the girls." The
school had fallen off considerably before I
went. From twelve pupils, which was the
limit, it was reduced to five : there must have
been some prejudice at work somewhere ;
for, before my going was quite decided, our
old friend, Mr, France, the clergyman took
pains to inquire from the family of one of the
pupils what they thought of the school, and
received for reply, " Oh, we like the school
very well, and the masters are very efficient ;
but we don't think sincerity is taught there."
I suppose my father trusted I had learnt sin-
cerity before, though I never had a sincerity
master. At all events I went; but, with a cau-
tion not to repeat what I had heard on any
account, and this secret lay like a load of
lead upon my mind, all the time I was there.

Mrs. Euleit and her daughter, with the
teacher Miss Eadley, and we five girls, com-
posed the household ; Miss Eadley slept in
our room, walked out with us, and never left
UB. She was about thirty years of age, with
coarse red hair, white eyebrows, and a turn-
up nose. What a life she had with us ! for
we were more frequently impertinent than

polite ; and how lonely too ! for she belonged
neither to ua nor to Madame. At half-past six
in summer it was her duty to call us, and
about seven we came down stairs. One of ua
was then sent off to the piano in the front draw-
ing-room, another to the piano in the back,
and a third to the piano in the parlour below,
to practise till breakfast. It was a long time
for growing girls to wait ; but we often stayed
our appetites with a hard biscuit. At nine,
Madame came down, and prayers were read
by one of the girls ; after that, breakfast of tea
and solid squares of bread and butter, which
was very good every morning except Mondays,
when it was a day old. We lived entirely iu
the study a good room with a view of 'the
back walls of the mews. There was a long
deal-table with a form down each side in the
centre of the room, and forms all round close to
the wall. These forms contained lockers for our
books no carpet, only a hearth-rug before
the fire which was a forfeit to cross. We were
quite satisfied with our accommodation ; for
the terms of the school were called high
two hundred a-year so we felt very genteel
and select, and never missed the carpet.
Breakfast over, Mrs. Euleit placed herself at
the head of the table and heard one of us
read French, which was all the teaching she
understood herself ; except assiduous attention
to our deportment and carriage, to which last
task she was gradually falling a sacrifice,
according to her own account. She was very
short and very stout ; but we were constantly
assured she was worn to a thread with en-
treating us to hold up nay, to a ravel-
ling.

Monday morning brought Mr. Gresley the
English master, whose lessons were held in
the deepest reverence; for Mrs. Euleit wisely
considered that, to speak and write Eng-
lish in purity, was far better than middling
French, or imperfect Italian. The idea of
German was never entertained. We should as
soon have learnt Eunic. A tradition existed
that Mr. Gresley had sold his head to the sur-
geons, and there was something imposing iu
being taught by a head that was worth buy-
ing ; so we were all very attentive, and a little
awe-struck. We read poetry with him,
besides the grammar and parsing lessons, and
sorely tried he must have been at times. I
recollect a tall girl, nearly twenty, who had
been at various schools all her life, repeating
Young's lines :

" But their hearts, wounded like the wounded air,
Soon close, where past the shaft, no trace a
found."

He interrupted her with, " Miss G., what do
you mean by the shaft ? " " Something be-
longing to a cart, sir." How he grinned,
clapped his hands, and shuddered !

Our instructor iu French was a little, shri-
velled, old emigrant without teeth, who mum-
bled his language all to mash. He had a per-
petual cold, too, and was for ever using his

Ciiarlts Diciens.]

FIFTY-TWO, WEIOTHESLEY PLACE.

handkerchief, and interrupting the reading
with "Mon riez me demand." He corrected the
exercises, heard us read in Epochs^ d'Angle-
terre, and got as far in the beauties of La
Fontaine, as " Une grenouille vit uii bceuf."

Two mornings in the week, we came down to
breakfast in full evening-dress, for Monsieur
Eoverre the dancing-master, a dapper little
gentleman (ballet-master at the opera, who
came in his own carriage), preceded by Mr.
Chip with his fiddle in a green-bag, who sat
near the door playing it during tlie lesson.
Oh ! his earnest endeavours to make us grace-
ful ; his despair in our elbows ; his hopeless-
ness in our backs, and his glare of indignation
at our mistakes ! But what could we do 1
English girls are not French girls, who are born
dancers. We did our best and he ought to
have known it ; but he didn't : so we hated
him as school-girls only can hate, and revenged
ourselves by calling him when nobody heard
Old Eoverre.

Music was the great end of education at
Mrs. Euleit's, and an evening of excitement
was that when Mr. Dragon gave his lesson.
Then Mrs. E. and her daughter sat with
coffee in the front parlour, and each of
us in turn with her music in her hand
had to enter the room, curtsey, and take her
seat at the piano, with three sets of the most
formidable eyes in the world fixed upon her.
I am agitated now to think of those Tuesday
evenings. After all those odious practisings in
the front drawing-room, without fire, to find
your fingering erroneous, your time defective,
taste and feeling wanting, and diligence ques-
tioned ; and, finally, as you left the room to
hear, with a contemptuous sigh, "She will
never make anything of it," was more
than a girl's nature could bear. How thank-
ful I was to get to bed after it, and be soothed
to sleep by the boy in the mews calling, "Beer !
beer !" Happy boy^ to have no music-master !

On Wednesday mornings we were gene-
rally indulged at breakfast with a running
commentary on the shortcomings of the pre-
ceding evening, accompanied by plaintive
lamentations on the inferiority of the present
set of girls as compared with those of former
years, in everything worth knowing generally
and music in particular. Then we heard, for
the twentieth time, of Miss Timmins, who so
appreciated the advantage of learning from
such a master as our Dragon, that she could
scarcely be induced to leave the piano. Ske
never complained of the cold in the back
drawing-room, or that the instrument in the
front parlour had several dumb notes. Miss
Timmins knew her duty, and did it, and may be
doing it yet, and I hope is. I never saw her;
but I hated Miss Timmins.

I did better in drawing than music, and
had one master, in hessian boots, all to myself ;
for I drew chalk heads, which no other girl
did. I felt very grand standing at my easel
with my port-crayon, rubbing in a large head
of Calypso, or a great ugly Syrian woman.

from the Miraculous Draught of Fishes, which
I talked of as "after Eaphael." But the
crowning triumph was copying Canova's
Hebe from the cast, or, as we technically
called it, the round. Then I felt indeed an
artist. Our studies were suspended at one
o'clock by the entrance of a plate of dry
bread for luncheon. Mrs. Euleit shut up
her desk and sailed out of the room, while
we proceeded upstairs to dress for our
walk. Two whole hours we spent every
fine day in the nursery gardens in
Euston Square. But we were not com-
pelled to keep together ; so I often took a
book, and, in the cold weather, was much in
the greenhouse, and in warm by the side of
the pond under shade of a large white thorn
that hung over it. I wonder where the pond
and the large white thorn are now 1 We
returned home, in time to dress for dinner, at
four. This was a plain, substantial meal,
soon over ; and, after it, we were left to our
own devices and Miss Eadley, until tea at
seven. The interval was filled up with
reading, talking, or learning lessons. Our
stock of entertaining books was not very
extensive. Countess and Gertrude, Eosanne,
The Poetical Keepsake, The Swiss Family
Eobinson, and Paul et Virginie, were all I
remember. Then was the time for revela-
tions to each other of our previous lives and
experiences. Only one of us, (it was not
myself) had ever had a lover that grand
object of attainment to a school-girl: and
that secret was not spoken loud out, but only
to me in the retirement of the nursery-gardens.
It was an officer in the East India Company's
service, never likely to come to England
again, and who had never made a direct offer;
so he was but a shadowy kind of lover after
all : 6nly it did to talk about, as we had
nothing better. But one of the girls had
spent the last holidays with a beautiful
cousin, who was engaged to an officer in an
English regiment, whose name was Manner-
ing ; and this engagement served as an illustra-
tion of all the sentiment and love-making that
could be at any time broached. Meantime,
Miss Badley read, or worked, or walked
backward and forward in the study, hold-
ing a backboard ; and, when it grew dusk,
arid she thought we could not see, mounted a
hairpin across her nose, in the vain hope of
curbing its aspiring tendencies. If by
chance she heard the word gentleman, we
were instantly interrupted by some question
as to what age we were, or how many
brothers and sisters we had at home. She
did not like so well to tell her own age ; for
once, when we got on the subject of ages, she
asked us how old we thought her ? We all
believed her thirty, but thought it would be
very ill-bred (and we piqued ourselves on our
good-breeding) to tell her that she had
arrived at that age when hope is outlived,
and despair even survived : so we unani-
mously said twenty- seven; and she would not

HOUSEHOLD WORDS.

[Conducted by

tell us the truth after all. She rebuked me
once viciously for saying, " an old lady of
fifty." I understand it now, alas ! but then
I thought it very unjust : fifty is not so old
as it once was.

When caudles came, Miss Eadley gathered
us round her, and heard us read the Bible,
or questioned us in ancient and modern
history, or heathen mythology, and some-
times we read poetry. She was of a
tender, sentimental turn, iu spite of red
hair and a turn-up nose ; and, in moments of
confidence, would show us a little box oi
treasures to be gazed at lovingly when we
were asleep. The gem of the collection was
what I took to be a paper of tobacco, the
contents being about that colour and texture,
with this inscription outside, "The sweet
remembrance of my beloved brother." She
soon set my error at rest, by explaining that
it was her brother's whiskers, which he had
cut off on returning from the wars ; and she
had treasured them up ever since. This was
a remarkable brother too ; for he was very
deaf when he went into battle, and the roar
of the cannon did something to his ears, for
he heard quite well when he came out.

At this time of the evening we were
allowed, now and then, to subscribe, and
send the housemaid out for hardbake,
parliament, apples, or biscuit, or a cocoa-
nut, which we peeled, sliced, and boiled in
brown sugar, then turned out on a dish, and
called ambrosia. Seven o'clock brought tea,
and Madame took her place again at the
head of the table ; each girl had a large
breakfast cup full, we might have more if
we liked, but we never had. After tea, one
read aloud in that cheerful specimen of polite
literature, Eollin's Ancient History (I have
never looked into it since), while the rest
worked. I hate Cyrus to this day. We had
a very little joke upon Darius, who was nick-
named Dosen, because he made promises that
he did not keep, like our next door neighbour
Mr. Moses, who promised to send Mrs. Euleit
a bag of coffee, and didn't ; so we called him
" dosen," and held him in contempt. At nine
o'clock we put up our work, the prayer-book
was brought out, and we knelt in a circle
before Madame. Prayers were read by the
girls in turn ; and, after " bon soir," we were
dismissed for the night ; not without sus-
picion that Mrs. Euleit and her daughter had
something good to eat after we were gone,
but this was never confirmed, and cook would
not tell

Our Italian master, Signer Gagliardini,
only taught the girls who could sing; for, to pro-
nounce the words of Italian songs properly,
was the chief object of the instruction; occasion-
ally he brought his little boy who informed
us in a thin, shrill voice, that his name was,
" Titus Telemaque Terence Themistocle ;" the
weight of his name seemed to have crushed
his growth. The Siguor gave a concert on a
t>lan common enough at the time. A lady in

Upper Brook Street lent her house for the
evening, on condition of having a certain
number of tickets for herself and friends.
Mrs. E. took two or three of us herself, ac-
companied by Cadney, a neighbouring green-
grocer, dressed in black, and whom we were
told to call " James " (his name was Isaac),
when he went out with us, that he might look
like our own footman. The concert was in the
dining-room, and the suite of drawing-rooms
was open to the company ; who examined
the ornaments, lolled on the sofas, read the
cards, and counted the candles, under the
very eyes of the owner herself, for anything
they knew. The notes and cards of the
greatest and most fashionable acquaintances
were uppermost, as usual. The unfortunate
giver of the concert must have passed a
wretched evening. Signor Eonzi de Begnis
was late, Sapio never came at all, the lady
singers were capricious ; so, between hoping
and fearing, and filling up gaps himself, and
apologising, and a wonderful air with varia-
tions on the harp, and Adelaide by a gentle-
man sorely afflicted within, the concert
terminated.

One of the girls was to be left at home for
the night in Hanover Square ; and, as we
watched the footman give her a bed candle
and saw her glide up the painted staircase,
we drew ourselves up and affected to think it
very grand but very comfortless, as all people
do who are not grand themselves. I don't
know that we had any such very particular
comforts in Wriothesley Place ; but we thought
the Hanover Square carriage might have
taken us, but it didn't. So it was pleasant to
despise carriages and luxuries in general.

But, all this time, my secret about sincerity
lay heavy on my mind ; and, one unlucky
morning (the first of September, I remember
it well), for want of a secret to tell about a
lover for I had not one I confided this
to one of my companions in return for
the excitement I experienced about the
shadowy captain in the East Indies. 1
repented it from that moment; for if she
should reveal it I was a lost character. I
pictured to myself the disgrace I should fall
into at home with good Mr. France, with the
family who told us in confidence, and, above
all, the disturbance it would cause in
Wriothesley Place. Oh, what I suffered ! I
had no pleasure in the thought of going
home the sunshine was taken out of my
life I had committed a breach of trust
society couldnot overlook. My distress reached
its climax, when, one morning, Madame
received a letter from a friend in the country
saying she considered it her duty to tell her
that Mrs. Horseman, our neighbour over the
way, had been visiting in the country, and
there said, in company, that there was one
school in London where she would not send a
girl, and that was Madame, liuleit's ; and
this opinion was calculated to do great injury,
as Mrs. Horseman was called intellectual, and

Charles Bickens.J

VAMPYEES.

looked up to by a certain set who would like
to be intellectual too. The excitement amongst
us was intense : we freely used the words
calumnv, malice, falsehood and one girl, a
soldier's daughter, said " lying." But it was
all right in such a cause ; for the more vehe-
ment our indignation the more complimentary
to Madame. I was in a fright, to be sure,
lest my confidante should, in the excitement,
forget her solemn promise not to tell, and let
out my secret. The subj ect was discussed, day
by day by us, to please Madame by Madame
in sad earnestness. At length she requested
her friend Miss Montague, a great lady in Gros-
venor Square, to ascertain the truth of the
matter; forshe knew a little of Mrs. Horseman's
sister, and could ask her, which I suppose
she did, for in a few days she came to Sirs.
Ruleit with the result of the interview. Miss
Chickworth, the sister, wishing to be well
with Grosvenor Square, denied it in toto,
" felt convinced her sister had never said a
word in disparagement of Madame, but trusted
Miss Montague would excuse her being told
of the occurrence," as "it would infinitely
distress her, and might be prejudicial, as she
was a nurse ; " we knew nothing about being
a nurse, how should we 1 so we decided it
was only a ruse ; and when we went out to
walk, relieved our feelings by looking daggers
at the houses opposite.

When the holidays came, we went home,
and the school dwindled, and dwindled, and
poor dear Madame drooped, and drooped,
until she was compelled at last to let her
house and accept the kind offer of some rela-
tives to make her home with them. I never
saw her more, but I retain a grateful recol-
lection of her painstaking anxiety for my
improvement ; and f learned from the anguish
I witnessed there, never to say one word
lightly, or unadvisedly, in disparagement of
& ladies' school.

VAMPYBES.

OF all the creations of superstition, a Vam-
pyre is, perhaps, the most horrible. You are
lying in your bed at night, thinking of no-
thing but sleep, when you see, by the faint
light that is in your bed-chamber, a shape
entering at the door, and gliding towards you
with a long sigh, as of the wind across the
open fields when darkness has fallen upon
them. The thing moves along the air as if
by the mere act of volition ; and it has a
human visage and figure. The eyes stare
wildly from the head ; the hair is bristling ;
the flesh is livid ; the mouth is bloody.

You lie still like one under the influence
of the night-mare and the thing floats slowly
over you. Presently you fall into a dead sleep
or swoon, returning, up to the latest moment
of consciousness, the fixed and glassy stare of
the phantom. When you awake in the morn-
ing, you think it is all a dream, until you
perceive a small, blue, deadly-looking, spot on

your chest near the heart; and the truth
flashes on you. You say nothing of the mat-
ter to your friends ; but you know you are
a doomed man and you know rightly. For
every night comes the terrible Shape to your
bed-side, with a face that seems horrified at
itself, and sucks your life-blood in your sleep.
You feel it is useless to endeavour to avoid
the visitation, by changing your room or your
locality: you are under a sort of cloud of
fate.

Day after day you grow paler and more
languid : your face becomes livid, your eyes
leaden, your cheeks hollow. Your friends
advise you to seek medical aid to take
change of ah' to amuse your mind ; but you
are too well aware that it is all in vain.
You therefore keep your fearful secret to
yourself ; and pine, and droop, and languish,
till you die. When you are dead (if you will
be so kind as to suppose yourself in that pre-
dicament), the most horrible part of the busi-
ness commences. You are then yourself
forced to become a Yarn pyre, and to create
fresh victims ; who, as they die, add to the
phantom stock.

The belief in "Vampyres appears to have
been most prevalent in the south-east of
Europe, and to have had its origin there.
Modem Greece was its cradle ; and among
the Hungarians, Poles, Wallachians, and
other Sclavonic races bordering on Greece,
have been its chief manifestations. The early
Christians of the Greek Church believed that
the bodies of all the Latin Christians buried in
Greece were unable to decay, because of their
excommunication from that fold of which the
Emperor of Bussia now claims to be the
sovereign Pope and supreme Shepherd. The
Latins, of course, in their turn, regarded
these peculiar mummies as nothing less
than saints ; but the orthodox Greeks con-
ceived that the dead body was animated by a
demon who caused it to rise from its grave
every night, and conduct itself after the
fashion of a huge mosquito. These dreadful
beings were called Brucolacs ; and, according
to some accounts, were not merely manufac-
tured from the dead bodies of heretics, but
from those of all wicked people who have
died impenitent. They would appear in divers
places in their natural forms ; would run a
muck indiscriminately at whomsoever they
met, like a wild Malay ; would injure some,
and kill others outright ; would occasionally,
for a change, do some one a good service ;
but would, for the most part, so conduct
themselves that nothing could possibly be
more aggravating or unpleasant. Father
Kichard, a French Jesuit of the seventeenth
century, who went as a missionary to the Archi-
pelago, and who has left us an account of the
Island of Santerini, or Saint Irene, the Thera
of the ancients, discourses largely on the sub-
ject of Brucolacs. He says, that when the
persecutions of the Vampyres become intol-
erable, the graves of the offending parties are

HOUSEHOLD WORDS.

[Conducted by

opened, when the bodies are found entire and
uncorrupted ; that they are then cut up into
little bits, particularly the heart ; and that,
after this, the apparitions are seen no more,
and the body decays.

The word Brucolac, we are told, is derived
from two modern Greek words, signifying,
respectively, " mud," and " a ditch," because
tfie graves of the Vampyres were generally
found full of mud. Voltaire, in the article
on Vampyres in his Philosophical Dictionary,
gives a similar account of these spectres. He
observes, in his exquisite, bantering style :
" These dead Greeks enter houses, and suck
the blood of little children ; eating the sup-
pers of the fathers and mothers, drinking their
wine, and breaking all the furniture. They
can be brought to reason only by being
burnt when they are caught ; but the pre-
caution must be taken not to resort to this
measure until the heart has been torn out,
as that must be consumed apart from the
body." What a weight of meaning and
implied satire is there in that phrase, " They
can be brought to reason only by being
burnt ! " It is a comment upon universal
history.

Pierre Daniel Huet, a French writer of
Ana, who died in seventeen hundred and
twenty-one, says, that it is certain that the
idea of Vampyres, whether true or false, is
very ancient, and that the classical authors
are "full of it. He remarks, that when the
ancients had murdered any one in a trea-
cherous manner, they cut off his feet, hands,
nose, and ears, and hung them round his neck
or under his arm-pits ; conceiving that by
these means they deprived their victim of
the power of taking vengeance. Huet adds,
that proof of this may be found in the Greek
Scholia of Sophocles ; and that it was after
this fashion that Menelaus treated Deiphobus,
the husband of Helen the victim having been
discovered by ./Eneas in the infernal regions
in the above state. He also mentions the
story of Hermotimus of Clazomene, whose
souihad a power of detaching itself from its
body, for the sake of wandering through dis-
tant countries, and looking into the secrets of
futurity. During one of these spiritual jour-
neys, his enemies persuaded his wife to have
the body burned ; and his soul, upon the next
return, finding its habitation not forthcom-
ing, withdrew for ever after. According
to Suetonius, the body of Caligula, who had
been violently murdered, was but partially
burned and superficially buried. In conse-
quence of this, the house in which he had
been slain, and the garden in which the im-
perfect cremation had taken place, were every
night haunted with ghosts, which continued
to appear until the house was burned down,
and the funeral rites properly performed by
the aistera of the deceased emperor. It is
asserted by ancient writers that the souls of
the dead are unable to repose until after the
body has been entirely consumed ; and Huet

informs us that the corpses of those excom-
municated by the modern Greek Church are
called Toupi, a word signifying "a drum,"
because the said bodies are popularly sup-
posed to swell like a drum, and to sound like
the same, if struck or rolled on the ground.
Some writers have supposed that the ancient
idea of Harpies gave rise to the modern idea
of Vampyres.

Traces of the Vampyre belief may be
found in the extreme north even in remote
Iceland. In that curious piece of old Icelandic
history, called The Eyrbyggja-Saga, of which
Sir Walter Scott has given an abstract, we
find two narrations which, though not identi-
cal with the modern Greek conception of
Brucolacs, have certainly considerable affinity
with it. The first of these stories is to the
following effect : Thorolf Bsegifot, or the
Crookfooted, was an old Icelandic chieftain
of the tenth century, unenviably notorious for
his savage and treacherous disposition, which
involved him in continual broils, not only
with his neighbours, but even with his own
son, who was noted for justice and generosity.
Having been frustrated in one of his knavish de-
signs, and seeing no farther chance open to him,
Thorolf returned home one evening, mad with
rage and vexation, and, refusing to partake of
any supper, sat down at the head of 1 the table
like a stone statue, and so remained without
stirring or speaking a word. The servants
retired to rest ; but yet Thorolf did not
move. In the morning, every one was horri-
fied to find him still sitting in the same place
and attitude ; and it was whispered that the
old man had died after a manner peculiarly
dreadful to the Icelanders though what may
be the precise nature of this death is very
doubtful. It was feared that the spirit of
Thorolf would not rest in its grave unless some
extraordinary precautions were taken ; and
accordingly his son Arnkill, upon being sent
for, approached the body in such a manner as
to avoid looking upon the face, and at the
same time enjoined the domestics to observe
the like caution. The corpse was then re-
moved from the chair (in doing which, great
force was found necessary) ; the face was con-
cealed by a veil, and the usual religious rites
were performed. A breach was next made
in the wall behind the chair in which the
corpse had been found ; and the body, being
carried through it with immense labour, was
laid in a strongly-built tomb. All in vain.
The spirit of the malignant old chief haunted
the neighbourhood both night and day ;
killing men and cattle, and keeping every one
in continual terror. The pest at length be-
came unendurable ; and Arnkill resolved to
remove his father's body to some other place.

On opening the tomb, the corpse of Thorolf
was found with so ghastly an aspect, that he
seemed more like a devil than a man ; and
other astounding and fearful circumstances
soon manifested themselves. Two strong
oxen were yoked to the bier on which the

Charles Dickens.]

VAMPYRES.

body was placed ; but they were very shortly
exhausted by the weight of their burdeii.
Fresh beasts were then attached ; but, upon
reaching the top of a steep hill, they were
seized with a sudden and uncontrollable
terror, and, dashing frantically away, rolled
headlong into the valley", and were killed. At
every mile, moreover, the body became of a
still greater weight ; and it was now found
impossible to carry it any farther, though the
contemplated place of burial was still distant.
The attendants therefore consigned it to the
earth on the ridge of the hill an immense
mound was piled over it and the spirit of the
old man remained for a time at rest. But
" after the death of Arnkill," says Sir Walter
Scott, "Beegifot became again troublesome,
and walked forth from his tomb, to the great
terror and damage of the neighbourhood,
slaying both herds and domestics, and driving
the inhabitants from the canton. It was
therefore resolved to consume his carcase
with fire ; for, like the Hungarian Vampyre,
he, or some evil demon in his stead, made
use of his mortal reliques as a vehicle
during the commission of these enormities.
The body was found swollen to a huge size,
equalling the corpulence of an ox. It was
transported to the sea-shore with difficulty,
and there burned to ashes." In this narra-
tive, we miss the blood-sucking propensities
of the genuine Vampyre ; but in all other
respects the resemblance is complete.

The other story from the same source has
relation to a certain woman named Thor-
guuna. This excellent old lady having, a
short time previous to her death, appointed
one Thorodd her executor, and the wife of
the said Thorodd having covetously induced
her husband to preserve some bed-furniture
which the deceased particularly desired to
have burnt, a series of ghost-visits ensued.
Thorgunna requested that her body might be
conveyed to a distant place called Skalholt ;
and on the way thither her ghost appeared
at a house where the funeral party put up.
But the worst visitations occurred on the
return of Thorodd to hia own house. On
the very night when he reached his domi-
cile, a meteor resembling a half-moon glided
round the walls of the apartment in a direction
opposed to the apparent course of the sun (an
ominous sign), and remained visible until the
inmates went to bed. The spectral appearance
continued throughout the week ; and then one
of the herdsmen went mad, evidently under
the persecutions of evil spirits. At length he
was found dead in his bed ; and, shortly after,
Thorer, one of the inmates of the house,
going out in the evening, was seized by the
ghost of the dead shepherd, and so injured
by blows, that he died. His spirit then went
into partnership with that of the herds-
man, and together they played some very
awkward and alarming pranks. A pestilence
appeared, of which many of the neighbours
died ; and one evening something in the

shape of a seal-fish lifted itself up through the
flooring of Thorodd's house, and gazed
around.

The terrified domestics having in vain
struck at the apparition, which continued to
rise through the floor, Kiartan, the son of
Thorodd, smote it on the head with a ham-
mer, and drove it gradually and reluctantly
into the earth, like a stake. Subsequently,
Thorodd and several of his servants were
drowned ; and now their ghosts were added
to the spectral group. Every evening, when
the fire was lighted in the great hall, Thorodd
and his companions would enter, drenched
and dripping, and seat themselves close to
the blaze, from which they very selfishly ex-
cluded all the living inmates ; while, from the
other side of the apartment, the ghosts of
those who had died of pestilence, aud who
appeared gray with dust, would bend their
way towards the same comfortable nook,
under the leadership of Thorer. This being
a very awkward state of affairs in a climate
like Iceland, Kiartan, who was now the mas-
ter of the house, caused a separate fire to be
kindled for the mortals in an out-house,
leaving the great hall to the spectres ; with
which arrangement their ghostships seemed
to be satisfied. The deaths from the pesti-
lence continued to increase ; and every death
caused an addition to the phantom army.
Matters had now reached so serious a pitch,
that it was found absolutely necessary to take
some steps against the disturbers of the
neighbourhood. It was accordingly resolved
to proceed against them by law ; but, previ-
ously to commencing the legal forms, Kiartan
caused the unfortunate bed-furniture, which
had been at the bottom of all the mischief, to
to be burnt in sight of the spectres. A jury
was then formed in the great hall ; the ghosts
were accused of being public nuisances within
the meaning of the act in that case made and
provided ; evidence was heard, and finally
a sentence of ejectment was pronounced.
Upon this, the phantoms rose ; and, protest-
ing that they had only sat there while it was
lawful for them to do so, sullenly and mut-
teringly withdrew, with many symptoms of
unwillingness. A priest then damped the room
with holy-water a solemn mass was per-
formed, and the supernatural visitors were
thenceforth non est inventus.

The incident of the seal in this narrative
will remind the reader who has properly
studied his Corsican Brothers and (as it is
customary to ask on these occasions) who has
not 1 of the appearance of the ghost of the
duellist as he comes gliding through the floor
to the tremulous music of the fiddles. The
whole tale, in fact, falls in a great measure
into the general class of ghost stories ; but the
circumstance of each person, as he died, adding
to the array of the evil spirits, and thus
spreading out the mischief in ever-widening
circles, has an affinity to the distinguishing
feature of the Brucolac superstition. Still,

HOUSEHOLD WORDS.

[Conducted by

for the perfect specimen of the genus Vain-
pyre, we must revert to the south-east of
Europe.

Sir Walter Scott says that the above " is
the only instance in which the ordinary ad-
ministration of justice has been supposed to
extend over the inhabitants of another world,
and in which the business of exorcising
spirits is transferred from the priest to the

judge."

Voltaire, however, in treating of Vain-
pyres, mentions a similar instance. " It is
in my mind," says the French wit and phi-
losopher, "a curious fact, that judicial pro-
ceedings were taken, in due form of law,
concerning those dead who had left their
tombs to suck the blood of the little
boys and girls of the neighbourhood. Cal-
met relates that in Hungary two officers ap-
pointed by the Emperor Charles the Sixth,
assisted by the bailiff of the place, and the
executioner, went to bring to trial a Vam-
pyre who sucked all the neighbourhood, and
who had died six weeks before. He was
found in his tomb, fresh, gay, with his
eyes open, and asking for food. The bailiff
pronounced his sentence, and the executioner
tore out his heart and burnt it : after which
the Vampyre ate no more."

Voltaire's levity has here carried him (in-
advertently, of course) with a smiling face into
a very appalling region. It is an historical fact
that a sort of Vampyre fever or epidemic spread
through the whole south-east of Europe, from
about the year seventeen hundred and twenty-
seven to seventeen hundred and thirty-five.
This took place more especially in Servia and
Hungary ; with respect to its manifestations
in which latter country, Calmet, the celebrated
author of the History of the Bible, has left an
account in his Dissertations on the Ghosts
and Vampyres of Hungary. A terrible in-
fection appeared to have seized upon the
people, who died by hundreds under the
belief that they were haunted by these
dreadful phantoms. Military commissions
were issued for inquiring into the matter ;
and the graves of the alleged Vampyres being
opened in the presence of medical men, some
of the bodies were found undecomposed, with
fresh skin and nails growing in the place of
the old, with florid complexions, and with
blood in the chest and abdomen. Of the truth
of these allegations there can be no reasonable
doubt, as they rest upon the evidence both of
medical and military men ; and the problem
seems to admit of only one solution. Dr. Herbert
Mayo, in his Letters on the Truths contained
in Popular Superstitions, suggests that the
superstitious belief in Vampyrism, acting
upon persons of nervous temperaments, pre-
disposed them to full into the condition called
death-trance ; that in that state they were
hastily buried ; and that, upon the graves
being opened, they were found still alive,
though unable to speak. In confirmation of j
this ghastly suggestion, Dr. Mayo quotes the

following most pathetic and frightful account
of a Vampyre execution from an old German
writer : " When they opened his grave, after
he had been long buried, his face was found
with a colour, and his features made natural
sorts of movements, as if the dead man
smiled. He even opened his mouth as if he
would inhale the fresh air. They held the
crucifix before him, and called in a loud voice,
' See, this is Jesus Christ who redeemed your
soul from hell, and died for you.' After the
sound had acted on his organs of hearing
and he had connected perhaps some ideas with
it, tears began to flow from the dead man's eyes.
Finally, when, after a short prayer for his
poor soul, they proceeded to hack off his
head, the corpse uttered a screech, and
turned and rolled just as if it had been alive
and the grave was full of blood." The
wretched man most assuredly was alive ; but
Superstition has neither brain nor heart ; and
so it murdered him.

A story similar to the foregoing has been
preserved by Serjeant Mainard, a lawyer of
the reign of Charles the First ; and may be
here repeated as a curious instance of the
hold which the most puerile superstitions
maintained in England at a comparatively
recent period, and the influence which they
were allowed to exercise even in io grave a
matter as a trial for murder. In the year
sixteen hundred and twenty-nine, somewhere
in Hertfordshire, a married woman, named
Joan Norcot, was found in bed with her
throat cut ; and, although the inquest which
was held upon her body terminated in a ver-
dict of felo-de-se, a rumour got about that
the deceased had been murdered. The body
was accordingly taken out of the grave thirty
days after its death, jn the presence of the
jury and many other persons ; and the jury
then changed their verdict (which had not
been drawn into form by the coroner), and
accused certain parties of wilful murder.
These were tried at the Hertford Assizes,
and acquitted ; " but," says the Serjeant, " so
much against the evidence, that the Judge
(Harvy) let fall his opinion that it were
better an appeal were brought than so foul a
murder should escape unpunished." In con-
sequence of this, "they were tried on the
appeal, which was brought by the young
child against his father, grandfather, and
auut, and her husband, Okeman ; and, be-
cause the evidence was so strange, I took
exact and particular notice of it. It was as
followeth, viz. : After the matters above men-
tioned and related, an ancient and grave per-
sou, minister of the parish where the tact was
committed, being sworn to give evidence, ac-
cording to the custom, deposed, that the body
being taken out of the grave, thirty days
after the party's death, and lying on tjie
grass, and the four defendants present, they
were required, each of them, to touch the
de;ul body. Okeman's wife fell on her knees,
and prayed God to show token of their inno-

Charles Dickens.]

ME. POPE'S FKIEND.

cency, or to some such purpose ; but her very
[i.e., precise] words I forgot. The appellers
did touch the dead body; whereupon, the
brow of the dead, which was of a livid or
carrion colour (that was the verbal expres-
sion in the terms of the witness) began to
have a dew or gentle sweat, which ran down
in drops on the face, and the brow turned
and changed to a lively and fresh colour, and
the dead opened one of her eyes, and shut it
again ; and this opening the eye was done
three several times. She likewise thrust out
the ring or marriage-finger three times, and
pulled it in again ; and the finger dropt
blood from it on the grass."* This being
confirmed by the witness's brother, also a
clergyman ; and other evidence (of a more
human character, but, as it appears to us,
very insufficient) having been adduced ; Oke-
man was acquitted, and the three other
prisoners were found guilty : a result which
there can be little question was mainly
brought about by the monstrous story of the
scene at the exhumation.t That the details of
that story were exaggerated, according to the
superstitious habit of the times, seems obvious;
but the query arises, whether the body of the
woman might not really have been alive.
It is true that thirty days had elapsed since
her apparent death ; but some of the alleged
Vampyres supposed by Dr. Mayo to have
been buried alive had been in their graves
three months when their condition was in-
spected. Not being possessed of the requisite
medical knowledge, we will forbear to pro-
nounce whether or not life could be sustained,
under such circumstances, for so great a
length of time ; but what seems fatal to the
supposition, in the last instance, is the fact of
the woman having had her throat cut.

Vampyres have often been introduced into
romance. There is an old Anglo-Saxon poem
on the subject of a Vampyre of the Fens ;
and the Baron von Haxthausen, in his work
on Transcaucasia, has told a story of one of
these gentry, which may be here appended as
a sort of pleasant burlesque after the fore-
going tragedies : " There once dwelt in a
cavern in Armenia a Vampyre, called Dak-
hanavar, who could not endure any one to
penetrate into the mountains of Ulmish
Altotem, or count their valleys. Every one
who attempted this had, in the night, his
blood sucked by the monster from the soles
of his feet, until he died. The Vampyre was,
however, at last outwitted by two cunning
fellows. They began to count the valleys,
and when night came on they lay down to

* The bleeding of the dead hody of a murdered
person upon the approach of the murderer is an old
opinion, to which Bacon, in his Natural History,
seems inclined to give some weight.

)" The notes from which this story is derived, were
made by the Serjeant from what he himself heard on
the trial. (See the Gentleman's Magazine for July,
1851.)

sleep, taking care to place themselves with
the feet of the one under the head of the
other." (How both could have managed to do
this, we leave to the reader's ingenuity to ex-
plain.) " In the night, the monster came,
felt as usual, and found a head ; then he felt
at the other end, and found a head there also.
' "Well,' cried he, ' I have gone through the
whole three hundred and sixty-six valleys of
these mountains, and have sucked the blood
of people without end ; but never yet did I
find any one with two heads and no feet ! '
So saying, he ran away, and was never more
seen in that country ; but ever after the
people have known that the mountain has
three hundred and sixty-six valleys."

In South America, a species of bat is found,
which sucks the blood of people while asleep
(lulling them with the fanning of its wings
during the operation), and which is called the
Vampyre bat from that circumstance. If
this creature belonged to Europe, we should
be inclined to regard it as the origin of the
Vampyre fable.

ME. POPE'S FEIEND.

THERE is a custom, I have been told, pre-
valent among the junior officers on board some
of her Majesty's ships of war, and by means
of which the monotony of cockpit life is
agreeably diversified, called " swop." When
a swop takes place, the contents of the
youngsters' sea-chest are strewn on the
cabin table, and an ingenious and ex-
citing scene of barter ensues, of gold-laced
bauds against jars of mixed pickles ; sup-
plies of stationery against razor-strops and
shaving-brushes; corngts - a- piston against
quadrants ; and locks of sweethearts' hair
against clasp-knives a flageolet, a clothes-
brush, or a cake of chocolate, being occa-
sionally thrown into a bargain by way of
ballast or make-weight. Swop may also,
perhaps, be recognised by some of my young
friends now or lately at home for the Christ-
mas vacation as a favourite half-holiday
pastime at the establishments where they
receive their education, and where (it is to be
hoped) none but the sons of gentlemen are
received. I retain, myself, lively reminis-
cences of my school swops. In these the
chief articles quoted were toffy, plum-cake,
peg-tops, marbles, pocket-combs-, jew's-harps,
slate-pencil, white mice, silk-worms, trowser-
straps (much coveted, these), common prayer-
books, and illustrated copies of the Adventures
of Philip Quarll, together with twopenny
cakes of water-colours, of which dragon's
blood and saturnine red were most in
demand : chiefly, I think, by reason of their
romantic and adventurous names, and not
with any reference to their artistic uses.
At a large public school, also, of which I
know something so large that its conductors
had quite failed in keeping pace with the re-
quirements of the boys, and in the endeavour

HOUSEHOLD WOEDS.

[Conducted by

had dropped behind a trifle of two hundred
years or so swop existed, and flourished ex-
ceedingly under the name of pledging, the
barter being mainly confined to the provisions
furnished to the pupils by the establishment.
Thus the boys pledged their dinner pudding
against potatoes their meat against pudding.
Pledging in this form was sanctioned by the
authorities; but there was also much illegal
bartering, detection in which (there was a
legend that one boy had positively pledged
his leathern small-clothes a relic of monastic
costume against a pair of tumbler pigeons),
subjected the contrabandist to the punish-
ment of the rod.

Lest I should be betrayed into an elaborate
essay upon the different forms of barter
current among ancient and modern nations
from Hercules swopping the deliverance of
Troy from the Sea Monster against Laome-
don's thorough-bred horses ; from the mess
of pottage for which Esau pledged his birth-
right to Jacob, to the swops in usage between
the burghers of the Manhattoes and the
Indians in the early days of the colony of
New York when a Dutchman's foot was
by mutual agreement understood to weigh
ten pounds I may as well, and at once,
explain what connection exists between
swops and Mr. Pope's friend.

Some friends of mine who live, as I do, in
a large gloomy hotel in the Quartier Latin,
and in the fair city of Lutetia ; when the
weather is too wet for a walk on the boule-
vards or for study at the Bibliotheque
Imp6riale ; when the Palais Eoyale has no
delights, the billiard-tables no charms, and
the English newspapers (as it frequently
happens) have been stopped by the police,
and there is nothing worth reading (which
there scarcely ever is) in the French journals ;
when I myself have invoked the Muses in
vain, and find that they persist in keeping
themselves coy at the very top of Mount
Parnassus Lempriere only knows how
many thousand miles off; and when my
neighbour the doctor with the beard has
deferred till to-morrow his visit to the dis
secting-room of the clamart (which visit he
has been deferring about three hundred and
forty times a-year for the last three) ; are
accustomed to meet in a cheerful sederuut,
and kill the hours with swop. Few things
are too exalted or too humbie for our com-
mercial interchanges ; and a complete da-
guerreotype apparatus has been known to be
in the market at the same time with a vil-
lauous clay-pipe never before worth more
than a sous, but now supposed to possess
some extrinsic value by having been smoked
till it is very dirty. Swops are also made of
boots, clothes, small articles of jewellery,
postage-stamps (which are always in great
demand among foreign sojourners in Paris,
and though always on sale cannot always be
bought), pomatum, surgical instruments, and
especially books. For, a studious man cannot

read, with pleasure, any but his own
books ; and as his means forbid him to
accumulate a large library, swop conies to
his aid very usefully and pleasantly ; and
when he has well read and meditated one
book, through, he can exchange it for another.
The prices demanded and the value placed
upon articles are frequently somewhat fanciful
and capricious. Coals are not always coals,
but occasionally run up almost as high as
diamonds ; and it is now and then necessary
to threaten an appeal to the tribunal of
Ca?sar, represented by the marchand d'habits
or old clothesman, who is always hovering
about the courtyard below, like a vulture,
with three hats and a moustache. I recently
became the possessor, at a perfectly exorbitant
rate of barter, of a certain cross-barred
velvet waistcoat the transaction being
saddled with the additional disadvantage of
its being impossible to wear the garment
with propriety in any of the capitals of
Europe in which I propose to take up my
residence. The waistcoat (which would be
really a most splendid and effectively ornate
article of apparel if it had a new back and
were looked after a little about the pockets
and button-holes), is as well known in the
Hue du Palais de Laecken at Brussels, as on the
Boulevard des Italiens ; in the Cafe Grecco
in Borne, as on the Glacis at Vienna. It has
been on the press in London on the manly
chest of more than one sub-editor at diffe-
rent intervals during the last forty months ;
and, as I am not just now prepared with the
passage-money to Constantinople (and even
there I daresay our own correspondent, come
from the Crimea to Pera to purchase a
stove, a fur tippet, and a pair of American
over-shoes, would recognise it immediately),
the only European capital where I can see a
chance of wearing it without the risk of
detection in having second-hand clothes upon
me, is Venice. I hope to go there shortly ;
and should you happen to go there too, and
see an untidy man in a cross-barred velvet
waistcoat sauntering about the Place of St.
Mark, gazing at the dusky Ducal Palace,
and the muddy canal, and the black gon-
dolas, you may with tolerable certitude
affirm the wearer to be the writer of ths
paper.

Swop and the cross-barred vest were the
means of my being introduced to Mr. Pope's
friend. For, as I grumbled a little at the
terms demanded for the transfer of the wais-
coat, its original possessor, touched, perhaps
by compunction, perhaps by generosity,
offered to throw into the bargain as a bonne -
bouche, pot-de-bin, or bonus, a copy of
Fenton. " And who the Blank," I asked,
"is Feiiton?"

Whereupon, he handed me a little starved
duodecimo volume, with tarnished gilt edges,
and bound in mottled calf, the ragged state of
which suggested that several penknives of the
last century had been sharpened upon it.

Charles Dickens.]

ME. POPE'S FRIEND.

Opening it, I found, by the title page,
the book to be The Poetical Works of Elijah
Fenton : With the Life of the Author. Em-
bellished with Superb Engravings. London :
Printed for the Booksellers. Seventeen
hundred and odd. The superb engravings
I found comprised in one bald little plate,
in which an overgrown Cupid was repre-
sented fighting in a most ungallant manner
for the possession of a bow with a lady with
powdered hair, a short waist, and no shoes or
stockings. The superb engraving was sur-
rounded by a border, in which more bows and
arrows, a comic mask, some clouds, the
Roman fasces, a wreath of laurel, and the
.Royal arms, were tastefully intermixed.
Lastly, on the fly-leaf of the cover, it was
recorded that Samuel Burrell was the happy
possessor of Fenton fifty-seven years ago
said Samuel, in the pride of possession, ex-
pressing the most uncharitable wishes towards
whoever stole this book. Beneath, there was
some little private trade-mark a large
figure of four and a small d; which, together,
led me to suppose that the book must have
been, in the long run, stolen from Burrell, or
that after his death it had been, at the sale
of his effects, disposed of by public auction,
and that ultimately it had been offered for
sale at a bookstall for fourpence.

Now, who was Fenton ? I hope ladies and
gentlemen will not be ashamed to avow
their ignorance if they never heard of Fenton
before. A man may have read eight hours
a day for half a century and have never
read Fenton : a man may be as wise as
Solomon, and Fenton still be a sealed book to
him. I came across, the other day, some re-
marks of Fuller's about schoolmasters. He
mentions " that gulf of learning, Bishop
Andrews." How many ordinarily well-read
men could tell anything now about Bishop
Andrews, and his gulf of learning ? The
gulf has swallowed him up altogether, and
he is learned at the bottom of Lethe.

All that I had ever known of Fenton be-
fore I took his poetical works in the swop
with the cross-barred waistcoat, was that his
life had been written by Doctor Johnson in
the Lives of the Poets, and that I had always
skipped it in turning over that voluminous
work in quest of the glorious biographies of
Milton and Savage ; next, that Fenton had
something to do with Pope. Whether he was
Pope's Homer, or one of the heroes of Pope's
Dunciad, I was, Heaven help me, quite uncer-
tain. I am proud now, after studying his life,
to inform my readers that he was Mr. Pope's

j* * 1 *

mend.

I know, now too, that Mr. Pope's friend was
the hero of a joke a joke, not quite seasoned
enough for the spicy company of Joe Miller,
but risible enough to find admission to some
" Wit's companion," or "Collection of humour-
ous and diverting anecdotes."

"Fenton," says the historian, "was one
day in the company of Broome, his associate,

and Ford* a clergyman, at that time too well
known, whose abilities, instead of furnishing
convivial merriment to the voluptuous and
dissolute, might have enabled him to excel
among the virtuous and the wise. They de-
termined all to see " The Merry Wives of
Windsor," which was acted that night ; and
Fenton, as a dramatic poet, took them all to
the stage door, where the doorkeeper inquir-
ing who they were, was told they were three
very necessary men : Ford, Broome, and Fettf
ton ; as composing a part of the characters
in the comedy : and it is to be observed that
the name in the play which Pope restored to
Brook was then Broome. It is not stated
whether the door-keeper admitted the three
very necessary men for their joke's sake ; nor
do I know of what stuff, penetrable or not,
the janitors of theatres were made of in the
reign of Queen Anne ; but I should not
counsel any humourist of the present day to
essay penetration through the stage door of
a London theatre on the strength of a witti-
cism. I am afraid, even, that the funniest of
government clerks, if his name happened to
be Box, and his friend's, in the post-office,
Cox, would be sternly refused ingress at the
stage-door of the Lyceum, were he to claim
admission on the score of self and friend
being two " very necessary men."

Let us see how Elijah Fenton came to be
Mr. Pope's friend, and what his friendship
brought him. It appears by *my book, the
narratives of Jacobs and Shiels, and the
Life by Doctor Johnson, that Elijah was de-
scended from an ancient and honourable
family at Shelton, near Newcastle-under-
Lyne; that his lather possessed a considerable
estate, but that he, being a younger son, was
precluded from heirship ; was educated at a
grammar school ; then entered as a student
at Jesus College, Cambridge^ ; but retaining
an attachment to the family of the Stuarts
refused to qualify himself for public employ-
ment by taking the necessary oaths, and left
the university without a degree. The mala-
droit Elijah thus managed to make a stumble
upon the very threshold of life. As a non-
juror he was not even eligible for the post of
a tide-waiter, or a parish constable. Medio-
crity seemed determined to mark him for her
own.

" As obscurity," his biographer finely re-
marks, " is the inseparable attendant upon
poverty " (of which I am not quite certain,
though I know that poverty is the inseparable
attendant upon obscurity), "the incidents of
his life cannot be accurately traced from year
to year, or the means traced from which he
derived a support." With what sonorous
comprehensiveness does the historian gloss
over Mr. Pope's friend's probably desperate
battle for bread. Poor Elijah ! Who shall say
how many times he slept upon bulks, or
among the cabbage stalks in Fleet Market,

Hogarth's " Parson Ford."

HOUSEHOLD WOKDS.

[Condncted by

or walked the streets all night shelterless !
How many times he refected his famished
sides at a St. Giles's cook-shop, or fancied he
could choke, like Otway, with a penny roll, if
he only had a penny to purchase a roll to
choke himself withal. Did he ever enact
griffins, ships, or Towers of Babel, at the
u motion " plays at Bartholomew Fair, like
that other poet, the unhappy Elkanah Settle?
Was he ever one of Swift's Little Britain
translators that lay three in a bed ] Was he
one of the historians that Mr. Curll kept at
the public house in Holborn, and fed on tripe
and strong waters ? He lived somehow this
poor non-juring mediocre man ; for, he lived
to be tutor to the Earl of Orrery, the re-
nowned translator of Pliny, and afterwards
to be master of the charity school at Seven
Oaks in Kent, which situation he quitted in
seventeen hundred and ten, through the per-
suasion of Mi-. St. John, afterwards Lord
Bolingbroke, who made him promises of a
more honourable and profitable employment.
"In process of time," I quote his biographer
here, " as he became more and more attached
to the muses, whom he had courted from early
life, he became more moderate in his political
opinions ; for though a non-juror he was
lavish in his eulogiums on Queen Anne, and
extolled the name of Marlborough beyond
the very echo of applause." Poor Fenton !
was he not getting hungry ? Was it not
natural for the poetical non-juror, condemned
to teach the charity-school boys of Seven
Oaks, and to dance the young Earl of Orrery
like a bear through his humanities Ah ! if
the truth were known, I will be bound that
honest Elijah had more to do with Pliny angli-
cised than the renowned translator cared to ad-
mit to yearn a little after the loaves and
fishes ? Though Queen Anne occupied the
throne of King James, is it not natural that
an empty stomach of years' standing should
at last thaw the Jacobite ice into a stream of
lavish eulogiums, and tune the High Tory
harp to extol the name of the Whig Marl-
borough beyond the very echo of applause ?
Even more than this did Elijah do. He tes-
tified his regard for the Churchill family, in
Florelio, an elegiac pastoral on the death of
the great captain's son, the Marquis of Bland-
ford ; in which Doctor Johnson observes, " he
could be prompted only by respect or kindness,
for neither the Duke nor Dutchess desired
the praise, or liked the cost of patron-
age." I am sorry to say that I am at issue
with Bolt Court upon this point. John
Churchill, the great Duke of Marlborough,
could swallow anything. Blue ribbons, gar-
ters, places, pensions, coronets, palaces, par-
liamentary grants, pilferings from the soldiers'
pay, and profits upon their shirts and fire-
locks ; his great avarice had stomach for them
all He was more bespattered with praise
(as, afterwards with obloquy), than any man
of his age ; and it is to be presumed that he
liked as much to be praised as to be General-

issimo of the allied forces, and proprietor of
Blenheim. And his Duchess "Old Sarah,"
is the Doctor to assert that she dis-
liked praise ? Was she not a woman was
she not a Duchess a Duchess, living in the
days when Duchesses were estimated by
poets (at so many gold pieces per line) as
something very little short of divinities!
It might have been the Duchess of Marl-
borough's chaplain (for reverend Praisers were
multiplied exceedingly in those days), who,
preaching a funeral sermon over a deceased
Peeress, took occasion to inform his congrega-
tion that " he had no doubt that her Grace was
at that moment occupying that, distinguished
position in Heaven to which her exalted rank,
and shining virtues entitled her ! " Close-fisted,
moreover, as Duchess Sarah may have been,
she would scarcely have grudged a meal of vic-
tuals in the kitchen of Marlborough House,
and half a score of broad pieces to the author
of Florelio.

In seventeen hundred and nine, Elijah
Fenton acquired the esteem of the literati.
He also acquired the esteem of Southerne,
and lastly the friendship of a little crooked
catholic gentleman, who lived in a little house
with a grotto at Twickenham, from whence,
now and then, he rode to town in. a little
coach and who was called Alexander Pope.
The little waspish, spiteful, kind-hearted bard
was the first to patronise and pat on the back
the forlorn Elijah. They must have been a
curious couple. Fenton was a tall, bulky,
gross, lazy man, on whom his landlady's criti-
cism was, " that he would lie a-bed, and be
fed with a spoon." His clothes were not
good ; his wig was probably uncombed, his
shoes down at heel, his buckles rusty, his
steenkirk unbleached. He was " very sluggish
and sedentary," says the biographer, " rose
late, and when he once had sat down to his
books, would not get up again." He must
have been a sort of dull, heavy book, this
Elijah, in unreadable type, that went down to
oblivion with most of its leaves uncut.

Elijah was not tired, poor fellow, of dedica-
tions yet. To a collection of poems called
the Oxford and Cambridge Verses he prefixed
a very elegant dedication to Lionel, Earl of
Dorset and Middlesex ; and in seventeen
hundred and sixteen he produced his Ode to
Lord Gower. Mr. Pope hastened to show
his friendship on the occasion, by stamping
the poem with his approbation. He pro-
nounced it to be the next ode in the English
language to Dryden's Alexander's Feast.
Here are a few of Elijah's lines, taken at
random from the Ode :

From Volga's banks th' imperious Czar
LeaJs forth his puny troops to war,
Foud of the softer southern sky :
The Soldan galls th' Illyrian coast,
But soon the miscreant mooney host
Before the victor cross shall fly.

Humph ! Miscreant mooney host. Again :

Charles Dickens.]

ME. POPE'S FRIEND.

O Gower ! through all that destined space
What breath the pow'rs allot to me
Shall sing the virtues of thy race,
United and complete in thee.

Fancy the unfortunate bard exhausting
his lungs until the day of his death, in one
unceasing paean of praise of the Bight Hon-
ourable John Lord Gower ! The Ode ends
with a description of "Honour's Bright
Dome," where

Phocion, Lselius, Capel, Hyde,
With Falkland seated near his side,

prophesy the happier fame of his Lordship ;
while the muse to receive his radiant name,
selects a whiter space.

The Ode to Lord Gower, I opine, can only
be called the next to Alexander's Feast
upon the principle that when there are two
boys in a class and one is at the top of it, the
second boy is the next to him.

Mr. Pope's friendship soon afterwards
showed itself to Elijah in recommending him
to the notice of Mr. Secretary Craggs, who
engaged him as a sort of half-secretary, half-
literary companion. The poet had now had
some prospect of ease and plenty, for, to
quote Johnson again, " Fenton had merit, and
Craggs had generosity ; " which is as much
as to say that Fenton had feet and Craggs
boots ; or Fenton a stomach and Craggs beef.
But Fate never seemed tired of making Elijah
a rival of Murad the unlucky; for, Mr. Craggs
besides having generosity had also the small
pox of which he died, leaving Mr. Pope's un-
fortunate friend stranded again.

Mr. Pope, untiring in his friendship, soon
afterwards set Fenton hard at work in trans-
lating the Odyssey, in which he had for coad-
jutor another friend of Mr. Pope Mr.
Broome. Fenton translated four books ;
Broome translated eight, besides writing all
the notes, "The judges of poetry," says
Johnson "have never been able to distinguish
their books from those of Pope." Lucky
Fenton and Broome ! if they had not had the
advantage of Mr. Pope's friendship, or had
failed in their translations, I wince to think
what pitiable figures Mr. Pope's friends would
have cut in Mr. Pope's Dunciad. Gildon's
debts and Dennis's want of dinners would
have been as nothing compared to the scarifi-
cations they would have received.

In seventeen twenty-three, Fenton did
what most dull men, and all unlucky men,
do. You may think I mean that he mar-
ried. Not exactly that, but he wrote a play.

It was a ponderous production a tragedy
founded upon the story of Herod and Ma-
riamne, related in the Spectator, and taken
from Josephus. Marianme is written in lines
of ten syllables. It is long, slow, lazy, dull,
uniform a very Bridgewater canal of a play.
Fenton is said to have been assisted by
Southerne, with many hints as to incident and
stage effect ; the navigation of the canal was
not much improved thereby, however.

When Mariamne was presented to Colley
ibber, the monarch of the stage not only
rejected it, but added insolence to illiberality,
advising the author to direct his attention to
some industrious pursuit, in order to obtain
that subsistence which he in vain expected
from his poetical efforts. I suppose he ad-
vised Fenton to turn to bellows-mending for
a livelihood. The manager was insolent, as
managers ordinarily are ; but not altogether
wrong. Managers seldom are.

However, Mariamne, produced at the
rival theatre, succeeded, even beyond its
author's expectations ; the profits accruing
from it amounted to nearly a thousand pounds.
Here we have at last, Elijah Fenton, the
favourite of fortune. After ignoring his
ixistence for years, the fickle goddess at length
railed upon him. A thousand golden
pounds ! What did Elijah with his lump of
money 1 Did he purchase an annuity ; did he
invest his capital in South Sea Stock like
Gay and win or lose more thousands ; did
he lend it out at usury, or hide it in a hole in
the ground 1 Alas ! no. Fortune threw the
lump of gold at him much as one pelts a
dog with marrow-bones. She hurt him while
he enriched him. The thousand pounds were
not destined to become the foundation of a
plum or even to ba modestly put out at in-
terest to gild the tops of the trees of honest
Elijah's winter. It is recorded that our
author appropriated the sum to the dis-
charge of a debt, incurred by purchasing-
many expensive articles, for supporting an
appearance necessary for his attendance at
court.

Oh vanity ! Oh fallacy of human wishes,
hopes, and labours ! Oh gold, turned to dry
leaves ! A few glass coaches, full bottomed
wigs, silver hilted swords, clouded canes, and
red heeled shoes ; a diamond snuff-box, per-
haps ; a china monster or two, given as
presents to Lady Bab or the Honourable
Miss Betty ; a ride in my Lord's chariot ; a
card for my Lady's Drum ; a night at the
Groom-porters' ; a squeeze at St. James's at
a birthday drawing-room; and Elijah's only
windfall had taken to itself wings, and flown
away !

In vain, Elijah, didst thou afterwards edit an
edition of Milton's Poems, with a biography
of the poet, written with tenderness and
integrity. In vain didst thou publish an
elegant edition of Waller, with notes so
drearily extended by long quotations from
Clarendon, bringing upon thee in after years
the censure of the stern critic who wrote
Easselas ; and who says grimly that, " illus-
trations drawn from a book so easily con-
sulted, should be made by reference rather
than transcription." Fast wert thou sinking
into the miserable condition of a bookseller's
hack ; when the friendly Pope once more
stepped forth, only indeed to rescue thee from
Grub Street, by restoring thee to the quon-
dam profession of bear-leader.

HOUSEHOLD WOEDS.

Poor Fenton seems through life to have
been endeavouring to shake out of his hand
the birch and ferule of the pedagogue, but
always failed. The last kind office done for
him by his friend at Twickenham was to
procure him employment with Lady Trumbal,
widow of Sir William Trumbal, to superin-
tend the education of her son, whom he first
directed in his studies at home, and after-
wards * attended " to Cambridge. When the
young heir was fairly licked into shape, Elijah
was not turned adrift, but, being found a
harmless, easy, useful, willing kind of man,
her ladyship retained him in her household
at Easthampton, in Berkshire, as auditor of
her accounts. He passed the remainder of
his life in a " pleasing retirement," and died
at the seat of Lady Trumbal in seventeen
hundred and thirty. He had written a
tragedy, translated the Odyssey, educated the
" renowned translator of Plyiy," appeared at
Court, produced an Ode "next to Alexander's
Feast," possessed a thousand pounds, and
been the friend of Mr. Pope. He ended his
days " in a pleasing retirement " in a posi-
tion something between that of a pensioner
and a house-steward ; checking the accounts
of Mrs. Frugal the housekeeper ; auditing
the incomings and outgoings of Mr. Spigot,
the butler's cellar, and Dorothy Draggletail's
dairy. I dare say he took the vice-chair at
a rent- dinner with much dignity and affa-
bility, and there wore those famous court
clothes, in the purchase of which his thousand
pounds had melted away like smoke.

Mr. Pope's friendship did not end with his
friend's life. He behaved most handsomely
to his memory. In a letter to his other
friend, Mr. Broome, he says, speaking of
Fenton, " No man better bore the approaches
of his dissolution (as I am told), or with less
ostentation yielded up his being. . . He died
as he had lived, with secret though sufficient
contentment. . . As to his other affairs, he
died poor but honest (!), leaving no debts or
legacies, except of a few pounds to Mr.
Trumbal and my lady, in token of respect,
gratitude, and mutual esteem. I shall with
pleasure take upon nie to draw this amiable,
quiet, deserving, unpretending Christian and
philosophical character in his epitaph."

Here is the philosophical character as
di-awn by Mr. Pope :

This modest stone, what few vain marbles can,

May truly say, Here lies an honest man ;

A poet blessed beyond the poet's fate,

Whom Heaven kept secret from the proud and great,

Foe to loud praise and friend to learned case,

Content with science in the vale of peace.

Calmly he looked on either side, and here

Saw nothing to regret, or there to fear ;

From nature's temp' rate feast rose satisfied,

Thank'd Heav'n that he liv'd and that he died.

Such is the testimony of Pope.
I am sorry ; I really am very sorry ; but I
must add one more extract from a letter

which does not place the friendship of Mr.
Pope in quite so shining a light.

" Mr. Fenton," says Lord Orrery, in a letter
to a friend written in seventeen hundred and
fifty-six, " was my tutor ; he taught me to read
English, and attended me through the Latin
tongue from the age of seven to thirteen
years. He translated double the number of
books in the Odyssey that Pope has owned.
His reward was a trifle an arrant trifle. He
has even told me that he thought Pope feared
him more than he loved him. He had no
opinion of Pope's heart, and declared him to
be, in the words of Bishop Atterbury, ' mens
curva in corpore curvo ' a crooked mind in
a crooked body. Poor Fenton died of a
great easy chair and > two bottles of port a
day. He was one of the worthiest and most
modest men that ever belonged to the court
of Apollo."

Such is the testimony of Lord Orrery. I
w.ouder whose is the true one Pope's
or his !

So, this is all I have to set down about
Mr. Pope's friend. I hope a great many
people know much more about him than *I
do ; should the contrary be the case, some
day, when the lives of Obscurorum Virorum
come to be written, these pages may serve
the historian in some stead.

SUPPOSING.

SUPPOSING that a gentleman named MR,
SIDNEY HERBERT were to get up in the House
of Commons, to make the best case he could
of a system of mismanagement that had filled
all England with grief and shame :

And supposing that this gentleman were to
expatiate to the House of Commons on the
natural helplessness of our English soldiers,
consequent on their boots being made by one
man, their clothes by another, their houses
by another, and so forth blending a senti-
mental political economy with Eed Tape, in
a .very singular manner :

I wonder, in such case, whether it would
be out of order to suggest the homely fact
that indeed it is not the custom to enlist the
English Soldier in his cradle ; that there
really are instances of his having been some-
thing else before becoming a soldier; and
that perhaps there is not a Eegiment in the
service but includes within its ranks, a num-
ber of men more or less expert in every
handicraft-trade under the Sun.

This day is published, for greater convenience, and
cheapness of binding,

THE FIRST TEN YOLUMES

HOUSEHOLD WORDS,

IN FIVE HANDSOME VOLUMES,
WITH A GENERAL INDEX TO THE WHOLE.

Price of the Set, thus bound in Five Double instead of Ten
Single Volumes, 2 10s. Od.

Publihed at the Office, No. 1G. IVellmmon Street .North, Strand. Printed by BR*OIIUI & EVAHI, \VhltefrirB, London.

"Familiar in their Mouths as HOUSEHOLD WORDS." SHAKESPEARE.

HOUSEHOLD WORDS.

A WEEKLY JOURNAL,
CONDUCTED BY CHARLES DICKENS.

- 256.]

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 1855.

[Pl

PRINCE BULL. A FAIRY TALE.

ONCE upon a time, and of course it was in
the Golden Age, and I hope you may know
when that was, for I am sure I don't, though
I have tried hard to find out, there lived in a
rich and fertile country, a powerful Prince
whose name was BULL. Pie had gone through
a great deal of fighting in his time, about all
sorts of things, including nothing ; but, had
gradually settled down to be a steady, peace-
able, good-natured, corpulent, rather sleepy
Prince.

This Pnissant Prince was married to a
lovely Princess whose name was Fair Free-
dom. She had brought him a large fortune,
and had borne him an immense number of
children, and had set them to spinning, and
farming, and engineering, and soldiering, and
sailoring, and tloctoring, and lawyering, and
preaching, and all kinds of trades. The coffers
of Prince Bull were full of treasure, his cellars
were crammed with delicious wines from all
parts of the world, the richest gold and silver
plate that ever was seen adorned his side-
boards, his sous were strong, his daughters
were handsome, and in short you might have
supposed that if there ever lived upon earth
a fortunate and happy Prince, the name of
that Prince, take him for all iu all, was as-
suredly Prince Bull.

But, appearances, as we all know, are not
always to be trusted far from it ; and if they
had led you to this conclusion respecting
Prince Bull, they would have led you wrong,
as they often have led me.

For, this good Prince had two sharp thorns
in his pillow, two hard knobs in his crown, two
heavy loads on his mind, two unbridled night-
mares in his sleep, two rocks ahead in his
course. He could not by any means get ser-
vants to suit him, and he had a tyrannical
old godmother whose name was Tape.

She was a Fairy, this Tape, and was a
bright red all over. She was disgustingly
prim and formal, and could never bend herself
a hair's breadth this way or that way, out of
her naturally crooked shape. But, she was
very potent in her wicked art. She could
stop the fastest thing in the world, change
\ he strongest thing into the weakest, and the
most useful into the most useless. To do this
she had only to put her cold hand iipon it,

and repeat her own name, Tape. Then it
withered away.

At the Court of Prince Bull at least I
don't mean literally at his court, because he
was a very genteel Prince, and readily yielded
to his godmother when she always reserved
that for his hereditary Lords and Ladies in
the dominions of Prince Bull, among the great
mass of the community who were called in the
language of that polite country the Mobs and
the Snobs, were a number of very ingenious
men, who were always busy with some inven-
tion or other, for promoting the prosperity of
the Prince's subjects, and augmenting the
Prince's power. But, whenever they sub-
mitted their models for the Prince's approval,
his godmother stepped forward, laid her hand
upon them, and said " Tape." Hence it came
to pass, that when any particularly good dis-
covery was made, the discoverer usually car-
ried it off to some other Prince, in foreign
parts, who had no old godmother who said
Tape. This was not on the whole an advan-
tageous state of things for Prince Bull, to the
best of my understanding.

The worst of it, was, that Prince Bull had
in course of years lapsed into such a state of
subjection to this unlucky godmother, that he
never made any serious effort to rid himself
of her tyranny. I have said this was the
worst of it, but there I was wrong, because
there is a worse consequence still, behind.
The Prince's numerous family became so
downright sick and tired of Tape, that when
they should have helped the Prince out of the
difficulties into which that evil creature led
him, they fell into a dangerous habit of
moodily keeping away from him in an impas-
sive and indifferent manner, as though they
had quite forgotten that no harm could
happen to the Prince their father, without its
inevitably affecting themselves.

Such was the aspect of affairs at the court
of Prince Bull, when this great Prince found
it necessary to go to war with Prince Bear.
He had been for some time very doubtful of
his servants, who, besides being indolent and
addicted to enriching their families at his
expense, domineered over him dreadfully ;
threatening to discharge themselves if thej)
were found the least fault with, pretending
that they had done a wonderful amount
of work when they had done nothing,

VOL. XI.

256

HOUSEHOLD WORDS.

[Conducted by

making the most unmeaning speeches that
ever were heard in the Prince's name, and
uniformly showing themselves to be very
inefficient indeed. Though, that some of
them had excellent characters from previous
situations is not to be denied. Well ! Prince
Bull called his servants together, and said to
them one and all, " Send out my army against
Prince Bear. Clothe it, arm it, feed it, pro-
vide it with all necessaries and contingencies,
and I will pay the piper ! Do your duty
by my brave troops," said the Prince, "and do
it well, and I will pour my treasure out like
water, to defray the cost. Who ever heard
ME complain of money well laid out ! " Which
indeed he had reason for saying, inasmuch as
he was well known to be a truly generous
and munificent Prince.

When the servants heard those words, they
sent out the army against Prince Bear, and
they set the army tailors to work, and the
army provision merchants, and the makers
of guns both great and small, and the gun-
powder makers, and the makers of ball, shell,
and shot ; and they bought up all manner of
stores and ships, without troubling their
heads about the price, and appeared to be so
busy that the good Prince rubbed his hands,
and (using a favourite expression of his),
said, " It's all right ! " But, while they were
thus employed, the Prince's godmother, who
was a great favourite with those servants,
looked in upon them continually all day long,
and whenever she popped in her head at the
door, said, " How do you do, my children ?
What are you doing here 1 " " Official busi-
ness, godmother." " Oho ! " says this wicked
Fairy. " Tape ! " And then the business
all went wrong, whatever it was, and the
servants' heads became so addled and mud-
dled that they thought they were doing
wonders.

Now, this was very bad conduct on the
part of the vicious old nuisance, and she
ought to have been strangled, even if she had
stopped here ; but, she didn't stop here, as
you shall learn. For, a number of the Prince's
subjects, being very fond of the Prince's
army who were the bravest of men, assembled
together and provided all manner of eatables
and drinkables, and books to read, and clothes
to wear, and tobacco to smoke, and candles to
burn, and nailed them up in great packing-
cases, and put them aboard a great many
ships, to be carried out to that brave army
in the cold and inclement country where
they were fighting Prince Bear. Then, up
comes this wicked Fairy as the ships were
weighing anchor, and says, " How do you do,
my children ? What are you doing here 1 "
" We are going with all these comforts to
the army, godmother." " Oho ! " says she.
"A pleasant voyage, my darlings. Tape ! "
And from that time forth, those enchanted
ships went sailing, against wind and tide and
rhyme and reason, round and round tbe
world, and whenever they touched at any

port were ordered off immediately, and could
never deliver their cargoes anywhere.

This, again, was very bad conduct on the
part of the vicious old nuisance, and she
ought to have been strangled for it if she had
done nothing worse ; but, she did something
worse still, as you shall learn. For, she got
astride of an official broomstick, and muttered
as a spell these two sentences " On Her Ma-
jesty's service," and "I have the honour to
be, sir, your most obedient servant," and
presently alighted in the cold and inclement
country where the army of Prince Bull were
encamped to fight the army of Prince Bear.
On the seashore of that country, she found
piled together, a number of houses for the
army to live in, and a quantity of provisions
for the army to live upon, and a quantity of
clothes for the army to wear : while, sitting
in the mud gazing at them, were a group of
officers as red to look at as the wicked old
woman herself. So, she said to one of
j them, " Who are you, my darling, and how
do yow do 1 " " I am the Quarter-master
General's Department, godmother, and I am
pretty well." Then she said to another,
" Who are you, my darling, and how do you
do ? " "I am the Commissariat Depart-
ment, godmother, and / am pretty well."
Then she said to another, " Who are you, my
darling, and how do you do ] " " I am the
head of the Medical Department, godmother,
and 1 am pretty well." Then, she said to
some gentlemen scented with lavender, who
kept themselves at a great distance from the
rest, " And who are you, my pretty pets, and
how do you do 1 " And they answered, " We-
aw-are-the-aw- Staff- aw -Department, god-
mother, and we are very well indeed." " I
am delighted to see you all, my beauties,"
says this wicked old Fairy, " Tape ! " Upon
that, the houses, clothes, and provisions, all
mouldered away ; and the soldiers who were
sound, fell sick; and the soldiers who were
sick, died miserably ; and the noble army of
Prince Bull perished.

When the dismal news of his great loss
was carried to the Prince, he suspected his
godmother very much indeed ; but, he knew
that his servants must have kept company with
the malicious beldame, and must have given
way to her, and therefore he resolved to turn
those servants out of their places. So, he
called to him a Roebuck who had the gift of
speech, and he said, " Good Boebuck, tell
them they must go." So, the good Eoebuck
delivered his message, so like a man that you
might have supposed him to be nothing but
a man, and they were turned out but, not
without warning, for that they had had a long
time.

And now comes the most extraordinary part
of the history of this Prince. When he had
turned out those servants, of course he
wanted others. What was his astonishment
to find that in all his dominions, which con-
tained no less than twenty-seven millions' of

Charles Dickens.]

A BOTTLE OF CHAMPAGNE.

people, there were not above five-and-twenty
servants altogether ! They were so lofty
about it, too, that instead of discussing
whether they should hire themselves as ser-
vants to Prince Bull, they turned things topsy-
turvy, and considered whether, as a favour,
they should hire Prince Bull to be their
master ! While they were arguing this
point among themselves quite at their
leisure, the wicked old red Fairy was inces-
santly going up and down, knocking at the
doors of twelve of the oldest of the five-
and-twenty, who were the oldest inhabi-
tants in all that country, and whose united
ages amounted to one thousand, saying,
" Will you hire Prince Bull for your master ?
Will you hire Prince Ball for your master 1 "
'To which, one answered, " I will, if next
door will ;" and another, " I won't, if over the
way does ;" and another, " I can't, if he, she,
or they, might, could, would, or should."
And . all this time Prince Bull's affairs were
.going to rack and ruin.

At last, Prince Bull in the height of his per-
plexity assumed a thoughtful face, as if he were
struck by au entirely new idea. The wicked
old Fairy, seeing this, was at his elbow directly,
and said, "How do you do, my Prince, and what
are you thinking of?" "I am thinking, god-
mother," says he, " that among all the seven-
and-twenty millions of my subjects who have
never been in service, there are men of intellect
and business who have made me very famous
both among my friends and enemies." " Aye,
truly 1 " says the Fairy. " Aye, truly," says
the " Prince. " And what then 1 " says the
Fairy. " Why, then," says he, "since the re-
gular old class of servants do so ill, are so
hard to get, and carry it with so high a hand,
perhaps I might try to make good servants
of some of these." The words had no sooner
passed his lips than she returned, chuckling,
"You think so, do you ? Indeed, my Prince ?
Tape ! " Thereupon he directly forgot
what he was thinking of, and cried out
lamentably to the old servants, " O, do come
and hire your poor old master ! Pray do !
On any terms ! "

And this, for the present, finishes the story
of Prince Bull. I wish I could wind it up by
saying that he lived happy ever afterwards,
but I cannot in my conscience do so ; for,
with Tape at his elbow, and his estranged
children fatally 1'epelled by her from coming
near him, I do not, to tell you the plain
truth, believe in the possibility of such an
end to it.

A BOTTLE OF CHAMPAGNE.

IN childhood we have all of us revelled in
tales about magical vases and marvellous
bottles, whence issued irritated genii or face-
tious devils-on-two-sticks ; and our won-
der was, and still remains, how they man-
aged to get into them. In manhood, and
sometimes too soon in youth, our attention

ias been occasionally riveted by the wonders
performed by a bottle of champagne ; but I
venture to assert that not one person in a
aundred has the least idea of how much
there is inside one of these mystic phials, nor
by what elaborate and cabalistic incantations
the imprisoned sprites were confined therein.
With some amount of perseverance and cou-
rage, I have penetrated to the subterranean
laboratories, and have witnessed how the
reluctant demons are thrust, and kept fast
prisoners, within the glass walls of a
cylindro-conical dungeon. I have stalked
through part of the six English miles of
cellar, and traversed sundry of the fifty-five
;alleries, the longest extending about four
lundred yards ; I have stared at some thou-
sands of the three million bottles that are wait-
ing to get out and be drunk from the bright,
barrack -like establishments of Messieurs
Jacquesson et Fils, of Chalons-sur-Marne ; I
have descended, like a second ./Eneas, to the
lowest deep of the Tartarean grottoes pos-
sessed by Messrs. Moe't and Chandon, of Eper-
nay ; I have gone down the steps beside which
a black marble tablet, with letters of gold,
informs the visitor that Napoleon the Grand
did exactly the same thing, in I did not
think it necessary to note what year ; I
dived through stories of thrice-triple caves ;
I reached an ancient portion of catacomb-
like cellar no longer in use, which they
call Siberia : I tapped at the door where-
in ice is treasured, not only to chill the
sample wines of entertainment for the pro-
prietor's table, but for more important pur-
poses, as you shall hear ; and I have emerged
by the stairs where another gilt tablet in-
formed me that Jerome Bonaparte, ex-king
of Westphalia, had had the honour of pre-
ceding me. After a good hour- and -half's
scientific ramble in the bowels of the earth,
the air and sunshine were a delicious treat,
worth all the bottles of champagne in the
world ; but still it appeared to me that a
few details might be useful to the public,
if only to help housekeepers to make and
manage their gooseberry wine.

To begin with the province of Cham-
pagne itself: there is poor Champagne and
rich Champagne. If you traverse the former
from south to north, you have a series of
tiresome plains, which are not exactly flat,
but slightly hollow and undulating The
face of the country, even where abundantly
rich, is far from being prepossessing in its
appearance, unlike its rival Burgundy. The
laud puts you in mind of an enormous sheet
held out to catch some giant Garagantua,
who is expected soon'to jump down from the
skies and display his traditional powers of
consumption. With patience, you at last
reach the city of Troyes, an old-fashioned
town, a hundred years behindhand, with but
rare foot-pavements and with plenty of open
wells in the streets. Many of the houses are
built of wood framework, filled up with plaster,

HOUSEHOLD WORDS.

[Conducted by

like those we see at Shrewsbury and Chester.
Bonneterie is the staple manufacture, com-
prising stockings, nightcaps, gloves, and mit-
tens. Numerous stocking-frames are seen at
work, as well as the circular tricot, or knit-
ting round by machinery. A Champenois,
(but un-French) fashion, to be witnessed at
Troyes, is the custom of employing young
men to act as chambermaids. Altogether,
once in one's life is often enough to have
been at Troyes, in spite of its ancient im-
portance and repute. After another long,
dull, monotonous ride over the same ever-
lasting open plains, you perceive a pair of
twin steeples in a verdant hollow. You then
descend, through pleasant and promising en-
virons, to the fortified town of Vitry le Fran-
9ais ; wherein all the streets run at right
angles to each other from a central square,
with a fountain in the middle. If you eat,
drink, or sleep at Vitry, take care to go to
the H6tel des Voyageurs, which is one of the
most satisfactory inns in all Champagne. For,
be it known, the people of Champagne are
not popular with their own compatriots.

The inhabitants of several districts of
"France have borne a traditional character
amongst their countrymen from time imme-
morial, just as the Scotch and Yorkshireinen
have in England. The Bourguiguon has
always been a favourite ; the Champenois
exactly the reverse. The leading feature of
his mind is supposed to be silliness. " Ninety-
nine sheep," say the French, " and one
Champeuois make together a hundred block-
heads." In a certain vaudeville, a lady and
gentleman make an acquaintance at a roadside
inn. Gentleman : " I am just arrived from
Troyes." Lady : " I thought so." Gentle-
man : " What ! do I look so foolish as that ? "
An analogous saying makes a hundred block-
heads consist of ninety-nine Flemings an done
hog. I like the Fleming better than the Cham-
penois ; he is cleanlier, and moreover a first-
rate gardener. The genuine type of Cham-
pagne dulness is not the sheep, but rather
the goose, the phalansterian emblem of the
artful peasant, a cunning simpleton with a
purposely vacant look. The Champenois
never forgets to take care that you shall pay
enough. Beware how you touch his grapes !
or he will make you the subject of a proems
verbal. His very vines are often trained in
such a way, that besides bearing fruit, they
serve as hedges and inclosing fences. Honest-
hearted Jean Raisin is degraded to the rank
of a rural policeman. He is compelled to
stretch out an arm to bar the passage, and
to shout " No thoroughfare ! " The ban
or proclamation of the date when grape-
gathering is to be first allowed in each dis-
trict, shows a nervous fear of being robbed,
which strongly contrasts with the Burgundian
open-handed practice. There things are con-
ducted in such a style as this: "Monsieur
wishes to walk through my vines 1 " a Chablis
proprietor asked of my guide. " With plea-

sure." He then added, with a good-humoured
smile, "The best, as you know, are on the
hill La Moutonne ; but don't eat too many
grapes;" thereby implying, that though
the crop was very short, we were heartily
welcome to taste in moderation. But the
Mayor of Troyes sternly informs the public
that the opening of the vintaging of vines in
such a territory is fixed for such a day ; and
for such other, for such another day. All,
whether owners or tenants of vineyards, are
warned that if they contravene the ban by
beginning before their neighbours, and so
taking the opportunity of plundering them
they shall be delivered over to the Tribunal of
Simple Police. Moreover, all persons what-
soever, except the owners, are forbidden to
enter the vineyards at any time, on any pre-
text. Jean Raisin is watched and guarded
as carefully as a wealthy novice in a convent..

From Vitry, through Chalons, to Epernay,
you are in rich Champagne, in the valley of
the Marne. There are vines : but not even
at Chalons are you yet arrived at the cham-
pagiie-wine-producing district. At Epernay
you reach it at last ; and if you stroll over
to Ai, to admire its lovely site in the lap of
hills, or stretch as far as Sillery, you are
still amongst the vines which do actually
produce champagne. The wine made and
matured in M. Jacquesson's vast establish-
ment at Chalons is not grown on the spot ;
but is brought there in hogsheads previous
to being bottled from his vineyards in the
neighbourhood of Ai and elsewhere. But
the truth is that, even in France, nobody but
the wine-merchant, and not always he him-
self, knows where champagne wine does come
from. A good deal is made in Burgundy ;
some in Germany ; and, in the white wine
districts, great quantities are bought up and
carried away and no one knows whither.
They are kidnapped, burked, dissected, trans-
mogrified, and successfully resuscitated with
a change of title.

This year, the vintage is comparatively a
blank at Epernay ; but we may safely pre-
dict that, though prices will rise, there will
be no perceptible deficiency in the general
supply. No one who can pay for a bottle of
champagne during the years fifty-five and
fifty-six is likely to be compelled to go with-
out it ; although possibly the cider and sugar-
and water of fifty-four will be as famous in,
its way as the wine of 'forty-six. It is much
easier to make good champagne wine beyond
the limits of the ancient province, than it
would be to manufacture burgundy wine far
away from Burgundy. You can fabricate
pinchbeck, but you cannot make gold. Cham-
pagne wine is so completely a factitious
thing, that if the duty on French wines wero
taken off in England, champagne could, and
would be prepared in London, so good as to
threaten a serious rivalry to the genuine
article from Chalons-sur-Marne. The cham-
pagne grower's capital really and truly lies

Charles Dicker.?.]

A BOTTLE OF CHAMPAGNE.

in his cellar ; that is his plant, his mill, his
factory. The Burgundian's consists iu his
vineyard. There is but one cote d'or, and
human skill cannot create another ; there
are scores of architects 'and thousands of
masons in Great Britain and Ireland, and
money moreover to pay them with, who
would outdo with ease the vastest store-
houses of Chalons, Epernay, Sillery, or
Reims.

Notwithstanding which, the above-men-
tioned cellars really are a sight to see.
M. Jacquesson's, the most modern, dates
from eighteen hundred, and is considered
by sticklers for the old routine to be rashly
light and airy in its construction. In fact,
there is little that is cellarlike about it. No
damp, no fungus, no mouldy smell, and
almost no darkness. For an ordinary visit
you have no need to be lighted about with a
candle. Champagne cellars are made to
contain wine in bottles, not in casks ; hence
an immense difference in their aspect and
atmosphere. Jacquesson's establishment
crowns the top of a hill, just outside the
town, near the railway station. It is white
and clean, shining with neatness and good
repair ; and a plain square tower, at one
corner of the range of buildings, is sufficiently
ornamental and solid iu its proportions to
show that the owner is no common trades-
man. A like hint is given by the pheasantry
at the other end a handsome enclosure
of shrubs and evergreens all covered in with
a vast roof of netting. The courtyard, too,
-of M. Jacquesson's residence in the town
displays an assemblage of orange-trees (of
course in tubs) that would do no discredit to
a royal garden. Champagne wine is clearly
lucrative. Heavy taxes are cheerfully paid
when part of the money is to be returned
in pleasure.

The cellars are hardly underground ; that
is, though pierced in the side of the hill,
they are nearly level with the adjoining
road. Here in cool grot, in one of the
galleries, is a private tramway communicating
with the Chalons station close by, and all for
the convenient conveyance away, by trucks -
full, of armies of well-drilled and disciplined
champagne, not to mention receiving the raw
recruits or empty bottles that have to be
brought in, and dispatching to their fiery
funeral in the glass-house the shattered
corpses or broken bottles that must be
carried out. The last-mentioned sufferers
form a heavy item. Outside, at various
distances, you observe a series of small glass
domes. Within, you find they light the
cellars most effectually. The rays, descend-
ing perpendiculai'ly from the sky, are caught
on large sheets of polished tin, inclining at
an angle of forty-five degrees, and are thence
reflected horizontally throughout the whole
length of the galleries which they respec-
tively command. At a distance, the reflection
is so powerful and brilliant, that you might

1 fancy the place was splendidly furnished
| with a set of superb plate-glass mirrors. On
each side of these long straight galleries,
which cross each other at right angles, are
ranged the bottles in frames of wood, called
tabletas, mostly containing a hundred and
eight bottles each. At various points the
temperature of the cellar can be regulated
by folding doors which exclude the external
air at pleasure. The place in the cellar
which the bottles occupy, and the position in
which they are laid in the rack, depends
upon their age and the point to which their
education has advanced. Much more than
this, to see, there is not ; except perhaps
the wine-press and the packing-room.

Epernay lies in a lonely valley. The view
thence consists of vine-clad hills, the less pro-
ductive summits of which form a purple
background on the opposite side. But if
you walk past those self-same vineyards, you
will see a broad Champenois hint not to touch
anything which does not belong to you, in
the streaks of whitewash that are dabbed on
grapes growing dangerously close to the
public path. The town is a small compact
little place, whose chief ornament consists in
the princely mansions in which the wine-
merchants have contrived to house them-
selves. I could not but look at them and
marvel at the results obtained from a little
frisky wine. For though by no means castles
in the air, we may assert that they are built
with carbonic-acid gas, cemented with sugar,
and founded on froth. The numerous
fabriques and magasins of bouchons d'Es-
pagne, or shops of cutt.'3rs of Spanish corks,
may be looked upon as the arsenals of balls
and bullets that are to be fired off by the pro-
duce of Jean Eaisin's own powder-mill. But
Jean, I believe, mostly shoots with an air-gun.

M. Moet, on presentation of a recommen-
datory letter, at once acceded to my request,
not only to travel through his unseen domi-
nions, but also to watch his confidants at
work ; and in less than five minutes, I waa
tripping downstairs, candlestick in hand, as if
it were bedtime. The plan of this great
alembic of cosmopolitan luxury is exceed-
ingly simple, and is easily carried away iu
the head. Here, no daylight streams in from
above, nor too much air. On descending to
the first grand level, you are conducted
through a series of straight, dark-brown,
dampish galleries, which cross each other
right and left, and whose general plan is a
short parallelogram or inexact square. With-
out the picturesque festoons and tapestry of
funguses which decorate the London Docks,
there is yet enough of long-standing mouldi-
ness to give M. Moe't's caves an unmis-
takably respectable and ancestral character.
And for vastness, run as quick as you will, it
would take more than three good hours to
traverse them completely. From four to five
millions of bottles are their contents ; there-
fore on you go, and on and on, with regiments

HOUSEHOLD WORDS.

