The Project Gutenberg eBook of Chambers's Journal, by Various.

THE JUBILEE SINGERS.

One of the most interesting and vivid of our recollections is that of witnessing some scenes in negro slavery in the United States, now upwards of twenty years ago—very nearly the close of the iniquity; but of that nobody was aware. There was a novelty in seeing fairly dressed men and women brought out for sale by public auction, and in observing how the persons who came to buy carefully examined the men's hands and the flexibility of their fingers, looked into their mouths to make sure of their teeth, and having effected a removal of the coats and shirts, scanned the bare backs to discover whether they had suffered by the lash. Just as in buying horses in a market, it was quite a business affair; and what was a little surprising, the unfortunate objects of this degrading exhibition took all in good part. But what else could they do? In the grasp of power, they knew that resistance was worse than useless. Close by were cow-hide whips handled by heartless ruffians voraciously chewing tobacco, as if to keep up the proper inspiration of brutality. Across the way was seen an ugly brick building inscribed with the word Jail, in tall black letters on a white ground, to which establishment, in case of remonstrance, the poor wretches would have been instantly marched for punishment. Doom hopeless!

The equanimity, and indeed the good-humour, with which these blacks seemed to endure their fate, indicated, we thought, good points of character. Nowhere in travelling about did we observe anything positively disagreeable, to remind us that the labourers in the fields or the loiterers at doorways were slaves. Often, we heard singing and jollity, as if light-heartedness was on the whole predominant. Obviously, slave-owners were not all Legrees. On the contrary, in many instances they shewed a kind indulgence to their ‘servants,’ as they called them, and were pleased to see them singing, laughing, and making merry in the intervals of rest from labour. Perhaps this is not saying much, for the singing of slaves may be compared to the notes of a bird in captivity, to be admired, but pitied. Anyway, there was a disposition to seek solacement in the outpouring of song. If not intellectually brilliant, the negro is naturally vivacious. Even when he grows old, he is still something of a boy, with an inherent love of frolic. He is clever in picking up tunes, and one of the complaints which we heard against him in a free state was that if not looked after by his master, he would continually go out to entertainments and dance all night. A curious result of the taste for music has been the creation of what are known as negro melodies; partly suggested by old English airs, and by the psalm and hymn tunes that had been heard at church or in the devotional exercises of missionaries. With a blended simplicity and oddity, the negro airs which have gained currency are wonderfully harmonious and touching. The time is well marked, shewing correctness of ear, and accordingly the pieces, however eccentric in language, are well adapted for singing in harmony by a number of voices. From the performances of the ‘Christy Minstrels,’ as they are usually designated—white men with blackened faces imitative of negroes—people will have a pretty good idea of the melodies we speak of; but we should say that the real thing is to be obtained only from a band of genuine negroes, who for some years have been travelling about, and who style themselves the Jubilee Singers. Of these we want to say something.

As is well known, the abolition of slavery in the United States was no deliberate act of national justice and humanity, but took place in consequence of a proclamation issued by President Lincoln in the exigency of the civil war in 1862. Without preparation for freedom, over four millions of slaves were thrown on their own resources. They could work, but comparatively few of them could read; for it had been hitherto penal to teach them. Considering their state of ignorance, and the good grounds they generally had for resenting past treatment, they behaved with a singular degree of moderation. What, however, was to be done with such a mass of illiterates,{18} unaccustomed to self-reliance, and who, even if desirous of being taught, had no means of being so? Here comes in a bright feature of the Anglo-Saxon and Christian-minded North. Within six months of the close of the war, societies of benevolent individuals sprang up to extend the blessings of elementary education to hordes of negroes; and in which movement ladies appropriately took part. In the confusion and rankling animosities that prevailed in the South, the efforts to uplift the negro by means of schools were heroic, often dangerous, and always attended with difficulty. There was likewise much good done by the American Missionary Association. Schools, academies, and preaching stations were at length established in quarters where they were most needed. To complete the organisation of humanising influences, some thoughtful individuals struck out the idea of establishing a University for the higher education of the freed people, and training them to go forth as ministers and teachers, as well as leaders in various departments of civil life.

It was easier to conceive this brilliant idea than to bring it to a practical issue. Where was the money to come from to build a University, to equip it properly, and to pay for professors? There would even be a difficulty in finding a site, for few land-owners in a central situation would be willing to promote the elevation of the coloured races. The history of the way in which these preliminary difficulties were overcome is about as interesting a narrative as we ever read. Immense spirit and ingenuity were developed in bringing the scheme into shape. Without saying what it was for, a suitable site was procured at the price of sixteen thousand dollars, near Nashville, the capital of Tennessee. There were already a few frame-buildings on the spot, which were employed to accommodate a school, as a beginning of the proposed educational operations. The institution was called the Fisk University, in honour of General Clinton B. Fisk, who had taken a warm interest in the undertaking. The establishment was opened in January 1866.

By-and-by the school, or we might say schools, throve. Thousands of negroes were taught by a band of eager teachers, some of whom only a short time before did not know one letter from another. There was an honest enthusiasm in the whole affair that brought with it the blessing of success. Again we are called on to note what good is often done by the quiet unprompted and unselfish energy of a single individual. About the time when the Fisk University was organised, there cast up a young man named White, who, looking about for a means of livelihood, took up the profession of teacher. He was the son of a village blacksmith in the state of New York, had fought in several battles during the war, and made himself useful in connection with the Freedman's Bureau at Nashville. He had a special taste for vocal music, with which he amused his leisure hours, and this accomplishment along with good business habits, made him very acceptable as a coadjutor in the University. White started a singing class among the negroes, male and female, who came to get lessons in reading; and, pleased with their aptitude, he fell upon the bold plan of drilling them as a choir of singers, who should travel through the Northern cities in the hope of gathering money to help the University funds. Getting his band into trim, he set out with them on a musical excursion in October 1871, carrying with them the good wishes of all, from the Principal of the institution downwards.

In our own country, the getting up of a university, or even the enlargement of one, is ordinarily a serious affair. Unless some wealthy person has bequeathed money for the purpose, government is worried for grants, and the public are worried for subscriptions. Keeping proceedings of this kind in view, one can hardly fail to be amused with the novel and heroic notion entertained by a dozen simple-minded negroes in trying to collect fifty to a hundred thousand pounds for a University by mere dint of singing a few simple hymns, which illustrious dons of the musical profession would only laugh at. Yet, this is what was attempted. Led by White as general manager, and by Miss Wells, who took the oversight of the girls of the party, the negroes went on their way, poorly clothed, and with barely means to pay for a night's lodging. We observe by the history given of them, that they trusted a good deal to kind treatment from Congregational and other churches. They got the gratuitous use of chapels for their concerts, or what were termed ‘praise services,’ and when they became known, engagements freely poured in upon them. The sweetness of the voices, the accuracy of the execution, the precision of the time, and the wild simplicity of the words, astonished the audiences who listened to them; the wonder being of course augmented by the fact of their colour and the knowledge that only a few years ago these singers had been slaves. Although generally well received, they had at first numerous difficulties to encounter. The expense of travelling from town to town was considerable. To give a distinctive character to their enterprise, they assumed the name of Jubilee Singers, significant of their emancipation in 1862, as the year of negro jubilee!

Their first eminent successes were at New York, Boston, and in Connecticut. The good-will of the people took the shape not only of money contributions, but of articles to furnish their proposed University. A firm at Boston made them a present of a thousand dollar organ. The singing campaign of three months over the principal parts of the Northern states yielded, after paying all expenses, the sum of twenty thousand dollars. The company were received at the University with joy and thanksgiving—a prodigious triumph for White, the planner and conductor of the expedition.

Encouraged by this success, a second campaign followed, and the result was another sum of twenty thousand dollars, making forty thousand that had now been secured. In this expedition, the party encountered various caste prejudices. Halls were refused to them; at some railway stations they were treated with indignity, and hotel-keepers declined to give them accommodation. At one hotel where the keeper received them, all the waiters deserted their posts, and the Jubilee Singers waited on themselves and blackened their own boots. These misadventures were taken with good-humour. Having so far done well within American territory, the party resolved to try their{19} fortune in Great Britain, for which purpose they were favoured with letters of introduction likely to advance their enterprise. Curiously enough, cabin accommodation was refused to the party by one after another of the leading ocean steamship lines. At last they were received on board one of the Cunard steamers, and safely and agreeably landed in England.