[Conducted by

of bottles drawn up on each side, and some-
times saluting you with a pop as you pass.
You have no contrast of big tubs and small ;
no variety of ports, sherries, capes, and ma-
deiras, in pipes, butts, hogsheads, and all the
rest of it ; but everywhere bottles of the
same shape and the same size, except where
pints or half-bottles take the place of whole
ones. It is as well to walk carefully, else
you may slip by stepping into the uuctnous
and sweet-smelling puddles that are formed
by companies of explosionists on each side ;
and falls are best avoided in a country where,
if you come to the ground, some fleshy por-
tion of your precious person may chance to
come in contact with a bit of broken glass.
You look into black depths, whither the eye
cannot penetrate ; you pass by the massive
square buttresses and pillars which support,
like Atlas, the upper world on their broad
bare shoulders ; you see the sharp decided
shadows following you close, as you and your
candle travel along ; and you are conscious
that if your guide were evil-minded and were
to leave you alone in a malignant fit of ill-
temper, you would lose yourself as hopelessly
as a child straying in the catacombs of Paris.
You descend from cellar to cellar. All these
different depths and various degrees of tempe-
rature and dampness offer an extensive choice
of climate, which the experienced owner doubt-
less well knows how to turn to the best advan-
tage. As means of communication between
these stages for tubs of wine, for instance,
that are condemned to be let down and bled
to death and bottled in darkness there are
trap-doors cut in the floor in places where
you would never look for them. From time
to time, you come upon groups of sepia-
coloured men busily employed at their sub-
terranean tasks. By the light of their candles,
they hardly look alive. At a few yards' dis-
tance, they strike you rather as spirited
sketches done in burnt umber by some
modern Rembrandt, than as breathing, warm-
blooded fellow-creatures. There is closeness
and mystery in the caverns of Epernay, as
there was light and space in the grottoes of
Chalons. M. Moe't might summon a con-
ference of the gnomes ; while M. Jacquesson
is almost privileged to invite the sylphs to
shelter themselves in a cool retreat when
oppressed by the sultriness of the summer air
on the top of the hill. You depart from both
in wonderment that such vast, ponderous,
and costly machinery should be employed in
a work of no greater utility or necessity than
that of furnishing a tickling draught to fasti-
dious palates.

We call champagne a sparkling wine ;
which is quite a mistake. We might as well
talk about sparkling ginger-pop. Ihe French
more correctly style it mousseux, or frothy.
It does not sparkle so brightly as soapsuds.
Adewdrop sparkles, a diamond sparkles better
still. In the way of gems, the only thing to
which champagne makes the slightest ap-

proach, is to seed pearls dancing on the surface
of a glass of water. Burgundy fills the glass
like a liquid ruby ; claret shines softly with a
more purple glow ; effervescing champagne
offers no brilliancy to the eye. It is only
bright when it is still, or in the popular
notion, good for nothing. Both frothy wines
and white wines differ greatly in their mode
of preparation from those that are respectably
still and red. One rule, however, holds good
for all : the best vineyards produce the best
liquor, and the quality is equally distinguish-
able whether the bottle is meant to go off
like a duelling pistol, or to be opened quietly
and noiselessly. If the juice obtained from the
grape has onlyundergone a sortof half fermen-
tation if a slight piquancy has commenced, it
is called vin bourru. White grapes are mostly
treated thus, and the liquor is in great re'-
quest amongst certain persons during the
vintage. It possesses all the faults and in-
conveniences of sweet wine, purges like it,
and is windy and indigestible. Its admirers,
who belong to the old school rather than the
new, assert that it is diuretic, solvent, purifi-
cative, and so on. When corked in bottle, it
bursts a great many, after the fashion of
champagne wine, to which it approaches in
its nature. Left in open vessels, it completes
its fermentation, and passes into the state of
ordinary wine ; only much inferior, from the
circumstance of not having regularly gone-
through all the steps of the process, and in
the proper time. There are certain sweet
wines, sometimes called liqueurs, such as
Bergerac, Arbois, Condrieux, Lunel, Frontig-
nan, Rivesalte, which are prepared almost
without fermentation. The bunches, most
generally of Muncat grapes, are cut very late,
just before the frosts come on, after they have
undergone the evaporation of nearly one half
of their substance, and are become shrivelled
and wrinkled. They are carefully picked,
almost berry by berry, crushed, and the juice,
at once put into the hogshead, finishes its
working and clears itself there. These wines
keep for an indefinite period. Similar wine
is made in the isles of Greece, in Spain, in
the Canaries and Madeira, where spirit is
mostly added ; as to port wine, especially
when it has to travel. The English rarely
taste any but alcoholized wines ; pure wine
being notoriously too insipid to please the
British palate. The consequence is that
we seldom have the chance of tasting it
pure. But the list of articles formerly used
in France itself to adulterate wine is really
frightful. To begin with innocent water,
there follow perry, cider, and beet-root juice;
then come elder, privet and other berries,
with logwood ; decoctions of elder flowers,
celery, and sage, doctored up with alcohol;
and last, sugar of lead, which, if it failed to
pai'alyse and kill the wine-bibber, gave him
painter's colic as a mild form of disease. Its
use is now said to be discontinued by the
Parisian wine-doctors, as involving too great a

Charles Dlckens.l

risk for themselves as well as for their cus-
tomers. What they now employ instead, I
know not. Even in France, wine is said to be
occasionally made without a single drop of
grapejuice in it. Verily, one ought to rejoice
greatly after swallowing a bumper of genuine
wine.

Amongst the French there is a wide-spread
and firmly-rooted opinion that their white
wines, as an habitual beverage, are less whole-
some than the red. They are believed to
shake the nervous system, and to be capiteux,
or to fly to the head. Myself would not con
firm this judgment, as a rule, knowing that
the effect complained of is nothing more than
the natural effect of the quantity and strength
of the liquid imbibed. Most white wines
either slip down so easily, that you have not
the slightest suspicion how much you have
taken, or are so strong that they surprise you
before you are aware of it, when you thought-
lessly consume your usual allowance. But
wine, besides its stimulating properties, also
contains medicinal elements ; and white wines
are partially deficient in these, from the ab-
sence of the red particles and the other tonic
and strengthening contents of the skin which
are associated with them. Amongst French-
men, too, white wine (champagne excepted,
because it costs so dear), reckons for nothing.
A bottle of Chablis, or Sauterne, at dejeuner
(a repast which does not correspond to the
English breakfast), is looked upon merely as
a bottle of water, just serving to wash down
a few shell-fish, or other little preliminary
whet, before the serious business of the meal
begins. As a somewhat exaggerated sample
of the prevalent idea, we may take the cele-
brated feat of the Parisian oyster-woman,
who betted that she would eat twelve dozen
oysters, and drink twelve glasses of ehablis.
while the clock of Saint-Eustache was strik-
ing twelve ; which she executed, thus : on
the pewter counter of the Commerce de Vina
where the performance came off, there were
ranged, in regimental row, a dozen tumblers,
in each of which a dozen small oysters were
floating in a limpid bath of ehablis wine. At
the first stroke of the clock, down went the
contents of tumbler number one ; the rest
glided down in steady succession ; and she
won her bet.

The luscious sweet wines, surcharged with
sugar and the principles contained in the flesh
of the grape such as Muscat-Frontignan
though medicinal and restorative in small
doses, and reputedly injurious in larger
draughts, are too cloying to fear much danger
of their being taken in excess. Yet I
have seen a bottle quaffed at a sitting with
evident satisfaction and benefit, by an indivi-
dual whose bodily constitution was pining
after saccharine and viscous material.
Some people are mad at times after a draught
of sweet wine ; just as deer are irresistibly
attracted by the American salt-licks. The
great fault of champagne is that you can never

have enough of it. In my time, I have had
enough port ; occasionally (if only a glass) too
much of cape and sherry ; enough burgundy.
But champagne, after it is down your throat,
cries '' More ! more ! " as fiercely and unde-
niably as a famished ogress panting for blood.
When I feel that the demon has taken pos-
session, the only way to dislodge her is to
slake my thirst with a pint of bordeaux.

For the manufacture of champagne, the
grapes, instead of being taken to the pressing-
place in balonges, are carefully carried thither
in baskets, after being gathered in the cool of
the morning. Great pains is taken not to
shake them more than can possibly be helped.
Because in good years, the juice that would
be squeezed out by the mere weight of the
bunches piled on each other, which is the
finest portion of the liquor, would all be
lost ; and hot sunshine, by hastening the
dissolution of the skin in the juice so let
out, would tinge the must with colouring
matters. It is really a no more wonderful
phenomenon that white wine should be made
from black grapes, than that a black hen should
lay a white egg; the juice of black grapes
being naturally white, except in a few less
common species, as the Teinturier. The main
point in order to keep the wine colourless is,
that the grapes should be unbroken and not
allowed to ferment in the least, either in a
cuve, or in the baskets on their way to one.
They do not go into a mashtub at all, but
are immediately put into the press, and are
squeezed a first, second, third, and even a
fourth time. The liquor from the last press-
ing is apt to be coloured, and is inferior in
quality to that from the two first.

New tubs are then filled three-quarters full
with, the juice produced by these different
squeezings. They are left open to ferment
for a fortnight, at the end of which period,
they are filled completely and tightly stopped
with a close-fitting bung. It is a great point
with white wines to preserve them colourless.
One mode is to be careful in keeping the tub
always full. This precaution prevents the
absorption of oxygen, which, incorporating
with the wine, would turn it yellow, and cause
it to lose a portion of its perfume and light-
ness. Some time in the month of January,
the wine is racked off, or drawn from the
lees, and immediately clarified by means of
isinglass or gluten. Six weeks afterwards,
it is clarified again ; and if, in April, it ia
found that the wine has not the requisite
transparency, it is drawn off a third time and
dosed with animal jelly. In the course of
April or May ii> is bottled, and into each
bottle is put a dose of liquor composed of
equal parts of the wine itself and sugar candy.
For pink champagne, the liquor is made with
red wine. About three per cent is the ordinary
dose of sirop. The cork is tied down, fastened
with wire, or, as at M. Moe't's, with an iron
clasp called an agrafe, and deposited in
a cellar, where it can enjoy the nearest

HOUSEHOLD WORDS.

approach to a uniform temperature. For
now comes the tug of war. A regiment
of champagne bottles, at this stage of their
existence, are terribly mutinous and ex-
citable. You wouldn't believe Jean Raisin
to be of so peppeiy a temperament ; but
at the least provocation, he becomes a per-
fect bottle-imp, bursts into a rage, breaks a
blood-vessel, maims himself for life, and falls
a sacrifice to the violence of his passions. If
the weather is too incendiary, the riot act is
often read, by bringing a cargo of ice ; but
the tranquillisiug arguments generally arrive
too late, after all the mischief is done.

Champagne spends the summer reclining
thus, though too often not reposing, in a hori-
zontal position. The bursting of the bottles is
simply caused by the formation inside of a
greater quantity of carbonic acid gas than the
vessel of glass has strength to contain. Pur-
chasers prefer the wine which has exploded in
the largest proportion, and make strict inqui-
ries as to its performances in this line. If it
had not burst at all, they would have nothing
to say to it. About fifteen per cent is a very
respectable amount of burstage, satisfactory
to all parties. Sometimes it rises to more
than thirty per cent, and then becomes
ruinous to the manufacturer.

In September, and later, after the internal
fermentation and gas-making is nearly
complete, there forms at the lower part of
the bottle a quantity of dark, loose sedi-
ment, looking something like curdled soot,
which would quite spoil the brilliancy
and even the cleanliness of the sample, if
suffered to remain. To get rid of this is
the delicate task that has now to be un-
dertaken. The bottles have to be placed
sur pointe, as it is called, in their bottle-
racks ; that is, leaning with their necks
downward, at an angle of not quite forty
degrees. The sediment has thus a tendency
to sink towards the cork. Each individual
bottle has then to be moved or slightly
twisted, with the least perceptible shock, or
coup de main (increasing the inclination from
time to time), every day for a month or six
weeks, according to the season and the qua-
lity of the wine. It seems an endless and
impossible job to treat in this way the multi-
tudinous contents of such a cellar as M.
Moet's ; but one clever active man can turn
and shake, upon a stretch, as many as fifteen
thousand bottles a day. At last, when the
dark deposit is all got down to the cork, the
wine is ready to submit to the operation
called " d6gorger," or disgorging. The work-
man, or d6gorgeur, who performs it is remark-
ably light-fingered. Each bottle is handed to
him, and taken from him, by an attendant
slave on either side. He holds it horizontally,
removes the wire or the iron clasp, takes out
the cork, lets a spoonful of froth spurt out
with a fizz (carrying with it the ugly dregs),
raises the bottle perpendicularly, replaces
the cork, and the feat is done. Like all other

clever tricks, it looks easy enough when
performed adroitly ; although, were you and I
to attempt it, we should probably empty the
bottle before we knew that the cork had
stirred. Home-made champagne, to approach
perfection, ought to be treated according
to the same legerdemain.

A first disgorging is seldom sufficient ; it
generally has to be followed by a second and j
a third. The bottle has again to be laid
sloping, heels upwards, in the rack. An ad-
ditional drop of liquor is, now and then,
put in at the subsequent operations. At
the last disgorging, its doom is finally
fixed by a band of five or six execu-
tioners, who sit in silent and solemn row,
with their instruments of torture before
them. The fir-st man wipes off the perspira-
tion which has settled on its face at the anti-
cipation of its approaching fate ; the second
bleeds it afresh at the neck, as before de-
scribed ; the third claps it under an iron
vice, in which there is a cylindrical hole of
the same size as the inside of the neck of the
bottle, a screw compresses the cork suffi-
ciently to go in, the man relentlessly knocks
it down with a punch, and the bottle is
gagged ; the fourth secures the cork with
string ; the fifth secures the string with
wire ; and a sixth seizes the iron-bound
victim, and hurries it incontinently nobody
knows where. You guess though, when you
behold, on reaching daylight, a trio of com-
passionate women nursing the poor afflicted
sufferers upstairs. The first female wipes off
the sweat of agony with which it is bedewed ;
the second binds up its wounds with a heal-
ing-plaister of paste and lead- leaf ; the third
wraps it in a paper winding-sheet, and hands
it to a man, the sexton of the champagne
cemetery, who entombs it in a wicker basket,
and scrupulously buries it in clean rye straw.
The sacrifice is ended now. Jean Raisin's
relentless pursuers may at last suck his blood
at their ease.

Champagne is not fit to be thus delivered
up before the May of the second year ; so
that a bottle of frothy wine cannot be drunk
till from eighteen to twenty months after it
has been vintaged, at the very soonest. It is
better even the thirtieth month after it has
quitted the parent vine. This, with the trou-
ble, the loss, and the cellar-rent, make it
impossible that genuine, properly-prepared
champagne should be otherwise than costly.
The maker, merely to pay his outlay, must
dispose of it at a heavy price. Cham-
pagne, therefore, is the wine of the wealthy.
At a second-rate inn in Epernay, the Siren,
which is not without its own particular fasci-
nations, I paid four francs for a bottle of Ai.
Wine-merchants on the spot cannot let you
have passable Sillery for less than two francs
and a half per bottle. But let not those who
cannot afford to drink champagne envy too
bitterly those who can. The loss is by no
means so great as they fancy. " Which shall

Charles Dickea.]

BANOOLAH.

we have, champagne or bordeaux ? " said I to
a Frenchman whom I wanted to reward for
talking, as well as to set him talking a little
more. " Champagne is the more noblej" he
answered, after deep consideration ; " but it
is five franca the bottle. The bordeaux here
is good, and costs only thirty sous. One
bottle of bordeaux will fortify our stomachs
better than two bottles of champagne ; and
for one bottle of champagne we can have
three of bordeaux, with ten sous to spare for
something else. Let us drink bordeaux, mon-
sieur, if you please." And bordeaux we did
drink.

I have heard of physicians prescribing port,
madeira, hock, sherry, and even brandy-and-
water, to their convalescents ; I have known
them order effervescent drinks, as seltzer,
soda, and other waters, mixed solutions of
acids and alkalis that throw off, on meeting,
a whiff of fresh-made gas ; but I never knew
a doctor recommend champagne. On the
contrary, French medical men have told me
that persons who make a daily practice of
drinking champagne at their meals, although
not in excess, do themselves no good by it.
Before the invention of chloroform, a Parisian
surgeon, observing that drunken men often
inflicted serious injury upon themselves with-
out suffering pain from it at the time, con-
ceived the idea of inebriating his patients
with champagne before operating upon them.
Some cases succeeded well ; in others, the
reaction had baneful effects ; in a few the
patient was excited to frenzy, and became
unmanageable. The system was not per-
severed in.

Champagne is deficient in one of the most
meritorious qualities of wine the length of
time it may be kept to advantage. Cham-
pagne, unlike friendship as it ought to be,
does not improve with the lapse of years. I
was surprised to be told that the oldest wine
in M. Jacquesson's cellars was of the forty-
nine vintage. The old age of champagne is
inglorious. A bin of leaky bottles, with the . f l !
string rotted, the wires rusty, the gas escaped,
and the sweetness turned to bitter mould and
fiat mustiuess, is a thing to be got rid of at
once with as little ceremony as possible.
Burgundy and port often terminate their
spun of existence with all the glories of a
gorgeous sunset ; champagne, if suffered to
survive so long, is apt to go out like a tallow
candle burnt into the socket.

Nowhere is champagne the common be-
verage of the people (which diminishes its title
to respect, and is almost a just ground for
separating and distinguishing it from wine
proper), any more than pastry is anywhere
their daily bread. Champagne is the con-
fectionary of wine-making; and both that and
pastry are superfluous luxuries. Neither a
garrison in a state of siege, nor a populous
island on which provisions ran short, with no
immediate supply at hand, would think of
brewing champagne or making puff tarts.

The precise epoch during a repast at which
champagne is usually drunk is different in
England from what it is in France, John
Bull proving himself the more sensible.
We trifle with the seducer during din-
ner ; the French yield themselves up to
him at dessert, and when they once begin,
they often go on. If a feast must be ennobled
by the presence of champagne, in compliance
with the ladies' wishes (who, ever since the
days of Eve, have desired to partake of what
does them least good), my dictum is, to serve
to each person present one large well-filled
glass, containing not less than a quarter of a
pint, and to make it instantly vanish, bottles
and wine, for the rest of the evening from the
dining-room. Champagne's real place is not
at a dinner, but at a ball. A cavalier may
appropriately offer, at propitious intervals, a
glass now and then to his danceress. There,
it takes its fitting rank and position amongst
feathers, gauzes, lace, embroidery, ribbons,
white satin shoes, and eau de Cologne. It is
simply one of the elegant extras of life ; and
far should I be from condemning it in its
way. But we must not let it give itself too
many airs because it is a dandy gentleman.
It ought not to push into the background of
neglect and disesteem, the more solid and
generally useful elixirs of life.

BANOOLAH.

"LET go the anchor!"- Grating and harsh the sound
As the rougli chain unwound its shrieking coils,
And after noiseless motion, scarce perceived,
Our gallant ship swung slowly, bows to land.

Then grew the bay all picture ; sound was none.
A thousand sails deep-tinted, strange of shape,
Swell'd seaward; thousand paddles flapp'd the calm;
A thousand dusk)' faces soon look'd up,
Laige-eyed, and ivory-tooth'd, and gen tie- voiced,
And spoke in syllables that died away
Like music; and at intervals a hand,
Small, feminine, with grace in every move,
Holds up a flower. Oh ! beautiful the forms

lose lithe Naiads, with the simple band
Pendant from flexile waist; and soft the smiles
They shed, impartial, over all the ship,
On captain, bronzed with fifty years of storm,
Staid mate, important, stepping stem and stern,
And middy, wild with wonder at the scene.

Shoreward, white tents were dotted round the bay,
With statelier buildings mix'd, but simple all,
Rough trunks close-fitted, yet with chinks between
Where herbage grew, cross-barr'd with bands of pine,
And roof d with glistening canes. There kings reside,
Kings and great lords, stewards and chamberlains,
Stickless as yet, unstarr'd, unribbanded,
The half-clothed marquises of Owaihee !

Far inland, like cathedral's lifted dome,
Rose a rude shape, half-lost amid the blue,
A cloud, unchanging in its form so still
The summer air self-balanced as a tower.
Fit canopy of gloom and grandeur, piled
Above the molten sea that seethes and boils
Within the lofty hill where Belah dwells,
Belah, dread goddess ! whose low-whisper' d name
Shattered, the stoutest hearts like words of doom.

HOUSEHOLD WOKDS.

[Conducted by

Our surgeon told this legend of the days
Ere Christ was known and Belah held her rule.
And many a sigh the sad narrator heaved
While, leaning oil the taffrail, looking down
On the unnumber'd thousands in the boats,
And countless swimmers raising watchful eyes
All round the ship, he told the piteous tale.

Hast thou, O man ! when midnight, girt with storms,
Shrieks through the wood and heralds Belah'g path,
No dread that in the pauses of the wind
The shapeless lips shall syllable thy name ?

Paomi waked, and trembled as he lay ;
For in the howlings of that midnight gust
Rose to his ear the name he loved the best,
Banoolah What ? Banoolah, with rich hair,
Giving its tint to the white brow and neck,
Like crimson sunset on the snow his child !
He wakes the dark-eyed mother of his babe,

" Belah has called Banoolah !" was the word

That smote her ear and still'd her beating heart,

While with wide nostril, and pale, parted lips,

He sate and listen'd for the awful sound.

" Rightly," that wife replied, and smote her breast,

" Rightly has Belah called, for are we not

Servants of Belah ? Are we not the work

Of Belah's hands ? and trampled 'neath her heel

Since we forgot the tribute to her shrine?"

"What tribute ?" answered tremblingly the man.

" All that we love ! Have we not kept the child,

Vowed ere its birth, Banoolah, yellow-hair'd?"

Silent the man lay, shaking all the couch

With the strong agony of remorseful fear.

" Three years our crops have fail'd, our boat retuvn'd

Empty, and now the sea contains it all

Riven plank and broken mast, and shiver'd oar.

Belah's hot breath o'erwhelm'd it, and it sank,

And beggars us."

" What remedy ? "

"But one!"

In silence lay they both ; and fresh arose
The sweeping wind. The trees bent crashing boughs,
Rock'd the frail hut. " But one !" again she said,
She calls! Hark!"

Terror gave articulate voice,
And through the tranced caverns of their hearts
They heard, " Banoolah feed me on her life,
Or you and all your house shall surely die."

Meanwhile, in shudderings of a fearful dream,
The child, which lay, leaf-cover'd, on the floor,
Sighed "Mother! mother!" and relapsed to sleep.
" But must we die?" whispered the wife, " or, worse,
Live 'neath the curse of Belah, in the scorn
Of happier mothers, who have paid the price
Of Belah's love, and walk in innocence
For that they have fulfill'd her holy law ? "-
" When ? " said Paomi, with a start of thought
That pierced the future.

" To delay is death,"

Replied Nooravah. And again the dream
Pass'd through the shaken fancies of the child,
" Oh ! father ! father ! take Banoolah home !
The waves are rough." So said she as she dream'd.

Loud as 'mid shouts of battle when the spear
Shakes ere it flies, his voice burst through the gloom.
" Now ! ere the deed has time to pass beyond
The shade it casts upon my soul ! Now ! Now !"
Has fury seized him? He has left his lair,
Cast his short mantle round, and elutcli'd the child.

From slumber with a shriek of pain she woke,
For his hot grasp was on her shoulder laid,
And dinted all his fingers in her flesh.
At one fierce drag he raised her from the ground :
" Help, mother !" cried the child with piteous sobs.
But silent in the stragglings of her soul
And breathing wildly with convulsive clasp,
Guarding the blanket which immured her face,
The mother lay. " Will you not look on her,
On the sweet flower you punctured on her breast,
Sign of our house, the daisy yellow-ring'd ? "
" Go ! go ! I will not see her lest I die.
Spare not the richest of your goods, the child,
Belah will smile. Go ! go !" And he was gone.

There was no moon that night ; the land lay dead

Beneath the wood, thick matted, which by day

Made midnight on the path to Belah's home.

Through the thick shrubs Paomi led the child ;

Up the steep hill Paomi led the child;

Close to the edge he led the child, and stopt.

" Home go, Banoolah ! " said the tottering voice,

" Home to Nooravah ! Home, Banoolah, go !"

Paomi shudder'd as he heard the words,

And fancied the sweet eyes he could not see.

He felt the timid clinging of her hand,

The little hand that lay so close in his.

" Home ! ay, Banoolah shall go home," he said,

And lift his eyes and saw a gush of flame

Pierce the red cloud. " Banoolah shall go home

And dwell with mighty gods and famous men,

And never thirst nor hunger any more.

Come onward ! " On the giddy brink they stood,

And heard far down the billows of dark fire

Dashing, like ocean, 'gainst a rocky shore.

" Banoolah, do you love me?" in quick words

Paomi said, and touch'd her on the arm.

" Banoolah loves Paomi," said the child,

" And loves Nooravah too." Down the black chasm

He look'd, and upward rose, with hideous bound,

Black fringed and red within, a flood of fire,

And closed him round, and stifled all his breath ;

And shuddering, shaken in his limbs, he slept

Backward a space, and panted, and revived.

Then, struggling with himself, and mad with rage,

He grasp 1 d the child and hurried to the abyss.

But silent through the darkness moved a form,

With noiseless step, and touched him where he stood.

" Stay, murderer!" said the voice, "repent and live !

God is not here." " Who speaks?" Paomi said.

" I, Melville, your king's friend, and yours the man
That tells you how to live and how to die
I've seen you in the crowd when I've proclaim'd
Christ our Redeemer Christ our only King !"
" I know not Christ Belah demands my child,"
Paomi said. " But Christ is mightier far ;
Mighty to save," said Melville. " Leave with me
The innocent child ; leave her to me and God ! "
" And Belah Hark ! she thunders ! "

With soft hand

Melville has drawn Banoolah to his side.
" Will you love Christ, my little maid ? " he said,
" And he will give you life." Upon her knee
Sank the frail child, and kiss'd the preacher's hand :
" Banoolah will love Christ." " Then come with me,"
He said, and raised her in his loving arms,
And bore her gently to the downward path.
And rack'd 'tween love and fear, the father stood,
Unable to resist the yearning thought
That his Banoolah should be saved, yet wild
With terror at the doom Banoolak sends.

Charles Dickens.]

BANOOLAH.

Meanwhile, brave Melville bore Banoolah down
Swiftly, and left the path, and wound and wound
Through treadless ways, to baulk pursuing feet,
But none pursued.

The morning faintly broke
Upon the topmost trees, and on the ridge
Where Belah's breath hung heavy. In the shade
Stood, motionless, Paomi, gazing up
To the thick vaporous cloud that changed itself
In rapid-fading forms, but dreadful all,
And threatening vengeance. Seated on hot throne,
Belah stretch'd forth her hand, and shook her curse
From open palms. Paomi turu'd to go,
And, breathless, lifts the latch : Nooravah wakes ;
" Our life is crush' d into a minute's space,
And we must die, for Belah follows fast !"

Nooravah sat and murmur'd under breath

Half syllables of prayer to move the Fiend,

With gaspings at her throat that choked her words ;

But swaying to and fro to rock the pain,

She caught with deaden'd sense Paorui's voice :

" The child Banoolah lives ! " When this she heard.

Oh ! with a start, a sudden shriek she pour'd

Straight from her woman's heart, and stood dilate,

With hand outstretch'd, and lips kept wide apart,

All eye, all ear. " She lives ! " at last she said ;

' Yea ; I have blest the gods for many gifts,

For plenteous summers in the olden time;

For fruit, for flowers, for fish from the deep sea ;

For love like yours, Paomi ; and, best of all,

For the light step that sounded on the floor,

And the blithe voice that caroll'd at the porch,

And the fair hair that fell o'er all her neck,

And the deep eyes that settled on my face;

But never, never did I bless the gods

With such fond heart as now Banoolah lives ! "

Sudden a tremor shook the solid ground ;
Thick smoke fill'd all the hut. A rattling noise
Of crashing boughs and splitting trunks went by,
And earthquake heaved the soil. " Away, away !"
Paomi cried ; and madden'd with wild fear,
They. fled. But whither? Upward, in a crowd,
Shrieking and dancing in delirious grief,
Came thousands, waving arms, and swinging high
Sharp spears ; and at their head, with eyeballs fix'd
And rigid sinews, lifting moveless hands,
Moved Belah's priest. At such a sight, the hearts
Of the two tremblers wither'd like a leaf
Firestruck ; and, 'mid the silence that fell down
Upon the heaving crowd, as in a storm
Comes calm when at the wildest, rose the voice
Strain'd, harsh, as from an organ not his own.
The words unconscious flowed, of Belah's paest,
And cried, " Paomi, who has done this thing?"
Prone on his face Paomi bent and fell,
Prone on the ground, yet reeling with the shock,
And heated with the molten sea beyond.
" 'Tis I," he said ; " I waken'd Belah's wrath,
And robb'd her of her gift, and this the end ! "
Then told he all ; how, year by year, his life
Grew harder, as the Power forbore her smile ;
How, though his veins were redden'd with the juice
Of kingly stems, his fortunes sank so low
That Hunger walk'd around his empty hut,
Narrowing its path, till in a wasted rtng
His home lay fireless. Then lie told at last
How Belah claim'd her gift, and how he toil'd,^
He and Banoolah, through the darken'd path ;
And how, when midst a glory from the shrine
The child seem'd girt with fire, an impious hand

Was laid upon him, and the gift withdrawn
From Belah's open'd lips.

Impetuous heaved

The dusky crowd, like surges on a shore
In moonless nights, with inarticulate sound ;
But found a voice, when piercing like a cry
Of eagles in the air, the priest exclaim'd,
" Woe, woe upon the guilty he must die !
Melville, the stranger who invents false gods,
And young Banoolah, both of them must die !
Brothers and men ! No deed like this is done
In all our years since flung from Belah's mouth
The pearl lay on the waters where we dwell.
This stranger seeks to entangle us with lies,
And tells of one who clomb to Belah's throne
Through whips and scorn, and an avenging tree.
Say, what shall be his doom, and what the child's?"

The crowd was silent for a minute's space :

" Let Melville die, and let Banoolah die,"

Said a weak voice ; and when men look'd, they saw

A woman with her hands upon her face,

And knew it was Nooravah " let them die !"

Lo ! there they come ! And thousand eyes were

turn'd

To where, emerging from the close-set trees,
The aged man came forward, leading slow
Banoolah by the hand ; her little feet
Bleeding, and all her motions dull'd with pain ;
A fair-hair'd child, like some sweet English girl
Tired with long journeyings in the woods in May,
When following the young flowers to make a wreath,
And heedless of the briars that plant their thorns
In naked leg and ruddy rounded arm,
But different in sad looks, and anxious eyes
That knew of danger near, yet knew not what.

Forth from the crowd two stalwart warriors prest,
And grappled Melville's unresisting hands ;
And one caught up Banoolah with harsh gripe,
And never from the ground Nooravah look'd,
And sad Paomi held Nooravah's hand,
And look'd upon the ground, as fathers look
Within the hollow of a daughter's grave !
But all the rabble was alive with wrath,
And howl'd triumphant songs, and bore the twain
Resistless to the beach. The ebbing sea
Lapp'd the calm shore, and in the slanting sun
The moisten'd pebble shone, and here and there
Danced a light skiff, or, half-afloat, half-dry,
Dinted with deepening prow the glistening sand.

Then spoke the priest : " Oh, God ! whose tent is

spread

In sightless levels of the hungry sea,
Where earth is all unknown, and lonely waves
Welter for ever without sound or form !
We give thee these, whom Belah's hands reject,
And fling from out the land where Belah dwells !
Engulf them in the jaws where ships go down,
And cleanse Earth's blessed soil of so much wrong !
For it is written in our changeless law
That Belah's foes shall perish in the deeps ! "

A boat was launch'd, a small and fragile boat,
And on its floor was placed a cocoa-cup,
With scanty water, and such tree-born bread
As might suffice a child her morning meal,
Naught else, and from the vessel they removed
Mast, oar, and sail, and in it placed the pair,
The white-hair'd preacher, and Banoolah.

Quick !

HOUSEHOLD WOEDS.

[Conducted by

Push them away ! for, shouting, waving high
Her frantic arms, Nooravah through the crowd
Rush'd, blind to all but the insensate girl
Who lay in Melville's arms, and never more
Lifted her eyes, or moved, or broke in sobs.
But with a spring, that plash'd in blinding foam
The shallow wave, Nooravah clutch'd the boat,
And caught the child, and tore from its white breast
The mantle's fold, and kiss'd the filial sign,
The punctured daisy with the rings of gold,
And kiss'd and kiss'd with lips that drew the blood,
So savage was their press ! Then at a word
The child was seized, and placed in Melville's arms ;
And folding all her robe around her head,
Nooravah bent her down, as if to hear
Banoolah's voice, but silent was the child.

Then rose a shout when motion took the boat

And bit by bit, with fond returning prow,

From backward wave to wave still farther back,

The bark with idle liftings felt the call

Of the mid ocean, and released the land.

"Go !*' said the priest, " Belah, who dwells on high,

Looks from her throne of thunder and dark cloud,

And sees far off, beyond the reach of sight,

The waken'd tempest waiting for his prey.

Go ! Belah shakes the guilty from her lap,

And deai'h awaits you where no eye shall see ! "

And Ligh replied the old man from the boat,

" God's eye shall see us in the trackless waste ;

Yea ! and his love shall save us though we die !"

But soon his voice was lost, and on they sped

Far from the shore ; and with intentcst eyes

The crowd gazed on, with still unsated rage,

Till the small vessel sank into a speck,

And in the widening distance died away.

" Ah, wretched end ! " I said, when here the tale
Broke off, " What fate could be the hapless pair's ? "
" They must have perish'd either by the waves
Engulfing all, or by the crueller death
Of thirst and hunger on the breathless sea,
Or haply, as has chanced to native praams,
They may have drifted 'cross the homeward path
Of England's commerce, and been saved at last.
I heard, indeed, how once a Bristol ship
Had rescued a small child, which sat alone
Beside an old man's corse, too young for words,
Or crush'd by want and fear till memory died.
But here come all the brethren from the shore,
The Holy Preachers, who have brought this land
Into God's light. Oh ! great shall be their praise !
'Tis twenty years since Melville dree'd his doom.
And, lo ! the thing he pray'd for has been done !"

Beside us on the deck with glowing heart
Stood Edward Elliot ; and a soft white hand
Lay on his arm, and with fond loving eyes
His wife look'd on his face.

" God's will be done !"

He said; "dear Edith, this our field of toil,
This the dear home we've pictured in our talk
In the old time when first I took the vow
To spread God's name, and on an autumn eve,
Beside the little brook that girdled in
Your uncle's orchard with a zone of sound,
You whisper'd in a voice I scarce could hear,
That you would aid me in the cause I loved.
Have you repented of the word you spoke ? "
Silent stood Kdith Elliot for a time,
And guzed all round. The bay more fill'dhad grown,

With sail and shallop, and a thousand waves

Danced onward, with a thousand joyous boys

And splashing girls, wild with their ocean games,

Tumbling with shrilly laughter from the crest,

And diving to the depths, as if in shame.

Then turn'd she moisten'd eyes, and press'd his arm

And said " what answer more do you require ? "

Gay-pennon'd, with the Union at the mast,

And rowed by six young chiefs, who kept their way,

Heedless of light canoe, and fluttering bark,

Like charging squadrons on a battle day,

A boat gleam'd round the point, and in the stern

Sate reverend men, reverend, though young in years,

And matrons in their quiet English robes,

As if on some calm lake in Westmoreland,

All gazing on the ship. And Elliot gazed,

And Edith, for these looked-for visitors

Were brethren of the mission. Side by side

Their future course must be. Ah ! happy course.

Under the lifted banner of the Cross.

How sweet the meeting on the silent deck !

For no one spoke ; but in the matron's hands

Lay Edith's, trembling with uneasy joy,

And tears were in her eyes, and Elliot bent,

While hands were raised in prayer above his head.

Soon the three women, silently withdrew

On sign from Edith, and with noiseless steps

Moved down the cabin stairs, and stopt at last

Where slept a rosy child two summers old,

Heedless of trampling deck and noisy bay.

Edith bent down, and kiss'd it as it slept,

Then careful raised it from its tiny bed,

And laid it in the smiling sister's arms.

" Oh ! we will love the child," the sister said,

"And graft this bud of English innocent life

On the wild tree of this new waken'd land,

And watch its growth, till flower and fruit come forth

And all the Isle shall lie within its shade."

So Susan Marfeldt carried forth the child,

Childless herself; and Edith stood at gaze,

Watching the careful nurse from ship to boat,

From boat to shore, and up the shining beach,

Till the low, Mission dwellings took them in.

And shoreward went the Brothers, deep in talk,

With many a pause, as up the bay they moved,

And pleased was Elliot with his new-found home.

" Look ! " said the surgeon, and he touch'd my arm,

" The bark full sail'd upon our starboard beam !

That is the King's, Paomi." " What the wretch

Who slew Banoolah, is he now the king?"

" All things went well with him since that dread time J

Wealth, power, and vigorous hand, all built him up

Into the foremost man of all the isles.

And well he wears the crown and wields the sword,

Half-Christian Christian only with the head

His heart is with his idols as of old."

" And his more savage wife?" " Nooravah lives,

The fiercest worshipper of Belah's power

Of all who hear Christ's name and scorn his law.

See, there she stauds."

Triumphant as a king

Who drinks the shouts of battle, tall she stood,
A javelin in her hand, and with proud lips
Look'd upward to the deck. Beside her sate
Paomi, kingly robed, and great of form,
Like Ajax, self-collected in bis thought.

them all

Charles Dickens.]

BANOOLAH.

Edith \vas tent ; her every faculty
Intent on rescuing from the common heap
Her separate goods, like some sage shepherdess
Drawing her own from forth commingled flocks,
When moved Nooravah up to where she stood,
Flush'd with unwonted toil, her hair dispread
In lustrous folds her arm to the elbow hared.
And all her flexile limhs with gracious strength
Strung, like some Arab charger, fiery-eyed.
With sinewy power dilatiug all its form.

She took no heed ; but soon the savage Queen
Touch'd her, and smiled, and pointed to her heart,
And said in liquid words, that in their sound
Bore meaning, though the language was unknown,
" Nooravah loves you." Then she laid her hand
On the long tresses, smoothing them all their length,
And call'd Paomi. Edith smiled and spoke,
And felt a yearning to them in her heart
As those who yet should listen to her voice,
And follow where she led to pastures new.

Nooravah mark'd no other in the ship,
But fix'd her eyes on Edith all the day,
And help'd her in her troubles, gathering up
Parcels and veils and shawls, and laugh'd aloud
When she had raised boxes of mightiest size
Which Edith strove in vain to push to a side.
And when the boat return'd, and all was pack'd
Along her floor, and piled above the seats,
Till scarce the levell'd oars had room to move,
Nooravah would not part from Edith's side,
But slid impetuous down the dangling rope
And sate beside her; and when fear made pale
Her fair companion's cheek, as roll'd the bark
With gunwale down, she press'd her in her arms ;
And so in Queen Nooravah's fond embrace
Edith lay calm ; and love conjoin'd the twain.

And when they reach'd the house, Nooravah look'd

Well pleased round all the rooms, and followed close

On tiptoe to the chamber, dim and cool,

Where sat kind sister Marfeldt by a bed

Watching the child*. Nooravah stopt to gaze,

Her hand in Edith's. Then, as if at once,

A thought pass'd through her soul, she knew not what,

She darted to the couch, and lifted up

The sheet, and gentle-handed, turn'd aside

The shawl that wrapt the babe, and gazed and gazed

Upon her breast ; and then, with big round tears

In her full eyes, she shook her head and sigh'd,

As those who seek the thing they cannot find.

Was it Banoolah's image that rose up

Before the mother's heart, till all the chords

Of her deep inner being felt the stir

Of unaccustotu'd thoughts, like sudden gusts

That shake the sleeping woods, we know not why?

"Oh! blessed sight!" said Marfeldt, when at eve
The Christian band held commune, " blessed sight,
The tears that flow'd down fierce Nooravah's face,
And the sweet smile that follow'd Edith's steps,
And the awaken'd softness that well'd forth
On Edith's babe, for where such feelings dwell,
Behold ! our loving God is nigh at hand ! "

Then told they mutual stories of their lives,
Where each was born, what home they first bad known,
Their fathers' names. And when to Edith's turn.
These sweet unfoidings of the past came round,
Long time she paused, and blushing told at last
How all her years were dumb and had no voice
Till she was standing by her uncle's knee ;

Yet not her uncle, but a loving heart
Which found her friendless, cast aside by all,
Like flower, chance-scatter' d on a nameless grave
And gave her home beside him, home and love.
But never had she seen a father's smile,
Nor felt a mother's hand upon her head.

" Yet are you not unhappy," Elliot said,
" No, nor yet friendless, for who knows you best
Loves you the most." Then added with a smile,
'Our fathers were plebeians; mine rose high,
And once was mayor of a country town ;
But who can tell what great progenitors,
Howards, and mighty knights, and lords and earls,
Full quarter'd as the old Plantagenets,
Can boast a dear descendant such as you ?
Haply some morn the fairy of your fate
Will tap three taps upon your chamber-door
And say, ' Come forth, fair princess ; for the king,
Your royal father, longs to see your face.' "
They laugh'd, nor thought more meanly of their friend
That she had none to love but only them.

Next morning, soon as daylight touch' d the sea,
Nooravah lifted soft the wicket latch,
And laid a basket fill'd with fruit and flowers
Upon the window-sill where Edith slept,
And slow withdrew, with many a look behind,
To mark if haply to the lattice came
The face she wish'd to see. But no one moved.
And day by day Nooravah placed her chair
By Edi til's side, and taught her all the sounds
And soft inflexions of her Island tongue.
And soon with ready lips could Edith tell
Of Heaven and all its hopes ; and like a rain
In thirsty ground, her gentle words sank in.

As some lone tarn far up amid the hills,
Cloud-circled 'neath a thunder-laden sky,
Lies in thick gloom, till comes the mid-day sun
And shines upon its face ; so from the heart
Of dark Nooravah every shadow fell,
And night was brighten'd into perfect day.

Paomi died ; his hand in Edith's hand,

His eye with dying light on Edith's face.

" I go," he said, " to see the loving eyes

I ne'er shall see on earth ; to look again

On the light limbs, to hear the happy voice

Of young Banoolah, at the feet of God."

Long Edith sat beside the savage king,

Savage no more, and heard him, with faint breathy

Whisper " Banoolah ; " still, as if a charm

Lay in the sound, " Banoolah " to his lips

Came when he slept the uneasy sleep of pain,

Or when he waked within the shadow of Death.

A thousand thoughts flutter'd in Edith's heart,
Dim, fitful, with mysterious whisperings,
Like leaves in midnight on a breezy hill
But nought she spoke, as if her spirit lay
Imprison' d in a spell she could not break.

Slow-paced and sunken-eyed, Nooravah came
And sat whole days in Edith's little room,
In voiceless grief, and hung o'er Edith's child,
Her Rachel, whether playing wild with glee,
Or silent listening with her great round eyes
To tales her mother told. " But thirty moons
Had seen Banoolah when she pass'd away ;
And Rachel now has thirty moons," she said,
" And what a life before her fill'd with joy ! **

HOUSEHOLD WORDS.

[Conducted by

Then broke she forth in passionate sobs aud tears,

Like thunder-clouds in autumn, toss'd with storms :

" Why do I live to lift unhappy eyes

And read no pardon iu a brazen sky ?

Why do I lift blood-stained hands like these

In mockery to a God -who will not hear ?

Oh ! blessed are the mothers who have wept

O'er lidless coffins where their infants lay ;

Blessed their eyes, who, through the mist of tears,

Have seen fresh earth upon their children's graves ! "

" Nooravah ! " Edith said, " your eyes are dim,
And see not what is written on the Cross
Pardon and Rest. Oh ! heaviest sin of all,
And least deserving Mercy, is Despair ! "
Then led she upward from the Valley of Death,
Through tangled thorns, the steep ascending way,
Till on the Mount they stood where, clear and large,
Lay, 'mid the hills of Peace, the City of God.
And holiest comfort fill'd Nooravah's heart,
And from her ransom'd soul the chains fell down.

Yet as a bird that on the mountain peak
Has shrill'd for battle, if perchance it feel
The captive bond, and from its bruised heart
The thirst of blood depart, and pride of power,
Decays and pines, so, from Nooravah's life
Strength pass'd, and passionless and weak she lay.
" Nooravah ! is it sleep that dims thine eyes,
Or Death's advancing shadows o'er thy face ? "
Said Edith, whispering in the slumherer's ear.
" Give me a sign with thine uplifted hand
That thou hast entrance to the Ark of Christ."

The hand rose up ; the eye unclosed again,

The form dilated, and erect she stood.

" Yea ! I have peace. Yet in this hour of hope

One thought hangs heavy on my upward spring.

There is a light of something in thine eyes,

There is a sound of something in thy tone,

Thy hands' soft touch, thy smile, that ever more

Minds me of something ! " Then, with rapid steps

She press'd to Edith, and with lifted voice,

Shrieks " I adjure thee, tell me who thou art !

For I've had visions in the long dull nights

That fill my room with light !" Thn trembling hands

Cast off the shawl tbat fell on Edith's neck,

Tore loose the ties that bound her silken robe,

Held down its fold, and on the marble skin

What did she see ? With scream of wildest joy

Nooravah sank, and gazed with clasped hands

On the sweet flower that glow'd upon her breast,

The daisy, yellow-ring'd, the filial sign !

*' Banoolah ! my Banoolah ! " cried the Queen ;

"My daughter !" and with passionate strength she

strove,

And rose, and put her arms around the neck,
And kiss'd the flower, and looking long and deep
In Edith's face, with such a. smile as lies
Like holy sunshine round the lips of saints,
The mother loosed her hold, and falling slow,
Lay in triumphant rest at Edith's feet.

THE BLACK SEA FIVE CENTUKIES

AGO.

IN digging down through the strata of
past centuries, surprising contrasts wor-
thy to be contemplated, sometimes pre-
sent themselves. We have just turned over
the leaves of one of the volumes of the
Arab Ibn-Batutah's Travels, now publish-

ing by the Asiatic Society of Paris. The
name of Sinope arrested us. What was this
pious man from Morocco doing there, during
the first half of the fourteenth century ? He
had wandered through many African and
Asiatic regions, and was on his way to
visit a country, now interesting to our-
selves under the name of Southern Russia.
Sinope was already in the hands of the Turks,
although many infidel Greeks lived there
under protection of the Muslims. From one
of these a vessel was hired. The voyagers set
out ; but, three days afterwards, met with a
violent tempest, such as sometimes troubles
that sea about the equinox of spring. They
were driven back in sight of land ; but tried
their fortunes once more, and, after much
rough weather, appeared before the port of
Kertch, familiar now-a-days to the stu-
dents of war-maps. Some men upon the
mountain, however, for reasons not explained,
signed to them to keep off ; so they crossed to
the mainland and took ground there, at a
place where was a church attended by a
single monk. In those days Christianity and
Islamism were, so to speak, dovetailed one
into the other all along their frontiers, al-
though the former was gradually retiring
and the latter advancing triumphantly, out-
flanking the great Greek capital, before
daring to assault it.

Desht Kifjak, or the Wilderness or Stepp
of Kifjak, on the edge of which the traveller
had landed, was green and flowery, but
without mountain, or hill, or slope, or tree.
Nothing was to be obtained for firing but the
dung of animals, which even the great people
collected as a precious thing, and carried
home in the skirts of their garments. The
wilderness was said to extend for the space of
six months' journey, three of which were within
the territories of Mohammed Uzbek Khan,
whom the traveller desired to visit. He pro-
ceeded in the first place to Kaflk, a city built
on the shores of the sea, and inhabited by
Christians, for the most part Genoese, under
a chief named Demetrio. This mercantile
nation had factories all along the coasts of
the Black Sea, and remind us in their
manner of proceeding of our own early
and more successful exploits in India. They
allowed within their walls one mosque of the
Muslims, to which travellers of that nation
repaired on their arrival, as to an hotel.

This was the first time that the worthy
Ibn-Batutah had visited a city entirely in
the hands of Christians. He had not been
there long before he was struck by a remark-
able sound. The air thrilled with the ringing
of bells calling the "infidels" to church and he
boldly ordered his people to ascend the mina-
ret, read the Koran and recite the Muslim call
to prayer. He no doubt thought this was ne-
cessary, to avert what calamities might be
brought down from Heaven by that impious
ding-dong. This zeal, however, alarmed the
Kadi of the Muslims of that place, who

Chailes Dickens.]

THE BLACK SEA FIVE CENTURIES AGO.

donned his cuirass, snatched up his sword,
and ran to protect his co-religionists from
the effects of -what the good people of Kaffa
might consider an impertinence. But the
ringing of the bells had probably .drowned
the voice of the mueddin. At any rate, the
strangers were civilly treated.

The traveller describes Kaffa as a hand-
some town with beautiful markets, and an
admirable port, where more than two hun-
dred vessels of war or commerce were col-
lected. All the people, however, he repeats
in a compassionate parenthesis, are Kafirs.
So on he goes in a waggon to Kiram or
Solyhut, governed for Uzbek Khan by a man
named Toloktomour, who received the tra-
veller with hospitality. He lodged in the
hermitage of a sheikh, who with a singular
toleration told him in perfect faith of a
Christian monk who inhabited a monastery
situated outside the town, where he gave
himself up to devotional practices and fre-
quent fastings. He used sometimes to pass
forty days without food, and then only eat a
single bean. The result was wonderful mental
perspicacity, which made him discover the
most hidden things. The good sheikh wished
his guest to visit this monk; but Ibn-Batutah,
with a prejudice natural in a Morocco man,
refused, of which he afterwards repented. It
gave him greater pleasure to see the wise
and pious Moshaffer Eddin, a Greek by birth,
who had sincerely embraced Islamism, with-
out however losing his barbarous accent.
Leaving Kiram, the traveller set out in com-
pany with the Emir Toloktomour for Sera,
where Sultan Mohammed Uzbek held his
court. For this purpose it was necessary to
buy waggons great four-wheeled vehicles,
drawn sometimes by two or more horses,
sometimes by oxen and camels. The driver
armed with a whip and a goad, mounted
postilion-wise. On the chariot was raised a
kind of tent covered with felt or cloth, aired
by latticed windows. Here the traveller ate,
slept, wrote, or read during the journey.
The caravan started, according to the custom
of the Turks, immediately after the prayer of
dawn, rested from nine or ten. of the morning
until after midday, and then proceeded until
night. During the halt the horses, camels,
and oxen were let loose to graze at will. The
whole country was covered with cattle with-
out shepherds or guards ; for the laws of the
Turks were very severe against theft. He
who was found in possession of a stolen
horse was obliged to restore it along with
nine of equal value. If he could not do so, his
children were seized instead ; and if he had
no child, they cut his throat. The peo-
ple eat no bread nor any other hard
food, but lived on a kind of porridge
made of millet, with bits of meat sometimes
boiled therein. A bowlful, with curdled milk
poured over it, was served to each person.
They drank kimezz or soured mare's milk,
and a kind of fermented liquor made from

millet. Horseflesh was in great request ;
but all sweetmeats they abhorred. Ac-
cording to Toloktomour, the Sultan once
offered freedom to a slave who had forty
children and grandchildren, on condition that
he would devour a sugared dish, but received
for answer : " No ; not even if you kill me ! "
Eighteen stations from Kiram the caravan
reached, in the midst of the steppe, a vast
expanse of water, which it took a whole day
to ford, and a similar obstacle occuyred
further on ; but at length they arrived
at the city of Azak, where the Ge-
noese and other people came to trade. The
reception and consequently of his com-
panions, was splendid. Tents of silk and
linen were prepared for his reception, with
a wooden throne incrusted with gold. First
came the eating and the drinking, and then
an intellectual entertainment in the shape of
a mighty long sermon, delivered first in
Arabic and then translated into Turkish by
the same speaker. There was also marvellous
singing, and after that much more eating ;
and then more preaching and praying all day.
" Having rested some days, Ibn-Batutah
proceeded to Majar, one of the finest cities
then belonging to the Turks, situated on the
great river Kouma, and adorned with gardens
yielding many fruits. As usual, the traveller
got a lodging in a hermitage. His host, the
sheikh Mohammed with whom he prays
God to be satisfied had about seventy fakirs
with him, Arabs, Persians, Turks, and
Greeks ; some married, others not. All lived
on charity dispensed in those tunes, as ever,
chiefly by the hands of women. Ibu-Batutah
witnessed how a pious preacher prepared for
a journey. He made an excellent sermon,
and then some one got up and said : " He
who has spoken is going to travel, and wants
provisions for that purpose." Then he took
off his own tunic, saying, " This is my gift ; "
and being thus stimulated, the remainder of
the congregation began, some to strip, others
to subscribe a horse or else money ; and so
at last the worthy man was fitted out like a
prince.

"What struck Ibn-Batutah chiefly during
this journey was the great respect which the
Turks showed to women; who seemed to hold,
in fact, a higher rank than men. He men-
tions that on leaving Kiram he met a
princess, wife of an emir, in her chariot. It
was covered with costly blue cloth. The
windows and doors were open, so that he
lould see the lady, attended by four young
girls, exquisitely beautiful and wonderfully
dressed. Other chariots filled with hand-
maidens followed. She got down to visit
Toloktomour. Thirty girls held up the
skirts of her robe. The emir rose to
receive her ; and, after they had eaten and
drunk together, presented her with a dress of
aonour. Even the wives of merchants and
small dealers kept up great state ; and, in
travelling, had also two or three girls to bear

HOUSEHOLD WORDS.

[Conducted by

their train. It was always possible to see
their faces ; for, iu those times, the women of
the Turks were not veiled. When the hus-
band travelled he might often be taken for a
servant, wearing nothing but a pelisse of
sheepskin and a high cap called alcula, whilst
the wife's head-dress was incrusted with
jewels and adorned with peacock's fea-
thers.

At Majar the traveller learned that the
camp of the Sultan was at Beoh-Taw, or the
Five Mountains. They went in search of it ;
and, one day, after they had halted on the
summit of a hill, beheld the ordou or Im-
perial camp approach. It resembled a great
city moving along with all its inhabitants, its
mosques, and its markets. The smoke of the
kitchens rose through the air, for the Turks
did not always halt to cook their meals.
Innumerable waggons were filled with people.
On arriving at the halting ground, they
removed the tents and the mosques and the
shops from the waggons, and prepared to pass
the night. One of the Sultan's wives, seeing a
tent on a neighbouring hill, with a standard
set up in front to announce a new arrival,
sent pages and young girls to carry her salu-
tations ; and, having waited until they re-
turned, passed on to the place appointed
for her. Soon afterwards the Sultan him-
self arrived, and encamped in a quarter apart.

According to Ibn-Batutah, Sultan Uzbek
was one of the seven great sovereigns of the
earth. One of the titles given to him was
that of "Conqueror of the enemies of God,
the inhabitants of Constantinople the Great."
He was remarkable as well for his business
habits as for his splendour. In the descrip-
tion of his audience-days particular stress is
laid on the fact that he was always sur-
rounded by queens and princesses (with names
too hard to pronounce) ; and the importance
of women, as part of the machinery of that
empire, is constantly insisted on. Ibn-
Batutah came from different climes more to
the south, where different habits prevailed.
He enlarges complacently on the courts and
households of the four khatouns or queens ;
their waggons with domes of gilded silver ;
their horses covered with silken trappings ;
their wise duennas ; their beautiful slave girls ;
their costly wardrobes, and their etiquette.
Then he gives a peculiarly Oriental biogra-
phical account of those four ladies, one of
whom was Beialoun, daughter of the Emperor
of Constantinople the Great, Andronicus the
Third. When the traveller visited her she
was seated on a throne incrusted with stones
and precious stones, with silver feet. Before
her were a hundred young girls, Greek,
Turkish, and Nubian ; some sitting, some
standing. Eunuchs were near her, with
several Greek chamberlains. On hearing of
the distance from which the travellers had
come, she wept with tenderness and compas-
sion, and wiped her face with a kerchief she
held in her hand. No doubt she was thinking

of her own far-off country, and parents of a
different faith from her lord. She ordered a
repast to be spread, and then dismissed her
visitors with splendid presents of provisions,
money, garments, sheep and horses.

Ibn-Batutali, ever anxious to see strange
things, had heard of the wonderful shortness
of the night in one season, and of the day i/i
another season, observed at the city of Bol-
ghar, and accordingly marched ten days
northward to visit it. He arrived there
during the months of Ramadhan ; and, having
broke his fast at sunset, performed the even-
ing prayer, and then three other long prayers
when, lo ! the dawn began to appear. He
wished to visit what was called the Land of
Darkness; forty days still further off, but the
difficulty of the journey alarmed him. He
was told that people travelled there in sledges
drawn by dogs, some of which were valued
at a thousand dinars. Their master fed them
before he touched food himself. The trade of
the country was in furs, chiefly ermine, ex-
ported to China and India.

On his return to Beoh-Taw, Ibn-Batutah
witnessed the solemnity of the breaking of
the fast of the Ramadhan, performed with
wonderful barbaric splendour. After that the
ordou of the Sultan broke up and marched
to the city of Haj-Terkhan, now known as
Astrakhan. The word Terkhan amongst the
Turks signifies a place exempt from tax-
ation. The person who gave his name to the
city was a devout pilgrim or haj, who founded 1
it, and obtained from the Sultan the privilege
of exemption. It increased to a great size,
and became an emporium. It was the
custom of the Sultan to remain there until
the cold set in and the Volga was frozen over.

What next happened to Ibn-Batutah sug-
gests a strange contrast with the present
state of the East. Soon after arriving at
Astrakhan, the Khatoun Beialoun, daughter
of the King of the Greeks, asked permission
of the Sultan to visit her father at Constanti-
nople, in order to become a mother there,
promising to return immediately afterwards.
Her request was granted, and our traveller
begged to be allowed to accompany her, in
order that he might see the celebrated city of
the Christians. After some kindly opposition,
he received permission to do so, and was
overwhelmed with valuable presents. The
Sultan politely accompanied his Greek wife
for a day's march, and then left her to proceed
with an escort of five thousand soldiers. Her
own servants were to the number of five
hundred horsemen, for the most part slaves
or Greeks, and two hundred girls. She had
four hundred' chariots, two thousand horses,
three hundred oxen, and two hundred camels.
They marched first to the town of Okalc, a
well-built but small city, situated one day's
journey from the mountains inhabited by the
Russians, who were Christians with red hair,
blue eyes, ugly faces, and cunning dispo-
sitions. They possessed mines of silver which

Charles Dickens.]

THE BLACK SEA FIVE CENTUKIES AGO.

they exported in the shape of lingots, each
five ounces in weight, used as current money
in that country. This is all that Ibn-Batutah
has to say about the people which has since
spread its power like an inundation to the
east, to the west, and to the south.

Ten days farther on, the queen Beialoun, in
her progress, came to Sondak, situated on the
shores of the sea amidst gardens, and with a
fine and well-frequented port. It was inha-
bited partly by Turks, partly by Greek
artisans living under their protection. Not
long before, a violent insurrection of the
Christians had led to the massacre or expul-
sion of the greater number. The next station
was Baba-Salthouk, the last city belonging to
the Turks, between which and the commence-
ment of the Greek empire was a desert
eighteen days across, a great portion without
water. It is difficult to adapt this account
to modern geography ; and we do not exactly
recognise the fortress Mahtouly, situated at
the other extremity of the desert on the
limit of the Christian territory. Here Beia-
loun was received with great honours by her
people, and the Turkish escort returned by
the way it had come. The poor princess
breathed more freely. Thenceforward, the
custom of praying was abolished. " Among
the provisions brought to her," says Ibn-
Batutah, "were intoxicating drinks, of which
she partook, and hogs, of which one of her
people told me she ate. No one remained
with her who prayed, except a Turk, who
performed his devotions with us. Her secret
sentiments thus manifested themselves as
soon as we had reached the country of the
infidels ; but she requested the Greek Emir,
Nicholas, to treat me with due honour ; and
on one particular occasion that officer beat a
slave who had made fun at our prayers."
How strangely does all this read now !

The brother of the princess came to escort
her with an army, part of which consisted of
a body-guard composed of men in complete
coats of mail. Their gilded lances were
adorned witli pennons, and altogether a won-
derful display of riches and splendour was
made. Thus they proceeded across the Da-
nube and the plains of Eoumelia ; until, after
a long journey, they reached a spot within
ten miles of Constantinople, where they
halted for the night. " Next day," says the
traveller, " the population of that city men,
women and children came out to meet the
princess; some on foot; some on horseback; all
dressed in their best array. From the earliest
dawn the cymbals, and the clarions, and the
trumpets sounded. The Sultan (Emperor),
with his wife, mother of the Khatoun, and all
the great personages of the empire and the
courtiers, surrounded by horse-soldiers, issued
forth. Over the head of the Emperor was
carried a vast canopy, supported by horsemen
and footmen. The meeting of this procession
and our party was tumultuous. I could not
penetrate through the crowd, but am told

that when the princess approached her pa-
rents, she put foot to ground and kissed the
eartli at their feet, and the hoofs of their
horses, as did likewise her chief officers.
We entered Constantinople the Great, to-
wards midday. The inhabitants were ringing
their bells in full peal, so that the heavens
were shaken by the noise. When we reached
the first gate of the palace, we found there a
guard of a hundred men upon a platform. I
heard them saying ' The Saracens ! the Sara-
cens ! ' a word by which they designate the
Muslims and they prevented us from enter-
ing." This difficulty, however, was subse-
quently removed ; and Ibn-Batutah was not
only lodged in the palace, but received pre-
sents of flour, bread, sheep, fowls, butter,
fruits, and fish, with money and carpets.

Ibn-Batutah calls the Emperor of Con-
stantinople Takfour, a corruption of the
Armenian word Tagavor, which means king.
He was the son of the previous Emperor,
George, who had abdicated and become a
monk. The traveller visited the monarch on
the invitation of the Khatoun. As he entered
the palace he was searched, to see that he
had no weapon about him, according to an
ancient custom rigidly complied with. This
done, he was admitted, whilst four people
surrounded him, two holding his sleeves and
two his shoulders. Thus attended, he reached
a great hall, the walls oi which were adorned
with mosaics representing natural produc-
tions, animal and mineral. In the midst of
the hall was a piece of water, with trees bor-
dering it. Men stood upon the right and on
the left, without speaking. Three of them
received him from his guides, and likewise
took hold of his clothes. A Syrian Jew,
acting as interpreter, told him to fear nothing,
for strangers were always received thus. He
asked how he was to salute, and was an-
swered, " With the words Salam Alaykoum."

The Emperor was sitting on his throne,
with his wife and her brothers at its foot.
Armed men stood by his side and behind
him. He signed to the stranger to sit down
and rest awhile, and recover his presence of
mind, after which he questioned him con-
erning Jerusalem, and the Bock of Jacob,
and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre ; on
the Cradle of Jesus, on Bethlehem and
Hebron, on Damascus, Cairo, Persia, and
Asia Minor. Ibn-Batutah was astonished at
the interest the monarch took in these things,
and answered copiously. He was treated
with great respect, and received a dress of
cionour, with a horse saddled and bridled,
and one of the king's own parasols, as a
mark of protection. He asked for a guide
;o show him the wonders of the city, and
thus accompanied, went forth to satiate his
uriosity.

Ibn-Batutah describes the city of Constan-
tinople as situated on two sides of a river, by
which he means the Golden Horn. One por-
tion was called Esthamboul, inhabited by the

HOUSEHOLD WORDS.

[Conducted IT

Sultan, the grandees of the empire, and the
remainder of the Greek population. Its mar-
kets and its streets were broad, and paved
with flags of stone. Every trade occupied a
distinct place, and the markets were closed
by gates at night. From this description,
which would now apply to most Oriental
towns, we might infer that Constantinople
afterwards became the model city of the East.
But it is added, that in the fifteenth century
most of the artisans and shopkeepers were
women. The second quarter of the city was
called Galata, and was principally inhabited
by Christian Franks of many nations as
Genoese, Venetians, Romans, and French.
They were under the authority of the Em-
peror, who nominated what they call Alkomes,
or a court to govern them. They paid an an-
nual tribute, but often revolted and warred
against the Emperor, until the Pope, or
patriarch, interposed to make peace between
them. All were devoted to commerce. " I
have seen about a hundred galleys and other
great ships there," says Ibn-Batutah, " with-
out counting smaller craft. The markets of
this quarter are large but full of filth, and
are traversed by a dirty river. The churches
of these people are also disgusting, and con-
tain nothing good."

Then the worthy traveller goes on to talk
of the great church of St. Sophia, which has
V/een closed for so many centuries against
Christians, whilst remaining the pole-star of
orthodox popes. According to him, it was
founded by Assag, son of Barakia, who was a
son of Solomon's aunt. In those days the
Greeks had it all their own way, and set the
example of keeping strangers rigidly out.
Ibn-Batutah was not allowed to enter further
than the great enclosure. He describes the
exterior as very splendidly adorned, but men-
tions that shops existed within the sacred
limits. In order to be certain that none but
good Christians entered the church, guardians
were posted, who compelled every one to
kneel before a cross, which (says the tra-
veller) was greatly respected by those people.
It was a fragment of the real cross, pre-
served in a coffer of gold. Ibn-Batutah gives
a good many details of the religious customs
existing at Constantinople. The number of
monks and other people living by religion
seems to have been immense. What parti-
cularly struck him was a convent of five
hundred virgins, dressed in haircloth, with
felt caps on their heads, which were shaved.
These women, he says, were of exquisite
beauty, but the austerity of their life was
marked upon their faces. When he went to
see them, a young boy was reading the Gospel
to them in a voice of marvellous beauty.
Having told many other facts of the same
nature, the traveller exclaims again : " Verily,
the greater part of the population of this city
consists of monks and priests. The churches
were innumerable. All the inhabitants, mili-
tary or not, poor and rich, went about with

gi-eat parasols summer and winter." Do we
not now begin completely to understand the
great disaster which happened about a cen-
tury afterwards ?

One day Ibn-Batutah met an old man with
a long white beard and a handsome counte-
nance, walking on foot in a dress of horsehair
and a felt cap. Before him and behiad him
was a troop of monks ; in his hand was a
stick, and about his neck a chaplet. When
the Greek who had been given to our traveller
as a guide saw him, he got down from his
horse and said " Do as I do ; for this is the
father of the king." It was indeed George,
the father of Andronicus. He spoke to the
Greek, who knew Arabic, and said : " Tell
this -Saracen that I press the hand that has
been at Jerusalem and the foot which has
walked on the Rock of Jacob." Then he
touched Ibn-Batutah's feet, and passed his
hand over his own face. Afterwards, they
walked hand in hand together, talking of
Jerusalem and the Christians who were still
there, until they entered the enclosure of
St. Sophia. When he approached the prin-
cipal gateway a troop of priests and monks
came out to salute him, for he was one of
their chiefs. On seeing them, he let go the
hand of the traveller, who said to him: "I
wish to enter with thee into this church."
But the old king replied : " Whoever enters
must do obeisance to the Cross, according to
the law of the ancients, which cannot be
transgressed." So saying, he entered alone,
and Ibn-Batutah saw him no more.

It will be seen that our traveller looked at
everything from a particular point of view,
and was not very fertile in general observa-
tions. What he relates, however, will be
sufficient to suggest the wonderful change
that has come over those regions since he
wrote. Every thing and every race seems to
to have changed its place. The Russians were
then spoken of as an obscure tribe : the
Turks, recently emerged from the depths of
Central Asia, were indulging, under their
tents, in a foretaste of Imperial splendour ;
the Greeks were gradually sinking into the
slough of mere formal religion, and becoming
effeminate under their silken parasols. The
Franks appeared merely as strangers, freely
trafficking with either party, but trying here
and there to establish a footing. One of the
most curious parts of Ibn-Batutah's rapid
narrative is the sketch of the story of Beialoun.
She had been made over to Uzbek Khan
from political motives, but had probably not
won any extravagant share of his affections.
At any rate, by her conduct on her arrival in
Christendom, she seemed determined to have
no more of barbarian life. The Turks who
accompanied, soon saw that she professed the
religion of her father, and desired to'remain
with him. They asked her permission, there-
fore, to return; which she granted, after
bestowing presents upon them. Ibn-Batutah
also shared in her bounty. He received

CharlesDieVens.]

THE CHINESE ADAM.

three hundred dinars "of poor gold, how-
ever/' with two thousand Venetian drachms
and other matters ; and after having re-
mained a month and six days with the
Greeks, returned to Astrakhan.

CHIP.

LONG LIFE OF LOCUSTS.

A CORRESPONDENT, in reference to the
tenacity of life in locusts,* mentions "that
about twelve years ago an insect of the
locust tribe, about an inch and a half or
two inches in length (of body) flew or was
blown into the windows of a house on
Albury Heath. It was caught, and we
endeavoured to preserve it by washing it in
a solution of camphor ; but the camphor
would not kill it. 1 then applied prussic acid
of the quality usually dispensed by good
druggists. I washed it well with a feather
over its head, back, wings, and legs. As soon
as applied, the insect dropped all of a heap,
as the vulgar expression is, and would remain
apparently lifeless for about six or eight
minutes. Then it would revive gradually,
and apparently regain its full life and vigour.
I did this for several days, and on some occa-
sions repeating the dressing from time to
time as soon as it had revived, sometimes as
soon as it showed symptoms of revival. I
forget what became of it, but assuredly
prussic acid did not kill it."

THE CHINESE ADAM.

THE notions entertained by Chinese writers
on the subject of the first man and the
creation of the world, are very curious. They
begin, like our Scriptural account, with a
time when the earth was without form and
void ; from that they pass to an idea that was
of old part of the wisdom of Egypt. Chaos
was succeeded by the working of a dual
power, Rest and Motion, the one female, and
named Yin, the other male, and named
Yang.

Of heaven and earth, of genii, of men, and
of all creatures, animate and inanimate, Yin
and Yang were the father and the mother.
Furthermore, all these things are either male
or female : there is nothing in Nature neuter.
Whatever in the material world possesses, or
is reputed to possess, the quality of hardness
(including heaven, the sun, and day) is mas-
culine. Whatever is soft (including earth
the moon, and night, as well as earth, wood,
metals, and water), is feminine. Choofoots
says on this subject, " The celestial principle
formed the male ; the terrestrial principle
formed the female. All animate and inani-
mate nature may be distinguished into mas-
culine and feminine. Even vegetable pro-
ductions are male and female ; for instance,

See volume x. page 478.

there is female hemp, and there are male and
female bamboo. Nothing can possibly be
separated from the dual principles named
Yin and Yang, the superior and hard,
the inferior and soft." It is curious
to find that the Chinese have also a
theory resembling one propounded by Py-
thagoras, concerning monads and duads.
" One," they say, " begat two, two produced
four, and four increased to eight ; and thus
by spontaneous multiplication, the production
of all things followed."

As for the present system of things, it is
the work of what they call " the triad powers,"
Heaven, Man, and Earth. The following
is translated from a Chinese Encyclopaedia,
published about sixty years ago, " Before
heaven and earth existed, they were com-
mingled as the contents of an egg-shell
are." [In this egg-shell, heaven is likened
to the yellow, the earth to the white of
the egg.] " Or they were together, turbid and
muddy like thick dregs just beginning to
settle. Or they were together like a thick
fog on the point of breaking. Then was the
beginning of time, when the original power
created all things. Heaven and earth are
the effect of the First Cause. They in turn
produced all other things besides."

Another part of the tradition runs^ as
follows : " In the midst of this chaotic mass
Pwankoo lived during eighteen thousand
years. He lived when the heaven and the
earth were being created ; the superior
and lighter elements forming the firma-
ment, the inferior and coarser the dry land."
Again, " During this time the heavens in-
creased every day ten feet in height, the
earth as much in thickness, and Pwankoo in
stature. The period of eighteen thousand
years being assigned to the growth of each
respectively, during that time the heavens
rose to their extreme height, the earth
reached the greatest thickness, and Pwankoo
his utmost stature. The heavens rose aloft
nine thousand miles, the earth swelled nine
thousand miles m thickness, and in the
middle was Pwankoo, stretching himself be-
tween heaven and earth, until he separated
them at a distance of nine thousand miles
from each other. So the highest part' of the
heavens is removed from the lowest part of
the earth by a distance of twenty-seven thou-
sand miles."

The name of the Chinese Adam Pwankoo
means "basin-ancient," that is, "basined
antiquity." It is probably meant to denote
how this father of antiquity was nourished
originally in an egg-shell, and hatched like a
chick. Among the portraits commonly stored
up by native archaeologists, we find various re-
presentations of Pwankoo. One is now before
me that exhibits him with an enormous head
tipped with two horns. His hair, which is
of a puritanical cut on the brow, flows loose
and long over the back and shoulders. He
has large eyes and shaggy eyebrows, a very

HOUSEHOLD WORDS.

[Conducted by

flat nose, a heavy moustache and beard.
Only the upper part of his body is exhibited,
and one can scarcely tell whether the painter
represents it as being covered with hair,
leaves, or sheepskin. His arms are bare,
and his hands thrown carelessly the one over
the other, as if in complete satisfaction with
himself. Another picture represents him
with an apron of leaves round his loins, hold-
ing the sun in one hand, and the moon in
the other. A third artist has pictured him
with a chisel and mallet in his hands, split-
ting and sculpturing huge masses of granite.
Through the immense opening made by his
labour, the pun, moon, and stars are seen ;
and at his right hand stand, for companions,
the unicorn and the dragon, the phoenix
and the tortoise. He appears as a strong
naked giant, taking pleasure in the carv-
ing out of the mountains, stupendous pillars,
caves, and dens. During his eighteen
thousand years of effort, we are told that,
"his head became mountains, his breath
winds and clouds, and his voice thunder.
His left eye was made the sun, and his right
eye the moon. His teeth, bones, and mar-
row were changed into metals, rocks, and
precious stones. His beard was converted
into stars, his flesh into fields, his skin and
hair into herbs and trees. His limbs became
the four poles ; his veins, rivers ; and his
sinews formed the undulations on the face
of the earth. His very sweat was transformed
into rain, and whatever insects stuck to or
crept over his gigantic body, were made into
human beings! "

The uneducated Chinese are careless, and
the educated sceptical, about these things.
As a people they are not easily induced to
pay much regard to whatever has refer-
ence to more than everyday social wisdom.
The sort of doctrine common now among
the learned, is indeed found in the succeed-
ing passage from a Chinese author : " But
as everything (except heaven and earth)
must have a beginning and a cause, it is
manifest that heaven and earth always
existed, and that all sorts of men and beings
were produced and endowed with their va-
rious qualities, by that cause. However, it
must have been Man that in the beginning
produced all the things upon the earth. Him,
therefore, we may view as Lord ; and it is
from him, we may say, that the dignities of
rulers are derived."

PERE PANPAN.

"MONSIEUR PANPAN lives in the Place
Valois," said my friend, newly arrived from
London on a visit to Paris, "and as I am
under promise to his brother Victor to deliver
a message on his behalf, I must keep my
word even if I go alone, and execute my mis-
sion in pantomime. Will you be my inter-
preter ? "

The Place Valois is a dreamy little square
formed by tall houses : graced by an elegant
fountain in its centre ; guarded by a red-
legged sentinel ; and is chiefly remarkable in
Parisian annals as the scene of the assassina-
tion of the Due de JBerri. There is a quiet
melancholy air about the place which accords
well with its traditions ; and, even the little
children who make it their playground on
account of the absence of both vehicles and
equestrians, pursue their sports in a subdued
tranquil way, hanging about the fountain's
edge, and dabbling in the water with their
little fingers. Monsieur Paiipan's residence
was not difficult to find. We entered by a
handsome porte-cochere into a paved court-
yard, and, having duly accounted for our
presence tp the watchful concierge who sat
sedulously peering out of a green sentry-box,
commenced our ascent to the upper regions.
Seeing that Monsieur lived on the fourth
floor, and that the steps of the spacious stair-
case were of that shallow description which
disappoint the tread by falling short of its
expectations, it was no wonder that we were
rather out of breath when we reached the
necessary elevation ; and that we paused a
moment to collect our thoughts, and calm our
respiration, before knocking at the little back-
room door, which we knew to be that of Mon-
sieur Panpan.

Madam Panpan received us most gra-
ciously, setting chairs for us, and apologising
for her husband who, poor man, was sitting
up in his bed, with a wan countenance,
and hollow, glistening eyes. We were
in the close heavy air of a sick chamber.
The room was very small, and the bedstead
occupied a large portion of its space. It was
lighted by one little window only, and that
looked down a sort of square shaft which
served as a ventilator to the house. A pale
child, with large wandering eyes, watched us
intently from behind the end of the little
French bedstead, while the few toys he had
been playing with lay scattered upon the
floor. The room was very neat, although its
furniture was poor and scanty, and by the
brown saucepan perched upon the top of the
diminutive German stove, which had strayed,
as it were, from its chimney corner into the
middle of the room, we knew that the pot-au-
feu was in preparation. Madame, before
whom was a small table covered with the un-
finished portions of a corset, was very agree-
able rather coquettish, indeed, we should
have said in England. Her eyes were
bright and cheerful, and her hair drawn
back from her forehead a la Chinoise. In
a graceful, but decided way, she apologised
for continuing her labours, which were
evidently works of necessity rather than of
choice.

" And Victor, that good boy," she exclaimed,
when we had further explained the object of
our visit, " was quite well ! I am charmed !
And he had found work, and succeeding so

Charles 1 ickens.]

PEEE PANPAN.

well in his affairs. I am enchanted ! It is so
amiable of him to send me this little cadeau ! "

Monsieur Panpan, with his strange lustrous
eyes, if not enchanted, rubbed his thin bony
hands together as he sat up in the bed, and
chuckled in an unearthly way at the good
news. Having executed our commission, we
felt it would be intrusive to prolong our stay,
and therefore rose to depart, but received so
pressing an invitation to repeat the visit,
that, on the part of myself and friend, who
was to leave Paris*in a few days, I could not
refuse to comply with a wish so cordially
expressed, and evidently sincere. And thus
commenced my acquaintance with the Pan-
pans.

I cannot trace the course of our acquaint-
ance, or tell how, from an occasional call, my
visits became those of a bosom friend ; but
certain it is, that soon each returning Sunday
saw me a guest at the table of Monsieur Pan-
pan, where my convert and serviette became
sacred to my use ; and, after the meal, were
carefully cleaned and laid apart for the next
occasion. This, I afterwards learned, was a
customary mark of consideration towards an
esteemed friend among the poorer class of
Parisians. I soon learned their history. Their
every-day existence was a simple, easily
read story, and not the less simple and
touching because it is the every-day story of
thousands of poor French families. Madame
was a staymaker ; and the whole care and
responsibility of providing for the wants and
comforts qf a sick husband ; for her little
Victor, her eldest born ; and the monthly
stipend of her infant Henri, out at nurse
some hundred leagues from Paris, hung upon
the unaided exertions of her single hands, and
the scrupulous and wonderful economy of her
management.

One day I found Madame in tears. Panpan
himself lay with rigid features, and his wiry
hands spread out upon the counterpane. Ma-
dame was at first inconsolable and inexpli-
cable, but at length, amid sobs, half sup-
pressed, related the nature of their new
misfortune. Would Monsieur believe that
those miserable nurse-people, insulting as
they were, had sent from the country to
say, that unless the three months nursing of
little Henri, together with the six pounds
of lump sugar, which formed part of the
original bargain, were immediately paid,
cette pauvre bete (Henri that was), would
be instantly dispatched to Paris, and pro-
ceedings taken for the recovery of the debt.
Ces miserables !

Here poor Madame Panpan could not con-
tain herself, but gave way to her affliction
in a violent outburst of tears. And yet the
poor child, the cause of all this sorrow, was
almost as great a stranger to his mother
as he was to me, who had never seen him
in my life. With scarcely a week's exist-
ence to boast of, he had been swaddled
up in strange clothes ; entrusted to strange

hands ; and hurried away some hundred
leagues from the capital, to scramble
about the clay floor of an unwholesome
cottage, in company perhaps with some half-
dozen atomies like himself, as strange to
each other, as they were to their own
parents, to pass those famous mois de
uourrice which form so important and mo-
mentous a period in the lives of most French
people. Madam Panpan was however in
no way responsible for this state of things ;
the system was there, not only recognised,
but encouraged ; become indeed a part of
the social habits of the people, and it was.
no wonder if her poverty should have driven
her to so popular and ready a means of meet-
ing a great difficulty. How she extricated her-
self from this dilemma, it is not necessary to
state ; suffice it to say, that a few weeks
saw cette petite b<3te Henri, happily domi-
ciled in the Place Valois ; and, if not over-
burdened with apparel, at least released
from the terrible debt of six and thirty
francs, and six pounds of lump-sugar.

It naturally happened, that on the plea-
sant Sunday afternoons, when we had dis-
posed of our small, but often sumptuous
dinner ; perhaps a gigot de mouton with
a clove of garlic in the knuckle ; a fricassoe
de rabbits with onions, or a fricandeau ;
Panpan himself would tell me part of his
history ; and in the course of our salad ;
of our little dessert of fresh fruit, or cur-
rant jelly ; or perhaps, stimulated by the
tiniest glass of brandy, would grow warm in
the recital of his early experiences, and the
unhappy chance which had brought him into
his present condition.

" Ah, Monsieur ! " he said, one day, " little
would you think to see me cribbed up in this
miserable bed, that I had been a soldier, or
that the happiest clays of iny lite had been
passed in the woods of Fontainebleau, follow-
ing the chase in the retinue of King Charles
the Tenth of France. I was a wild young
fellow in my boyhood ; and, when at the age of
eighteen I drew for the conscription and found
it was my fate to serve, I believe I never was
so happy in my life. I entered the cavalry ;
and, in spite of the heavy duties and strict
discipline, it was a glorious time. It makes
me mad, Monsieur, when I think of the happy
days I have spent on the road, in barracks,
and in snug country-quarters, where there
was cider or wine for the asking ; to find my-
self in a solitary corner of great, thoughtless
Paris, sick and helpless. It would be some-
thing to die out in the open fields like a
worn-out horse, or to be shot like a wounded
one. But this is terrible, and I am but thirty-
eight."

We comforted him in the best way we could
with sage axioms of antique date, or more
lively stories of passing events ; but I saw a
solitary tear creeping down the cheek of
Madame Panpan, even in the midst of a
quaint sally ; and, under pretence of arrang-

[Conducted by

ing his pillow, she bent over his head and
kissed him gently on the forehead.

Pdre Panpan I had come by degrees to
call him " Pere," although he was still young ;
for it sounded natural and kindly con-
tinued his narrative in his rambling, gos-
siping way. He had been chosen, he said, to
serve in the Garde Royale, of whom fifteen
thousand sabres were stationed in and about
the capital at this period ; and in the royal
forest of Fontainebleau, in the enjoyment
of a sort of indolent activity, he passed
his happiest days ; now employed in the
chase, now in the palace immediately about
the person of the king, in a succession of
active pleasures, or easy, varied duties. Pan-
pan was no republican. Indeed, I question
whether any very deep political principles
governed his sentiments ; which naturally
allied themselves with those things that
yielded the greatest amount of pleasure.

The misfortunes of PeYe Panpan dated
from the revolution of eighteen hundred and
thirty. Then the glittering pageantry in the
palace of Fontainebleau vanished like a dream.
The wild clatter of military preparation ; the
rattling of steel and the trampling of horses ;
and away swept troop after troop, with sword-
belt braced and carabine in hand, to plunge
into the mad uproar of the streets of Paris,
risen, stones and all, in revolution. The Garde
Eoyale did their duty in those three terrible
days, and if their gallant charges through
the encumbered streets, or their patient en-
durance amid the merciless showers of indes-
cribable missiles, were all in vain, it was
because their foe was animated by an
enthusiasm of which they knew nothing,
save in the endurance of its effects. Panpan's
individual fate, amid all this turmoil, was
lamentable enough.

A few hours amid the dust ; the swelling
heat ; the yellings of the excited populace ;
the roaring of cannon and the pattering of
musketry ; saw the troop in which he served,
broken and scattered, and Panpan himself
rolling in the dust, with a thousand lights
flashing in his eyes, and a brass button
lodged in his side !

" Those villains of Parisians ! " he ex-
claimed, "not content with showering their
whole garde meuble upon our heads, fired
upon us a diabolical collection of missiles,
such as no mortal ever thought of before :
bits of broken brass ; little plates of tin
and iron rolled into sugar-loaves ; crushed
brace-buckles ; crooked nails and wads of
metal wire ; anything, indeed, that in their
extremity they could lay their hands on, and
ram into the muzzle of a gun ! These
things inflicted fearful gashes, and, in many
cases, a mere flesh-wound turned out a death-
stroke. Few that got hurt in our own troop
lived to tell the tale."

A few more days and the whole royal
cavalcade was scattered like chaff before the
wind, and Charles the Tenth a fugitive on his

way to England ; a few more days and the
wily Louis Philippe was taking the oath to a
new constitution, and our friend, Panpan, lay
carefully packed, brass button and all, in the
H6tel-Dieu. The brass-button was difficult
to find, and when found, the ugly fissure it
had made grew gangrened, and would not
heal ; and thus it happened that many a bed
became vacant, and got filled, and was vacant
again, as their occupants either walked out, or
were borne out, of the hospital gates, before
Panpan was declared .convalescent, and
finally dismissed from the H6tel-Dieu as
" cured."

The proud trooper was, however, an
altered man ; his health and spirits were
gone ; the whole corps of which he had so
often boasted was broken up and dispersed ;
his means of livelihood were at an end, and
what was worse he knew of no other exercise
of which he could gain his daily bread. There
were very many such helpless, tradeless men
pacing the streets of Paris, when the fever
of the revolution was cooled down, and ordi-
nary business ways began to take their
course. Nor was it those alone who were
uninstructed in any useful occupation, but
there were also the turbulent, dissatisfied
spirits ; builders of barricades, and leaders of
club-sections, whom the late excitement, and
their temporary elevation above their fellow-
workmen, had left restless and ambitious, and
whose awakened energies, if not directed to
some useful and congenial employment, would
infallibly lead to mischief.

Panpan chuckled over the fate which
awaited some of these ardent youths : " Ces
gaillards 1& ! " he said, " had become too
proud and troublesome to be left long in the
streets of Paris ; they would have fomented
another revolution, so Louis Philippe, under
pretence of rewarding his brave 'soldats
laboureurs,' whom he was ready to shake by
th3 hand in jthe public streets in the first
flush of success, enrolled them in the army,
and sent them to the commanding officers
with medals of honour round their necks,
and special recommendations to promotion
in their hands. They hoped to become Mar-
shals of France in no time. Pauvres diables !
they were soon glad to hide their decorations,
and cease bragging about street-fighting and
barricades, for the regulars relished neither
their swaggering stories nor the notion of
being set aside by such parvenus ; and they
got so quizzed, snubbed, and tormented, that
they were happy at last to slide into their
places as simple soldats, and trust to the
ordinary course of promotion."

As for Panpan, his street wanderings ter-
minated in his finding employment in a lace-
manufactory, and it soon became evident that
his natural talent here found a congenial
occupation. He came by degrees to be happy
in his new position of a workman. Then
occurred the serious love passage of his life

ChariesDickem.]

PEEE PANPAN.

his meeting with Louise, now Madame Pan-
pan. It was the simplest matter in the
world; Panpan, to whom life was nothing
without the Sunday quadrille at the bar-
rire, having resolved to figure on the
next occasion in a pair of bottes vernis,
waited uoon his bootmaker every Parisian
has his" bootmaker to issue his man-
dates concerning their length, shape, and
general construction. He entered the bou-
tique of Mons. Cuire, when, lo ! he beheld in
the little back parlour, the most delicate
little foot that ever graced a shoe, or tripped
to measure on the grass. He would say
nothing of the owner of this miracle ; of her
face which was full of intelligence ; of her
figure which was gentille toute & faite but
for that dear, chaste, ravishing model of a
foot ! so modestly pose upon the cushion.
Heaven ! and Panpau unconsciously heaved
a long sigh, and brought with it from the very
bottom of his heart a vow to become its pos-
sessor. There was no necessity for anything
very rash or very desperate in the case as
it happened, for the evident admiration of
Panpan had inspired Louise with an im-
promptu interest in his favour, and he being
besides gentil gargon, their chance rencontre
was but the commencement of a friendship
which ripened into love, and so the old
story over again, with marriage at the end
of it.

Well ! said M. Panpan, time rolled on,
and little Louis was born. This might
have been a blessing, but while family
cares and expenses were growing upon
them, Panpan's strength and energies were
withering away. He suffered little pain,
but what there was seemed to spring
from the old wound ; and there were whole
days when he lay a mere wreck, without the
power or will to move ; and when his feeble
breath seemed passing away for ever. Hap-
pily, these relapses occurred only at intervals,
but by slow degrees they became more fre-
quent, and more overwhelming. Madame
Panpan's skill and untiring perseverance
grew to be, as other resources failed, the
main, and for many, many months, the whole
support of the family. Then came a time
when the whiter had passed away, and the
spring was already in its full, and still Pan-
pan lay helpless in bed with shrunken limbs
and hollow, pallid cheeks, and then little
Henri was born.

Pere Panpan having arrived at this crisis
in his history, drew a long breath, and
stretched himself back in his bed. I knew
the rest. It was soon after the event last-
named that I made his acquaintance, and the
remainder of his simple story, therefore,
devolves upon me.

The debility of the once dashing soldier
increased daily, and as it could be traced to
no definite cause, he gradually became a phy-
siological enigma ; and thence naturally a pet
of the medical profession. Not that he was a

profitable patient, for the necessities of the
family were too great to allow of so expensive
a luxury as a doctor's bill ; but urged, partly
by commiseration, and partly by professional
curiosity, both ardent students and methodical
practitioners would crowd round his simple
bed, probing him with instruments, poking
him with their fingers, and punching him
with their fists ; each with a new theory to
propound and establish ; and the more they
were baffled and contradicted in their precon-
ceived notions, the more obstinate they be-
came in their enforcement. Panpan's own
thoughts upon the subject always reverted to
the brass button, although he found few to
listen to, or encourage him in his idea. His
medical patrons were a constant source of
suffering to him, but he bore with them
patiently ; sometimes reviving from his pros-
tration as if inspired, then lapsing as suddenly
into his old state of semi-pain and total
feebleness. As a last hope, he was removed
from his fourth floor in the Place Valois, to
become an inmate of the Bicdtre, and a domi-
ciled subject of contention and experiment to
its medical staff.

The Bicetre is a large, melancholy-looking
building, half hospital half madhouse, situ-
ated a few leagues from Paris. I took a
distaste to it on my very first visit. It
always struck me as a sort of menagerie, I
suppose from the circumstance of there having
been pointed out to me, immediately on my
entrance, a railed and fenced portion of the
building, where the fiercer sort of inhabitants
were imprisoned. Moreover, I met with such
strange looks and grimaces ; such bewildering
side-glances or moping stares, as I traversed
the open court-yards, with their open corri-
dors, or the long arched passages of the
interior, that the whole of the inmates came
before me as creatures, in human shape
indeed, but as possessed by the cunning or
the ferocity of the mere animal. Yet it was
a public hospital, and in the performance of its
duties there was an infinite deal of kindly
attention, consummate skill, and unwearying
labour. Its associations were certainly un-
happy, and had, I am sure, a depressing effect
upon at least the physically disordered pa-
tients. It may be that as the Bicdlre is a
sort of forlorn hope of hospitals, where the
more desperate or inexplicable cases only are
admitted, it naturally acquires a sombre
and ominous character ; but in no establish-
ment of a similar kind (and I have seen
many) did I meet with such depressing
influences.

Panpan was at first in high spirits at the
change. He was to be restored to health in a
brief period, and he really did in the first few
weeks make rapid progress towards convales-
cence. Already a sort of gymnasium had been
arranged over his bed, so that he might, by
simple muscular exercises, regain his lost
strength ; and more than once I have guided
his tottering steps along the arched corridors,

HOUSEHOLD WOEDS.

as, clad in the gray uniform of the hospital,
and supported by a stick, he took a brief
mid-day promenade.

We made him cheering Sunday visits,
Madame Panpan, Louis, the little Henri, and
I, and infringed many a rule of the hospital
in regard to his regimen. There was a
charcutier living close to the outer walks, and
when nothing else could be had, we pur-
chased some of his curiously prepared deli-
cacies, and smuggled them in under various
guises. To him they were delicious morsels
amid the uniform soup and bouillon of the
hospital, and I dare say did him neither good
nor harm.

Poor Madame Panpan ! apart from the
unceasing exertions which her difficult posi-
tion demanded of her ; apart from the
harassing days, the sleepless nights, and pe-
cuniary deficiencies which somehow never
were made up ; apart from the shadow of
death which hovered ever near her ; and the
unvarying labours which pulled at her
fingers, and strained at her eyes, so that her
efforts seemed still devoted to one ever unfi-
nished corset, there arose another trouble
where it was least expected ; and alas ! I was
the unconscious cause of a new embarrass-
ment. I was accused of being her lover.
Numberless accusations rose up against us.
Had I not played at pat-ball with Madame
in the Bois de Boulogne ? Yes, pardi ! while
Pampan lay stretched upon the grass a laugh-
ing spectator of the game ; and which was
brought to an untimely conclusion by my
breaking my head against the branch of a
tree. But had I not accompanied Madame
alone to the Champs Elyse'es to witness the
jeu-de-feu on the last fete of July ? My good
woman, did I not carry Louis pick-a-back the
whole way 1 and was not the crowd so dense
and fearful, that our progress to the Champs
Elyse'es was barred at its very mouth by the
fierce tornado of the multitude, and the
trampling to death of three unhappy mortals,
whose shrieks and groans still echo in niy
ear ? and was it not at the risk of life or
limb that I fought my way along the Kue de
la Madeleine, with little Louis clinging round
my neck, and Madame hanging on to my
coat-tail 1 Amid the swaying and eddying of
the crowd, the mounted Garde Municipals
came dashing into the thickest of the press,
to snatch little children, and even women,
from impending death, and bear them to a
place of safety. And if we did take a bottle
of Strassburger beer on the Boulevards, when
at length we found a freer place to breathe
in, faint and reeling as we were, pray where
was the harm, and who would not have done
as much ? Ah, Madame ! if you had seen, as
I did, that when we reached home the first
thing poor Madame Panpan came to do, was
to fall upon her husband's neck, and in a
voice broken with sobs, and as though her
heart would break, to thank that merciful
God who had spared her in her trouble, that

she might still work for him and his
;hildren ! you would not be so ready with
your blame.

But there was a heavier accusation still.
Did you not, sir, entertain Madame to supper
in the Eue de Eoule ? with the utmost extra-
vagance too, not to mention the omelette
soufH6e with which you must needs tickle
your appetites, and expressly order for the
occasion 1 And more than that : did you not
then take coffee in the Eue St. Honor6, and
play at dominoes with Madame in the salon ?
Alas, yes ! all this is true, and the cause
still more true and more sad ; for it was
under the terrible impression that Madame
Panpan and her two children for they were
both with us you will remember, even little
Henri had not eaten of one tolerable meal
throughout a whole week, that these unpar-
donable acts were committed on the Sunday.
An omelette soufltee, you know, must be
ordered ; but as for the dominoes, I admit that
that was an indiscretion.

Pe're Panpan drooped and drooped. The
cord of his gymnasium swung uselessly
above his head ; he tottered no more
along the corridors of the hospital. He
had ceased to be the pet of the medi-
cal profession. His malady was obsti-
nate and impertinent ; it could neither be
explained nor driven away ; and as all the
deep theories propounded respecting it, or
carried into practical operation for its
removal, proved to be mere elaborate fancies,
or useless experiments, the medical profes-
sion happily for Paupan retired from the
field in disgust.

" I do believe it was the button ! " ex-
claimed Panpan, one Sunday afternoon, with
a strange light gleaming in his eyes. Madame
replied only with a sob. " You have seen
many of them ? " he abruptly demanded of
me.

Of what?"

" Buttons."

" There are a great many of them made in
England," I replied. Where were we wan-
dering ?

Panpan took my hand in his, and, with a
gentle pressure that went to my very heart,
exclaimed : " I do believe it was the brass
button after all. I hope to God it was not
an English button ! "

I can't say whether it was or no. But, as
to poor Pdre Panpau, we buried him at
Bicetre.

This day is published, for greater convenience, and
cheapness of binding,

THE FIRST TEN YOLUMES

HOUSEHOLD WORDS,

IN FIVE HANDSOME VOLUMES,

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"Familiar in tlteir Mouths as HOUSEHOLD WORDS"

HOUSEHOLD WORDS.

A WEEKLY JOURNAL
CONDUCTED BY CHARLES DICKENS.

257.]

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 24, 1855.

VEKY ADVISABLE.

FROM my earliest years everybody seemed
to think I stood in need of advice. The
simplest affairs were considered beyond my
comprehension without the aid of a monitor
and this from no want of natural capacity, as
far as I am able to perceive, but from a
remarkable adaptation for the reception of
wise saws which mada itself perceptible to
the most superficial acquaintance. No one
was too great an ass to give me the benefit of
his counsel fellows whom I despised, girls
even, of the most preternatural silliness, all
found occasions of showing their superiority,
by telling me what to do, or say, or think. I
seemed a blank piece of paper on which every
person liked to try his hand, and the result
of this perpetual indoctrination was that I
learned to have no reliance on myself. I
couldn't walk through my own garden, it was
thought, without finger-posts to guide me;
and so many posts were put up, all pointing
in different directions, that I never felt sure
of my way. Probably to counteract this want
of firmness, my friends began, when I was
about fifteen, to lead me with precepts on the
benefits of independence of the absolute
necessity of standing up on all occasions for
my rights, of never letting an opportunity of
gaining an advantage pass and, above all,
of being manly and decided. How could I
be manly and decided when I had never been
allowed to have a will of my own ? How could
I take Time by the forelock have an eye to
the main chance strike while the iron was
hot be wide awake take care of number
one or do any of the hundred other things I
was now recommended to do when nobody
told me how to get hold of Time's forelock, or
where to hit the hot iron, or what to hit it
with ? However, I tried to take the advice,
and to become selfish and exacting with all
my might. This is not so easy as it seems.
I never could hoard up my pocket-money, or
hide the box of cake and jam which was sent
to me at school. I used to lend rny cricket
bat, and never get it back ; boys used to
pretend they drove my ball into the river,
and then to cover it with the initials of their
names, and sometimes make me pay a penny
an hour for the use of my own property ;

grudged my playmates whatever plaything
they took. I saw they followed the advice
which had been so frequently pressed on me,
and were holding on by Time's forelock, and
hitting the hot iron as became men of sense,
and I respected them accordingly. If I inter-
fered at any time with their goods and
chattels, or even tried to borrow a book which
I recognised as my own, they repulsed me in
the most manly and decided manner ; and I
soon foresaw that they would all get on in
the race of life and leave me miles behind.
At church I used occasionally to hear some
statements that gave me consolation, some
advice that even encouraged me to persevere
in the spiritless conduct which came to me so
naturally but the clergyman, on week days,
was one of the most eloquent of my advisers
to stick up for what I could get, to stand
no nonsense, and, in short, to fight my way
through the school with the same bullying,
selfish, dishonest audacity with which I was
treated. I was quite willing to do this, but I
couldn't, so I had the double disadvantage of
wishing to be a tyrant and continuing a spoony.
My virtue had no value as it was involuntary,
I would have been a serpent if I could, but I
had no sting, and was only a worm. The
boy I respected most was Herbert Grubb I
respect him still ; I saw he would rise to
wealth and honour, and he has done so. The
second day of our friendship he told me he
had come away without his allowance, but it
was to be sent to him by post ; I lent him all
I had, and for a week I saw him, at all hours,
in the play-ground swallowing apple tarts
and drinking ginger beer, 'and filling his
pockets with gingerbread out of the old Iruit-
woman's basket, and when I ventured to ask
him if his allowance had come, " You fool,"
he said, " I had it all the time, and if I had a
few more asses like you in the school, I would
put it into the savings' bank mind your eye,
for here comes a handful of cherry-stones."
The other boys applauded his cleverness, and,
in my secret heart, so did I it was such
admirable sticking up for number one.

There was a little fellow in the lowest class
of the name of Knowlsworth, he was only
half a year at the school, and was the simplest
little boy I ever knew. I felt immensely
superior to him, and once took away his top,

my arrows were always missing, and I never i but he looked so disconsolate that I pretended

VOL. XI.

257

HOUSEHOLD WORDS.

[Conducted by

I had done it because it -was not a good one,
and bought a large one for him with the most
awfully painted sides and a power of hum-
ming which would have done honour to a
beehive. He wag a sickly, delicate, fair-
haired fellow, with dark blue eyes, that filled
with teai's on the slightest provocation. He
generally shed tears when he talked of home;
so Grubb made great fun of his weakness.
He always cleaned Grubb's shoes, and when
they were polished to his satisfaction he used
to sit with the blacking-brush in his hand
re^dy to launch it at the little boy's head,
and make him describe all his family, from
his father, who was afflicted with the gout, to
his sister Mary, whom he described as a per-
fect angel. As he cried while he branched out
into these descriptions, Grubb and his intimate
friends enjoyed the joke exceedingly. He used
to come and sit down beside me at a table in
the hall after he had been forced to make these
revelations, and lean his little head upon my
shoulder till he fell asleep. I advised him to
complain to the master a Doctor of Divinity,
who had written Latin notes to the Gospel of
St. John and the master told him he was a
fool for his pains; and when all the fellows
went up, one after another, and assured the
Doctor that Grubb was an excellent youth,
and very kind to little boys, Knowlsworth
was flogged for false accusation, and very
generally cut by the school, and, in fact, so
was I, which I very much regretted, for I
looked up with unfeigned veneration, not
unmixed with envy, to those high-spirited
young gentlemen who carried into practice
the lessons of worldly wisdom which were
wasted upon me. How often I had been told
to carry my head above everyone else, to
vindicate my position, and make myself feai'ed
and respected in the school. There was not
one of us who did not fear and respect Her-
bert Grubb except little Harry Knowlsworth,
but he was a curious boy, and had not
received the same kind of lessons at home as
the rest of us. He said Grubb was a bully,
and he was sure was a coward : now, his
papa had told him a coward couldn't be a
gentleman, and a bully couldn't be a Christian.
I wondered at the time if old Mr. Knowlsworth
knew that Grubb's father had married the
daughter of an Irish earl, and that she was
really Lady Glendower Grubb 1 How could
her son then not be a- gentleman ? I knew
he w;is a Christian, for he borrowed my Bible
and Prayer-book, and I never liked to ask
him for them again. We were two Pariahs,
Harry Kuowlsworth and I, and I daresay he
did me a great deal of harm, for, whereas,
being four or five years older, 1 ought to have
raised him up to my level and have taught
him the vices and knowingnesses of my more
advanced period of life, he dragged me down
to his, and I never rose above nine or ten
years old all the time h was at school. But
this was not long. He began to be ill in the
middle of the half-year, and the cruelty of

Herbert Grubb and his friends to increase.
They now insisted on his describing his sister
Mary not as the charming creature the little
boy represented her, but as hump-backed and
with a stutter, with moral qualities to math.
Nothing would tempt Harry to give utterance
to the terrible names the coterie of wits and
tyrants affixed to the object of the child's
affection. So brushes were flung at his head,
and the clothes torn off his bed, and water
thrown on his face, and his hands held till
they blistered close to the fire, but he would
not say that Mary was a thief, or had run
away with the groom, or was anything but
the best of beings, and as I sometimes shared
in the punishments inflicted on our obduracy,
for I was as firmly persuaded as Harry of
the angelic nature of his sister, we used to
retire to remote corners of the playground,
and there the heroic brother would tell me
for hours what a kind, clever, admirable girl
his sister was, and what a noble, generous old
man his father ; and then he used to take my
hand, and then, on looking carefully round
and seeing no one near, he used to press it to
his lips and say that, next to those two in all
the world, he liked me best, and I used to
feel it a great consolation, amidst the contempt
of all the other boys, that this little fellow
was attached to me. However, we had not
time to grow more intimate, for he became
rapidly worse, and was sent home a month
before the holidays began. I got a letter
from him to say that his sister was at school
in France or Italy, I forget which, but was
expected home in three months, and then he
would tell her all about my kindness, and
begging me not to believe the things that
Grubb and his companions had said about
her, but to like her for his sake.

But he did not live to see the sister he was
so fond of. He sent me a beautiful locket
that Mary had given him, and I was to wear
it always, and never forget hini if we never
met again. And just when we were going
down, the Doctor, in shaking hands with
Grubb, said, " You will be sorry to hear
your little favourite Knowlsworth is dead a
delicate boy, and I believe you were very
kind to him, only, perhaps, a little too rough
(as high-spirited young gentlemen often are)
in your play. Good-bye my respectful duty
to Lady Glendower."

As to me, nobody took any notice, luckily,
of how I bore the news. Grubb bore it very
well. He said, "Ah ! is he dead, poor fellow?
I'm glad now I was always so attentive to
him." I don't think the conscience begins to
have any power till manhood. Here was a
boy who should have felt like a murderer,
and really believed himself to have been kind
to the victim of his cruelty. I could not help
having some thoughts like that in spite of my
respect.

On our meeting next half-year poor Harry
was forgotten by everybody except by me. I
always wore the locket next my heart, and

Charles Dickens.!

VERY ADVISABLE.

often took it out to look at the hair. Mary's
and Harry's had been tied in a knot long ago,
and the boy had added my initial as a loop at
the top. it was valuable, too, for the case
was of gold, and there were large real pearls
all round the rim. It was detected round my
neck at the bathing, and got noised al 1 through
the school ; and it happened one day when I
was in the water four or five of the biggest
boys kept me engaged and guarded me from
making my way to the bank, and when at
last I reached the place where my clothes
were lying, the locket was gone. I could not
tell who had taken it. I spoke to the master,
and lie quoted many texts from Scripture
against evil speakers and false accusers. He
found out that my suspicions rested on Grubb
he said Grubb was an honour to the school,
had noble blood in his veins, and if I could
not substantiate my horrible accusation he
would consider whether I should not be
publicly expelled. On this I begged to with-
draw suspicions and accusation, and to be
allowed to submit to the loss. He paused for
some time, but at last agreed to pass over my
conduct, as a knowledge of such an unchristian
disposition might injure my prospects in life.
Shortly after that he was made a bishop in
consideration of his skill in Greek quantities,
,and I had to go to another school. My
prospects in life, of which the bishop had
been so considerate, did not appear to brighten,
though I was for a while delivered from the
tyranny of Grubb. But there are Grubbs at
all schools. I tried in vain to assert my
rights : I made my claims either at the wrong
time or in the wrong manner, so when my
relations and friends perceived that I derived
no benefit from their counsels, but rather
allowed every opportunity to slip by, they
determined to send me to the bar as a profes-
sion, where if I did not struggle I must yield.
It was like forcing a man to swim by throwing
him into deep water. The plunges I made
excited laughter in others, and weariness in
myself; so 1 determined to live quietly on the
small income I possessed, and watch the
ocean and the tempest-tossed barks upon it
from the safe eminence of two hundred a-year.
" Foolish fellow," said one of my most inti-
mate friends, " to be satisfied with two huu
dred a-year; you know nothing, my dear
Plastic, of the management of money now,
that is what I have particularly studied all
my life I will give you my advice, and you
may soon remove to Belgrave Square." How
kiud! here was a practical man ; he had been
educated as a civil engineer, then he turned
architect, then went into the corn trade, and
was a prodigious authority about railways
and other lucrative speculations. He came
to rue in two days

"Have you any money you can immediately
command ? "

" Yea ; I have two thousand pounds in the
funds."

" That will exactly do ; I belong to a com-

pany for the manufacture of soap out of tallow
candles. It is secured by a patent. I myself
hold more shares than I can conveniently pay
the calls upon hundreds are asking to be
allowed only a few : you shall have three
hundred and fifty they will pay thirty per
cent., and you may safely increase your ex-
penditure by six hundred a year."

I bought a horse the same friend had
three, and parted with one of them which,
however, unfortunately became lame. I
thought of giving up my humble apartment,
as he said it was for the benefit of the company
that the partners should live in good parts of
the town : he got me elected director, with a
salary of two hundred a-year, and my grati-
tude knew no bounds. He lived with his
aunt, and I presented her with a tea-service,
from Rundle and Bridge, with an allegorical
sculpture on the coffee pot, representing
Generosity pouring wealth from a ornucopia
into the lap of Friendship. I did several
other foolish things, and went down to the
committee room of the company in a clarence,
which I jobbed for three months, and even
had my crest a sheep's head with its mouth
open painted on the panel. How I despised
iny injudicious advisers! Haven't I taken
care of myself? Haven't I got hold of time
by the forelock ? I turned the tables upon
them, and gave them immense quantities of
advice. I advised the most pertinacious of
my counsellors a Scotchman who was con-
nected with a Greek house in the City to
join our company. The man was thunder-
struck. What ! get advice from me ! He
came to me, " Ye're a bigger fule than
ever," he said: "how do ye think ony body
can mak' a profit by turnin' good can'ies into
bad saip? The can'ies is dearer than, the
saip, and ye're j ust a prodigious ass ! "

This turned out to be true. I lost all the
money I put into the concern, and paid a
little more to get a quittance from all liabi-
lities. But my friend was not abashed. He
said to me, " Your horse is lame nobody can
perceive it till it lias been ridden a mile or
two he isn't worth ten pounds, but I have a
very silly friend from Devonshire, I daresay
he will give you fifty guineas you're too
much a man of the world to refuse a good
offer!"

I said, "Certainly not; it would be strange
if, after all my experience, I wasn't a man of
the world."

So after that, when I spoke to him about
having sold me his shares in the candle- soap
patent, he said,

" I have had great experience, sir ; I am a
man of the world, as you were williug enough
to be about your old screw of a horse, only
the Devonshire spoony turned out to be a,
man of the world, too."

There was nothing to be done, so I went
into humbler lodgings, gave up my club,
never took anybody's advice, and never was
asked by anybody lor mine. But one day

HOUSEHOLD WOEDS.

[Conducted by

the whole destiny of my life seemed to change,
I met Herbert Grubb in the street we had
not met for twelve or thirteen years, but he
knew me at once. He was what is called
head of a department and member of par-
liament, overwhelmed with business, and
anxious for a secretary who would require no
salary, but rely on the political interest of his
chief. He installed me at once. I answered
all his letters, read up historical allusions, and
pored over the index verborum of the classics
for his quotations. He was delighted with
my patience and perseverance, he asked me
to dinner, and introduced me to his wife, a
tall majestic woman, with noble features, which
never relaxed into a smile, but which must
have been wonderfully beautiful if they could
have clothed themselves in that sunshine of
the heart which makes even the plainest
faces loveable. Her eyes were amazingly
brilliant, and her cheeks glowed with hectic
flushes which made her very sad to- look on,
in spite of her beauty. She was very kind,
but it did not escape my notice that she was
unhappy ; when Grubb was in one of his
bullying moods she used to look with pitying
eyes on his much-enduring secretary. As to
me, I did not mind it. I had always pro-
phesied he would get on in the world, and I
was rather proud than otherwise to acknow-
ledge the superiority which I had foreseen.
She was surprised at his harsh airs of com-
mand to an old schoolfellow and a better
scholar than himself, but she said nothing,
only when I was going away she used to
come forward and take my hand and wish
me good-bye with such a sweet voice and
such a compassionate smile, that I dreamt of
them all night.

Friends had gathered round me again, and
were prodigal of advice. "Go in and win,"
said one, " she certainly likes you, and her
fortune is secured upon herself he treats
her so ill that the world will be all on her
side. She has fifteen hundred a-year, and
can dispose of it as she likes."

Here was advice here was another hammer
to weld my fortunes with while the iron was
hot here was a chance not to be thrown
away. Oh ! if they had seen the stately form
they degraded with their ribald suggestions,
the noble face, the imperial eyes and she
was evidently dying, and Grubb evidently
knew it ; and there were evidently fights
going on, and, indeed, I knew that he was
leaving her no rest till she disposed of Every-
thing in his favour, as her guardian had
secured her the power of doing, at the time
of her marriage ; and I watched the gradual
embitterment on one side and increasing
contempt on the other. It couldn't last long.
One day, when I was in my small apartment,
after a morning's work in Herbert's office, a
tap came to my door, and the lady came in.
"You must come with me," she said, "for
you are my only friend in all the world
don't refuse me my first and last request, you

shall know the reason soon." So she took
me with her to a lawyer's, and left me in the
outer room while she transacted business in
the office. It didn't last half an hour; she
introduced me to the lawyer when she came
out, and said, " Remember ! " Then she went
away, and I shook hands with her as I put
her into her brougham, and, do you know,
she took my hand and held it to her lips, and
when she let it go again her eyes were filled
with tears. She laid her head back in the
carriage, and I never saw her again. In a
fortnight or three weeks she died. The
funeral was very private. My chief did not
go I went as his representative ; his attorney
also was there, and the old gentleman to
whom I had been introduced as I have said
a kind old man, and deeply affected, and so
was I. " You must come home with me," he
said, "for I have business of the greatest
importance to transact with you." When we
reached his office he shut the door, he went
to a tin-case, took out a parchment, and said,.
"Open that carefully, there is something in it
that deeply concerns yourself." I unfolded the
package, and there lay in the middle of the page,
suspended by a black silk ribband, a locket set
in pearls, and I knew it at once it was little
Harry Knowlsworth's memorial and there,
still fresh as if but yesterday put in, were the
initials of the little boy and his sister looped
up by mine. " She was Mary Knowlsworth,"
said the old gentleman, " and only lately dis-
covered a mistake under which she married
Mr. Grubb. She was told by the Bishop of
Tufton that he had been her brother's friend
at school she became his wife from gratitude,,
not from affection. In a drawer, some months
since, she found the locket in her husband's
secretary she recognised the companion,
friend, and fellow sufferer of young Harry.
v You will, therefore, accept the fortune she
leaves you as a legacy from both. Any
advice we can give you in the manage-
ment "

" It shall lie quietly in the funds," I said,
" and every half-year I will go and draw the
dividends. I will buy a revolving-pistol
when I leave this room, and will shoot the
first man who offers me advice."

AN OLD SCHOLAE.

LOITERING in Poets' Corner, you have per-
haps observed opposite the monument of
DRYDEN, a tablet on the wall bearing the
name of ISAAC CASAUEON. In the holy ground
thereabouts, were laid the remains of that
great scholar in the year sixteen hundred and
fourteen. He had been four years in this
country, having been invited here by James
the First, endowed with two prebends (West-
minster and Canterbury), and a pension, when
death seized him. He has a place in the
Biographia Britannica, and a place in Hal-
lam's Literature of Europe. He is still hi
high repute among those who read the

Chtrlcs Dickens.]

AN OLD SCHOLAR

classics, and only the other day we observed
a young German philologer gazing with much
interest at his epitaph.

All the above facts, however, would not
entitle Isaac Casaubon to a place in House-
hold Words, if he had not left behind him a
DIARY of the last seventeen years of his life,
which has been published in our own time, and
is a very curious and interesting work. The
manuscript remained in the possession of the
ecclesiastical authorities of Canterbury, where
Casaubon's son, Meric, held preferment, and
was printed a few years since by the Univer-
sity of Oxford, under the care of Dr. John
Eussell. It is in Latin, of course, and
Dr. John Eussell edits it in Latin, and writes
a Latin preface to it ; so that if a Eoman
ghost, revisiting the earth, caught sight of it,
he would conclude that Casaubon and Dr.
Eussell (one a Frenchman, and the other an
Englishman) were both countrymen of his
own, and that Britain was still a barbarous
island under Eoman government. However,
an English translation would not have paid
its expenses in any case, and the University,
which brings out the work at its own cost,
has a right to present it to the world in
its own way. Be it ours to unroll Isaac
Oasaubon from these wrappages and ancient
habiliments, and try to form a living notion
of him as a European man. We presume
that we shall do his memory no offence, by
rendering him into English ; and we hope
that his warmest classical admirers will not
deny that he was once alive ; that though he
wrote a dead language, even in his Diary
(Ephemerides he calls it), yet that he was a
good friendly scholar, eating and drinking
like the rest of us, and talking French at
all events to his wife.

The old commentators who devoted their
lives to the interpretation of the classics
were a very remarkable class of men. The
world wants yet, an adequate account of
them. They were pioneers, backwoodsmen,
clearers of the forests, and drainers of the
marsh. We pride ourselves on our Drydcn's
Virgil, our Pope's Homer, the insight of
Gibbon, the classicality of Gray. But, for
these great men the old commentators paved
the way. They made the classics readable
and intelligible. In fact, they made the roads
on which many a triumphal car of genius has
rolled smoothly along since ; and, directly or
indirectly, every writer is indebted to them.
Their energy and enthusiasm were un-
bounded their love of learning, a passion
their occasional pedantry and violence, par-
donable for the sake of these. Casaubon's
Diary gives us a glimpse of the domestic life
and private character of one of the most
famous of them. When his formal writings
for publication have exhausted their utility,
the world will still look at this Diary ; and
his private jottings of the adventures of the
day will make many who care little for the
commentator think with interest of the man.

Casaubon belonged to the second genera-
tion of the scholars of the Eevival of Letters.
He belonged to the generation after Erasmus
and the elder Scaliger, and was contemporary
with the younger Scaliger. His father,
Arnauld Casaubon, was a minister of the
reformed religion. He fled from Dauphine"
to Geneva, where Isaac was born, in February,
fifteen hundred and fifty-nine. At nine years
old the boy spoke and wrote Latin pretty
easily. They taught Latin in those days very
much by conversation a practice which
made children learn it early, but which
Ascham condemns as injurious to purity of
style. However, as it was the universal lan-
guage of communication among the learned,
and also among the great of the world,
familiarity with it was the great object to
attain. At twenty-four, Casaubon was a
Professor ; at twenty-seven, he married a
daughter of the celebrated Henry Stephens,
by whom he had twenty children. With a
rising family of this kind springing up about
him, Isaac had to keep his Greek and
Latin learning " up," with a vengeance ;
and the first thing we have to tell of his
studies is, that he worked like a horse, or
like anything you please to consider indus-
trious. His reading was such as some gen-
tlemen who draw large endowments out of
ancient foundations of learning in our day,
would probably consider incredible. Those
who make their fortunes for life by reading
"bits" and writing "bits" of scholarship
with three centuries of learning at their back
to help them differ from the Casaubous and
Scaligers, as the King of Naples does from
Julius Csesar. It is indeed the difference
between being carried in the penny steam-
boat, and being one of the crew of the Argo.
It is the difference between a man Avho owes
everything to machinery which has been
made for him, and a man who owes every-
thing to himself.

Casaubou's routine employment as Pro-
fessor consisted of delivering lectures. But
his great occupation in life was editing
classics. Now, editing a classic, as we some-
times see it done in England in our day,
though a respectable, is not a transcendently
great piece of work. First of all, of course
your edition is " based " on that of Bunkfas,
Cunkins, or Dunkins, of Germany; which
entitles you to make what use of the labours
of those philologists you please. Then you
have got some fifty excellent commentaries
written before you were born, to help yourself
to. So far, so good; your edition soon gets
under weigh. You balance commentator
against commentator, and decide between
them ; this marks the man of judgment !
Then, you attack the last English editor, and
treat him with contempt. You call him a
certain Smith (Smithius quidam) a man
without a tincture of learning (litteris ne
leviter quidem imbutus) : in English, it
would be impertinent, in Latin, it is severe ;

HOUSEHOLD WORDS.

[Conducted by

and the critics set it down to your zeal for
bouJiJ learning, and your hatred of superficial
men. .Finally, you dedicate to a bishop, whom
you call the ornament of the age (seculi
decus) ; and out coines your edition on beau-
tiful paper a reproach (in the paper) to the
inferiority of Germany. Casaubou's labours
were of a severer character. He settled the
texts of his authors by infinite care the
very first necessity being critical skill in the
tongues. His commentaries brought all anti-
quity to illustrate each part of it. By the
time he was six-and-thirty, he had edited
Strabo, Theophrastus, the Apologia of Apu-
leius, and Suetonius. He then devoted himself
to Athenseus and, at the age of thirty-eight,
moved from 'Geneva to Montpelier, and he
accepted a chair there. He commenced his
Diary at Montpelier, on his thirty-eighth
birthday. He kept it regularly till his death;
but about three years of it have been lost.
Let us now open it.

Casauboii begins his reading early in the
morning. You see at once that reading is

the passion of his life. The day commences ment in Paris. From Montpelier he brought
with prayer. Thus he reads from about five away, as he tells us, good repute, and nothing
until ten. After refreshment, he reads ; else. His means were, indeed, generally
again. If anybody calls on any manner of j limited enough, and his family expenses, as
business, or on any pretence of kindness, a i the reader has seen, were likely to be con-
dismal groan is recorded. The business of siderable.

great offers. We shall see that Casaubon
was exposed through life to much pain and
annoyance on this side of affairs.

But duty is better than study ; and Casau-
bon was a good man in the best sense ; for

" Called from our studies by the widow of
Peter Galesius. The time was not ill-
bestowed. Duty is better than study."

The following is curious: "Attempted the
interpretation of a law of Ulpian's which
contains the material of garments. Thou
knowest, God, that we have not undertaken
this rashly, knowing with what diligence we
have treated that subject."

So entirely had the feeling of duty taken
possession of his mind, tliat he carried this
solemn kind of earnestness into details. Thus
he would put up a prayer for a right under-
standing of the nature of the Macedonian
Phalanx ; a feeling quite Puritan in its cha-
racter, and one which, in various forms,
achieved immense results in those ages.

In the year fifteen hundred and ninety-
nine, Casaubon was summoned to an appoint-

life is to get on with the classics :

In March of the above-mentioned year he

" Morning. Prayer ; books. Not wholly was at Lyons, and his wife paid a visit to
uselessly employed, O God ! " I Geneva. He is still working at Athenians ;

This is a specimen of many a day. There and yet his nephew Peter will have a fight
is an habitual tone of piety throughout ; of with a servant (cum famulo). So down goes
that fervid, living piety fostered in him from : a note of his misconduct in the Diary, and the

infancy by his father, and kept warm by the
earnest spirit of the great town of the
Reformers.

" Studied not without a grief of mind
from an internal cause known to thee, Lord.
My spouse, who ought to be an alleviation to
my labours, is sometimes an impediment,"

Was the marita, then, a shrew ? No ; she
was a good, faithful, wife ; truly loved by
Casaubon, who generally calls her the most
beloved (the philtate, in Greek). But
Casaubon was a little hasty-tempered, as he
himself regrets ; and doubtless the phiitatS
was sometimes a bore, when he was puzzled
by a frightfully corrupt passage.

"Kal. Jan. (i.e., first of January), 1598. A
present from a noble German."

Here we have a glimpse of the way in
which supplies came in. The noble German
is some amateur of letters, no doubt, passing
through Montpelier, and sends a new year's
gift to the learned Monsieur Casaubon by
way of showing that he appreciates learning.

"Feb., 1598. When shall I be wholly

given to' my books ? Grant this, O God ;
ut, above all, true piety and constant love of

the purer religion."
The purer religion.

There is need to pray

for constancy, for an eminent Protestant is

nineteenth century is indignant at Peter
accordingly.

He was for some time at Lyons, and also
visited Geneva this year. The time is
August. He has read, one day, from five
o'clock until ten. His wife and he sit down
to dinner in high spirits (hilariter), when
Madame is suddenly taken ill, and at night
gives birth to a boy. It is observable, that
whenever a child is born though it be the
seventeenth or eighteenth Casaubon piously
offers thanks for the blessing, and could not
be more grateful were he an old monarch,
wanting an heir to his kingdom. Here is an
entry in the September of this same year :

" Wife is ill, also little Philippa, John, and (
nephew Peter. Add to this that one's affairs
are embarrassed. Who in such troubles
could find leisure for arduous study ? "

Who, indeed ! Yet, with all his troubles,
Casaubon became one of the first scholars in
Europe, which ought to stimulate many men,
and not scholars only. To these troubles
was to be added the old one, arising from his
Protestantism ; for now that he was invited
to Paris, the orthodox were very busy about
him.

About the end of December, he talks with
"a certain Alchymist certainly an ingenious

harassed with people wanting to convert man, who told me some things worth hearing
him. Temp tution waits, too, in the form of i about the secrets oi' his art." Casauboii

Charles Dickens.]

AN OLD SCHOLAR

seems to incline to believe that gold can be
made : there is a fascination in the idea when
pecuniary affairs are embarrassing, certainly.
The last day of ^February in sixteen
hundred he set off to Paris using relays of
very bad horses. On the tenth of March
he was presented to Henry the Fourth, who
received him with singular humanity. " Thou
kuowest, Lord," he enters in his Diary,
" that I did not seek did not court this
royal position. Thou hast done it, Lord."

His books, of course, had to follow him, or
accompany him, in these peregrinations ; and
his first employment in a new place was to
set them all up and prepare his private
museum in the house. Soon, he falls-to at
them again ; and now his labours on
Athenians are drawing to a close. He is
fixed in Paris, and the king is kind to him ;
conducts him one day over the palace with
much serious conversation. Thuanus has
lost his wife, and Casaubon consoles him ; in
addition to which, he is studying Arabic,
besides his usual classical labours ; and now
he opens a correspondence with that con-
ceited monarch, James the Sixth of Scot-
land. This monarch writes him a letter
from his Scotch palace, being ambitious of
the praise of learned men. Casaubon does
not yet foresee that he is destined to become
associated with this monarch ; and, in fact,
is a little suspicious of him. Meanwhile,
Henry the Fourth is kind, as usual, though
thei-e are orthodox people always at his
ear, hinting that Casaubon is a dangerous
heretic. Gentlemen of wooden faggoty
aspect, indeed scowl at Monsieur Casaubou,
and would roast him, on a good pretext, if
possible. Underlings of the royal library
are not polite ; nor are treasurers punctual
with instalments of the pension.

On his forty-fourth birthday, Casaubon
as is his wont on his birthday was medi-
tating solemnly on his life and prospects,
when who should come in but the philtate"? She
brought with her a birthday present of money,
which she had saved out of the household
expenses for this auspicious occasion. Ca-
saubon was delighted, and returned thanks
to God for the frugality and management
(oikonomia) of the charissima uxor.

In sixteen hundred and three, he visited
his mother at Bordeaux, and soon afterwards
paid a visit to Geneva, where old friends and
relatives received him with open arms. On
a, fin^ June night he supped with Theodore
Eeza, exclaiming, "What a man! What
piety ! What learning ! O truly great man ! "
Beza, he remarks, though his memory was
failing as to ordinary matters, still retained
it in all matters of religion and theology.
He told him that on the night of the
Admiral's murder, he (Beza) had seen him
in a dream, at Geneva, all bloody ; and
had heard from him the events of that
night almost as they actually occurred.
Casaubon stayed a little while at Geneva,

on the money affairs of some relations (about
which the Genevese authorities did not
behave well), and then returned to Paris.

About the end of sixteen hundred and
! three, we find him busy on las Persius, ex-
amining ancient manuscripts, preparatory to
beginning his admirable edition of that poet.
He prays that the mind of King Henry may
not be swayed by 'evil counsellors. The
king did not conceal from him that the pope
complained of the favour he showed to
heretics ; and all the people about the king
were brimming over with hatred of the
poor scholar. Large promises every artifice
employed but neither Casaubon nor his
wife would open their ears to the tempters.

What with Cardinal Perron trying to con-
vert him ; what with black sons of Loyola
tempting and hating (your conscience or
your life, being the favourite alternative of
these pious dragoons) ; what with occasional
poverty and domestic troubles what is a
scholar to do 1 What but go on with his
work ? Isaac Casaubon had various labours
on the anvil : a Treatise on the Ancient
Satire (one of those rare treatises which
settle the question) the incomparable
Commentary on Persius, and so forth. Occa-
sionally he had visitors. Casaubou loved not
visitors. Why will people come and talk,
dragging a quiet man from his books ? There
comes one man who loves to hear Casaubon
talk an Englishman, handsome, high-
spirited, grave, courtly, learned nobilis-
siruumvirum. His name is Edward Herbert,
known to all the word in after ages as Lord
Herbert of Cherbury. That most distin-
guished gentleman the best swordsman and
rider and duellist of his age ; accomplished
in all that could grace rank or give dignity
to birth left courts and palaces to come and
talk to the quiet and laborious scholar ; and
reported .in his Autobiography that he had
much benefited himself thereby. Such a
man, one could spare an hour or two from
Persius to chat with. In such talk one could
forget the " arrogant biped" whose foolish
remarks on the iiomaii poet much annoyed
Casaubon in those days.

This is the way, then, in which life was
jogging on. The king held firm, and would
not persecute this heretic. Money was
scanty, but. still things were kept going,
through the household wisdom of that model
wife, the philtate. Early morning found
Casaubon commencing operations with prayer.
Then, to work he went, still in the early part
of the century, at Persius. In sixteen
hundred and five the Persius appeared.
Joseph Scaliger observed that the sauce was
worth more than the fish. Indeed, Persius
sails like a cock-boat in a huge sea of com-
mentary. He is hung up like a picture with
a hundred lights on it illuminated like a
palace on a festal night. He had been every-
where spoken of as obscure and unintelligible.
Casaubon, who heartily admired him, deter-

him, at all events.

the name of
for ever. His

written.

should be at Home." He ci
little facilities for attending
To this misfortune was soon ;
business one. By some decli-
ne lost in sixteen hundred !
whole of his wife's fortune
left naked," he adds. " We h
I have nothing left but my
children ! . . . Ungrateful b :
fruits of my labours." Thus
spring of sixteen hundred
bitter cold one during which
himself over the fire with a book.

As I see, fire and water
than these two women,
and sister ! miserable lo

Witness my Polybius, &c."

she was aged eighteen years,
twenty-one days, and four hours,
light, my darling, love, delighl
your mother ! " For days
image of poor Philippa haunt
the Diary. He leaves off his
now and then, at the though
relapses into grief. And, at
is labouring at " that most int:
of the difference between th

as fast as it is finished.

a daughter, his wife's seventeenth child.

Europe." Scaliger left him

had been on friendly terms .._ .,

honoured Scaliger with true affection

responding tone.

HOUSEHOLD WOEDS. [Cmdactedbr

id understand

were two greater men of the kind) thought

b was a work

and spoke of each other worthily and

T every edition

well.

s of learning

In the kind of way we have been de-

ias associated

scribing, the Parisian years rolled by. Ca-

that of Persius

saubon's greatest trouble was, that they

pation was his

would insist on endeavouring to convert

i Warton con- j him. They waylaid him in the library, and

prefaces ever | entangled him in controversies; sometimes

they spread a report that he was converted,

be converted.

and alarmed the " reformed " throughout

ra, bitterly, " I

Europe. But they did succeed in striking

mplains of his

him a severe blow ; they managed to convert

)ublic worship.

his son John, a youth ignorant of all

dded a serious

the great questions of dispute. This hurt

on at Geneva,

Casaubon severely. We can fancy him in his

nd seven, the

"museum," brooding over this sore grief,

"and we are

his hand carelessly playing with the leaves of

ive no fortune :

a folio when a stranger is announced. An

books and my

Italian enters, and has something to say

)eds enjoy the

evidently of a very secret nature. Casaubon

le wails in the

begs that he will speak out. The Italian

and eight a

hesitates ; then would Casaubon grant him

ch he huddled

an interview with his familiar ? Obstupui !

book. A new

says Casaubon, entering the fact in his Diary.

its appearance.

What with alchymy, and diablerie, and astro-

e thirty-first).

logy, men's minds were ever hovering about

1 agree better

the verge of the wonderful in those days,

nely my wife

and shadows and shapes lurked in corners

) hard destiny."

out of which gas-light and other light has

story, he says :

long driven them.

they have suf-

Sixteen hundred and ten opened on Ca-

t totally failed.

saubon, still cloudy in the theological quarter,

and in others. He was reading, revising, and

greatest home

editing, as usual, and forming pleasant castles

3s any record

in the air such as visits to Italy and the

liter Philippa.

like. A visit to Italy was still a favourite

linuteness that

vision of scholars, who loved the thought of

3, six months.

the morning-land of learning. Casaubon

ours. " O my

wanted to go to Italy, as Erasmus had done ;

t, and glory of

he wanted to see the country and talk with

and days the

the learned men ; and, particularly, he wished

;s the pages of

to visit Venice, and inform himself accurately

3 books, every

about the Greek Church. For, it was one

t of her, and

great and leading desire of Casaubon's, that

this time, he

a day might come when he should devote

ricate question

himself entirely to sacred learning. The

le Macedonian

memory of his father sanctified that idea ;

on," and com-

when he first presented the good minister

L to the printer

with a learned work, the old man told him

that he would rather see one text of the

lily inserting a

Scriptures rightly interpreted by him, than

i Scaliger, now

all the fine fruits of the Pagan mind. Ca-

ng the birth of

saubon thought often of that saying ; lie

nth child. At

remembered the pious zeal of the old man,

ger's death in

supporting them all, in the terrible days

nine : " Extin-

which followed on the Saint Bartholomew,

ge, the light of

when the Casaubons fled like hunted beasts

le ornament of

to the caves and mountains, and worshipped

ver cup. They

God in sore distress and terror. It was the

lys. Casaubon

pet dream of Isaac Casaubon, to devote

affection and

las old age to theology ; and, indeed, it may

n the Scalige-

be doubted if he ever expounded a mere

ubon in a cur-

comic writer, such as Plautus, without a kind

scholars have

of uneasy regret.

is pleasant to

Such were the dreams, studies, trials, arid

id there never

troubles of Casaubou the pious, laborious,

Charles Dickens.]

AN OLD SCHOLAR

affectionate, rather irritable man, now turned
of fifty when all Paris, one day in May,
started at the death-wound of the assassi-
nated Henry the Fourth. That king had
altogether treated him well, had respected
his conscience, and checked his enemies ; and
now Paris was an intolerable and an unsafe
residence. Casaubon had corresponded, occa-
sionally, with James the First ; and now,
that king being on the English throne, a
negotiation had sprung up between them,
and it was proposed to Casaubon to come
over to London. For this purpose, he had
to get leave from the French court. The
position of great scholars in those days
was a singular one. They were courted
from place to place in Europe, and, as they
approached the towns of their new appoint-
ments, the magistrates and professors came
out to meet them a mile outside the gates.
Yet, they had the utmost difficulty in getting
their salaries. And, in the same way, though
every king of high pretensions considered a
great scholar an ornament to his court and
city, though kings recognised them person-
ally with honour (Henry the Fourth wrote
to Joseph Scaliger, on one occasion, with his
own hand), yet, when installed, the scholar
was a kind of servant. If he wanted to leave
the city he must get permission. When he
asked permission, he was sometimes refused
it, for fear he should not come back. The
lives of scholars were, indeed, full of strange
contradictions ; they had the splendour of
reputation which a singer has in our times,
combined with fortune enough to pay for the
singer's bouquets, and hampered with restric-
tions and troubles infinitely vexatious.

In October of sixteen hundred and ten,
Casaubon obtained permission to visit Eng-
land, and came over in company with Wotton ;
leaving his family and books in Paris. He
was sea-sick, like other great and little men,
and lay groaning, below, oil a heap of sailors'
jackets, duly entei-ed in the Ephemerides, as
" vestes nautarum." He stayed a little while,
at Canterbury, with Dr. Charier, and then
came to London, " through a most pleasant
country," he observes : as Kent, we know,
still is. He duly arrived at Gravesend
(" Gravesinda " sounds odd in our days !)
and went first to the house of the Dean of
St. Paul's Overall.

On the eighth of November, he was pre-
sented to King James, at St. Theobald's, and
attended him at dinner. The ceremonial was,
that you stood, while the king ate and drank,
and made observations on sacred and profane
literature, at his good pleasure. An irreve-
rent modern might consider this a little dull ;
but times are changed. Casaubon stood a
kind of learned dumb-waiter with bishops
and others ; and conversation went on.
" There was much conversation with this
great and wise king on all kinds of literature.
The talk turned on Tacitus, on Plutarch, on
Commiiies, and others. Not without aston-

ishment, did I hear so great a monarch
pronouncing opinions on letters ! "

Casaubon was sincere,; and we can respect
his sincerity, without supposing that the
king was a paragon. Learning was rare :
learned kings were rarer still. James had
been well educated ; and, if he had a feature
in his character not utterly low and mean,
that feature was a kind of love of learning,
such as is found in many a " dominie " of his
country. He was glad to get a chance of
showing off to a scholar : a scholar in those
days was glad to find anything like personal
appreciation of his merits in a king. James
actually asked Casaubon, to his table to dine
with him, which is recorded by biographers
with wonder. But, generally, Casaubon's
place was at the king's chair, along with the
bishops and scholars, as above-mentioned.
Casaubon soon found that the king's per-
petual summonses of him were a serious
interruption to his studies. His wife's ab-
1 sence, too, and that of his library, were
i annoying. He was solicited to take up his
j residence in England ; and the king bestowed
on him a prebend in Westminster, a prebend
in Canterbury, and a pension. There is on
record an autograph order of James's to the
Chancellor of the Exchequer about Casaubon,
which is certainly the best specimen of his
Majesty's humour that we have ever seen :
" Chancelor of my Excheker, I will have
Mr. Casaubon paid befor me, my wife, and
my barnes." (23rd September, 1612.)

With what glee would the world have
hailed in the scholar's pages any mention of
the great authors of that period any little
note about Shakspeare or Ben Jonson ! Had
Casaubon ever fancied that there was a man
then alive in England, whose poetry was
more beautiful than that of all the ancients
whom he knew so well ? There is something
affecting in the world's indifference to its
great men. Casaubou, learned, wise, good-
hearted as he was, probably never thought all
his life, that any modern could write any-
thing worth reading, except of course such
moderns as the Scaligers and others, who
were proud to devote their laborious lives to
the illustration of the classics. Our language
he knew nothing of; nor was it indeed of any
great importance to him that he did not : all
those discussions on theology and the classics
with the king and the bishops went on in
Latin.

Casaubon's wife joined him here ; and he-
like wise obtained his books at last not without
sore annoyance from custom-house authorities.
He established himself in a house in St. Mary
Axe : " marvellously expensive," says the
Diary : where the poor uxor suffered most,
knowing nothing of English, and finding the
climate inclement. In those days, too, the
strong and growing Puritan feeling spread
itself among the lower orders, and Casaubon
as a friend to the English church, and, per-
haps, as a suspected papist was liable to-

HOUSEHOLD WORDS.

[Conducted by

insults. His windows were pelted : sorely
to the grief of the poor philtate.

In sixteen hundred and thirteen, we find
him visiting Oxford, and sumptuously enter-
tained at Magdalen College. But ill-health
was now coining upon him from an internal
complaint of a very peculiar character. On
his fifty-fifth birthday (sixteen hundred and
fourteen), he enters in his Diary :

" I find my bodily strength languishing."

And so it languished as the summer drew
nigh.

"Third of June. My body languishes , . .
My studies are neglected, except that I turn
over the writings of Augustine." For some
days, he was still reading Augustine, and
getting worse. The last entry in his own
hand, is, " Thursday, sixteenth of June, six-
teen hundred and fourteen. I see that it
is now over with my studies, unless the Lord
Jesus otherwise order it. In this, too, be thy
will done, O Lord ! " These were the last
words, and surely they were worthy words.
On the first of July, all warm baths and
other measures proving in vain, Isaac Casau-
bon died. He was buried in Westminster
Abbey, as we have already said.

His son Meric Casaubon made England his
home ; and for long years, held a Canterbury
prebend as his father had done. He lies
buried in Canterbury Cathedral, with a son
John, and a grandson Meric, in the last of
whom (a child) the scholar's ^line ended.
Out of this poor, brave, persecuted family- of
French Protestants, came one to make it
famous ; and then, it disappeared again.
The brave, kindly, profoundly-learned, and
earnestly pious man had the laborious and
various life we have seen ; and it is a happy
chance that the preservation of his Diary
enables us to think of him with familiarity,
and know him to have had qualities, which
those who talk of the gold old commentators
of Europe as " pedants " only, would do well
to imitate. Casaubori's life was as good a
commentary on the stoic poet Persius, as the
work which he wrote with that title ; and he
deserves a little corner in our hearts, as well
as in our Abbey.

THE ROVING ENGLISHMAN.

VERY COID AT BUCHAREST.

IT is a bright clear morning, and the snow
lays white, crisp, and fair upon the ground.
There is a healthy buoyancy about the air,
which disposes the mildest men for practical
jokes, while the jovial are wrought up to a
state quite boisterous by cold and high
spirits. Individuals with mustaches like a
black frill of spears about their mouths, and
beards and shoulders of forty years' growth,
appear in open daylight with large catskin
muffs upon their hands and fur slippers on
their feet. Ladies are positively intrench cd
and fortified in cloaks and tippets and shawls.
Peasant girls, only roll laughing along with

bare legs and arms, -with eyes that absolutely
sparkle from merriment and frozen fnn when
they observe the poor chilly stuff of which we
seem to be made.

My nose has been of a singular colour
partly blue, partly a deep crimson these
three days. I do not exactly know where my
hands are : I could not decide with the
smallest certainty about them if my com-
forter depended on my doing so. It appears
to me as if my feet, under the direct influ-
ence of some malevolent fairy, had been
turned into pin-cushions, and that my re-
joicing enemy perhaps the nurse in my
elder brother's family was ironically punc-
turing on them, "Welcome little stranger,"
or some similar device, as expressive of gra-
tification at the birth of an heir to the
peerage, and the utter discomfiture of myself
and tailors. I should never be surprised to
trace those insulting words if I succeed in
getting off my boots without pulling off my
feet also when I venture to go to bed to-night.
I use the word venture with respect to going
to bed because it is almost as bold an enter-
prise to retire to a couch of single wretched-
ness as to leave it. I believe that the majority
of the population in these countries are un-
controllably urged into the state of matri-
mony by the irresistibly seductive prospect
of procuring a bed-warmer. I am given to
understand that it is customary -among mar-
ried people here to toss up (I suppose night-
caps) which shall be devoted to the common
cause, and go in to thaw the sheets ; or that
the more equitable portion of that happy
community take it by turns. I am inclined
to think, however, that the lady generally
contrives to overreach her husband in this
respect, she is fond of exciting his courage into
rashness by repeated glasses of " poonch," or
powerful green tea and rum, about the hour
of bedtime. She has been known, also,
to plead successfully the necessity of doing
up her back hair and to watch the shudder-
ings of her lord between the sheets with
intense and hopeful enjoyment. When a
husband ceases to shudder, his wife knows
that she can venture to get into his place
without collapsing, and usually seizes the
time with the same accuracy of judgment as
is displayed by careful housewives in boiling
an egg. That process of thawing the bed is
as penetrating and miserable an agony as
can be conceived. The most robust man will
sink to half his size during the humbling
process. As for getting up, it is an exploit so
doughty as only to be accomplished by the
promptings of the most ravenous hunger. I
wonder how the ladies' medical men do.

You feel your clothes freezing on you as
you dress. You have no sooner left your
hotel than you appear to have been miracu-
lously endowed with diamonds, and very hard
ones, growing out of your head, eyes, ears,
nose, and mouth ; or you may be the genius
of a crystal cave. Your whiskers set all

Charles Dickens.j

THE ROVING ENGLISHMAN.

attempts at elegance on the part of your
collars at defiance. They stand out like a
compact bundle of quills, to use a profes-
sional simile, and they crack in a similar
manner if roughly disturbed. When you
take up a position, it is as well to
choose an elegant, or at least an easy one ;
for you will be speedily wedged into it, and
you soon grow painfully aware of your like-
ness to those bold commercial satellites who
walk about London spreading the fame oi
Moses and Son for a shilling a day and their
board.

Your hat, if you persist in wearing one,
cuts a clean place for itself into your frozen
hair ; and if you catch sight of your shadow
in a foggy, tortured looking-glass (nothing is
so abjectly affected by the weather as a
mirror), you will perceive that the natural
covering of your head has gracefully arranged
itself in the form of a sugar-loaf, or perhaps,
in light mockery of your profession or ac-
quirements, in that of a fool's cap. It has in
fact taken the shape of the inside of your hat,
whatever that shape may be.

It is a fierce and bloodthirsty thing to
shave yourself, or to allow any ferocious
lover of old fashions to shave you. Your
face, after such an operation, will bear the
strongest resemblance to an uncooked beef-
steak of unsavoury exterior. Your obdurate
and merciless collar eats into the persecuted
skin like a knife, and you would no more
think of making a true British bow than of
cutting your throat. The intelligent and
travelled observer will remember that Rus-
sians and other people of cold countries,
generally rather raise their heads than
depress them in saluting. I believe they
have learned this by bitter experience, by
the torture of shaving in sledging-time.
Their bow is not a deferential inclination
of the head. It is a spasmodic writhe of the
waist.

Now, it is all very well for some bumptious
old person connected with that famous school
for bumptiousness, the red tape and sealing-
wax office, to say, " Pooh ! pooh ! I was in
the Principalities in eighteen hundred and
three, and I found nothing of this sort."
Excuse me, sir ; I find it so in eighteen
hundred and fifty-four. They say the cli-
mates of the world are changing, and I am
sure you will agree with me Avlien I add that
the race of young men and travellers has
degenerated since your time of wooden heads
and wonders.

I am going to dine with the hospodar, and
the frost dims my burnished boots as I walk
down stairs ; my teeth are chattering in spite
of the enormous bearskin cloak in which I
am swathed. My brother's nurse is certainly
using the pincushion very briskly as I step
into my sledge and hurry my feet into a
sheepskin bag, for nothing but wool and
leather will keep out the penetrating cold.
It is still daylight, for the prince dines

! at five o'clock, and we are at tho close
! of January. The streets are a pretty sight.
Gilded and glittering sledges are flash-
ing about in all directions. The horses
that draw them wear great patches of bright
coloured leather covered with bells on their
foreheads and shoulders. (The jingling is
peculiarly merry and inspiriting.) They have
housings of velvet and fur, and I see that it
is a gallantry among the cavaliers here that
these shall be of the same colours as those
chosen by their lady-loves. S >me are of
crimson and ermine, some of purple and gold,
some of white and sable. The sledging-time
will probably last about a couple of months,
and the streets never look so animated and
pretty at any other season.

THE THEATRE,

THERE is a Wallachiau theatre where
pieces are performed twice a week in the
Roumau language. I went there, and found it
a dismal little place enough, lighted by a dim
chandelier of oil lamps. Two indifferent and
rather dirty candles were also placed beneath
every box. Each box contained four chairs,
and was divided merely by a thin partition,
on which the occupants of either side might
place his elbows and converse. They did
converse conversation, indeed, appeared the
sole business of the company there. This
talk must have disturbed the serious pit of
standing people who came to see the play ;
but they bore it very patiently, and, perhaps,
they did not lose much.

The pieces were the Great Great-coat of
Prince Menchikoff, an excessively stupid farce
founded on the anecdote which startled the
diplomatic world of Constantinople. The other
piece was called a Peasant's Marriage. I am
sorry to say nothing could be sillier plot,
language, and acting were almost childish.
An old Greek, dressed in Turkish clothes,
keeps a school : he overhears that one of his
pupils is in love with the pride of the village,
he is also in love with her why, how, or
wherefore, does not appear in either case.
These circumstances give rise to a comic
song, performed by the whole strength of the
company. The dramatis personse then scuttle
off the stage, tugging at the old person's
robe and hustling him. To console him-
self, he gets into a swing, he compares the
emotions produced in an elderly stomach
by swinging, to love audience laugh
comic song all chorus succeeds, and act
closes. There is now half an hour's pause
for general flirtation. The Wullachian good-
bumour is irresistible. The dim oil chan-
delier is lowered, part of it hits a bald-
headed gentleman on the head, bald-headed
entleman laughs, audience laughs, bald-
iieaded gentleman rubs his head there is a
visible bump on it audience are in ecstasies,
and cry out jocular condolences. Lamps are
snuffed, and make a sad smell, whereat there

HOUSEHOLD WOEDS.

[Coniluctod by

is also general jollity, in which some of the
ladies distinguish themselves.

Up strikes the band, every man playing on
his own hook. The leader has evidently seen
a picture of Strauss. He imitates his position
and bearing. His wristbands are turned up ;
they are not quite clean. He does not appear
to have the smallest idea of his business. I
mention this to my companion : he laughs.
People in the next box laugh because we
laugh. The curtain rises on a dance. It
is awkward and hobbly, but I am told it
is characteristic. The peasant boy has of
course cut out the schoolmaster, who ex-
presses his grief in several more comic songs.
Audience join in one which appears to be a
favourite. There is something interesting in
this scene, because I learn that the actors are
dressed in the old Wallachian peasant costume,
which is now fast disappearing. The men wear
long white things like calico braided bed-
gowns, turn-over boots, and comical woollen
caps. The girls are one blaze of spangles and
tinsel. There is a pretty scene in which the
peasant fetches his bride from her parents,
while his best friends offer bread and wine as
a symbol of plenty. There is also some gun-
firing, a custom probably borrowed from the
Turks, but the sulphurous smell of the pow-
der, added to the smoke of the lamps, and the
pent-up atmosphere of the theatre, which is
crowded to suffocation, are almost insupport-
able.

I was not sorry when the whole con-
cluded with a dance and a chorus by the
whole strength of the company, and we were
free to go. I never remember to have seen
theatre, play, acting, actors and actresses, so
irredeemably bad.

Below there was, of course, a complete regi-
ment of gallants drawn up in line. Every
lady coming down had to run the gauntlet.
This appeared to me the real reason why
most of the company in the boxes had gone
to the theatre, and a very good reason too.
Perhaps there are here and there a few
people in proper London who would not go to
the opera if it were not for the pleasures of
the crush-room, while Mrs. Lackadaisy's car-
riage is stopping the way.

THE TERRIBLE OFFICER.

THERE is an Austrian officer quartered in
the house of a pleasant Wallachian family.
He is an under-lieutenant, or what we should
call an ensign, and he is a very great man in
consequence. It is a powerful thing to hear
his sabre clanking along the passage when he
conies home at night from the hotel or casino.
It is more overwhelming still to hear him in
energetic conversation with his man servant
of a morning. He treats the pleasant Wal-
lachian family as if they were his born serfs
and servants. They keep out of his way,
therefore, as much as it is convenient to do
BO perhaps more. His footfall is a signal
for the prompt flight of all within hearing of

it. When he clears his throat the maid-
servant trembles. If he coughs in the night
the whole house is thrown into a state
of alarm.

It is not unnatural under these circum-
stances that when the pleasant Wallachiau
family gave a ball on New Year's Eve the ter-
rible officer is not invited. He is not invited
because there is not a lady who would
dance with him ; because his presence would
be insupportable his very entry into the
room would cause the guests to quake and
fear.

The Austrian ensign, however, does not
appear to appreciate these reasons at a suffi- '
cient value. He is huffed at being forgotten
on a festival day, as most people are who
have rendered themselves disagreeable pre-
viously. He makes these sentiments known
to the family on his return home between
nine and ten o'clock, by sending them an
abrupt order to leave off making a noise,
which is likely to disturb his rest. The ser-
vant who delivers this message creates much
astonishment, also some laughter. He ia
generally supposed to be the harmless agent
of rather a far-fetched practical joke. The
guests converse together agreeably about
him in little groups for a few minutes, and
then the subject is forgotten.

Forgotten : for this night is one of the
greatest festivals of the Greek Church, and
every good Christian is bound to be merry
accordingly. Our guests are merry, aud the
ball goes on. Now, a Wallachian ball is by
no means the milk-and-water affair of a ball
in Eaton Place West. There are few wall-
flowers who sit in steady silence throughout
the evening, looking as unhappy as possible ;
there are no-, long-faced gentlemen who
stand about exasperatingly in doorways, and
will not be comforted ; there are no shy
people who won't dance, or can't dance. The
guests assemble at about seven o'clock in the
evening with a fixed determination to amuse
themselves. They dance in the most vigorous
manner till midnight. Then they have a
solid sit-down supper, seasoned with a very
considerable condiment of flirtation. Then
they begin again, and see each other home
in the morning, just as you and I should
like to see home Miss Brown and Mrs.
Fairly.

Such is the highly ornamental design for an
evening's entertainment marked out on the
present occasion. So the polka succeeds the
waltz, and the quadrille is followed by the
mazurka, and all prudent people who love to
talk together in corners have long ago
entered into arrangements for the cotillon.
That fascinating dance is, indeed, at its.
height. The performers are whirling in
mazy but pretty confusion, picking up hand-
kerchiefs, pulling crackers, presenting bou-
quets and gay ribbons to each other, after the
fashion ot the thing. Then the door opens sud-
denly, aud a fearful apparition appears in the

Charles Dicken*.]

CONVICTS, ENGLISH AND FRENCH.

midst of them. That apparition is sup-
posed at first to be a holiday joke of Christ-
mas time. The ladies scream delightedly, and
the gentlemen laugh and whisper consolation.
Nothing can be pleasanter ; for no one has
recognised in the long figure habited in a
scanty dressing-gown and dingy drawers, the
august person of the Austrian ensign. He
soon enlightens them.

" What is the meaning of all this noise ? "
he thunders, in a terrible voice. " Did I not
send you a message to be quiet ? Is this a
pothouse, where you can ask whom you please,
or is it my quarters ] Put out the lights
and send home these people. I cannot go to
sleep for their racketty doings."

" Hark ye, sir ! " answers the host, now put
on his metal. " I and my family have borne
a good deal from you, but we cannot bear
this. I beg that you will retire at once to
your own room."

" So you will have it, then," says the
Austrian ensign, growing much irritated.
" Understand, therefore, that I place you all
under arrest as rioters." Then he disap-

pears, and, summoning his soldiers, they sur-

,1 tl^ l,n,, m A ohsnlntfilv do S in,- Sickness and Death, their mournful harvest reaping.

we stopped their balls altogether. Why, balls,
sir, are as bad as clubs. They are often dan-
gerous assemblies of people disaffected to the
government. If not, why exclude us 1 "

" Ah, indeed ! Then there are to be no
more balls at Bucharest, perhaps 1 "

" Very likely not."

And there have been none.

BEFOEE SEBASTOPOL.

TRUE hearts, true hearts ! with courage all undaunted,
Well tried, well proved, on many a battle field,
A courage well sustained, and justly vaunted,
Versed in all tactics, save the art to yield.

It is a harder conflict ye are bearing,
A bitt'rer struggle now ye undergo,
Than any outer act of gallant daring,
Or combat, howe'er deadly, with the foe.

The winter in inhospitable regions,
The toil by day, the ceaseless watch by night,
Rain, frost and cold advance resistless legions,
Worse to encounter than the sorest tight.

round the house, and he. absolutely does im
prison the new year's party. He is a man
of his word.

Now, among the guests is an aide-de-
camp of the hospodar, or prince, of this
unhappy country. He is required to be on
duty at a certain hour, and when he sees that
the house is surrounded he grows seriously
alarmed. All the doors are guarded, but
there is still a window through which he

Sweep day by day through each diminished Hue,
Like silent river floods, that onward creeping
Their fragile barriers daily undermine.

The hope deferred, the long enforced inaction,
Warm hearts at home, and yet all help so far,
Proving how world-old rules and party faction
Can add new horrors to the curse of war.

What in comparison were deadliest meeting.

might escape. He squeezes through it, and Though the dark angel hovered in the van
luckily makes good his exit, leaving the rest Ask thc lieroic hearts so bravely beating
of the company in confinement.

He tells the prince of what has happened,
in a few days there is a rumour,

the Austrian ensign has been placed

and
that

under arrest also; but nobody believes it;
and all idea of his serious punishment for so
strange a freak is, of course, out of the ques-
tion. It is said, however, to have been a sad
and singular sight enough to see the guests
file out in the morning when the guards
were removed. They were in their ball-
dresses, and their carriages had been sent
away. They had to wade through the mud,
cheerless and wretched.

"And so, Colonel, are these things to be
continued 1 The feeling of the Wallachians is
very much exasperated about them," said a
person, to an Austrian officer high in com-
mand, while conversing on this and some
similar events.

" What will you have ? " was the reply.
" It is the same in Italy. Scarcely a night
passes without some riot or murder. It must
always be the same where there is an army
of occupation. At Clausenberg last year,
too, a thing occurred precisely similar to that
we are now discussing. Some of the natives
gave an insolent ball, to whick they did not
ask our officers, and the consequence was that

Ask the heroic hearts so bravely beating
On Alma's heights or plains of Inkcrmann.

True hearts, true hearts ! with courage all unswerving,
Be this proud record added to your fame :
Of the whole nation warmest praise deserving,
Ye add new glory to old England's name !

To bear such hardships nobly uncomplaining,
To keep through all the lamp of hope alive,
As e'en the slightest murmuring tone disdaining,
To your last breath to surfer and to strive.

Out of the earth our brethren's blood is crying
To One not heedless when such claimants sue,
And a roused nation's earnest heart replying,
Goes forth, devoted men, and bleeds with you.

CONVICTS, ENGLISH AND FBENCH.

ONE of the grandest judicial mysteries
one of the most puzzlingly sealed books in.
the Radelifiian library in Themis's castle of
Udolpho is, what becomes of a man after he has.
been sentenced to be transported ? The judge
on the bench it is no disrespect to him to say
it knows no more than the wig he wears
what will be the after fate of the delinquent
upon whom he has just passed judgment.
The prisoner, honest man, is equally ignorant
of his future. He knows quite enough

HOUSEHOLD WORDS.

[Contacted by

already that he cannot walk about in the
open air when he wishes; that he cannot
smoke, drink strong Liquors, gamble, or stop
out o' nights ; that he is compelled to wear a
prison dress instead of his own clothes, and
that any property he^may possess, as a con-
vict, is forfeited to the state. But how long
this state of things is to continue ; or where
the ten, fifteen, or twenty years, or the per-
petuity of his captivity are to be lived out,
he has no more than a very faint and misty
notion. He may find himself, two or three
years hence, on board the Justicia hulk at
Woolwich, at Melbourne or Sydney, in
Devonport dockyard, on the Plymouth break-
water, in the Portland stone quarries, in a
private room at Pentouville, or (and this con-
summation is just as likely as the others) he
may find himself, after a short detention, at
large, breathing . the sweet air of his dear
native Whitechapel or Westminster again a
ticket-of-leave in his pocket ; a graduate in
the university of crime ; a bachelor of thieves'
arts, with only a few more terms to keep
before he goes back to the Central Criminal
Court to be received M.A.

The British public knows very little of what
becomes of the convicts. Some .of them are
in the dockyards, that is apparent; some in
this penitentiary; some in that; many en-
joying perfect liberty, though their term of
punishment be not half expired ; which is
unpleasantly evident from the daring burglary
at the house over the way, committed by
ticket-of-leave men last Friday night, and
from the startling garotte robbery by a libe-
rated convict which is to be inquired into at
Bow Street Police-office this morning. But
where are the vast majority ? Australia won't
hare them; Van Diemen's Laud repudiates
them ; the Cape of Good Hope would like to
see them (ironically) come there. The earthly
Hades at Norfolk Island is broken up; the
American plantations have been out of
fashion for the transported for a century.
We can't receive them into the bosoms of
our families, and set them to baste the
meat for seven years, or entreat them to
nurse the baby for the term of their natural
lives. We can't have them continually sailing
up and down the seas in quest of a colony
which will take them in. We would rather
not have them walking about Regent Street,
with bludgeons, pitch -plasters, chloroform
sponges, and slip-knotted handkerchiefs in
their pockets. They are an eyesore to us
even in Woolwich or Portsmouth yards,
skulking among the frank, jovial, open-faced
men-of-war's men and the smart stalwart
soldiers. We grumble against the pet prisons,
the horticultural show-houses of rascality, the
menageries of crime wild beast shows well
kept, well swept, well ordered, with nice sweet
shins of beef for the animals (fed at regular
hours), and well-dresaed visitors crowding to
aee the hippopotamus of burglary taking his
bath, or the chimpanzee of larceny holding

a good book like a Christian, or the bludgeon-
ing tiger being stirred up with a longpole
and not howling, or the worthy governor or
worthy chaplain emulating the exploits of
Mr. Van Amburg putting their heads in the
lion's mouth, and not having them bitten off.
Where are the convicts to go? Where do they
go? And while we ask, well-meaning philan-
thropists echo the same question dolorously,
while the government cry still more dolorously
that they would like very much to be told
what to do with the convicts, and where to
send them. Whereupon A bellows out,
" Botany Bay !" forgetting that we have tried
the Bay, and that it has now narrowed into
a river running upon golden sands, even the
Pactolus, and that the inhabitants of its auri-
ferous banks refuse disdainfully to have any-
thing to do with British scum. Follows B,
who roars, "Hang them !" unmindful that we
have tried that, too, and have not found it
answer. Follows (at a long distance behind)
Z, who has a small voice, and is too weak to
struggle to the front, and who says mildly,
'' Teach and wash and tend them, before they
come up into the dock for judgment ; let there
be clean straw, sweet shins of beef, and good
books outside as well as inside the menagerie,
and do not let a human being wait till he be a
criminal to be cared for, like the bear in the
Garden of Plants, who only became famous
from the day he ate a baby."

Whatever becomes of the convicts in the
present muddled state of transition into which
the questions of secondary punishments and
prison discipline have sunk, it is not the less
certain that judges of the land declare that
they do not know whether the sentences they
are passing will be carried out or not; and
that criminals avowedly contemn the punish-
ment of transportation, and are pleasantly
conscious that it will not be carried out in its
terrible entirety. Meanwhile we, who are not
yet transported, only dimly know two things:
that .transportation to the colonies is at an
end, and that large numbers of determined
ruffians are daily let loose upon tickets-of-
leave, and return from wherever they came
to swell the already not immaculate popula-
tion of our large towns, and exercise assault,
battery, theft, burglary, shop-lifting, hocuss-
ing, and other branches of their profession,
with as much vigour and with more success
than heretofore.

Let us see what the state of affairs is in
the dominions of the Emperor of the French.
Until very lately, grave and, in many cases,
capital crimes were punished by travaux
forces (hard labour) for a term of years or
for perpetuity at the dockyard Bagues
better known under the generic name of the
galleys. But our neighbours are now in the
same state of muddled transition as to
secondary punishments that we in England
are. The Bagnes were the same hells upon
earth that our Norfolk Island was. A large
section of French philanthropists and social

Chavlci Dickens.]

CONVICTS, ENGLISH AND FRENCH.

economists called out for the cellular system,
with all its wretched apparatus of starving,
darkness, strapping, hanging on tiptoes, and
gagging ; and with its horrible attendants of
madness and suicide, canting hypocrisy, or
hardened sulkiness. The French government,
which is to the full as puzzled as our own
what to do with its reprobates, suddenly
confounded confusion by breaking up the
Bagnes ; and, at the present day, the uutran-
sported public in France are in a state of
dreamy ignorance parallel to our own as to
the whereabouts of convicts; where they go to,
what is actually done with them, and when
they may be expected back. The authorities
are indefinitely known to have invented penal
colonies ; one, the fine feverish settlement of
Cayenne, about which whether it be in Sene-
gal or Guiana, or both the same muddled
ignorance prevails as among well-informed
circles here as to whether Demerara be an
island or a continent, in South America or in
the West Indies, or all four. Another is
Nouka-Hiva, which, when I say that it is in
the South Seas, is saying quite enough for
once, I think. Thither the burglars, forgers,
and, very often, murderers, who are sen-
tenced by the French Court of Assize to
travaux forces are sent ; but, as it is known
that there are also in those colonies some
thousands of unfortunate men, many of them
educated gentlemen many shamefully de-
luded by now prosperous rogues almost all
of them guilty of no other crimes than wanting
bread and differing in political opinion from
somebody else, no coherent idea can be
formed of which is transportation, which
deportation, and which travaux forces. The
widow whose only son was sent to Cayenne
because he happened to be in the National
Guard and in BarbeV Legion in June 'forty-
eight, or because he was foolish enough to
walk on the Boulevard des Capucins on the
second of December 'fifty-one, knows not
whether he be chained to a desperado found
guilty of assassination with extenuating cir-
cumstances, and condemned to hard labour for
life, or not, and vice versa. It is all a muddle.
The few letters that reach France from
Cayenne, or are allowed to be published,
describe settlements as having been made
and abandoned ; penitentiaries opened and
closed ; tickets-of-leave granted, to the in-
finite annoyance of the non-convict inhabi-
tants of Senegal, and numerous evasions into
the bush. What sort of bush the bush of Sene-
gal may be I am not aware ; but, from the
peppery, tigerish, jungleish nature of the
climate, I imagine that any of the evaded, if
retaken, would be found to have become
spotted if not brindled, with tails, great
suppleness in the joints, and capacity for
springing from holes in rocks, and an un-
quenchable appetite for raw meat and hot
blood.

In a most remarkable converse, the French
are desperately endeavouring to get rid of

the very disease with whose virus we are
as desperately trying to inoculate ourselves.
" No convicts in France ! no liberated con-
victs. Break up the Bagnes ! " cry the
French. " No transportation to the colonies !
Tickets-of-leave, and build up a Bagne on
Dartmoor ! " cry we. And each system seems
to work equally ill. The French judges
go on sentencing^ doubting the efficacy of
their sentences ; the public go on asking for
security, or at least for information, and don't
get them ; and the government goes on
scratching its head (if a government could
perform so undignified an operation), or, like
that man who was so wondrous wise, jumping
backwards and forwards in and out of a
quickset-hedge, not much improving its
vision in the long run thereby.

The curse of French society the big
plague-spots in all the back streets were
the liberated and escaped convicts. Strictly
guarded and watched as they were, they
often managed, as we shall afterwards have
occasion to see, to regain their liberty.
Of course, they all flocked to Paris.
The streets were not safe at night ;
the bridges were regular places of call for
assassins : and, at every e'meute, at every
popular commotion, there were vomited forth
from foul cellars and tapis francs ; from the
Rue aux Feves ; the infamous tumours of
streets behind the Louvre ; the slums of the
petite Pologne, the Barridre Mont Parnasse ;
the Rue Mouffetard and the Faubourg du
Temple, boiliug, raving, screeching, ravenous
mobs of escaped convicts, liberated convicts,
coiners, midnight assassins, passport-forgers ;
nine-tenths of whom had served at some time
or other their apprenticeship at the Bagnes.
These men, calling themselves republicans,
and fighting at the barricades as a cloak for
murder and plunder, did more harm to honest
republicanism and real liberty than ten
hundred reigns of terror could have done.
These were the men who shot the Arch-
bishop of Paris, who murdered General de
Brea, who impaled the artilleryman, and cut
off the feet of the dragoon. A large majority
of the prisoners arraigned at the Court of
Assize had been convicts at some time or
other ; and a large proportion of the duties
of that peculiarly infamous body, the secret
police (recruited, itself, from the convict
ranks), consisted in hunting out and re-
capturing the formats evades the escaped
convicts.

The evaded malefactor who had thus pro-
vided himself with an unsanctioned "ticket-
of-leave" did not fail, of course, of becoming
interesting and romantic in France. He was
dramatised immediately with immense suc-
cess The escaped forcat, Vautrin, in M. de
Balzac's drama of that name, was elevated by
the accomplished actor, Frederic Lemaitre,
into a sort of French Timon a cynic phi-
losopher, visiting all the institutions of
society with the most withering scorn. The

HOUSEHOLD WORDS.

[Conducts! by

character was thought to be a caricature of
Louis Philippe, and the play was prohibited
by the government. So was .Robert Macaire,
that other convict apotheosis, which is too
well known in England to need any further
mention here. M. de Balzac's Vautrin was
by him transplanted into that wonderful
series of novels aggregated by their author
under the title of the "Comcdie Humaine."
The escaped, recaptured, re-escaped, again re-
captured, and at last promoted into chief of
the Police de Suret6, Vautrin runs through
half a dozen romances like Natty Bumppo in
the works of Mr. Cooper. Scarcely a melo-
drama or a novel afterwards was produced
without a forcat being discovered in act the
tirst, occupying the exalted position of a
baron, banker or general. In act the third
he was generally detected ; and, if not shot,
was sent back with ignominy to the galleys.
The " ancien forcat " became almost as recog-
nised a rOle as the " pe~re noble " or the
" premier amoureux." The novel writers ran
the escaped convict almost to death. They
had him in one volume, in two volumes, in
three volumes, in series of ten of three
volumes each ; in feuilletons, reviews, and
magazines. Mr. Frederic Soulio served up
the convict with as many sauces as a good
ship's cook will adjust to one piece of beef;
but the culmination of convicts took place in
M. Eugene Sue's monstrous romance of the
" Mysteries of Paris," in which every one of
the characters either had been, or were, or
ought to have been at the galleys. To be-
lieve these gentlemen (which, to say the
truth, very few people did), you could not
enter a drawing-room without running the
risk of your host being an escaped convict,
even if you, as a guest, did not happen to be
a forgat yourself : and there was every pro-
bability of the gentleman decorated with the
riband of legion of honour who sat next to
you at dinner, having undergone ten years'
hard labour ; or of the patent leather ankles
of your sister's partner having formerly been
encircled with a neat iron ring with leg-chain
to match.

Though the dramatists and novelists am-
plified their narrations considerably, as it is
the custom of dramatists and novelists to do,
they had some foundation of truth to work
upon ; for the escaped convict was, until very
recently indeed, a disagreeable reality in
France. He was frequently, too, a romantic
reality ; and there are accounts on record of
the escapes of convicts and their subsequent
adventures, surpassing in romantic interest
the boldest achievements of our penny illus-
trated heroes. The essential democracy of
French society at least before the second
Empire which allowed every man with a
good coat on his back, and with tolerable
impudence, to penetrate into the best circles;
and to attain even the highest social posi-
tions ; the perfect facilities offered from
the abolition of the hereditaiy peerage to

a man for calling himself by whatever title
he chose ; the omnipotence of ready money
in consequence, and I may hint the general
corruption and Robert Macairism that cha-
racterised the early days of the monarchy of
J uly, produced a general condition of exist-
ence that really rendered it possible for the
escaped denizen of the Bagne to form com-
mercial partnerships of the highest respect-
ability, and to marry spinsters with fortunes.
They could play and win at the best tables,
sport for a time titles and decorations, and
mix in and impose upon the entire round of
fashionable life. Fancy Belgravia bamboozled
by a ticket-of-leave holder Tyburnia duped
by Tyburn Jack !

TINDER FROM A CALIFORNIA^
FIRE.

THE golden attractions of California have
been sought by many Englishmen, who have
brought home various reports of them ; among
others, they have been lately sought by
Mr. Frank Marryat, who has spent three
years in the country, and tried it in various-
capacities. He has lived there as a shooter
of deer, a grower of onions, a builder on a
town lot, a crusher of quartz. Having so
tried it, he has failed in getting money, but
has succeeded well in getting pleasure out of
his adventures. He is a gentleman who
having good-humour for the chief bulk of his
luggage has wandered much about the world,
who has taken pen-and-ink notes of many
things ; who has made a great numberof pencil
sketches. His California!! journal and the
pictures he had painted were burnt in one
of the great fires of San Francisco. It is
from recollection of the leaves of his journal
that he now produces a cheerful, useful book :
Mountains and Molehills is its title. We
will indicate here a little of the anecdote
and information thus reduced to tinder, and
thus restored to ink and paper again.

Mr. Marryat arrived at San Francisco
while the June fire of eighteen hundred and
fifty was still burning. He was accompanied
by a young friend, Mr. Thomas, who, having
gone out to join a great mercantile house
and found the house in ruins, fell in with
Mr. Marryat's purpose of experimenting for
a few months on California!! sport by settling
somewhere among the mountains, and sub-
sisting by the gun. He was accompanied
also by a faithful servant, Barnes, who had
begun the world as poacher, and then settled
down as gamekeeper ; by two blood hounds,
Prince and Birkham ; and by a large Scotch
slob hound, whose name was Cromer. After
various experiences, this party of six awokeone
morning on the bank of Russian River to find
mules and horses stolen, all means of farther
advance cut off, and no more agreeable alter-
native left than to wade through the stream,
each man with baggage on his head, and look
on the other side for a backwoodsman's hut

TINDER FROM A CALIFORNIAN FIRE.

that was known to exist in the vicinity.
Without much trouble the hut was found,
near a running stream, surrounded by huge
redwood trees. The backwoodsman, a power-
ful Missourian, whose name was March, being
at home, lent his mule to bring the luggage
up ; and, by nightfall, the .English party was
encamped within a few yards of this man's
dwelling,

Two other backwoodsmen lived with
March, bringing up to three the number of the
population in that district. These three
men nevertheless had been at work in the
recesses of the forest. With their own six
hands they had just built a massive sawmill,
to which they had applied the power of the
stream, by means of an overshot wheel. The
heavy beams of the millframe, the dam, and
race, had all been formed from the adjacent
redwood trees. Nothing was wanting but
the saw, and for that the builders meant to
make a trip to San Francisco. Thus, as Mr.
Marryat rightly says, the American goes
ahead because he looks ahead. From the
first tents of San Francisco orders were sent
out for steam engines and foundries which
now do the daily work of an important city.
In the same spirit March's mill was built in
a lonely wood, with the safe expectation that
its use would soon appear, and it now barely
supplies the wants of au agricultural popu-
lation that is settling round about it.