The letters of introduction worked marvels. We are to contemplate the Jubilee Singers one May afternoon in 1873, at Willis's Rooms, giving a private concert to a select body of individuals, by invitation of the Earl of Shaftesbury and a Committee of the Freedman's Aid Society. There was a distinguished assemblage; the singers did their best, and all were delighted. The Duke and Duchess of Argyll were foremost in expressing a desire to promote the object of the party, and arranged for a visit of the singers to Argyll Lodge the next day. This visit to Argyll Lodge was a notable event. The Queen, who is always foremost in works of intelligent benevolence, graciously attended for a short time, and listened with manifest pleasure to the hymns which the singers had learned in bondage. Her Majesty in departing, communicated through the Duke her thanks for the gratification she had received. These preliminary efforts insured to the Jubilee Singers a wide round of popularity. Hospitable invitations poured in upon them from persons of literary and political distinction. Among the most pleasurable of these invitations was one to breakfast from Mr Gladstone, then prime-minister, by whom they were cordially received. After breakfast, the singers entertained the company with their wonderful music. The intense feeling with which they sang John Brown, with the refrain—

John Brown died that the slave might be free,

electrified the audience; and ‘never,’ said a spectator, ’shall I forget Mr Gladstone's rapt enthusiastic attention. His form was bent forward, his eyes were riveted; all the intellect and soul of his great nature seemed expressed in his countenance; and when they had finished, he kept saying: “Isn't it wonderful? I never heard anything like it!”’

After spending three months in London, the Jubilee Singers proceeded to give a round of concerts in the principal towns of England and Scotland; being everywhere well received by large and appreciative audiences. Financially, the excursion was eminently successful. Nearly ten thousand pounds had been raised for the Fisk University, besides special gifts for the purchase of philosophical apparatus, and donations of books for the library. The money collected first and last by the singers now amounted to about twenty thousand pounds, which went a considerable way towards the building of the University, which assumed shape and was opened in 1875. To reinforce the funds, another visit to Great Britain was determined on. We cannot go into an account of this second visit; it is enough to say that the singers again made their appearance in all the principal towns of England and Scotland, and were able to take back the sum of ten thousand pounds; making in all as a result of their labours the sum of thirty thousand. Since this time, the party have made various excursions, always increasing the funds for the erection of college buildings; but of the exact particulars we have no account. One of the objects in view is to erect a building called the Livingstone Missionary Hall, designed, as we understand, for the special preparation of missionaries for Africa. The latest statement we see on the subject is that the Jubilee Singers have gone on a visit to Germany, to secure funds to complete this building and further equip the University for missionary work.

The vicissitudes of travelling at home and abroad during several years led to changes in the company of singers. When members were obliged to retire, others equally qualified took their place. At different times twenty-four persons in all have belonged to the company. All of them have been slaves or of slave parentage. Excepting a few mulattoes, all have been of a pure negro type; and their respective histories offer some interesting facts concerning the condition of people of colour in the slave states up till the period of general emancipation. It is gratifying to know that the extraordinary change of life from privation and contumely to comfort and public respect has not uplifted the feelings, or materially altered the habits of the members of the corps. In their moral and religious obligations they have ever been irreproachable. We are told that none of them uses tobacco; and their English friends, whose hospitalities have been so abundant, are equally surprised, if not gratified, to find that they are inveterate abstainers from alcoholic liquors. Considering the temptations and buffetings of their early life, there is not a little to admire in the conduct as well as in the accomplishments of the several individuals composing the party. The energetic yet modest way they have acquitted themselves in the routine of the very peculiar duties imposed on them, is probably not often met with in parties of higher pretensions.