By the advice of March, Mr. Marryat and
his companions walked over the hills to look
at a valley on which they were strongly
advised to squat. The valley was found to
contain about twenty acres of ground, per-
fectly level, bounded on one side by masses
of redwood trees, and on the other by a fine
stream whose banks were shaded with alders
and wild vines. In the valley itself was
neither shrub nor tree ; except that, from its
centre, rose a clump of seven gigantic red-
woods which grew in a circle, and so formed a
natural chamber, to which there was but a sin-
gle entrance. Of this valley, the English party
made a winter's home. The space within the
central clump was perfected as to its accom-
modations by the addition of a boarded
floor and a brushwood roof. Barnes, who
was a famous woodsman, laid his axe to the
trees beyond the stream, and proceeded to
the manufacture of rails and other things
proper to be set up by an occupier of the
ground. Mr. Thomas took charge of the
home department, and Mr. Marryat devoted
himself and his gun to the business of finding
victuals for the whole establishment.

The redwood tree here mentioned the
arbor vitse is to the Californians as much a
possession and a wonder as their gold. It
grows to be some eighteen feet in girth,
one hundred and fifty feet in height, and is
as straight as it is tall. Its timber is very
durable, and at the same time easily worked,
with no other tools than an axe, a betel, and
some wedges. An unusually large redwood

tree is something most enormous. In Cala-
veras county a group of them, each tree
being from two hundred to two hundred and
fifty feet in height, were found to measure in
girth from fifty feet to sixty, seventy, and
eighty. The largest was felled, and the bark
which was removed to San Francisco, and
set up in its original position, formed a
spacious room, seven-and-twenty feet from
end to end.

The redwood bark is commonly found per-
forated in every direction by a kind of
starling, called for his pains the carpentaro
carpenter. The carpentaros labour indefati-
gably to form cells in the trees, which they
fit tightly with acorns for their winter pro-
vender. They work noisily, chiefly upon the
tops of the redwoods, and are always at
work when they ai-e not fighting. There is a
gray squirrel who profits by their labour.
When he ascends a redwood he is immedi-
ately surrounded by the birds, who know
what he wants, and attack him with an angry
chatter. Taking no heed of them he extracts
whichever acorn is most tempting in his eyes,
pops it into his mouth, and turns his head
from side* to side, looking at the indignant
birds with comical composure. Then down
he comes, whisking his silvery tail, and the
carpentaros assemble round the pillaged hole
to scream at the whole rascally business, and
rate the robber soundly in his absence. Often
it happens that while they are in the midst
of their vituperation, the gray squirrel again
appears among them, having found the first
acorn so ripe and good that he thinks he
will take another. By that time the noise in
the tree has brought fresh flights of carpen-
taros to the scene of quarrel, and the chorus
of protest against his proceedings becomes
altogether deafening. A worse enemy to the
carpentaro is the Digger Indian. The diggers
light a fire at the root of a well-acorned
redwood tree, in that way fell it, and when it
has fallen pick its acorns out and carry
many baskets-full away.

After a little time, by help of Barnes the
woodman, there was a two-roomed house
built near the redwood clump, and this was
kept free from the vermin which abound in
the land, and are brought home in fresh
colonies with the skin of every slain animal
by a few simple precautions. Everything was
turned out of the hut daily and hung up in the
sun, the floor was then well watered ; and, by
these precautions, accompanied with a scru-
pulous regard for cleanliness, a ban was set
upon centipedes and scorpions, and all black
cattle that seek pasture upon human flesh.
The settlers had books, and one of them
usually read aloud after the day's active work
or sport when supper was done and pipes
were lighted from a volume of Fielding,
Goldsmith, or De Foe. Barnes also took
writing lessons ; but, on one occasion, these
amusements were set aside for a great debate
on a proposed farming operation. Onions

HOUSEHOLD WORDS.

were commanding fabulous prices in San
Francisco. if onions could be persuaded to
come, enormous profit would accrue. Onion
seed, therefore, was fete-lied from town with
other agricultural stock. ' The onions re-
warded a great deal of care by really sprout-
ing ; but, before they were ready for the
market, the gray squirrels interfered with the
foresight of the farmers, just as they hud set
at nought the foresight of the carpenters.
They munched them and wagged their heads
over them until the lield was stripped of all
its produce.

By that time, however, Mr. Marryat was
being led into a new track. He had gone to
San Francisco, there to meet an iron-house
that had been sent to him from Europe. It
was lauded, and proving mere rubbish, was
left to be thrown into the quay. A speculation
of a larger kind in iron buildings followed :
and here let us stop to back the author's re-
commendation to all emigrants in no case
to go out like snails with houses on their
backs.

Of iron-houses, after much experience, he
speaks in the most disparaging way. Under
sun-shine they are too hot ; as night advances
they cool too rapidly, and towards dawn they
are ice houses. When warm the anti-corrosive
paint upon them emits a sickening smell, the
rain falls on the roof noisily like small shot,
and, if such houses become implicated in a
fire they first expand, then collapse, and tum-
ble down with astonishing rapidity. In one
of the San Franciscan tires, of which Mr.
Marryat had some experience, the American
iron-houses, of which the plates were nearly
an inch thick, and the castings of apparently
unnecessary weight, collapsed like a pre-
served-meat can, and destroyed six person,
who, believing it to be fire-proof, remained
inside.

While the onions were coming up, and
Mr. Marryat was at San Frnncisco, a store-
ship laden with iron-houses, belonging to a
Mend of his, sunk at her moorings in a
heavy gale. When raised, her cargo, crusted
with mud and peopled with small crabs,
was unsaleable at San Francisco. At that
time, the state of California had secured cer-
tain ground, the property of General Vallejo
as the site for a capital, a seat for govern-
ment, of which Vallejo was to be the
name. The ground had already been sur-
veyed and staked off into botanic gardens,
theatres, churches, orphan asylums, town-
halls, and schools for the indigent blind. The
bright idea therefore occurred to Mr. Marryat
of lauding those muddy materials on the beach
at Vallejo, leaving them there for the tide
to scour, and then using them for the construc-
tion of some building in the rising capital.
At the end of six months he had accord-
ingly converted them into a capacious hotel,
well finished and painted, and furnished
handsomely, according to the proper Califor-
iiian style. At this juncture the government

altered its mind relative to the site of the new
capital, and selected Benicia. So much of the
city of Vallejo as had been built was there-
upon pulled down and sold for old materials.
The hotel, we .should say, was just before the
crisis seized in execution for two ponies'
tails. Its owner who had proposed to himself
to let it at a great rent had been travelling
with a friend in a drag, to which he harnessed
two horses of his own, while his friend added
to the beam a pair of Canadian switchtail
ponies. The friend upon the journey dined
too well ; and, after dinner, nothing would
please him but an alteration of the tails of
the two Canadian ponies. They must be
made to match with the tails of the other
pair of horses, which were banged. Remon-
strance was urged against this proceeding,
inasmuch as it would be the spoiling of two
valuable animals, whose chief beauty con-
sisted in their manes and tails, but the re-
monstrance was in vain. The tails were
hacked with a blunt table-knife and when
they were docked (one being left nearly a
foot shorter than the other) the perpetrator
of the mischief admired them, and remarked
after a grave survey, " Oh, no consequence,
s'hey dou't b'long to me." The person to
whom they did belong thought it of conse-
quence and went to law upon the matter.
Thus it came finally to pass that, for the
value of two ponies' tails, the sheriff was put
in possession of the Vallejo hotel, but that
functionary submitted to ejectment by the
owner.

Then, too, the onions failed, and the squat-
ters gathering about March's mill, proved
Mr. Marryat to be an alien who had no right
of pre-emption, and objected to his retention
of the valley. Moreover, while things were
going awry at Vallejo, and Mr. Marryat was
in that place, a bright glare one night, in the
direction of San Francisco, warned him of
another conflagration of the town, to which
he hurried, and at which he arrived, after his
lodging there with all the possessions it con-
couiaiued (journal included) were destroyed.
By a few steel buttons only that remained
upon the ground could he discover where
his property had stood. What one of these
all-devouring fires is like the traveller shall
tell us, for of a calamity like this none who
are inexperienced can speak with half the
force of an eye-witness. It is another con-
flagration one that occurred while he was
living in San Francisco to which Mr. Mar-
ryatt refers in the succeeding passage :

"On third of May, at eleven in the evening,
the fire-bell again startled us; but on this
occasion the first glance at the lurid glare
and heavy mass of smoke that rolled towards
the bay evidenced that the fire had already a
firm grip on the city. The wind was unusually
high, and the flames spread in a broad sheet
over the town. All efforts to arrest them
were useless; houses were blown up and torn
down in attempts to cut off communication ;

Charles Dickens.]

TINDER FROM. A CALIFORNIAN FIRE.

but the engines were driven back, step by
step, while some of the brave firemen fell
victims to their determined opposition. As
the wind increased to a gale, the fire became
beyond control ; tlie brick buildings in Mont-
gomery Street crumbled before it ; and before
it was arrested, over cue thousand houses,
many of which were filled with merchandise,
were left in ashes. Many lives were lost, and
the amount of property destroyed was esti-
mated at two millions and a-half sterling.

" No conception can. be formed of the
grandeur of the scene, for at one time the
burning district was covered by one vast
sheet of flame that extended half a mile in
length. 13ut when the excitement of such a
night as this has passed by, one can scarcely
recal the scene : the memory is confused in
the recollection of the shouts of the excited
populace the crash of falling timbers the
yells of the burnt and injured the clank of
the fire-brakes the hoarse orders delivered
through speaking-trumpets maddened horses
released from burning livery stables plunging
through the streets helpless patients being
carried from some hospital, and dying on the
spot, as the swaying crowd, forced back by
the flames, tramples all before it explosions
of houses blown up by gunpowder showers
of burning splinters that fall around on every
side the thunder of brick buildings as they
fall into a heap of ruins, and the blinding
glare of ignited spirits. Amidst heat that
scorches, let you go where you will smoke
that strikes the eyes as if they had been
pricked by needles water that, thrown off
the heated walls, falls on you in a shower of
scalding steam you throw your coat away,
and help to work the engine brakes, as calls
are made for more men."

The end of it was work, and the result of it
was work. The community of San Francisco
took, in those days, a fire as quietly as a boy
takes a fall upon the pavement. The town
had to be got up again, and that was all.
However great might be the destruction of
property, however complete the ruin of some
individuals whose all was lost, and who could
take no part in the effort to reconstruct their
own fortunes together with the town, all
lamentation -was sent, like the sickness in an
army, to the rear. The ruined were the
luckless men not rare in Califoruian society
and nothing remained for them but to go
about their business, whatever that might be,
The business of all who had wherewith to
buy building materials was obvious enough,
and the demand for bricks and stones was
held to be more pressing than the need for
sighs and groans, therefore among the tents
of the burnt-out townspeople little was said
of the past grief, much of the present remedy.
Mr. Marryatt arrived at San Francisco, sum-
moned by the glare over the town, only in
time to see the dying embers of the fire
that had destroyed his journal, but over them,
while they still smoked, he found the citizens

already preparing to rebuild their homes, or,
it would be more accurate to say, places of
business, with brick and stone. Instructed
and even strengthened by disaster is the man
who would cut out for himself a new path in
the world. The Californian public knows the
uses of adversity, turns them all to account,
and thrives.

Mr. Marryatt himself also has made
some trial of them, and is not the
worse for his experience. Soon after he
had been burnt out at San Francisco,
that gentleman commenced a quartz-crushing
experiment, and found that his iron ma-
chinery was obstinate in breaking down,
the quartz being more able effectively to"
bruise the machine than the machine to
bruise the quartz. Here was the man to
bring usliome a black account of California;
but he does nothing of the kind. He en-
of joyed his adventures in the country, and has
sense to separate his individual mishaps, as a
speculator, from the general prosperity. If
San Francisco began its new life in the midst
of riot, dissipation, and misfortune, he can
see that the experience of some dozen con-
flagrations has only taught the people there
to erect good brick houses, make their city
the substantial place it now is, and protect it
by a brave volunteer corps of firemen. Now
San Francisco stands as little chance of
being again laid in ashes as Hamburg or
London. He remembers that in the midst
of their first excesses the Americans of San
Francisco did not forget to found a public
school, and take care even in a wild co-
lony, for the education of all children a care
not taken for the ragged sons and daughters
even of righteous England. He sees, too,
that the energies of vice have become ex-
hausted that the town Californians, sick of
excess, are turning in many ways to
right thoughts and right deeds, with ail
energy unknown in communities that have
been satisfied for generations with the re-
spectable way in which they have managed
their concerns. March's mill he knows to be
more truly a type of what is in that laud of
activity than his own quartz-crushing ma-
chine. The failure of his quartz-crusher he
regards only as the failure of one among the
number of experiments which must be
made by every pioneer. As for his onions
he dees not for their sake curse all
the onions in the land. Thanks to the
maiden soil, vegetables attain to an un-
usual size in California, though (as always
happens in such cases) they gain size at the
expense of flavour. Onions and tomatas as
large as cheese-plates are, Mr. Marryat says,
common. Melons have attained the weight
of filly pounds. Wheat and oats grow to the
height of eight or ten feet, and are very pro-
lific in the ear. We recommend no one to
emigrate who cannot carry out with him
some measure, at least, of this dauntless,
candid temper.

HOUSEHOLD WOEDS.

[Conducted by

Of course, there is a good deal of road-
making and other work yet to be done in the
new country. For example, this is the sort
of excitement open to a passenger upon the
box-seat of a coach or spring-waggon, rattled
along the mine district by six horses, well
broken in to crossing gulches and mudholes.
Now, the road isdownadry gulch, then, through
a bog, to be crossed in safety only by hard
driving ; then, along the steep slope of a hill,
with one wheel up, the other down, and all
passengers " hard up to the right," at the
command of the colonel who drives that is
to say, throwing their weight all on one side
to maintain a balance. Presently, the vehicle
is di-agged up through an infinity of small
cindery rocks to the summit of a used-up
crater. The colonel puts the break on with
his leg, and down they slide among the rocks,
the colonel loudly adjuring the horses not to
touch one of them. Near the bottom the
off-wheels get into a mudhole. The colonel
without hesitation orders all passengers to
hang on to the ne'ar side of the waggon,
jumps upon the lap of the gentleman who
occupies the box-seat, and with a crackof the
whipstarting the wholeconcern,sendsitflying
and swaying from side to side to the bottom of
the hill. There they pull up, and the colonel
relieves his neighbour of his weight, ob-
serving, in extenuation of what might other-
wise have appeared a liberty, that he is
obliged to be a little " sarsy " on the road.
All goes well for a time. Presently, the
colonel turns round to his neighbour, his
hands being occupied with his ribbons, and
says, " I guess there's a flea on my neck."
It is the business of the box-seat to catch and
kill it. The colonel, as he nods his thanks,
remarks that he generally has three or four
of the "darned cattle put through " in that
fashion during the journey.

Then again, as we need hardly say, men in
those parts walk armed. Outrage has be-
come comparatively infrequent, theft is less
common than at home in the old country ;
but even in San Francisco men go armed.
In this and in some other respects many
things in California carry our minds back to
the period when Europe itself was, so to
speak, a new country, a few centuries ago.
The energies, too, that were displayed by the
pioneers to whom we owe the present state
of the old world, though different in kind,
were in no degree less wonderful than those
which we now see put forth by the best class
of Californian adventurers. There is a great
deal in such a parallel that would be worth
pursuing.

Before the last San Francisco fire, bur-
glaries, says Mr. Marryat, were so common
that it became necessary to carry firearms
after dark, more particularly as the streets
were not lighted. An acquaintance of his
was walking late one night through a street
whicli was apparently deserted, and in which
one dim light alone shed a sickly ray from

over the door of a closed restaurant. As he
readied this spot, a man started from the
obscurity, and requested, with the politeness
of a Claude. Duval, to know the time. With
equal civility the person addressed presented
the dial of his watch to the light, and allowing
the muzzle of his revolver to rest gracefully
upon the watch-glass, he invited the stranger
to inspect for himself. Slowly the man ad-
vanced, and the sickly ray gleamed on the
barrel of the "sixshooter" as well as upon
the dial-plate, as with some difficulty he
satisfied himself respecting the time. Both
then prepared to depart, and for the first
time the light fell on their faces ; then these
desperate fellows discovered that they were
no burglars, but old acquaintances, who had
dined in company that very evening. This
might surely pass for a scene out of the old
town life of Europe.

On board the local steamboats, the open
bunks line the saloon and decorum forbids
undressing; but by a placard though indeed
vainly " gentlemen are requested not to go
to bed in their boots." Apropos to this,
writes Mr. Marryat, I i-emember attending a
political meeting in a little church at Benicia ;
in each pew was a poster, which requested
that you would neither cut the woodwork,
nor spit on the floor ; but the authorities had
provided no spittoons ; so, as a gentleman
observed to me, whilst inside the sacred edi-
fice, " what-the-something was a man to do
who chewed ?"

That the Californian gold was sought,
although not found, by the early Spanish
priests, is evident from the number of old
shafts in some places, sunk sometimes in
the centre of rich districts. Often it has
happened that they who seek for the gold
miss it, and they who had no thoughts of it in
their minds fall upon heaps. A market-gar-
dener who had long been abusing his ground
i for producing cabbages that were all stalk,
one day pulled up an aggravating sample,
and found a piece of gold adhering to its
roots. Holden's garden, near Sonora, was
found to be so rich that the gamblers of the
town sallied out and fought for claims in it.
For four years it has yielded riches, pieces of
gold weighing many pounds having been
sometimes taken from it. There is a
famous digging upon Carson's Hill, in the
vicinity of which a rich gulch was dis-
covei'ed under circumstances that were
related to Mr. Marryat by Mr. Carson :
One of the miners died, and as he had been
much respected, it was determined to give
him an unusually ceremonious funeral. A
digger in the neighbourhood, who had once
been a powerful preacher in the United
States, was requested to officiate, and after
"drinks all round," the party went in solemn
order to the grave. Around the grave all
knelt while the man of power laboured inde-
fatigably at a lengthy prayer. Time began to
hang heavy on the hands of listeners ; their

Cluitlcs Dickens.]

MY CONFESSION.

fingers began to work in a nervous or ab-
stracted way among the loose earth that had
been thrown up. It was thick with gold, and
an excitement quickly spread among the
kneeling crowd. The preacher's eye was
caught, and he stopped suddenly in his
prayer to exclaim, " Boys, what's that ?
Gold, and the richest kind of diggings. The
congregation is dismissed ! " The poor mirier
was taken from the precious soil and put
aside for burial elsewhere, while the funeral
party, with the parson at its head, lost no
time in " prospecting " the new digging.

In Mr. Marryat's book we find bits of
advice to emigrants which we think worth
repeating. Some of them we have already
given incidentally, but we add a few others
in a plainer form. Mr. Marryat would have
every one go out with his mind made up as
to what he means to do, not with the vague
notion of trying his luck, in some unknown
fashion. He advises that each emigrant
should prefer, as far as possible, to do that
work in the colony for which he has been
trained at home ; and, if he amasses money at
first in the diggings, that he should be pru-
dent in time, and use it as the means of
setting himself up among the new community
in steady trade. He dwells on the importance
of a trifle of capital, that may be consumed
during the days of quiet observation and
deliberation with which an emigrant's life, in
the majority of cases, is best begun. He recom-
mends daily and complete ablution for the
preservation of health, the constant wearing
of flannel next the skin, in California, and in
other places with like climate ; and he most
wisely advises against meddling with a medi-
cine chest. The emigrant's best medicine for
home use good to swallow, good to use as a
salve ; efficacious in a hundred cases, .and
unlikely to be dangerous in one is castor
oil. This, with a few trifles for the cure of
wounds, a stock of mustard, and some quinine
if it can be afforded, should be all the physic
with which an emigrant would venture to
undertake the tinkering of his own consti-
tution. When headache and sickness give
warning of fevei', rest, says the wise adviser.
Do not, he adds, take pride in working till
an illness becomes serious. A day or two
of repose, and a dose or two of castor oil,
taken in proper time, will often save the
digger weeks of misery. When fever threatens,
resist the inclination to bathe in a stream.

The digger is advised to vex himself little
about outfit ; but to be very careful as to
the good quality of his blankets and flannel
clothing, to select good thick socks and the best
highlow shoes that can be made for money.
A blanket with a hole cut in the middle for
the head to go through, is an invaluable
poncho wrapper for wet seasons. India
rubber clothing except, perhaps, a water-
proof cap with a curtain to protect the neck
is scarcely to be recommended. Whoever
intends to dig will find it worth while to

have one or two pickaxes and crowbars made
under his own supervision, since the adviser
tells us "it is money well spent to pay some-
thing over market price for a pickaxe that
won't turn its nose up at you the instant you
drive it into the hillside."

Finally, everybody is advised not by Mr.
Marryat, but by us to read the sensible
book we have cursorily described.

MY" CONFESSION.

I HAD always been a passionate boy. They
said I was almost a fiend at times. At others

was mild and loving. My father could
not manage me at home ; so I was sent to
school. I was more flogged, both at home and
at school, than any one I ever knew or heard
of. It was incessant flogging. It was the
best way they knew of to educate and correct
me. I remember to this day how my father
and my master used to say, " they would flog
the devil out of me." This phrase was burnt
at last into my very being. I bore it always
consciously about with me. I heard it so often
that a dim kind of notion came into my mind
that I really was possessed by a devil, and
that they were right to try and scourge it
out of me. This was a very vague feeling
at first. After events made it more definite.

Time went on in the old way. I was for
ever doing wrong, and for ever under punish-
ment terrible punishment that left my
body wounded, and hardened my heart into
stone. I have bitten my tongue till it was
black and swollen, that I might not say" I
repented of what I had done. Repentance
then, was synonymous with cowardice and
shame. At last it grew into a savage pride
of endurance. I gloried in my sufferings,
for I knew that I came the conqueror out
of them. The masters might flog me till I
fainted ; but they could not subdue me. My
constancy was greater than their tortures,
and my firmness superior to their will. Yes,
they were forced to acknowledge it I con-
quered them : the devil would not be scourged
out of me at their bidding ; but remained
with me at mine.

When I look back to this time of my boy-
hood, I seem to look over a wide expanse of
desert laud swept through with fiery storms.
Passions of every kind convulsed my mind .
unrest and mental turmoil, strife and tumult,
and suffering never ceasing ; this is the pic-
ture of my youth whenever I turn it from the
dark wall of the past. But it is foolish to
recal this now. Even at my age, chastened
and sobered as 1 am, it makes my heart
bound with the old passionate throb again,
when I remember the torture and the fever
of my boyhood.

I had few school friends The boys were
afraid of me, very naturally; and shrank from
any intimacy with one under such a potent ban
as I. I resented this, and fought my way
savagely against them. One only, Herbert

HOUSEHOLD WORDS.

[Conducted by

1'Yrravs, was kind to me ; lie alone loved me,
and ho alone was loved in return. Loved
as yon may Wv>H believe a boy of warm
: ions, such as T was, in spite of all my
intemperance of passion, isolated from all
and shunned by all would love any one such
as Herbert ! He was the Royal Boy of the
school ; the noblest ; the loved of all
masters and playmates alike ; the chief of
all ; clever ; like a young Apollo among
the herdsmen ; supreme in the grace and
vigour of his dawning manhood. I never
knew one so unselfish so gifted and so
striving, so loving and so j ust, so gentle and
so strong.

We were friends fast, firm friends. The
other boys and the ushers, and the mas-
ters, too, warned Herbert against me.
They told him continually that I should
do him no good, and might harm him in
many ways. Bat he was faithful, and suffered
no one to come between us. I had never
been angry with Herbert. A word, or look,
joining on the humour of the moment, would
rouse me into a perfect fiend against any
one else ; but Herbert's voice and manner
soothed me under every kind of excitement.
In any paroxysm of rage the very worst
I was gentle to him ; and I had never
known yet the fit of fury which had not yielded
to his remonstrance. I had grown almost
t ! look on him aa my good angel against that
devil whom the rod could not scourge out
of me.

We were walking on the cliffs one day,
Herbert and I, for we lived by the sea-side.
And indeed I think that wild sea makes me
fiercer than I should else have been. The
cliffs where we were that day were high
and rugged ; in some places going down
sheer and smooth into the sea, in others
jagged and rough ; but always dangerous.
Even the samphire gatherers dreaded them.
They were of a crumbling sandstone, that
broke away under the hands and feet ; for
we had often climbed the practicable parts,
and knew that great masses would crumble
and break under our grasp, like mere
gravel heaps. Herbert and I stood for a
short time close to the edge of the highest
cliff ; Hagliu's Crag it was called ; looking
down at the sea, which was at high tide, ami
foaming wildly about the rocks. The wind
was very strong, though the sky was almost
cloudless ; it roared round the cliffs, and
lashed the waves into a surging foam, that
beat furiously against the base, and brought
down showers of earth and sand with each
blow as it struck. The sight of all this life
and fury of nature fevered my blood and
excited my imagination to the highest, A
strange desire seized me. I wanted to clamber
down the face of the cliffs to the very base
and dip myself in the white waves foaming
round them. It was a wild fancy, but I could
not conquer it, though I tried to do so; and
1 felt equal to ita accomplishment.

"Herbert, I am going down the cliff;"
I said, throwing my cap on the ground.

" Nonsense, Paul," said Herbert, laughing.
He did not believe me ; and thought I was
only in jest.

When, however, he saw that I was sei'ious,
and that I did positively intend to attempt
this danger, he opposed me in his old man-
ner of gentleness and love ; the manner which
had hitherto subdued me like a magic spell.
He told me that it was my certain death I
was rushing into, and lie asked me affection-
ately to desist.

1 was annoyed at his opposition. For the
first time his voice had no power over me ;
for the first time his entreaties fell dead on
my ears. Scarcely hearing Herbert, scarcely
seeing him, I leant over the cliffs ; the waves
singing to me as with a human voice; when
I was suddenly pulled back, Herbert saying
to me, angrily

"Paul, are you mad? Do. you think
I will stand by and see you kill yourself ! "

He tore me from the cliff. It was a
strain like physical anguish when I could no
longer see the waters. I turned against him
savagely, and tried to shake off his hand.
But he threw his arms round me, and held
me firmly, and the feeling of constraint, of
imprisonment, overcame my love. I could
not bear personal restraint even from him.
His young slight arms seemed like leaden
chains about me ; he changed to the hideous-
ness of a jailor ; his opposing love, to th
science of a tyrant. I called hoarsely to him
to let me free ; but he still clung round me.
Again I called ; again he withstood me ; and
then I struggled with him. My teeth were
set fast my hands clenched, the strength of a
strong man was in me. I seized him by the
waist as I would lift a young child, and
hurled him from me. God help me ! I did not
aee in what direction.

It was as if a shadow had fallen between me
and the sun, so that I could see nothing in its
natural light. There was no light and there was
no colour. The sun was as bright overhead as
before ; the grass lay at my feet as g' earning
as before ; the waves flung up their sparkling
showers ; the wind tossed the branches full
of leaves, like boughs of glittering gems, as it
had tossed them ten minutes ago ; but I saw
them all indistinctly now, through the veil,
the mist of this darkness. The shadow was
upon me that has never left me since. Day
and night it has followed me ; day and ni ;ht
its chill lay on my heart. A voice sounded
unceasingly within me, "Murder and a lost
soul, for* ever and ever ! "

I turned from the cliff resolutely, and went
towards home. Not a limb failed me, not a
moment's weakness was on me. I went home
with the intention of denouncing myself as
the murderer of my friend ; and I was calm
because I felt that his death would then be
avenged. I hoped for the most patent
degradation possible to humanity. My only

Charles Dickens.]

MY CONFESSION.

desire was to avenge the murder of my
friend on myself, his murderer ; and I
walked along quickly that I might over-
take the slow hours, and gain the moment of
expiation.

I went straight to the master's room. He
spoke to me harshly, and ordered me out of
his sight ; as he did when ever I came before
him. I told him authoritatively to listen to
me ; I had something to say to him ; and
my manner, I suppose, struck him : for he
turned round to me again, and told me to
speak. What had I to say ]

I began by stating briefly that Herbert had
fallen down Haglin's crag ; and then I was
about to add that it was I who had flung
him down though unintentionally when
whether it was mere faintness, to this day I do
not know I fell senseless to the earth. And
for weeks I remained senseless with brain
fever, from it was believed the terrible
shock my system had undergone at see-
ing my dearest friend perish so miserably
before my eyes. This belief helped much
to soften 'men's hearts, and to give me
a place in their sympathy, never given me
before.

When I recovered, that dark shadow still
clung silently to me ; and whenever I at-
tempted to speak the truth and the secret
always hung clogging on my tongue the
same scene was gone through as before ; I
was struck down by an invisible hand ; and
reduced perforce to silence. I knew then
that I was shut out from from expiation
as I had shut myself out from reparation
in my terrible deed. Day and night, day
and night ! always haunted with a fierce
thought of sin, and striving helplessly to ex-
press it.

I had come now to that time in my life
when I must choose a profession. I re-
solved to become a physician from the
feeling of making such reparation to hu-
manity as I was able, ' for the life I had
destroyed. I thought if I could save life,
if I could alleviate suffering, and bring bless-
ing instead of affliction, that I might some-
what atone for my guilt. If not to the indi-
vidual, yet to humanity at large. No one
ever clung to a profession with more
ardour than I undertook the study of
medicine ; for it seemed to me my only
way of salvation, if indeed that were yet
possible a salvation to be worked out not
only by chastisement and control of my
passions, but by active good among my fel-
low-men.

I shall never forget the first patient I
attended. It was a painful case, where
there was much suffering ; and to the rela-
tions to that poor mother above all
bitter anguish. The child had been given
over by the doctors ; and 1 was called in
as the last untried, from despair, not from
hope ; I ordered a new remedy ; one that
few would have the courage to prescribe.

The effect was almost miraculous, and, as the
little one breathed freer, and that sweet soft
sleep of healing crept over her, the thick dark-
ness hanging round me lightened perceptibly.
Had I solved the mystery of my future ? By
work and charity should I come out into the
light again ? and could deeds of reparation
dispel that darkness which a mere objectless
punishment a mera mental repentance
could not touch 1

This experience gave me renewed courage:
I devoted myself more ardently to my pro-
fession, chiefly among the poor, and without
remuneration. Had I ever accepted money, I
believe that all my power would have gone.
And as I saved more and more lives, and
lightened more and more the heavy burden of
human suffering, the dreadful shadow grew
fainter.

I was called suddenly to a dying lady. No
name was given me, neither was her station
in life nor her condition told me. I hurried
off without caring to ask questions : care-
ful only to heal. When I reached the house,
I was taken into a room where she lay in a
fainting fit on the bed. Even before I ascer-
tained her malady with that almost second
sight of a practised physician her wonderful
beauty struck me. Not merely because it was
beauty, but because it was a face strangely
familiar to me, though new ; strangely speak-
ing of a former love : although, in all my
practice, I had never loved man or woman
individually.

I roused the lady from her faints ess ; but
not without much trouble. It was more like
death than swooning, and yielded to my treat-
ment stubbornly. I remained with her for
many hours ; but when I left her she was
better. I was obliged to leave her, to attend
a poor workhouse child.

I had not been gone long carrying with
me that fair face lying in its death -like
trance, with all its golden hair scattered wide
over the pillow, and the blue lids weighing
down the eyes, as one carries the remem-
brance of a sweet song lately sung carrying
it, too, as a talisman against that dread
shadow which somehow hung closer on me
to-night ; the darkness, too, deepening into
its original blackness, and the chill lying
heavily on my heart again when a mes-
senger hurried after me, telling me the
lady was dying, and I was to go back imme-
diately. I wanted no second bidding. In a
moment, as it seemed to me, I was in her
room again. It was dark.

The lady was dying now, paralysed from
her feet upwards. I saw the death -ring
mount higher and higher ; that faint, bluish
ring with which death marries some of his
brides. I bent every energy, every thought to
the combat. I ordered remedies so strange to
the ordinary rules of medicine, that it was
with difficulty the chemist would prepare
them. She opened her eyes full upon me,
and the whole room was filled with the

HOUSEHOLD WOKDS.

cry of ' .Murderer! " They thought the
lady iuul spoken feverishly in her death-
trauce. 1 alone knew from whence that cry
had come.

But I would not yield, and I never quailed,
nor feared for the result. I knew the power
I had to battle with, and I knew, too, the
powers I wielded. They saved her. The blood
circulated again through her veins, the faint-
ness gradually dispersed, the smitten side
flung off its paralysis, and the blue ring
faded wholly from her limbs.

The lady recovered under my care. And
care, such as mothers lavish on their
children I poured like life-blood on her. I
knew that her pulses beat at my bidding,
I knew that I had given her back her life,
which else had been forfeit, and that I was
her preserver. I almost worshipped her.
It was the worship of my whole being the
tide into which the peut-up sentiment of
my long years of unloving philanthropy,
poured like a boundless flood. It was my
life that I gave her my destiny that I saw
in her my deliverer from the curse of sin,
as I had been hers from the power of death.
I asked no more than to be near her, to see
her, to hear her voice, to breathe the same air
with her, to guard and protect her. I never
asked myself whether I loved as other men
or no ; I never dreamed of her loving me
again. I did not even know her name nor
her condition : she was simply the Lady to
me the one and only woman of my world.
I never gared to analyse more than this.
My love was part of my innermost being,
and I could as soon have imagined the
earth without its sun as my life without the
lady. Was this love such as other men
feel 1 I know not. I only know there were
jio hopes such as other men have. I did
not question my own heart of the future :
I only knew of love I did not ask for
happiness.

One day I went to see her as usual. She
was well now ; but I still kept up my old
habit of visiting her for her health. I sat by
her for a long time this day, wondering,
as I so often wondered, who it was that
she resembled, and where I had met her
before, and how ; for I was certain that
I had seen her some time in the past.
She was lying back in an easy chair how
well I remember it all ! enveloped in a
cloud of white drapery. A sofa-table was
drawn along the side of her chair, with one
drawer partly open. Without any inten-
tion of looking, I saw that it was filled
with letters, in two different handwritings,
and that two miniature cases were lying
among them. An open letter, in which lay
a tress of sun-bright hair, was on her
knee. It was written in a hand that made
me sjart and quiver. I knew the writing,
though at the moment I could not recognise
the writer.

Strongly agitated, I took the letter in my

hand. The hair fell across my fingers. The
darkness gathered close and heavy, and there
burst from me the self-accusing cry of
"Murderer!"

" No, not murdered," said the lady, sor-
rowfully "He was killed by accident.' This
letter is from him my dear twin-brother
Herbert written the very day of his death.
But what can outweigh the blessedness of
death while we are innocent of sin ! "

As she spoke, for some strange fancy she
drew the gauzy drapery round her head. It
fell about her soft and white as foam. I
knew now where I had seen her before, lying
as now with her sweet face turned upward to
the sky ; looking, as now, so full of purity
and love : calling me then to innocence as
now to reconciliation. Her angel in her
likeness had once spoken to me through the
waves, as Herbert's spirit now spoke to
me in her.

" This is his portrait," she continued, open-
ing one of the cases.

The darkness gathered closer and closer.
But I fought it off bravely, and kneeling
humbly, for the first time I was able to
make my confession. I told her all. My
love for Herbert; but my fierce fury of
temper : my sin, but also how unintentional ;
my atonement.- And then, in the depth of
my agony, I turned to implore her forgive-
ness.

"I do," she said, weeping. "It was a
grievous crime grievous, deadly but you
have expiated it. You have repented in
deed by self-subjugation, and by unwearied
labours of mercy and good among your fellow
men. I do forgive you, my friend, as
Herbert's spirit would forgive you. And,"
in a gayer tone, " my beloved husband, who
will return to me to-day, will bless you too
for preserving his wife, as I bless you for
preserving me to him."

The darkness fell from me as she kissed
my hand. Yet it still shades my life ; but as
a warning, not as a curse a mournful past,
not a destroying present. Charity and active
good among our fellow men can destroy the
power of sin within us ; and repentance in
deeds not in tears, but in the life-long
efforts of a resolute man can lighten the
blackness of a crime, and remove the curse of
punishment from us. Work and love : by
these may we win our pardon, and by these
stand out again in the light.

This day is published, for jjrreater convenience, uud
cheapness of binding,

THE FIRST TEN YOLUMES

HOUSEHOLD WORDS,

IN FIVE HANDSOME VOLUMES,
WITH A GENERAL INDEX TO THE WUOLE.

Price of the Set, thus bound in Five Double instead of Tea
Single Volumes, 2 10s. Od.

fublined t toe Office. Mo. 16, Wellington Street JSorth. Strand. Printed by URAUBUHI & KTAK., Whitefriws, Lon

Familiar in their Mouths as HOUSEHOLD

HOUSEHOLD WORDS.

A WEEKLY JOURNAL,
CONDUCTED BY CHARLES DICKENS.

- 258.]

SATURDAY, MARCH 3, 1855.

OLD LADIES.

ARE there any old ladies left, now-a-days ?
The question may at first appear absurd ; for,
by the returns of the last census we find
that seven per centum of the whole female
population were, four yeai'S since, widows ;
and that, at the same period, there were in
Great Britain, three hundred and fifty-nine
thousand nine hundred and sixty-nine " old
maids " above the age of forty. Yet I repeat
my question, and am prepared to abide by
the consequences : Are there any old ladies
left, uow-a-days ?

Statistically of course, substantially even, old
ladies are as plentiful as of yore ; but I seek
in vain for the old lady types of my youth ; the
feminine antiquities that furnished forth my
juvenile British Museum. Every omnibus-
conductor has his old lady passenger pattens,
big basket, umbrella. The cabman knows the
old lady well her accurate measurement of
mileage, her multitudinous packages, for which
she resists extra payment ; her objections to
the uncleanliness of the straw and the damp-
ness of the cushion ; her incessant use of the
checkstriug and frequent employment of a
parasol handle, or, a key, dug into the small of
the driver's back as a means of attracting
his attention ; her elaborate but contradic-
tory directions as to where she wishes to be
set down ; and, finally, her awful threats
of fine, imprisonment, and treadmill should
the much-ill-used Ixion-at-sixpeuce-a-mile
offend her. No railway-train starts without
an old lady, who screams whenever the
whistle is sounded ; groans in the tunnels ; is
sure there is something the matter with the
engine ; smuggles surreptitious poodles into
the carriage ; calls for tea at stations where
there are no refreshment-rooms ; summons
the guard to the door at odd times during
the journey, and tells him he ought to be
ashamed of himself, because the train is
seven minutes behind time ; insists upon
having the window up or down at pre-
cisely the wrong periods ; scrunches the
boots of her opposite neighbour, or makes
short lunges into his waistcoat during iri-
tempestine naps, and, should he remon-
strate, indulges in muttered soliloquies,
ending with, " One doesn't know who
one is travelling with, now-a-days ; " and

carries a basket of provisions, from which
crumbs disseminate themselves unpleasantly
on all surrounding laps and knees and from
which the neck of a small black bottle
will peep : the cork being always mis-
laid in the carriage, and causing un-
speakable agonies to the other passengers
in the efforts for its recovery. There
are old ladies at every theatre, who scream
hysterically when guns are dischai-ged ;
who, when the Blaze of Bliss in the Realms
of Dioramic Delight takes place, seem on
the point of crying "Fire ! " and who persist
in sitting before you in huge bonnets,
apparently designed expressly to shut out
the dangerous seductions of the ballet.
Churches teem with old ladies from the old
ladies in the pews who knock down the
prayer-books during the " I publish the
banns of marriage," and turn over the mouldy
hassocks, blinding you with a cloud of
dust and sti-aw-chips, to the old ladies,
mouldier and dustier than the hassocks,
who open the pews, cough for sixpences, and
curtsey for shillings ; and the very old
ladies who sit in the free seats, have fits
during the sermon, and paralysis all through
the service. There are old ladies in ships
upon the high seas who will speak to the
man at the wheel ; in bad weather, moan-
ingly request to be thrown overboard and
block up the companion-ladder mere sense-
less bundles of sea- sick old-ladyism. There
is never a crowd without an old lady in it.
The old lady is at almost every butcher's shop,
at almost every grocer's retail establishment,
on Saturday nights. Every housemaid
knows an old lady who objected to rib-
bons, counted the hearthstones, denounced
the " fellows " (comprising the police, the
household troops, and the assistants of the
butcher and grocer aforesaid), and denied
that the cat broke all the crockery at
her (the housemaid's) last place. Every
cook has been worretted dreadful, by the
old lady ; every country parson knows her
and dreads her, for she interferes with the dis-
cipline of the village school, and questions the
orthodoxy of his sermons. Every country
doctor is aware of, and is wroth with her; for
there is either always something the matter
with her, or else she persists in dosing, pilling,
and plastering other old ladies who have

258

HOUSEHOLD WORDS.

[Conducted l>y

something the matter with them, to the stul-
tification of the doctor's prescriptions, and the
confusion of science. The missionaries would
have little to eat, and nobody to eat them
up in the South Seas, were it not for the old
ladies. Exeter Hall in May would be a
howling wilderness, but for the old ladies
in the front seats, their umbrellas, and
white pocket-handkerchiefs. And what Pro-
fessor Mi'thusaleh and his pills, Profes-
sor Swollow with his ointment, Doctor
Bumblepuppy with his pitch-plaisters, and
Mr. Spools, M.R.C.S., with his galvano-
therapeutic blisters, would do without
old ladies I'm sure I don't know : Yea,
and the poor-boxes of the police-courts
for their Christmas five-pound notes, the
destitute for their coals and blankets, the
bed-ridden old women for their llannel-petti-
coats would often be in sorry plight but for
the aid of the old ladies, bless them ! At
every birth and at every death there is an old
lady. I have heard that old ladies are some-
times seen at courts. It is whispered that
old ladies have from time to time been found
in camps. Nay, irreverent youths, hot-headed,
inconsiderate youngsters, doubtless bits of
boys have sometimes the assurance to hint
that old ladies have, within these last thou-
sand years, been known to sit at the coun-
cils of royalty, and direct the movement of
armies, the intricacies of diplomacy, and the
operations of commerce.

But these are not my old ladies. Search
the wide world through, and bring before
me legions of old ladies, and I shall still
be asking my old question.

No. I will be positive and give my self-
asked question a negative, once for all.
There are no old ladies now-a-days. You
know as well as I do that there are no chil-
dren now ; no tender rump-steaks ; no good-
fellows ; no good books ; no chest tenors ; no
clever actors ; no good tragedies, and no old
port wine. The old ladies have followed all
these vanished good things. If they exist at
all, they exist only to that young generation
which is treading on our corns and pushing
us from our stools, which laughs in its sleeve
at us, and calls us old fogies behind our backs;
to that generation which yet believes in the
whisperings of fancy, the phantoms of hope,
and the performance, by age, of the promises
of youth. The old women have even dis-
appeared. Women there are, and old, but no
old women. The old woman of Berkeley ;
the old woman of Tutbury who so marvel-
lously supported herself by suction from
her pocket-handkerchief ; the aerostatic old
woman who effected an ascent so many times
higher than the moon ; the old woman who
lived in a shoe, and frugally nurtured her
numerous offspring upon broth without
bread ; the delightful old woman, and mem-
ber of the society for the prevention of
crutlty to animals Mother Hubbard who
20 tenderly entertained that famous dog,

though, poor soul, she was often put to
it, to find him a bone in her cupboard ;
the eccentric old woman who, is it pos-
sible to imagine it, lived upon nothing but
s ioUials and drink, and yet would never be
quiet (she evanished from my youthful ken
at abv/ut the same time as the old man of
Tobago who lived on rice, sugar, and sago) ;
the terrible old French woman, La Me>e
Croquemitaine who went about France with
a birch and a basket, wherewith to whip
and carry away naughty little girls and boys,
and who has now been driven away her-
self by the principals of genteel seminaries in
the Avenue de Marigny, Champs Elys6es ;
the marvellous, fearsome old women of witch-
craft, with brooms, hell-broths, spells, and in-
cantations ; the good and wicked old women
of the Arabian Nights and the Child's Own
Book ; fairy godmothers ; hump-backed old
women sitting by wellsides; cross old women
gifted with magic powers, who were inad-
vertently left out of christening invitations,
and weaved dreadful spells in consequence ;
good women in the wood ; old women who
had grandchildren wearing little Redriding-
hoods and meeting (to their sorrow) wolves ;
Mother Goose; Mother Redcap; even Mother
Damnable (I beg your pardon) ; all this
goodly band of old women have been swept
away. There are no types of feminine age left
to me now. All the picturesque types of life
besides seem melting away. It is all coming
to a dead level : a single line of rails, with
signals, stations, points, and turntables ; and
the Cradle Train starts at one fifteen, and
the Coffin Train is due at twelve forty-five.
An iron world.

Somewhere in the dusty rooin, of which the
door has been locked for years, I have a cup-
board. There, among the old letters how
yellow and faded the many scored expres-
sions of affection have grown ! the locks of
hair; the bygone washing-bills: "one pare
sox, one frunt ;" the handsome bill of
costs (folio, foolscap, stitched with green,
ferret) that came as a rider to that small
legacy that was spent so quickly ; the minia-
ture of the lady in the leg of mutton sleeves ;
the portraits of Self and Schoolfriend Self
in a frilled collar, grinning ; Schoolfriend in
a lay-down collar, also grinning ; the rusted
pens ; the squeezed-out-tubes of colour ; the
memoranda to be sure to do Heaven knows
what for Heaven knows whom ; the books
begun ; the checkbooks ended ; the torn en-
velopes ; the wedding cards with true lovers'
knots dimmed and tarnished ; the ad-
dresses of people who are dead ; the keys of
watches that are sold ; the old passports, old
hotel bills, dinner tickets, and theatrical
checks ; the multifarious odds and ends that
will accumulate in cupboards, be your pe-
riodical burnings ever so frequent, or your
waste paper basket system ever so rigorous :
among all these it may be that I can find a
portfolio shadowy or substantial matters

Charlec Di.-l.m.i.l

OLD LADIES.

little where are nestled, all torn, blotted,
faded, mildewed, crumpled, stained and moth-
eaten, some portraits of the old ladies I
should like to find now-a-days.

Yes ; here is one : The Pretty Old Lady.
She must have been very, very beautiful when
young ; for, in my childish eyes she had
scarcely any imperfections, and we all know
what acute and unmerciful critics children
are. Her hair was quite white ; not silvery,
nor powdery, but pure glossy white, resem-
bling spun glass. I have never been able to
.make my mind up whether she wore a cap,
a hood, or one of those silken head-cover-
ings of the last century called a calash.
Whatever she wore, it became her infinitely.
-I incline, on second thoughts, more to the
calash, and think she wore it in lieu of a
bonnet, when she went abroad ; which was
but seldom. The portrait I have of the old
lady is, indeed, blurred and dimmed by the
lapse of many winters, and some tears. Her
title of the pretty old lady was not given to
her lightly. It was bruited many years ago
when ladies of fashion were drunk to, in
public, and gentlemen of fashion were drunk
in public that the pretty old lady was a
"reigning toast."

A certain gray silk dress which, as it had
always square creases in it, I conjectured to
be always new, decorated the person of the
pretty old lady. She wore a profusion of
black lace, which must have been price-
less, for it was continually being mended, and
its reversion was much coveted by the old
lady's female friends. My aunt Jane, who
was tremendously old, and was a lady ;
but whose faculties decayed somewhat
towards the close of her life, was never so
.coherent (save on the subject of May-day and
the sweeps) as when she speculated as to
" who was to have the lace " after the old
lady's demise. But my aunt Jane died first,
and her doubts were never solved. More than
this, I can remember a fat-faced old gold
watch which the pretty old lady wore at
her waist; a plethoric mass of wheezing gold,
like an oyster grown rich and knowing
the time of day. Attached to this she wore
some trinkets not the nonsensical charms
or breloques that young ladies wear in their
chatelaines now, but sensible, substantial
ornaments a signet-ring of her grand-
father's ; a smelling-bottle covered with silver
fillagree ; and a little golden box in the form
of a book with clasps, which we waggish
youngsters declared to be the old lady's
snuff-box, but which, I believe, now, to have
been a pouncet-box the same perhaps, which
the lord, who was perfumed like a milliner,
held 'twixt his finger and his thumb upon
the battle-field, and which, ever and anon,
he gave his nose.

I trust I am not treading upon dangerous
ground, when I say, that two of the chief
prettinesses of the pretty old lady were her
feet and their covering. "To ladies' eyes

around, boys !" Certainly,Mr. Moore, wecan't
refuse ; but to ladies' feet, a round boys,
also, if you please. Now the pretty old lady
had the prettiest of feet, with the most delicate
of gray silk stockings, the understandings of
the finest, softest, most lustrous leather that
ever came from innocent kid. I will back those
feet (to use the parlance of this horse-
racing age) and those shoes and stockings
against any in the known world, in ancient
or modern history or romance : against
Dorothea's tiny feet dabbling in the stream ;
against Musidora's paddling in the cool
brook ; against Sara la Baigneuse swing-
ing in her silken hammock ; against Da
Grammont's Miss Howard's green stockings ;
against Madam de Pompadour's golden clocks
and red-heeled mules ; against Noblet,
Taglioni, Cerito's ; against Madame Vestris's,
as modelled in wax by Signor N. N.
There aie no such feet as the pretty old lady's
now ; or, if any such exist, their possessors
don't know how to treat them. The French
ladies are rapidly losing the art of putting on
shoes and stockings with taste ; and I deli-
berately declare, in the face of Europe, that I
have nut seen, within the last three months in
Paris from the Boulevard des Italiens to the
Ball of the Prefect of the Seine twenty pairs
of irreproachable feet. The systematically
arched instep, the geometrical ankle, the
gentle curves and undulations, the delicate
advancement and retrogression of the foot
of beauty, are all things falling into de-
cadence. The American overshoes, the ma-
chine-made hosiery, and the trailing dra-
peries, are completing the ruin of shoes and
stockings.

The pretty old lady had never been married.
Her father had been a man of fashion a gay
man a first-rate buck, a sparkling rake;
he had known lords, he had driven curricles,
he had worn the finest of fine linen, the most
resplendent of shoe-buckles ; he had once
come into the possession of five thousand
pounds sterling, upon which capital quite
casting the grovelling doctrine of interest to
tlie winds he had determined to try the fas-
cinating experiment of living at the rate of
five thousand a-year. In this experiment he
succeeded to his heart's content for the
exact period of one year and one day, after
which he bad lived (at the same rate) on
credit ; after that on the credit of his credit ;
after that on his wits ; after that in the rules of
the King's Bench ; after that on the certainty
of making so many tricks, nightly, at whist;
and, finally, upon his daughter. For the pretty
old lady, with admirable self-abnegation, had
seen her two ugly sisters married ; had, with
some natural tears, refused Captain Cutts,of the
line.wliom she loved (but who had nothing but
his pay) and had contentedly accepted the office
of a governess ; whence, after much self-denial,
study, striving, pinching, and saving (how
many times her little cobwebs of economy
were ruthlessly swept away by her gay

100

HOUSEHOLD WORDS.

[Conducted by

father's turn for whist and hazard cobwebs
that took years to reconstruct !), she had pro-
moted herself to the dignity of a schoolmis-
tress ; governing in that capacity that fine old
red-brick ladies' seminary at Paddington,
pulled down for the railway now Port-
chester House.

Twas there I first saw the pretty old lady :
for I had a cousin receiving her "finishing"
at Portchester House, and 'twas there
being at the time some eight years of age
that I first fell in love with an astonishingly
beautiful creature, with raven hair and ga-
zelle-like eyes, who was about seventeen, and
the oldest girl in the school. When I paid my
cousin a visit I was occasionally admitted
being of a mild and watery disposition, and a
very little boy of my age to the honours of
the tea table. I used to sit opposite to this
black-eyed Juno, and be fed by her with slices
of those carious open-work cross-barred jam
tarts, which are so frequently met with at gen-
teel tea-tables. 1 loved her fondly, wildly: but
she dashed my spirits to the ground one day,
by telling me not to make faces. I wonder
whether she married a duke !

The pretty old lady kept school at Portchester
House for many, many years, supporting and
comforting that fashionable fellow, her father.
She had sacrificed her youth, the firstlings
of her beauty, her love, her hopes, every-
thing. The gay fellow had grown a little
paralytic at last; and, becoming very old
and imbecile and harmless, had been relegated
to an upper apartment in Portchester House.
Here, for several years, he had vegetated in
a sort of semi-fabulous existence as the " old
gentleman ;" very many of the younger ladies
being absolutely unaware of him ; till, one
evening, a neat coffin with plated nails and
handles, arrived at Portchester House, for
somebody aged seventy - three, and the
cook remarked to the grocer's young man
that the "old gentleman" had died that
morning.

The pretty old lady continued the education
of generations of black-eyed Junos, in French,
geography, the use of the globes, and the
usual branches of a polite education, long
after her father's death. Habit is habit ;
Lieutenant-Colonel Cutts had died of fever in
the Walcheren expedition so the pretty old
lady kept school at Portchester House until she
was very, very old. When she retired, she de-
vised all her savings to her ugly sisters' chil-
dren ; and calmly, cheerfully, placidly prepared
to lay herself down in her grave. Hers
had been a long journey and a sore ser-
vitude ; but, perhaps, something was said
to her at the end, about being a good
and faithful servant, and that it was well
done.

Such is the dim outline which the picture
in my portfolio presents to me of the pretty
old lady. Sharpened as her pretty features]
were by age, the gentle touch of years of
peace of an equable mind and calm desires, i

had passed lovingly over theacuities of her face,
and softened them. Wrinkles she must have
hail, for the stern usurer Time will have his
bond ; but she had smiled her wrinkles away,
or had laughed them into dimples. Our just,
though severe mother, Nature had rewarded
her for having worn no rouge in her youth, no
artificial flowers in her spring ; and gave her
blooming roses in her December. Although the
sunset of her eyes was come and they could not
burn you up, or melt you as in the noontide,
the sky was yet pure, and the luminary sank
to rest in a bright halo : the shadows that
it cast were long, but sweet and peaceful,
not murky and terrible. The night was
coming ; but it was to be a night starlit with
faith and hope, and not a season of black
storms.

It was for this reason, I thiiiK, that being
old, feeling old, looking old, proud of being old,
and yet remaining handsome, the pretty old
lady was so beloved by all the pretty girls.
They adored her. They called her a " dear
old thing." They insisted upon trying their
new bonnets, shawls, scarfs, and similar
feminine fal-lals, upon her. They made her
the fashion, and dressed up to her. They
never made her spiteful presents of fleecy
hosiery, to guard against a rheumatism with,
which she was not afflicted ; or entreated her
to tie her face up when she had no toothache ;
or bawled in her ear on the erroneous as-
sumption that she was deaf, as girls will
do, in pure malice, when age forgets its
privileges, and apes the levity and spright-
liness of youth. Above all, they trusted
her with love-secrets (I must mention, that
though a spinster, the pretty old lady was
always addressed as Mistress). She was great
in love matters, a complete letter-writer,
without its verbosity : as prudent as Pamela,
as tender as Amelia, as judicious as Hooker, as
dignified as Sir Charles Grandison. She could
scent a Lovelace at an immense distance, bid
Tom Jones mend his ways, reward the con-
stancy of an Uncle Toby, and reform a Cap-
tain Booth. I wax-rant the perverse widow
and Sir Roger de Coverly would have been
brought together, had the pretty old lady
known the parties and been consulted. She
was conscientious and severe, but not into-
lerant and implacable. She did 'not consider
every man in love a "wretch," or every
woman in love a "silly thing." She was
pitiful to love, for she had known it. She
could tell a tale of love as moving as
any told to her. Its hero died at Wal-
cheren.

Where shall I find pretty old ladies now-
a-days ? Where are they gone, those gentle,
kindly, yet dignified, antiquated dames, mar-
ried and single ?

My young friend Adolescens comes and
tells me that I am wrong, and that there
are as many good old ladies now as of
yore. It may be so : it may be, that we
think those pleasant companionships lost be-

Charles Dickens.]

THE BOARD OF TRADE.

101

cause the years are gone in which we enjoyec
them; and that we imagine there are no more
old ladies, because those we loved are dead.

THE BOAED OF TRADE.

A LARGE part of the administration of the
domestic affairs of this country, which does
not come under the cognizance of the Home
Office* and the Treasury, is confided to a go-
vernment department called the Board of
Trade. Its formal title is, the Committee of

the Privy Council appointed for the Con-
sideration of all matters relating to Trade
and Foreign Plantations.

Though the Board of Trade is now, as it
ought to be in the greatest trading country in
the world, a useful institution, its earlier his-
tory is not respectable. Its origin was, how-
ever, good ; for it began with Cromwell, who ap-
pointed his son Richard, and many lords of his
council, to meet and consider by what means
trade and navigation might be regulated and
promoted. Before Cromwell's time English
sovereigns had, for a century, been accustomed,
now and then, to direct their privy councils
to discuss particular questions of trad.e ; but it
was Cromwell who established first a trade
department of the state, and the labours of
the committee so established helped to pro-
duce the navigation laws of the Pro-
tectorate. Cromwell's committee, however,
was the thing without a name ; a Board of
Trade, distinctly so-called, did not come into
existence till the restoration, when it was
established at the instigation of Lord
Shaftesbury ; a nobleman who, though by no
means upon all points sincere, took, there
is every reason to believe, a real interest in
the developement of Commerce. This is the
Board denounced by Burke as "one amongst
those showy and specious impositions, which
one of the experiment-making administrations
of Charles the Second, held out to delude the
people and to be substituted in the place of
the real service which they might expect from
a parliament annually sitting." The continu-
ance of the Board, good or bad, at any rate,
was brief. Projected in sixteen hundred and
sixty-eight, it perished in sixeen hundred and
seventy-three ; the expense of it being found
inconvenient to his sacred but straightened
majesty.

During the war with France which fol-
lowed the Revolution of sixteen hundred
and eighty-eight, our trade suffered greatly
from French cruisers and privateers. Occa-
sion was thereupon taken by a faction hostile
to King William the Third to propose the esta-
blishment of a Board for the Protection of
Trade in parliament itself, so constituted as of
necessity to draw into itself the chief func-

tions of both the Treasury and the Admiralty,
and thus deprive the king of a large part of
his prerogative. The government with diffi-
culty defeated this design, by opposing to it

Sue Volume X., page 270.

that revival of the Board of Trade and Plan-
tations, which took place in the year sixteen
hundred arid ninety-six. " Thus," according
to Burke's comment, " the Board of Trade
was reproduced in a job, and perhaps," he
adds, speaking bitterly, in the year seventeen
hundred and eighty, " it is the only instance
of a public body which has never degenerated;
but, to this hour, preserves all the health and
vigour ot" its primitive institution."

The Board, as constituted in the year six-
teen hundred and ninety-six, consisted, in
addition to the great officers of state, of a
first lord and seven commissioners, each paid
with a thousand pounds a year. Their duty
was to promote the trade of the king-
dom, and to inspect and improve the
plantations. The appointment of so many
well-paid officials, in times of political corrup-
tion, led to much dishonest dealing, and the
work of the Board, so far as it affected co-
lonies, was purely mischievous. The only
colonies established by it, Georgia and Nova-
Scotia, cost vast sums to the nation, and never
prospered until freed from the intermeddling
of their founders. Correspondence between
the crown and the colonies was indeed car-
ried on, nominally, through a secretary of
state ; but the secretary acted upon the reports
and opinions of the Board of Trade in all
matters relating to colonial government and
ommerce.

The mischief-making of the Board of
Trade came to its climax in the reign of
eorge the Third, after that king had re-
solved to break the power of the great Whiw
amilies of the revolution, to whom he, as one
of the house of Hanover, was indebted for
the English crown. George the Third desir-
ing to increase his personal authority over the
government, he and the ministers who stooped
to his desires, endeavoured to win the support
of the landed interest to his new system, by
transferring to the colonies the weight of
many burthens pressing heavily on land-
owners in England. During the early part,
therefore, of this king's reign, the Board of
Trade was constantly employed in devising
those experiments for taxing the American
colonies, which led to their noble war of
Independence and cut off the United States
from the British empire. While the Board
of Trade was occupied in this way it was
doing little enough, and nothing useful, to
advance the commerce of the realm.

Although a secretary of state for the
colonies had been appointed in the year
seventeen hundred and sixty-eight, the
powers of the Board of Trade remained un-
altered until the year seventeen hundred and

eighty-two, when
of the American
nomies in England

the righteous successes
colonists rendered eco-
unavoidable. The

Board, as it then stood, was accordingly
abolished, and the business of the depart-
ment was made over to a permanent com-
mittee of the privy council, constituted as it

102

HOUSEHOLD WOEDS.

[Conducted by

is at present. Chiefly by this committee were
conducted the enquiries that preceded the
abolition, of the English :-l ive -trade ; but,
with that exception, its duties were light until
the close of war in eighteen hundred and
fifteen. During the long peace that followed,
and especially during the last fourteen years,
the real uses of the Board of Trade have been
developed. It has ceased to regulate colonial
a Hairs, and is concerned only with the com-
inereial state of the united kingdom.

The Board of Trade as it now stands, consists
of two paid acting members, a president and a
vice-president, three or four selected privy
councillors who are generally retired state-
functionaries, and of a number of privy-coun-
cillors who hold official seats in the com-
mittee, namely, the First Lord of the Treasury,
the Secretaries of State, the Chancellor of the
Exchequer, the Lord Chancellor, the Speaker
of theHouseof Commons, the Chancellor of the
Duchy of Lancaster, the Paymaster-General,
and such officers of state in Ireland as may hap-
pen to be English privy-councillors. Such is
the constitution and composition of the " Com-
mittee of the Privy Council appointed for the
Consideration of all matters relating to Trade
and Foreign Plantations." But for almost all
working purposes the Board of Trade simply
consists of its president and vice-president,
and of the staff of officials under their control.
The president and vice-president, of course, go
out and come in with the ministries to which
they may belong. One sits in the lower and
the other in the upper-house, and each
receives as his salary two thousand pounds a-
year. However they may privately divide
their work, the responsibility of these two
officers is not divisible ; and, as one is bound to
answer to the lords, the other to the commons,
it is necessary that each should be cognisant
of all the business of his department.

It is the duty of the Board of Trade to be
as well informed as possible on all matters re-
lating to trade, in order to advise other depart-
ments on questions in which the commerce of
the country is concerned. It is required to
examine and report to the Colonial-office on
all acts of the colonial legislatures affecting
trade ; to direct the parliamentary course of
all government bills concerning commerce,
and to watch those which may have been in-
troduced by private members. It assists the
Foreign-office in the negociatiou of com-
mercial treaties. It advises the crown on all
applications by projected commercial com-
panies for charters of incorporation ; com-
municates with the great seats of commerce ;
examines consular correspondence on com-
mercial subjects, and receives and keeps all
Foreign-office documents that concern our
trade and navigation. These functions belong
to the general scheme of the department. By
naming the chief special labours that have
been imposed upon the Board of Trade, since
the year eighteen hundred and thirty, we
shall, perhaps, best show Low steadily that

branch of government has, of late, been in
creasing in importance.

In eighteen hundred and thirty-two it was
charged with the duty of collecting and pub-
lishing statistical information.

Since eighteen hundred and forty it has
exercised a certain degree of control over
railway companies. During about the same
length of time government schools of design
have been placed under its superintendence.

Offices for the regulation of joint stock
companies, and for the registration of designs
have also been attached to it.

In eighteen hundred and fifty it was charged
with supervision of the merchant shipping.

In eighteen hundred and fifty-one it re-
ceived large powers of controul over the steam
navigation of the country.

And last year the shipping laws generally
have been consolidated and placed under its
superintendence.

The general business of this department of
state is carried on in Whitehall ; but there
are detached offices elsewhere for the trans-
acting of certain portions of its business.
Tha annual cost of the office of the Board of
Trade which finds work for a staff of one
hundred and twenty-four persons is about
forty-six thousand pounds. The president
and the vice-president have the salaries
already mentioned ; two joint-secretaries
receive not much less, namely, three thousand
five hundred pounds a year between them.
The private secretaries of the president and
vice-president receive respectively three hun-
dred and one hundred and fifty pounds a
year. An assistant secretary for the railway
department has a thousand ; one for the
marine department eight hundred, growing
to a thousand by the usual annual increase.
A chief of the. statistical department has
eight hundred ; his assistant four hundred
and eighty. The railway chief's assistant's
salary grows till he receives four hundred
and fifty ; a legal assistant for railway busi-
ness has five hundred guineas. Three inspec-
tors of railways have together eleven hundred
and fifty pounds. There are two sea captains
attached to the marine department who
divide between them fourteen hundred
pounds. There is a librarian with about six
hundred, and an accountant with about nine
hundred a year. Then there are the comp-
troller and deputy comptroller of corn
returns, with five hundred and four hundred
a year respectively. There are six senior,
nine second, and twelve junior clerks, with
salaries beginning at a hundred and ascend-
ing to six hundred pounds. There are fifteen
copyists at eighty pounds a year ; an office-
keeper, a housekeeper, and a dozen messen-
gers and porters. These people all work at
the office in Whitehall. At the office of the
registrar of merchant seamen there are em-
ployed, a registrar, with from seven to eight
hundred, an assistant registrar, with five hun-
dred and a chief clerk with four hundred a

Charles Dickens.]

THE BOARD OF TRADE.

103

year. Under these are forty clerks, in five
divisions, of whom the salaries ascend from
eighty to three hundred and fifty pounds,
The progressive rise of salary is managed
upon the principle described in our account of
the Home Department, it being one that .is
common to all government offices.

Certain changes in the staff of the Board of
Trade have been suggested, and are being
carried out. It is proposed, for example, to
have only one chief secretary, and under him
three assistant secretaries one for the gene-
ral trade department, one for railway business,
and one for the mercantile marine. It is
thought that the statistics and corn returns
may be thrown into the business of the
general trade department, and that the num-
ber of the clerks may be reduced by increasing
the number of copyists.

By adopting the division into three parts,
recognised by the suggestion of the three assis-
tant secretaries, we can describe the business
of the Board of Trade in an extremely simple
manner. The general trade department,
which would have cognisance of miscellaneous
matters, it will be most convenient to speak
of last. We begin, therefore, with the
Board's concern in railway management, and
in the superintendence of the mercantile
marine.

The English railway system, as every one
knows, is the result of private enterprise.
Parliament has passed some general laws to
regulate the internal administration of the
companies with regard to capital, direction,
meetings of shareholders, dividends, purchase
of laud, etc., to protect the public against
very improper construction and working of
the lines of rail, to ensure due convey-
ance upon fixed terms of troops and of the

mails,
orders

Both
which

houses have their standing
establish conditions that all

applicants on behalf of railway enterprise are
bound to fulfil.

In the first place notice of each intended
application must be sent to the Board of Trade
before a certain day which precedes each
meeting of parliament. All applications so
received are classified by the Board, and pre-
sented in a report made to the House of Com-
mons as soon as it assembles. By help of this
report the general railway committee of the
house is enabled to distribute the various
projects in the most convenient way among
the sub-committees, which decide upon their

fate, and from
have no appeal.

whose decision applicants
Should a railway project

deposited with the Board of Trade, after
careful examination be found to contain in its
provisions any legal defect or matter that
seems to be prejudicial to the public interests,
the Board directs to that fact the attention of
the chairman of the general committee. Any
clauses or amendments that may be required
to give effect to its suggestions it prepares,
and after the bill in question has passed the

the Board of Trade again looks for any flaws
that it may contain, and if they appear, points
them out to the chairman. Finally, in order
to provide still greater security to the public,
there is a standing order of the House of
Lords that no railway bill shall be read a
third time in that house unless it has been
deposited three days before such reading
with the Board of Trade ; so that it receives
then a third scrutiny from the Board with
especial reference to its bearing on the public
interests. The points chiefly looked to in
the course of these three scrutinies, concern
the way of raising and applying capital, pre-
vention of excessive borrowing, or of the pay-
ment of interest out of capital ; a due adjust-
ment of the rights of shareholders, provision
for compensation according to the very
various cases that may possibly arise, and
the insertion of a clause subjecting the rail-
way to the authority of future legislation.

After a railway has been authorised and
its construction is complete, it cannot beopened
unless notice of its completion has been sent
to the Board of Trade, and it has been ex-
amined and approved by the Board's railway
inspectors. If anything be found unsafe or
incomplete the opening must be postponed
until the scruples of the Board are satisfied.
After the railway has been opened, its line
and rolling stock must be at all times open
to the visits of the government inspectors.
Upon the construction of roads and bridges,
upon questions of junctions, curves, gradients,
etc., in connexion with railway works, the
decision of the Board is final ; and it may,
after hearing evidence, by its certificate, per-
mit any necessary deviation from the plans
and sections authorised by parliament. The
Board of Trade may also regulate the speed
of trains with a view to the safety of the
public, and the hours appointed for the run-
ning on each line of the one parliamentary
train that is required to take passengers for
a penny a mile, at a rate not less than twelve
miles an hour, must be such as the Board of
Trade has sanctioned. The Board adjudicates
in case -of dispute between railway and rail-
way* gives effect by its approval to the bye-
laws of each company, requires from all rail-
way companies annual returns of tolls and
traffic as well as of accidents, and being
charged generally with the enforcement of
all railway acts is at tLe same time the
official referee to crown and parliament on
any railway question that arises. Here, then,
is no lack of work for one department of the
Board of Trade. We pass on to another.

One consequence of the repeal of the old
English navigation laws was the necessity for
a new regulation of the merchant service.
This task was undertaken in the year
eighteen Imndred and fifty, and is consi-
dered to have been completed last year. Five
years ago no department of state was charged
with the care of the merchant service. We

ordeal of the parliamentary sub-committee, 'have now a marine department of the Board

104

HOUSEHOLD WOEDS.

[Conducted br

of Trade, consisting of two sea-captains, an
-taut-secretary, and a proper establish-
ment of clerks. A local marine board may
be established at any outport that employs in
foreign trade thirty thousand registered tons
of shipping, and at sixteen such ports these
boards have been established. In each case
liii'v are composed of two members belonging
to the municipality, four persons resident on
the spot who are nominated by the Board of
Trade, and six who are named by local
owners, the possession of at least two hundred
and lifty registered tons of foreign-going ship
being requisite to qualify each owner for his
vote. If any local board fails in its duty, the
Board of Trade may either cause it to be
superseded or assume its functions. The local
boards, which are required to be in constant
correspondence with the registrar of mer-
chant seamen, must provide shipping offices
and shipping masters for their several porte,
and also medical inspectors.

The registrar of merchant, seamen, whose
office, subordinate to the Board of Trade, is in
Thames Street, records all voyages of ships,
and keeps a register of seamen and appren-
tices, in which he enters the characters given
them by their masters, and other information.
The shipping offices in the various ports keep
and transmit to head-quarters similar re-
cords. Masters before clearing out must
leave lists of their crews at the custom-house
of their ports, to be transmitted to the
registrar. The whereabouts of every seaman
and his business history is thus on record.
Masters of vessels wanting crews have only
to apply to the shipping masters at the
shipping offices, to which sailors in want of
ships also resort, at which alone contracts
can be made, crews discharged, and accounts
between master and man settled. Balances of
wages due to deceased seamen are also ascer-
tained and paid into the hands of the
shipping masters for the benefit of their next
of kin. these balances having been formerly
nearly all lost by the families of the lost men.
Even now there is a three years accumulation
of such balances that have remained un-
claimed, to the extent of no less than ten
thousand pounds.

The registrar of seamen also keeps account
of all contracts of apprenticeship. The old
navigation laws compelled every ship to take
a certain number of apprentices, and the
withdrawal of compulsion very much reduced
the number of youths entered to the merchant
service. With a view to the encouragement
in boys of a seagoing taste, the Board of
Trade, proposes to establish nautical classes
in all the national schools of seaport towns.
Schools for adults, we may add, have been
attached to the sailors' homes of the metro-
polis. The sailors' homes, established now in
all large ports, provide good board and lodging
to the seamen at a reasonable rate about
fourteen shillings a-week and are meant to
save hiiu from tho hands of thieves and from the

haunts of vice. Like ships, they are. however,
monasteries ; and while they do much good,
must to a certain extent fail of their inten-
tions. Upon this, as upon many other
points in the sketch we are here giving,
comments will occur to many minds. It Fs
our purpose, however, in giving outlines of
the business of government departments, to
state only what arrangements are existing.
The local charges that arise out of machinery
connected with the merchant service is a
little more than paid for by a tax upon the
seamen's earnings.

Among other duties of the Board of Trade
in its marine department these may be
specified. It obtains shipping returns from
consuls at foreign ports, or other crown
officers able to furnish them. It may de-
mand of any shipmaster his logbook, and
cause his papers to be inspected, or his crew
mustered, should such a proceeding appear
necessary. It appoints inspectors to report ,
on accidents at sea, and gives them extensive
powers for the purpose of enquiry. It super-
intends the new system of examination to
test the capacity of masters and mates of
vessels, and furnish them with classed certifi-
cates according to their merit. Examiners
are appointed by the local boards, and the
Board of Trade issues certificates (which in
case of misconduct it may suspend or cancel)
in accordance with the examiners' reports.

Over steam- vessels carrying passengers the
Board of Trade exercises much control. It
appoints for their examination a shipwright
and an engineer, and compels owners under
heavy penalties to submit their steam vessels
to such surveillance twice a year namely, in
April and October. Sea or river certificates,
for which a fee is paid, are allowed only on the
reports of the surveyors. Lists of the qualified,
steamers are hung up in the custom-house of j
each port, and if a vessel plys without a
license, it is liable to heavy penalties.

Upon the third division of the business of
the Board of Trade, its general and miscel-
laneous duties, something has already been
said, and a few more notes will suffice. It
has an office in Serjeant's Inn for the regis-
tration of joint stock companies. At this
office, when such a company has been pro-
jected, very full particulars must be filed, and
certain fees paid. The scheme being thus
" provisionally registered," may then but
not until then be publicly submitted to the
world. No such company, however, can
commence business until its registration has
been made complete, and " complete registra-
tion" cannot be had by it until the draft of
its deed of settlement has been approved by
the Board of Trade, and sent in fully signed,
with four copies for filing in the registration
office. The company then has the legal pri-
vileges of a corporation. Companies of all
kinds have to be provisionally registered, but
when as in the case of railway companies
they can be established only by an act of

Charles Dickent.]

TWO FRENCH FARMERS.

105

parliament, the act supersedes the necessity
for a completion of the registry. The cost of
this office is under three thousand a-year, and
it takes six thousand in fees, so that it yields
a protit to the exchequer in the shape of a
tax ou joint stock partnership.

The Board of Trade is further charged
with the promotion of science and art in
their relation with industrial pursuits. It
therefore has central training-schools for
teachers aud local schools of design, which it
maintains by inspection, by a cheap supply
of good models, etc., by training teachers, en-
couraging students with exhibitions, and by
limited pecuniary help. There are in the
provinces uo, schools of science ; but there
are twenty-one schools of design, to which
annual grants are made, varying from one
hundred and fifty to six hundred pounds
a-piece. The grants are administered by
local committees, subject to the direction of
the Board of Trade. An attempt is also
being made to induce the formation, of self-
supporting schools of design, by guaranteeing
for the first year a master's salary. In con-
nection with the central school of design at
Marlborough House, lectures are delivered
upon fabrics, wood engraving, porcelain
painting, casting, and such topics. There are
two other training schools in London one
at Somerset House for males, the other in
Gower Street for females.

For the encouragement of science there
exists at present only a central school con-
nected with the Museum of Practical
Geology in Jennyn Sti-eet. It has labora-
tories and professors. It is the home also of
the geological survey and mining records.
The whole department of art and practical
science costs forty-five thousand pounds
a year. All the institutions in association
with it furnish annual reports, and obtain
every year some little direct attention from
the legislature.

There is an office in Whitehall Place
belonging to the Board of Trade for the
registration of useful and ornamental
designs. The registry is first provisional and
then complete ; when complete it confers a
copy ri glit for a limited period, varying from
nine mouths for a shawl pattern to three
years for a carpet or for articles in earthen-
ware, wood, glass, or metal.

The corn-office, which is now a separate
department, has lost all its glory since the
abolition of the sliding-scale. It used to fix
by averages struck from six weeks returns of
price, the fluctuating rate of duty. Now it
is merely a producer of statistics. The statis-
tical department of the Board of Trade was
devised for great purposes. It was to pro-
vide figures on all subjects ; but since every
department makes its own tables, more than
half the work of this statistical department
is executed and published and paid for in
duplicate. These are the two departments
which it is proposed to reduce to their just

proportions, and throw into the miscel-
laneous business of the Board of Trade.

Throughout the preceding account, it will
be observed the Board of Trade and Planta-
tions is concerned with trade alone. Recently,
some part of its function as an authority
upon colonial matters was revived by Lord
Grey. That nobleman, when colonial minis-
ter, being required to furnish constitutions
for the Cape of Good Hope and the Austra-
lian colonies, remitted so grave a responsi-
bility to the whole " Committee of the Privy
Council appointed for the Consideration of all
matters relating to Trade and Foreign Planta-
tions." The president and vice-president were
then, for once, surrounded by the whole
august body of privy councillors, otherwise
attached only nominally to their board, and
in such committee the outlines of these two
colonial constitutions were defined.

TWO FRENCH FARMERS.

DESIRING, for the sake of experience, to live
during some time in the household of one of
the small proprietors abounding in the villages
of France, I took the train at Paris for a place
of which I knew nothing aud had never heard
the name. In an hour I was set down at the
station, quitting which, I found myself on a
large plain covered with ripening harvests.
The walk of a mile or two brought me to
some white houses roofed with red tiles and
embedded in a nest of fruit trees. That was
my village. Beyond, rose a hill cultivated
half-way to the top, and giving promise of a
happy vintage. Seen from a little distance
all looked well.

Closer acquaintance, however, did not pre-
possess me with the place I had chosen for a
temporary home. The entrance to the vil-
lage was quite wretched ; the roadway was
broken up and full of ruts or rubbish heaps ;
the hedges ran to waste and rubbed the carts
that passed between ; the fruit trees had an
aged look ; the palings before houses were
broken or wormeateu ; a black pool, about
which pigs and ducks were busy, received
the filth of the place and filled the air
with pestilence. To this pool men brought
cattle to water ; and here, women were
beating and rinsing reddish-brown stuffs,
kneeling upon straw and striking their stuff
with the battoir or round stick on a smooth
deal plank laid for the purpose. This was
perhaps enough of clothes washing to satisfy
a population that seemed to be almost wholly
unaccustomed to the washing of the person.

A high aud thick lichen-covered wall,
pierced by a large doorway, belonged to
the sort of farm with which I wished to
make acquaintance. I pulled the latchet
of a small side door, and entered a court
that I had to travel ankle-deep in mire
and the accumulated refuse of the stables.
Cocks and hens, pigs, ducks and their

106

HOUSEHOLD WORDS.

[Conducted by

ducklings, turkeys, and geese were the appa-
rent live stock ; am), under a shed close at
hand, 1 saw stacks of dry wood, carts, and
tanning implements. As there was no man
visible, I went forward to the house, which I
found locked. Taking the liberty of a peep
through a broken, pane of glass, patched but
imperfectly with paper, I saw a living-room
that contained what ought to have been re-
garded as defunct articles of furniture ;
decayed scraps of all sizes and pattcrrs
picked up at sales, perhaps, or in the shops of
the surrounding brokers. I turned then to
the door of the stables which was much ob-
structed by the dunghill and forced that
open, to discover only cows thriving in spite
of filth, and a superb bull ready to toss me.

I turned back for such air as the yard
afforded ; and, at that moment, the door of one
of the outhouses creaked upon its hinges, and
a little old man in a blue blouse, with long,
thin, gray hair streaming from beneath a
shabby cap appeared before me. He began
at once to appraise me with his twinkling
dots of eyes.

"Good day, Monsieur," I said; "can you
accommodate me with a lodging ? "

" Is it a room you want ? " he replied.
* Stop a minute, I will unharness the horses ;
afterwards you shall taste my wine, and we
will talk. Are you a citizen 1 "

" I am."

" An architect ? "

" O, no."

' Independent ? "

Ah, no."

" But I must have a good price for my
room."

" How much, Monsieur ? "

" Two hundred francs a-year."

During this dialogue the unharnessed
horses which, by the way were of a large
Norman breed, and ill-attended because they
were too tall for their little master went
their way to the stables. The farmer, con-
cealing the act as well as he could with his
blouse, took the house-door key from its
hiding-place under a stone, opened his door,
and led me down three broken steps into the
low chamber that I had already inspected from
without. I fe then reached down from an
ancient dresser a black pitcher in the form of
a priest's cap ; and, taking another key from
behind the door, said to me, "Wait here for a
minute." I was thus trusted alone among
the furniture. My friend, when he returned
with his pitcher full of wine, rinsed out a
couple of glasses, and certainly did not stint
the thin sour liquor over which he hoped to
strike a lively bargain. After much chaffer-
ing, it was agreed that I should have my room
for one hundred and fifty francs a-year.

My bouhomme, I found had been left a
widower with a small family, consisting of
one son and two daughters, and was then in
possession of, or rather possessed by, a second
wife, who managed him aud his affairs. She

was laborious, and she was vigilant, and she
was garrulous. I have seen her shed genuine
(ears at an accident that had befallen a strange
traveller, and J. have seen her rob her nei<*h-
bours without pity. Like many of her class,
she laboured all her life to con vert sous into
dollars and dollars into napoleons, for ulti-
mate conversion into lands or houses, or for
ultimate enjoyment as a treasure laid up in
an earthen pot. To eke out her savings she
would lay hands not unfrequently on the
possessions of her neighbours, thereby not
greatly outraging the feelings of her friend,
her familiar demon, the notary, with whom
she held very frequent converse, and who was
her father confessor and adviser in all worldly
things.

"One day," she herself told me, "I was
making hay in the field and spied two aprons
011 the other side of the ditch belonging to
my neighbours. I crossed over and took
them from the washing line, tied up my load
of hay in them, and was travelling home with
my head lost beneath the hay like a donkey at
harvest, when suddenly I was tripped up and
sent flying into the ditch. As soon as I could
see anything, there were my two harridans
upon the bank, not only taking their aprons
but dividing my hay between them. I was
up with a bound, though, brandishing my
sickle, drew blood from one of them and
bruised the other ; they went off with their
aprons, but I re-conquered my hay."

This was the dame who put the rennet into
the milk, skimmed the cream, made the
cheese, churned the butter, connted the eggs,
and slept like a watchdog after a last peep at
her savings. When she went to market, she
was absent for four hours; half the time being
spent in going and returning. Uer husband,
on such occasions, went out in the morning
and came back reeling at night. She was a
wise woman ; and, being usually loquacious,
startled him at such times by saying nothing
on the subject. Nothing on earth is so em-
phatic as a woman's silence, if she would but
know it. Madame at the farm did know it ;
and, by shrewd diplomacy, became the mistress
of the whole establishment and keeper of its
cash. Monsieur would have been left wholly
without pocket-money for the tavern, if he
had not been cunning enough to keep back,
out of the produce of his bargains, certain
small pieces of silver which he hid in an old
stocking under a wine barrel behind the plas-
ter on a beam in the wall. Sometimes this
stocking fell into the old lady's hands;
whereupon Monsieur looked like a culprit,
and there was great scolding, and promis-
ing never to do that sort of thing again.
There was a rumour that the old gentleman
had been a gallant when he was young.
This rumour which he took as a set-off
against his avarice he never contradicted.
Like his second wife, he was at heart a miser.
It cost him many a sigh to get any assistance
on his farm. "For a long time he dispensed

TWO FRENCH FARMERS.

107

with it, then he chose helpers from the beard-
less youth who chanted the responses at mass.
These he entrapped into his service by petty
gifts, by occasional draughts of his sour wine,
and by flattering, familiar jokes. As they
grew older he enlarged his presents, so that
they would include sometimes a pair of sabots,
or a ten-sous piece on a Sunday. He supplied
them also with more food, and warned them
against evil company, meaning, within him-
self, the company of other youths likely to
ask " How much" does that old hunks pay you
for your services ? "

Friendly submission made on my part to
their love of gain when manifested at my own
expense, got me the close acquaintance of this
couple. The old lady, then in her sixty-sixth
year, sometimes set her cap at me, and went
so far as to send me little gifts of cream-
cheese, or fresh eggs, or short cakes, with bits
of apple laid upon them. " Can you not teach
me to read 1 " she asked one evening. " I
know the letters well, but except where it's a
prayer that I know by heart, I can't put
them together. I'd be glad to pay you for
teaching me to sign my name and understand
my leases. Come now, just for an example,
read me this bit of a page." The bit of a
page was a document just drawn up by her
notary, and the exactness of which I could
see by her fixed eye and pursed up lip that
she was verifying word for word while I was
reading. She must have had some notion
that the notary was capable of cheating her.

The husband seeing that I took a lively
interest in all his agricultural affairs, made
me an offer one day which I closed with
heartily. " I am going," he said, " to the sale
of a proprietor's farm and farming stock,
which takes place by adjudication. I have
purchases to make there, and to look after
the recovery of a debt. Will you .go with
me, you shall have a seat in my charette and
only pay your own expenses, eh 1 "

It was agreed. The best horse from the
plough, beating his heavy iron shoes heavily
upon the soil, took us to the farm in about an
hour and a half, at a dull, pitiless trot. The
farm was not quite six miles distant.

We found the farm-yard crowded with vil-
lagers of every sort, from the proprietor down
to the ploughboy. Farmers and farmers'
sons with 16ng, white, flapped hats covering
their side faces chatted with farmers' wives
and daughters, capped with quilted towers,
trimmed with white satin ribbons, and fixed
with pins whose heads were golden bees. The
notary, in his black gown, drank wine at the
kitchen table while he turned over the leaves
of an inventory with an absent air. The
auctioneer and crier were already mounted
upon a platform of boards supported by two
empty wine barrels. Petty officers displayed
themselves in all directions, and the crowd
made itself heard. The sale commenced with
the disposal of the land, which was divided
into small lots and subjected to very eagei

biddings. Then came the cattle. Troops of
oxen, cows and sheep, each headed by a cow-
herd, or a shepherdess, defiled before the
assembled agriculturists, then followed the
horses, every one mounted by a carter, or a
carter's boy. The assembly crowding about
each beast, became critical on ages, points, and
vices, and the bidding went on tolerably fast.

As I was strolling on to another part of the
courtyard, I came unexpectedly upon a tall,
robust man, apparently of about forty, whose
swarthy countenance looked pale and grief-
worn. He was the proprietor whose home
was passing from him. Tears were in his
eyes : he was engaged in the struggle to
repress violent emotion. By his side stood a
young girl, whose sunburnt features were as
surely clouded by the present sorrow. Un-
willing to intrude on their distress I turned
back to the crowd about the auctioneer. Pots
and pans and household articles were being sold,
and upon these the women's tongues were at
work mightily. They were discussing, wrang-
ling, scandalising ; each eager to get the
smallest article, though it were but a cracked
saucepan, in the shape of a decided bargain.
They displayed more fierceness and bitter
animosity besides spending more time over
the purchase of their skewers and pipkins,
than the men had shown whilst bidding for
cattle and lands of a thousand times their
value.

The sale was at last ended, and the
creditors entered a low room in the house,
where they held solemn conference with the
officials. Out of this room my ancient came,
rubbing his hands and exclaiming to me, " He
is a staunch fellow. We shall get every sous
after all."

" And do you leave the unfortunate man
nothing 1 "

" What would you have ? Every one for
himself. Who knows whose turn it may be
next to go to wreck ] He is not the first, and
will not be the last. Besides, it serves him
right. His wife wears a silk gown, and his
daughter has a watch and shoes from Paris."

I was admitted to the dinner wherewith
these proceedings closed. Dishes crowded
the table, wine was abundant, and the sale
having yielded twenty shillings in the pound,
the mirth of all the creditors was loud
and coarse. My landlord was treated, as a
rich man, with great respect, and every
one was silent when he made a speech. He
was sure to say nothing prejudicial to the
interests of Messieurs the small proprietors.
He attacked vigorously, however, Messieurs
the large proprietors, whose game devoured
the lands of little people, and proclaimed him-
self, amid general applause, a helping friend
to poachers. Towards nightfall the conversa-
tion became very heavy, and at night my
landlord and I reached home, both of us stupid.
As we entered, the old gentleman's wife
screamed out to him from the recesses of her
room, " Well, is there enough i "

108

HOUSEHOLD WORDS.

[Conducted by

'All right, all right," he replied; "we
shall not lose the whole." The apparent re-
serve in this answer was a quality the old
mail could not help ; for it had become an
instinct with him to keep back little amounts
and -set them to the credit of his stocking.

Every eight or ten years my ancient gave a
dinner to the children he had had by his first
wife. His second wife, on every such occa-
sion, after a few years of coaxing, did her
part with a good grace. The large dishes
and plates were taken from their place of
almost eternal rest upon the shelves, and the
farm cookery performed its best, for the old
dame knew that a day might come when it
would be worth her while to have been civil
to her husband's heirs. It was in my time
that this day did come.

K \vry one knows that people in these coun-
try places are more likely to fetch a doctor for
the disorders of their cows, their horses, or
their asses, than for any of their own. My
friend acted in this spirit, and having con-
tracted an ailment in one of his toes, begotten
by perpetual uncleanliness, inflammation ex-
tended, deepened into gangrene, and at last
caused death. The old man's death was sud-
den enough to disappoint his wife in many
plans for the securing of possessions to her-
self. She was dispossessed of the chief part
of the estate ; but, thanks to her friend the
notary, she had reserves of house and land.
Moreover it was said that she carried off by
night some earthen pots which did not contain
cream, or wine, or water.

At this period, of course, my residence upon
the farm came to an end ; but, some time after-
wards,! paid a visit to the place. The miser's
son had altered it entirely. The approaches
were quite clean, the road to it was mac-
adamised, and bordered with a solid causeway.
The doorway to the farm was new, of oak.
studded with large pentagon-headed nails,
Of the old buildings I found nothing left ex-
cept the spacious barns. The stables con-
tained good drains, the cattle stood over fresh
litters. Order, liberality, and prudent
economy, were visible in all the arrange-
ments. Implements were in excellent con-
dition ; tools were well polished ; there was a
clear spring of water in the yard, and the
house had clean windows. As for the house
itself, it was both simple and elegant, con-
structed on a plan now common in such cases,
that reminds one of our country railway
stations. The adoption of arches and pillars
made of iron, of brick for the walls, and of
zinc or slate for the roof, gives to the residences
of many of the small French propi'ietors an
appearance of convenience and comfort which
is not visible always in the villas of the rich.

"While noticing this change I was accosted
by a fine young man of about five-and-thirty,
with whom I had no difficulty in renewing
previous acquaintance. He took me to see
his threshing machines, talked about the dis-
tillation of beetroot, and showed me improve-

' ments which made it impossible for me not to
surest comparisons with what I had before
seen on the same spot.

<; It is well," said the young farmer. " My
father was a prudent man, but one of the old
school. He made the funds. I have only to
use them. If I have profited much by his
economy, I owe that to the counsels of a wise
friend who has joined me, my wife's father."
When I was introduced to this wise friend,
his animated and contented features did
indeed contrast with those of the man whom
I had seen as a debtor in the miser's clutches;
nevertheless, it was the same man, and the
girl whom I had on that day seen with him
was now the young man's wife.

A good wife too. Her house was full of
quiet, order, freshness. Her tables were well
washed, her floors well rubbed, her dressers
j tiled with plates and dishes tastefully chosen,
and her solid house furniture had also a
touch or two of elegance added to its solidity.
The woman herself none the worse for hav-
ing owned a watch and worn shoes made in
Paris sat at a window looking out upon a
well-stocked flower garden ; she was neatly
dressed, and had her hair carefully gathered
up under one of the high caps peculiar to the
district. Happy children sat about her ; boys
in blue blouses and strong leather shoes ;
girls busy over the needlework, which em-
ployed them when they had no other work
on hand. Through an open door that led into
the kitchen I could see a plump maid with
bare arms preparing dinner with the cleanli-
ness that makes the meal a delight to
partake of. I gladly agreed to stay and
take my dinner at the farm, wishing much
that I could yield myself up to the wishes of
these people and become their lodger.

ASPIRATION AND DUTY.

OH, what is earth to those who long
For higher, holier, nobler things ?

I'd soar aloft on burning song
Amid the rush of spirit wings !

But hush, proud heart ! While here below,

At Duty's call fulfil thy fate,
And humbly, onward, upward go

So shall thou enter heaven's gate !

THE CHILDREN OF THE CZAR.

A BOOK, written by Ivan Tourghenief, was
published at Moscow in eighteen hundred
and fifty two, of course in Russian, and has
since been translated into English as Russian
Life in the Interior, or the Experiences of a
Sportsman ; and into French under the mo-
dified title of Memoires d'un Seigneur Russe.
We have just laid down the latter version,
and are so impressed with the truthfulness of
its delineations, that an irresistible tempta-
tion arises to scatter broadcast, by means of
our columns, a few of the sketches which it
gives of Russian life. Some of these are

CharlesDickcns.]

THE CHILDREN OF THE CZAR.

109

touching groups, making us conscious, after
all, of the bond of common brotherhood
which urges us individually to fraternise with
individual members even of a hostile nation.
Other scenes are simply astounding, com-
pelling us to lift our hands and eyes in
wonder that such monstrous things should be
possible in a land which protests that it is
eminently a member of true Christendom.
But the whole series of pictures, great and
small, confirm the accounts previously cur-
rent of the barbaric civilisation, the feudal
tyranny, and the many instances of personal
merit which characterise the multitudinous
nation that bows itself down and is irrespon-
sibly driven before hijn by the world's arch-
enemy, the Emperor Nicholas.

Although the volume is written in a form
that might seem to denote a highly artificial
mode of composition (for it consists of twenty-
two chapters, each complete in itself, like
articles that might appear in the pages of
this journal, and sometines contains minute
description's that remind us of Balzac's most
finished pictures), on reading it, the effect
produced is rather that of listening to an
eloquent improvisitore, or Red Indian orator,
than of perusing the work of a practised
writer. M. Tourghenief is familiar with
nature, loves her, courts her in her coyest
moments, and often betrays the secret charm
of out-door life with a passionate warmth
that would do honour to Audubon himself ;
while his social position as a barine, or terri-
torial lord, enables him to give us traits of
Russian high life with the same readiness
that his sportsmanship introduces him to the
interior of rustic huts. The writer is un-
practised, inexperienced, new : and his ran-
dom leaves, thrown out from time to time in
a Moscovian literary periodical, excited
attention by their truth and freshness.
United, they prove to constitute one of those
bold, popular volumes, which reflect the tone
of public feeling, and which succeed, making
their way to the hearts of all, because the
national mind volunteers itself as their insti-
gator, accomplice, and judge. M. Tourghe-
nief shall speak for himself in an eminently
suggestive visit to a neighbour.

About twenty versts from my estate, he
writes, there resides an ex-officer of the
Guards, a handsome young gentleman, with
whom I am acquainted. His name is Arcadi
Pavlytch Peenotchkine. His domain has
the advantage over mine, in being, amongst
other things, well stocked with game. The
house in which my friend P6enotchkiiie
resides was built after the plans of a French
architect ; his people, from the first to the
last, are clad in liveries according to the
English style. He gives excellent dinners.
He receives you in the most amiable manner
and with all that, you do not visit him
with hearty goodwill. He is fond of the
prudent and the positive : he has received a
perfect education, has served in the army,

has received the polish of high society, and
at present devotes his attention, with marked
success, to matters of rural economy. Arcadi
Pavlytch, according to his own proper state-
ment, is severe, but just ; he watches closely
over the welfare of his vassals, and if he
chastises them, it is the best proof of his
affection for them. " They are creatures
whom you must treat exactly like children,"
he says on such occasions ; " for in fact they
are grown up children, my dear fellow, and
we must not forget to bear that in mind."
As to himself, when he happens to be placed
in what he calls the sad necessity of acting
rigorously, he abstains from any abrupt or
angry movement, or even from raising his
voice : he simply extends his forefinger, and
says coldly to the culprit, " I begged you, rny
dear man, to do so and so," or, " What is the
matter with you, my friend ? Recollect your-
self." His teeth are slightly clenched ; his
mouth contracts imperceptibly, and that
is all.

> He is above the middle height, well-made
and very good-looking ; he takes the greatest
care of his hands and nails ; his cheeks and
lips are resplendent with health. He laughs
frankly and heartily. He dresses with infi-
nite taste. He procures a great quantity of
French books and publications of all kinds,
without being a great reader the' more for that,
and it is as much as he has done if he has
got to the end of the Wandering Jew. He-
is an excellent partner at cards. In short,
Arcadi Pavlytch passes for a highly civilised
gentleman, and, with mothers who have
daughters to marry, for one of the most
desirable matches in our whole "govern-
ment." The ladies are mad after him, and r
above all things, extol his manners. He is
admirably reserved, and has the wisdom of
the serpent : never has he been mixed up
in any current bit of gossip. He spends his
winters at St. Petersburg. His house is
marvellously well managed ; the very coach-
men have felt his influence so completely,
that they not only clean their harness and
dust their armiaks, but they carry their
refinement so far as to wash their faces-
every day, including the back of their ears
and neck. Arcadi Pavlytch's people have a
somewhat downcast look ; but in our darling
Russia it is not very easy to distinguish
moroseuess from mere sleepyhead edness.

Arcadi Pavlytch has a soft and unctuous
way of speaking ; he cuts up his phrases with
frequent pauses, and voluptuously strains
every word, curling it between his pufied-up
moustachios. He is fond of seasoning his
dialogue with French expressions, such as
" Mais c'est unpayable ! Mais comment
done ! " In spite of all that, he has no
attractions for me ; and were it not for the
game of his woods and heaths, and fields,
the probability is that we should forget each
other.

Notwithstanding the slight sympathy which

110

HOUSEHOLD WORDS.

[Conducted by

I entertain for Arcadi Pavlytcli, I once hap-
d to pass the night at his house. Early
the next moruiug I had the horses put to my
caldche, but he would not allow me to leave
till I had breakfasted in the English style,
And lie dragged me into his cabinet. We had
tea, cutlets, poached eggs, butter, honey,
Swiss cheese, and so on. Two white-gloved
valets, silently, and with the greatest
promptness, anticipated our slightest wishes.
We were seated upon a Persian divan,
Arcadi Pavlytcli, in a heterogeneous Oriental
costume, sipped his tea, nibbled a bit of some-
thing, smiled, looked at his nails, smoked,
tucked a cushion under his arm, and appeared
in the main to be in excellent good temper.
He soon made a serious attack upon the
cutlets and the cheese ; and, after having
worked away at them like a man, he poured
himself out a glass of red wine, raised it to
his lips, and knitted his brows.

" Why has this wine not been wanned ? "
he drily asked of one of the valets, who be-
came confused, turned pale, and_ stood like
statue. " I just ask you that question, my
dear fellow," continued the young Seigneur,
staring at the poor man with wide-open eyes.
The only motion the culprit made was a
.slight twisting of the napkin which he held
in his hand. Under the weight of fascination,
lie was unable to utter a syllable. Arcadi
Pavlytch lowered his forehead, and continued
to gaze thoughtfully, but covertly, at his
victim.

" I beg your pardon, my dear sir," he said
to me with an amiable smile, laying his hand
familiarly on my knee. He again gave the
valet a silent stare.

"Well! go!" he said, at last, raising his
eyebrows, and touching the spring of a small
alarum bell, which was followed by the
entrance of a stout, brown-faced man, with a
low forehead and bloodshot -eyes.

" Get matters ready for Fedor," said Arcadi
Pavlytch, with increasing lacouism, and in a
state of perfect self-command.

The thickset man bowed, and left the
room. No doubt the correction for which he
had received the order was duly administered
to the delinquent servant-man.

" This is one of the annoyances of country
life," said Arcadi, in laughing mood. " But
where are you going to 'I Stop, stop ! sit
down here."

" No, indeed ; I ana obliged to leave you.
It is getting late."

" To go shooting ? Always shooting ! 'Tis
quite a passion with you. In which direction
do you propose to start ? "

" Forty versts off ; to Reabovo."

"To 'Eeabovo ! But then I will accom-
pany you. Eeabovo is only five versts from
ray estate of Chipilovka, and I have been
intending to go there for some time past.
Till to-day, I have not had a moment at
liberty. It is a lucky accident. You can
shoot to your heart's content at Eeabovo, if

such is your wish, and in the evening you
will be my guest. We will have a good
Cupper, fur I will take the cook with me. I
want to show you Chipilovka ; my moujiks
(peasants) there, pay their taxes punctually.
I can't understand how they make two ends
meet ; but that 's their affair. I must own that
I have a hard-headed bourmister (steward)
over them ; quite a little statesman, on my
word of honour. You will see what a lucky
mortal I am."

It was impossible to refuse ; but instead of
leaving at nine o'clock in the morning, it was
two in the afternoon before we started. A
sportsman will understand my impatience.
Arcadi Pavlytch took with him such a stock
of linen, provisions, clothes, cushions, per-
fumes, and divers "necessaries," as would
have sufficed an economical German for a
whole twelvemonth, supplying him stylishly
and pleasantly too. At last we arrived, not
at Reabovo, where I wanted to go, but at
Chipilovka. It was too late to think seriously
of shooting, so I consoled myself with the
reflection that what can't be cured must be
endured.

The cook had preceded us by several mi-
nutes. I thought I could observe that he had
already completed sundry arrangements, and
especially that he had given notice of our
coming to the person who had the greatest
interest in being informed of it. At the gate
of the village we were met by the staroste
(elder), the son of the bourmister, a vigorous
red-headed peasant, six feet high, on horse-
back, without a hat, dressed in his best
armiak, which hung unfastened and danced
in the air.

" And where is Sophron ? " asked Arcadi
Pavlytch.

The elder first of all dismounted, bowed
very low, and muttered, "Health, father,
Seigneur Arcadi Pavlytch." Then he raised
his head, shaking his locks to make them
stand upright, and said that Sophron was at
Perof, but that he had already been sent for
to return immediately.

" Very well ! Go behind the caleche, and
follow us."

The elder, by way of politeness, led his
horse ten paces away from us to the border
of the road, remounted, and trotted after us,
cap in hand. We made otir entry into the
village.

The bourmister's cottage was situated
apart from the others, in the midst of a green
and fertile hempfield. We halted at the en-
trance of the courtyard. M. Peenotchkine
rose, picturesquely threw aside his cloak, and
stepped out of the caleche, serenely gazing
around him. The bourmister's wife advanced,
bowing very low in front, and making a dead
set at the hand of the master, who graciously
allowed the good woman to kiss it as long as
she pleased, and then mounted the three steps
that led to the front door. The elder's wife
was waiting in a dark corner of the entrance,

Ch&rlce DiclrenB.j

THE CHILDREN OF THE CZAR.

Ill

bowing also very low, but without daring for
a moment to aspire to the honour of kissing
the hand. la what is called " the cold
chamber," to the right of the entrance hall,
two other -women were busily engaged in
carrying off all sorts of objects empty jugs,
old clothes, batter-pots, and a cradle wherein,
amidst a heap of rags, an infant reposed, as it
seemed to me. Their work ended, .A read i
Pavlytch drove them out in a hurry, to seat
himself OH the bench exactly under the holy
pictures, which the common people never fail
to salute, crossing themselves at the same
time, whenever they enter any room what-
soever. The drivers then brought in the
large chests, the middle-sized trunks, and the
little boxes. It is needless to mention that
they took infinite pains to muffle the sound
of their footsteps. Once, when they stood a
little on one side, I saw the bourmistress
noiselessly pinch and beat some other woman,
who did not dare to cry out. Suddenly, we
heard the rapid rolling, as rapidly checked, of
a "telegue" which stopped before the door,
and the bourmister made his entrance.

The " statesman" of whom Arcadi Pavlytch
had boasted was short, thickset, with broad
shoulders, grisly hair, a red nose, small blue
eyes, and a beard shaped like a reversed fan.
Note, by the way, that ever since Russia has
been in existence there has not been a single
instance of a man's growing rich, without his
beard at the same time becoming propor-
tionally broader and broader. We may
suppose that the Bourmister had copiously
washed down his dinner at Perof. His face
streamed with perspiration, and he smelt of
wine at ten paces' distance.

" Ah, you ! our fathers ! You, our bene-
factors ! " said the cunning fellow, in a droll
sort of chant, using the plural form to show
his greater respect, and speaking in such a
tone of emotion, that I expected every mo-
ment to see him burst into tears. " You have
come to us at last ! Your hand, father, your
hand ! " he added, protruding his thick lips to
their utmost stretch.

Arcadi Pavlytch allowed his hand to be
kissed, and said, quite caressingly : " Well,
brother Sophron, how do our affairs go
on?"

" Ah, you, our fathers ! " Sophron replied.
" And how should they go on otherwise than
well, when you, our fathers, our benefactors,
deign by your presence to enlighten our poor
liltle village ? Oh ! I am happy to my dying
day. Thanks to God, Arcadi Pavlytch, all
goes well. All goes well that belongs to your
grace."

After a minute's silence devoted to mute
contemplation, the "statesman" sighed en-
thusiastically, and, as if carried away by
sudden inspiration (with which a strong dose
of ardent spirits might have something to do),
he again solicited the lordly hand, and chanted
with greater vehemence than before : " Ah,
you ! our fathers and benefactors ! I am mad

with delight ! I can scarcely believe my eyes
that it is you, our fathers, our "

The scene was well acted. Ai'cadi Pavlytch
looked at me, smiled slightly, and asked me
in French, " Is it not touching ? "

" Ah ! Arcadi Pavlytch, resumed the
bourmister; "what will become of you here?
Just now, I think, you thoroughly vex me ;
you did not let me know that you were
coming. How will you contrive to pass the
night, gracious Heaven? This is a dusty,
dirty hole"

" No matter, Sophron ; no matter," replied
Arcadi Pavlytch with a smile. " We are well
enough here."

" Well ! our cherished fathers ; well ! yes ;
but for whom ? For us clod-hoppers, well
enough, but for you ! Ah ! our fathers
ah ! our benefactors, excuse a poor imbecile.
Yes ; my brain is turned inside out Father of
Heaven ! inside out I am crazy with excess
of joy."

Supper was served : Arcadi Pavlytch sat
down to supper. The old man soon turned
his son out of the room, because he exhaled
too potent a rustic odour, according to the
remark of the father himself, who stood like
an automaton three or four paces away from,
the table.

'"Well, old fellow! have you settled with
the neighbours about the boundary?" asked
M. Peenotchkine.

" Settled, barine, settled thanks to thee,
to thy name. The day before yesterday we
signed the agreement. The khlynovski, at
first, made a great many objections ; they
demanded this, and that, and something
besides, and Heaven knows what. Dogs, poor
people, fools as they are ! But we, father,
thanks to thy generosity, we have satisfied
Nicolas Nicolae" vitch. We acted according to
thy instructions, barine as thou hast said,
we have done yes ; we have arranged and
finished all, according to thy will, as reported
by Egor Dmitritch."

"Egor delivered in his report," said Arcadi
Pavlytch, majestically ; " and now are you
satisfied?"

Sophron only waited for such a word to
intone afresh his " Ah ! you, our fathers,
our saviours and benefactors ! ah i we pray
the Lord God for you night and day. Doubt-
less, we have but little laud here."

" Good, good, Sophron," said Peenotchkine,
"I know you are a devoted servant, and
what does this year's threshing produce ? "

" The threshing ? it is not altogether satis-
factory. But allow me, our good fathers,
Arcadi Pavlytch, to announce to you a little
matter which has befallen us unexpectedly."
Here he drew near to M. Peenotchkine,
leaned forward ^obliquely, and, winking his
eye, said, " A dead body has been found upon
our land."

" How did that happen 1"

" Ah ! our fathers, I ask the same question ;
it must have been done by some enemy. It

112

HOUSEHOLD WORDS.

[Conducted by

is fortunate that it lay upon the very verge
of our estate, near a iield which belongs
to other people. I cleverly caused the corpse
to be transported to the neighbour's land. I
posted a sentinel a little way off, and enjoined
him to keep the strictest silence. I then went
to the head of the police, gave information in
my own way, and left him with a slight token
of gratitude for the injury which he does not
do us. By Our Lady, barine, my plan
answered ; the corpse remained hanging
round our neighbour's neck. You know that
on such an occasion as this two hundred
roubles (more than thirty pounds) have no
more effect than a penny roll of the finest
flour has on the appetite of a starving man."

M. P6enotchkine laughed at his bour-
mister's exploit, and said to me in French
several times, pointing to him with a motion
of the head, " What a jolly fellow ! Isn't he ?"

The night came, the table was removed,
and some hay brought in. The valet de
chambre arranged two beds, covering them
properly with sheets and pillows. Arcadi,
before going to sleep, enumerated the admi-
rable qualities of the Russian peasantry,
adding that ever since Sophron had been
manager he had never lost a farthing of in-
come from this estate.

Next morning we rose early. I had in-
tended to go to Reabovo ; but Arcadi Pav-
lytch testified a great desire to show me his
property, and induced me to remain. I con-
fess I was curious to witness with my own
eyes the proofs of the great talents of the
statesman whose name was Sophron the bour-
mister. He soon, appeared before us. He
was still dressed in a blue armiak with a red
girdle. He was less talkative than the day
before : he watched his master with piercing
attention : he answered cleverly, and in proper
terms. We inspected the barns, the sheep-
fold, the outhouses, the windmill, the stables,
the kitchen-garden, and the hemp-fields ; all
was really in excellent order. The wan
countenances of the moujiks were in trutli
the only thing with which I could as yet find
fault. "Arcadi Pavlytch was delighted ; he
explained to me, in French, the advantages
of the system of " obroc " (personal tax), and
gave advice to the bourmister as to the best
way of planting potatoes and physicking
cattle. Sophron listened attentively, and
sometimes even ventured to differ, for he had
discarded yesterday's devoted adulation, and
stuck to the text that the estate must be
increased, because the soil was bad. "Buy
more land, then, in my name," answered
Arcadi Pavlytch ; " I have no objection." To
which Sophron made no other answer than
to close his eyes in silence, and stroke his
beard. With regard to sylviculture, M.
P6enotchkine followed Russian notions. He
told rne an anecdote, which he thought very
amusing, of a facetious country gentleman,
who, in order to make his head forester un-
derstand that it is not true that the more

you strip a wood, the better it will sprout
i gain, robbed him, at a single pluck, of half
the beard that grew on his chin.

In other respects, I cannot say that either
Arcadi Pavlytch or Sophron were opposed to
all innovation and improvement. They took
me to see a wiunowing-machine, which they
had recently procured from. Moscow ; but if
Sophron could have foreseen the untoward
event which awaited us there, he would
certainly have deprived us of this latter
spectacle.

A few paces from the door of the barn
where the machine was at work, stood two
peasants, one an old man of seventy, the
other a lad of twenty, both dressed in shirts
made of odd scraps of cloth, both wearing a
girdle of rope, and with naked feet. The
elder, with gaping mouth, and convulsively
clenched fists, was trying to drive them away,
and would probably have succeeded if we had
remained much longer in the barn. Arcadi
Pavlytch knit his brows, bit his lip, and
walked straight to the group. The two
peasants cast themselves at his feet.

" What do you want ? Speak ! " he
said, in a severe and somewhat nasal voice.

The poor creatures exchanged looks, and
could not utter a word ; their eyes winked as
if they were dazzled, and their respiration was
accelerated.

" Well, what is the matter 1 " resumed
Arcadi Pavlytch, immediately turning round
to Sophron. " To what family do they be-
long 1 "

" To the Tobol&f family," answered the
bourmister slowly.

" What do you want, then ? Have you no
tongue 1 Speak, old man ; what would you
have 1 " He added ; " You have nothing to
be frightened at, imbecile."

The old man stretched forward his bronzed
and wrinkled neck, moved his thick blue lips,
and said, in a bleating voice : " Come to our
aid, my Seigneur ! "

And again he fell with his forehead to the
ground ; the young man acted nearly in the
same way. Arcadi Pavlytch gravely regarded
their bended necks ; then changing the posi-
tion of his legs and his head, he said, " What
is the matter ? Of whom do you complain 1
Let us see all about it."

" Pity, my Seigneur ; a moment's breathing-
time. We are tortured ; we are "

" Who tortures you ? "

" Sophron Jakovliteh, the bourmister."

" Your name ? " said niy companion, after
a moment's silence.

" Anthippe, my Seigneur."

"And the other ?"

" He is my son, Seigneur."

Arcadi Pavlytch was again silent, twisting
his moustache. At last he added, " Well, and
in what way has he tortured you so cruelly ? "
And he haughtily regarded the wretched
man, looking down between the tufts of his
moustache.

Charles Dick.-ns.]

THE CHILDREN OF THE CZAR

113

" My Seigneur, he has completely stripped
and ruined us. Contrary to every regula-
tion, he has compelled two of my sons to
enlist out of their turn, and now he is going
to rob me of the third. No later than yester-
day, he carried off my last cow ; and his
grace, the elder, who is indeed his son, has
beaten my housewife. Ah ! good Seigneur !
Do not permit him to make an end of us."

M. Poeiiotchkine was extremely embar-
rassed ; he coughed three or four times, and
then, with a discontented air, inquired of the
bourmister, in an under tone, what he ought
to think of such an allegation.

" He is a drunkard, sir ; " replied the
bourmister, with insolent assurance ; " a
drunkard and an idler. He does nothing.
For the last five years he has not been able to
pay his back reckoning."

" Sophron Jakovlitch has paid for me, my
Seigneur," replied the old man. " This is the
fifth year in which he has paid instead of me ;
and, as he pays for me, he has treated me as
his pledge, his own proper slave, my good
Seigneur, and "

" But all that does not explain the reason of
the deficit," said M. Peenotchkine-, With ani-
mation. The old man bowed his head. " You
drink, don't you 1 You haunt the public-
houses?" The old man opened his lips to
justify himself. " I know you," continued
Arcadi Pavlytch. "You pass your time in
drinking and in sleeping on the stove ; and
the industrious peasant has to answer for
you, to "

"And, besides, he is ill-behaved," added
the bourmister, without scrupling to behave
ill himself by presuming to interrupt his
master.

" Ill-behaved, of course ! it is always so ; I
have often made the same observation. The
lazy fellow indulges in dissipation and bad
language the whole year through, and then,
one day, he throws himself at his Seigneur's
feet."

"My good Seigneur," said the old man
with an accent 6f fearful despair, "in the
name of God, rescue us from this man. And
he calls me ill-behaved, besides ! I tell you
before Heaven that I cannot exist any longer.
Sophron Jakovlitch has taken a spite against
me. Why 1 Who can say 1 He has ruined,
crushed, and utterly destroyed me. This is
my last child. Well ! " A tear ran down
the old man's yellow and wrinkled cheeks.
" In the name of Heaven, my good Seigneur,
come to our aid."

" And we are not the only people whom he
persecutes," said the younger peasant.

Arcadi Pavlytch took fire at this word from
the poor lad, who had hitherto kept so quiet.
' " And who asked you any questions 1 Tell
me that. How dare you speak before you
are spoken to ? What does all this mean 1
Hold your tongue ; hold your tongue ! Good
God ! this is a regular revolt. But it will
not answer to revolt against me. I will "

Arcadi Pavlytch was about to make some
hasty movement of which he would have re-
pented afterwards, but he probably remem-
bered that I was present, for he restrained
himself, and stuck his hands in his pockets.
He said to me in French, " I beg your par-
don, my dear fellow," with a forced smile and
in an undertone. "It is the wrong side of the
tapestry, the reverse of the medal." He con-
tinued in Russian, addressing the serfs, but
without looking at them, " Very well ; very
well. I shall take my measures. Very well,
go ! " (The peasants did not stir). " Very
well, I tell you. Take yourselves off. I tell
you I shall give my orders. Begone."

Arcadi turned his back, muttering the
words, " Nothing but unpleasantnesses," and
strode off to the bourmister's house, who
followed him.

A couple of hours after this scene, I was at
Reabovo ; and there, taking for my companion
one Anpadiste, a peasant, whom I knew, I
promised to devote myself entirely to sport.
Up to the moment of my departure, M.
Peeuotchkine appeared to be sulky with
Sophron. I could not help thinking that I
had yielded extremely mal a propos to the
invitation to stop and inspect, that morning.
Whether I would or not, the thought was so
completely uppermost in my mind, that while
journeying with Anpadiste I said to him a
few words on the subject of M. Peenotchkine
and the Chipilovka serfs, and asked him if he
knew the bourmister of the estate.

" Sophron Jacovlitch, you mean."

" Yes ; what sort of man is he ? "

" He is not a man, he is a dog, and so bad
a dog that from here to Koursk you would
not find his equal."

" Really ? "

"Ah, sir, Chipilovka has only the appear-
ance of belonging to to this never mind
his Christian names" (in Russia, a person's
Christian name and that of his father are
used together, whenever it is wished to speak
respectfully to, or of, any person : their sup-
pression is equivalent to an insult) " to this
M. Peenotchkine. He is not the owner : the
real owner is Sophron only."

" Do you think so 1 "

" He has converted Chipilovka into a life-
estate of his own. Fancy that there is not a
single peasant there who is not in debt to
him up to the neck. He, therefore, has them
all under his thumb. He employs them aa
he will, does what he chooses with them, and
makes them his tools and -drudges."

" I am told they are pinched for room,
that the estate is not large enough."

" Are we ever short of land or room in
these districts ? Sophron traffics in land, in
horses, in cattle, pitch, rosin, butter, hemp,
and a hundred other articles. He is clever,
very clever ; and isn't he rich, the brute ?
But he is mad about threshing. He is a dog,
a mad dog, and not a man. I tell you again,
be is a ferocious brute."

114

HOUSEHOLD WORDS.

[Conducted by

" But why do not the peasants make a com-
plaint to their real Seigneur 1"

"Ah, sir, the Seigneur pockets his revenue,
the payment is exact, and he is satisfied
In case of complaint, what will he do ? He
will say to the complainant, ' Take yourself
off, begone ! If not, Sophron will know the
reason why. Make yourself scarce ; other-
wise, he will settle your business, as he has
settled So-and-so's and So-and-So's.' "

I briefly told him what I had seen that
morning respecting Anthippe and his son.

" Well," said Anpadiste, " Sophron will
now devour the old man. He will suck the
marrow out of his bones. The elder will
address him in no better language than
blows of the list. Poor man ! live or six
years ago, he resisted Sophron about some
trifle, in the presence of others, and some
words passed between them which rankled
in the bourmister's heart. That was quite
enough. He began by annoying him ; after-
wards lie pressed him closer ; and now he is
gnawing him to the very bone, execrable
scoundrel that he is ! "

RUINED BY RAILWAYS.'

THE man was a tall, thin figure, dressed
in black, rather worn, but neatly brushed,
with an ill-washed white neckcloth. Over
all, he wore a shabby sort of camlet
cloak. He was continually busy making
calculations with a short stump of pencil on
the back of a bundle of papers. From time to
time he took snuff in a rapid nervous way,
from a once handsome, much worn Scotch box.

He said and as he spoke he shivered
with cold ; for he had no great coat or rail-
way wrapper, and the second class carriage
in which we were travelling had a hole in
the floor It is very hard that it should
have happened to me. I have always been
careful : I never wasted a penny in my life.
No, no ! they cannot say it was extravagance
that ruined me. Why, sir, until this wretched
business, I never had a debt in my life paid
on the nail, and made up my cash-book
every night before I went to bed. It seems
only the other day although it's fifteen
years ago that my poor father gave me a
bright, 7iew sovereign, because I had saved
ten shillings in niy money-box, while my
brother Jack he enlisted soon after, and was
killed in the Battle of Moodkee had only
threepence, and owed a tick to the tart-
woman.

No, gentlemen (ho continued, after we had
shown our tickets at the Biibury junction
his was a free pass) I have always been pru-
dent. Many a time have I had a shilling
from my uncle Bullion for repeating poor
Robin's maxims. " Take care of the pence,
iny boy," he used to say, " and the pounds
will take care of themselves." " A shilling
saved is a shilling got." He promised to
leave me his fortune ; and he would

only, you see, being persuaded by his most
respectable acquaintance, he put all his
money into the Real del Monte at five
hundred pounds premium, when they went
down to fifty shillings, there was only
thirty pounds balance after paying the
brokers.

I was apprenticed, when I left school, to
old Alderman Drabble, who began life with
half-a-crown, and was considered worth at
least a plum. He did a great business with
the West Indies, and there was not a man
more respected in Mudborough, where he
lived. For he did not spend above three
hundred pound a-year, and always had ten
thousand ready to invest at a short date on
security of produce sugar, coffee, or tobacco-
at proper interest, commission, and expenses.

Well, I worked there early and late. When
I was out of my time, he offered me a part-
nership not much of a share, to be sure :
not more than I could have got as cashier
anywhere else ; but then he hinted that I
should have all the business when he died. He
used to say those were fools that retired from
business that there was no amusement like
making "money money, more money, my
boy !" So he took me as a young partner, that
he might work less and make more. He got
me cheap enough.

When I was an apprentice I used to be
very fond of pretty Lucy Gradley, our
surgeon's daughter. I often talked of marry-
ing her as soon as I was in business for
myself ; for we had been children together,
and she was the nicest little creature I ever
saw. But of course I was not going to be
such a fool as to marry a pig in a poke ; so I
got my mother to sound the doctor, and find
out what he was going to give her. Would
you believe it, I never could make out
whether it was his extravagance he al-
ways had hot sappers or his meanness : he
actually declared he could only afford to give
his three girls five hundred pound a-piece.
Well, you see, that would not do for me. So
I began to listen to my father who talked
a great, deal about saving money ; al-
though I found after all that he spent
most of his fortune in foreign Lottery
tickets. He used to say, when I spoke of
Lucy, " Ben, my boy, take my word for it,
beauty 's only skin deep. Depend upon it
there's nothing like a good balance in the
bank for making married life happy. Stick
up to the alderman's daughter."

Now Rebecca Drabble was not exactly my
fancy. She was rather older than I was,
and bony and yellow, and you always heard
her nagging the maids. But when I told my
father that, he said : " Ah, Ben, my boy, the
chink of tlie money will drown her scolding ;
besides, if she does scold the maids, she
won't scold you."

Well, I dropped poor Lucy ; she after-
wards married young (Jharles Rally. He was
first mate of the Golden Grove ; he's captain

Charles Dickens.]

RUINED BY RAILWAYS.

115

and a great ship-owner now ; they keep their
own carriage, while I am obliged to travel
third class when I can't get a free-
pass. I married Rebecca. The alderman
was quite agreeable. He said, " Benjamin,
I shan't give my daughter any fortune.
When I married my Rebecca I had but thirty
shillings a week, and she'd saved a hundred
pound. Now, you'll have all Rebecca's
savings ; I allow her twenty pounds a year
for clothes and pocket money, and when
I die you'll have something handsome."

I didn't much like this. It wasn't what
my father planned for me ; but, if I gave
it up, I knew I could not live in Mud-
borough. Old Drabble would have made it
too hot for me. So I married her.

I began to repent the day after, and have
repented ever since. My father's was a careful
house : bread and milk for breakfast, or por-
ridge ; roast or boiled and pudding for dinner ;
and glass of grog on Sundays. But there it was
more talk than anything else. Rebecca used
to make me live on herrings and sprats,
and never bought any meat but sticking-
pieces. She used to dine by herself, before
I came home, on some little nicety.

After we were married the Alderman got
into the habit of going to London a good deal
to see about investments, leaving us to take
care of his house. He left nothing in it but
the furniture ; so we did not save much by
that. One day news came from his London
broker that he had fallen down dead at the
Railway Hotel. I can't say I was much
fretted by the news. No more was Rebecca,
for he was a tiresome stingy old man. I went
down to 'Change that day pretty proud.
How they did flock round and shake
me by the hand, and condole and con-
gratulate me, and pay me compliments. There
were a dozen of the first merchants asking
my advice.

I went up to town in a new suit of black,
out of turn, for it was my rule to make a suit
last twelve months. When Ifound the would
you believe it 1 the old villain was married a
second time, had a wife and a young family liv-
ing in a house close to the London station. He
had left all his money it was not so much
by half as people thought to the young
brats. Their mother was a turnpike gate-
keeper's daughter, young enough to be his
granddaughter. So we got nothing except
five thousand pounds settled strictly on
Rebecca. To add insult to the injury, he said,
in his will " as my son-in-law is so frugal and
industrious he will not want money so much
aa my helpless babes."

I had no peace after this happened at home,
for Rebecca would have it that it was all my
fault.

However, in spite of everything although
my friends looked very cold on me when I
came back, and Alderman Tibbs, and the
great Mr. Glight, of the firm Glight, Ribs,
and Bibbs, treated me as if I had swindled

them by accepting an invitation to dinner
sent on the strength of the report that Mr.
Drabble had left us an immense fortune,
I did manage to make money. I had saved
a nice little capital, and made some very
pretty hits in underwriting ; for I thoroughly
understood ships. People used to say, "as
safe as Ben Balance ; " " Balance knows
which side his bread is buttered ;" or " you
can't come Yorkshire over Mr. Balance."
" He can see through you, can Balance."

I do believe I should have made a plum,
perhaps have been mayor, and even knighted;
though, to be sure, having always a delicate
digestion, and never able to drink more than
one pint of port wine, I could scarcely have
been qualified to stand in the shoes of our true
blue five-bottle man, Sir Peter Curley, who
was knighted in especial compliment to the
Oporto interest. Often and often I used to sit
and think what a fool my uncle was, for not
realising when he could have made thirty
thousand pounds by the Real del Monte
shares that I had to sell for thirty pounds,
and that nothing would incline me to take a
share in anything. When the railway
fever broke out, I was worth at least ten
thousand pound.

At first I took no notice of all that was
in the newspapers. I joined the steady
set in the reading-room in laughing at the
young fellows who were so deep and hot
speculating, and flying by express trains up
and down to and from London. But pre-
sently one friend, and then another, dropped
into the stream, and then came to tell me
how much they had made. There was
young Sploshton, not in business above
six months, who realised a little for-
tune in six weeks married the girl he
had been engaged to for three years, and
actually bought a small estate and retired
from business. He lives on it now. There
was young Tandemtit ; he had been so wild
his friends had sent him to America. He
returned in his shirt-sleeves, and was obliged
to borrow a crown piece of the station-
master at Bootlem to bring him to his
father's house. He set up as a share-broker
the second ever known in the town ; the
other, old Foggerton, only dealt in go-
vernment stock. The first year Tandemtit
opened a good amount with Glight, Ribs and
Bibbs, drove his mail phaeton, and gave open
champagne lunches to his customers. There
was Alderman Cobalt, who went up to town
to his son's wedding, met an engineer in the
train, and, from his information, made five
thousand pounds in one transaction. It was no
use shutting your ears ; these stories were
dinned into your ears every day even the
women talked of them. I made my two
pounds, or five, and sometimes ten pounds
a day, by my business. But when in every
shop and every counting-house, and on
'Change, at all hours we heard of thousands
and tens of thousands made in a stroke of a pen,

116

HOUSEHOLD WORDS.

[Conducted br

ami saw im-ii ;uul buys of yesterday springing
into importance in close consultation with
our stonily old bankers, it was impossible
not to feel discontented. I repeated to my-
self all the cautious proverbs " Slow and
sure ;" "More haste worse speed ;" "What's
earned over the devil's back is spent," &c. ;
and then met some one whom I had considered
a stupid fellow, who would stop me to show
a letter of allotment he was going to sell for
ever so many hundred pounds.

I could not help imparting my discontent
one day to Joseph Sleekleigh, the cashier of
the chief bank atMudborough. Sleekleigh was
deacon of our chapel, universally considered a
safe, steady man of business, and the future
manager of the Joint Stock Bank whenever
old Dummy, who had held it from the
commencement, died. To this Sleekleigh
answered, "Well, if we were to do anything, it
ought to be on a large scale. These allot-
ments are but paltry affairs for men like you
and me."

A few Sundays after this conversation,
Sleekleigh called upon me, and said, as soon
as we were alone in the garden, " B, are
you ready to go into a really good thing on
a large scale ? Are you prepared, in fact, to
back your luck, and make a fortune ? Be-
cause, if you are, I have a chance for you."

I told him how disappointed I had been
by my father-in-law's infamous deception.
So he went on to say, " You know my
nephew, young Tom fclum, who returned
from Australia the other day."

" Yes, of course ; always smoking cigars,
di-ives hired tandems, goes to races with
prize-fighters. I have seen him, and could
never understand how a respectable man like
you could have such a young ruffian for his
nephew."

" Well well," said Sleekleigh, " he is rather
wild, but not such a fool as he seems. He
now and then collects information worth
having, for the bank ; and, although of course
I can't receive him at my own house, I do
meet him occasionally. Tom has a secret that
may be worth a hundred thousand. Think
of that. So make up your mind. Will you
go in with me into the speculation 1 "

After further consultation, I consented to
ili'aw a check in four figures ; he then con-
fided to me that Slum had been making love
to the good-looking housekeeper of Alder-
man Rugg, a widower, and chairman of the
Pinnacle Junction Railway, and that he, or
rather she for him, had discovered that a
secret plan was nearly completed, for buying
the Granite Valley Continuation in ten per cent
stock ; indeed, Mrs. Jenny had somehow or
other got possession of the torn pieces of the
original draft memorandum, prepared at a
private dinner between the alderman and
Lawyer Cockle.

To cut a long story short, I was tempted
to go into the affair. I went to the London
broker who had always bought Consols

for me, quietly collected shares, and made
lar^-ii time bargains in the Granite Valley
Continuation, then at fifty per cent discount.
In three weeks we divided nearly a hundred
thousand pounds ! Yes, you may stare, a
hundred thousand pounds. The news of the
amalgamation came out in less than a week
after I had operated. Up went the shares ;
two hundred per cent premium ; the direc-
tors who, in consequence of our getting
into the secret, had not made quite as much
as they expected, took the public while it
was in the humour, and issued a lot of
new extension shares. Of course we got
our quota, and there was another famous
pull. My total third came to thirty-two
thousand pounds, nineteen shillings, and
fourpence.

You can't expect that I was going to attend
to my beggarly business after that. Besides,
this coup having been effected by me alone,
ostensibly, gave me an immense reputation
among the moat knowing hands as a sharp
man of business, they never guessed how I
got my information, and I was overwhelmed
with offers of shares in good things, with
seats in provisional committees, besides being
consulted about plans for all sorts of under-
takings. I never knew before how quick,
how intelligent I was. I had been noted on
our little 'Change for the decided way in
which I underwrote a doubtful ship ; in my
new line this served me wonderfully. I
dined with a great East Indian, and got a
letter of introduction which gave me two
hundred shares in the celebrated Punjaub
and Cape Comorin Railway, deposit five
shillings. I sold them the day following, for
twelve pounds premium. I was a director of
the Great Metropolis and Mudborough
Direct ; of the Great Metropolis and Coal-
boro' Direct, and half-a-dozen other great
projects. We brought them all out at ten
pounds premium and every director had a thou-
sand shares. We were quite above anything
at less than ten pounds premium, and the Coal-
boro' we brought out at twenty-five pounds.
When I think that all the Directs but
one have been wound up with a heavy
loss ; that the Punjaubs have been sold at
two shillings and sixpence discount, and that
the lines at work which were at two hundred
and fifty pounds are now at ninety pounds
each it drives me almost mad.

I got into a completely new line of life
and set of society, instead of the aldermen
whom I used to think it a great honour to dine
with. I was intimate with lords and M.P's.
Our Direction Boards were regular happy
families. No prejudices, politics, or religion,
or rank, or birth i prevailed there. We had
Lord Jennet, who came in with William the
Conqueror, and Trimmer the banker, whose
father kept a gin-shop; and Muggins, who
had been on the turf, but found the Stock
Exchange more profitable; the Honourable
Peter Plaudit, M.P., the celebrated radical

CharlesDickens.]

KUINED BY EAILWAYS.

117

philanthropist, and the Honourable Augustus
de Brubber Fleecy, son of the Duke of
Woolley, the celebrated protectionist.

We used to meet about twelve o'clock,
and have a little champagne lunch ; per-
haps a basin of turtle, and then settle the
allotments and the premiums. We had our
expenses paid, including boxes at the Opera,
and broughams for those who liked them. I
didn't. I used to go to my lodgings in Blow-
hard Square a guinea a week, including
bed and breakfast and calculate my profits.
I've got the book now. Of course it was
nothing to anybody if I chose to save my
allowance of live guineas a day.

We thought nothing of a hundred thousand
pounds more or less in those days. I re-
member well, just before we started the
Joint Stock Bank Company of Mexico, Meso-
potamia, and New Zealand, that Peter
M'Crawley (the celebrated ship-owner and
patriot it was before he got into Parliament),
made such an excellent thing by we tossed
up whether the capital should be one million
or five hundred thousand pounds, and the
million won. We brought that out at two
pounds deposit, and five pounds premium.
It went down the following year to one
pound discount, when M'Crawley bought up
all the shares he could, broke up the under-
taking, and got one pound fifteen shillings
for every one of them. I lost thousands by
mine.

But to return to my partners in the first
transaction. Young Slum went to London
immediately : he travelled up in the same train
with the Honourable Constantine Cudlip,
who had just been obliged to leave Fizzington
Wells after an unsuccessful attack on an
heiress. Cudlip borrowed a thousand pounds
of Slum, introduced him into some of the
best society at Hyde Park Corner, and made
him a member of the Raffle and Eiot Club.
So Slum drove a four-in-hand drag divided
his time between Capel Court and the
." Corner," and took up his abode at the Gin
Sling Hotel, in Cariboo Square, doing the
same business that I did, but in quite a differ-
ent style ; where I spent a shilling he
spent a hundred pounds. It was astonishing
how Teddy Slum he called himself Fitz
Teddiugtou Slum was altered, what with
his clothes and his ways; the station-mas-
ter would never have known him ; I never
altered.

As for Sleekleigh he left the Bank set up
as a sharebroker and had ail the best people
in the county for his customers. Besides the
bankers and merchants, there were old ladies
and parsons in crowds, who sold out of consols,
called in mortgages and brought their money
to lay out as he pleased, and he made it a
favour to take it.

I can't make you believe what I was worth
at one time. I know I staid at home one
Sunday, and calculated by the premiums on
the share-lists sent down on Saturday night

that I was worth half a million, good. I de-
termined to retire at a million. Here the
narrator seized a wedge of pork-pie which the
young woman who sat opposite to us kindly
offered to him, and went on masticating and
talking at the same time.

Ah, I was happy then, although I lived
in a fever. I did not waste my money
as Slum did. My bankers never kept me
waiting ; I was shown into their parlour the
moment I appeared. In my old black pocket-
book I used to keep a bundle of noteSj
buttoned in a pocket close over my heart,
and a score of sovereigns in my breeches
pocket. I was never dull while I could
jingle them. To be sure I was not quite
happy at home. Eebecca was never the
best of tempers used to worry and nag
me out of my life to give her a carnage, and
this and that and the other, and to move to
a better house, although I had never seen the
colour of her money. She took good care
to save up all that I allowed her as much
as three pounds a week to keep house quite
enough too. I was not going to waste my
money on coaches and houses after I had
been so infamously cheated about Rebecca's
fortune.

Well, after a time things began to grow
rather natter, but I had still a large balance at
my banker's. I had sold all the small stuff, and
put it out on good interest ; so I reserved my
strength for my direct lines. There was a
fortune. I thought at the lowest calculation
they would pay ten per cent, and that on my
shares would be forty thousand a year.
We had the calculations of the celebrated Mr.
Paul Stretcher, who made a fortune by his
Railway traffic calculations alone in less than
two years.

A good many small people were smashed
in the first panic, my losses were heavy, but
still I had my solid savings to fall back on,
and my direct shares. While Slum who had
declined to take Lord Cornboy's mansion
and park, because there was stabling for only
twenty horses was obliged to borrow money
at high interest.

The time came for going to Parliament,
many of our other shareholders, some of our
directors, especially the Right Honorable
ones, hung back. In fact, they had no ready
money, and they had spent their premiums
as fast as they got them. I had to choose
between a great loss and going on. I went
on, with four or five others; we put down our
hard cash, and took the shares of the de-
faulters, with the forfeit of what they had
paid. I could have retired then with some-
thing handsome.

That was the most dreadful time of all.
Every day the engineers, or the lawyers were
at us for money. It was like putting a pistol
to one's throat. It was pay, or lose all.

While the railway committees were going
on in Commons and Lords sometimes
winning, sometimes losing my visits to

IIS

HOUSEHOLD WOEDS.

[Conducted by

the City were constant, and at times I
made a pretty good thing of speculating on
my information. But at length the "Long
Session" grew to an end. Out of the slaught-
ered innocents four of .the Direct Lines were
saved. Conceive my horror when they all
fell to par the moment the Royal Assent was
obtained, and we were in a position to put a
pickaxe in the ground.

But I was determined to hold ; I was sure
that better times would come when the ras-
cally papers would cease to write against us,
and we should spring up to our old premiums.
Nay, I bought more shares to cover my losses.

But down, down, down they went with
partial gleams of hope like the fluttering
leaves of an old almanack.

This was not the worst ; my table was
daily covered with notices and threatening
letters from the solicitors of companies in
which I had taken allotments, or accepted
provisional direction.

The creditors of the dissolved companies
where I was director and committee-man
began to sue me. I was in a hundred actions
of law at once. I was torn to pieces with
consultations with my lawyers and my brokers.
My ready money was consumed in paying
calls, paying law costs, and continuations on
unsuccessful speculations on the Stock Ex-
change. I ceased to keep exact accounts, I
could not bear to see my darling scrip re-
duced to the value of waste paper, but hoping
for better times I pledged my good shares at
my broker's. Good shares there was nothing
good !

Yes, I who could have had my bills, when
I began, done at two per cent, per annum
was obliged to pay equal to twelve pounds,
then fifteen, then twenty-five per cent, for
discount, and the respectable bankers who
sneered at Slum's friends, the Jews, took it.

I think I might then have retired with ten
thousand pounds.

My old friend, Lucy's father, met me by acci-
dent, and recommended me strongly to clear
off all, and return to Mudborough. I was
half-inclined when I came across Sir John
Bullion, he held ine by the button-hole, oppo-
site Capel Court, condoled with me for a quar-
ter of an hour, and then in the kindest man-
ner, gave me some important secret informa-
tion, advising me to buy all the shares I could.
I followed his advice, others believing that I
was his agent, followed me, for he then had a
reputation for finance. I operated largely,
the shares rose rapidly that day, the next day
they fell with a dead flop. We had been done. Sir
John had put on me all his share of bad stock,
as dead as ditch water. All my money went,and
more, an acceptance to my brokers was niy
only resource. I still had tlie shadow of
credit with many, although my bank account
was finally closed. I struggled on for a year, ,
made one or two good small hits, and then a !
final smash and dofault. I was posted in the ]
Stock Exchange, arrested on the bill, and in >

the Queen's Bench found my forgotten friend
Slum, in a flowered damask silk dressinw-
gown and a high state of delirium tremens.
He lived long enough to be put on the poor
side, and died with a bundle of letters in his
hand from his noble friends, to whom he had
written for twenty pounds to enable him to
pass the Insolvent Court.

In my despair I wrote to Sleeklei<rh, and
got in answer a letter from a solicitor, in-
forming me that the firm of Sleekleigh and
Co., Stock and Share Brokers was bankrupt,
that the accounts could not be balanced within
a million, and that Sleekleigh himself had
emigrated to California he afterwards be-
came a judge and bar-keeper in Grizzly Bear
Valley.

When at length I was discharged by the
Court, with a compliment on the smalluess of
my personal expenditure, and a remand for
actions vexatiously defended, I found that
my wife had departed to live somewhere on
the Continent, on the interest of her five
thousand pounds ; leaving me a letter declin-
ing all further acquaintance with me on the
ground of my improvident habits.

I have since tried to do a little business in
my native town ; but I could not get on very
well, it is so slow to work for shillings when
you have been in the habit of making hun-
dreds a day.

However, I shall be all right again soon. I Ve
got here a capital thing a Copper and Gold
Mine in Wales. I have a half share in it, and
am now travelling down to get my old friends
to take shares. We only want five thousand
pounds to begin with ; we have tested the
rock, and it gives three ounces of gold to
the ton in Nobbler's Gold Crushing Machine.
Ten thoitsand tons a year, at three pounds
ten shillings an ounce, beside the copper,
which will pay the working expenses.
There 's a profit for only five thousand
pounds !

He paused here, took snuff vehemently,
and looked round to see if any one would
take a forty shilling share, one shilling
deposit. When a bluff commercial traveller-
looking man in a dark corner of the end
compartment burst in with, "Is that the
Penny Gwyg Mine you 're talking of ? "

" Oh, yes, yes, do you know anything
about it ? "

" Know it well : it 's been worked by seven
sets of people in ten years, and all lost money
by it. There 's about as much gold as cop-
per, and that wouldn't make up a five shilling
packet. The last time it was sold by old
Owen Gwynne, who got a cask of beer for
it, from a man travelling for a new brewery.
Ah ! ah ! hah ! " and be laughed a horse-bar
sort of laugh.

The thin man blushed, gathered up his
papers from the s^eat, and when the train
stopped at the Deadbury station, went
out hastily. Two days afttT, the news-
papers contained an account of a man with

Cliarle Dickens.]

BACK FROM THE CRIMEA.

119

B. B. marked on his linen, found cut to pieces
on a level crossing on the Great Round About
Railway.

The verdict was, " Accidental death ; the
railway authorities not to blaine."

BACK FROM THE CRIMEA.

YESTERDAY was a great day for the great sea-
port where I live the day of the landing of
the convalescent sick and wounded from the
trenches and the battle-fields of the Crimea ; a
long, long line of wan pale warriors, tottering
to their resting-place, the hospital ; and those
who could not walk, borne after them on
litters. This was not the first sight of this
kind we have witnessed here, and it will not
be the last by many. The deepest feelings of
gratitude and commiseration are weakened
not one whit within us ; but the enthusiasm
that requires novelty to re-awaken it has
almost died out. No shouting crowds now
follow these poor soldiers to the hospital gates :
no flags wave from the windows ; no cannons
roar. We have found out other ways of wel-
come, there is a subscription-list lying open
at the Town Hall, whereto you may add your
help in supplying books and papers to the
invalids ; and volunteers, who understand
the art and mystery of letter-writing, are
plentiful by the sick beds, to send for their
disabled occupants a word of comfort home-
wards. To-day a still more solemn scene took
place : the sick and wounded who were too
ill to be moved yesterday no convalescents,
but men well nigh death's door were brought
back to their fatherland to die.

The great three-decker lies in the offing
that conveyed them from Scutari, watched by
us these three days with dim eyes, a vast
death -ship and floating hospital between
decks, and gay with flags and full of life
above.

There has been sad work at these dread
landings of the wounded ; but to-day, at least,
were all things fitting and in readiness. The
Royal Rampshire sent its hundred men or so
to the Dockyard Pier with litters, and almost
all its officers were in attendance. A score of
hardy seamen, too, were there, contrasting
strangely with the slight slim figures of the
young militiamen ; official people with the fear
of The Times before their eyes ; surgeons, and
dockyard dignitaries. It is cold enough wait-
ing upon harbour piers for steam-tugs, with
the wind and tide against them, and a little
leap-frog does not seem out of place among
the gallant Rampshire-men ; but directly the
first puff of smoke is seen above the Bastion,
the order is given to '"fall in," all eyes
are directed to the approaching vessel, all
hearts beat quickly, all faces lose their
smiles.

First, the dark dismal hull, and then the
decks spread thick with dim white tarpaulins,
whose shapes, as they draw nearer, are as of

sheets above the dead ; and there the dying,
perhaps dead, men are, the worst cases, that
would not bear moving underneath, but lie
with heaps of blankets over them, and only a
prominence observable at heads and feet.
The vessel is brought alongside, and four tars
descend the narrow plank to bear the sick
men, feet foremost. The litters cannot here
be used, so bad are all these cases ; but
through the thick canvass of these "cots"
great poles are inserted, and shouldering
these with difficulty, and keeping in step for
the sufferers' sake, which is hard work also,
the sailors land their burthen. Sometimes
from under the great pile of clothes an ashy-
white thin face just shows itself, or rather is
shown by chance, for the eyes are lustreless,
and express no gleam of interest. The heavy
moustache and the military cap, still worn
as bed-gear, contrast most painfully with
the dependent, prostrate condition of their
wearers. What expression yet remains to
some is of a thoughtful cast. They have seen
and suffered much these last six months ;
and want and danger are such teachers as the
most careless may not disregard. The bearers
are warned of all impediments ; and tenderly
and skilfully do they lift their heavy burthen,
and the "wheelers" start with the left foot,
and the " leaders" with the right, and so
" slow -march " to the hospital. Now, too, must
the less dangerous cases be brought from
between decks, and transferred from their
cots to litters. Each man is dressed in his
great coat, and his knapsack lies beside him
as though he should presently arise and walk ;
but it is easy to see there is no walking for
him these many weeks, though his eyes are
bright with happiness, and he will answer
softly if you address his ear ; and these, too,
are carried to the sick wards to join their less
fortunate brethren.

These wards are warm and comfortable,
with a fire at each end of them. " We have
not seen a fire since we left old England,"
say many of the sufferers ; and medicines are
in plenty and attendance good, though medical
help is still greatly needed : but things were
not go at first by any means. Ragged and
swarming with vermin (as we are credibly
informed) did our poor fellows lie for days ;
for there was signing and counter-signing to
be effected, and the " proper channel " to be
quite decided upon, before the official mind
could rightly understand the matter and pro-
vide clean linen. Let, however, bygones be
bygones. Now, we repeat, were there a larger
medical staff (especially in the matter of
dressers), all would be well.

Accompany us, then, with some of the
officers from the Royal Rampshire, and bring
pen, ink, and paper, and a little writing-case ;
seat yourself down on one of the deal stools
that stand beside each bed, and hear a story
of the war, quite unpictorial, without rose-
colour, flame-colour, drum accompaniment, or
any such thing, and let the look of each

120

HOUSEHOLD WORDS.

sad reciter be before you when men prate
of glory for glory's sake; and believe him
:is lie gasps upon his scanty pallet, iu the bare
white-washed room, without one friend about
him, and (but for you) unable to apprise one
of his fate, when he .-ilhrius that this is Eden.
Paradise, Heaven, to what he has endured these
six months. Be sure this is the reality of the
whole matter war stripped of its pomp and
circumstance.

First is a foot-soldier, wounded by a shell
in the knee, who thinks he would like to
write to his first-cousin. This first cousin
is his only relative, and does not know even of
his having volunteered for foreign service ; he
is not sure about the direction, but knows
that it is somewhere in the county Clare. In
the next bed a woe-begoue sad creature
answers your question in a hollow, despairing
voice : " I have no friends," he says, and " Let
me alone." The brain of this poor fellow is
afl'ected, and we can be of no service to him
at present, so pass on. There is a boy of only
seventeen, wounded at the battle of the Alma.
His face is quite beautiful, round, and healthy-
looking. He seems quite happy and contented,
and answers cheerfully enough, that he would
wish to write to father and mother, and tell
them he had lost his leg : such a letter he
dictates as would shame a whole army of philo-
sophers ; when he gets used to " those," he
says, pointing to the crutches by his bed's
head, he will do well enough.

The next case is one of dysentery. A giant
of an Hussar the skeleton of one at least
all shaggy hair and eyes, with cough, accom-
panied by moaning, would like to let his
wife and children know about him ; they
have not heard since he went out five
months ago ; they will not see him again in
this world, he feels sure, and truly his state
is very sad ; his attenuated legs find even the
weight of bedclothes insupportable, he can
only fetch his breath to speak at intervals ;
has been deadly ill these six weeks, as far as
he could take note of lagging time ; would
have sent home some money long ago, but
that they robbed him in Scutari hospital of all
he had which they cut from around his
naked neck where he wore it in a bag ;
there was some more due to him if he had his
rights, and they should have all ; they must
have wanted it, he knew, through this sad
winter. Yes, he was iu the great horse-charge
that was so famous, borne up by the men
around him through the rain of bullets
borne and back again to the Russian guns,
and back again, he means, without much
thought of danger ; there was no time. He
does not wish that to be set down in the letter:
said it to inform us only. We have written
all he wishes ; and so, with a "Thank ye,
thank ye," he sinks back in his bed and
uis.

The fifth place has no tenant; its latest
jdRupant was borne out yesterday to a still
narrower resting-place.

The sixth is a maimed man ; his right arm
was shot off at Inkermann ; he was in all the

previous battles. This man talks freely of the
war and without pain in utterance," which
most can do (and let it be kept in remem-
brance by all those making themselves useful to
the sick, not to allow their compassion to be
sacrificed to curiosity). The fearfullest thing
of a battle-field is the treading upon the
bodies of the fallen. The thunder of the guns
and the flashes, the trembling of the ground
under the horses, seemed as though heaven
and earth were coming together ; but the step-
ping on a wounded man that was the worst :
before the fighting, it was not unpleasant,
perhaps; and after, it was a dreadful time, but
the fighting itself was enough to flush a man,
a great while of excitement and madness ;
often and often used to think of it as he lay
in bed and on board ship.

The seventh bed is occupied by a living
being at present, and that is all we can call
the shadowy form ; the eyes are sunk into
the head, and all the features have the sharp-
ness of death. He has ceased to disturb the
ward (as he did at first) with coughs and
groans, and a few hours will rid them of his
presence. We must here mention that the
want of a smaller apartment for the reception,
of those who cannot cease from coughing
and expressions of pain, is much felt in all
our hospitals here.

In striking contrast to this dying man is his
neighbour, the eighth and last patient of the
line ; he has lost three fingers of his left hand
by a cannon ball, and has received a fracture
of the leg, but is getting on capitally, and is
in the highest spirits. He has no need to tell
us he is an Irishman, for he has an accent as
broad as from here to Cork : indeed it is
with the greatest difficulty we can understand
what he wishes us to write ; it takes us five
minutes to unravel " respects to inquiring
friends" (always "respects," however near
may be the relationships) from the mass of r's,
which he is pleased to insert amongst that
sentence. Russia, as far as he knows, is abso-
lutely good for nothing ; except, indeed, he
must say, for grapes and lice. Amidst a heap
of extraneous matter of this sort, he writes
to his mother in Tipperary, ''Don't let our
Patrick, mother, go for a soldier ; not that
I mind for myself," he says, pointing to his
shattered hand, " but one's enough."

This day is published, for pi-eater convenience, aiid
cheapness of binding,

THE FIRST TEN VOLUMES

HOUSEHOLD WORDS,

IN FIVE HANDSOME VOLUMES,
WITH A GENERAL INDEX TO Till;

Price of the Set, thus bound in V\\-<- Double i;i-;;> i . ul Ton
olumes, 2 IDs. Od.

Office, .No. 16, \YeUlUKUin Street North, Stnmu. fruited ij BRIDII/HT & Kvina, 'hltermn,

"Familiar in tlteir Mouths as HOUSEHOLD WORDS"

HOUSEHOLD WORDS.

A WEEKLY JOURNAL.
CONDUCTED BY CHARLES DICKENS.

259.]

SATURDAY, MAKCH 10, 1855.

GONE TO THE DOGS. I its magic furniture ? Gone to the Dogs.

j Canine possession was taken of the whole of
WE all know what treasures Posterity will that estate, my youthful Araminta, about a

inherit, in the fulness of time. We all know
what handsome legacies are bequeathed to it
eveiy day, what long luggage-trains of Sonnets
it will be the better for, what patriots and
statesmen it will discover to have existed in
this age whom we have no idea of, how very
wide awake it will be, and how stone blind
the Time is. We know what multitudes of
disinterested persons are always going down
to it, laden, like processions of genii, with
inexhaustible and incalculable wealth. We

quarter of a century ago.

Come back, friend of my youth. Come
back from the glooms and shadows that have
gathered round thee, and let us sit down
once more, side by side, upon the rough,
notched form at school ! Idle is Bob Tample,
given to shirking his work and getting me to
do it for him, inkier than a well-regulated
mind in connection with a well-regulated body
is usually observed to be, always compound-
ing with his creditors on pocket-money

have frequent experience of the generosity days, frequently selling-off pen-knives by

with which the profoundest wits, the subtlest
politicians, unerring inventors, and lavish
benefactors of mankind, take beneficent aim
at it with a longer range than Captain War-
ner's, and blow it up to the very heaven of
heavens, one hundred years after date. We all
defer to it as the great capitalist in expecta-
tion, the world's residuary legatee in respect
of all the fortunes that are not just now con-
vertible, the heir of a long and fruitful
minority, the fortunate creature on whom all
the true riches of the earth are firmly en-
tailed. When Posterity does come into its
own at last, what a coming of age there
will be !

It seems to me that Posterity, as the sub-
ject of so many handsome settlements, has
only one competitor. I find the Dogs to be
every day enriched with a vast amount of
valuable property.

What has become to begin like Charity
at home what has become, I demand, of the
inheritance I myself entered on, at nineteen
years of age ! A shining castle (in the air)
with young Love looking out of window,
perfect contentment and repose of spirit
standing with ethereal aspect in the porch,
visions surrounding it by night and day with
an atmosphere of pure gold. This was my
only inheritance, and I never squandered it.
I hoarded it like a miser. Say, bright-eyed
Araminta (with the obdurate parents),
thou who wast sole lady of the castle, did I
not ? Down the flowing 'river by the walls,
called Time, how blest we sailed together,
treasuring our happiness unto death, and
never knowing change, or weariness, or sepa-
ration ! Where is that castle now, with all

and whistle
(in the par-
duet with

auction, and disposing of his sister's birth-
day presents at an enormous sacrifice. Yet,
a rosy, cheerful, thoughtless fellow is Bob
Tample, borrowing with an easy mind, six-
pences of Dick Sage the prudent, to pay
eighteenpences after the holidays, and freely
standing treat to all comers. Musical is
Bob Tample. Able to sing
anything. Learns the piano
lor), and once plays a
the musical professor, Mr. Goavus of the
Royal Italian Opera (occasional-deputy-
assistant-copyist in that establishment, I
have since seen reason to believe), whom
Bob's friends and supporters, I foremost in
the throng^ consider tripped up in the first
half-dozen bars. Not without bright
expectations is Bob Tample, being an orphan
with a guardian near the Bank, and destined
for the army. I boast of Bob at home that
his name is "down at the Horse Guards,"
and jthat his father left it in his will that " a
pair of colours" (I like the expression with-
out particularly knowing what it means),
should be purchased for him. I go with Bob
on one occasion to look at the building
where his name is down. We wonder in
which of the rooms it is down, and whether
the two horse soldiers on duty know it. I also
accompany Bob to see his sister at Miss Mag-
giggs's boarding establishment at Hammer-
smith, and it is unnecessary to add that I think
his sister beautiful and love her. She will be
independent, Bob says. I relate at home
that Mr. Tample left it in his will that his
daughter was to be independent. I put Mr.
Tample, entirely of my own accord and in-
vention, into the army; and I perplex my

TOL. XI.

259

122

HOUSEHOLD WORDS.

[Conducted by

family circle l>v ivlating iV'its of valour
; '-hieved by that lamented officer at the
Battle of Waterloo, where I leave lain doad,
with the British flag (which he wouldn't
give up to the last) wound tightly round his
left arm. So we go on, until Bob leaves for
Sandhurst. / leave in course of time
everybod}' leaves. Years have gone by, when
I twice or thrice meet a gentleman with a mous-
tache, driving a lady in a very gay bonnet,
whose face recalls the boarding establishment
of Miss Maggiggs at Hammersmith, though
it does not look so happy as it did under Miss
Maggiggs, iron-handod despot as I be-
lieved that accomplished woman to be. This
leads me to the discovery that the gen-
tleman with the moustache is Bob ; and
one day Bob pulls up, and talks, and
asks me to dinner ; but, on subsequently
ascertaining that I don't play billiards, hardly
seems to care as much about me as I had ex-
pected. I ask Bob at this period, if he is in
the service still 1 Bob answers no my boy,
he got bored and sold out ; which induces me
to think (for I am growing worldly), either
that Bob must be very independent indeed, or
must be going to the Dogs. More years elapse,
and having quite lost sight and sound of Bob
meanwhile, I say on an average twice a week
during three entire twelvemonths, that I
really will call at the guardian's near the
Bank, and ask about Bob. At length I do so.
Clerks, on being apprised of my errand, be-
came disrespectful. Guardian, with bald
head highly flushed, bursts out of inner office,
remarks that he hasn't the honor of my
acquaintance, and bursts in again, without ex-
hibiting the least desire to improve the oppor-
tunity of knowing me. I now begin sincerely
to believe that Bob is going to the Dogs,
More years go by, and as they pass Bob
sometimes goes by me too, but never twice in
the same aspect always tending lower and
lower. No redeeming trace of better things
would hang about him now, were he not
always accompanied by the sister. Gay
bonnet gone ; exchanged for something limp
and veiled, that might be a mere porter's
knot of the feminine gender, to carry a load
of misery on shabby, even slipshod. I, by
some vague means or other, come to the know-
ledge of the fact that she entrusted that inde-
pendence to Bob, and that Bob in short, that
it has all gone to the Dogs. One summer day,
I descry Bob idling in the sun, outside a
public-house near Drury Lane ; she, in a
shawl that clings to her, as only the robes of
poverty do cling to their wearers when all
things else have fallen away, waiting for him
at the street corner ; he, with a stale, accus-
tomed air, picking his teeth and pondering ;
two boys watchful of him, not unadmiringly.
Curious to know more of this, I go round
that way another day, look at a concert-bill
in the public-house window, and have not a
doubt that Bob is Mr. Berkeley, the cele-
brated bacchanalian vocalist, who presides at

(ho piano. From time to time, rumours float
by me afterwards, I can't say how, or where
they come from from the expectant and
insatiate Dogs for anything I know touch-
ing hushed-up pawning* of sheets from poor
furnished lodgings, begging letters to old
Miss Maggiggs at Hammersmith, and the
clearing away of all Miss Maggiggs's um-
brellas and clogs, by the gentleman who called
for an answer on a certain foggy evening
after dark. Thus downward, until the faithful
sister begins to beg of me, whereupon I
moralise as to the use of giving her any
money (for I have grown quite worldly now),
and look furtively out of my window as she
goes away by night with that half-sovereign of
mine, and think, contemptuous of myself, can
I ever have admired the crouching figure
plashing through the rain, in a long round
crop of curls at Miss Maggiggs's ! Often-
times she comes back with bedridden lines
from the brother, who is always nearly dead
and never quite, until he does tardily make
an end of it, and at last this Acteeon reversed
has run the Dogs wholly down and betaken
himself to them finally. More years have
passed, when I dine at Withers's at Brighton
on a day, to drink 'Forty-one claret ; and
there, Spithers, the new Attorney- General,
says to me across the table, " Weren't you a
Mithers's boy 1 " To which I say, " To be
sure I was ! " To which he retorts, " And
don't you remember me ? " To which I re-
tort, " To be sure I do" which I never did
until that instant and then he says how
the fellows have all dispersed, and he has
never seen one of them since, and have I 1
To which I, finding that my learned friend
has a pleasant remembrance of Bob from
having given him a black eye on his fifteenth
birthday in assertion of his right to " smug "
a pen-wiper forwarded to said Bob by his
sister on said occasion, make response by
generalising the story I have now completed,
and adding that I have heard that, after Bob's
death, Miss Maggiggs, though deuced poor
through the decay of her school, took the
sister home to live with her. My learned
friend says, upon his word it does Miss
Whatshername credit, and all old Mitherses
ought to subscribe a trifle for her. Not
seeing the necessity of that, I praise the
wine, and we send it round, the way of the
world (which world I am told is getting
nearer to the'Sun every year of its existence),
and we, bury Bob's memory with the epitaph
that he went to the Dogs.

Sometimes, whole streets, inanimate streets
of brick and mortar houses, go to the Dogs.
Why, it is impossible to say, otherwise than
that the Dogs bewitch them, fascinate them,
magnetise them, summon them and they
must go. I know of such a street at the
present writing. It was a stately street in
its own grim way, and the houses held
together like the last surviving members of
an aristocratic family, and, as a general rule,

Charles Dickens.]

GONE TO THE DOGS.

123

were still not unlike them very tall aud
very dull. How long the Dogs may have
had their eyes of temptation upon this street
is unknown to me, but they called to it, and
it went. The biggest house it was a corner
one went first. An ancient gentleman died
in ' it ; and the undertaker put up a gaudy
hatchment that looked like a very bad trans-
parency, not intended to be seen by day, and
only meant to be illuminated at night ; and
the attorney put up a bill about the lease,
and put in an old woman (apparently with
nothing to live upon but a cough), who crept
away into a corner like a scared old dor-
mouse, and rolled herself up in a blanket.
The mysterious influence of the Dogs was on
the house, and it immediately began to
tumble down. Why the infection shoulc
pass over fourteen houses to seize upon the
fifteenth, I don't know ; but, fifteen doors
off next began to be fatally dim in the win-
dows ; aud after a short decay, its eyes were
closed by brokers, and its end was desolation
The best house opposite, unable to bear these
sights of woe, got out a black board with al
despatch, respecting unexpired remainder o;
term, and cards to view ; and the family fled
aud a bricklayer's wife and children came in
to " mind " the place, and dried their little
weekly wash on lines hung across the dining-
room. Black boards, like the doors of so
many hearses taken off the hinges, now be-
came abundant. Only one speculator, with-
out suspicion of the Dogs upon his soul,
responded. He repaired and stuccoed num-
ber twenty-four, got up an ornamented
parapet and balconies, took away the
knockers, and put in plate glass, found
too late that all the steam power on earth
could never have kept the street from the
Dogs when it was once influenced to go, and
drowned himself in a water butt. Within a
year, the house he had renewed became the
worst of all ; the stucco decomposing like a
Stilton cheese, and the ornamented parapet
coming down in fragments like the sugar of
a broken twelfth cake. Expiring efforts were
then made by a few of the black boards to
hint at the eligibility of these commodious
mansions for public institutions, and suites of
chambers. It was useless. The thing was
done. The whole street may now be bought
for a mere song. But, nobody will hear of it,
for who dares dispute possession of it with
the Dogs !

Sometimes, it would seem as if the least
yelp of these dreadful animals, did the busi-
ness at once. Which of us does not remember
that eminent person with indefinite resources
in the City, tantamount to a gold mine who
had the delightful house near town, the
famous gardens and gardener, the beautiful
plantations, the smooth green lawns, the
pineries, the stabling for five-and- twenty
horses, and the standing for half-a-dozen car-
riages, the billiard-room, the music-room, the
picture gallery, the accomplished daughters

and aspiring sons, all the pride pomp and
circumstance of riches 1 Which of us does
not reeal how we knew him through the good
offices of our esteemed friend Swallowfly, who
was ambassador on the occasion 1 Which of
us cannot still hear the gloating roundness of
tone with which Swallowfly informed us
that our new friend was worth five hun-dred
thou-sand pounds, sir, if he was worth a
penny '( How we dined there with all the
Arts and Graces ministering to us, aud how
we came away reflecting that wealth after all
was adesirable delight, Ineed not say. Neither
need I tell, how we every one of us met
Swallowfly within six little months of that
same day, when Swallowfly observed, with such
surprise, " You haven't heard ? Lord bless
me ! Ruined Channel Islands gone to the
Dogs ! "

Sometimes again, it would seem as though
in exceptional cases here and there, the Dogs
relented, or lost their power over the
imperilled man in an inscrutable way. There
was my own cousin he is dead now, there-
fore I have no objection to mention his name
Tom Flowers. He was a bachelor (fortu-
nately), and, among other ways he had of
increasing his income and improving his
prospects, betted pretty high. He did all
sorts of things that he ought not to have
done, and he did everything at a great
pace, so it was clearly seen by all who knew
him that nothing would keep him from the
Dogs ; that he was running them down hard,
and was bent on getting into the very midst
of the pack with all possible speed. Well ! He
was as near them, I suppose, as ever man was,
when he suddenly stopped short, looked
them full in their jowls, aud never stirred
another inch onward, to the day of his death.
He walked about for seventeen years, a very
neat little figure, with a capital umbrella, an
excellent neckcloth, and a pure white shirt,
and he had not got a hair's-breadth nearer
to the horrible animals at the end of that
time than he had when he stopped. How he
lived, our family could never make out-
whether the Dogs can have allowed him any-
thing will always be a mystery to me but, he
disappointed all of us in the matter of the
canine epitaph with which we had expected
to dismiss him, and merely enabled us to
remark that poor Tom Flowers was gone at
sixty-seven.

It is overwhelming to think of the Treasury
of the Dogs. There are no such fortunes em-
aarked in all the enterprises of life, as have
rone their way. They have a capital Drama,
or their amusement and instruction. They
lave got hold of all the People's holidays for
the refreshment of weary frames, and the
.enewal of weary spirits. They have left the
People little else in that way but a Fast now
and then for the ignorances and imbecilities
of their rulers. Perhaps those days will
;o next. To say the plain truth very
eriously, I shouldn't be surprised.

124

HOUSEHOLD WOEDS.

[Conducted by

Consider the last possessions that have
gone to the Dogs. Consider, friends and
countrymen, how the Dogs have been en-
riched, by your despoilment at the hands of
your own blessed governors to whom be
honour and renown, stars and garters, for
ever and ever ! on the shores of a certain
obscure spot called Balaklava, where Bri-
tannia rules the waves in such an admirable
manner, that she slays her children (who
never never never will be slaves, but very
very very often will be dupes), by the thou-
sand, with every movement of her glorious
trident ! When shall there be added to the
possessions of the Dogs, those columns of talk,
which, let the columns of British soldiers
vanish as they may, still defile before us
wearily, wearily, leading to nothing, doing
nothing, for the most part even saying
nothing, only enshrouding us in a mist of
idle breath that obscures the events which
are forming themselves not into playful
shapes, believe me beyond. If the Dogs,
lately so gorged, still so.voracious and strong,
could and would deliver a most gracious
bark, I have a strong impression that their
warning would run thus :

"My Lords and Gentlemen. We are open-
mouthed and eager. Either you must send
suitable provender to us without delay, or
you must come to us yourselves. There is no
avoidance of the alternative. Talk never
softened the three-headed dog that kept the
passage to the Shades ; less will it appease
us. No jocular old gentleman throwing
sommersaults on stilts because his great-
grandmother is not worshipped in Nineveh,
is a sop to us for a moment ; no hearing,
cheering, sealing-waxing, tapeing, fire-eating,
vote-eating, or other popular Club-perform-
ance, at all imports us. We are the Dogs. We
are known to you just now, as the Dogs of
War. We crouched at your feet for employ-
ment, as William Shakespeare, plebeian, saw
us crouching at the feet of the Fifth Harry
and you gave it us ; crying Havoc ! in good
English, and letting us slip (quite by accident),
on good Englishmen. With our appetites so
whetted, we are hungry. We are sharp of
scent and quick of sight, and we see and
smell a great deal coming to us rather rapidly.
Will you give us such old rubbish as must be
ours in any case ? My Lords and Gentlemen,
make haste! Something must go to the Dogs in
earnest. Shall it be you, or something else 1 "

THE SISTER OF THE SPIRITS.

THE merchant Zara was uneasy that day in
his shop in the Khan El-Khaleelee. He got
up from his mat more than a hundred times
to arrange goods that were not out of order,
and answered customers who came to buy
or bargain in so strange a manner that several
went away, thinking he was mad. One person
was sure of the fact, for he bought a piece of
yellow silk cheaper than if it had been com-

mon cloth, and walked away so rapidly,
fearing the mistake would be discovered, that
he nearly overturned an old Turk, unsteady
from fat, and did not stop to laugh till he was
round the corner. As Zara was one of the
richest Christian merchants of Cairo, he would
not have spent much time in regret even if he
had discovered the mistake. But he had no
leisure to think of matters of profit and loss.
His mind was away in another place, hovering
over a dwelling in a retired street not far off,
where one whom he loved, and by whom he
was loved, suffered and smiled, hoped and
feared pale as a lily, yet joyful as a rose
tree when the first bud reddens on its
greenest spray.

Two hours after noon, a black girl, without
her mantle, which she had forgotten to throw
over her shoulders indeed, they had pushed
and hustled her out of the house as if she had
been a thief came and advanced, her great
round ebony face, that beamed with one vast
smile, into the shop, and said, swearing,

" Wallah ! thou didst not deserve it."

" Speak reverently," quoth the merchant,
reddening to the roots of his beard, "for I am
going to pray ; shall it be for the health of a
son or a daughter 1 "

" Pray first," said the girl, maliciously.

" Wallah ! " exclaimed the merchant, swear-
ing also, " I will neither pray nor listen."

With these words, he dropped a net over
the -front of his shop, and, getting up, went
down the bazaar, turned into a narrow street,
and ran so fast that the black girl could
scarcely keep pace with him. When he came
to the door of his house, however, he stopped
to gather breath and gravity, and then
entered, saying, " Blessings on all those who
may be under this roof!" He went softy up
stairs, trying in vain to seem at home, but really
looking, as we all do on such occasions, says
the narrator, as if he had no right to be there.

Zara had married, rather late in life, a
young girl, whom her parents gave him for
his wealth, and who loved him for his good-
ness. Her name was Martha : and fortune,
in distributing her gifts, had made her wise
instead of beautiful, for which her cousins-
all lovely maidens, coquettish and proud
pitied her exceedingly. But Zara had seen
the world, and prudence told him not to put
his wrinkled visage and grey beard by the
side of blooming cheeks and passionate eyes
and ruby lips and all the qualities of form
given to some few of the daughters of earth,
that poets and youths may follow them and
grow mad. He wanted a gentle house com-
panion for himself, not a beacon to attract
others, and Martha satisfied his ambition for
many years.

But at length so is man framed the
house, which had at first seemed full to the
very innermost corners of light, became in his
eyes dimmer and duller. Martha was not
less sweet and diligent ; but Zara yearned
for something, he knew not at first what. In

THE SISTEE OF THE SPIRITS.

123

truth, he had reached the time when he felt
the stream of life flow more gently through
his veins, and he wished to see a new spring
burst forth before the other was dried up.
In all countries, exceptions set aside, men
grieve at the threatened extinction of their
line ; but in the East, children are longed for,
as if there were no other immortality but
continued life in a succession of generations.

At length Zara's desires were accomplished,
and, as he was a good man, respectful of all
things, even of what people of another faith
respected, there was a peculiar blessing on
the birth of his child. Spirits were overheard
(by whom the legend sayeth not) to meet over
the cradle in which Zara's daughter for it
was a daughter was placed in the first hour
of its life, and to greet one another with
strange expressions.

" Ginnee of the Christians," said one voice,
"we unite with you to bestow all qualities
and good fortune on this young thing, whom
we name our sister. Let us divide the work."

"Ginnee of the Muslims, it is agreed,"
replied another voice ; " begin your gifts."

Then several Muslim spirits began, one
after the other, to say, " Let her form be
graceful as a wand, let her countenance
resemble the countenance of one of the
daughters of Paradise, let her eyes be sweeter
than the morning, let pearls avoid comparison
with her teeth, let her lips be such as to draw
angels down from near the throne of the
All-powerful, to find new delight in a kiss
blessings on our sister ! "

And so they proceeded until they had ex-
hausted the blessings which woman, child of
the earth, most prizes.

But after wards the Ginnee of the Christians
began to speak in their turn, and said, " Let
her be wise, let her be modest, let her be
pure, let her heart never suffer from sorrows
that come from the outward world blessings
on our sister ! "

Then the spirits all bent forward until
their heads touched, and remained like a
canopy hanging over the cradle of the child.

The merchant Zara had sat down by its
side, unaware of these invisible spectators,
and was saying, with the pride of a worldly
man.

"I have six ships upon the sea, and six
caravans coining to me across the desert, and
my shop is full, and my warehouses overflow,
and my coffers are replenished, and there
shall be no maiden in Cairo whose happiness
shall be as great as thine ; princes will ask her
hand in marriage on account of her dowry,
but I will not grant her save to one who shall
be perfect in virtue and in science."

When the spirits heard these words, they
remembered that they had forgotten the gift
of good fortune, but as the merchant boasted
of his wealth, and even, to some extent, spoke
of what he intended should be, rather than
what was for he had only a share in each
ship and in each caravan they smiled satiri-

cally at each other and flew away on various
errands of good and evil.