We have now in brief told the story of the Jubilee Singers, and it is more than ordinarily remarkable. A handful of freed negro slaves undertaking by voluntary efforts to collect funds wherewith to establish and support a University, having for its object the higher education of the coloured population in the United States. The enterprise has had no parallel. These negroes do not beg, nor do they trouble people for subscriptions. They only try to raise funds by the exercise of their talents in an honest line of industry, by communicating pleasure to countless audiences. Amidst the frauds and commercial rascalities of pompous pretenders that are becoming a scandal to the age, the unselfish and noble endeavours of these humble melodists stand out in marked contrast, as something to applaud and to redeem human nature. The marvel of the enterprise has been its universal success. High and low are equally pleased. Professing no particular knowledge in music, but yielding to none in an ardent admiration of the simpler class of national ballads and songs, we have listened to the melodies of the Jubilee Singers with heartfelt delight. Whether with or without instrumental accompaniment, the melodies might be described as supplying a new relish. It has been remarked that the greater number of the pieces are in the same scale as that in which Scottish music is written, with the fourth and seventh tones omitted. This would only indicate the untutored nature of their origin, and the{20} wonder is greater at the effects produced. Nothing is left for us to add but an advice to our readers. It is, to take the earliest opportunity to go and hear the Jubilee Singers.

W. C.

HELENA, LADY HARROGATE.

CHAPTER II.—AT CARBERY CHASE.

The horseman, at whose approach the interesting inmate of The Traveller's Rest had so abruptly withdrawn from the place of observation whence he was contemplating the Elizabethan front of Carbery Court, had scarcely recognised in the lounger smoking his pipe beneath the elm, the bronzed seafaring fellow whom he had frequently of late encountered. But as the man moved off with hasty step and an evident dislike to observation, the rider's eyes for a moment followed him.

‘A queer customer that,’ he said carelessly to himself. ‘What is he, I wonder? If I saw that ugly face of his near Ashdown Park or Newmarket Heath, I'd lay a trifle that he was a racing tout; in London I would class him as a dog-dealer or dog-stealer, or possibly a sham smuggler, one of those gruff longshore-men who waylay you with their contraband cabbage-leaf Trabucos; but being here, I think he has more the look of a real one.’

Having said which, he rode on, in the quiet enjoyment of a cigar, towards the material of which it is unlikely that the leaf of any British vegetable had contributed; while no sound but the jingling of the bridle-rein and the tramp of the horse's feet broke the silence. Overhead there soared aloft a living canopy of verdure, formed by the mighty trees, that seemed to throw, as it were, a succession of triumphal arches over the smooth carriage-road, flecked with broad bars of light and shadow. There were vistas here and there, opening out from between the massive trees, on which an artist's eye might have feasted, dells clothed with beech and birch trees, fairy glens through which trickled some brooklet fresh from its cradle among the ridges of Dartmoor, pools on which the water-lily floated, and around which the deer bent down their antlered heads to drink. But Jasper Denzil had little or no appreciation of the charms of a landscape, and as he rode on, the only comment which escaped him was evoked by the sight of the superb old house, its many windows glistening golden in the sloping sun, as though to challenge admiration.

‘Tiresome old jail!’ he said, tossing away the stump of his cigar. ‘A nice place to be mewed up in, with the London season at high-pressure, is this! If it were mine to do as I liked with’—— But the only son and heir of Sir Sykes Denzil did not definitely state the course that he should pursue were he undisputed proprietor of Carbery Chase.

Jasper, whose actual age may have been six or at the most seven and twenty, was one of those men of whom it is puzzling to say whether they look, for their years, very youthful or surprisingly old. He was below the middle height, and his smooth pale face seemed at first sight almost boyish; but the cold glance of the small blue eyes, the firmness of the compressed lips, and the tell-tale lines that were faintly visible at the angles of both eyes and mouth, were not such as we associate with ingenuous youth.

Captain Denzil (Jasper had at an early age attained, thanks to the golden ladder by which the offspring of wealthy men were wont to climb, his captaincy in the light cavalry regiment to which he had till recently belonged) had proved himself an expensive son to Sir Sykes. His fair moustache, pallid face, and drawling accent were well known on race-courses, and quite familiar in those darkened rooms at fashionable clubs where the fickle goddess Chance is worshipped by card-players around their lamp-lit green tables, while it is honest daylight in the workaday world beyond.

He rode into the yard and dismounted; but instead of immediately entering the house, lingered to exchange a thoughtful word or two as to the signs of an incipient spavin in the off fore-leg of the fiery chestnut which he had been riding.

‘Knew he wasn't sound of course, when I bought him,’ remarked the captain, with calm philosophy. ‘A friend's horse never is, especially when the friend is such an impulsive open-hearted fellow as Charley Granger. But he was cheap, and he has a turn of speed, and I've entered him for the Pebworth Steeplechase, and don't want to pay forfeit. So see to the bandages, Phillips, will you; and don't have him out, except for gentle exercise on the soft, this fortnight. We mustn't neglect that leg.’