Martha was as proud of the pride of Zara
as of the child itself. That was the beginning
of a happy time. Those who noticed how
unruffled was the life of this family, how the
days seemed not long enough to savour the
delights which Mina had brought with her
into the world shook their heads, and said,
" There is woe in store for those who forestal
the rewards of heaven." Men are, indeed,
ever disposed to believe that excessive joy is
a sin which brings the punishment of mis-
fortune, and interpret the varying chances of
unstable life as providential compensations.
If it be so, we have no right to complain, for
prosperity is never pure, and we seem to take
care to deserve adversity by pride and over-
weening confidence.

Martha was wise, but not perfect : when
she saw the extreme beauty of her child,
which increased every day, it was natural, but
not admirable, that she should begin to des-
pise the children of others, and to boast that
Mina's hair was blacker and more silky, that
her brow was purer, that her eyes were
brighter, that her smile was sweeter, than
the hair, the brow, the eyes, the smile of
any other daughter in the world, including,
of course, the daughters of Zadlallah and Han
Hanna and Bedreldeen, and all the other
merchants (Christian and Muslim) in Cairo
even Ayshee, the princess, child of Zatmeh
Hanem, the favourite slave of the Sultan, was
but the foil of Mina. She was so little cau-
tious in expressing her opinion, that all wives
who were mothers began to hate her, and to
predict suffering to her. No one knew how
the truth got abroad, but in the harim and
the public baths, when the women met
together, they spoke of Mina as the sister of
the spirits, and said, scornfully, that she was
made so lovely only as a punishment to her
parent, and that when she reached the perfect
age she would be taken away to the dwelling
for which she was fit. " Too beautiful for
this world," is often a sneer on the lips of
envy.

We might linger long and pleasantly on the
various stages by which Mina advanced,
amidst smiles and prosperity, towards ripe
maidenhood ; but it is sufficient to say that
all the promises and blessings of the spirits
that visited her cradle were fulfilled. Her
loveliness was only surpassed by her excel-
lence, and if her parents were not perfect in
joy it was because they sometimes felt them-
selves not on a level with their daughter.
They instinctively missed in her the natural
errors of humanity, and were uneasy in her
presence occasionally, for she seemed with
them, but not of them. Her father, not
wanting in sagacity, would frequently specu-
late on her anomalous position, and his imper-
fect philosophy led him to believe that her
virtue was almost out of place, a superfluous
element in her existence. She was moderate,

126

HOUSEHOLD WOEDS.

[Conducted by

but could enjoy all tilings sober, but with
the means of pleasure around her calm, but
never opposed patient, but never disap-
pointed ; in fact, she had all the qualities
that would have made poverty acceptable.
and yet wealth and honours ever increased
around her. What he meant was, that she
hail never been tried, only he could not doubt
that in whatever position placed she would
triumph.

The merchant Zara possessed a country
house out on the borders of the Nile, in the
midst of a garden where pomegranate trees
and orange trees and sweet lemon trees and
bananas, with palms and sycamores, combined
to throw a pleasant shadow upon the earth.
There he dwelt with his family during the
summer mouths, riding on his mule to the
city in the morning, and returning in the
evening. One day Martha and Mina were
sitting in a little kiosque overhanging the
banks of the river, which was resplendent
in the sun, when a large barque, with many
rowers, came rapidly down the stream. On
the roof of the cabin sat an old man, dressed
in a costume strange to Egypt. He was
looking eagerly at the houses on the banks of
the stream, as if seeking some sign. When
he came exactly opposite the kiosque, he half
rose, and, in a loud voice, commanded the
steersman to guide the boat to the land. A
few minutes afterwards he stood at the gate
of the garden, saying, " Blessings be on Mina
the perfect, and on Martha the happy ! This
is the term of my voyage, and I beg to be
allowed to rest under these beautiful trees
until the master of the house returns from
Cairo."

Martha and her daughter came veiled from
the kio-sque, wondering at the old man's
knowledge of their names, and impatient to
ask for an explanation. They admitted the
stranger, who saluted them politely, and sat
down on a bench under a sycamore. The
gravity of his manner restrained their ques-
tions, and they contented themselves with
ordering coffee and pipes and sherbet to be
brought from the house, that the stranger
might be refreshed. All the time it was only
the example of Mina, however, that restrained
the inquisitiveuess of Martha, and she now
and then whispered : " Daughter, shall I
provoke him to speak ? " But Mina always
shook her head, and so they remained igno-
rant of the meaning of this visit until the
arrival of Zara. The stranger, on perceiving
the merchant, saluted him by his name, say-
ing : " Oh Zara, I have travelled during two
months for the sake of seeing thee and thy
family, and by the blessing of Providence my
desire is now fulfilled."

Then, he related, speaking softly and
sweetly in that calm evening in the garden,
through which the beams of the setting sun
shone in golden streaks, that his name was
Sahel, that he was vizier of one of the kings
of Abyssinia, who had a sou called Michail,

perfect in knowledge and understanding, and
excellent in beauty. When the time came
that this king wished to persuade his son to
marriage, the young man objected that none
of the princesses whom lie had seen, or of
whom he had heard, possessed the qualities
which would satisfy him. His father smiled,
and said : " So it is always with the young.
They think that none but angels are n't to be
their companions, and so it must be that they
regard themselves as angels too. When life
reveals to us our true value we become less
fastidious, and fancy we have grown corrupt
whilst we have only become humble. How-
ever, seek my son and thou shalt find."
Miehail had already formed his opinion on all
the maidens of his people who were of suffi-
ciently high birth to attract his notice. He
might, perhaps, have found beauty and virtue
enough in lower regions, but when men are
placed on the summit of a mountain their
fellow- creatures in the plain are diminished
to dwarfs. So, at first, the young prince
looked forward, not without some melancholy,
to a life of celibacy. A worthy monk, learn-
ing his state of mind, advised him to take the
vow, and for a moment he was disposed to
do so ; but on closely questioning his own
heart he determined instead to make one
more effort, and seek to discover a wife
worthy to share his high position.

His mind being full of these ideas, he retired
one night to rest in a pavilion situated in a
quiet corner of the garden of his father's
palace. Here he slept to the music of his own
thoughts ; but, though he slept, he seemed to
see the forms around him almost as clearly
as when awake the elegant dome, the pen-
dent lamp, the slender pillars with the
branches of beautiful trees gently waving
between them. Suddenly he heard a rust-
ling sound, as if invisible birds were flutter-
ing around. Then he thought he made out
the forms of women overhead, but so vague
and indistinct that he saw the gilded roof
through them. Then he heard a voice which
said :

" What news of our sister, oh, Ginnee ! of
the Christians 1 "

"She is beautiful and happy," was the
reply.

" But what of the prince whom her father,
in his vanity, chose for her husband ? Has
he come to woo her ?"

"There is no prince worthy of her, unless
it be this one."

" Let us betroth her to him."

Then all the spirits speaking together, said,
or sang :

" We betroth Mina, the daughter of Zara
and his wife Martha, who are now in Cairo,
of Egypt, to the prince Michail. Accursed
be he if he take any other maiden to wife.
Let him send a messenger for her. She will
be found sitting with her mother in a kiosque
on the batiks of the Nile." Then they de-
scribed the place, and the hour, and the cir-

Charles Dickens. J

THE SISTER OF THE SPIRITS.

127

cumstances, and having added blessings on
him, by whom our sister shall be made happy,
flew away.

Next day Michail went and threw himself
at his father's feet, and begged to be allowed
to depart in search of the perfect Miua. But
the old king having much dabbled in the
affairs of this world, and seen how vicious
men were having in fact been from time to
time, once a week or so, compelled to hang a
fellow- creature had lost much more than he
would have been willing to admit of the
poetical illusions of youth, and replied in a
tone that something savoured of impiety :
" My son shall not depart on this wild-goose
chase. There may be spirits ; but I do not
believe that they have sisters worth marry-
ing." Upon this Michail began to weep ;
and so his father took a middle course,
and said ; " My vizier, Sahel, is a wise man,
and has served me faithfully for thirty years,
so that he almost thinks that he is the Sultan
and not I. It will enable him to rest from
his fatigues, and be extremely beneficial to
his health, if we send him to Egypt in search
of this Mina." There was a wicked lustre
in the old king's eyes as he expressed this
opinion, but Michail did not observe it, and
replied : " Let him depart immediately."

The vizier, Sahel, had just completed an
elaborate plan for reforming the finances of
his master's dominions, and had made the
grand discovery that in order to keep a full
treasury it is necessary not so much to lay
on new taxes as to restrict expenditure an
idea, the perfect beauty of which the old
king did not perceive. Some of the courtiers,
indeed, had begun to talk of dotage, or
treachery. As for Sahel, he grumbled at the
duty imposed on him, but being very loyal,
kissed his master's hand, hinted that on his
return he intended to show that there need
not be more than ten dishes placed at a time
on the royal table, and departed. He tra-
versed the desert, and descended the Nile,
studying men, manners, government, and
laws as he proceeded, and making such good
use of his time, and such an inexorable appli-
cation of logic, that he framed a still more
wonderful theory than before, convincing
himself that town and country folk had not
been created only for the benefit of sultans.
He was so charmed with the progress of his
ideas, that he felt disposed to return from
Dongola to communicate them to his master,
but reflecting that there was no particular
hurry, and that the world might go on a few
months longer, according to old principles,
continued his journey, and at length, as we
have seen, reached his destination.

When the merchant Zara and his wife
heard this story, both were rejoiced in dif-
ferent degrees. Martha, who was naturally
prudent, and reflected somewhat of her
daughter's qualities, simply drew aside her
veil a little, and allowed the old vizier to see
that she smiled benevolently at him ; but

Zara, who had scarcely been able to contain
himself during this narrative, no sooner
heard the last words, than he took off his
turban, and flung it up into the air with such
violence, that it reached the topmost bough
of the sycamore under which he was sitting,
and caught there, and could not be got down
by any means, so that the birds built their
nests therein. When the confusion had a
little subsided, and Zara's shaven head had
been wrapped in a corner of his cloak, Mina
spoke, saying : " This is a wonderful story,
but wherefore should I leave my parents and
travel to distant countries to please the fancy
of a youth who cannot find a, wife to satisfy
him except in his dreams ? " The vizier,
Sahel, instantly made a speech, which had a
beginning, a middle, and an end, and con-
tained fifteen apposite citations from the
poets : but all in vain. Then he addressed
the parents, and proved to them that they
had absolute power over their daughter.
" Thy words are words of wisdom," said the
merchant. " Mina, thou must become the
wife of this prince."

Wonderful to relate, Mina the perfect, in
the gentlest and tenderest manner possible,
announced her intention to disobey. Zara
tried to fly into a passion, but failed, especi-
ally as the wise Sahel observed : " Nothing
should be done in a hurry. Let her have
time to reflect." That evening, when she
was alone with her mother, Mina, with some
blushes and a few tears under which new
aspect she looked more beautiful than ever
confessed that she too had a story to relate,
the chief incident of which was a dream.
The spirits had appeared to her likewise and
had led her, in vision, out into the desert
where in a lonely valley she had beheld a
youth poorly clad, but of great beauty and
nobleness of demeanour, who had called her
by her name, whilst many voices cried to her :
" This is thy husband." It was evident, there-
fore, she argued, that the Mina of prince
Michail was quite another Mina. Her
mother objected that a poor man out in the
desert was not a very suitable match, and
the conclusion was : " Let us wait awhile."

Sahel seemed in no hurry to return to his
country. He had never seen a capital like
Cairo before, and busied himself so intently
in studying its economy, that month after
month passed away, and he did not insist on
any definite answer from Mina or her father.
One day, however, he heard a rumour in the
market-place and the bazaars. The great
merchant Zara was ruined. His ships had
been destroyed by the anger of the ocean,
and his caravans overwhelmed by the sands
of the desert. A wealthy creditor, armed
with the powers of government, was even
seeking him to put him in prison, and he had
disappeared with his family. This is a sad
case, said Sahel to himself. My eloquent
persuasions were just beginning to produce
their effect. Of course they will now send a

12fl

HOUSEHOLD WOBDS.

[Conducted by

private messenger to me, begging me to lake
them to Abyssinia, but the king, my master,
took m> apart before I left him, and said
that one of the perfections of Mina must
1-f a. handsome dowry. How shall I get rid
of these poor people 'i

Meauwliile the merchant Zara, reduced to
poverty and flying IVoui his creditors, had de-
parted from Cairo, mingling with the humble
followers of a great caravan bound for Da-
mascus. For his own part he walked on foot,
but he had three or four little asses to carry
his wife, his daughter, and what property he
had been able to save. As he looked back
from the summit of a sandy hill, whence the
minarets of Cairo could be distinguished for
the last time, rising against the yellow sky
where the sun had set, he wept bitterly, and
in a moment of auger began almost to re-
proach his daughter, because she had not
accepted the wonderful offers made her. But
Martha wisely said : " If she had left us this
misfortune would nevertheless have happened,
and without her neither you nor I should
have been able to bear it." So thej 7 continued
their journey cheerfully, and Mina. made the
night hours pleasant by singing in a sweet
voice, to which other sweet voices in the air
overhead seemed to answer.

They travelled many days, and had more
than half concluded theii'jouruey; when, about
the hour of sunset a great tumult was heard
at the head of the caravan, and men and
beasts began to fly wildly in various
directions. The Arabs of the desert were
attacking the merchants for the sake of plun-
der ; and, whilst some resisted and others sur-
rendered, many sought safety in flight. Zara
with his wife and daughter entered a defile
of the mountains, and proceeded until the
sound of shouting and firing died away in the
distance. Then they halted under the shadow
of a rock, and determined to wait until morn-
ing. They passed the night undisturbed ; and,
when the sun rose over the yellow desert,
found themselves quite alone at the foot of a
range of mountains. They dared not ven-
ture over the broad expanse of sand, but
followed a valley at the extremity of which
were some trees. It happened that Mina
rode first. She knew not why ; but, since the
day had dawned, all her fears had vanished.
It seemed to her that this was not the first
time she had been in that country. The hills
were familiar to her, and the trees towards
which she was advancing drooped in an ac-
customed way. At length she uttered a loud
cry, and her father and mother hastening up,
found her gazing at a youth, dressed in pool-
garments, and apparently weakened by fa'
or sickness, sitting under the shade of a mi-
mosa. Her heart told her that this was to
be the lord of her destiny, but slu- did not at
once learn that .she was in the presence of
Michail.

Strange things had happened in Abyssinia
since the departure of Sahel. The king had

taken another vizier, a young man with old
ideas, and marvellous splendour at once sur-
rounded the throne. It was discovered that
the greatest happiness of the people consisted
in giving all they possessed to their rulers,
and a prodigious number of new taxes were
at once laid on. The king had five hundred
dishes on his table in a single day, so that he
never spoke of the absent Sahel except by the
irreverent name of jackass. It was clear
indeed, that the worthy old man knew no-
thing of finance. Feasting and jollity were
the order of the day, but alas for the
instability of human affairs ! Men never
know when they are well-governed ; and
some! ambitious wretch persuaded some
spiteful people that Sahel was not such a fool
after all. For his part, he expressed his
opinion in a very brutal manner ; for, one fine
morning, he attacked the king's palace, and
drove him with his son, who was too much
occupied with thoughts of Mina to know how
matters were going on, into exile. The king
and the prince escaped on board a vessel from
Massowa, and landed at an Arabian port,
whence they travelled, and after many dan-
gers arrived at the valley where the mer-
chant Zara and his family had found them.
By this time, the king had become quite a
j philosopher. " My son," said he, " the human
race is not worthy that the wise should
reign over them. Here are green trees and
pleasant waters. Let us abandon the cares
of government, and pass the remainder of
our days in retirement."

The good old man forgot that he was near
the end of his life, whilst Michail was only
just on the threshold. He was surprised,
therefore, when the young prince answered :
" I care not to reign over ungrateful men,
and, perhaps, my wisdom is not sufficient.
But I cannot rest in this valley unless I have
Mina with me." So it was agreed that as
soon as he had recovered his strength, he
should go to Cairo and seek for his beloved.
" At the same time," quoth the late king,
benevolently, " you may find that foolish old
man, Sahel. Say nothing to him about the
deplorable results of his policy, which I felt
after his departure, except to tell him that I
forgive all."

Michail led the merchant Zara and his
family to the hermitage which his father had
chosen in a very pleasant part of the valley,
and the remainder of that day was spent by
the wanderers in exchanging their stories.
AVhilst the old people spoke, however, Mina
and Michail sat near together, performing the
ceremony of betrothment with their eyes.

Here the narrative visibly draws to a close,
althmigh oriental legends rarely leave their
personages after they have fallen from wealth
to poverty without restoring them at least to
their former position. But it seems to have
been thought that perfect goodness and per-
fivt beauty may be sufficiently happy together
without wealth. The blessings of the spirit

Chnrlcs Dickens.]

POTICHOMANIA.

129

which did not include good fortune were
shared equally by the young couple. They
remained in the valley and adopted the man-
ner of life of the early father of nations, and
it is said that a city now exists on that spot,
far out of the track of commerce and travel,
protected from the visits of the evil-minded
by the spirits who still watch over the
posterity of their sister. The old king lived
beyond the natural term of humanity, and
attributed the prosperity of the little district
entirely to the wisdom of his own counsel.
They have learned by experience a mar-
vellous circumstance but it is necessary to
add that the foolish vizier Sahel was sum-
moned from Cairo, and when he fell into his
old master's arms and heard that he was for-
given, carefully concealed his face to hide one
smile and two tears, which the reader may
interpret as he pleases.

POTICHOMANIA.

WHAT new mania is this ? What is potiche
or poticho, and why need women have an
especial mania for it ? If potiche be some-
thing good, why not have potichotechuy,
or potichology, or potichonomy, or poticho-
somy , or potichography, or potichometry ?
A mania is almost as bad as a phobia : a
madness for, is as little pleasant as a madness
against ; and we may perchance yet have a
potichophobia as an antidote to the poticho-
mania. A learned pundit who has discoursed
on this subject for the benefit of the public,
reasons in this way that as metromania,
bibliomania, and nielomania, are irreproach-
able words, by which one expresses love of
poetry, love of books, and love of music
there seems no reason why we should not
invent the word potichomauia. He admits
that we have not yet become accustomed to
the sound of such a word ; but what of that ?
Is it not easier than angeiography, for a de-
scription of weights and measures 1 or than
ophthalmoxystic as a name for a little rye-ear
brush used to smooth the eyebrows 1 Thus
he claims the right to offer for academical
baptism the word potichomania, on the ground
that men are permitted or rather that
science is permitted, under etymological pre-
texts to add to modern languages by means
of the Greek. How far the academical Greeks
of the present day will approve of the compo-
site name, it will be for them to declare.
Potiches are said to be Chinese or Japanese
jars : and hence the new art becomes a frenzy
for jars a very pretty conclusion, which it is
to be hoped will be satisfactory to all parties.
That the art means something amusing, what-
ever the name may mean, is evident enough ;
for the advertising columns of the daily
journals inform us that Mr. So-and-so, for a
given number of shillings or guineas, will give
a certain number of lessons in potichomania,
whereby a lady may easily learn the elegant

art ; while colour-makers and print-sellers
adopt similar means of notifying to the world
that all the materials necessary for the prac-
tice of this art may be obtained at their
respective establishments.

To come to the gist of the matter, it
seems that potichomania is a method of
imitating in decorated glass, Japanese, or any
other specimens of ware or porcelain. There
seems no reason why pleasing and even
elegant results may not be obtained ; but if
it be used only as a means of imitating ugly
specimens of oriental workmanship, its
desirability as a means of art may be ques-
tioned. If, on the other hand, natural taste
be allowed fair play, there is no reason to
doubt that very elegant results may follow.

A recently published essay on the sub-
ject, shows that the list of working materials
is somewhat formidable, comprising glass
vases, or potiches, or cups, or plates, shaped
similarly to those made of pottery or porce-
lain ; a well-assorted selection of coloured
papers or gelatine sheets ; a fine-pointed
pair of scissors for cutting out ; tubes or
bottles of prepared colours of various tints ; a
bottle of a peculiarly prepared varnish ;
another bottle containing refined essence of
turpentine ; a bottle of melted gum ; a round
hog's-hair brash for gumming the paper or-
naments, another for varnishing, and two
flat brushes for colouring ; a vessel in which
the colours may be diluted; and a box
wherein to stow away all these treasures.
As to the means of procuring the glass
articles themselves, this must be left to the
skill of the glass-maker. The object is to
produce glass imitations of pottery and por-
celain articles ; and therefore the glass must
of course be wrought into a form consistent
with such a purpose. It may be a vase, or a
potiche, or a honey-pot, or a plate, or a cup
anything, in short, which has a smooth
surface (for articles with ornaments in relief
do not seem to be susceptible of this mode of
imitation) ; but the glass-worker must in any
case precede the ornamentalist.

Thoxigh most persons have a sort of
obscure notion that the colours on cups and
saucers, dishes, and plates, are in some way
burnt in, yet the delicacy and nicety of the
methods are little suspected. There is the
majolica ware of Italy, copied from the
Moorish pottery, adorned with copies of
paintings by Kaffaelle and his contempories,
and some specimens supposed to have been
painted by the hand of the great master him- j
self. There is the Delia JRobbia ware, so
named from a Florentine artist, who modelled
and sculptured excellent works in porcelain,
and then adorned them with enamel and gold
and colours. There is the Palissy ware, in-
vented by a man whose life was a continuous
romance, and presenting historical, mytho-
logical, and allegorical designs on grounds of
rich yellow and blue and gray. There is the
delft ware, with its beautiful enamel, its blue

130

HOUSEHOLD WORDS.

[Conducted by

Colours, and its designs copied from the old
Japan ]>roductious. Their are the stone
wares from Chiua and Japan, -which fre-
1 1 neatly serve as a coloured base for raised
ornaments of soft porcelain. Tliere are the
various Wedgwood wares, comprising the
( >ueen's and the Basalt, the Jasper ;iud the
Onyx, and other kinds. There are the old
Chelsea china, llotherham china, and Derby
china. There are the Dresden china and the
Botticher ware aud the Sevres china. In
short, if the reader knew how eagerly col-
lectors look out for the different varieties of
old pottery and porcelain, he would have
some clue to the origin of that desii'e which
exists to imitate in some degree those pro-
ductions : not to imitate for dishonest pur-
poses ; for he must be a shallow judge who
would mistake modern decorated glass for
old painted china. How the connoisseur dis-
tinguishes the poteries & pate-tendre from the
poteries a pate dur ; the poterie matt from
the poterie lustroe ; the poterie vernissoe from
the poterie emaillee ; the fayence Auglaise
from the fayence Franchise ; the Wedgwood,
the Botticher, the Palissy, the Delia liobbia,
the Majolica, the Sevres, the Dresden how
he learns to know these one from another, is
a part of his business as a collector and con-
noisseur ; but it may be worth knowing that,
from the nature of the process, some of these
varieties of ware are wholly unfitted to be
imitated on glass.

The imitative art to which the long Greek
name is given bears no analogy to that by
which these several kinds of ware are coloured
and adorned. Some of the coloured wares
have metallic figments mixed with the clay
whereof they are formed, which imparts
a uniform colour to the whole substance ;
while, in other cases, colours are mixed with
oils and turpentine, and are applied to the
surface of the ware with a pencil of camel-
hair, the fixture of the colour being ensured
by a subsequent process of fixing in a small
kiln or oven. Nor does the art resemble
that of the glass-stainer ; for this skilful
artist, after having sketched his design on
glass, has a most elaborate series of processes
to attend to : his mineral colours must be so
chosen as to form a sort of enamel with the
glass by the aid of heat ; and he must so
select the components of his colours that
whatever they may appear like when opaque,
they must appear brilliantly transparent
when applied to the glass.

No ; the potichomania, the jar frenzy, the
imitation of porcelain and pottery, must not
claim to rank either with porcelain-painting
or glass-staining. There is nothing chemical
about it, nothing that requires kilns, or
muffles, or ovens, nothing for which our
leading artists will be called upon to contri-
bute designs. Nevertheless, there is no reason
why it should not constitute a pretty lady-
like employment, susceptible of considerable
variety of application.

There have not been wanting imitations of
old Dutch china manufactured in wood. The
wood was turned in a lathe to the shape of a
jar, or urn, or vase ; the wooden counterfeit
was painted with oil colour ; flowers or orna-
ments were cut out of coloured printed calico
or linen ; these were pasted on in their proper
relative positions ; and the pseudo-Dutch or
Japanese production received its finishing
touch by means of a coat of varnish. But
this varnish had a tendency to crack, and it
seldom presented such a surface as could well
imitate the smooth glossy exterior of a real
product of the plastic art. Hence it is that
the inventors of the new process pride them-
selves on the higher philosophy of their
modus operandi. "They say, virtually if not
verbally, " See, our exterior is the real thing ;
the exterior of a porcelain vessel is a veritable
glass, for all enamel and glaze are true glass;
and our products exhibit a real glass.exterior,
untouched by colour or varnish of any kind,
ergo, our imitations are better than their
wooden predecessors." The validity of this
ergo depends upon the whereabouts and the
manner in which the coloured adornments
are applied. So long as sheets of paper or
cloth alone could be used, it may be doubted
whether the new art could have been prac-
tised to any satisfactory degree ; because
there is a solidity or opacity about them
which interferes with anything like trans-
lucency of effect. Every one knows that very
pretty sheets of gelatine are now made, which
receive colours of considerable brilliancy, and
have a semi-transparency, which adds greatly
to their ornate effect. Gold, too, may be
combined with the colours in a rich and deli-
cate degree ; and it is these qualities which
seem to have suggested the employment of
such a substance in the imitative art now
under notice. As to the manufacture of the
gelatine sheets themselves, it is one of the
countless examples afforded by modern che-
mistry of the production of useful substances
from that which is either refuse, or at most
a very common and cheap article. It is an
illustration of the Penny Wisdom which has
already received a little attention in House-
hold Words.* Glass being transparent, while
wood is opaque, and gelatine sheets being
more transparent than sheets of coloured
paper or coloured linen, we see at once the
basis on which the new art claims to have
some superiority over its predecessor. The
coloration is effected inside the gl ass : this
alone is sufficient to ensure a smooth exterior.
One of the novelties of late years has been
the production of brilliant globes and vessels
of glass, in which the brilliancy results from
the use of coloured glass coated behind with
a layer of silver. The new art has no direct
analogy with this ; but the one may serve, in
some degree, to show how the other may
produce softly-beautiful effects by the inter-

Vol. vi. p. 97-

Charles Dickens. I

POTICHOMANIA.

131

position of a glassy layer between the colours
and the eye.

The name which the inventors have chosen
to give to this imitative art is dependent on
the primary object of imitating the Chinese
or Japanese potiches or jars ; but a further
display of skill may enable the workers to
apply the process to glassy imitations of Sevres
and Dresden porcelain. The eastern products
are usually adorned with figures and plants
and animals ; but those of Europe aim at
applications of the historical and landscape
painter's products. The potichomanist (a very
hard word to apply to a lady) selects her glass
vase or jar, cup or plate, pot or dish, and then
sheets of coloured gelatine, such as will produce
the colours of the device to be imitated. With
her sharp-pointed scissors she cuts out the
little bits of gelatine requisite to produce the
device. This is probably the most difficult
part of the whole affair ; for not only must
the outlines of the device be carefully ob-
served, but also the juxtaposition of any two
or more colours which it may comprise.

The coloured gelatine, then, is cut into little
fragments, and the glass is clean and ready,
and the pencils or small brushes are at hand,
and the liquid gum is prepared, and the artist
is in a condition to proceed with the delicate
work. Sheets of gelatine are naturally adhe-
sive when wetted ; but pieces of coloured
paper may occasionally be used which have
no adhesive layer upon them. The wet-
ting or the gumming, are adopted according
to circumstances ; but either must be done
thoroughly, for it is of much importance to
the completeness of the process that the
cementing to the glass should be close and
perfect in every part. A linen pad or cloth
is applied delicately to ensure this closeness
of contact. There must be no bubbles of air
no branches of trees, or detached leaves of
flowers, or wings of insects, must curl up at
the corners and obtrude themselves unduly
upon notice. All must adhere closely to their
glass.

It must be observed, however, that these
gelatine sheets, if used at all, are not em-
ployed by themselves. The gelatine appears to
be simply a film on the front or face of the pic-
ture, which film, if damped, becomes adhesive
without the aid of gum. Our tasteful neigh-
bours across the Channel supply us with
these, as well as with the original idea
whereby the art has been created. Theirs
is the potichornanie, which we have changed
into potichomania ; and theirs are the sheets
of pictures Chinese ladies, landscapes with
impossible perspective, foliage, flowers, fruit,
birds, butterflies, arabesques, grotesques
printed in lithography, brilliantly coloured
and sold at six, nine, twelve, eighteen, or any
other number of pence per sheet. Some of
our teachers tell us to use hog's-hair brushes ;
some say camel's-hair ; but others, more pro-
vident than either, recommend both th
hog and the camel to our notice. The sclass

vessels themselves are apparently French,
although we know of no reason why English
glassblowers should not make them. The
potiches en verre, vases, allumette vases,
flower-pot covers, cups, and bowls, are many
of them well and gracefully shaped ; but we
would gently whisper, that if the glass were
a little more free from air-bubbles, it would
be better for the object in view ; because,
whether we would imitate the bluish tint of
old Sevres, or the greenish tint of Chinese,
or the nankeen tint of Etruscan, or the tints
of any other famous porcelain or pottery, we
can certainly get on better without bubbles
in the glass, than with them. It is a French
professor, too, who assures us that " the ex-
traordinary success which this art has ob-
tained may be easily accounted for, if we
remember that, after an easy, interesting
labour of a few hours, we see a simple glass
vessel transformed into a Chinese, Sdvres,
Dresden, or Japanese vase."

But the materials are only half the matter,
the processes are the other half; and we
follow our instructions, humbly and diligently,
thus :

We are especially, in the most energetic
terms, cautioned not to proceed to the next
process until the efficacy of the gum has been
well ascertained ; but, this done, we advance
to the varnishing. This varnish is intended
partly to secure the coloured devices in their
place, and partly to shield the gelatine from a
layer of oil colour afterwards applied. The
varnish is applied over the whole interior of
the vase or jar ; but being clear and colour-
less, it does not produce a disfigurement in
the general appearance. We presume that
the shape of the jar in respect to its mouth
and general proportion, must be such as will
admit of the artist's hand and varnish brush,
and bits of coloured paper. There is a little
vitreous conundrum occasionally to be seen,
consisting of Napoleon Bonaparte or an
English stage coach bottled up in a decanter,
or phial, whose mouth is far smaller than
the lateral dimensions of the great emperor ;
and the puzzle is, to find out how Napoleon
could possibly have got into the decanter,
or the Brighton mail into the phial. In
the present case, however, there is to be
no difficulty in putting in or taking out
anything which the jar or vase ought to
contain.

The varnishing being done, the painting
or colouring follows, the object of this is,
to give to the whole of the glass vessel a tint
and an opacity corresponding with the tint
and opacity of the specimen of pottery or
porcelain imitated an important and dif-
ricult part of the routine of processes ; for
the selection of ingredients, and the mode of
application, must each require much care.
The colour-men have prepared an ample list
of tints, to imitate the deadly white and the
delicately white, the creamy white and the
bluish white, the red lacquered, the black

132

HOUSEHOLD WOIIDS.

[.Conducted by

lacquered, the sea-green, the green yellow, the
gold dust, the deep gold, the Pompadour rose,
die deep blue, the bright blue, aud other
colours of pottery and porcelain ; and we are
told how, by employing zinc white, cobalt
blue, yellow ochre, vermilion, lake, ivory
black, Naples yellow, silver white, Veronese
ureen, yellow lake, bitumen, raw 3101111:1,
burnt sienna, cadmium, March violet, carmine.
ultramarine, gold varnish, gold powder, we
are told how all these, or some among the
number, combine to produce tints which will
imitate the ground colour of all varieties of
pottery aud porcelain. And we are cautioned
against numerous snares and pitfalls into
which our ignorance may lead us. If our
paint be too opaque, it will spread with diffi-
culty over the surface of the glass ; if it be
too thin, it will not cover the glass with suf-
ficient body ; if it be not equable in distribu-
tion, it will fail to imitate the homogeneity in
the appearance of porcelain ; if there be not
enough mixed at once, it will be difficult to
match the tint afterwards ; if it be made to
flow more easily, it may dry more tardily.
As to the mode of applying the colours, there
seems to be two varieties brushing and
flowing. The application with a brush is the
most obvious ; but the teachers assure us
that it is difficult to avoid inequalities in the
touch of the brush, and that, therefore, the
method of flowing or flooding is preferred.
In this process the liquid colour is poured
into the vessel, and is rolled about in every
direction, after which the surplus is poured
out into a cup or other receptacle. One flood-
ing seldom leaves a sufficient thickness or
opacity of colour, and a second is hence
required. This process is very similar to that
by which artificial pearls are produced. A
greyish liquid made from fish-scales being
blown through a little tube, a drop at a time,
into hollow glass beads, and then rolled
about.

Phrenologists say that man is blessed with
an organ of colour, the greater or lesser deve-
lopment of which indicates a greater or lesser
capacity for appreciating the chromatic ele-
ments of a picture ; and the potichomanist
hints pretty strongly that the success of a
student in this art will depend in a consider-
able degree on the magnitude of this said
organ. He declares first that the faculty of
what painters call colour, is not given to
every one ; he further declares that those
who possess this faculty will produce in
potichomania, as in painting, works far supe-
rior to the production of those who are not
endowed with it, inasmuch as the former will
be artists, while the latter will be nothing
more than skilful workmen, or clever imita-
tors ; he acknowledges that the art of poti-
chomania is still in its infancy ; but he roundly
prophesies that, like the great art of painting,
it will have its school, its masters, its disciples,
its imitators securing a place for itself
among decorative arts, developing its re-

; sources in the embellishment of our apart-
[ ments and furniture, and bringing honour
and praise to its artists. May the prediction
be verified, in spite of the jar-frenzy name
given to the art ! Glass has advanced much
in usefulness aud beauty, since the change in
the excise duties ; and unless grim war shall
urge the finance minister again to throw his
longing eyes to glass, we may hope that the
usefulness and the beauty, consequent in
great part on cheapness, will be yet farther
increased.

PASSING CLOUDS.

WHKRE are the swallows fled?

Frozen and dead,
Perchance upon some bleak and stormy shore.

O doubting heart !
Far o'er the purple seas,
They wait, in sunny ease,
The balmy southern breeze,
To bring them to their northern home once more.

Why must the flowers die ?

Prisoned they lie
In the cold tomb, heedless of tears or rain.

O doubting heart !
They only sleep below
The soft white ermine snow,
While winter winds shall blow,
To breathe and smile upon you soon again.

The sun has hid its rays

These many days ;
Will dreary hours never leave the earth ?

O doubting heart!
The stormy clouds on high
Veil the same sunny sky,
That soon (for spring is nigh)
Shall wake the summer into golden mirth.

Fair hope is dead, and light
Is quench'd in night.
What sound can break the silence of despair?

O doubting heart !
Thy sky is overcast,
Yet stars shall rise at last,
Brighter for darkness past,
And angels' silver voices stir the air.

CHAMBEHS IN THE TEMPLE.

FIFTEEN years ago, when I was a schoolboy
in Paris, wearing a uniform very much re-
sembling that of a Metropolitan policeman
(the dress is military now, and they have me-
tamorphosed my old college into an Imperial
Lyceum) eating a distressing quantity of
boiled haricots, washed down by the palest
of pink wine and water, and conjugating a
prodigious quantity of verbs, regular and ir-
regular the tenses of which have become so
very preterpluperfect since, that they have
faded clean away from my memory fifteen
years, then, since, there was an old gentleman
inhabiting the English, or, St. Honore quarter
of the French capital a white-headed, stormy,
battle and weather-beaten veteran of the salt
sea a rear-admiral in the English navy, and on

Chwles Dickti-.s..]

CHAMBERS IN THE TEMPLE.

133

the half-pay thereof. He had been celebrated
all over the world in his time for deeds of
daring and chivalrous bravery ; but that had
been a very long time ago ; and the ungrate-
ful generation among whom his latest years
those that were to be but labour and sor-
row were passed, celebrated only his eccen-
tricities and ignored, or were indifferent to
his glory. This is the way of the world, my
Christian friend. When you and T come to
be old men and should we ever have given
the world cause to talk about us we shall
find that the books we have written, the pic-
tures we have painted, or the statues we have
hewn, will be dismissed to oblivion with a
good natured contempt as things meritorious
enough in their way, but quite out of date ;
should we be worth paragraphs, or anecdotes,
they will have reference to the redness of our
noses, the patterns of our trowsers, our man-
ner of eating peas with our knives, our habit
of putting the left leg foremost when we walk,
or our assumed fondness for cold rum and
water. The Duke of Marlborough's petty
avarice and hagglings with the Bath-chair-
men were talked about long after the con-
queror of Blenheim was forgotten, and the
nation had even grumbled about paying for
the palace it had voted him in the first out-
burst of its gratitude. Lord Peterborough
walking from market in his blue ribbon, with
a fowl under one arm, and a cabbage under
the other, quite threw into the shade Lord
Peterborough the hero of Almanza. When-
ever the name of the Marquis of Granby
occurs to us now-a-days, it is in connection
with the Incorporated Association of Licensed
Victuallers, with foreign wines, beer, and to-
bacco not with battles won, or sieges suc-
cessfully conducted. Whose aquiline nose,
white ducks, and hat-saluting fingers, were
household words in London to the populace,
who had forgotten Waterloo, when they
smashed the windows of Apsley House with
stones, because its owner was an enemy to
Reform ? Whose children grin now at the
caricatured presentments of the prominent
nose and plaid trowsers of the man who was
the greatest orator, the greatest advocate, the
greatest reformer of the law, England has
ever seen, and who thirty years since shook
this realm from end to end by the thunder
of his eloquence, and dashed down walls of
corruption, one after another, with his im-
petuous hand ] The world is as ungrateful,
as fickle, as petulant as a woman. I war-
rant Omphale rapped the fingers of Her-
cules when, sitting at her feet a-spinning,
he happened to ravel the flax. He who had
vanquished the Nemsean lion, and quelled the
Erymanthiau boar, was forgotten in the care-
less spinner. So it was with the old gentle-
man whom I knew in Paris fifteen years ago.
People talked of the strange fancy he had
of leading an old white horse about the
streets, on which he never rode ; much mer-
riment was excited by the rumour that he

slept with his head through a hole in a
blanket (I am not exaggerating) the quid
nuncs of the Rue St. Honore and the Champs
Elysees were infinitely amused at his strange
ways, his loud and rambling talk, his general
oddity of manner ; very few people cared to
remember that before most of them were born
he was famous over the whole world as the
English Commodore Sir SIDNEY SMITH, the
heroic defender of Acre, the scourge of the
French navy from the lofty three-decker to
the smallest chasse-maree, and nearly the only
man for whom the great Napoleon the impas-
sible, ambitious, who no more deigned to love or
hate men, with him, or against him, any more
than Mr. Staunton, the chess-player, loves or
hates the pawns in his game condescended
to entertain a violent personal dislike. Sir
Sidney Smith used coolly to declare that
Napoleon was jealous of him. It is certain
that he annoyed and chafed the Great Man
horribly, and in Egypt drove him to the per-
petration of a very sorry joke, having posi-
tively challenged him to single combat, which
Napoleon declined, till having rather an
exalted idea of the " foeman worthy of his
steel " he could produce the ghost of the
great Duke of Marlborough.

Sir Sidney Smith died in Paris ; but it is
not with his death or latter days that I have
to do. I wish to tell the story of his escape
from certain chambers which he occupied in
the Temple, while he was yet the famous com-
modore, admired by Europe, and hated by
the French Directory, and especially by
General Bonaparte. How much of strict
historic truth there may be in the story, it is
not for me to say. The journals of the period
tell pretty nearly the same tale ; but even
newspapers will occasionally err, and even
the buckets of grave history writers often
stop short of the bottom of the well of
verity.

Sir Sidney Smith, taken prisoner in a
daring cutting-out expedition on the coast of
Brittany, was confined in the prison of the
Temple in Paris, in the year seventeen hun-
dred and ninety-eight. Some idea may be
formed of the importance which the republican
government attached to his capture and de-
tention to the fact, first, that the Directory
refused to liberate him in exchange for M.
Bergeret, a post-captain in the French navy,
and again, on another occasion, positively re-
fused to receive as an equivalent for his
person no fewer than twelve thousand French
prisoners ! A man worth ten thousand pounds
is something ; but a sea captain not to be
bought for twelve thousand fighting men is,
indeed, rich and rare.

Unfortunately even distinction has its
embarrassments, and such was the store set
by the safe keeping of Sir Sidney by his
captors, that his confinement was of the most
rigorous description. Verdun or Biche was
good enough for ordinary prisoners of war ; but
the redoubtable commodore was transferred

134

HOUSEHOLD WORDS.

[Conducted by

to the Tower of the Temple that gloomy
revolutionary Bastile, the scene of tin

- of Louis the Sixteenth ami Marie An-
toinette, and of the slow agony and death of
the poor little captive dauphin the tower
that was afterwards to witness the darkest
episodes of the Consulate the reported
suicides, but whispered murders, of Pichegru
and Captain Wright the last adieux of the
simple, yet desperate, Cliouaus the stern
presence of their leader Georges Cadoudal. In
the Temple, then, Sir Sidney Smith was in-
carcerated. The guards were doubled, the
defences strengthened, all communication
from without was denied him, and the most
rigid surveillance was exercised over all his
actions.

Once having got their prisoner safe within
the four strong walls of the Temple, however,
isolated him from all exterior influences, and
placed a strong guard over him, the Directory
did not feel it necessary to treat him with any
great personal severity. They did not load
him with chains, they did not lock him up in
a, dungeon, they did not feed him upon bread
and water. Sir Sidney was amply provided
with pecuniary resources, and was allowed to
keep himself. Apartments, the most commo-
dious that the prison could afford, were
allotted to him, and, furthermore, he was
allowed to maintain something like an esta-
blishment of domestics. Besides Captain
Wright, who acted as his secretary, he had a
cook, a valet, and notably an English servant,
half groom, half confidential man, called
Sparkes. The cook and valet were freemen,
and Frenchmen ; Sparkes had been taken pri-
soner at the same time as the commodore, but
the condition attached to the French who
were permitted to attend upon Sir Sidney
was, that they should share his imprisonment
not one was permitted to pass the outer gate
of the Temple.

I am not aware whether it has ever been
the lot of any of the ladies or gentlemen who
read this to have suffered the slow torture of
imprisonment. I hope not ; but if any such
there be, they will readily understand how
prone is the human mind, when the body is
incarcerated, to devote itself to the culinary
art. Most prisoners are good cooks, or, at
least, love good eating. The man with the iron
mask was a gourmand. The sham dauphin
(one of the nine hundred and ninety-nine
sham dauphins) who called himself Duke de
Nortnandie, and had passed three-fourths of
his existence in the different prisons of Europe,
was renowned for the confection of roast
turkey stuffed with chestnuts. When confined
in Ste Pelagic, in eighteen hundred and thirty-
three, it was a matter of daily occurrence to
hear a cry from his fellow prisoners of " Capet,
is the turkey nearly ready ?" and the pseudo-
descendant of St. Louis would answer, " I am
dishing it." The late Mr. Rush, on the
memorable occasion of his trial, addressed
a very specific and emphatic billet-doux from

his retreat in Norwich Castle to the eating-
house keeper opposite, commanding pig, " and
plenty of plum sauce." I have seen in White-
cross Street prison an analytical chemist
frying pancakes, and it was once my fortune
to know, in the Queen's Bench, a doctor
of divinity whose mockturtle soup would
have rather astonished Mr. Farrance of
Spring Gardens. Now, though Sir Sidney
Smith on shipboard would have been per-
fectly content with ship's cookery, salt junk,
salt horse, or salt mahogany, as it is indif-
ferently called ; plum duff, grey pea-soup,
sea pie, lobscouse, weevilly biscuit, and new
rum no sooner did he find himself immured
in the Temple, than he fell into the ordinary
idiosyncrasy of prisoners, and became an
accomplished bon-vivant. The choicest of
fish, flesh, and fowl were procured from the
Parisian market, and (after being strictly ex-
amined at the gate to see whether they con-
tained any treasonable missives) furnished
forth, by no means coldly, his prison table.
The famous roast beef of Old England was
seen, and smoked within those gloomy walls.
Sir Sidney had endless disputes with the
French cook concerning the thickness of
melted butter, the propriety of potatoes ap-
pearing at table with their skins on ; the
injury done to a rumpsteak by beating
it ; the discretion necessary in the employ-
ment of garlic, and the number of hours
necessary to be devoted to the boiling of a
plum-pudding. The cook would not boil it
long enough. Unless closely watched, he
would withdraw it furtively from the pot,
hide it in secret places till dinner-time, and
declare stoutly that it had been boiling eight
hours when it had not been three on the fire.
But, errors excepted, the captives lived as
well as those bellicose bipeds of the galli-
naceous breed whose spur-combats were
formerly the delight of our British nobility,
are popularly supposed to live. Nor were
good liquids wanting to wash down these
succulent repasts. For the first time, per-
haps, in France that noble compound, the
punch of the United Kingdom (for England,
Scotland, and Ireland are all equally famous
for it) was brewed within the prison walls ;
and every Frenchman who tasted it even
the rabidest enemy of " Pitt et Cobourg "
thenceforth renounced the small-beer julep,
half sour, half syruppy, thitherto misnamed
" punch " abroad. Brandy, sherry, and claret
also formed part of the commodore's cellar,
and, in particular, he had laid in a supply of
admirable old port wine rare old stuff
bottles of liquid rubies, in a setting of rich
crust and cobwebs. Money can do almost
anything in any times. It can break the
sternest of blockades, and, though it could
not get Sir Sidney Smith out of prison, it
could procure him a supply of the primest
wines in the English market. The French
cook admired the old port wine hugely. He
discovered that ' : porto " was required for a

Charles Dickens.]

CHAMBE11S IN THE TEMPLE.

135

great many dishes and sauces. He was dis-
covered in the kitchen one day by Sparkes,
weeping bitterly into a stew-pan, by the side
of an empty port wine bottle. He declared
on that occasion, with some thickness of utter-
ance, that the Directory were brigands, and
the National Assembly thieves, and that the
name of the legitimate ruler of France was
Louis the Eighteenth. He was very pale and
shaky next day, affected great republican
sternness, and insisted more than ever upon
being called "citizen," and "Junius Brutus,"
when, honest man, his name was Jean Bap-
tiste all over, from his slippers to his white
nightcap. These details may probably seem
useless ; but the commodore's port wine had
more to do with his escape from his chambers
in the Temple than you may at present imagine.
One gilt and burnished afternoon in the
autumn of this same year 'ninety-eight, a
party of four persons were assembled in Sir
Sidney Smith's sitting-room in the Tower of
the Temple. One of these persons was Cap-
tain Wright, whom, as he has nothing further
to do -with this history, I need not specially
describe. Tli'e second was Sir Sidney Smith,
then in all the pride and vigour of his man-
hood a little pale, perhaps, through want of
exercise, but a comely man, and fair to look
upon. He had his hair powdered, and wore
top-boots, which would seem somewhat
strange articles of costume for a naval officer,
albeit in plain clothes, in these days, but were
the fashion in 'ninety-eight. The third was
Mr. Sparkes, his body servant. Mr. Sparkes
was of the middle height, and remarkably
stout, though anything but corpulent in the
face. He was so stout about the chest, that
you could scarcely divest yourself of the im-
pression that he had more than one waistcoat
on. Perhaps he had. A very low forehead
had Mr. Sparkes, and a very voluminous
allowance of bushy red hair. He was
freckled, and his chin was lost in the folds
of his ample cravat. He had a consider-
able impediment in his speech, which caused
him to speak slowly, and not often, and not
much at a time ; but he was a great humorist,
and was an enormous favourite among the
prison officials for his droll sayings, and foi
the hideously execrable manner in which he
pronounced the French language. A thorough
Briton an incorrigible "rosbif" was Sparkes
said they there were some hopes of the com-
modore acquiring a decent knowledge o:
French after a few years' residence, but as for
Sparkes, he would never learn, not he
Doctor Jollivet, the prison surgeon, who hac
been in England, and spoke ravishing English
declared J ohu as " tout ce qu'il y avait de
plus Coqueui" by which, it is to be pre-
sumed, he meant Cockney. Sparkes hac
been brought up, he said, with the com-
modore, which accounted for a certain degree
of familiarity with which he treated him, auc
which he was far from showing to the other
servants. This present golden afternoon John

lalf stood behind his master's chair, half
eaned against the side-board. He was at-
.entive in supplying the wants of the other
iersons present, but he did not neglect to
ielp himself liberally from a special bottle of
jort behind him, nor did he refrain from
oining, from time to time, in the conver-
sation.

The fourth person of this group, and who
sat at the end of the table facing the Commo-
dore, was a Frenchman, a very important
aerson, too, you are to know, being Citizen
Mutius Sctevola Lasne (formerly Martin),
concierge, keeper or head gaoler of the Temple.
He was responsible for the safe-keeping of
the prisoners with his head. He slept every
night with the prison keys under his pillow.
He knew where the secret dungeons the
underground cachots and cabanons were,
and what manner of men were in them. He
was not a man to be despised.

Citizen Lasne was a very large, fat man,
with a small head. Gaolers generally are,
but let that pass. Now there is no medium
of character or disposition in large fat men
with small heads. They ai'e either intolerably
vicious, slowly cruel, stolidly hard-hearted, mis-
chievously stupid, torpidly revengeful, dully
selfish, sensual and avaricious, or else they
are lazy, good-natured, genial, soft-hearted
giants, mere toasts and butter, giving freely,
lending freely, spending freely, always ready
to weep at a pitiful tale, to sing the best song
they know, to lend you their best umbrella,
and to walk wheresoever you wish to lead
them. It is the same with bald-headed men
who wear spectacles. They are either atro-
cious villains or amiable philanthropists. The
races admit of no mediocrity. Citizen Lasne
happened, luckily for his prisoners, to be a
large fat man, of the second or soft-hearted
category. His exterior was rugged and his
moustache was fierce. He was as stupid as
the libretto of an opera, and as vain as a dab-
chick ; but his nature was honest, simple,
confiding, and compassionate. He was the
foolish, fat scullion of Sterne metamorphosed
into a man. He would have spared a flea
when he caught him, a three-bottle flea,
drunk with his life blood, and giddy with
leaping over his body. He would do any-
thing for a prisoner save allow him to escape,
for, like all slow men, he had a fixed idea,
and this fixed idea confirmed him in, and
kept continually before him, the conviction
that one prisoner the less in the Temple
(unless legally discharged), was one head the
less upon his own shoulders. This is why he
always inspected the bolts, bars, and locks of
the doors and windows every night, set the
watch, and slept with the keys of the Temple
under his pillow.

Citizen Lasne liked drink. For port wine
he conceived an immoderate affection. His
liking for that beverage was pleasingly gra-
tified, as the Commodore frequently invited
him to his table. Misery makes us acquainted

136

HOUSEHOLD WORDS.

[Conducted by

with strange bedfellows, and a gaol makes a
man take up with strange boon companions.
These eyes have seen the son of an earl hob-
nobbing at a prison tap with an insolvent
boot-closer. On. his own quarter-deck, in
London, at St. James's, Sir Sidney Smith
would doubtless have been as dignified, not
to say haughty, aa an Englishman and a com-
modore has a right to be. In the state cabin
of his own flag-ship he would decidedly not
have hobnobbed with Bob Catskin, the boat-
swain's mate. But a prisoner in the Temple,
far from home, almost solitary, any com-
panionship was welcome to him. This is why
he so often invited Citizen Lasne to dinner
and to supper. This is why that fat citizen
sat facing him at the table on the golden
autumn afternoon I treat of.

The citizen having eaten like an ox (he
approved of English cookery much), was now
drinking like a fish. He could stand a pro-
digious quantity of drink, all fat men can.
Only as he drank, his eyes, which were small
and round, appeared to diminish still further
in volume, for the little penthouses of his
eyelids began to droop somewhat, and his
round rosy cheeks to puff out upwards and
laterally, while the eyes themselves seemed
to recede into their orbits, as though they
were lazy with repletion, and were throwing
themselves back in their easy-chairs.

The table was covered with plates of fruit
and decanters of wine, from both of which
Citizen Lasne was helping himself largely,
the others in moderation. The citizen drank
his old port out of a tumbler, the starveling
and effeminate thimblefulls known as English
wine-glasses not having as yet penetrated into
the Temple. He persisted on calling the port
"a little wine," un petit vin d&licieux,
meanwhile taking hearty gulps of the libelled
liquor ; for it is a mighty and generous wine,
yea, that invigorateth the frame, and
maketh the hearts of men strong within
them. It hath cheered the vigils of great
scholars, and armed brave warriors for the
fray, port wine. As the citizen drank, how-
ever, it was evident that the fixed idea was
anything but dormant within him ; for he
watched his host's countenance from time to
time narrowly, and in the midst of his hilarity
and talkativeness there would occasionally
flit across his fat face an expression almost of
alarm, for Sir Sidney was taciturn, pensive,
evidently pre-occupied, drank little, and leant
his head on his hand.

" May I pass for a ' suspect,' " he cried sud-
denly, laying down his glass, " if I drink
another drop."

" What's the matter, Father Latchkey ? "
asked Mr. Sparkes in French, far too ungrani-
matical to transcribe here. " Wine gone the
wrong way, swallowed a fly ? Why you
look as if you saw a tile in the bottom of your
glass, and a bunch of skeleton keys in the
Commodore's face."

"May I sneeze in the sawdust" (when a

person is guillotined, his head falls into a
basketful of sawdust) u if the citizen prisoner
of war is not thinking of his Three Muses at
this very moment."

The "Three Muses" were three royalist
ladies, hiding their real names under the
fabulous sobriquets of Thalia, Melpomene, and
Clio, who had long and successfully evaded the
pursuit of the police, and who were noto-
riously continually conspiring to effect the de-
liverance of Sir Sidney Smith. It should be
known that at this period, notwithstanding
the sanguinary severity of the Republican
government against the Royalists, France
and Paris swarmed with secret emissaries
from foreign powers, known as "alarmists,"
" accapareurs ; " but more under the generic
name of " agents de 1'etranger," and by the
populace as " Pitt-et-Cobourgs." There were
agents from London, from Vienna, from Ber-
lin, and from Amsterdam. There were agents
in the army, the navy, the salons, the public
offices, the ante-chambers of the ministry ;
among the .box -openers at theatres, the
ruai-ket - women in the Halle, the coach-
men on the stand, all well supplied with
money, all indefatigable in obtaining informa-
tion, in fomenting re-actionary disturbances,
in promoting the escape of political prisoners.
I might fill a book with anecdotes of Conrad
Kock, the Dutch banker (guillotined) ; Ber-
th old Proly (guillotined) ; the two Moravian
brothers Frey, and their sister Leopoldine ;
Andre -Marie Guzman, the Spaniard, who
actually so far ingratiated himself into the
confidence of Marat that the last letter the
famous terrorist ever wrote was to him ;
Webber, the Englishman, whose mission it
was to obtain plans of French fortified towns,
and paid twelve thousand francs for one of
Douai ; one Greenwood, who was specially
employed to give dinners to distressed
Royalists ; Mrs. Knox ; and especially the
two famous Pitt-et-Cobourgs, Dicksou and
Winter, who braved the Terror, the Direc-
tory, the Consulate and the Empire, and only
gave up business in eighteen hundred and
fifteen. It was pretty well known to the
police, when our fat friend alluded to the
Three Muses, that an intricate and elaborate
network of intrigues, plots and counterplots,
existed for the release of Sir Sidney Smith ;
that neither money nor men were wanting to
effect this, should an opportunity occur ; and
that persons secretly powerful were working
night and day to bring that opportunity about.
This is why the English Commodore had
been so particularly recommended to Citizen
Lasue, and why the fixed idea I have men-
tioned was so prominent in that patriot's mind.

" You will pardon me, Citizen Commo-
dore," the gaoler continued, rising, but cast-
ing a loving look at the decanters, " but I
don't like to see you look thoughtful. Think-
ing means running. I must go and examine
all the locks, and order the night-watch to be
doubled."

Chnrles Dickens.]

CHAMBERS IN THE TEMPLE.

137

" A man may be thinking of his home and
friends, his King and country, without me-
ditating an escape there and then, my good
Lasne," Sir Sidney said with a quiet smile.

"Ah," objected the gaoler, shaking his fat
Lead, "but you've too many friends in Paris,
citizen prisoner. Your King sends too many
guineas and spies over here. There are hun-
dreds of them between here and the Rue St.
Antoine at this moment, I'll be bound. Very
kind indeed to think of your friends, but if
you should feel inclined to say bonjour to
them, my only friend would be Chariot (the
public executioner).''

If citizen Lasne could have spoken English,
and have made a pun, he might have said
that that only friend would have cut him.
But he was a stupid fat man, and could do
neither.

" Make your mind easy, my friend," replied
Sir Sidney Smith, "I will promise you not to
escape to-night."

" You promise ! then it's all right : you
promise mind," ejaculated citizen Lasne,
joyfully.

" I give you my word."

" Then give me some more wine," cried this
merry fat man. "More Porto, Monsieur
Sparkes, my dear, ho ! ho ! "

With which he sat down, and held out his
tumbler with his great fat doughy hand, that
looked as if it had just been kneaded, and was
ready for the bakehouse.

" More port, more port," grumbled or pre-
tended to grumble Mr. Sparkes, filling the
bacchanalian's glass to the brim, "What an
old forty-stomach it is. He blows his wind-
bags out like a sail. There'll be bellows to
mend before long. Here's more port for
you."

"'Tis good, my friend, 'tis an exquisite
little wine. Yet a little more. A drop
guggl-gl-gl-gl" and he continued to drink.

The gaoler knew that Sir Sidney Smith
was a man of inflexible honour and integrity ;
that to him his word as a sailor, a knight, a
gentleman, was sacred. So he put the fixed
idea out to grass for a time, and drank more
port.

But port, though an exquisite little wine,
will tell its tale, and have its own way with
a man at last, like labour, like age, like
death. The citizen Lasne became very
talkative indeed, which showed that he was
getting on ; then he sang a song, which
showed that he was getting further on; then he
essayed to dance, which showed that he was
getting drunk ; then he told a story about a
pig in the South of France, and cried : which
showed that he was very drunk indeed.

" Citizen Commodore," he said all at once,
"would you like to take a walk on the
Boulevard ? "

At this strange proposition Sir Sidney
turned his eyes to the barred window. The
rays of the setting sun threw the shadows of
the bars upon the wall : the bright light was

between. And the gentle breeze of the even-
ing came into the room like the whisper of
an angel.

The hum and murmur of the great city
came up and smote the captive upon the ear,
gently, lovingly, gaily, as though they said,
" Come, why tarry ? you are invited." And
the birds were singing outside upon the
gloomy terrace, where the little dauphin used
to walk.

" Monsieur Lasne," answered the Commo-
dore, stifling a sigh, " there are subjects upon
which it is both unjust and cruel to jest."

" But I'm not jesting."

" But do you really mean to say that you
would consent ..."

" Once more, would you like to take a walk
on the Boulevard ? "

" Would you like to take a walk on the
Boulevard 1 " bawled Sparkes, applying his
mouth to his master's ear, as though he were
deaf.

" If you are speaking seriously," Sir Sidney
said at last, " I can but accept the offer with
the greatest gratitude."

" Seriously, of course I am," replied citizen
Lasne, rising, and shaking off the load ot
port wine from his fat form, as though it
were a cloak, and really succeeding in
standing straight. " First, though, let us
make our little conditions. No attempts at
escape."

" Oh, of course not," replied the Commo-
dore.

" No speaking to any one you meet on the
road. No Muses ; no words, gestures ; not
a nod, not a wink."

" I promise all this."

" On the word of an honest man."

" On the word of an English gentleman," an-
swered the Commodore firmly.

" Come along then," cried the gaoler, as if
perfectly satisfied, linking his arm in that of
his prisoner, and moving towards the door :
" you shall see of what stuff the boulevards
of Paris are made, Citizen Commodore."

Although this fat turnkey had drunk a pro-
digious quantity of port wine, he did not
seem, once on his legs, so very much the
worse for liquor. He gave one of his legs a
little pat as if to reproach it for having been
shaky, and took a last gulp of port by way of
a final clench or steadier. Only his little
eyes began to flame and sparkle greatly,
which from the general dulness of his coun-
tenance gave him the appearance of having
an evening party inside his head, and having
had the windows lighted up.

The pair were going out when Citizen
Lasne was aware of Mr. Sparkes, who leaned
against the sideboard with his arms folded,
looking anything but contented with the
general aspect of affairs.

" A citizen who has poured me out so
many tumblers of good wine," said the gaoler,
graciously, " deserves some little considera-
tion at my hands. Pass your word for him too,

138

HOUSEHOLD WORDS.

[Conducted by

Commodore, and Citizen Spark shall come
with us."

" You have my word," Sir Sidney said,
laughing. " Sparkes shall make no attempt
at escape."

" You might have asked me for my word,"
grumbled Mr. Sparkes. " That would have
been quite sufficient. A nice republican you
must be to think that the word of a gentle-
man's servant is not as good as that of a gen-
tleman. Is that your fraternity, or equality,
or whatever you call it?"

" Liberty, equality, and fraternity," replied
Citizen Lasne, with vinous gravity, " are very
pretty to look at on the two-sous pieces ; but
the heart of man is deceitful. However," he
added, " may I pass for a ci-devant, Citizen
Spark, if I think that you would play me
false. Citizen, come along. Citizen Secre-
tary (to Captain Wright) I recommend my-
self to your distinguished consideration till
we return. Au Boulevard ! "

He led the Commodore away, and Sparkes
followed close at their heels, as a well-bred
gentleman's servant should do. A few
minutes afterwards the three were outside
the great gate of the Temple. The Commo-
dore had taken care to wrap himself in a
cloak, and to slouch his hat over his head.
As long as the sun remained on the horizon
the party wandered about the Daedalus of
narrow little streets which then surrounded,
and even now to a certain extent surround
the Temple. As it grew dark, the Commo-
dore proposed that they should take the pro-
mised walk on the Boulevard.

Now Citizen Lasne, in regard to liquor,
was somewhat of a spongy nature and tem-
perament. He could suck up an astonishing
quantity of moisture, but such moisture was
very easily expressed by a few minutes' exer-
cise, and then the citizen was dry, porous, on
the alert and ready for more. When Citizen
Lasne left the Temple with his prisoners he
was considerably more than seven-eighths
drunk. He had not been long in the fresh
air before the fixed idea began to dominate
over his mind with redoubled force. He
began to repent of his somewhat too chival-
rous confidence in the parole of his captives.
He began to repent heartily of his impru-
dence. He began, finally, like Falstaff, to
perceive that he had been an ass ; and, worse
than all, that hfe had effected that undesir-
able metamorphosis himself.

As they walked he scrutinised narrowly
the countenances of the passers by to see if
any marks of recognition passed between
them and his companion. And almost inces-
santly he glanced over his shoulder to assure
himself of the whereabout of Citizen Spark.
That trusty servant was contented with ti'eail-
ing most faithfully upon his gaoler's heels,
and with saying, when he caught his eye,

" All right, citizen all right."

If the fumes of the wine had been com-
pletely, instead of very nearly, evaporated

from the cerebellum of Citizen Lasne, he
would have remarked a little circumstance
which might have led him to entertain very
grave suspicions concerning the safety of his
prisoners. Ever since the party had quitted
the Temple, they had been followed, step by
step, by a female figure closely shawled and
veiled ; and Sir Sidney could distinctly hear,
though the gaoler from a trifling singing and
buzzing in his ears, could not, the sound of
stops behind them, regularly keeping time
with their own.

The night was dark, and Lasne, determined
to keep his word at all hazards, proceeded
towards the Boulevard. At the moment when
the three were turning the angle of the Rue
Chariot a hand was laid on the arm of Citizen
Sparkes, and a timid voice whispered

" Monsieur le Comte."

Sparkes turned his head round, without
slackening his pace.

"I saw you start," whispered the veiled
female, for she was the owner of the hand and
voice. " I have informed my sisters. Roche-
cotte and De Phelippaux are in readiness.
One word and the Commodore shall be rescued
from the hands of that wretch."

" But the Commodore will not say that
word," answered Citizen Sparkes, in very pure
and elegant French.

" And in heaven's name, why ? "

" He has given his word, as a gentleman,
not to attempt to escape to-night."

"And you " the veiled figure con-
tinued.

" Oh, as for me the Commodore was secu-
rity for me but "

The night grew darker, and darker, and the
three strange companions, with the phantom
in the veil, were lost in the tumultuous sea of
life upon the great Boulevards.

There was no Boulevard des Italiens then ;
no Rue de la Paix, no Madeleine, no Asphalte
pavements, no brilliant passages, no gas-lamps.
But the Boulevards were still the Boulevards,
unequalled and unrivalled ; the crowds of
promenaders and loungers were still the same,
though attired in costumes far different from
those they wear now. They passed some
dozen of theatres, they passed Monsieur Cur-
tius's wax-work exhibition ; they passed num-
berless groups of tight-rope dancers, jugglers,
mountebanks, learned dogs and quack doc-
tors. All at once, just as they had arrived at
the spot where the Passage Veudome has
since been constructed, Citizen Lasne uttered
an exclamation of horror and surprise.

" By heavens ! " he cried, " Spark has dis-
appeared ! "

It was but too true, the body servant
of Sir Sidney Smith was no where to be
seen.

In his terror and agitation the unlucky
gaoler quite forgot his republican character.
1 1 < was within a hair's breadth of making the
sign of the cross ; but remembering that reli-
gion had been done away with according to

Charles Dickens.]

CHAMBEES IN THE TEMPLE.

139

law long since, he twirled his moustache
instead.

" May heaven grant," said the Commodore
to himself, " that the poor fellow has really
succeeded in making his escape." Then
he added, aloud, " Sparkes has no doubt
lost us."

" Lost us," cried the concierge, furiously,
" lost us ! yes, to find himself in London.
I am ruined, destroyed. Citizen, citizen,
I am a poor man, the father of a family,
I have a head I know I shall lose it let
us hasten home like the very devil."

He seized the Commodore's arm tightly as
he spoke, and quickened his pace ; and Sir
Sidney had no alternative but to walk as fast
as his companion. They ascended the Boule-
vard, and then rapidly descended the Eue du
Temple.

But the tribulations of Citizen Lasne had
not yet reached their culminating point. At
the top of the Rue Meslay they found the tho-
roughfare obstructed by a numerous crowd.
Men of equivocal appearance hovered about,
and formed suspicious groups. Some carts
and barrows had been over-turned in the
road-way, evidently with the intention of
forming a barricade. Lasne cast round him
a desperate look. A gaoler, he scented a con-
spiracy from afar off.

" And where may you be taking this honest
man, citizen," asked a man, placing himself
directly in Lasne's way. The man wore a
coarse blue blouse, but the ill-buttoned collar
showed something most suspiciously like a
lace shirtfrill beneath.

" Room there ! " cried Lasne, to whom des-
pair lent courage.

" You're in a hurry, Citizen Donkey. If I
relieve you of the care of that ci-devant who
is hanging on your arm, don't you think you
could walk faster 1 "

' Room there ! " repeated the gaoler in a
hoarse voice. " Room in the name of the
Directory, in the name of the Republic "

" One and indivisible ! " interrupted the
man in the blouse. " We know all about it.
Hallo ! attention there ! "

The groups closed up. Citizen Lasne felt
himself hustled, buffetted, half-strangled.
Then he was violently dragged down a bye-
street and thrust into a doorway. When he
recovered his scattered senses, he was alone
the Commodore had disappeared.

" Oh my children, my poor children," mur-
mured Citizen Lasne, pursuing his solitary
walk towards the Temple. " What will be-
come of them 1 Oh accursed be Pitt and
Coburg ! O thrice accursed be the wine of
Porto ! "

A fat man in a fright is 'not a pleasant
sight to see. He always puts me in mind of
a pig just poniarded by the butcher, and
running about in extremis. The legs of
Citizen Lasne quivei'ed under him. A cold
perspiration broke out all over him. He felt
like a lump of ice in his backbone. The ends

of his hair pricked his forehead ; the singing
in his ears loudened into a yell. The pores of
his flesh opened and shut like oysters ; and
the whole of his inside became incontinent
one mass of molten lead.

As he neared the Temple, the opposite sides
of the street formed themselves into a horrible
proscenium, and in the middle an infernal
drama was being acted. He saw, painted all
in red, somebody having the hair at the back
of his- head shaved off by somebody else
hideously like M. Samson, otherwise called
Chariot, the public executioner ; then some-
body being strapped upon a plank and thrust
head downwards bet ween .two posts, in grooves
of which ran a huge triangular axe. And
the axe fell with a " thud," and somebody's
head fell into a red basket full of sawdust,
and the fiends that were yelling in his ear
called out " Citizen Lasne, Citizen Lasne, agent
of Pitt et Coburg." And the devil danced
before the theatre, playing upon a pipe.

The unhappy gaoler reached the Temple
gate. He rang and was about to enter, when
he heard a voice behind him.

" Will you permit me also to enter, Monsieur
Lasne 1 "

The citizen could hardly believe his ears.
Much harder was it for him to believe his
eyes, when, turning round, he recognised Sir
Sidney Smith.

" May I be consumed," (he used a stronger
term than this), cried Citizen Lasne, " if the
word of a gentleman is not worth all the bolts
and bars in the Temple."

Notwithstanding his high eulogium upon a
gentleman's word, Citizen Lasne did not for-
get to see the bolts and bars properly secured
as soon as he got inside. But a vigorous
pressure from without prevented the closing
of the great door, and a voice was heard
crying,

" Let me in ! let me in ! 'Tis I, Sparkes."

" And where the wonder,' 1 (he used even a
stronger term this time), " do you come from?"
asked Citizen Lasne, when the Commodore's
body-servant had been admitted.

" Where ! why from looking after you to be
sure. Do you call this fraternity and equality,
locking a man out of his own prison. A
pretty country, where, instead of prisoners
running away from the gaolers, the gaolers
run away from the prisoners."

Citizen Lasne was too delighted at the safe
recovery of his prisoners to resent Mr.
Sparkes's reproaches. He insisted upon light-
ing the Commodore to his apartments ; he
overwhelmed him with compliments and
thanks. He positively wanted to embrace
him. The Commodore repulsed him gently.

"You owe me nothing, M. Lasne," he said.
" I had promised, I have kept my word. But
dating from this moment I withdraw my
parole."

" Wait till to-morrow," exclaimed Lanne, in
a supplicating voice. " Only wait till to-
morrow, Commodore, I'm so sleepy."

110

HOUSEHOLD WORDS.

[Conducted by

Mr. Sparkes pinched the arm of Sir Sidney
Smith. " Give your word till to-mon o\\
morning," he whispered.

" Well, so be it," pursued the Commodore.
"Till to-morrow morning I will give my word
to remain quiet. But after that 1 shall court
the Muses as much as I please."
? " I wish to-morrow morning were this day
month,'' murmured Citizen Lasne, as hi 1 bid
the prisoners good night, and left them to their
repose.

" To-morrow morning may bring forth
great things, Sir Sidney," remarked Mr.
Sparkes, suddenly rising from the body-ser-
vant into the friend. "You have kept your
word in neither escaping nor planning escape.
1 have kept the word you gave for me in not
escaping. We shall see, \ve shall see."

The historian relates, with what accuracy
I know not, that when Citizen Lasne had
retired for good for the night, Mr. Sparkes
took off no less than five waistcoats, and also
relieved his arms and legs from much super-
fluous padding ; that underneath his red hair
lie had some closely -cropped silky black
locks ; that the freckles on his face were
removable by no stronger cosmetic than or-
dinary soap and water ; and that in less than
one quarter of an hour after the departure of
the gaoler, the bluff English body-servant
had unaccountably assumed the likeness of
an accomplished French gentleman.

The next morning, very early, a yellow post-
chaise, drawn by four horses, drove up to the
great door of the Temple. On the box sat
two individuals, who at a glance could be
recognised as gendarmes in plain clothes.
Two more gendarmes, but in uniform, de-
scended from the chaise, and assisted to
alight no less a personage than Citizen Auger,
adjutant-general of the army of Paris.

Shortly afterwards, the Commodore was
sent for. to the prison lodge, and there he was
shown an order, signed by the Minister of the
Interior, for the transfer of the persons of Sir
Sidney Smith and his servant, John Sparkes,
Anglais, to the military prison of the Abbaye.

"And many a poor fellow have I seen
transferred to the prison of the Abbaye, who
has only left it to be shot in the Plaiue de
Grenelle," murmured Lasne. " However, tout
est en rdgle, all is correct. I will just enter
the warrant in the books, if you will be kind
enough to sign a receipt for the bodies of the
prisoners, Citizen Auger."

The citizen signed his name to the prison
register, " Auger, Adjutant - General," fol-
lowed by a tremendous paraphe or flourish.
He declined the escort of six men which
Lasne was kind enough to offer him, saying
that the four gendarmes were sufficient, and
that, besides, he would depend on the honour
of Sir Sidney Smith not to compromise him.
The Commodore begged Lasne to accept the
remainder of his stock of port wine, shook
hands with him, took an affecting leave of
poor Captain Wright, and with Sparkes en-

tered the post-chaise. Citizen Auger fol-
lowed ; the two gendarmes in plain clothes
mounted the box, and the carriage drove
away. For aught Sir Sidney Smith knew, he
was riding to his death.

The next morning, the newspapers teemed
with accounts of the audacious escape of
Commodore Sir Sidney Smith from the prison
of the Temple, by menus of a forged order of
transfer. Citizen Adjutant-General Auger
was no other than the proscribed emigre, the
Marquis de Rochecotte, and the gendarmes
were doubtless agents of the indefatigable
Pitt-et-Coburg. As for Mr. John Sparkes, it
was subsequently elicited that he was a cer-
tain Count de Tergorouac, a nobleman of
Britanny, who had resided for a long time in
England, and to whom it had luckily oc-
curred, when taken prisoner, to assume the
disguise of an Englishman.

The French police performed prodigies of
strategy to arrest the fugitives, but all in
vain. They reached Calais, crossed the
Channel in a smuggling-vessel, and arrived
safely in England.

As for Citizen Lasne, he could come to no
harm ; for, though the order was forged, the
signature of the minister appended to it was
undoubtedly genuine. It was never known
| by what stratagem the signature had been
obtained. The fat citizen finished the com-
modore's port wine gaily, and drank his
health, and that of " ce digne Spark," in then
now unoccupied chambers in the Temple.

C H 1 P S.

STEALING A CALF'S SKIN.

AUBKEY, a gossipping antiquary, who has
preserved some curious facts and half-facts,
relates of Shakespeare that, when a boy, he
exercised his father's trade of a butcher,
" and when he killed a calf he would do it in
a high style, and make a speech." How the
boy Shakespeare addressed a calf as he skinned
it, it is not difficult to imagine perhaps in
the King Cambyses vein (certainly a high
style), perhaps in a vein like that in which
Burns indulged when he turned up a mouse's
nest with his plough (certainly a touching
style). What value Shakespeare set upon a
calf's skin we may gather from the contemp-
tuous clothing assigned to Austria by Con-
stance and Faiconbridge

And hang a calf's skin on those recreant limbs.

But how little could he have foreseen what
punishment was to be assigned in this England
of his and ours to a poor woman 'for the
crime of stealing a single calf's skin. Had
he been possessed of second-sight, he would
have felt as the famous John Howard felt,
whose active sympathy with a poor woman
over-punished for stealing one calf's skin we
are enabled to publish for the first time, and
in his own words. The case has escaped the

Charles Dickeus.]

CHIPS.

141

numerous biographers of that benevolent
man. The time is the year seventeen hun-
dred and eighty-eight, when George the
Third was king, and Howard thus puts her
story to the then secretary of state for the
home department :

To the Right Honourable Lord Sydney.
Elizabeth Baker, of the parish of Uffington, in
Berkshire, was committed September 1st, 1785, and
on the 20th of March, 1786, was convicted of felony
for stealing one calf's skin, and sentenced to be trans-
ported for seven years. By a letter from Lord
Sydney, dated 25th November, 1786, she was ordered
to be removed on board the ship Dunkirk, at Ply-
mouth ; but being then ill, and since becoming a
cripple, she still continues in the county gaol at
Exeter. This woman has been married near eighteen
years, has had fifteen children ; six are now alive, one
of whom is blind. Her husband, a sober man, works
constantly at his trade in the prison, and has uniformly
declared he will never leave her.

Now, my lord, from the consideration of these
circumstances, I earnestly implore her free pardon.

This petition, I am persuaded, will not be denied
me, as amidst the many objects of distress in prisons
that I have long been conversant with, this, my lord,
is my first application.

(Signed) JOHN HOWARD.

London, Dec. 12, 1787.
This touching story of overpunished crime,
is lying, in John Howard's own manly hand,
before us. After many years' knowledge of
gaols, in almost every country, this was his
first application to the secretary of state in
England. No wonder he was roused. Seven
months elapse between committal and con-
viction, and seven years' transportation is
adjudged for what is now only punished
with three months' imprisonment. The inci-
dent of the husband working constantly at
his trade in the prison with his wife,
and his uniformly declaring that he will
never leave her, will bring tears to many
eyes. Was John Howard's application ac-
ceded to ? Did Elizabeth Baker return to
Uffington in Berkshire through John How-
ard's manly appeal to government in her
behalf? We hope so. Of the six surviving
children some may yet be living, unconscious
of the touching story in their parents' lives,
or of the interest which Howard took in pro-
curing the free pardon of their mother.

A FEW MORE LEECHES.*

IT appears from a report by M. Souberain
to the French Academy of Medicine, that
some one is trying to do with leeches as
others are trying to do with edible fish cul-
ture them or nurse them from the embryo. M.
Borne, an inhabitant of St. Arnault, in the
Department of Seine-et-Oise, after long study
succeeded in establishing a regular leech-factory
near his native place. It consists of a sort of
bog, two or three acres in extent, surrounded
by a trench filled with water. M. Borne found
by observation that leeches are wont to deposit

* See Half a Dozen Leeches, Volume x. p. 200.

their eggs in small galleries, which they form
in the soft earth on the borders of ponds ; and,
accordingly on the principle sometimes
adopted in society of leading a man by letting
him do what he likes the experimentalist
formed a number of zig-zag channels reaching
to the edge of the water, and covered them
over with the stiff mud which he had removed.
He found, by observation that leeches are
wont to warm themselves in the sun in winter
and lie in the shade in summer ; and, accord-
ingly, he constructed small earthen pro-
montories, one facing the south and the
other the north, where they might congre-
gate as instinct dictated. His mode of feed-
ing them is this : He beats a quantity of
blood with switches to separate the fibrin,
which he has found to injure them ; he places
a number of leeches in a flannel bag ; he
plunges the bag into the sanguine fluid, and
there he leaves the leeches to have their fill.
He seems to know what is good for their
health and their age ; he takes them out
when he judges they have made a judiciously
hearty meal, washes them in tepid water, to
make them dainty and clean ; and re-
stores them to their former habitat. The
actual receptacles for the leeches are large
pits sunk in the ground, and filled with water.
When eggs have been deposited in the little
zig-zag channels, the leech-rearer removes
them from time to time, and places them in a
small pit by themselves, where they are care-
fully tended during the hatching process.
The trench or ditch of water, which sur-
rounds the boggy island, is destined to pre-
serve the leech from enemies, of which he
appears to have many. In a little wooden
hut lives a man, the bog-king, whose sole
duty it is to combat the birds, and the water-
rats, and the insects, which would other-
wise be likely to make short work with the
leeches.

PREVENTION BETTER THAN CURE.

DR. Hood, of Bedlam Hospital, in his
work on criminal lunacy, shows from in-
disputable data, that the largest portion
of the inmates of our prisons and asylums
is contributed by agricultural counties. That
there should be less crime and insanity in
towns and manufacturing districts, we may
at once perceive ; because there the poorer
classes find within their reach factory schools,
mechanics' institutes, and free libraries. Their
mental faculties are sharpened and kept in a
state of wholesome activity.

It is far otherwise in rural districts.
During the long dreary winter evenings
the ploughman or the hedger is without re-
source. Their only refuge is the village ale-
house ; where, by the abuse of beverages
which might, taken in moderation, be no
detriment to him, the rustic beclouds his
already heavy faculties.

It is certain, therefore, that the best cor-
rection for this state of things must be, a

142

HOUSEHOLD WORDS.

[Conducted by

i er diffusion of rural lending-libraries
for Mu-li as can mid. schools for those who
cannot read, and wholesome recreation for all.

THE EOVING ENGLISHMAN

FROM CONSTANTINOPLE TO VARNA.

IK ajiy lady or gentleman should think
proper to set out with me for my scamper, I
recommend them to be careful in stepping
into the crazy little caique which stands moored
beside the official residence of the Pasha of
Tophana. My imaginary friend must take
care to step right in the centre of this
ricketty little boat, for, I may as well mention,
that a stout lady of my acquaintance, who
neglected to attend to this precaution after it
had been suggested to her by a mutual friend,
was only saved from drowning in the
Bosphorus by the rotundity of her figure and
the swelling circle of a remarkably respectable
silk dress.

Our servants and luggage must follow in
another crazy little boat, as there is not room
for them in ours. So, swift over the sulky
December waters then past many a bat-
tered hulk which shows sad signs enough of
the wild hurricanes in the Black Sea ; past
transport ships by the score, and smug oily
commissariat officers, a little the worse for
their previous night's entertainment, but
keeping good hope of an appetite again by
and by at the hospitable board of a contrac-
tor past barges with a score of extremely
dirty fellows, gentlemen in fezzes and baggy
breeches, labouring at a multitude of oars
slowly toiling along towards some ship bound
for Sebastopol, there to give up their dismal
and disheartened cargo of astounded peasants
from the far away interior, and who are
bound chiefly against their wills for the good
of glory.

Away past men of war with jovial officers
chatting to admiring visitors over the ship's
side, and making light of the dangers they
bore so nobly but yesterday, and will court
again to-morrow. One's very heart warms
towards the blue-jackets, and one cannot help
contrasting their frank, open, fearless looks
with the anxious, sly, shuffling appearance of
the commissariat fellow who pulled past us
in stealthy talk with a wily trader, just now.

And salutes are firing from the ship and
battlement, and gentle ladies of high degree
flit swiftly by us in their gilded boats to visit
the sick at Scutari I vow and declare there
goes Miss Nightingale, and yonder, in the
great official caique, sits kind Lady Stratford
and her daughters fair. They are braving
wind and weather, as they have been doing
ever so long on the same kind errand, to
carry to the sad couch of the wounded in a
distant land, the meet tribute of Woman's
sympathy and admiration. Let us look our
last at a scene which has surely grown on my
mind like affection for a friend. There stands
rambling Scutari dismal enough, though

the neighbourhood around is beautiful
yonder is Leander's Tower, with its pretty
legend of captive beauty and conquering love.
There is the ricketty old wooden bridge, my
favourite walk so long. There go, fussing
and puffing away, the busy little steamers for
Therapia and the villages of the Bosphorus.
And I see through my glass that the shore is
as usual crowded with a rabble rout of
Greeks, Jews, Armenians, sailors, soldiers,
tinkers, tailors, sutlers, gaily dressed young
ladies, and all the dirty crowd of a sea- port, w

There, some tearful widow who has left her
world behind her, on the hard-fought field or
the stormy sea, is being assisted into a boat
by some kind friend whose stout arm is now
perhaps trembling almost as much as her own
pale hand, which is laid upon it. She is
going aboard yon steamer where the union
jack is hoisted, and she will return to her
mockery of a home now lonely ever more in
fatherland. She will keep holy the memory
of the brave man whose living love was hers;
who died, may be, with her name the last
word upon his lips.

There are horses embarking and disem-
barking, and fat bales of merchandise toil-
ing along, near the smart boats? of sea
captains and the flashing caiiques of Pashas and
ministers. Here raves a Frenchman, there
roars a German, or yells a, Greek ; and the
shrill boatswain's whistle skims the deep.

Of all the steamers with which it was ever
my misfortune to become acquainted, I have not
the smallest hesitation in asserting that the
Austrian Lloyd boat, the Stamboul, plying
between Varna and Constantinople, is
the dirtiest and most inconvenient. I
scrambled, and tumbled, and slipped
through a variety of people and things.
At last the decks were cleared of hotel
servants, who had been forgotten and who
had come to claim some preposterous little
account which had been forgotten too, accord-
ing to the custom of their tribe. The last
Greek huckster had given his last wily coun-
sel to his supercargo, and the last Jewjhad
wrangled with the last boatman, who, Greek
as he was, wearied soon in the contest and
we were off.

Oh no ! We should have been off any-
where but in Turkey. As it was, we beat
about for several hours in the cheerfulest
and most obliging manner, to wait for some
impossible individual ; who finally appeared
to have changed his mind, and declined making
the voyage with us.

It is the dusk of evening when we at last
flit rattling down the Bosphorus, and al-
ready our keel leaves a bright track of phos-
phorus light on the darkening sea, like the
steps of a water fairy.

Away, past the pretty villages on the shore,
where I have wiled away so many an en-
chanted summer day ; away, past tower and
fort and sleepy hollow. By the low rambling
wooden houses of the great pashas, with their

Charles Dickens.]

THE EOVING ENGLISHMAN.

143

barred and guarded harems, and by quiet
cemeteries with their turbaned dead. By the
tomb of the Lesbian admiral, Barbarossa, the
conqueror of Algiers ; and past the palace oi
Sardanapalus, Past diplomatic Therapia and
cockney Bujukdere. So out into the Black
Sea, as the moon rises' mournfully and mistily.

The captain, a gaunt, melancholy Don
Juan, I see, has been alarmed by the recent
accidents : so have we ; and therefore it
is with some inward satisfaction though we
would scorn to express it that we see he is
making all taut and trim in case of sudden
storm in the night. Some light skirmishing
clouds to the northward look rather like mis-
chief; but suppose we go down stairs and
have some supper 1 We shall find, to be sure,
nothing but a powerful species of cheese.
But even that is better than nothing ;
and a short pipe, with some brandy and
water afterwards, will quite warm our noses,
which are cold, and I am sorry to say have
been so for some time.

And here I wish to improve the occasion,
by hinting to the docile traveller that one of
the most dangerous things he can allow to
occur to himself in Turkey, is in any way to
get chilled. I would also suggest that the
nose, especially if long, is an excellent natural
thermometer, always at hand when you like
to touch it. Now, if the temperature of the
nose be colder than that of the finger under
ordinary circumstances if it tingles or mis-
conducts itself in any way whatsoever the
possessor of that nose, if a judicious man and
willing to be guided by the counsels of expe-
rience, will immediately warm it either by
active exercise or by means of the most zealous
anti-teetotal remedies. I personally am in-
clined to advise the latter method, supposing
the said proprietor of the said nose to have
already tired himself on the slippery deck ot
a Varna steamer, and being otherwise dis-
posed for rest, as we were.

We passed Burgash in the night, and were
dashing away merrily enough over waters
hardly disturbed by a ripple when I woke in
the morning. I was first up of our party ;
and so I ought to have been, for I had slept
in far more agreeable quarters. They had
retired uncomplainingly to the dismal little
holes in the wall which the steward had
obligingly pointed out to them. I, on the
contrary, had taken that functionary aside,
and held sweet converse with him ; till he
was thereby induced to make me up a
very little bed on one of the sofas in the
great cabin, where I had more leg and elbow
room, with better smells ; though I am
bound to confess that the odour of the pow-
erful cheese we had had for supper was per-
ceptible during a part of the night say till I
got used to it, and went to sleep.

We had a pretty good breakfast, the
steamer cook being a deacon of his craft ;
ham, fish, beefsteaks, caviar, macaroni, and
the sort of things it requires a traveller's

appetite to put under his waistcoat at ten
o'clock in the morning. The steamer library
was also remarkably good and very
well chosen. There were just the kind
of books that give spice and zest to a
journey in a half civilised country. Cooper,
Scott, Washington Irving (the kindest,
gentlest, most amusing of all the rovers that
have ever written). There were also Leake's
Travels in Greece, and the transactions of
some German antiquarian society, for those
fond of solid things when sea-sick.

I do not know that anything occurred
during our voyage worth notice, except that
we met with immense flocks of migratory
wild ducks bearing with quivering flight and
outstretched bills away for the marshes of
Bulgaria and the Principalities. We had a
discussion with one of the officers about our
fare, however. I note it, because the same
thing has occurred to me before on these
Lloyd's boats, and cries loudly for notice. We
had neglected from want of time to take our
passage at Constantinople, and consequently
had to pay on board. The officer, an ill-con-
ditioned fellow, if there ever was one, deter-
mined to turn this circumstance to account,
and mulcted us of precisely two shillings in
every Turkish pound above the legal exchange
at Varna or Constantinople. This wants sadly
looking into ; and therefore it is well to be
explicit, and add that the officer, whose
misconduct was very gross, was not one
of the stewards, who are apt enough
to do such things, but one of the superior offi-
cers appointed by the Company. It has been
objected to these kind of details that they
show something like a settled intention to
complain. Well, so be it, a traveller who
only complains of things really complaiuable
cannot complain too much. The fact is, few
people will take the trouble to complain, and
therefore folks should be the more obliged to
those who will.

It is said that Varna has about it a dirti-
ness peculiarly its own, but I incline rather
to the opinion that it is merely Turkish dirti-
ness, and that there is nothing whatever re-
markable about this little military hothouse.
We landed not without some d fficulty
and danger. The note of military prepara-
tion was pealing everywhere. Officials
belonging to the commissariat, and unused
to riding, were holding on to the pom-
mels of their new saddles, and jogging
about uncomfortably in many directions.
Officers were conversing in groups and
in astounding unifoi-ms, supposed to
to be that of the body guard of his majesty
the King of Candy, in whose service they had
been, and from whom they had obtained
all sorts of impossible ranks and decora-
tions. I never saw so many colonels and
generals at once in all my born days.

It was pleasant to see many a rollicking
Irishman or canny lad from beyond the
Tweed, who had obtained an introduction

144

HOUSEHOLD WO11DS.

to the cutty-stool in early life, ami had
become the scandal of his elders it was
refreshing, I say, to see them shining away
here as pashas, and knights, and generals.
They were quite in their element.

There they were, eating and drinking
together like gipsies or mosstroopers; drinking
brandy and water, to keep off cholera, out of
tht-ir embroidered caps; and cutting up tough
fowls with their doughty sabres. There they
were lending money to each other out of
purses slender enough probably ; disputing
with consuls about unpaid tailors' bills for
the wonderful uniforms ; laughing together ;
quarrelling together, making it up with tears
and assurances "that Jack was the best
fellow under the sun, only, hang him, he is
always coming the general over me so." There
they were, believin g in each other, and believing
in themselves, talking about their uncles who
lived in parks, which were always the
finest in the part of the United Kingdom in
which they were situated. There they were
talking of their sisters, who were all trumps
of girls, and who had often helped to pay
(perhaps out of a governess's salary) for the
wonderful uniforms when they were paid
for, w hich was not often. There they were, talk-
ing of their wives, who had mostly behaved
badly. Puncturing their breasts and arms
with tattooed letters of the names of splendid
women they had left behind at Bucharest, or
bold devices like Erin-go-bragh or Eule
Britannia. Many a fine fellow, as he lies
stiff and stark beneath the inclement skies
of the Crimea, shall be found by some
dauntless friend among the thickest of the
fallen, wherever glory was to be won, or the
wildest valour dared to spur, and he shall
be known by those brave words upon his
breast, and buried with a tear, which shall
not be the last shed over him. Yes, there
will be mourners enough for them among
bright-eyed women and true men. Among
fathers, of whom they were still the pride, and
among mothers, who will not be comforted
when they hear that their bold sons have
fallen. The sons with the open brows and
hazel eyes, with the hot tempers and hearts
of gold. Sons who, in spite of reckless habits,
made little hoards stolen often from the
necessaries of life to send some token of their
unaltered and enduring love to far-away
homes and relatives, who had looked coldly
enough on them ; who wrote letters, tell-
ing of their brightened fortunes ; who wrote
letters ifchich had made the old folks stare and
hold up their heads again, and given rise to
paragraphs in county papers ; who wrote
letters full of high hopes and honest simple-
hearted projects for the future ; and who
never wrote again.

Then there were sparkling little French
officers making jokes about their chances of
promotion ; and prosy, good-natured soldiers
(no one on earth is so prosy as a French
private) telling extraordinary stories, per-

fectly unintelligible, of coui'se, to British
grenadiers, and Scotch or Irish soldiers listen-
ing to them with polite and tipsy gravity.
There were doctors hurrying about to and from
the hospital, and orderlies galloping hither and
thither over the blackened ruins of the Greek
tire, for Greek it really does seem to have been.
There were 1 army chaplains, with cui-ious
recipes for making curry, who stopped oblig-
ing linguists in the streets, and wanted
to know " the Greek for Cayenne pepper ?"
There were French and Italian hucksters
driving roaring trades ; and impromptu
hotels cheating many travellers ; for the mili-
tary messes have all been broken up, and
even the ex-officers of the King of .Candy
usually such sticklers for military etiquette,
and capital authorities on culinary matters, as
indeed on all others, are obliged to dine by
twos and threes.

We adjoui-ned with some of them to the
house of the consular interpreter. He was
a grandiloquent man, as all Greeks in office
are. He immediately took us mentally and
bodily into a sort of custody. He implored
us, as we trusted in his honour and abilities,
to free ourselves from the smallest thought
or trouble about anything. We found him,
of course, a fearful scamp, and his
house seemed merely a windy, wooden,
trap, for vermin, and bad smells the
latter coming quite unexpectedly and in
stifling gusts. The former absolutely turned
us out of bed, descending on us in such
countless hosts when we put out the lights,
that there was no keeping the field against
them.

The food we got here was, of course, bad :
the Greeks having no idea of eating and
drinking, except on festival days. The bill
was so preposterous that it called forth a
rather energetic remonstrance from the
Almoner of our party.

" Sare," whined the Greek, in defence of
his charges, and with all the misplaced pride
of his race, " I am not a common man."

"No, faith," replied the Purse-bearer,
wincing, " you seem to me a most uncommon
rogue."

We were glad to get away, touzled,
bitten, dirty, comfortless, and sleepless,
to go plashing along through the lonely
moonlight to the sea-shore -where a boat
was waiting for us.

This day is published, for greater convenience, and
cheapness of binding,

THE FIRST TEN VOLUMES

HOUSEHOLD WORDS,

IN FIVE HANDSOME VOLUMES,
WITH A GENERAL INDEX TO THE WHOLE.

Price of the Set, thus bound in Five Double instead of Tea
Single Volumes, 2 10s. Od. The General index cuu
be had separately, price 3d.

"Familiar in their Mouths as HOUSEHOLD WORDS" SHAKESPEARE

HOUSEHOLD WORDS.

A WEEKLY JOURNAL,
CONDUCTED BY CHARLES DICKENS.

- 260.]

SATURDAY, MARCH 17, 1855.

[Pure* Zd.

A YARN ABOUT YOUNG LIONS.

WHEN I hear people talking about the
decadence of England I generally go for a
day or two to Portsmouth. It is so pleasant
to see the fleet of a third-rate power big
enough, and heavy metalled enough, to hold
its own against all other navies whatsoever ;
and to feel that though we are sunk into in-
significance and contempt, it is an insignifi-
cance of a very peculiar kind, consisting of a j
hundred sail at Spithead, mounting upwards
of two thousand guns. So sinks a great Lord
into poverty when his creditors make him an
allowance of a hundred thousand a year ; so
sinks Lucullus into fasting and abstinence
when his table is reduced to four courses and
a dessert.

Being very much depressed in spirits last
week, after reading some German pamphlets
which proved that England was ruined, and
several Irish and American newspapers
which positively asserted that the sun of
tyrannical Albion had sunk for ever, I be-
took myself to the Boscawen Arms on Ports-
mouth Hard, which is next door to the Ben-
bow, which is next door to the Cloudesley
Shovel, which is next door to the Earl St.
Vincent, so that it seems like a set of stout
volumes of the Lives of the British Admirals
ranged on a library shelf, and, by means of the i
smell of tar and salt water, and the sight of a j
crowded harbour, and the echo of a thousand
hammers in the dockyard, I soon got into a
more comfortable frame of mind, and began
already to believe that we should have a very
fair chance against the King of the Two
Sicilies, or even Otho of Greece. I don't
know how it is, but whenever I am in any
part of Portsmouth I always feel as if I could
lick any amount of foreigners with the
greatest ease; I feel a strange twitching in
the shoulders, and a desire to hitch up my
lower integuments, as if the braces had broke;
and I find myself occasionally trying to ex-
pectorate in a free and manly manner, as if I
never had a quid out of my right cheek. The
manner in which my legs flourish about, evi-
dently believing they are on a quarter-deck
in a considerable gale of wind, has often
caused me great uneasiness as to the opinion
my friends may entertain of the cause of so
unsteady a gait ; but as everybody in Ports-

mouth seems to heel over and sway from
side to side pretty much in the same manner,
let me hope they either don't notice the
obliquity of my motion, or attribute it to the
right cause a marine sympathy which it
is impossible to resist. By the same pecu-
liar action of the sea-breezes, my language
becomes almost unintelligible to my friends,
and sometimes even to myself. Do you think
I could say I was walking down High Street ?
No ; I 'd see you in Davy Jones's locker first !
I always either steer or bear down High
Street, and wouldn't " walk " for the world.
I always weigh anchor when I leave a room,
and bring up when I sit down to dinner ;
and yet would you believe it 1 I hate the
real thing in spite of this strange, and, I be-
lieve, involuntary imitation. I am seasick on
the voyage from Gosport to Hyde, and never
was on board* a man-of-war in my life. In
fact I have never been able very distinctly to
understand how any body ever got on board
a man-of-war, except in dock. It seems to
me impossible to clamber up such an immense
height with only the help of a rope, and the
uncertain footing of the planking seams,- for
stairs, I understand, are done away with in
blue water, and chairs let down for none but
ladies. However, in spite of these draw-
backs, I am conscious I have the soul of a
Nelson in the body of a land-lubber, and
feel positively certain that I would sing Rule
Britannia and Hearts of Oak at the point
of death. I do it constantly now or when I
don't sing the words I whistle the tunes :
" We burn them, and sink them, or drive them
on shore ; And if they won't fight us what
can we do more 'I " Ah ! What, indeed ?

The water in the hai'bour is generally
smooth, and I hire a boat by the day, and sail
up and down for ever. Past the glorious
Victory past the Excellent past the huge
hulks we go, and up into a city of hooded
houses, with port-holes for windows, lying
upon their shadows opposite Portchester
Castle, and waiting only to be called on to
doff their roofs, and stick in their masts, and
hoist their sails and behold the quiet line of
sleepy monsters transformed into leviathans
afloat, with their bulwarks on the brine, ready
for all weathers, and as gay with pennon and
streamer as a new made bride ! Thirty-six
hours would send these vessels at any time to

260

146

HOUSEHOLD WOEDS.

[Conducted by

Spithead in case of necessity " For you see,
sir," said Hill Wiiulus to me, " there's four
thousand of us 'long-shore men 'tween S'thamp-
ton and Selsey Bill, all old sailors, and with the
help of some landsmen, we could man a famous
fleet for home defence, till our sea-going ships
could get at 'em from the Downs and Ply-
mouth." Now, Bill Windus is my boatman,
a man of very quick hands in managing a boat,
but very slow comprehension in mastering an
idea. For instance, all his notion of an enemy
whom it would be his duty to oppose is
strictly limited to a Frenchman of the old
school. It has not yet reached his mind that
there may be others whom it behoves us to
take or destroy; and whenever he talks even
of " them Rooshaus" he has an invariable
habit of chucking his thumb over his right
shoulder, in the direction of Cherbourg.
Whether he thinks the French have taken a
new name, or are masquerading in the dress
of Muscovites, as sometimes they painted
their frigates like merchantmen to come down
upon our homeward bound, unawares, I do
not know ; but it is very clear that Bill has
not yet turned his attention to the fact of our
present alliance. He has a deeply-grounded
belief that it would be a great stroke of policy
to bring the Imperial squadrons as fair cap-
tures to Spithead. " 'Cause why ? " he says,
" if they're all so kind and friendly, we can
do the work ourselves ; and if they're not, it's
better to draw their teeth in time, and then
they can do no harm."

But Bill is an old Tory, and a bad politician,
though he has an excellent boat and handles
her like a pilot of the fleet. The last day of
my visit he asked permission to take an old
chum with us up the harbour, and as I was
rather tired of Bill's eloquence I was very
glad of a change. A very different person
from Bill was Harry Sparks a man of action
a man of intelligence a man of few words,
and an immense deal of tobacco, with a large
mouth filled from side to side with amazingly
yellow teeth, and a round close cropped head,
that looked very like a sixt.y-eight pounder,
sprinkled slightly over with shreds of oakum.
A pleasant man to look at, for he never
flinched from your eye, but exposed his ruddy
countenance, as if he had never in all his life
done anything to be ashamed of. He was
almost as great an enthusiast in maritime
affairs as myself, and we were friends in a
moment. His enthusiasm was shown by a
series of well-directed squirts over the side
of the boat, when I spoke of the magnifi-
cence of our first-rates ; and many approving
nods with his bullet-shaped head when I
dilated on the grandeur of our position as the
first of maritime nations, and holding the
trident of Neptune, which I explained to him
was the sceptre of the world.

"I seen it," he said, "in Plymouth Dock, and
a rare good house it is, particular the egg-flip."

We spent a delightful time of it on the
water, and, on parting, I gave Harry Sparks I

an invitation to a "pipe and can" in the
Boseawen Arms. At seven o'clock a knock
came to the door, a figure made its appear-
ance in clean shirt and a very loose blue
jacket, very wide Russia-duck trousers
the image of Mr, T. P. Cooke in the sailor's
hornpipe and ducked its head three or four
times, while it kept it steady by holding on
vigorously by a long lock of hair in front.
I recognised my friend Harry Sparks in his
quarter-deck manners and Sunday clothes.

" Here I am, yer honour, and 'most ashamed
of my company, for I ben't used to it."

This, I perceived, in spite of the grammatical
construction, was a compliment to my superior
rank, and, with the help of a large bottle
of Hollands I prefer that spirit to all
other drinks whatever a large kettle of
water, and a couple of stout tumblers, I soon
put him at his ease, and the flow of soul
began. It was at my expense for a long time.
I was educated at a classical academy in
Suffolk, and gave him an account of a Cartha-
ginian galley and a Roman trireme. Mr.
Sparks would have liked no better fun than
to have swept the seas, both of Pompey and
the pirates, with a revenue cutter like the
Dart, mounting four guns, also a picked crew
and a good captain " For you see, sir, it's a
man that makes all tke differ." I agreed
with him on this point in a very decided man-

" You're' right,
the use of all

ner, and we

Harry," I said ; " for what's

these noble ships at Spithead, if they are
manned by muffs and commanded by an aged
pump, fit only to be a churchwarden or a lord
chancellor? Now, Harry, you're a man of
experience, also of extensive observation, and
you, perhaps, can tell us, have we the man
we want 1 " " Dozens ! " said Mr. Sparks,
and, with a sound like the Maelstrom en-
gulfing a ship, he engurgitated his grog, till I
considered it a great mercy that he did not
choke himself with the spoon. " Dozens, sir ! "
he repeated, dinting his tumbler on the table
with a force that nearly broke it ; " and, first
and foremost, there's old Nero which some
calls him the Lyon in the Black Sea which
will take Semastyfool, as sure as the Scar of
Rooshia has got skin on his nose, afore the
summer's begun. I knows him, I do, that 'ere
Nero ; and he's done harder things afore
'cause I knows 'em very well, though, may-
hap, I can't tell 'em so clear as you would,
sir. Sir, you're a eloquent gentleman, I must
say, and I drink your health again, sir, with
many thanks for the same."

By this time our pipes had diffused a dim
but very agreeable atmosphere through the
apai'tment : the fire burned cheerily, the
water was always hot, as the kettle rested on
the hob ; and, in s a very pleasant frame of
mind, I swayed back on the hind legs of my
chair, and listened attentively to the anec-
dote delivered with great unction by my
now communicative friend.

" When old Nero was young as in course,

CharlesDickens.]

A YARN ABOUT YOUNG LIONS.

.147

he was once he was first-mate aboard
a ship on the India station, which was a
prime station at the time, for we was at war
with the Dutch, and spices and pepper is
the best of prize-money, besides sugars and
rum. The whole of that 'ere sea, I've heard
say, is spotted over with islands, as if the
ocean had the small-pox, and the islands
was the pits and very fine islands they be
to look at, for the trees are wonderful large,
and the fruits delicious, and the flowers
for them that like such things the brightest
and beautifullest in the world. All this I've
only hearn, for I never served beyond the
Cape, but I've heard of them so often I seem
to have been born and bred among them cedars
and camellias and seringas. The Dutch ain't a
stupid set of people when left to their own ways,
and would never have quarreled with England
if it had not been for that 'ere Napoleon Bona-
parte which set 'em on like a Highland terrier
on a mastiff dog. Howsomever as they showed
their teeth it was necessary for us to knock
'em down their throats, and according we
did it all the time of the war. Now, one day,,
says the captain to young Nero, ' You go,'
he says, ' in the tender, with twelve men of
your choice, and bring us word what the myn-
heers is a doing on in the island two hundred
knots to our eastward, and let me know,
d'ye hear ; for it's reported that they've sent a
large army from Java, and I daresay the big
breeches,' says he, ' are arter some mischief.'
So young Nero touched his hat, named his men,
and thought himself the king of Great Britain,
France, and Ireland, and all the world beside,
when he seen his flag for the first time, and
bore away for his destination with all the
canvas he could spread. The captain was a
very strict man, and had given orders to run
no manner of risk, but to be very careful
both of vessel and men. So they came late
one evening within sight of the island ; and
high over all the rich trees that crowned all
the coast, they saw far inland the Dutch
standard a flapping on the flag-post, and even
in the still air heard the military band a-
playing on the parade ground of the castle, as if
it was a playing a welcome to young Nero and
his crew. This was remarkable civil in the
Dutch, and Nero beckoned Will Hatch and
says, ' They don't seem to be much on the
look out,' says he, ' or surely they would have
seen our sails as we rounded the high point.
Now you see, Will,' says he, ' if they're so off
their guard, and seem so fond of their fine
tunes, it would only be respectful in us to go
a little nearer, and pay them the compliment
of a call. So tell nine of the lads to take two or
three pistols apiece and a cutlass run us into
one of them deep creeks, where the brush-
wood is higher than our mast tuck in a pre-
cious good supper, and be ready to follow me
ashore.' Away through the thick jungle went
the ten men, all their ears open, and their
forefingers on the trigger ; and after strug-
gling through the shrubs, which smelt like

ladies' scent-bottles, all of a sudden they
come to a clear space, and found themselves
within fifty yards of the castle walls. It was
now nearly dark a heavy sort of a night, as if
the air was too thick with heat and perfume
to be seen through in them parts it's never
so pitch black as here. At the other side
of the fortress either another band was a play-
ing fine Italian music, or it was the same
they had heard before, only moved away, per-
haps, on their road to the barracks. Well, this
was all the information as could be picked
up, and Nero didn't think the captain would
be satisfied if he only took him back a list of
the tunes they played ; so he says, ' Come
nearer,' he says, ' and make no noise till we get
under the guns, for just at this present they
could point them to where we stand, and
blow us into conwulsions.' On tiptoe they
hurried for'ard, and when they got close to the
wall, they found the drawbridge down and
gate open, and just at this time the music
ceased, and it seemed as if the whole family
had gone to bed and left the big doors of the
citadel open to air the town. ' Now's the
time, boys,' says young Nero ; ' follow me at
the run, shoot the first sentinel you find,
shout with all your might, fire off your spare
pistols, split into parties of twos and threes,
but always keep in hearing, and see what
our luck will be ! ' The boys could scarcely
keep from laughing, it was such a capital
contrived lark ; but still they managed not
to laugh too loud, and did as they were
told. There was firing and shouting in a few
minutes all over the place. The sentinels
thought five thousand English at least had
fallen upon them as the advanced guard of a
tremendous expedition, and made off those
that wern't shot and told the general what
they thought. He was a very famous com-
mander, and would do nothing contrairy to
the rules of war ; so he determined to lead his
men into the open country and wait for rein-
forcements to enable him to retake the place.
And away they went by the inland gates,
which Nero instantly ordered to be closed,
and set all hands to work. They spiked the
guns there were sixteen of 'em and
threw them into the moat ; they burned the
barracks ; broke all the arms they found ;
filled their pockets and hankerchers with
anything that took their fancy, and before
daylight evacuated the castle in the greatest
order, locking the gate behind them, and
rasping through the main hinge of the draw-
bridge by way of preventing pursuit. In as
great silence as they had made their ap-
proach, they pursued their way through the
forest to the creek, got quietly on board and
warped out into deep water. You may guess
what fun they had when morning dawned, to
see the castle still a smoking, and no flag
hoisted on the wall. The Dutch general fol-
lowed the most scientific plans he could hear
of in books, and made his approaches in such a
skilful way that it was three days afore

148

HOUSEHOLD WORDS.

he got into the deserted fortress, and wrote ! high rank, and Bill Hatch, which went

me that

homo an account of how he had repulsed
nine thousand British soldiers with the loss of

throe men ;
made a baron
rank.

for which exploit lie was
on, and adwanced a step in

"Now, when young Nero got on board hisship
the captain asked, why the Wickeds he hadn't
gone down to that there island, as he had
ordered 1 ' I've been, sir,' said Nero, very
sharp, ' and got all the information we re-
quire.' Whereupon he told him all, just as
I've told it to you, sir. But the captain was
a gentleman that didn't approve of things out
of the common, and he says, very coldly,
' You have unnecessarily exposed the men's
lives, and His Majesty's vessel, and you'll con-
sider yourself under arrest. I will write an
account of your behaviour to the admiral, and
you will probably be dismissed the service.' So
he wrote a full history of all that young Nero
had done, tied it all up in the reddest of tape
as he had, and was very fain to send him home
at once as a dangerous character. But as soon
as a fast sailing frigate could come from the
admiral which was a friend of Nelson's, and
kne \vthe Nelson touch aswell as anyrnan alive
the captain was forced to call young Nero on
the quarter-deck and, in the presence of all
the ship's company, present him with a
acting order to serve as lieutenant, and
to join the admiral's ship without delay. All
the twelve of the crew wanted to go with
him, but he could only get leave for Will
Hatch, which has never left him since, and is,
at this moment, casting a loving ej'e on
the batteries of Semastyfool, so let that
there Scar of Rooshia look out, for Nero will
take it as sure as a gun."

Mr. Sparks rewarded himself for this inter-
esting account with a rather copious infusion
of fresh matter into his tumbler. And now
that the flood-gates of speech were opened he
poured forth : " I s'pose, sir, as I never seen
you before, I never told you the story of how
young Nero got his ship ashore, and as near
as possible lost his commission. Well, sir,
here it is short and straight, for you haven't
time to be a listening here all night. You've
heard, perhaps, of love, sir, a many songs
have been written about it, and if you
never met with it yourself you may know it
by the descriptions. It's something like the
meesels or hooping-cough, sir ; everybody
must have it once in their lives, and if by
chance it comes a second time, it's
always exceeding mild. Well, when young
Nero was first took with the eruption, he was
in command of a sloop, and stood away for
where his lady lived, though it was out
of the bounds of the station where he was
placed. But it was just out of bounds,
and he thought by clever handling he might
run close in shore, and post with quick horses
up to where hiri sweetheart was, and be
back on his station again afore his absence
was noticed. His sweetheart was a lady of

wiih him in the chase, has told
better liquors was nowhere in England than
he had that night in the servants' hall. Oh !
there was singing and dancing, and what not
in the drawing-room : and 1 '11 be sworn a
good specimen of the same in the kitchen,
too, for I 've heard Bill crack a tumbler by
the noise he made in ' Cease rude Boreas ;'
and as to dancing, he would wear a hole in
an oak plank afore he 'd give over the shuffle.
So, when the gentlefolks was a thinking of
going to bed, a little tap comes to the door ;
and Will Hatch, which was in the middle of
the Jolly Young Waterman at that very
moment, felt a shock as if something was a
going to happen; and a footman goes to the
door, and Will hears a voice which said,
' Tell Will Hatch to tell the captain she 's
bumped, bows on, 'and will only have five
foot water at low tide.' The footman looked
surprised, and asked who "she" was ; but Will
Hatch had gone to the door, discovered the
captain of the foretop, and heard it was all
true. A message was sent into the drawing-
room, and young Nero come out into the
passage. What was to be done ? It was
two o'clock in the morning the tide would
fall for another hour. In five minutes he and
Will Hatch and the messenger was on their
way : in a hour and a half they was on
board. All the ship's company knew the
scrape the captain was in. How they worked
with the boats ; how they lightened the ship ;
how they landed some of the guns ; how they
toiled with heart and hand till morning light
And then the tide was still on the rise
higher higher and the work of unloading
still went on. There was a coast-guard station
near, and a line of telegraphs that held pa-
lavers over hills and walleys with a great
arsenal to the east. If the authorities heard
of the accident, there would be a tremenduous
kick up salvage court-martial dismissal.
And still the tide come on ! But suddenly
went up a cursed straight rod of the tele-
graph, that meant 'ship ' followed in a mo-
ment by a little arm that pointed downwards,
and that meant ' ashore." So in three
minutes it was known all over the port as
a ship was on shore. Come on ! come on !
blessed tide! For in an hour and a half the cap-
tain of the harbour will be here ; and lighters
will be here ; and reporters for Times news-
papers will be here ! Well it rose, and it rose,
and at last with all the ship's boats a tugging at
her stern, she heaved once or twice majesti-
cally, and slipt her bows off the land it was
only a spit of sand and no harm done and
glided away into deep water as if nothing
had happened. Then the work began. The
cargo had to be taken on board, the guns re-
placed, the disorder rectified ; and just when
the last stroke was done, and the vessel was
fit for service, a long line of craft was seen
coming round the point ! There was the
harbour-master's yacht, and the admiral's

Charles Dickens.]

THE ROYAL BALLOON.

barge, find three or four lighters, and two or
three sloops from Lloyds ; and they all
backed sail with astonishment as they seen the
beautifulest sloop in the Eoyal Navy, alooking
as spick and span as if that moment out of dock.
And then she hoisted a signal Good morrow,
gentlemen and bore quietly out of the narrow
into the wide sea. Some of the disappointed
salvors went ashore, and gave the telegraph
men as good a licking as ever they had in
their lives. Well, sir, Nero was tried for the
accident, and received a slight reprimand ;
with such a high compliment for his zeal and
activity in getting his ship off again that he
got his promotion in a month or two, and
took command of a frigate of forty-four guns."

Other stories were told me by Harry
Sparks, all tending to the same result ;
inanely, that there really was a MAN on whom
the country can rely, with^courage and discre-
tion equally mixed. The heat, the tobacco, the
grog, the excitement, the glaring eyes of Mr.
Sparks, his prodigious mouth, his yellow
teeth, his bullety head, all conspired to put
me into the highest state of satisfaction with
this ruined, weakened, disgraced, and power-
less England.

" Sparks," I said, " I' was born in an inland
county, sir ; but, far from the dash of the
wild sea I heard the music of Britannia's
thunder, and felt that if all the world were to
combine against us, we should still our foot-
steps insupportably advance, and Britons
never never never shall be slaves !
hurrah ! "

Mr. Sparks entered fully into my feelings,
though perhaps he did not understand the
grandeur of my language, which was also
rather obscure to myself ; and the last thing
I remember was his scratching his oakum
locks for a minute, and then engulphing his
head in the tumbler, after saying, "The same
to you, sir, and many happy returns ! "

THE ROYAL BALLOON.

BLUEBEARD'S wife is a faithful type of our
common human nature, male as well as
female. The secret chamber is the room
we all want to penetrate into. One unburnt
book from the Alexandrian library would
be more attractive to bibliomaniacs than
a whole college -full of learned folios that
stand ready-ranged on their dusty shelves.
The last volume, spared by the Sibyl, only
increased the longing after those that were
irrevocably gone. Who would not give a
trifle for a peep at some of the treatises which
those who used curious arts in the early days
of Christianity, brought together and burned
before all men 1 Dr. Young, since grown old,
found more pleasure in contemplating an
obelisk-side of hieroglyphics, than in running
through the London Gazette ; doubtless for
the simple reason that he could read the one
and could not read the other. Herschell's de-
light was to hunt after stars, invisible or dimly

seen, which seemed to dive deeper into distant
space the harder he tried to get a peep at
them. We can easily fancy the intense de-
light of the great modern interpreter of
Ninevite literature, when he believes he has
inserted the wedge of a lucky guess into a
cuneiform inscription, and has a chance of
splitting it up into sentences and words. The
higher the wall that surrounds a garden, the
sweeter, longing mouths and noses suspect,
are the fruit and flowers inclosed within.
The thick morningamist that veils a landscape
makes us the more eager to discover its
beauties. The clouds, the glaciers, and the
treacherous snow, which ought to render the
mountain-top inaccessible, only serve to invite
the adventurous spirit to plant his foot where
prudence and practicability forbid. What we
cannot have, we resolve to have ; what we
cannot know, we insist upon knowing.

From this craving after forbidden lore I
pretend to be no more exempt than my
neighbours. A wayside monument has had
the same effect upon me, haunting my dreams
and fancies by night, and intruding on my
waking thoughts by day. It has intrigued
me, to borrow a French expression, beyond
all bearing.

The churchyard of the village of Wimille,
about four miles north of Boulogne-sur-Mer,
skirts the imperial road to Calais. Just
! at the middle of the boundary-wall a stone
tablet rises, inscribed with small capitals,
and surmounted at the top with something
which is very like a petrified cauliflower.
It is meant to represent a balloon on fire.
The inscription (in French) runs to the
following effect : " In this cemetery are in-
terred Francois Pilatre de Rosier and Pierre
Ange Remain, who, desiring to pass over to
England in an air-balloon, in which they had
combined the agency of fire and of inflam-
mable air, by an accident whose veritable
cause will always remain unknown, the fire
having caught the upper part of the balloon,
they fell from the height of more than five
thousand feet between Wimereux and the sea."
The inscription is repeated in a Latin dupli-
cate, for the benefit of travelling strangers
who do not understand French. The said
travellers are also apostrophised : " Passers-
by, mourn their lot, and pray God for the re-
pose of their souls ! " Annual masses for
their soul's repose, at the date corresponding
to their rapid descent, were founded in the
parish church of Wimille ; whether or not the
'ninety-three revolution swept away the
masses I cannot say. The Cure would give
an answer to those who wish to know. Their
lot was mournful ; but even stronger than
our pity is the feeling which ui'ges us to find
out how the deuce it happened. I resolved
to try what could be done to that effect, and
at last made out a theory which may, or may
not, be the true one.

The churchyard memorial was not the only
one that was raised to mark the horrible

150

HOUSEHOLD WORDS.

[Conducted by

catastrophe. In the camp of Wimereux, just
behind the Cate du Petit Ca])or:tl, which is
next door to the Estamiuet du Ballon, a small
obelisk of marble from the neighbouring
quarries of Ferques, built without any, or
with the least possible mortar, and riot more
than eight or nine feet high, rises on the spot
w here the aeronauts were dashed to the ground.
When I first knew it, it stood in solitude in
the midst of a grassy, down-like waste, half
undermined by moles, and almost pushed off
its pedestal by the cattl* who used it as a
rubbing-post. The parties that seemed to
favour it with the longest notice, were the
mushrooms who peeped above-ground from
time to time, some singly, some in little
family groups of three or four, but all appa-
rently considering, under their broad-brimmed
hats, whether it would not be an act of charity
to the memory of the deceased, to surround
their halt-ruined monument with a railing.
That also bears its record, in French, supply-
ing a few additional particulars : " Here fell
from the height of more than five thousand
feet, at thirty-five minutes past seven in
the moruiiig,the unfortunate aeronauts Pilatre
de Hosier and Rornaiu the elder, who
started from Boulogne at five minutes after
seven, in the morning of the fifteenth of
June, seventeen hundred and eighty-five.
The first was found dead upon the spot ; the
second gave a few signs of life during one or
two minutes."

The best means, I thought, of solving the
problem of their fall, was to find up any
persons who had witnessed it. I was more
fortunate than might have been expected,
with an event occurring sixty years ago. In
a hamlet to the north of Wimereux, I found
an old woman more than a hundred years old,
who had seen the balloon ascend from Boulogne.
She was dosing and dreaming over a fire of
dry furze, staring at the sparks with her
filmy eyes. I wonder whether she could see
with those eyes, even after she turned them
on me as I entered her hovel.

" What do you want with me ? " she said,
in a voice that belonged to the other world.
" You don't know me, and I don't know
you. I'm of no use to anybody, now."

" But 1 know you," my companion said.
And then he began to talk about their ac-
quaintance, and then about the obelisk, and
then about Pilatre de Rosier.

" I saw him and his friend go up," she said,
suddenly waking, as if inspired. "I was closeto
them. He was a handsome man, and looked so
smiling. As the balloon rose, he saluted
and bowed to all the people, and waved his
flags continually in this way, so, until he had
mounted quite high in the sky." And then
she suited the action to the word, waving her
arms in imitation of poor De Rosier, "My
arms then were not like this ; " she continued,
pulling the skin which hung loosely about
them. "Iliad handsome arms once. Yes ;
he waved his arms so." And then she fell

into her dreamy state, the precursor of
the long sleep of death, from which nothing
could rouse her. All the further information
we could extract was, that he waved his arms,
comme a, and that hers were ones handsome
arms.

It struck me that the excellent Museum at
Boulogne might contain some relics of this
tragical tumble. I found them there, and
hetter than them. Monsieur Duburquoy,
senior, an intelligent old man, the father of
the present well-informed curator of the
museum, was at Wimereux when the
aeronauts fell, and helped to lift them from
the ground. He was thirteen years of age
at the time. He told me that De Rosier,
quite dead, had one of his legs broken, and
that the bone pierced through the tight fit-
ting trouser ; and that Remain heaved three
or four deep sighs, and then expired. He
picked up a piece of bread, partially eaten,
that fell with them. A bottle of wine, that
had been uncorked, and had had a glass or
two drunk from it, accompanied them in
their fall, and most extraordinarily was not
broken.

The museum has the portrait of De
Rosier in powdered wig and frilled shirt,
besides a coloured medallion in wax. He is
styled "the first aeronaut of the universe ;"
to which title there would be nothing to ob-
ject, if we were but perfectly cognisant of the
atmospherical conditions of every other sun,
planet, and satellite in the universe. There
are besides, his barometer, thermometer,
speaking-trumpet, and the wand to which his
little waving flag was attached. There is the
painted cloth which surrounded the gallery
of the Montgolfie"re, or flying fire-place, which
helped him to ascend ; there is a little piece
of the taffetas or oiled-silk, covered with gold-
beater's skin, which contained his float of hy-
drogen gas ; and that is all the material
evidence to be found.

Our readers may remember that Pilatre
de Rosier was ambitious to be the first to
cross the English channel in a balloon.* He
had already the honour of being the first mail
who ascended in the earth's atmosphere, in a
captive balloon as a first experiment, and
afterwards in one at liberty to rise and wander
whither it would, in which bold excursion he
was accompanied by the Marquis d'Aiiandes.
The lirst living creatures that made a
balloon ascent, were a sheep, a cock, and a
duck, conjointly travellers through the region
of clouds. Since then, equestrian ascents have
been made by terrified horses, mounted by
fool-hardy men. In all these latter cases, it
may be believed, that an ass made one of the
party.

In crossing the channel, De Rosier was
forestalled by his countryman (Blauchard)
and our compatriot (Jeff erics), who started
from Dover and landed in the forest of

cc "Over the Water," vol. vii. p. 483.

Charles Dickene.]

THE EOYAL BALLOON.

151

Gulncs on the seventh of January, seventeen
hundred and eighty-five. Nevertheless, he
had drawn upon government funds ; and he
still adhered to his purpose of passing in
a balloon from France to England, as his
more fortunate rival had done from England
to France. The latter feat has been several
times repeated, the former has never yet
been accomplished. De Eosier had given the
Comptroller-General of Finances to under-
stand that, if he would pay the expense of the
expedition, he (Pildtre) would execute it. His
request w;is granted ; he received forty-two
thousand francs (sixteen hundred and eighty
pounds sterling) as a first instalment, which
was afterwards said to be increased till it
amounted to the enormous sum of a hundred
and fifty thousand francs. Eomain, who then
enjoyed a great repute for manufacturing
balloons, made an agreement with Pilatre, by
which he bound himself to construct one of
thirty feet diameter, or thereabouts, for the
sum of three hundred louis-d'ors. Pilatre,
whose business was to find the work-room,
obtained from the governor of the Tuileries,
the Salle des Gardes, and another apartment.
The work, begun at the end of August seven-
teen hundred and eighty-four, was com-
pleted six weeks afterwards. Six hundred
ells of white taffeta were employed in fabri-
cating this ill-starred machine.

Eomain had strictly kept to himself the
secret of rendering taffeta impermeable to
gas. He was careful beyond measure to con-
ceal his mode of preparation. He worked in
solitude, like an alchemist, and was only
known to have one single companion of his
studies, who aided him gratuitously in the
construction of his balloon. The whole secret
consisted in covering the taffeta with a coat
of linseed oil made capable of drying by sugar
of lead, and in pressing in till it only felt
greasy in the hand. Every strip was then
covered with gold-beater's skin, that was
made to adhere by ordinary size, in which
was incorporated a mixture of honey and
linseed oil. These ingredients gave supple-
ness to the size, and prevented the united
superficies from cracking. A second and
third layer of gold-beater's skin were added ;
and the balloon, when finished, thirty-three
and a half French feet in diameter, and orna-
mented with tinsel in different parts, weighed
three hundred and twenty pounds, including
the cylindrical apparatus that helped to fill
it. So impermeable was it that it remained
distended with atmospheric air for two
months, without showing a single wrinkle.
If De llosier had then ascended from Paris,
it would have carried him almost whitherso-
ever he would. At the end of two months,
the balloon, carefully packed, was transported
to Boulogne, which Pilatre had chosen as his
starting-point. Of course, the packing and
transport for so long a distance by land-car-
riage, rendered it still more difficult to pre-
serve uninjured so perishable an article as a

I balloon, with the little previous experience of
! managing it that had been acquired. A
montgolfidre also travelled with it, twenty
feet high, whose cupola was formed of chamois
leather. It was tested before its departure
for the coast, and its success corresponded to
the care that had been bestowed upon it.

The montgolfidre, or fire-balloon, was,
either accidentally or purposely, directly or
indirectly, the immediate cause of Pilatre's
fearful end. He had announced some new
combination of the means of ascent, which he
shrouded as far as he could in mystery. It
seems to have been his idea, that the gas-
balloon would be sufficient to carry him, while
the fire-balloon would give him great com-
mand of equilibrium, by increasing or dimi-
nishing the fire in it, so as almost to render
him independent of ballast. His confidence
in the long-sustaining power of his machine
was one means of procuring him pecuniary aid
from the government. Whatever might be
the aerostatic advantages gained, the danger
was increased enormously. Either a gas-
balloon or a fire-balloon, alone, was infinitely
safer than the two united. To crown the
whole rash scheme, the hydrogen gas must
necessarily float above the montgolnere. As
his friend, Professor Charles, remonstrated
with him, "you are putting a chafing-dish
under a barrel of gunpowder."

Pilatre arrived at Boulogne on the twentieth
of December, seventeen hundred and eighty-
four, followed by the anxious wishes of the
subscribers to his scientific Lyceum, and also
of numerous ladies of the court, who had
requested him to bring back innumerable
small articles from England to serve as New
Year's Day presents. Two days after his
arrival he was informed of the preparations
which Blanchard was making in England for
a voyage which should compete with his own.
He became alarmed. He went to Dover;
saw Blanchard ; and, for a moment, enter-
tained the hope (on account of the dilapidated
condition of the balloon, from which the gas
oozed in many places) that the rival ascent
could not take place. His anxious fears soon
resumed their power ; he returned to Bou-
logne ; left there Eomain and his brother,
who had accompanied him, and went to Paris
in a feverish state of mental torture.

Meanwhile, Blanchard and Jefferies as-
cended from Dover, and reached the Forest of
Gulnes safe and sound. Pilatre's pride re-
ceived a mortal wound at failing to be the
first to cross the sea. He entreated to be
excused attempting the voyage. Some say
that the Controller of Finances consented,
merely claiming the surplus of what had not
been disbursed about the balloon. But the
wretched Pilatre, sure of success, had already
spent it in enriching the experimental de-
partment of his Lyceum. Others state that
when he explained his donbts and apprehen-
sions to M. de Calonue, the minister, he met
with a cold and even rough reception.

158

HOUSEHOLD WORDS.

[Conducted by

\\'e have not spent a hundred and fifty
thousand francs," ho said, "merely to help
YOU to make an inland trip. You must turn
the balloon to some useful account, and cross
the channel with it."

However, in the impossibility of fulfilling
the first conditions, and under the necessity of
at least attempting the second, ho returned to
Boulogne, prepared for, and evidently expect-
ing, the worst.

It may appear strange that a minister of
the crown should be so anxious about the
accomplishment of a mere scientific whim,
as the balloon pa^a^e from France to England
would seem to be, and should advance so
large a sum of money to further it. But
there was more than a scientific result in the
background, and De Rosier was probably
well aware of it. It was the common report
of that day, that the grand object of Pilatre's
attempt was to effect the escape of Louis the
Sixteenth and his family to Great Britain, by
an aerial route, since terrestrial ways, it was
instinctively felt, were already closed against
their departure. It was already foreseen by
acute observers of the signs of the times, that
the royal family of France was already
doomed. The King's want of energy, Egalite's
profligacy, Necker's vanity, the obstinate
pride of the aristocracy, and the wrongs and
sufferings of the people, all tended to one in-
evitable catastrophe. The King, even then,
had not a will of his own ; his house was not
his castle, nor his actions free. He was drift-
ing down the stream with that increased
rapidity which denotes inimistakeably that a
cataract is near. No person of ordinary
penetration would be surprised to find him not
long afterwards a prisoner in the Tuileries,
walking in the gardens with six grenadiers of
the milice bourgeoise about him, with the
garden gates shut in consequence of his pre-
sence, to be opened to the public as soon as
he entered the palace. He might order a
little railed-off garden for his son, the Dau-
phin, to amuse himself iu ; but the poor boy
could not be permitted to work with his little
hoe and rake without a guard of two grena-
diers. Louis's most attached friends, as well
as his most implacable enemies, foresaw all
this, and what followed it. A balloon was
one of the schemes to rescue him ; and Pilatre
de Rosier was the man pitched upon to
manage it.

It was a desperate chance, the moist san-
guine will admit. Even had they been
launched propitiously with a favourable
wind, a sudden change of that tickle element
might have swept them hopelessly towards the
arctic horrors of the North Sea, or to the
interminable waters of the Atlantic Ocean.
We shudder to imagine such a dreadful fate
as possibly awaiting a delicately-nurtured
king with his wife and children ; we reflect,
however, that such a speedy termination to
their sulF-ring*, arriving at latest in the
course of a few days, would have been mercy

in comparison to what they were afterwards
really made to endure.

Pil.ltre, then, seriously prepared for his
departure. He sent off numerous pilot bal-
loons, which were constantly driven back to
the continent by adverse west and north-west
winds. All this caused considerable delay,
during which the balloon, exposed to the
wear and tear of the elements, was consider-
ably damaged ; it was even nibbled by rats.
Henceforward, the machine on which such
care and expense had been bestowed, became
leaky and worthless, in consequence of ill-
treatment and want of shelter.

A better prospect opened at last ; and as
the wind was favourable, blowing from the
south-east, the departure was fixed for the
fifteenth of June. As the weather was ex-
ceedingly hot, preparations were commenced
at daybreak, and all was ready by seven
o'clock. A salute of artillery announced the
launch into air. The ascent was majestic.
The balloon rose perpendicularly to its
greatest elevation; it then sailed in a nor-
therly direction, over the top of the cliff of La
Creche, when a current from the upper regions
of the atmosphere, which had been foreseen by
sailors best acquainted with Channel naviga-
tion, wafted it gently towards the continent.
Twenty-three minutes had elapsed since the
ropes were loosed which held the machine
captive ; the acclamations of the spectators
had not ceased ; every eye was strained to
gaze after the aerial voyagers, when, just as
the wind drove them back to France, cries of
alarm from the united crowd announced the
fearful calamity which it witnessed. A bright
light burst from the upper balloon ; a volume
of smoke succeeded it ; and then commenced
the rapid fall which filled all present with
consternation. The scene was frightful ; the
crowd shuddered with apprehension of what
was immediately to follow, and swung back-
wards and forwards like tempest- tossed
waves. After the first shock of terror, a great
number of people rushed to Wimereux, in the
vain hope of rendering some assistance. They
arrived only to find the adventurers past all
human aid.

I cannot help entertaining a suspicion
that Pilatre de Rosier perished by suicide ;
that he wilfully set fire to the balloon when
he found there was an end of all his hopes.
It is true that the almost fulminating arrange-
ment of his apparatus might have caused
the explosion to result from accident or indis-
cretion ; and therefore no more than a suspi-
cion ought to be suggested. But persons
who watched the progress of the balloon
with telescopes, assert that the valve of the
hydrogen balloon was not secured. Pilatre,
too, was a doubly ruined man ; ruined in
money, and ruined in prestige. Blanchard
had robbed him of his crowning ambition ;
and now an envious puff of wind forbade his
ever being allowed to attempt the transporta-
tion of the royal family. Pilatre's coolness,

Charles Dickens.]

THE ROVING ENGLISHMAN.

153

presence of mind, and faculty of avoiding
impending danger, were notorious ; so also
were his vanity, pride, violence, and reckless-
ness of life. A man who, in prosperity, could
rill his mouth with hydrogen gas, and set fire to
it there, and who could expose himself repeat-
edly to be struck dead in hazardous electrical
experiments, was not likely to hesitate when

with all the philosophy at your command to
be jovial under difficulties, suddenly you are
seized with agonising pains just below the
chest. In vain you try to make light of it.
You are obliged to lean for support against
the first thing or person at hand. Your ex-
tremities have become chilled and useless
you sit and double yourself up, hoping
something from warmth and quiet at last

he had to choose between disgrace and

despair. His friend Charles had threatened i you lie down and writhe in the intensity of

to blow his brains out, if the timid king per- j your pain. If you are driven to take brandy

sisted in forbidding him to make an ascent
that threatened danger, and which, wisely on
his part, was his first and last ascent, or
rather two consecutive first and last ascents
on one day. We know, too, the immense
interest which the court (the queen particu-
larly) felt in Pilatre's success. These, and
numerous other minor scraps of evidence,
all lead to the inference that De Hosier's
death was even more tragical than has been
currently believed. If there be the slightest
truth in the notion, . Romain is even more
greatly to be pitied. He had refused the
Marquis of Maisonfort's offer of two hundred
louis-d'ors to resign his place.

The spot where they fell is a very, very
little way from the sea. The conflagration
must have taken place almost immediately
after the direction of their course was altered.
I have several times asked, of people compe-
tent to judge, whether, if they had fallen
into the sea, instead of upon the land, they
could by any possibility have escaped with
life. The answer has been that perhaps they
might. Conceive the idea of talking face to
face with a man who had fallen from the height
of more than five thousand feet !

THE KOVING ENGLISHMAN.

FROM VARNA TO BALAKLAVA.

THE anchor is weighed, and we are standing
out to sea. The prospect around is not very
cheering. The sky is of a dull heavy lead-
colour as if charged with snow and tempests.
To the extreme northward a dense mass of
cumbrous, fantastically-shaped clouds seem to
menace the waters with their wrath, and they
have that black, sullen look I have often
observed on the eve of a storm. The short
waves, which are a peculiar characteristic of
the Euxine, chop fitfully against each other,
and their angry spray shoots upwards with
a hissing sound. A thick mist rises along
the coast and soon hides it from our view,
then it spreads along the sea, and seems
to settle in a thin, penetrating rain which
comes in sudden fretful gusts, and then
subsides ; to return again presently and unex-
pectedly. It is bitterly cold. That clammy,
deadly, cold of these climates, against
which no clothes seem able to protect you.
It is a cold which is not felt in the chest,

(hot brandy and water is best) you feel
peculiar sickness for some minutes, and then
the pain slowly subsides ; but it leaves you
stupid and depressed for hours afterwards ;
and trembling, and nervous. The only way
to give yourself a chance of escape is by
winding some twenty yards of silken or
wollen sash tightly round your loins and
abdomen. It is the custom of the country ;
the dress of the peasant and the prince, and
you will soon understand that it has not been
adopted without a reason. This was the
commencement of that sickness which car-
ried off numbers of our troops. The doctors
called it cholera ; it \vas only cold.

Nothing can be much more dreary and
dispiriting than our voyage. There is a good
deal of brandy-drinking and a brisk con-
sumption of cigarettes and pipes ; but it does
not mend our spirits much. We know all
about the wreck of the Prince and the gallant
merchant fleet which carried the winter-
clothing for the army. Sad accounts have
reached us of the fate of dear friends, and of
relatives exposed to melancholy privations.
A few among us may be anxious for their
own fate when they join the army which
has hitherto so vainly beleaguered Sebas-
topol. See yonder pallid lieutenant. He
was sent invalided to the hospital at Scu-
tari. He recovered; care and good-living
soon brought him round. Then he begged
the doctors so hard to let him rejoin
his regiment that they consented. But

already
of the

he feels the
malady which

numbing
laid him

hand
low

before, and he will return soon, or die.
There is a fixed and steady light in his eye;
such as I can fancy may have been wit-
nessed, though unread, by those who stood
round Arthur Conolly when he died at far
Bokhara. It is the light which has been seen
often in the eyes of true brave men who were
prepared to fulfil their duty simply and un-
flinchingly, whether death stood in the way,
or not. Indeed this officer seems lo have laid
this truth to heart : that he who does not know
how to die, if need be, should hardly be a
soldier. He tells me this as we talk together
over the ship's side, merely expressing what
is part of his quiet, noble creed.

We leave the Isle of Serpents, and the
mouths of the Danube on the larboard. Now

nor hands, nor feet, as our cold in Europe and then we descry a war-steamer paddlino-
is ; but it is sure "
stomach. You were

in. -i^imjjjc tmu tiien we utsui y it wcti-steamer pauuiing
ire to strike first at the up through the haze, with despatches, and
i-e well just now, and, trying \ there is an exchange of signals between us ;

lf>4

HOUSEHOLD WORDS.

[Conducted by

but the ships look shadowy and unsubstantial
as phantoms, so that, a moment after they
have been signalled, the straining eye searches
vainly for them. Still we are glad to make out
a fi-ii-ndly sail, or to see the smoke of a funnel.
It relieves the weariness of the voyage, and
makes the slippery deck, and cumbered hold
more cheerful.

We do not make much way, for we are
heavily laden. We are carrying all sorts of
fresh provisions and stores : yet we know
that our burthen will disappear, amongso many,
like a drop of water in the sand; and this
is another reason why we are glad to see
other vessels steei'ing toward the same point.
At last, however, as we draw near land, the
heavy snow-storm which has been brooding
so long in the air, descends with an effect that
is quite blinding. Then we go below, and
try to amuse ourselves as well as we can. It
is too dark to read with comfort, except at
night, when the candles are lighted; and then
we are most of us drowsy. So we play at
cards and tell each other stories, quite fami-
liarly ; although, wonderful to say, we may
not have been acquainted before. It is curious
to mark how tolerant we are of each other's
little weaknesses ; and how closely we seem
to be drawn together by the mere tie of
national brotherhood. I have never wit-
nessed anything like it before amongst
Englishmen.

In about forty hours from the time we left
Varna we anchored at Balaklava. We could
hear now and then the stray boom of can-
non to windward ; and we could see the flag
of England flying from the heights. We had
scarcely cast anchor, when we were boarded
by a tumultuous and motley crowd of officers
off duty, looking pale and haggard enough.
Doctors with anxious faces and hurried looks,
brawny boatmen, and lean slovenly servants
on foraging expeditions. Yon could hardly
recognise them as the trim smai't grooms who
had left Constantinople a short time ago.
I must own also to some surprise at being
accosted by touters, who perceiving, I sup-
pose, by my speculative and abstracted looks,
that! was not a military gentleman, obligingly
offered to procure me quarters for a con-si-de-
ra-tion. Come, thought I, after all, things
cannot be quite so bad as we've heaixl say, if
a young fellow of no account, like this, is able
to get me food and shelter. Whereupon I
fell into a train of reflections.

Our greatest curse in the Crimea has been
our ignorance. We were obliged to do
everything in the dark to feel our way
at every step. Thus we knew that the
casual visit of a Frenchman about sixty
years ago had first given political import-
ance to the Crimea. We knew that the
name of that Frenchman had been of course
forgotten. We should like to hear the name
of the Frenchman who suggested the build-
ing of old Westminster Bridge or any other
work on which our national pride reposes. I

warrant it would be as hard to come at as
that of the founder of Sebastopol.

Then we knew that there was a bay which
Strabo called the Ctenus, and a Tartar village
by the name of Aktiar (ancient). We knewthat
the appellation of Sebastopol was altogether
an invention of the respectable but lively
Catherine. Indeed, there was no end to the
things we knew which were not of the smallest
importance for anybody to know. Of ancient
Cherson, we knew all that Dubois de Mont-
p6reuxand Kohl had to say upon the subject,
and that I am sure was confusing enough
especially to read when slightly sea-sick.
With regard to Balaklava specially, we knew
all about the colony of Symbolum (the
Cembalo of the Genoese) ; also about Ulysses
and the Lsestrigonians. We were well up in
various matters relating to Diana : her fond-
ness for roasted strangers, the elegance of her
temple, and the mysterious functions of her
friend Theos ; while we need, of course,
scarcely allude to Orestes and Pylades, who
have been, so to say, old familiar friends of
ours these five-and-twenty years. We could
have recognised their lodging even by the
description of a Zouave, who offered himself
as a sort of amateur laquais de place. The
impei'ious Iphigenia was also a lady with
whom we were well acquainted by repute,
and we were fully instructed about subter-
ranean Inkermann and the Arians. Our
education, indeed, like that of most of our
clear-headed practical countrymen, had been
altogether in this direction so of course we
could not be expected to know anything about
the wild wind-gusts which come on unex-
pectedly here, and one of which absolutely
blew our ship's boat bottom upwards, and
drifted it away like a straw before we were
aware of it so completely were we taken by
surprise in consequence of an event which
an officer's Greek servant told me subse-
quently was quite an every-day occurrence at
this season of the year, and a very well-
known peculiarity of the climate. The cap-
tains of the little Greek boats which ply
about these seas in peace time, are always
very well prepared on these occasions. Some
of these men would have been invaluable as
pilots ; but it seems the naval authorities are
now afraid to employ them another fine
illustration of our far-sighted and able
policy towards the Greeks at the outbreak
of the war. A little prudent concession
would have placed them completely on our
side. Now, however, I have no doubt that
the naval authorities have good reason for
their suspicions, and that many a Greek
pilot would risk his life to punish us. Indeed,
the melancholy story of the Tiger is proof
enough of it.

These thoughts positively haunt me as our
boat (recaught and brought back after a good
deal of delay) is being hustled forward by a
pair of short fat oars towards the shore, and
moderately bumped and jockeyed by the

Charles Dickens.]

THE .ROVING ENGLISHMAN.

155

more lively craft going in the same direction
We laud at last amid slush, and snow, and
slippery loose stones. The sky over our
heads is inky black, and the clouds on the
verge of the horizon look white. The ships
in the pretty harbour (for pretty it is, in
spite even of the scowl of winter), are in-
distinct and shadowy from the thick fall of
snow which lies upon every spar, amid the
folds of their drooping pennants, on their
paddle-boxes, and their light sticks aloft,
on the rim of the captain's hat, as he paces
the deck thoughtfully; wondering, perhaps, if
the little worm which eats holes in the bot-
toms of vessels when at anchor in these seas,
is already silently feasting upon his ; or per-
haps he is too well-educated to know anything
about so unclassical a subject as this vora-
cious little worm a terrible reality, never-
theless.

The doctors have spurred hurriedly away,
so have the officers and the foraging servants,
though their horses look gaunt and shaggy.
In colour they are quite rusty, as if their coat
were made of iron wire which had been for
some time exposed to the rain.

There is an old, old look about Balaklava ;
a tumble down air which especially belongs
to things and places that were once in the
possession of those strange trading Italians of
the middle ages. The town, a miserable
place, lies at the foot of a range of hills
on the east, and the sea, shut in by the
mountains, makes the harbour look almost
like a lake. The ruins of an old Genoese
fortress frown grimly down upon it, and
seem as shadowy and indistinct as the ships
in its covering of snow. On the hills towards
Baidar lie the tents of the Highlanders and
Turks, together with a contingent of marines
and some sailors.

We are soon made aware of the near neigh-
bourhood of Turks and sailors.

Sailor (with great contempt, and at the top
of his voice). " Blow them Turks ! I say,
you bono Johnny, drat you ! ahoy ! ahoy !
you beggar."

Turkish soldier (with much courtesy).
" Bono Johnny ! oo, oo, oo, Bono Johnny ! "
he waves his pipe blandly as he speaks, and
assumes an air of puzzled jocularity, as if he
was aware that there was some pleasantry
going forward, without being clearly able to
divine the nature of it.

Sailor (now roaring with tremendous ener-
gy). " Ahoy ! I say, give us a light ! Do you
think nobody wants to smoke but yourself,
you son of a sea-cook ?"

Turk (swaying his head from side to side
smilingly). " Bono Johnny ! Bono Johnny,
oo, oo, oo."

Sailor (speechless with indignation for a
moment, as if this were really too much for
him). " None of that, or I'm jiggered if I don't
spoil your old mug for you. Give us a light.
Why don't you come, you beggar ? I speak
plain enough, and loud enough too, don't I ? "

Turk (perceiving at last that there is to be
another row with an infidel, though unable
to understand why) drops his arms by his
side, and looks, blushing and wondering, at
the excited seaman. He twiddles his thumbs,
he shuffles with his feet, he looks the picture
of listless incapacity, like most of his country-
men when in difficulties.

The sailor meantime marches up to him
and attempts to light his pipe. The Turk
is a petty officer. He has formerly been
the aga of a village, and he looks upon this
proceeding as a direct insult, an action at
variance with all his previous ideas of cour-
tesy and good breeding. It is indeed an
action similar to that which eating out of the
plate of a stranger or drinking out of hia
glass, unasked, would be in England.

The Turk withdraws his pipe therefore,
and his looks display how deeply he thinks
his dignity is wounded.

And the sailor takes him by the ear
by the left ear, for I paid particular attention
to the circumstance. He then stands upon one
leg, and begins to execute a species of horn-
pipe, tugging at that ear to time. It is a sin-
gular, though not to me a very agreeable
sight, to see the Turk tucking in his two-
penny, and following the stout tar in these
agile movements. Were he to do otherwise
he must make up his mind, I fear, to part
with his left ear altogether, for the sailor
holds it with a grasp like a vice, and
gives satisfactory evidence how far human
flesh and how far human patience can
stretch.

" Hulloh, Jack ! What are you about with
that poor fellow ? " says a small man smo-
thered in clothes, who now approaches the
pair. " Here, I'll give you a light and some
baccy too."

_ "Lord love you, guv'ner, them beggars
aint fit for nothing else but monkey's allow-
ance, they 'aint. Why, I'm blessed, guv'ner,
if I wasn't a hallooin' to un for an hour,
to give us a light, and he wouldn't ! How-
somedever, they'll laru by and by, how this
here is British ground ; won't they, sir ? "

"Ay, ay, Jack."

The truth was, the sailor was as racy
a tar as ever chawed a quid ; and the Turk
was perhaps as good a Mussulman as any
going. But the best folks do not always
agree, when they try to force their ideas on.
each other.

" What ! No mustard with your beef, sir ?"
cried Matthews, stranger, at the coffeehouse.
" Confound you, sir, you shall have mustard ! "
How often have I seen that stranger ap-
plying his principles to other things than
steaks and spices !

On the whole, Balaklava appeared to be
" the thing," and it was generally expected of
us to express the utmost satisfaction at being
there. Every one we met spoke of it in the
lioliday language used by country cousins
who came up to London from the wilds of

15G

HOUSEHOLD WORDS.

[Conduct, 1 *! by

1/iiKvlnshiiv Injure the invention of railroads.
In i'ni-t, theiv seemed :ni impression that all
tilings might be had here, even to the luxury
of something eatable. My companion, there-
fore, looked at me with considerable surprise,
when J told him ruefully, that I had some
preserved meats and fruits carefully packed in
tin cases somewhere among my luggage (a
dreary pile), I did not clearly know where ; for
my faculties were frozen. "Preserved things
in tin cases," said ray-friend, brightening up
when he clearly understood me, " Oh, we
can send those on to the camp. Here we have
got all sorts of things salt beef and pork
and pork and beef and, and well, not much
more, but we are fairly in clover compared
with the rest of the fellows."

It was quaint to hear my companion, a
regular London swell whom I remem-
bered very well with nerves, and a damaged
digestion thus lauding the accommoda-
tions of Balaklava. It is but a village
a mere collection of huts. In oi'dinary
times it must be inexpressibly dreary ; but
now the General Post Office ten minutes
before closing time is hardly fuller of bust-
ling, and hustling, and scuffling. Busty, im-
patient individuals on short leave from other
places, flounder about hurriedly, yet with an
odd air of business and authority in all they
do, which bespeaks the stranger on a hostile
soil. They are armed also needlessly just
here but who' among them knows when he
may be ' summoned to the front, and find
himself hand to hand with the enemy 1 It is
well, therefore, to ride prepared even when
foraging within your own lines. They are
strangely altered, some of those bucks and
bloods I see stride slouchingly up the broken
street, now in a mud hole, now out of it, now
sending the splashes from a half-melted snow
puddle flying right and left on each side of
them. They hardly look the same men who
used to step mincingly out of their cabs and
strut daintily into their clubs. Barring a few
soiled and torn remnants of what was once a
uniform, and still looks something like one
when you get quite close to it, they might be
so many California!! Diggers. They are be-
grimed, gaunt, grim, famished, and luckless
enough. They have the boldest contrivances
to keep themselves dry and warm. Wherever
an article of fur or wool can be worn by any
one who is fortunate enough to possess it,
there it is. Hound their waists are twisted
immense gay-coloured scarfs, bought at fabu-
lous prices. On their feet, are coverings
which might be the seven- leagued boots of
the giant Blunderbore.

The occupation of almost everybody seems
to be connected with eating. Little knots of
fellows adjourn for impromptu feasts to all
sorts of places, and dispense with knives,
and forks, and plates with the utmost readi-
ness. They have at length acquired that
branch of Turkish politeness, which consists
ia eating with the fingers ; others more

fortunate have invitations to cosy little things
on board some of the ships in the bay. Lucky
dogs !

Meantime, I wander about leisurely, no-
body minding me by-and-by, at dinner
time, there will be some conversation, but not
now. So I get among the hovels near the
shore, and enter one, knocking my head dis-
tinctly, as I do so. It looks not unlike an
all-sorts shop at Wapping. Rolling about in
oozy, frozen barrels, is an immense quantity
of salt pork that prime delicacy recom-
mended for its being easier cooked, and keep-
ing better than beef : also recommended, per-
haps, because swine's flesh is precisely the
sort of meat which is forbidden to be eaten
by the inhabitants of those latitudes. Trim
kegs of rum, piled up one over the other, look
cheerily at us from corners. Something is
carefully packed in sacking, and steadily lying
in soak as it were between the wet ground and
the snow. This, I am told, is part of the fresh
supply of warm clothes sent from Constanti-
nople or Bucharest since the loss of the Prince.
There are stacks of guns, too, and piles of
ammunition, also some cannon. Everything
seems in a wretched disorderly plight. Out
of doors there is a crowd fully equal to that
of Whitechapel on a Saturday night, barring
the ladies. There is quite as much shouting
and hallooing, however, for provisions are
being lauded from the transports and then
hurried away to the camp. It is not very far
off, but the road there is " too bad, sir, en-
toirely !" as an Irishman has just told me.
Neither horse nor man can make sure of
reaching it when he goes hence, and a pound
weight difference to their burthen may render
the journey impossible to either.

Wandering about, I find that Balaklava
boasts a low wall, singularly useless and
ill-built ; down a break-toe street also is a
well, quite impregnable, I should say, from
the difficult and ancle-wrenching nature of its
natural fortifications. Farther on, are some
melancholy hypochondriacal trees, four of
them, I think, as straight and dull as so many
gigantic vegetable policemen. Balaklava
possesses also a good-for-nothing old Genoese
fortress, a church of no account, and a brisk
colony of a small Crimean insect which seems
to have a wonderful partiality for fresh
stranger considered in an alimentary point of
view. This energetic little race provides me
with considerable occupation: it is with satis-
faction also that I notice several other persons
furnished with employment similar to mine,
and performing their allotted task with
much diligence and apparent pleasurable
feeling.

Yes ; Balaklava is a wretched little place
enough ; yet I dare say there are some who
would rather not ride away from it through
the last tailing snow to-night ; and I feel that
many a bold fellow must turn longing glances
at the lights which glow out of the snug
cabin windows, and the blazes seen through

Charles Dickens.]

EALPH THE NATURALIST.

157

the open doorway as his friends bid him good
bye, and his lauk horse plods wearily camp-

j
wards.

ONE BY ONE.

ONE by one the sands are flowing,

One by one tbe moments fall ;
Some are coming, some are going,

Do not strive to grasp them all.

One by one thy duties wait thee,
Let thy whole strength go to each,

Let no future dreams elate thec,

Learn thou first what these can teach.

One by one (bright gifts from Heaven)

Joys are sent thee here below ;
Take them readily when given,

Ready too to let them go.

One by one thy griefs shall meet thee,

Do not fear an armed band ;
One will fade as others greet thee,

Shadows passing through the land.

Do not look at life's long sorrow ;

See how small each moment's pain ;
God will help thee for to-inorrow,

Every day begin again.

Every hour that fleets so slowly

Has its task to do or bear ;
Luminous the crown, and holy,

If thou set each gem with care.

Do not linger with regretting,

Or for passing hours despond ;
Nor, the daily toil forgetting,

Look too eagerly beyond.

Hours are golden links, God's token,
Reaching Heaven ; but one by one

Take them, lest the chain be broken
Ere the pilgrimage be done.

EALPH THE NATUEALIST.

A STRANGE dreamy fellow was Ealph
Jessett, always wandering about the woods
and fields by himself, and finding out more
secrets of nature, in his queer shambling
way, than he would have ever learnt from
science had he gone through all the triposes
of Cambridge. He knew where almost every
nest in the garden was, from the tomtit's, in
the wall of the old arbour, to the shy linnet's,
hidden low among the shrubbery trees ; and
the sitting birds never flew away from Ealph
Jessett's looking at them. They seemed to
know that he was a friend, and would not
harm them. He would tell marvellous stories
of the intelligence of all creation, from snails
to dogs ; and as for spiders, and earwigs, and
centipedes, and all manner of creeping, crawl-
ing, wriggling creatures, why to hear him,
you would think that Newton and Shak-
speare were mere humbugs compared to
them. He had no antipathies eithei 1 . It
was quite curious to see the unconcern with
which he would handle slugs, toads, water-

newts, every kind of entomological abomi-
nation ; saying, with his sweet smile and
embarrassed humility, "The more one knows,
the more one loves all things in nature."
And then he would give long accounts of the
love-worthiness of these creatures, the very
mention of which would have made many a
young lady scream and shudder ; but after
hearing Ralph's biographies, one felt quite
respectfully towards efts, and cleggs, and stag-
beetles, and hundred-legs of every race, and
almost ashamed somehow of being a man,
and not an insect.

He had always been queer, this poor rela-
tion of the rich Temples of Manor House.
His mother used to fret about him a great
deal before she died ; for she fancied he was
not quite " canny," as the Scotch say, and
that he would never make his way in the
world, left as he was without fortune, and
with such unprofitable tastes only. For he
cared only for natural history, and only for
that experimentally, not scientifically. When
quite a little fellow and obliged to stop at
home alone, and not take part in any sort of
game or play, because he was so sickly he
might be heard talking to the butterflies and
birds flying low about him, holding long con-
versations with them, and telling them that
he loved them, oh ! far better than any-
thing else in the world ; which he did, except-
ing his dear mother.

In the days of witchcraft and fairy-folk,
Ealph would have been thought an elf-child
to begin with, and a wizard as he went on.
As it was, he was such a withered, quaint,
odd-looking creature, with so much irregular
learning, and so much simplicity of character,
that it was a puzzle to many whether he
were 'cute or simple, as the country people
say. And Avhen he went to live at Manor
House, on his mother's death, it was thought
quite a charity in Mr. Temple to take him,
(though he received payment for his education
and maintenance), and a very great honour
for Ealph to be admitted to his establish-
ment. They were cousins though ; and in
early life Ealph's father had been of infinite
service to Mr. Temple. But Ealph thought
it an honour with the rest, and said so-
loudly ; for he had not a very exalted notion
of his own dignity, and was far more inclined
to gratitude than to self-assertion. His birds
and insects taught him humility, he used
to say.

The Temples were very kind, in their way,
to Ealph. Mrs. Temple took great interest
in him, and supplied him with books, and
encouraged his tastes, so far as she could.
For she was a sweet, placid, fair-faced woman,
one of those women who go upstairs very
slowly, and who breathe very hard while
they are doing so, an indolent gentlewoman,
who was never seen to run since her teens,
and who was never known to be cross since
she cut her teeth, a woman whose most
positive acts were those that should make

lf>S

HOUSEHOLD WORDS.

[Conducted by

other people happy, and whose only incentive
to exertion was that she would do a kindness
to another. She pelted Ralph a good deal.
Her husband a hard pompons man, who
carried everything before him in the parish
by dint of quickness in figures and a deep
voice said she spoilt the boy. He did not
approve of poor relations with quaint tastes
and inquiring minds. He thought they ought
to be practical, " fit for clerkships and
counting-houses, sir ; not always living in
snail-shells and dog-kennels." But now he
was obliged to confess that patronage might
be worse bestowed than on that " loose-
jointed awkward fool of a fellow, who, by
Jove, sir, would not kill the slugs off my
peach-trees, nor shoot the blackbirds in the
cherry-trees, nor take the crows'-nests, nor
shoot the sparrows, who would not even
chop up a worm when he was digging in the
garden ! " But at last he got accustomed to
Ralph and his odd ways ; and, partly per-
haps because all his energies were absorbed in
opposing an obnoxious churchwarden whom
he used to call a viper and a traitor to the
blessed constitution, he let him alone, and
allowed his wife to dispense her sweet cha-
rities at her will. So Ralph wandered about,
looking after grubs and caterpillars, or sat by
the fire reading about ant--, and emmets, and
song-birds, and dormice, till he knew as much
about them as one of themselves, and per-
haps more.

Little Miss Temple and Ralph Jessett
were great friends. She was a little lady of
about five or six years old when Ralph came
to Manor House, he a boy of eighteen or
nineteen ; and they soon became the firmest
and fastest allies possible. The way in which
the little thing used to cling to him, follow
him about the garden, and perch on his knee
to hear his stories about creeping things,
was quite beautiful. All the servants said
that Master Ralph was the only one in the
world who could manage Miss Letty, " the
plague of the whole house," they used to add
savagely, and truly ; for that she was this
domestic inconvenience there is no denying,
I fear. What can a healthy well-organised
child be but a plague, if all her youth and
energy of life be placed under the harrow of
conventionality ] Miss Letty was no excep-
tion to the rule that force must have an
object, and that energy must be expanded ;
still less to that which makes healthy children
of high spirits family torments, unless they
are allowed to live somewhat according to
the necessities of their being. However, she
was very good to Ralph, and did not tease
him much. And Ralph, in return for her
patronage, instructed her in a great deal of
insect lore, and taught her the names of
birds, and the habits of fishes, and the won-
derful virtues of plants, Letty sitting on
his knee down in the old arbour, where
the tomtit's nest was, wondering if she should
ever be as clever as Ralph Jessett, and what

a pity it was her doll could not hear him as
well as she did. So Ralph and Letty were
great cronies, and believed in each other
implicitly.

Time gradually unfolded one after another
of his huge iron books of years ; till the little
Letty had grown into a fine handsome girl
of eighteen, with eyes as blue as the sky
on a hot summer's day, and hair as golden as
the sun's. She was a magnificent specimen
of a Saxon girl, with perhaps more animation
in that fresh, round face of hers than many
of the Saxon race "pure blood," with a
pair of large round shoulders as white as
snow, and arms and hands that would have
made the fortune of a modeller, if he could
have copied them correctly. Her lips were
as fresh and red, and her skin was as white
as human flesh may be ; and altogether she
was as superb a being as you would see
anywhere in England, and was consequently
a great pride to the parents, and the acknow-
ledged beauty of the county. She herself
quite conscious too, in a good-tempered
way, that she was beautiful and admirable,
vain as a high-bred hunter would have been
vain, if conversant with his own peculiar
points of beauty, not like a peacock, but in
a free, half-laughing, gallant manner, quite
content to admire herself, but not fretting
after the admiration of all the world beside ;
perhaps because she had it. And all the
time she had been developing into this grand
creature all the time she had been growing
stronger and handsomer, and fuller of life and
more powerful Ralph Jessett had shrunk
and shrunk, till now, at a little more than
thirty, he was bald and gray, and withered and
wrinkled ; shyer and more awkward than ever,;
a better naturalist certainly, but stranger,
more shambling and less worldly than he
was when, as a boy of eighteen, he first came
to Manor House as Mr. Temple's poor rela-
tion, more loved than ever by everybody.
Even the squire sometimes condescended
to exchange a few kindly words with him,
and sweet Mrs. Temple, stouter and lazier
than in olden times, smiling on him placidly,
as she kept him holding skeins for her to
wind off his hands, by the hour together ;
Miss Letty only changing somewhat in her
demonstrations, eschewing now that parti-
cular form of friendship which she and her
doll used to indulge in, ten years ago, down
in the tomtit's arbour, but capital friends
still with Ralph, although she did no longer
sit on his knee, and try to poke out his eyes ;
but counting him as entirely her property
and creature as Dido, her spaniel, or Frisk,
her pony, Ralph nothing loth to be so classed,
as much for love of his co-subjects as for their
queen.

As Miss Letty grew out into this brilliant
womanhood, Ralph's manners were observed
to change. Always respectful, even to the
little girl, he became reverential to the
young lady ; and while his anxiety to please

Charles Dickens.]

EALPH THE NATUEALIST.

159

her increased tenfold, his embarrassment
and shyness increased tenfold as well. She
herself saw it at last, and scolded Ealph
soundly, for she was a free-spoken, free-
hearted girl, and hated mysteries and misun-
derstandings. She told Ealph once, that if
he was dissatisfied with her, and spoke to
her in that ridiculous way why she wasn't
an eastern princess ! he had better go ; for
she hated people to be unhappy because of
her, and what had she done to make him so
cool and reserved ? A speech which made
Ealph cry as if his heart was breaking ; partly
from distress at having offended her, and
partly from gratitude at her condescension in
taking any notice of his manners at all. At
which Miss Letty said, she thought he must
be really half an idiot Ealph looking as
delighted as if she had called him an angel
for how could people have been brought up
together without getting fond of each other,
and had they not been good friends all
their lives ? so why shouldn't she care for
him like her own brother now ? Which was
such a pleasant ending to their quarrel, that
Ealph had no sleep all night in consequence.
About this time Mr. Temple took it into
his head that Ealph Jessett should " com-
mence a career of usefulness." He had his
choice of every profession under the sun,
said the squire ; but choose one he must.
So Ealph, after a great deal of hesitation,
chose that of an analytical chemist, which,
at least, was a branch of natural science,
he said. People laughed at the notion
of such an awkward fellow ever making
delicate experiments. "Why he would be
frightened at his own chemicals," they all
said ; but Ealph blushed and fidgetted, and
told them he should get over that, per-
haps, if it were necessary ; at any rate
he would try. Good Mrs. Temple aided
him in the way he was going as usual ; and
Miss Letty, too, said he was right to obey
papa, and do as he told him ; but she cried
when the time came for him to go, and
pouted a great deal. Ealph went almost
beside himself at the sight of her tears, and
was nearly giving up the plan, and bearding
Mr. Temple in his den the library in a
fit of enthusiastic rebellion, had he not been
afraid of Mrs. Temple, who fortunately was
in the room at the moment. But it was
dreadful. He used to wonder afterwards at
his own firmness, and always felt like a mur-
derer whenever he thought that he had once
made Miss Letty cry. However, Letty dried
her eyes, which began to smart, and old
Ealph went away to a chemist's in Edin-
burgh ; and in a short time Miss Letty grew
accustomed to his absence, and gradually re-
organised her life without him. For she was
not a very reflective young lady ; nor one
whose affections went much beyond the limit
of her vision. A joyous, red-lipped, white-
armed girl, life was all before her, and
pleasure for the present, hope for thei

future, but no regret; for the past, bound her
in a silver chain, strung through with flowers.
So, while Ealph studied the properties of
gases, and dreamed of Miss Letty by turns,
the foot-prints of the past were being slowly
effaced from that young lady's heart by the
rising waves of new associations.

Miss Letty went a visiting. To the De-
laforces, of Delaforce House, an old French
emigrant family, which, by intermarriage
with English heiresses, had gradually raised
themselves to opulence and consideration.
There was one son now in the family, a young
man just of age, owning a dog-cart and a pair
of moustachios. There was also a daughter of
Letty's own age ; who, as often chances with
sisters possessing handsome brothers, was
the especial darling of all the young ladies in
the place, and chief of all with Letty Temple,
the heiress of Manor House. When Letty
went, she was gay ; when Letty came back,
she was dull. Her father and mother both
saw the change, and asked the reason ; but
Letty pouted or laughed, according to her
humour, and refused to give any. " There
was none," she said, "it was all papa's
fancy ; " and then she ran away down into
the shrubbery at the end of the garden, where
she had half-a-dozen hiding-places 110 one
but Ealph and herself knew of ; and there
they were obliged to leave her, till she chose
to emerge of her own accord. And as in a
short time she forgot to be quite so dull
as when she first came home, and as she
looked well, and eat well, and slept well, and
was only rather cross at times, her father and
mother ceased to ask her any questions on
the subject, or, indeed, to think of her changed
manner at all. Mrs. Temple only said, some"
times, "My love, I am sure you are bilious
to-day."

Miss Letty was in love. The reader
knows that, though the squire did not. But
young Mr. Delaforce, who had had a love
in London, had declared to his sister Julia,
that " Miss Temple was not at all his style of
beauty, and that he did not admire her the
least in the world." Which complicated
matters not a little.

In the mean time Ealph came home for a
vacation from his gases and retorts, and soon
Letty and he were on their old terms of con-
fidence together. Letty told him all- that
moved in her world, and he told Letty all
that he thought and felt in his. But as yet
the name of Montague Delaforce had not
been mentioned between them.

" Ealph," said Letty, suddenly. They were
in the arbour together, at the bottom of the
garden ; the arbour in the shrubbery, where
the old tomtit's nest used to be, when Letty
was a child. " Ealph, do you think me
pretty ? " She did not look merely pretty
when she asked that question, but superbly
handsome.

" Yes," said Ealph, nervously, " I do, Miss
Letty : very pretty," with emphasis.

160

HOUSEHOLD WORDS.

[Conducted by

" Would every one, Ralph ? "

" I should think so, Miss Letty, every one
who hr.d eyes, and knew what beauty was
when they saw it."

Letty appeared to reflect ; her thoughts
were never very profound, but this time she
did think. And then she said, suddenly,
"Then, Ralph, why does not Mr. Delaforee
like me better 1 "

A question poor Ralph was quite unable to
answer ; excepting by' a vague invective
against Mr. Delaforee, for daring to have any
thought about Miss Letty Temple but one of
reverence and awful admiration.

" I wish you would tell him all that," said
Letty, when he had ended.

"Why, Miss Letty?"

" Because he does not like me," said Letty,
bluntly ; " and I wish he did."

Ralph was indignant at Miss Letty's hold-
ing herself so cheap. He thought she ought
to be indifferent to Mr. Delaforee, and every
other Mr. in the world. Why, there was not
one fit to tie her very shoe-strings, he said
angrily quite savagely, for him and "why
did she care for Mr. Delaforee or any one
like him ? A set of senseless puppies that
wanted cropping what was there to care
about in them ?

" But I do care," persisted Letty. " And I
don't like Mr. Montague to slight me as he
does ; it is not pleasant. So, dear old Ralph,
you must make him think better of me ; for
I am so fond of Julia, that it is quite dis-
agreeable her brother hating me as he does,"
she added, almost crying. And I daresay
she thought she did care as much for Julia
as she did for Julia's brother.

Of course Ralph could only do as he was
bid, and further his young queen's wishes to
the utmost. So now, whenever he saw the
Delaforces ; which, owing to Miss Letty's ex-
cessive attachment to Miss Julia, was frequent,
lie lost no opportunity of extolling that young
lady's perfections ; especially before Mr.
Montague, though it almost choked him to
do so, to gain the admiration of such a puppy
as that for his sovereign mistress. In which
process of exaltation Ralph grew sadder and
paler daily, though he could not himself have
told what was the matter with him.

One particularly fine day in Spring, Mr.
Montague's love in London married Captain
Wilkie of the Blues. They had been engaged
for the orthodox time, unknown to Mr. Mon-
tague Delaforee ; who, being an heir to a good
estate, the young lady a practised politician
had kept in her train lest Captain Wilkie
should desert. But he came to the point
after a great deal of by-play, and so the
young civilian was dismissed ; whereupon
Mr. Montague the heir came down to Dela-
foree House in a rage, and buried himself
among the elms and the oaks in the park,
like a Bond Street Tiruon as he was. To
divert the heir from his misanthropy, or
rather from his misogyny, and to retuue his

mind to social harmonies again, and make
him fling off his mud boots and shave, the
IMaforees thought of Miss Letty Temple;
to whom an invitation was sent on the plea
of Miss Julia's ardent affection, and the
necessity that young lady was under of
teaching her a new pattern in crochet. A
necessity Miss Letty fully accepted, though
she handled a crochet-needle about as deftly
as an Amazon would, in the days of Theseus
and his Athenians.

The scheme seemed about to fail. Mr.
Montague, full of that London love with
black eyes, found no solace in those large
liquid blue eyes which looked so frankly
into his. He was even profane enough
to call them like boiled gooseberries, in his
eagerness of admiration for Mrs. Captain
Wilkie of the Blues. Her hair he called like
flax like tow he meant and then raved
frantically about the " beauty of ebon tresses ;
which spoilt an educated eye," he added
disdainfully, " for anything so fade as Miss
Temple."

Of course Letty knew nothing of all these
disparaging comparisons. She only thought
that Mr. Delaforee was very cold to her, and
that she wished he was kinder ; but she did
not know that he positively despised her
handsome face and noble carriage, and that
he preferred a little dark Celtic creature, as
Mrs. Wilkie was, to her large Saxon love-
liness, which a savage would have thought
came direct from heaven. I don't know what
this large-eyed, white-shouldered girl would
have done, if she had known the truth. Most
probably offended pride would have driven
every other feeling out of her head. So per-
haps it was a pity she did not know. But a
change came about. In this wise.

One evening Miss Letty was asked to sing.
She sang one of those delicious songs one sees
advertised with pathetic titles, that make
young ladies violently sentimental. It was
something about loving for ever ; and " Forget
t hee, no ! " Miss Letty sang it with emphasis,
looking as if she had really a lover whom she
was called on to abide by, or to renounce. This
song touched the sore place in Mi-. Delaforee 's
heart. It has been credibly affirmed that
tears came into his eyes ; for he was thinking
of that London love of his, who once had
given him her bouquet, and once had pressed
his hand he was sure of it when he pressed
hers, in the quadrille chaine des dames : and
he felt grateful to Miss Letty for bringing his
woe so soothingly before him. When she
h.-td ended, he went and sat down on the sofa
by her, and began to talk sentiment ; which
being sad trash, we shall not attempt to
transcribe. It broke the ice between them,
however ; and made poor Letty very happy
silly child ! for she thought his romantic
commonplaces the highest point to which the
poetry of human feeling could go, and she
began to cherish an intellectual esteem, as
well as a personal admiration, for Mr. Mon-

Charles Dicker.!.]

RALPH THE NATURALIST.

161

tague Delaforce, which would have astonished
none more than that young gentleman him-
self, had he known it. He had been twice
plucked at Cambridge for his little-go.

In the midst of this incipient love-making,
Ralph Jessett came shambling over with a
sad face, to tell Miss Letty that her
father was ill, and she must go home. The
carriage would come for her in a few
minutes ; and Miss Letty had better pack up
her things before it did come, for they wanted
her back directly.