Jasper was not one of those who care for a horse, as some of us do, for the horse's own sake, and out of genuine love for the noblest of the dumb servants that do the bidding of mankind. But he did regard the genus equus as a very valuable instrument for gambling purposes, and as such to be tended with jealous care and helped, when convenient, to victory on the turf.

With a slow step and a careless indolent manner, Jasper Denzil crossed the paved yard, and entered by a side-door the mansion that must one day in the course of nature be his, but of which as a place of residence we have already heard him express an opinion the reverse of flattering. There was very little at Carbery Chase to amuse the captain, cut off from his usual sources of excitement and a temporary exile from London and its pleasures. It was sorry work this pottering business of picking up a few ten-pound bets on country courses, or winning paltry stakes by the aid of wretched platers. It was better than nothing no doubt; precisely as at Monaco we see the ruined millionaire, Spanish or Russian, eagerly playing for silver when his last rouleaux of louis-d'or have taken wing; but he felt that it was a sore degradation for one whose dash and coolness had won dubious compliments from very great personages.

Traversing a passage, Jasper presently crossed the great hall—full of costly marbles brought from Italy, in days when there were no manufacturers of the spurious antique—and opened the door of what was known as the morning-room, cheerful and bright as a morning-room should be, and overlooking the rose-garden, then glorious in its glow and blush of tender colour.

Two ladies were the occupants of the room, both young and both pretty, though each of them had that likeness to Jasper (her only brother) which we so constantly trace in members of the same family. Lucy it is true was dark-haired and dark-eyed; while Blanche, the younger and taller of the two, was delicately—perhaps too delicately—fair of{21} complexion, and had hair of the palest gold. Sir Sykes had been for several years a widower; and all the Denzil family, with the exception of the baronet himself, were now present in that room, through the French windows of which came stealing in the fresh scent of roses.

‘I saw you, Jasper, from the pheasantry, as you came up the park; but you did not see me,’ said Miss Denzil, smiling. ‘You did not stay, then, to see the finish of the Pebworth cricket-match?’

‘I—no!’ answered Jasper with a yawn. ‘Cricket is amusing, I daresay, to those who knock the ball about, or to those who run to pick it up again, as the French countess said of our noble national game; but it is slow—fearfully slow.’ And the captain yawned again.

‘Most things are, I am afraid, at Carbery,’ said Blanche gently.—‘We have tried to amuse him—have we not, Lucy?—by dragging him with us to such primitive merry-makings as lay within driving distance, archery-meetings, flower-shows’——

‘Yes, and all manner of Arcadian entertainments of the same species,’ interrupted Jasper, drumming with his ringed fingers on the glass of the open window near which he was standing. ‘I believe I had a narrow escape from what they called a sillabub party at that old woman's (Lady Di Horner's) house at Ottery St Luke's, with a cow on the lawn and the rest of it. The natives, I suppose, like that kind of thing; I don't.’ There was a half-peevish lassitude in his tone, in his attitude, as he spoke, which added emphasis to words that were, if ungracious, perhaps not unkindly meant. But his sisters were not in the least offended that their brother should shew so unaffectedly how little pleasure he took in their society, and how complete was his distaste for their simple pleasures and homely occupations. A grown-up brother is, in the eyes of good girls, a hero by right of birth, and with Lucy and Blanche the captain was a privileged person, not to be judged by the standards of ordinary ethics.

‘If the governor,’ said Jasper, after a pause, ‘would ask people down here—I mean of course after town is empty—a houseful of people of the right sort, why then, one might get through the autumn and winter without being moped to death.’

Lucy shook her head. ‘There is no chance, brother,’ she said, ‘that papa should fill his house with what you would consider people of the right sort. The Vanes will come of course, and the Henshaws, and’——

‘Never mind the rest of the names,’ broke in the captain with a lazy brusqueness; ‘heavy county members, who know more of the points of a bullock than they do of those of a horse; and their fat wives and starched daughters. What have I done, to be buried alive in this way!’