As Letty was an affectionate daughter, she
began to cry violently on receiving this news.
Ralph was overwhelmed at the sight of her
grief. He had never known that she was so
fond of her father ; and he called himself all
sorts of names, like dolt and idiot, because he
had told her too suddenly, and had shocked
and scared her. Letty only sobbed the
more, as she turned her back full on poor old
Ralph, and clung round Julia's neck, as if
Julia had been her guardian angel entering
on a term of banishment. And Julia cried
too, and said, " ssh ! ssh ! " patting Miss
Letty 's back with both her hands. It was a
formula of consolation that had not much
effect on the patient. And then the carriage
came, and the fatal moment ; and poor Miss
Letty was obliged to say farewell ; Mr.
Montague looking the deepest tragedy
as he handed her into the barouche ;
and Ralph feeling somehow that he had
incurred everybody's displeasure, and stood
at that moment in the position of a moral
Ishmael : which position Miss Letty kept
him in all the way home it was -eight miles
not deigning to look at him nor speak to
him once during that whole drive, but
making him profoundly sensible that she
considered herself injured by him, and that
she was his victim and his prisoner.

" Ralph," she said the next day, " I be-
haved very ill to you yesterday."

" No, Miss Letty ; not ill to me. You
were only unhappy, and so behaved ill to
yourself."

"Nonsense, Ralph; you know that I did.
Will you forgive me ?"

" Yes, Miss Letty, if you did ; but "

"Well, never mind buts. Will you walk
over to Delaforce House for me, this after-
noon 1" She spoke very quickly, and looked
down.

" Yes, Miss Letty."

'' And take a letter from me to Julia 1 I
want to tell her that papa is better, and that
it is nothing catching."

"But who ever said it was?" asked Ralph,
in astonishment. " I did not bring that mes-
. sage yesterday."

" Never mind," retorted Letty ; " take the
letter, and don't ask questions."

Which closed Ralph's mouth at once.

So the letter was written, and Ralph set
out through the woods to Delaforce House ;
miserably unhappy, and with the kind of

feeling he would have had if there had come
stealing on a perpetual eclipse of the sun.
But he got to the house at last, and delivered
his credentials ; and Miss Julia made her
ringlets dance as she ran off to Montague,
saying, " Oh, Monty, we can go to the Manor
when we like !" A piece of news that made
that young gentleman smile below his mous-
tache gaily ; and declare his intention of
riding over to-morrow. And when his sister
had embodied that intention in a small three-
cornered note, Ralph was sent home again,
dimly conscious that he had been instru-
mental in a plot, he did not know how.

But the plot went on, under the same instru-
mentality. Ralph Jessett was soon installed
regular postman between the Manor House
and the Delaforees ; and did actually go
twice in one day to please Miss Letty. He
walked thirty-two miles on a hot summer's
day, to the end that Mr. Montague Delaforce
should know the right meaning of this phrase :
" You are very cruel to doubt me. If I tell
you to wait until papa is better, it is not that
I am indifferent to your feelings, but only
more careful of the future than you are ; "
which, Mr. Montague being a youth more
gifted with beauty than with brains, and
being moreover one of those sensitive people
who are always taking offence at nothing
considered to be a phrase wounding to his
dignity and common sense ; requiring ex-
planation before things could go on any
farther. And thus matters continued. When
Mr. Temple grew better, the plot ex-
ploded, the mystery was dissolved, and Mr.
Montague Delaforce, asking for the honour of
Miss Temple's hand, and accepted, opened
Ralph's eyes as with the touch of a magic
wand. And, amidst a storm of agony and
grief such as one would not have imagined
that such a gentle creature as he could have
felt, he came to the knowledge suddenly
that he had been unconsciously the instru-
ment of his own sorrow the innocent suicide
of his own happiness. So long as Miss
Letty was unmarried, and he, Ralph Jessett,
could live near her and with her ; could read
to her, wait on her, do her pleasure, attend
to her commands, devote his whole life to
her, and live as a slave in the shadow
of the altar, he would have been quite as
blessed as he desired and, as he thought,
deserved in his unconscious love and un-
selfish adoration. For, Ralph thought it was
joy and honour enough for him to be allowed
to love Letty in his own way. But now
taken from him, and married to a man
he thought as little worthy of her, in spite
of his curling hair and grand moustache, as
if he had been a blackamoor from Africa:
it was more like his own death than
her marriage. If Mr. Montague had
been better ; if he had been wiser, and
older, and steadier then indeed ; but as it
was ! Oh ! his queen, his darling, his little
Letty, who used to sit on his knee, and ask

IG-2

HOUSEHOLD WORDS.

[Conducted by

him for stories by the hour ; his gracious
young lady who had always beeii so good and
condescending to him ! Ralph could not bear
it. With a wailing stifled cry he fell back
against the old oak tree ; and, for a long
time, all nature and all grief alike were shut
out from him. But when the faiutuess
] Kissed, and he was obliged to remember
again, he turned away with a breaking heart
from the blank of his future; feeling that his
life without Miss Letty as its queen and
guiding star, would be a mere desert without
shade or verdure. Even his earwigs and
his emmets lost their charm : chemistry
seemed a mere phantasmagoria of flitting
vapours, without form or object.

He would go away again, he said. His
vacation was over, and he would go back to
Edinburgh. He was of no use here : a queer
fellow like himself was out of place in such
times as weddings. He looked so ill and
worn when he said this, that Mrs. Temple
noticed it, and asked him, breathingly, what
was the matter with him 1 So did Miss
Letty, even in the midst of all her rose-
coloured excitement and most fervent girlish
love. She went to him, after breakfast, and
pouted in her old way of command, and told
him, for the thousandth time in their joint
lives together, that he was an idiot and an old
baby, and asked what was wrong now ?

" Oh, Miss Letty ! " began Ralph ; but he
could get no farther. He gave a loud sob,
and rushed from the room, down the garden
to that favourite retreat the shrubbery, where
he burrowed in among the trees, and remained
all the day. He was a little consoled by
finding a new red fungus and a variety of
ladybird.

" Can Ealph be jealous ? " thought Miss
Letty, with her blue eyes very wide open.

However, Ralph was not allowed to go
away before the wedding. Letty, who, of
course, had no idea of the truth, insisted on
his staying. She should not feel happy ; she
should not feel married, she said ; unless
Ralph was there. So Ralph smothered his
own feelings and obeyed her, and found a
certain amount of happiness for the time, as
usual, in his obedience. It was something to
suffer at her command ! But, when the wed-
ding-day came, and he had seen her given
away, his pride, his joy, his life, his own soul
given away to the keeping of a handsome,
foolish, petulant fop when there was no
longer any joy on earth for him, no longer
any hope, even of the moonlight pleasure of
his life when, standing in the dusty road to
see her pass, taking off his hat as to a queen,
and letting his long gray hair stream in the
summer breeze as he gazed his last look at
her, lying back in the carriage in all her white
wedding loveliness and glory when, on her
turning back again and again, leaning out to
see him so long as she could, and waving her
hand and handkerchief to him kindly, she
saw him still standing there, like a statue

without life or motion and when the car-
riage finally disappeared behind the trees
then Ralph plunged wildly into the woods,
and wandered away from Manor House for
ever. Wandering through the world in
poverty and privation, a gentle, harmless,
half-crazed naturalist, who knew the haunts
and habits of every tiny creature to be found
in England, and who sometimes in his restless
sleep large tears rolling quietly down his
withered cheeks murmured plaintively,
" Miss Letty ! " and " Lost ! lost ! "

OUR BEDFORDSHIRE FARMER.'

IT was harvest-time when we went down on
our first visit to the friend whom for anonymous
distinction we will call the Bedfordshire farmer.
We travelled by railroad of course, and
were set down on a platform almost within
sight of his hospitable chimney. In this
roadside station, which is in effect an
inland iron port, to a purely rural district,
we have a specimen of one of the mecha-
nical revolutions of modern agriculture.
The fat beasts and sheep of this parish
formerly required four days to travel along
the road to market, at a loss of many
pounds of flesh, beside growing feverish
and flabby with excitement and fatigue ; they
now reach the same market, calm and fresh, in
four hours. If news of a favourable corn-
market have arrived by the morning's post,
fifty quarters of wheat can be carried from
the stack, thrashed out by steam-driven ma-
chinery, sold, and the money returned in much
less time than it would have taken merely to
thrash out fifty quarters by the hand-flail.

The farmer himself met us on the platform
a disappointing personage, considering that
he had been more than twenty years getting
a living by growing corn and sheep ; for he
had not an atom of the uniform associated
from time immemorial with the British
farmer no cord-breeches, no top-boots, not
even gaiters, no broad-brimmed hat, not a
large red face or ample corporation in fact,
Wcis not half so much like the conventional far-
mer as my friend and fellow-traveller Nuggets,
of th e eminent firm of Nuggets and Bullion,who
cultivates eight and a half acres at Brixtou,
on the most scientific principles, at an annual
loss of about twenty pounds an acre. The
Bedfordshire farmer looked and was dressed
very much like any other gentleman not
obliged to wear professional black and white.
His servant, too, who shouldered our carpet
bags, wore neither smock-frock nor hob-
nailed shoes ; he might have been the groom
of a surgeon or a parson.

The Grange presented what amateurs in
French would call more disillusionment. A
modern villa-cottage, with one ancient gable
and one set of Elizabethan chimneys, planted

* See Beef, Mutton, and Bread, page 113 of the
tenth volume.

Charles Dickens.]

OUE BEDFORDSHIRE FARMER.

163

in the midst of a well-kept garden, with the
"regular three sitting-rooms of a suburban
villa, reminded us that times were changed
since Bakewell received crowds of visitors of
the highest rank, including royalty, "clad in a
brown metal-buttoned coat, a red waistcoat,
leather breeches, top boots, sitting in the
chimney corner of his one keeping room,
hung round with dried and pickled specimens
of his famous beasts." The book-shelves in
one of our friend's rooms are filled not only
with works on agriculture, but with histories,
biographies, novels, and poems. The win-
dows, fringed with monthly roses, look out
upon the gardens, across a fence to where a
steep hill of pasture rises, once a deer park,
still studded over with fine trees. There
Suffolk horses, a long-tailed gray mare, some
dairy cows, and Southdown sheep are feeding,
and are chewing the cud in the shade.

Our first visit was to the farm buildings, di-
vided by a road from the nag stables and offices
of the house, which therefore is not troubled
with either the smell or the dirt of the farm-
yard. A picturesque untenanted dovecote,
half-covered with ivy, is the only remainiu
monument of the farming days when five
year-old mutton was fed, and wooden ploughs
were used. Pigeons don't pay in cultivated
countries. On one side of the occupation road
leading to the first field of the farm, were
the sheds for carts and implements ; on the
other the cattle yards, the feeding houses,
the cart stables, the cow-house, and the
barn-machinery and steam-engine. One-
horse carts were the order of the day,
a system far preferable to waggons, when
each horse is well up to his Avork. Our
friend's horses are always in good con-
dition. The implements made a goodly
display, eight or nine of Howard's iron
ploughs, light and heavy, harrows to match

the ploughs, a cultivator to stir the earth,
and a grubber to gather weeds, drills
and manure distributors, and horse-hoes, a
Crosskill's clod-crusher, and a heavy stone-
roller, a haymaking-machine and horse-
rakes. These were all evidently in regular
use ; some for strong clay, others for light
sand.

The cattle yards form three-sided squares,
the open side facing the road and the sun, the
other three sides bordered with covered feed-
ing-sheds, or verandahs, about which there was
nothing remarkable, except that the roofs were
all carefully provided with spouts, by which
the rain that would otherwise flow into
the cattle yards and saturate the straw, was
effectually carried away into the main drains.
The floors of these yards are dish-shaped,
slightly hollow. In winter a thin layer of
mould, covered daily by fresh straw, imbibes
every particle of liquid manure. Under the
treading of the beasts, which are turned in
as soon as grass fails, there to feed on hay,
turnips, and mangold wurzel, or corn, or cake,
in turn, according to relative price and,

supply of the last nothing is cheaper than
oil- cake when it can be bought at a penny
a pound the straw made on the farm is
converted into manure of the richest quality,
which is in due time returned to the fields.

In every yard was an iron tank filled with
pure clean water, by a tap and ball, which
regulated a constant supply from a spring-
filled reservoir, established on the hill that
overlooked the Grange. These iron tanks
were substitutes for those foul inky ponds,
to be found as the only drinking places ou
too many old-fashioned farms. In the stable,
which was carefully ventilated, we found a
team that had done a day's work of ploughing,
munching their allowance of clover and
split beans. They were powerful, active,
clean-legged animals, as unlike drayhorses

as possible ; the
neatly arranged 5

harness of each
harness- room,

was
not

tumbling above the dirty stable, as too often
seen. The feeding house, where twenty-five
beasts could be tied up and fed, was placed
conveniently near the granary, and here again
at every beast's chain-pole a perpetually full
tank was to be found. The doors opened, so
that the manure of the feeding houses could
straightway be added to the accumulation of
the yard.

Our Bedfordshire farmer does not indulge
in fancy, in purchasing his cattle. Noblemen
and owners of model farms adhere rigidly to
some one breed, Devons, Herefords, or Scots,
and have to pay an extra price to make up
their number. He purchases every spring
or summer, at the fairs where cattle are
brought from Scotland, Ireland, Wales,
Devonslm-e, Herefordshire, and Yorkshire, for
the purpose, one hundred good two-year-old
Devons, Herefords, or Short-horns, or three-
year-old Scots or Anglesea runts. These he
runs on the inferior sward until winter ; then
takes them into the yards and stalls, and
feeds them well with hay and roots not
exceeding a hundred -weight of turnips a
day more would be wasted ; to this he adds
from time to time linseed and barley meal,
in preference to oil-cake, which he generally
reserves for sheep. He has experimented
with cooked food, but has not found the
result in weight pay the cost and trouble.
In the spring these beasts are put on the
best grass, and sent off to market as fast as
they become ripe, having left behind them in
the yards a store of manure available for all
the land within easy carting distance.

On our autumn visit we saw in the empty
yards and in the styes a few pigs of no parti-
cular breed, but all of that egg- shape which
betokens rapid fattening. As there is no
dairy, the Beds farmer nuds it does not pay
to breed pigs or feed more than just enough
to consume what would otherwise be wasted.
Lastly, we came to a compact building
forming the one side or wing of the cattle
yards, marked by a tall chimney : here
was a high-pressure steam-engine of six-horse

1(54

HOUSEHOLD WORDS.

[Conducted by

power, under the care of a ploughboy, which
put in motion the barn machinery, thrashed
and winnowed the corn, separated it into
wheat, first and second, tailings, cavings,
and chaff, and carried the straw into the
straw house, and the wheat into the granary.
The same engine also put in motion stones
for grinding corn or linseed, or crushed beans,
and worked a chatl-cutter.

The steam-driven barn apparatus has more
advantages, and creates more profit to the
farmer, than can be explained in a few words.
Under the hand flail system, a great barn
was needed, where it was necessary to thrash,
not when you wanted to send to market, but
when thrashers could be had, and then very
slowl}', with great loss by imperfect thrashing
and systematic pilfering. Our Bedfordshire
farmer having had the building provided by
his landlord, put up the steam-engine and
machinery himself, at a cost of five hundred
pounds ; and now, with coals costing fifteen
shillings per ton, his steam-engine thrashes and
dresses two hundred bushels of wheat in one
day, at a cost of one penny a bushel, which,
with horse-power, would cost fourpence, and
with flail thrashing, sixpence a bushel. Be-
sides this economy in time and money, there
is an economy in space, as the corn can
remain in the rick in the field, until wanted.

Some very pretty things have been said
about the flail ; and thrashing does make
a very pretty picture, although it is a
most soul -deadening occupation. But to
a thoughtful mind, there is something much
more beautiful in the regularity with which
the sheaves, delivered from the cart, are
consumed and distributed. The steam-driven
barn machinery was not a complete piece of
work until linked, by the railway, with the
-corn-market. In Scotland machine-thrashing
has long been universal, but in England it
makes way slowly, and is introduced with
excuses in some counties our poor-laws
having been in the way.

We next mounted our friend's hacks and
climbed the hill to take a bird's-eye view of
the farms before descending into details.

On our way we crossed a broad belt of grass
fields which surround the house and garden,
and are always mowed, other fields farther off
being always grazed ; by this arrangement it
is thought that the best kinds of grass for
feeding are cultivated on the one, and the
best for mowing on the other ; while the hay
so grown near the yards where it is to be
consumed, and near the manure heaps
which restore fertility to meadow.?. Mea-
dows round a house are, it must be admitted,
much more agreeable than ploughed land,
besides having the advantage of keeping
the cattle and horses grazing within an easy
distance if not within sight. After ascending
a hill, considered steep in the midland
counties, we stood upon a sort of inland pro-
montory, marking the division of the farm,
all above being sand-laud of the character

well known as Woburn sand, and nearly all
below stiff clay, being part of the rich valley
which runs on to the sea at King's Lynn in
Norfolk.

I'Yom this promontory we could review, as
in a panorama, the farmer's crops wheat in
great fields of forty, fifty, and sixty acres a
golden sea, fast falling before the scythe and
the sickle ; barley not so ripe, some of it
lying here and there in rucks as if a great
flood had rolled over it ; too much manuring
swelled the cars without stiffening the straw
enough, and so anxiety to raise a large crop
had defeated itself. There were oats too,
verdant and feathei-y ; beans, dark ugly
patches on the landscape ; mangold, with
rich dark green luxuriant leaves ; and fields
of something that was not grass, though like
it in the distance, being, what is called in
farmer's phrase, seeds, that is to say, artificial
grasses, such as Italian rye grass, red clover,
or white clover and trefoil mixed, which
form a rotation crop only to be grown once
in four or in eight years, according to the
soil.

Experience and scientific investigation have
but slightly and slowly added any new crops
for the use of the farmer. When any one
loudly announces a new crop, which will
supersede all others in utility and profit, we
may as safely set him down as a quack
as if he announced a universal medicine.
For England wheat, barley, and oats, are
the best cereal crops ; rye, except green to
feed stock, is not in demand ; wheat in many
varieties fits itself to suitable soils, the finest
kinds cannot always be carried to a distant
country without degeneration. The finest
barley for malting is grown in a few counties
on light soil, while oats attain a perfection in
Scotland and Ireland rarely to be found in
districts where oatmeal is not the food of the
people.

The proportions which a farmer shoiild
grow of each crops will depend on his soil
and on his market, supposing always that
the landlord is, like our friend's landlord,
sufficiently intelligent to allow his tenant to
make the best of his land. For instance,
having six fields on his clay land of about
fifty acres each, he has found it convenient to
adopt the following rotation : First year,
either a fallow or a fallow crop, such as cole-
seed, tares, early white turnips, mangold, &c.;
second year, wheat ; third year, beans ; fourth
year, barley ; fifth year, clover ; sixth year,
wheat, instead of the Scotch rotation, in which
beans stand fifth, and the laud becomes
too full of weeds for a good crop. On the
sand land the rotation is first, turnips ;
second, barley ; third, clover ; and fourth,
wheat ; white and red clover being used
alternately.

It will be observed that root crops form
the foundation of this style of farming, lioot
crops do two things for the farmer ; they pre-
pare the land for corn crops, and they supply

diaries Dictions.]

OUR BEDFORDSHIRE FARMER.

ICo

food for a great number of lambs and sheep.
Under the old system, two hundred acres of
this farm were poor grass pasture. Under
the rotation named they feed more live stock
than before, in addition to the crops of wheat
twice in six years. Of course on six fields two
are always in wheat. But on hundreds of
thousands of acres of fertile under-rented
land, the intelligent cultivation of roots is
quite unknown ; indeed, without security of
tenure in lease or agreement, it cannot be
practised, because it takes six years to com-
plete a never-ending circle of improve-
ment. There are landed baronets, who
having gone so far ahead as to adopt the
short-horn, which superseded their grand-
fathers' long-cherished, long-horned, thick-
skinned, Craven beasts, still look askance at
guano and superphosphate the best food
for root crops as condiments of revolu-
tionary origin ; and as for leases, you may
as well speak of confiscation at once.

As we looked down the beautiful fertile
valley, and gossipped over the cardinal
principles of good farming, we could see the
marks in the shades of vegetation, and here
and there a land-mark in a stately tree, where
four miles of fences had seven years previ-
ously been cleared away, and superseded
wherever fences were needed at all, by double
ditches, and rails arranged with niatl e-
inatical regularity to protect growing thorns
from the assaults of the beasts and sheep
feeding around. Before coals came by canal
and railway, hedges gave faggots for winter
fires.

Turning our nags' heads upwai'ds, we next
traversed the sand half of the farm, an undu-
lating four hundred acres, sprinkled over
with many pretty wooded dells and bordered
deep belts of plantation, where our friend,
having the game in his own hands, kept up a
fair head of pheasants and hares. Farmers
seldom object to the game they may shoot
themselves.

On the sand we found a different rotation,
viz., turnips, barley, clover, and wheat ;
neither mangold or beans.

The prettiest sight was our farmer's breed-
ing flock of South Downs, feeding on a hill of
seeds : four hundred black-faced, close-fleeced,
firkin-bodied, flat-backed, short-legged, active
animals, without a hollow or a bump on any
part of their compact bodies, as like each
other as peas, and as full of meat.

They were under the amiable care of an
old shepherd, a boy, and a dog of great dis-
cretion a real Scotch colley, who also
attend to the whole sheep stock. It had cost
our farmer twenty years of constant care to
bring this flock to their present perfection,
during which time he has tried and given up
the long-woolled Leicester, of which half his
sheep stock formerly consisted, finding the
Soutli Down more hardy and profitable on his
land and with his market. The total sheep
stock always kept on this farm amounts to one

thousand head, of which what are not bred
on the farm are bought. Thus in the course
of the year about one thousand sheep and
lambs, and one hundred and fifty bullocks,
are sent to market.

Now we had seen all the raw material for
growing corn and wool.

Bullocks fed in yards in autumn and
winter, on roots grown on well-drained, and
hay on well-manured land, with corn and
cake to finish them these produce while
getting fat, and tread down and solidify
manure which is ready in the spring to bo
carted out where wanted, for growing more
roots for green or hay crops. On the other
hand, light land is consolidated and enriched
by a flock penned upon it, and there feeding
with turnips, corn, or pulse and cake. If
they are store-sheep they are allowed to gnaw
the turnips on the ground for part of the
year ; if they are young and to be fatted, the
turnips are drawn, topped, and tailed, and
sliced for them by a boy with a portable
machine a simple affair, and yet one of the
most valuable of agricultural inventions.
Thus, feeding in the day, and penned succes-
| sively over every part of a field at night, the
j sheep fertilise, and with their feet compress
! more effectively than any roller, light, blow-
i ing sand, and prepare soil which once would
scarely feed a family of rabbits on an acre foi
such luxuriant corn crops as we saw waving
around.

What neither farm-yard manure nor sheep-
treading will do toward stimulating vegeta-
tion and supply the wants of an exhausted
soil, is done with modern portable manures,
which do not supersede, but aid the home-
made fertilisers of our forefathers.

Cantering on, now pausing to examine a
root crop, then pushing through a pheasant
cover, then halting to chat with the
reapers, we came to a field of wheat on sand
inferior to the rest. The choicest seed from
the Vale of Taunton Dean had been used ;
but it seemed that, in this instance, what
suited a Somersetshire valley did not thrive
on a Bedfordshire hill. Such special expe-
rience a good farmer is continually collecting.
Again : repeated trials had convinced the
farmer that guano, the most valuable of all
portable manures, was wasted on the sand ;
as, in the event of a dry season, the fertilising
powers were evaporated and entirely lost.
On another fifty-six acres of wheat a
most wonderful crop was being mowed,
estimated at six quarters to the acre. The
extra weight could only be accounted for by
the field having been rolled with more than
ordinary care with a heavy iron roller.
Nevertheless, amateurs must not rush off to
roll their wheat fields, because on a plastic soil
it would be total ruin to reduce a field after .
rain to the consistence of smooth mortar.

I have advisedly said, mow, not reap,
several times in this narrative. The Bedford-
shire farmer has no doubt of the superior

166

HOUSEHOLD WORDS.

[Conducted by

advantages of the former plan. Neverthe-
less, he reaps a few acres as shelter for tin-
partridges. Mowing is done by piece-work,
at per acre. Formerly the harvesters re-
ceived so much money per aero, and five
pints of beer for a day ; but the farmer
having one July day expressed his discontent
to a party of mowers snugly lying in the
shade, pipe hi mouth and beer-can in hand,
at the slow progress of the work, was an-
swered with fatal candour by a jolly foreman
"Maister, we come here to drink your
good beer, and as long as you gie us five
pints a day we beant agoin' to hurry
the work." From that season an additional
shilling per acre replaced the five pints of
the mowing charter ; and there is no lagging.
Mowers are not the only people who like
idleness and five pints of beer a day.

It was brilliant weather on the second day
of our visit. Carts, each drawn by one
cleaned-legged horse, were at work at a pace
that would have choked the old hairy-
legged breed. The picturesque wagon, with
its long team, is disappearing fast from modern
harvest-fields. The horse-i-ake, following the
binders, leaves little for the gleaners.

While the carts were at work in one field
and the mowers and binders in another for
there were two hundred acres of wheat on
this farm in a fallow-field a party of boys
were cross-ploughing with some of Howard's
beautiful wheel ploughs, which can be
managed by boys of thirteen, for such work
the object being only to pulverise the land.
On almost any land the superiority of the
iron-wheel plough is incontestable.

We rode back through a great grass field,
well dotted with shady trees, under which
shorthorns, Devons, Herefords, and black
Anglesea runts were comfortably chewing
the cud ; all the different breeds being found
profitable to feed when bought at a proper
price, as the account-books of our fi-iend, care-
fully kept for twenty years, distinctly show.
From the horned stock and the sheep, a
draught of the fittest and fattest were sent
to Smithfield every week from May to the
following March, and replaced by fresh pur-
chases from the neighbouring fairs.

After dinner, while looking out between
rosebushes at the cattle on the hills, we
talked, of course of farming past and present
of what practice and science had done,
and what it could and could not do for
farmers.

In what we had seen there was nothing
startling, although the results, as to quantity
of produce in corn and meat in a year, would
have been incredible if foretold to any brown-
coated farmer in seventeen hundred and
fifty-four. There was no land wasted by
fences or devoured by weeds ; there was no
time lost one crop prepared the way for
another ; there was no labour lost horses
and men and boys were fully employed. The
live stock for market was always full fed ;

the breeding-stock was kept up by retaining
only the best-shaped ewe lambs, and hiring
or buying the best rains from skilled South-
down breeders. So the farm was continually
sending to market a succession of lamb,
mutton, and beef.

All this requires for success some con-
siderable skill and experience, and not a
little expense. Twelve or thirteen hundred
pounds a-year for rent, and as much more
for wages ; two hundred a-year poor's-
rates, no tithes ; three hundred a-year
for corn and cake purchased ; one hundred
and fifty pounds for portable manures. A
capital laid out in two hundred store beasts,
which cannot be bought for less than ten
pounds each, and four hundred breeding
ewes, worth two pounds ten shillings each
also thirty carthorses, worth forty pounds
a-piece on the average, and all the agri-
cultural implements, too. So, in round num-
bers there was evidently, without asking
impertinent questions, some ten thousand
pounds invested.

The labour of this farm would in its num-
ber astonish a farmer of the old school of
anti-guano and anti-steam-engine preju-
dices, as much as the implements. It consists
of about twenty men and thirty boys. Of
these, six men are ploughmen, and have the
care of four horses each, being assisted by
eight ploughboys. The boys are divided into
two sets, of which the younger consists of
fifteen boys between the ages of eleven and
thirteen, who are under the command of a
steady experienced farm-labourer. He never
has them out of his sight ; under his orders
they do all the hand-hoeing of wheat, thin
out turnips, spud thistles out of grass-land,
gather the turnips into heaps for tailing,
carry away the straw from the threshing-
machine, bring the sheaves from the stack to
the man who feeds the machine, and do other
work suited to their strength. When the
harvest is off, and repeated ploughings have
brought the couch-grass roots to the surface,
they gather it in heaps and burn it. A great
bare field dotted over with heaps of this
troublesome weed, each on fire, and each
industriously fed and tended by an active
little boy, presented a very amusing sight to
us in a second visit to Bedfordshire, in Oc-
tober.

Thus these boys are trained to work regu-
larly at all kinds of farm-labour, and form a
regiment of militia from which the regular
army of the farm is recruited. The most
intelligent are promoted to be ploughboys,
and grow up to be very useful men.

They receive three shillings a-week wages,
and every week, if well-behaved, a sixpenny
ticket, which, once a year, in September, is
converted into money to be laid out in clothes.
The stoppage of a ticket a very rare occur-
rence is considered not only a loss, but
a disgrace. In harvest time they receive
double wages, and double tickets.

Charles Dickens.]

FATALISM.

167

Such, is a short view of the system on a
well-managed corn and wool farm.

If able to lay out the needful capital skil-
fully, and manage the men, boys, and horses
needed for a thousand acres of average corn
and sheep land, the farmer, on an average of
years, can reap a fair return for his risk and
labour. He cannot under ordinary circum-
stances, expect to make a fortune except by
saving out of ordinary income ; for there
are no patents, or secrets, or special un-
discovered markets for farmers, as there are
for clever manufacturers. Those who under-
take to do wonderful things in agriculture
invariably sacrifice profit to glory. But the
skilful -farmer is not tied to a day, a week, or
even a month, except at harvest or seed time ;
he lives among pleasant scenes, socially and
hospitably, and runs not the risks and
endures not the sleepless nights of the manu-
facturer, whose fortune depends on the
temper of a thousand hands, and the honesty
or good fortune of debtors on the other side
of the globe.

FATALISM.

ONE of the popular tales current among
the Servians which we take from a collection
made by Wuk Stephanovitsch Karadschitsch
emphatically illustrates a well-known orien-
tal doctrine, and suggests how stern a curse
such doctrine becomes to the people among
whom it is once admitted.

Once upon a time there were two brothers
who lived together. One was industrious
and did everything, the other was lazy and
did nothing except eat and drink. Their
harvests were always magnificent, and they
had plenty of oxen, horses, sheep, pigs, bees,
and all else. The brother who did every-
thing said to himself one day, " Why should
I work for this idler ] It is better that we
should part." He said, therefore, " My
brother, it is not just that I should do every-
thing, whilst thou doest nothing but eat and
drink. I have decided, therefore, that we
ought to part." The other sought to turn
him from his purpose, saying, " Brother, let
not that be so ; we prosper as we are,
and behold all things are in thy hands, as
well those which belong to me, and those
which are thine. Thou knowest also that
whatever thou wilt thou doest, and I am
content." But the elder pei-sisted in his
resolution, and the younger yielded, say-
ing, " If it must be so, yet I will have no
part in this act. Make the division as thou
wilt." The division was then made, and
each brother took what was his portion.

Then the idler hired a herdsman for his
cattle, and a shepherd for his sheep, another
herdsman for his goats, a keeper for his
swine, and yet another for his bees; and
said to them all, " I entrust my property to
you, and may God keep you." Having done
that, he continued to live as before.

The worker, on the contrary, continued to
exert himself as he had always done. He
kept no servants, but himself attended to
his own affairs. Nevertheless all went
wrong with him, and he became poorer
every day, until at last he did not possess
even a pair of shoes, and was obliged
to walk about barefooted. Then he said to
himself, " I will go to my brother and see
how it is now with him."

His way was over land covered with grass.
He saw a flock of sheep feeding there unat-
tended by a shepherd. Near them sate a
beautiful girl, who was sewing with a golden
thread. After having saluted hei*, he asked to
whom the flock belonged ; and she answered,
" To whom I belong, these sheep also belong."

" And who art thou ? " he inquired.

She replied, " I am the Genius of thy
brother."

Then was this man's soul filled with rage
and envy, and he said to her, " But my
Genius, where is she ? "

The girl said, " Ah ! she is far from thee."

" Can I find her ? " he asked.

She answered, " Yes ; after long travel."

And when he heard this, he went straight-
way to his brother ; who, when he saw his
wretched state, was filled with grief, and,
bursting into tears, said to him, "Where
hast thou been so long ?" And when he had
heard all, and knew that his brother wished
to go in search of his far-distant Genius,
he gave him money and a pair of shoes.

After the two brothers had remained some
days together, the elder one returned to his
own house, threw a sack upon his shoulders,
into which he put some bread, took a stick in
his hand, and set out to walk through the
world to seek his Genius. Having travelled
for some time, he found himself at last
in the midst of a great wood, where he
saw, asleep under a bush, a frightful hag.
He strove long to awaken her, and at last in
order to do so put a snake down her back ;
but even then she moved with difficulty, and
only half unclosing her eyes, said to him,
" Thank Heaven, man, that I am sleeping
here ; for had I been awake thou wouldst not
have possessed those shoes."

He said, " Who then is this that would
have prevented me from having on my feet
these shoes 1 "

And the hag replied, " I am thy Genius."

When the man heard that, he smote him-
self upon the breast, and cried, " Thou !
Thou my Genius ? May Heaven exterminate
thee ! Who gave thee to me ? "

And the hag replied, " It is Fate."

" And where is Fate '? " he asked.

The answer he received was, " Go and
search for him." And the hag disappeared.

Then the man went in search of Fate. After
a long, long journey, he again entered a wood ;
and, in this wood, found a hermit, whom he
asked whether he could tell where Fate was
to be found. The hermit said, " Go up that

168

HOUSEHOLD WORDS.

mountain, my son, and tliou wilt reach his
castle ; but, when in his presence, do not
speak to him. Whatever thou shalt see
him do, that do thou, until he questions
thee." The traveller having thanked the
hermit, took the road which led up the
mountain.

But, when he had arrived at the castle, he
was much amazed at its magnificence. Ser-
vants were hurrying in all directions, and
everything around him \\as of more than
royal splendour. As for Fate, he was seated
at a table quite alone ; the table was spread,
and he was in the act of supping. When
the traveller saw that, he seated himself, and
ate with the master of the house. After
supper, Fate went to his couch, and the man
retired with him. Then, at midnight, there
was heard the rushing of a fearful sound
through all the chambers of the castle ; and,
in the midst of the noise a voice was heard
crying aloud " Fate ! Fate ! To-day such
and such souls have come into the world.
Deal with them according to thy pleasure !"
Then, behold, Fate arose, and opened a gilt
coffer full of golden ducats, which he sowed
upon his chamber floor, saying, " Such as I
am to-day, you shall be all your lives ! "

At the break of day, the beautiful castle
vanished ; and, in its place, stood an ordinary
house ; but a house in which nothing was
wanting. When the evening came Fate sat
down to supper, and his guest sat by his
side ; but not a word was spoken. When
they had done supper they went to bed. At
midnight the rushing sound was heard again ;
and, in the midst of the noise, a A 7 oice cried,
" Fate ! Fate ! Such and such souls have
seen the light to-day. Deal with them accord-
ing to thy pleasure ! " Then, behold, Fate
opened a silver coffer ; but there were no
ducats therein, only silver money, with a few-
gold pieces mingled. And Fate sowed this
silver on the ground, saying, " Such as I am
to-day, you shall be all your lives !"

At break of day this house also had dis-
appeared ; and, in its place, there was one
smaller still. Every night the same thing
happened, and every morning the house be-
came smaller and poorer, until at last it was
nothing but a miserable hovel. Then Fate
took a spade and dug the earth, the man
doing the same. And they worked all day.
In the evening Fate took a piece of bread and
broke it in two pieces, and gave one to his
guest. This was all they had to eat ; and,
when they had eaten it, they went to bed.
During all this time, they had not exchanged
a word.

At midnight the same fearful sound was
heard, and the voice which cried, " Fate !
Fate ! Such and such souls have come into
the world this night. Do unto them accord-
iiiLT to thy pleasure!" And, behold. Fate
arose, and opened a coffer, and took out of it
fctnni'.-, and sowed them upon the earth, and
among the stones were small pieces of money.

This he did, repeating at the same time,
"Such as I am to-dav you shall be all your

1*1)

lives.

When morning returned the cabin had
disappeared, and the palace of the first day
had come back again. Then, for the first
time, Fate spoke to his gue.st, and said, " Why
earnest thou here ? " The other told him truly
all the story of his journey, and its cause,
namely, to ascertain why Fate had awarded
to him a lot so unhappy. And Fate an-
swered, " Thou didst see how, on the first
night, I sowed ducats, and what followed.
Such as I am in the night wherein a man is
born, such will that man be during all his life.
Thou wert born on a night when I was poor,
and thou wilt remain poor all thy days. As
for thy brother, he came into the world when
I was rich, and rich will he be ever. Yet,
because thou hast labom-ed hard to seek me,
I will tell how thou mayst aid thyself. Thy
brother has a daughter named Miliza, who
was born in a golden hour. When thou
returnest to thy country take her for thy
wife. Only take heed that of whatsoever
thou shalt afterwards acquire, say that it is
hers, call nothing thine."

And the man, thanking Fate, departed.
When he had come back to his own country,
he went to his brother, and said, " Brother,
give me Miliza ; for thou seest that without
her I am alone." The brother answered : " I
am glad at thy request. Take her, for she is
thine." Therefore he took her to his' house ;
and, from that time, his flocks and herds
began to multiply, so that he became rich.
But he was careful to exclaim aloud, every
day, " All that I have is Miliza's ! "

One day he went to the field to see his
crops, which were all rustling and whispering
to the breeze songs of plenty ; when, by chance,
a traveller passed by, wlio said to him :
" Whose crops are these 1 " And he, without
thinking, replied, "They are mine." Scarcely
had he finished speaking, when, behold, the
harvest was on fire and the flames leapt from
field to field. But, when he saw this he ran with
all his speed after the traveller, and shouted,
" Stop, brother ! I told you a lie. These crops
are not mine, they are my wife's ! " The fire
went out when he had spoken, and from that
hour he continued to be thanks to Miliza
rich and happy.

This day is published, for greater convenience, and
cheapness ot binding,

THE FIRST TEN VOLUMES

HOUSEHOLD WORDS,

IN FIVE HANDSOME VOLUMES,
WITH A GENERAL INDEX TO THE W1H '].!].

Of the Set, thus bound in Five Double instant of Ten
le Volumes, X''J HK od. The (juiienil hi'io.x c.in ba
1 finitely, price 3d.

"Familiar in their Months as HOUSEHOLD WORDS." SHAKESPEARE.

HOUSEHOLD WORDS.

A WEEKLY JOURNAL,
CONDUCTED BY CHARLES DICKENS.

- 261.]

SATURDAY, MARCH 24, 1855.

[PRICK 2d.

FAST AND LOOSE.

IF the Directors of any great joint-stock
commercial undertaking say a Railway
Company were to get themselves made
Directors principally in virtue of some blind
superstition declaring every man of the
name of Bolter to be a man of business,
every man of the name of Jolter to
be a mathematician, and every man of the
name of Polter to possess a minute acquaint-
ance with the construction of locomotive
steam-engines ; and if those ignorant Direc-
tors, so managed the affairs of the body cor-
porate, as that the trains never started at the
right times, began at their right beginnings,
or got to their right ends, but always devoted
their steam to bringing themselves into vio-
lent collision with one another ; and if by such
means those incapable Directors destroyed
thousands of lives, wasted millions of money,
and hopelessly bewildered and conglomerated
themselves and everybody else ; what would
the shareholding body say, if those brazen-
faced Directors called them together in the
midst of the wreck and ruin they had made,
and with an audacious piety addressed them
thus : " Lo, ye miserable sinners, the hand of
Providence is heavy on you ! Attire your-
selves in sackcloth, throw ashes on your
heads, fast, and hear us condescend to make
discourses to you on the wrong you have
done ! "

Or, if Mr. Matthew Marshall of the Bank
of England, were to be superseded by Bolter ;
if the whole Bank parlour were to be cleared
for Jolter ; and the engraving of bank-notes
were to be given as a snug thing to Polter ;
and if Bolder Jolter and Polter, with a
short pull and a weak pull and a pull no two
of them together, should tear the Money
Market to pieces, and rend the whole mercan-
tile system and credit of the country to
shreds ; what kind of reception would Bolter
Jolter and Polter get from Baring Brothers,
Rothschilds, and Lombard Street in general,
if those Incapables should cry out, " Provi-
dence has brought you all to the Gazette.
Listen, wicked ones, and we will give you an
improving lecture on the death of the old
Lady in Threadneedle Street ! "

Or, if the servants in a rich man's household
were to distribute their duties exactly as the

fancy took them ; if the housemaid were to
undertake the kennel of hounds, and the
dairymaid were to mount the coachbox, and
the cook were to pounce upon the secretary-
ship, and the groom were to dress the dinner,
and the gamekeeper were to make the beds,
while the gardener gave the young ladies
lessons on the piano, and the stable-helper
took the baby out for an airing ; would the
rich man, soon very poor-, be much improved
in his mind when the whole incompetent
establishment, surrounding him, exclaimed.
" You have brought yourself to a pretty pass,
sir. You had better see what fasting and
humiliation will do to get you out of this. We
will trouble you to pay us, keep us, and try ! "

A very fine gentleman, very daintily dressed,
once took an uncouth creature under his pro-
tection a wild thing, half man and half
brute. And they travelled along together.

The wild man was ignorant ; but, he had
some desire for knowledge too, and at times
he even fell into strange fits of thought,
wherein he had gleams of reason and flashes
of a quick sagacity. There was also veneration
in his breast, for the Maker of all the wondrous
universe about him. It has even been supposed
that these seeds were sown within him by a
greater and wiser hand than the hand of the
very fine gentleman very daintily dressed.

It was necessary that they should get. on
quickly to avoid a storm, and the first thing
that happened was, that the wild man's feet
became crippled.

Now, the very fine gentleman had made the
wild man put on a tight pair of boots which
were altogether unsuited to him, so the wild
man said :

" It's the boots."

" It's a Rebuke," said the very fine gentle-
man.

" A WHAT ? " roared the wild man.

"It's Providence," said the very fine
gentleman.

The wild man cast his eyes on the earth
around him, and up at the sky, and then at
the very fine gentleman, and was mightily
displeased to hear that great word so readily
in the mouth of such an interpreter on such
an occasion ; but, he hobbled on as well as he
could without saying a syllable, until they
had gone a very long way, and he was
hungry.

VOL. si.

261

170

HOUSEHOLD WORDS.

[Conducted by

There was abundance of -wholesome fruits
and herbs by the wayside, which the wild
inaii tried to reach by springing at them, but
could not.

" I am starving," the wild man complained.

"It's a Rebuke," said the very fine gentle-
man.

" It's the handcuffs," said the wild man.
For, he had submitted to be handcuffed before
he came out.

However, his companion wouldn't hear of
that (he said it was not official, and was un-
parliamentary), so they went on and on, a
weary journey ; and the wild man got nothing,
because he was handcuffed, and because the
very fine gentleman couldn't reach the fruit
for him on account of his stays ; and the very
fine gentleman got what he had in his pocket.

By and by, they came to a house on fire,
where the wild man's brother was being burnt
to death, because he couldn't get out at the
door : which door had been locked seven years
before, by the very fine gentleman, who had
taken away the key.

" Produce the key," exclaimed the wild
man, in an agony, " and let my brother out."

" I meant it to have been here the day be-
fore yesterday," returned the very fine gen-
tleman, in his leisurely way, " and I had it
put a-board ship to be brought here ; but, the
fact is, the ship has gone round the world in-
stead of coming here, and I doubt if we shall
ever hear any more about it."

" It's Murder ! " cried the wild man.

But, the very fine gentleman was uncom-
monly high with him, for not knowing better
than that : so the brother was burnt to death,
and they proceeded on their journey.

At last, they came to a fine palace by a
river, where a. gentleman of a thriving ap-
pearance was rolling out at the gate in a very
neat chariot, drawn by a pair of blood horses,
with two servants up behind in fine purple
liveries.

"J'.less my soul!'' cried this gentleman,
checking his coachman, and looking hard at
the wild man, " what monster have we here ! "

Then the very fine gentleman explained
that it was a hardened creature with
whom Providence was very much incensed ;
in proof of which, here he was, rebuked, crip-
pled, handcuffed, starved, with his brother
burnt to death in a locked-up house, and the
k-y of the house going round the world.

" Are you Providence ? " asked the wild
man, faintly.

" Hold your tongue, sir," said the very fine
gentleman.

" Are you ? " asked the wild man of the
gentleman of the palace.

The gentleman of the palace made no reply;
but, coming out of his carriage in a brisk busi-
ness-like manner, immediately put the will linn
into a strait-waistcoat, and said to the very
fine gentleman, " He shall fast for his sins."

' I have already done that," the wild man
protested weakly.

" He shall do it again," said the gentleman
of the palace.

" 1 have fasted from work too, through
divers causes you know I speak the truth
until I am miserably poor," said the wild man.

"He shall do it again," said the gentleman
of the palace.

" A day's work just now, is the breath oT
my life," said the wild man.

" He shall do without the breath of his
life," said the gentleman of the palace.

Therewith, they carried him off to a hard
bench, and sat him down, and discoursed to him
ding-dong, through and through the diction-
ary, about all manner of businesses except the
business that concerned him. And when they
saw his thoughts, red-eyed and angry though
he was, escape from them up to the true Pro-
vidence far away, and when they saw that he
confusedly humbled and quieted his mind be-
fore Heaven, in his innate desire to approach it
and learn from it, and know better how to
bear these things and set them right, they said
"He is listening to us, he is doing as we would
have him, he will never be troublesome."

What that wild man really had before him,
in his thoughts, at that time of being so mis-
construed and so practised on, History shall
tell not the narrator of this story, though he
knows full well. Enough for us, and for the
present purpose, that this tale can have no ap-
plication how were that possible ! to the
year one thousand eight hundred and fifty-
five.

A GHOST STOEY.

I WILL relate to you, my friend, the whole
history, from the beginning to nearly the

The first time that that it happened,
was on this wise.

My husband and myself were sitting in a
private box at the theatre one of the two
large London theatres. The performance
was, I remember well, an Easter piece, in
which were introduced live dromedaries and
an elephant, at whose clumsy feats we were
considerably amused. I mention this to show
how calm and even gay was the stateof bothour
minds that evening, and how little there was
in any of the circumstances of the place or
time to cause, or render us liable to what
I am about to describe.

I liked this Easter piece better than any
serious drama. My life had contained
enough of the tragic element to make me
turn with a sick distaste from all imitations
thereof in books or plays. For months, ever
since our marriage, Alexis and I had striven
to lead a purely childish, common-place
existence, eschewing all stirring events and
strung passions, mixing little in society, ami
then, with one exception, making no associa-
tions beyond the moment.

It was easy to do this in London ; for we
had no relations -we two were quite alone

.. Dickons.]

A GTTOST STORY.

171

and free. Free free ! How wildly I some-
times grasped Alexis's hand as 1 repeated
that word.

He was young so was I. At times, as on
this night, we would sit and laugh like chil-
dren. It was so glorious to know of a
surety that now we cottld think, feel, speak,
act above all, love one another haunted by
zio counteracting spell, responsible to no living
creature for our life and our love.

But this had been only for a year I had
thought of the date, shuddering, in the
morning for a year, from this same day.

We had been laughing very heartily, cherish-
ing mirth, as it were, like those who would
caress a lovely bird that had been frightened
out of its natural home and grown wild and
rare in its visits, only tapping at the lattice
fora minute, and then gone. Suddenly, in the
pause between the acts, when the house was
half-darkened, our laughter died away.

" How cold it is," said Alexis, shivering.
I shivered too ; Imt it was more like the in-
voluntary shudder at which people say,
"Some one is walking over my grave." I
said so, jestingly.

"Hush, Isbel," whispered my husband, re-
provingly; and again the draught of cold
air seemed to blow right between us.

We sat, he in the front, I behind the cur-
tain of our box, divided by some foot or two
of space and by a vacant chair. Alexis tried
to move this chair, but it was fixed. He
went round it, and wrapped a mantle over
my shoulders.

" This London winter is cold for you, my
love. I half wish we had taken courage,
and sailed once more for Hispaniola."

" Oh, no oh, no ! No more of the sea !"
said I, with another and stronger shudder.

He took his former position, looking round
indifferently at the audience. But neither of
us spoke. The mere word Hispaniola was
enough to throw a damp and a silence over
us both.

"Isbel," he said at last, rousing himself,
with a half-smile, "I think you must have
grown suddenly beautiful. Look ! half the
glasses opposite are lifted to our box. It
cannot be at me, you know. Do you remem-
ber telling me I was the ugliest fellow you
ever saw ? "

"Oh, Alex!" Yet it was quite true I
had thought him so, in far back, strange,
awful times, when I, a girl of sixteen, had
niy mind wholly filled with one ideal one
insane, exquisite dream ; when I brought
my innocent child's garlands, and sat me
down under one great spreading, magnificent
tree, which seemed to me the king of all the
trees of the field, until I felt its dews dropping
death upon my youth, and my whole soul
withering- under its venomous shade.

" Oh, Alex ! " I cried, once more, looking
fondly on his beloved face, where no unearthly
beauty dazzled, no unnatural calm repelled ;
where all was simple, noble, manly, true.

"Husband, I thank heaven for that
'uglinesss' of yours. Above all, though blood
runs strong, they say, that I see in you no
likeness to "

Alexis knew what name I meant, though
for a whole year since God's mercy made it
to us only a name we had ceased to utter
it, and let it die wholly out of the visible
world. We dared not breathe to ourselves,
still less to one another, how much brighter,
holier, happier, that world was, now that the
Divine wisdom had taken him into another.
For he had been my husband's uncle ; like-
wise, once my guardian. He was now dead.

I sat looking at Alexis, thinking what
a strange thing it was that his dear face
should not have always been as beautiful
to me as it was now. That loving my hus-
band now so deeply, so wholly, clinging to
him heart to heart, in the deep peace of satis-
fied, all-trusting, and all-dependent human
affection, I could ever have felt that emotion,
first as an exquisite bliss, then as an ineffable
terror, which now had vanished away, and
become nothing.

" They are gazing still, Isbel."

" Who, and where ? " For I had quite for-
gotten what he said about the people staring
at me.

" And there is Colonel Hart. He sees iis.
Shall I beckon 1 "

"As you will."

Colonel Hart came up into our box. He
shook hands with my husband, bowed to me,
then looked round, half-curiously, half-un-
easily.

" I thought there was a friend with you."

" None. We have been alone all evening."

" Indeed ! How strange."

" What ! That my wife and I should enjoy
a play alone together ?" said Alexis, smiling.

" Excuse me, but really I was surprised to
find you alone. I have certainly seen for the
last half-hour a third person sitting on this
chair, between you both."

We could not help starting ; for, as I stated
before, the chair had, in truth, been left be-
tween us, empty.

" Truly our uiiknown friend must have been
invisible. Nonsense, Colonel ; how can you
turn Mrs. Saltram pale, by thus peopling
with your fancies the vacant air 1 "

" I tell you, Alexis," said the Colonel (he
was my husband's old friend, and had been
present at our hasty and private marriage),
"nothing could be more unlike a fancy, even
were I given to such. It was a very remark-
able person who sat here. Even strangers
noticed him."

" Him ! " I whispered.

" It was a ma, then," said my husband,
rather angrily.

" A very peculiar-looking, and extremely
handsome man. I saw many glasses levelled:
at him."

"What was he like?" said Alexis, rather
sarcastically. " Did he speak ? or we to hi ;n ?"'

172

HOUSEHOLD WORDS.

[Conducted by

"No neither. He sat quite still, in this
chair."

_My husband turned away. If the Colonel
had not been his friend, and so very simple-
minded, honest, and sober a gentleman, I
think .Alexis would have suspected some
drunken hoax, and turned him out of the
box immediately. As it was, he only said :

" My dear fellow, the third act is beginning.
Come up again at its close, and tell me it
you again see my invisible friend, who must
find so great an attraction in viewing, gratis,
a dramatic performance."

"I perceive you think it a mere halluci-
nation of mine. We shall see. I suspect the
trick is on your side, and that you are har-
bouring some proscribed Hungarian. But I'll
not betray him. Adieu."

" The ghostly Hungarian shall not sit next
you, love, this time," said Alexis, trying once
more to remove the chair. But possibly,
though he jested, he was slightly nervous,
an. 1 his efforts were vain. "What nonsense
this is ! label, let us forget it. I will stand
behind you, and watch the play."

He stood. I clasping his hand secretly and
hard. Then, I grew quieter ; until as the
drop-scene fell, the same cold air swept past
us. It was as if some one, fresh from the
sharp sea-wind, had entered the box. And,
just at that moment, we saw Colonel Hart's,
and several other glasses levelled as before.

" It is strange," said Alexis.

" It is horrible," I said. For I had been
cradled in Scottish, and then filled with Ger-
man superstition ; and my own life had been
so wild, so strange, that there was nothing
too ghastly or terrible for my imagination to
conjure up.

" 1 will summon the Colonel. We must
find out this," said my husband, speaking
beneath his breath, and looking round, as if
lie thought he was overheard.

Colonel Hart came up. He looked very
serious ; so did a young man who was with
him.

" Captain Elmore Mrs. Saltram. Saltram,
I have brought my friend here to attest that
I have played off on you no unworthy jest.
Not ten minutes since he, and I, and some
others saw this same gentleman sitting in
this chair."

" Most certainly in this chair," added the
young captain.

Ivly husband bowed ; he kept a courteous
calmness, but I felt his hand grow clammy in
mine.

" Of what appearance, sir, was the unknown
acquaintance of my wife's and mine, whom
everybody a j. pears to see, except ourselves T'
' Jlo was of middle-age, dark-haired, pair.
His features were very still, rather hard in
expression. He had on a cloth cloak with a
fur collar, and wore a long, pointed Charleu-
the-First beard."

]\jy husbanii and 1 clung- hand to hand with
an inexpressible horror. Could there be

another nmn a living man, who answered
this description ?

" Pardon me," Alexis said faintly. "The
portrait is rather vague ; may I ask you to
repaint it as circumstantially as you can,"

" He was, I repeat, a pair, or rather a sal'mw-
featured man. His eyes were extremely
piercing, cold, and clear. The mouth close-
set a very firm but passionless mouth. The
hair dark, seamed with gray bald on the
brow "

" O heaven ! " I groaned in an anguish of
terror. For I saw again clear as if he had
never died the face over which, for twelve
long months, had swept the merciful sea
waves, off the shores of Hispaniola.

" Can you, Captain Elmore," said Alexis,
" mention no other distinguishing mark ?
This countenance might resemble many
men."

" I think not. It was a most remarkable
face. It struck me the more because "
and the young man grew almost as pale as
we " I once saw another very like it."

" You see a chance resemblance only.
Fear not, my darling," Alexis breathed in my
ear. " Sir, have you any reluctance to tell
me who was the gentleman 1 "

" It was no living man, but a corpse that
we picked up off a wreck, and again com-
mitted to the deep in the Gulf of Mexico. It
was exactly the same face, and had the same
mark a scar, cross-shape, over one temple."

"'Tishe ! He can follow and torture us
still ; I knew he could ! "

Alexis smothered my shriek on his breast.

" My wife is ill. This description resembles
slightly a a person we once knew. Hart,
will you leave us 1 But no, we must probe
this mystery. Gentlemen, will you once more
descend to the lower part of the house, whilst
we remain here, and tell me if you still see
this figure sitting in this chair."

They went. We held our breaths. The
lights in the theatre were being extinguished,
the audience moving away. JSTo one came
near our box ; it was perfectly empty. Except
our own two selves, we were conscious of no
sight no sound. A few minutes after Colonel
Hart knocked.

" Come in," said Alexis, cheerily.

But the Colonel the bold soldier shrunk
back like a frightened child.

"I have seen him I saw him but this
minute, sitting there."

I swooned away.

It is right I should briefly give you my
history up to this night's date.

I was a West Indian heiress a posthumous,
and soon after birth, an orphan child. Brought
up in rny mother's country, until I was six-
teen years old; I never saw my guardian.
Then he met me in Paris, with my governess,
and for the space of two years we lived under
the same roof, seeing one another daily.

I was very young ; I had no father or
brother; I wished for neither lover nor hus-

Charles IMckcns.]

A GHOST STORY.

173

band ; my guardian became to me as the one
object of my existence.

It was no love-passion ; he was far too old
for that, and I comparatively too young, at
least too childish. It was one of those insane,
rapturous adorations which young maidens
sometimes conceive, mingling a little of the
tenderness of the woman with the ecstatic
enthusiasm of the devotee. There is hardly a
prophet or leader noted in the world's history
who has not been followed and worshipped
by many such women.

So was my guardian, Anastasius not his
true name, but it sufficed then and will
now.

Many may recognise him as a known leader
in the French political and moral world as
one who, by the mere force of intellect,
wielded the most irresistible and silently com-
plete power of any man I ever knew, in every
circle into which he came; women he won by
his polished gentleness, men, by his equally
polished strength. He would have turned a
compliment and signed a death-warrant, with
the same exquisitely calm grace. Nothing
was to him too great or too small. I have
known him, on his way to advise that the
President's soldiers shoixld sweep a can-
nonade down the thronged street stop to
pick up a strayed canary-bird, stroke its
broken wing, and confide it with beautiful
tenderness to his bosom.

how tender ! how mild ! how pitiful !
could he be !

When I say I loved him, I use for want of
a better, a word which ill expresses that feel-
ing. It was Heaven forgive me if I err in
using the similitude the sort of feeling the
Shunamite woman might have had for Elisha,
Religion added to its intensity ; for I was
brought up a devout Catholic ; and he, what-
ever his private dogmas might have been, ad-
hered strictly to the forms of the same church.
He was unmarried, and most people supposed
him to belong to that order called Heaven
knows how unlike Him from whom they
assume their name the Society of Jesus.

We lived thus I entirely worshipping, he
guiding, fondling, watching, and ruling by
turns, for two whole years. I was mistress of
a large fortune, and, though not beautiful,
had, I believe, a tolerable intellect, and a
keen wit which he used to play with, as a
boy plays with fireworks, amusing himself
with their glitter sometimes directing them
against others, and smiling as they flashed or
scorched knowing that against himself they
were utterly powerless and harmless. Know-
ing, too, perhaps, that were it otherwise, he
had only to tread them out under foot, and
step aside from the ashes, with the same un-
moved, easy smile.

1 never knew nor know I to this day,
whether I was dear to him or not. Useful I
was, I think, and pleasant, I believe. Possibly
he liked me a little as the potter likes his
clay, and the skilful mechanician likes his

tools until the clay hardened, and the fine
tools refused to obey the master's hand.

I was the brilliant West Indian heiress. I
did not marry. Why should I ] At my
house at least it was called mine all sorts
and societies met, carrying on their separate
games ; the quiet, soft hand of M. Anastasius
playing his game in, and under, and through
them all. Mingled with this grand game of
the world was a lesser one to which he
turned sometimes, just for amusement, and
because he could not cease from his metier a
simple, easy, domestic game, of which the
battledore was that said white hand, and the
shuttlecock my foolish child's heart.

Thus much have I dilated on him, and my
own life in the years when all its strong,
wild current flowed towards him ; that, in
what followed when the tide turned, no one
may accuse me of fickleness, or causeless
aversion, or insane terror of one who after all
was only man, " whose breath is in his
nostrils."

At seventeen I was wholly passive in his
hands ; he was my sole arbiter of right and
wrong my conscience almost my God. As
my character matured, and, in a few things, I
began to judge for myself, we had occasional
slight differences begun, on my part, in shy
humility, continued 1 with vague doubt, but
always ending in penitence and tears. Since
one or other erred, of course it must be I.
These differences were wholly on abstract
points of truth or justice.

It was his taking me to the ball at the
Tuileries, which was given after Louis Napo-
leon Bonaparte had seized the Orleans pro-
perty, and it was my watching my cousin's
conduct there, which made me first ques-
tion, in a trembling terrified way like one
who catches a glimpse of the miracle-making
priest's hands behind the robe of the wor-
shipped idol whether, great as M. A.nas-
tasius was as a political ruler, as a man of
the world, as a faithful member of the Society
of Jesus, he was altogether so great when
viewed beside any one of those whose doc-
trines he disseminated, whose faith he pro-
fessed.

He had allowed me the New Testament,
and I had been reading it a good deal lately.
I placed him, my spiritual guide, first in
venerating love, then, with a curious marvel-
ling comparison, beside the fishermen of
Galilee, beside reverently be it spoken-
beside the Divine Christ.

There Avas a certain difference.

The next time we came to any argument
always on abstract questions, for my mere
individual will never had any scruple in
resigning to his instead of yielding and
atoning, I ceased the contest, and brought it
afterwards privately to the one infallible rule
of right and wrong.

The difference grew.

Gradually, I began to take my cousin's
wisdom perhaps, even his virtues with

174

HOUSEHOLD WOEDS.

[Conducted l>y

> i-taiu n -, i vations, feeling tliat there was

L'T'iwiug in me some antagonistic quality

>h pivvmtcd my full sympathy with both.

" But," I thought, ''lie is iv Jesuit ; he follows
the law of his order, which allows tem-
purising, and diplomatising, fur noMe ends,
j le merely dresses up the Truth, aud puts it ill
most charming and safest light, even as
we do our images of the Holy Virgin, using
them for the adoration of the crowd, but our-
selves worshipping them still. I do believe,
much as he will dandle and play with the
Truth, that, not for his hope of Heaven, would
.asius stoop to a lie."

One day, he told me he should bring to my
NiK'.ms an Knglishman, his relative, who had
determined on leaving the world and. entering
the priesthood.

" Is he of our faith ?" asked I indifferent!}'.

' Ife is, from childhood. He has a strong,
line intellect ; this, under fit guidance, may
accomplish great things. Once of our Society,
lie might be my right hand in every Court in
Europe. You will receive him 1"

" Certainly."

But I paid very little heed to the stranger.
There was nothing about him striking or
peculiar. He was the very opposite of M.
Anastasius. Besides, he was young, and I
hail Learnt to despise yguth my guardian
was lifty years old.

Mr. Saltrani (you will already have guessed
that it was he) showed equal indifference to
me. He watched me sometimes, did little
kindnesses for me, but always was quiet and
silent a mere cloud floating in the brilliant
sky, which M. Anastasius lit up as its gor-
geous sun. For me, I became mooiilike, ap-
pearing chiefly at my cousin's set and rise.

I was not happy. I read more in my Holy
Book and less in my breviary : I watched
with keener, harder eyes my cousin Anasta-
sius, weighed all his deeds, listened to and
compared his words : my intellect worshipped
him, my niemoried tenderness clurg round
him still, but my conscience had fled out of
his keeping, aud made for itself a higher and
diviner ideal. Measured with common men,
he was godlike yet above all passions, weak-
nesses, crimes ; but viewed by the one perfect
standard of man Christian man in charity,
humility, single-mindedness, guilelessness,
t ruth my idol was no more. I came to look
for it, and found only the empty shrine.

He went on a brief mission to Home. I
marvelled that, instead of as of yore wan-
dering sadly through the empty house, its air
ielt freer for me to breathe in. It seemed
hardly a day till he caine back.

L happened to be sitting with his nephew
Alexis when 1 heard his step down the cor-
ridor the step which had once seemed at
every touch to draw music from the chords of
my prostrate heart, but which now made it
shrink into itself, as if an iron-shod footfall
had passed along the stru

-.isius looked slightly surprised at

seeing us together, but his welcome was very
kind to both.

I could not altogether return it. I had
just found out two things which, to say the
least, had startled me. I determined to prove
them at once.

" My cousin, I thought you were aware that,
though a Catholic myself, my house is open,
and my friendship likewise, to honest men of
every creed. Why did you give your relative
so hard an impression of me 1 And why did
you not tell me that Mr. Saltrani has, for
some years, been a Protestant ?"

I know not what reply he made ; I know
only that it was ingenious, lengthy, gentle,
courteous that for the time being it seemed
entirely satisfactory, that we spent all three
together a most pleasant evening. It was
only when I lay down on my bed, face to
face with the solemn Dark, iu which dwelt
conscience, truth, and God, that I discovered
how Anastasius had, for some secret doubt-
less blameless, nay, even justifiable purpose,
told of me, and to me, two absolute lies !

Disguise it as he might, excuse it as I might,
and did, they were lies. They haunted me
flapping their black wings like a couple of
fiends, mopping and mowing behind him
when he came sitting on his shoulders, and
mocking his beautiful, calm, majestic face
for days. That was the beginning of sorrows ;
gradually they grew until they blackened my
whole world.

M. Anastasius' whole soul was bent, as he
had for once truly told me, on winning his
young nephew into the true fold, making
him an instrument of that great purpose
which was to bring all Europe, the Popedom
itself, under the power of the Society of
Jesus and its future head Auastasius.

The young man resisted. He admired and
revered his kinsman ; but he himself was
very single-hearted, staunch, and true. Some-
thing in that strong Truth, which was the
basis of his character, struck sympathy with
mine. He was very much inferior in most-
things to Anastasius lie knew it, I knew it
but, through all, this divine element of
Truth was patent, beautifully clear. It was
the one quality I had ever worshipped, ever
sought for, and never found.

Alexis and I became friends equal, ear-
nest friends. Not in the way of wooing or
marriage at least, he never spoke of either ;
aud both were far, oh how far ! from my
thought but there was a great and tender
bond between us, which strengthened day
by day.

The link which riveted it was religion.
He was, I said, a Protestant, not adhering to
any creed, but simply living not preacliin_r,
but living the faith of Our Saviour. He
was not perfect he had his sins and
shortcomings, even as I. We were both
struggling on towards the glimmering light.
So, after a season, we clasped hands in
friendship, and with eyes steadfastly upward,

Charles Dickens.]

A GHOST STOEY.

175

determined to press on together towards the
one goal, and along the self-same road.

I put my breviary aside, and took wholly
to the New Testament, assuming no name
either of Catholic or Protestant, but simply
that of Christian.

When I decided on this, of course I told
Anastasius. He received the tidings calmly.
He had ceased to be my spiritual confessor
for some time ; yet I could see he was greatly
surprised, afterwards he became altogether
changed.

" I wish," said I, one day, " as I shall be
twenty-one next year, to have more freedom.
I wish even" for since the discovery of my
change of belief he had watched me so closely,
so quietly, so continually, that I had con-
ceived a vague fear of him, and a longing to
get away to put half the earth between me
and his presence " I wish even, if possible this
summer, to visit my estates in Hispaniola ] "
" Alone ? "

" No ; Madame Gradelle will accompany
me. And Mr. Sal tram will charter one of his
ships for my use."

For, I should say, Alexis was, far from
being a Eoman Catholic priest, a merchant
of large means.

h I approve the plan. It will be of advantage
to your health. But Madame Gradelle is not
sufficient escort. I, as your guardian, will
accompany and protect you."

A cold dread seized me. Was I never to
be free 1 Already I began to feel my guar-
dian's influence surrounding me an influence
once of love, now of intolerable distaste, and
even fear. Not that he was ever harsh or
cruel not that I could accuse him of any
single wrong towards me or others: but I knew
I had thwarted him, and through him, his
cause that cause whose strongest dogma is
that any means are sacred, any evil good, to
the one great end Power.

I had oppressed him, and I was in his
hand that hand which I had once believed
to have almost superhuman strength. In my
terror I believed it still.

" He will go with us we cannot escape
from him," I said to Alexis. " He will make
you a priest and me a nun, as he planned I
know he did. Our very souls are not our own."
" What, when the world is so wide, and life
so long, and God's kindness over all when
too, I am free, and you will be free in a year

when"

"I shall never be free. He is my evil
genius. He will haunt me till my death."

It was a morbid feeling I had, consequent
on the awful struggle which had so shaken
body and mind. The sound of his step made
me turn sick and tremble ; the sight of his
grand face perhaps the most beautiful I
ever saw, with its faultless features, and the
half-melancholy cast given by the high bald
forehead and the pointed beard was to me
more terrible than any monster of ugliness
the world ever produced.

He held my fortune he ruled my house.
All visitants there came and went under his
control, except Alexis. Why this young
man still came or how I could not tell.
Probably because in his pure singleness of
heart and purpose, he was stronger even than
M. Anastasius.

The time passed. We embarked on board
the ship Argo, for Hispaniola.

My guardian told me, at the last minute,
that business relating to his order would pro-
bably detain him in Europe that we were to
lie at anchor for twelve hours, off Havre
and, if he then came not, sail.

He came not we sailed.

It was a glorious evening. The sun, as he
went down over the burning seas, beckoned
us with a finger of golden fire, westward to
the free, safe, happy West.

I say us, because in that evening we first
began unconsciously to say it too as if
vaguely binding our fates together Alexis
and I. We talked for a whole hour till
long after France, with all our old life
therein, had become a mere line, a cloudy
speck on the horizon of the new life we
should lead in Hispaniola. Yet all the while,
if we had been truly the priest and nun he
wished to make us, our words, and I believe
our thoughts, could not have been more
angel-pure, more free from any bias of human
passion.

Yet, as the sun went down, and the sea-
breeze made us draw nearer together, both
began, I repeat, instinctively to say we, and
talk of our future as if it had been the future
of one.

" Good evening, friends ! "

He was there M. Anastasius ! I stood
petrified. All the golden finger of hope had
vanished. I shuddered, a captive on his
compelling arm seeing nothing but his
terrible smiling face and the black wilder-
ness of sea. For the moment I felt inclined
to plunge therein I had often longed to
plunge into the equally fearsome wilderness
of Paris streets only I felt sure he would
follow me still. He would track me, it seemed,
through the whole world.

" You see I have been able to accomplish the
voyage ; men mostly can achieve any strong
purpose at east some men. Isbel, this sea-
air will bring back your bloom. And, Alexis,
my friend, despite those close studies you told
me of, I hope you will bestow a little, of your
society at times on my ward and me. We
will bid you a good evening now."

He gave his nephew my powerless hand ;
that of Alexis, too, felt cold and trembling.
It seemed as if he likewise could not resist
the fate which, born out of one man's indo-
mitable will, dragged us asunder. Ere my
guardian consigned me to Madame Gradelle,
he said, smiling, but looking through me with
his eyes,

" Remember, my fair cousin, that Alexis is
to be must be a priest."

176

HOUSEHOLD WORDS.

[Conducted by

"It is impossible !" said I, stung to resist-
ance. '' You know lie has proved the falseness
of your creed ; lie will never return to it. His
conscience is his own."

I 'ut not his passions. He is young I am
old. He will be a priest yet."

With a soft hand-pressure, M. Anastasius
left me.

Now began the most horrible phase of my
existence. For four weeks we had to live
in the same vessel ; bounded and shut up
together, Anastasius, Alexis, and I ; meet-
ing continually, in the soft bland atmosphere
of courteous calm ; always in public never
alone.

From various accidental circumstances, I
knew how, night and day, M. Anastasius was
bending all the powers of his enormous intel-
lect, liis wonderful moral force, to compass
his cherished ends with regard to Alexis
Saltram.

An overwhelming dread took possession of
me. I ceased to think of myself at all my
worldly hopes, prospects, or joys over which
this man's influence had long hung like an
accursed shadow ; a sun turned into dark-
ness, tlie more terrible because it had once
been a sun. I seemed to see M. Anastasius
only v/ith relation to this young man, over
whom I knew he once had so great power.
Would it return and in what would it re-
sult ? Not merely in the breaking off any
feeble tie to me. I scarcely trembled for that,
since, could it be so broken, it was not worth
trembling for. No ! I trembled for Alexis'
soul.

It was a soul, I had gradually learnt more
than ever perhaps in this voyage, which every
day seemed a brief life, so fall of temptation,
contest, trial a soul pure as God's own
heaven, that hung over us hour by hour in
its steady tropic blue ; deep as the seas that
rolled around us. Like them, stii'ring with
the lightest breath, often tempest-tossed,
liable to adverse winds and currents ; yet
keeping far, far below the surface a divine
tranquillity, diviner than any mere stagnant
calm. And this soul full of all rich impulses,
emotions, passions, a soul which, because it
could strongly sympathise with, might be
able to regenerate its kind, M. Anastasius
wanted to make into a Catholic Jesuit priest,
a mere machine, to work as he, the head
machine, chose !

This was why (the thought suddenly struck
me, like lightning) he had told each of us
severally those two lies. Because we were
young, we might love we might marry;
there was nothing externally to prevent us.
A ml then what would become of his scheme ?

I think there was born in me while the
most passive slave to lawful, loving rule a
faculty of savage resistance to all unlawful,
unjust power ; also a something of the female
wild-beast, which, if alone, will lie tame and
cowed in her solitary den, to be shot at by any
daring hunter ; whereas if she be not alone if

she have any love-instinct at work for cubs or
mate her whole nature changes from terror
to daring, from cowardice to fury.

When, as we neared the tropics, I saw
Alexis' cheek growing daily paler, and his eye
more sunken and restless with some secret
struggle, in the which M. Anastasius never
left him for a day, an hour, a minute, I
became not unlike that poor wild -beast
mother. It had gone ill with the relentless
hunter of souls if he had come near me then.

But he did not. For the last week of our
voyage, M. Anastasius kept altogether out of
my way.

It was nearly over, we were in sight of
the shores of Hispaniola. Then we should
land. My estates lay in this island. Mr. Sal-
train's business, I was aware, called him to
Barbadoes ; thence again beyond seas. Once
parted, I well knew that if the power and
will of my guardian could compass anything
and it seemed to me that they were able to
compass everything in the whole wide earth
Alexis and I should never meet again.

In one last struggle after life after the
fresh, wholesome, natural life which contact
with this young man's true spirit had given
me I determined to risk all.

It was a rich tropic twilight. We were all
admiring it, just as three ordinary persons
might do who were tending peacefully to
their voyage-end. Yet Alexis did not seem
at peace. A settled, deadly pallor dwelt on
his face, a restless anxiety troubled his whole
mien.

M. Anastasius said, noticing the glowing
tropic scenery which already dimly appeared
in our shoreward view,

" It is very grand ; but Europe is more
suited to us gi'ave Northerns. You will think
so, Alexis, when you are once again there."

" Are you retiiruiug ? " I asked of Mr.
Saltram.

My cousin answered for him, " Yes, im-
mediately."

Alexis started ; then leaned over the poop
in silence, and without denial.

I felt profoundly sad. My interest in Alexis
Saltram was at this time and but for the
compulsion of opposing power, might have
ever been entirely apart from love. We
might have gone on merely as tender friends
for years and years, at least I might. There-
fore no maidenly consciousness warned me
from doing what my sense of right im-
pelled towards one who held the same
faith, and whose life seemed strangled in the
same mesh of circumstances which had nearly
paralysed my own.

"Alexis, this is our last evening ; you will
sail for Europe and we shall be friends no
more. Will you take one twilight stroll
with me ? " and I extended my hand.

If he had hesitated, or shrunk back, one
second, I would have flung him to the winds,
and fought my own warfare alone ; I was
strong enough now. But he sprang to me,

Charles Dickens.]

A GHOST STORY.

177

clung to my hand, looked wildly in my face,
as if there were the sole light of truth and
trust left in the world ; and as if, even there,
he had begun to doubt. He did not, now.

" Isbel, tell me ! You still hold our faith
you are not going to become a nun ? "

" Never ! I will offer myself to Heaven as
Heaven gave me to myself free, bound by
no creed, subservient to no priest. What is
he, but a man that shall die, whom the worms
shall cover ? "

I said the words out loud. I meant M.
Anastasius to hear. But he looked as if he
heard not ; only when we turned up the deck,
he slowly followed.

I stood at bay. " Cousin, leave me. Cannot
I have any friend but you ? "

" None, whom I believe you would harm
and receive harm from."

"Dare you"

" I dare nothing ; there is nothing which
my church does not dare. Converse, my
children. I hinder you not. The deck is free
for all."

He bowed, and let us pass, then followed.
Every sound of that slow, smooth step seemed
to strike on my heart like the tracking tread
of doom.

Alexis and I spoke little or nothing. A
leaden despair seemed to bind us closely
round, allowing only one consciousness, that
for a little, little time, it bound us together !
He held my arm so fast that I felt every
throbbing of his heart. My sole thought was
now to say some words that might be fixed
eternally there so that no lure, no power
might make him swerve from his faith, the
faith which was my chief warrant of meeting
him never, oh never in this world ! but in
the world everlasting.

Once or twice in turning we confronted
fully M. Anastasius. He was walking, in his
usual slow pace, his hands loosely clasped
behind him his head bent, a steely repose,
even peusiveness, which was his natural look
< settled in his grave eyes. He was a man
in intellect too great to despise, in character
too spotless to loathe. The one sole feeling
he inspired was that of unconquerable fear.
Because you saw at once that he feared
nothing either in earth or Heaven, that he
owned but one influence, and was amenable
but to one law, which he called "the Church,"
but which was, himself.

Men like M. Anastasius, one-idea'd, all-
engrossed men, are, according to slight varia-
tions in temperament, the salvation, the laugh-
ing-stock, or the terror of the world.

He appeared in the latter form to Alexis
and me. Slowly, surely came the conviction
that there was no peace for us on God's earth
while he stood on it ; so strong, so powerful,
that at times I almost succumbed to a vague
belief in his immortality. On this night, espe-
cially, I was stricken with a horrible curio-
sity, I think it was a wish to see whether he
could die, whether the grave could swallow

him, and death have power upon his flesh,
like that of other men.

More than once, as he passed under a huge
beam, I thought should it fall ! as he leaned,
against the ship's side should it give way !
But only, I declare before Heaven, in a
frenzied speculative curiosity, which I would
not for worlds have bi'eathed to human soul ;
especially to Alexis Saltram, who was his
sister's son, and whom he had been kind to
as a child.

Night darkened, and our walk ceased. We
had said nothing, nothing, except that on
parting, with a kind of desperation Alexis
buried my hand tightly in his bosom, and
whispered, " To-morrow 1 "

That midnight a sudden hurricane came on.
In half-an-hour all that was left of the good
ship Argo was a little boat, filled almost to
sinking with half-drowned passengers, and a
few sailors clinging to spars and fragments
of the wreck.

Alexis was lashed to a mast, holding me
partly fastened to it, and partly sustained in
his arms. How he had found and rescued
me I know not ; but love is very strong. It
has been sweet to me afterwards to think
that I owed my life to him and him alone.
I was the only woman saved.

He was at the extreme end of the mast ;
we rested, face to face, my head against his
shoulder. All along, to its slender point, the
sailors were clinging to the spar like flies,
but we two did not see anything in the world,
save one another.

Life was dim, death was near, yet I think
we were not unhappy. Our Heaven was clear ;
for between us and Him to whom we were
going came no threatening shadow, holding
in its remorseless hand life, faith, love. Death
itself was less terrible than M. Auastasius.

We had seen him among the saved pas-
sengers swaying in the boat ; then we thought
of him no more. We clung together, with
closed eyes, satisfied to die.

" No room off there ! No room ! " I heard
shouted, loud and savage, by the sailor lashed
behind me.

I opened my eyes. Alexis was gazing on
me only. I gazed, transfixed, over his
shoulder, into the breakers beyond.

There, in the trough of a wave, I saw, clear
as I see my own right hand now, the up-
turned face of Anastasius, and his two white,
stretched-out hands, one of which had the
well-known diamond-ring for it flashed that
minute in the moon.

" Off ! " yelled the sailor, striking at him
with an oar. " One man's life's as good as
another's. Off!"

The drowning face rose above the wave,
the eyes fixed direct on me, without any
entreaty in them, or wrath, or terror the
long-familiar, passionless, relentless eyes.

I see them now ; I shall see thuiu till I die.
Oh, would I had died !

178

HOUSEHOLD WORDS.

[Conducted by

English girl, who did not much like the
Continent, and was half shocked at some of
my reckless foreign ways, on board steam-
boats and on railways. She said I was
a little just a little too free. It might
have seemed so to her ; for my southern
blood rushed bright and warm, and my
manner of life in France had completely
obliterated early impressions. Faithful and

tender
believe

woman,
I was

For one brief second I thought of tearing
off the lashings :ui<l giving him my place;
for I had loved him. But youth and life were
strong within me, and my head was pressed
to Alexis' breast.

A full minute, or it seemed so, was that
face above the water ; then I watched it sink
slowly, down, down.

We, and several others, were picked up
from the wreck of the Argo by a homeward-
bound ship. As soon as we reached London
I became Alexis' wife.

That which happened at the theatre was
exactly twelve months after as we believed
Anastasius died.

I do not pretend to explain ; I doubt if any
reasoning can explain a circumstance so sin-
gular so impossible to be attributed to either
imagination or illusion. For, as I must again
distinctly state, we saw nothing. The appa-
rition, or whatever it was, was visible only to
other persons, all total strangers.

I had a fever. When I arose from it, and
things took their natural forms and relations,
this strange occurrence became mingled with j science was
the rest of my delirium, of which my hus- ! passions."
band persuaded me it was a part. He took I knew always and rather rejoiced in the

and true wife, as I was, I
unlike an English woman
or an English wife, and that Mrs. Hart
thought so.

Once for being weak of nature and fast
of tongue, she often said things she should
not there was even some hint of the kind
dropped before my husband. He flashed up
but laughed the next minute ; for I was
his, and he loved me !

Nevertheless, that quick glow of anger
pained me bringing back the recollection of
many things his uncle had said to me of him,
which I heard as one that heareth not. The
sole saying which remained was one which,

in a measure, I

had credited that his con-
his hand, " but not his

me abroad
me dearly !
happy.

to Italy Germany. He loved | knowledge that Alexis Saltram could not
He was, and made me, entirely

In our happiness we strove to live, not merely
for one another, but for all the world ; all who
suffered and had need. We did nor shrunk
from the doing many charities which had
first been planned with Anastasius with
what motives we never knew. While carry-
ing them out, we learnt to utter his name
without trembling remembering only that
Avhich was beautiful in him, and which
we had both so worshipped once.

In the furtherance of these schemes of
good, it became advisable that we should go
to Paris, to my former house, which still
remained empty there.

" But not, dear wife, if any uneasiness, or
lingering pain, rests in your mind in seeing
the old spot. For me, I love it ! since there
I loved Isbel, before Isbel knew it, long."

So I smiled ; and went to Paris.

My husband proposed, and I was not
sorry, that Colonel Hart and his newly-
married wife should join us there, and
remain as our guests. I shrunk a little from
re-inhabiting the familiar rooms, long shut
up from the light of day ; and it was with
comfort I heard my husband arranging that
a portion of the hotel should be made ready
for us, namely, two salons en suite, and
leading out of the farther one of which were
a chamber and dressing-room for our use
opposite two similar apartments for the
Colonel and his lady.

I am thus minute for reasons that will
appear.

Mrs. Hart had been travelling with us

boast the frozen calm of M. Anastasius.

But I warned tame Eliza Hart, half jest-
ingly, to take heed, and not lightly blame me
before my husband again.

Reaching Paris, we were all very gay
and sociable together. Colonel Hart was a
grave honourable man ; my husband and I
both loved him.

We dined together a lively partie quarrue.
I shut my eyes to the familiar things about
us. and tried to believe the rooms had echoed
no footsteps save those of Mrs. Hart and the
Colonel's soldierly tread. Once or so, while
silence fell over us, I would start, and feel
my heart beating ; but Alexis was near me,
and altogether mine. Therefore, I feared
not, even here.

After coffee, the gentlemen went out to
some evening amusement. We, the weary
wives, contented ourselves with lounging
about, discussing toilettes, and Paris sights,
and the fair Empress Eug6nie the wifely
crown which my old aversion Louis Bona-
parte had chosen to bind about his ugly
brows. Mrs. Hart was anxious to see all,
and then fly back to her beloved London.

"How long is it since you left London,
Mrs. Saltram 1 "

" A year, I think. What is to-day ? "

"The twenty-fifth no, the twenty-sixth
of May."

I dropped my head on the cushion. Then,
that date the first she mentioned had
passed over unthought of by us. That night
the night of mortal horror when the Argo
went down lay thus far buried in the past,
_ parted from us by two blessed years,

some weeks. She was a mild sweet-faced i But I found it impossible to converse

Charles Dickens.]

A GHOST STOEY.

179

longer with Mrs. Hart ; so about ten o'clock
I left her reading, and went to take half an
hour's rest in my chamber, which, as I have
explained, was divided from the salon by a
small boudoir or dressing-room. The only
other entrance was from a door near the
head of my bed, which I went and locked.

It seemed uncourteous to retire for the
night ; so I merely threw a dressing-gown
over my evening toilette, and lay down out-
side the bed, dreamily watching the shadows
which the lamp threw. This lamp was in
my chamber ; but its light extended faintly
into the boudoir, showing the tall mirror
there, and a sofa which was placed opposite.
Otherwise, the little room was dusky, save
for a narrow glint streaming through the not
quite closed door of the salon.

I lay broad awake, but very quiet, con-
tented, and serene. I was thinking of Alexis.
In the midst of my reverie, I heard, as I
thought, my maid trying the handle of the
door behind me.

" It is locked," I said ; " another time."

The sound ceased ; yet I almost thought
she had opened the door, for there came a
rift of wind, which made the lamp sway in
its socket. But when I looked, the door was
closely shut, and the bolt still fast.

I lay, it might be, half an hour longer.
Then, with a certain compunction at my dis-
courtesy, I saw the salon door open, and
Mrs. Hart appear.

She looked in, drew back hurriedly, and
closed the door after her.

Of course I immediately rose to follow her.
Ere doing so, I remember particularly stand-
ing with the lamp in my hand, arranging my
dress before the mirror in the boudoir, and
seeing reflected in the glass, with my cash-
mere lying over its cushions, the sofa, unoc-
cupied.

Eliza was standing thoughtfully by the stove.

" I ought to ask pardon of you, my dear
Mrs. Hart."

" Oh, no, but I of you. I did not know
Mr. Saltram had returned. Where is my
husband 1 "

" With mine, no doubt ! We need not
expect them for an hour yet, the renegades."

"You are jesting," said Mrs. Hart, half
offended. " I know they are come home. I
saw Mr. Saltram in your boudoir not two
minutes since."

" How 1 "

" In your boudoir, I repeat. He was lying
on the sofa."

' Impossible ! " and I burst out laughing.
" Unless he has suddenly turned into a cash-
mere shawl. Come and look."

I flung the folding doors open, and poured
a blaze of light into the little i-oom.

" It is very odd," fidgetted Mrs. Hart ;
" very odd, indeed. I am sure I saw a gen-
tleman here. His face was turned aside,
but of course 1 concluded it was Mr. Saltram.
Very odd, indeed."

I still laughed at her, though an uneasy
feeling was creeping over me. To dismiss it,
I showed her how the door was fastened, and
how it was impossible my husband could have
entered.

" No ; for I distinctly heard you say, ' It is
locked another time.' What did you me