Women have this merit, that they seldom retort, as they might sometimes do with crushing effect, upon a man who bewails his hard lot, be his self-pity ever so unreasonable. Lucy and Blanche Denzil knew, or guessed, with tolerable accuracy that it was due to Jasper's own extravagance that he no longer wore the gay trappings of a captain of Lancers, and that the soles of his varnished boots were no longer familiar with the Pall-Mall pavement.

‘I'll go in and see my father; he's in the library, I suppose?’ said Jasper, and without waiting for an answer, he sauntered off.

Sir Sykes Denzil was a man of methodical habits, and his son's conjecture that he would be found at that hour in the library was quite warranted, not only by fact, but by his daily practice. On his way thither the young man passed by the suite of drawing-rooms, only the smallest of which was ever used, save on the occasions, not too frequent, when some great dinner-party or possibly a dance at Carbery Chase set all the neighbouring lanes and roads aglow with carriage-lamps. With all its splendour, the Court was what might be described as a dull house; the master of which had never made the most, even for selfish purposes, of his large share in the good things of this world.

The library, Sir Sykes's favourite room, was a stately apartment, with gilt cornices and a richly painted ceiling. It overlooked the stone terrace whereon, amidst statues and marble vases overbrimming with scarlet geraniums, the peacocks strutted. The great central window was of ancient stained glass, and from its quaint panes in their leaden setting flashed forth the lost colours of the blue and crimson, deemed inimitable for centuries past, but which probably owed their peculiar beauty to the corroding touch of time. This window, of which honourable mention was made in the county guide-book aforesaid, glimmered with heraldic blazonry, wherein the couchant greyhounds of the present owners of Carbery found no place.

The baronet, who was seated at his writing-table, strewn with papers, looked up as he heard the opening of the door, and greeted his son with rather a conventional smile of recognition. ‘So you are back with us earlier than usual, Jasper,’ he said, in a tone that was polite, but scarcely cordial. The young man's voice, as usual with him when he addressed his father, had lost much of the languid insolence which habit had rendered natural to him.

‘Yes, sir; I don't care much for cricket, so I did not stay to see the end of it. So far as I could hear, the Zingari were beating the County hollow. But as I said before, that style of thing is not much in my line.’

‘Better for you, my boy, if it had been,’ returned the baronet dryly. ‘A young fellow cannot break his health or ruin his fortunes at cricket, as more fashionable pastimes may help him to do.’

The captain winced and reddened. ‘I didn't expect a lecture, father,’ he said peevishly. ‘Indeed I'm not likely to forget the crasher I came down with, that my misfortunes should be thrown in my teeth every day I live.’

‘We will let the subject drop,’ said the baronet after a momentary pause. ‘Who were at Pebworth to-day? No lack of company, I suppose? Our friends hereabouts are not all as complete cosmopolitans as you are, Jasper; and some of the ladies at anyrate may have gone there in hopes of seeing Devon win the game.’

Jasper half sullenly made answer that he could scarcely say who were there. ‘Fulfords and Courtenays and the Carews, and the people from Prideaux Park, yes; and the De Vere girls, and Harrogate their brother. The old Earl wasn't there, and the ladies went on horseback.’

{22}

‘Lady Gladys looks well on horseback,’ observed Sir Sykes with a sidelong glance at his son.

‘Yes; and rides nicely,’ answered Jasper with an air of the most utter indifference; and then the eyes of the father and the son met, not frankly, but as the eyes of two wary fencing-masters might do at the instant of crossing swords. Sir Sykes and Jasper were not, so far as outward seeming went, in the least alike. The common attribute of worldliness they did indeed share, but neither in looks nor in manner did they resemble each other. The baronet was a tall and handsome man, whose dark hair was now dashed with gray, and his high forehead deeply lined, but who still presented to the eyes of the world a showy exterior and a bearing that was at once dignified and urbane. That he was not in perfect health could only be conjectured from the slowness of his step, and those faintly marked furrows near the corners of the shapely mouth, in which a shrewd physician might have read of mischief silently at work; but to unprofessional scrutiny he appeared simply as a gentleman of a goodly presence.

A melancholy man, albeit a proud and a courteous one, Sir Sykes was known to be. And singularly enough, the baronet's sadness was supposed to date from the day when he had lost, long years ago, the eldest of his three daughters, a little girl to whom he was rumoured to have been unusually attached. This was the odder, because Sir Sykes was not the sort of man who is generally credited with very deep feelings or a peculiar strength of family affection. He had borne his wife's decease with polished equanimity; but those who had known him in his early poverty and in his subsequent prosperity averred that the lord of Carbery had never been the same man since the death of this child.

‘I wish,’ said Sir Sykes, speaking slowly, and poising a gold-hafted paper-knife between his soft white fingers—‘I wish I could see you married and settled.’

‘The settling, if, as I suppose, it means the making of a suitable settlement, makes the main impediment to marrying, with some of us at least,’ rejoined Jasper with mock gravity; but before his father could reply, a servant entered bringing a letter. Sir Sykes mechanically took up the letter from the silver tray and as mechanically opened it. But his eyes had hardly glanced at the first half-page before a great and sudden change came over his calm face; he grew white, almost livid, to his very lips, and let his hand which held the open letter drop heavily upon the table.

‘Are you ill, sir?’ said Jasper quickly and with a sort of anxiety unusual with him. It was impossible to avoid taking notice of the baronet's very evident emotion; impossible too not to connect the cause of it with the letter which Sir Sykes held in his hand. But the master of Carbery Chase rallied himself, and though his face was even ghastly in its pallor and his breath came painfully, he managed to smile as he rejoined: ‘Not ill. It is a mere pain, a spasm at most, which comes at times, but goes as quickly, or nearly so, as it comes. It is a trifle, not worth the talking about. It is getting late, and I have a note or two to write and some papers to look over before the dressing-bell rings. We shall meet at dinner presently.’

Jasper rose to go. ‘I hardly like’—— he began.

‘I am better; I am well; it is nothing,’ interrupted Sir Sykes irritably; and then blandly added: ‘I thank you, my dear boy, for your solicitude, but I am best alone.’

Jasper had not proceeded two paces along the carpeted corridor before he heard the key of the library door turned from within.

‘I'd give a cool hundred,’ said this exemplary youth, ‘to look over my father's shoulder as he reads that letter. To have a hold on the governor would’—— He left the rest of the sentence unspoken, and passed on, leaving Sir Sykes in the locked-up library to the company of his own solitary thoughts.

TIGER-SHOOTING.

Tiger-shooting in India differs a trifle from the tame pursuit of game in England—a very different thing indeed from the miserable amusement of the battue, in which hundreds of defenceless creatures are shot down without any chance of danger to the shooter. To go out tiger-shooting is to run the risk of encountering a deadly enemy, which on grounds of public policy it is of importance to destroy. So much as a preliminary observation.

The danger connected with tiger-shooting varies very much in proportion to the conditions under which it is prosecuted. Thus a man on foot following the fresh tracks of a tiger up to his lair, and shooting him as he lies, or following him up on foot when wounded, incurs the maximum risk. In all cases, after being wounded, ungovernable fury and a fierce longing for revenge take the place of that instinctive fear or shyness of man which tigers share with all other wild animals. This instinctive dread of man is so well known to the tribes who inhabit the forests of India, that even solitary individuals will hail the prospect of suddenly encountering a tiger, provided, of course, that he is not a man-eater. They know their safety at such a moment lies in preserving a composed attitude and demeanour. The tiger will often yield the right of way; but if the human subject finds it necessary to set that example in the way of politeness, he knows it to be absolutely essential to the preservation of his life that he should do so with every appearance of self-possession, and without any signs of fear or precipitancy. A passage in King Richard III. accurately reflects the line of conduct which should be observed, holding good as it does equally with reference to the tiger:

To fly the boar, before the boar pursues,
Were to incense the boar to follow us,
And make pursuit where he did mean no chase.

In proportion to the successful days, the number of blank days in tiger-shooting is extraordinarily large, as the experience of most shikarees will confirm. This is owing to ‘hanks’ or beats being so often badly planned or mismanaged; through which tigers escape which might otherwise have easily been brought to book. The dry and denuded state of an Indian jungle during the hot weather makes that the most fitting season for tiger-shooting. Indeed it is the only season in which the sport can be undertaken with a reasonable prospect of success. The available covers for a tiger are then much reduced in number and extent; and in the inverse ratio are the chances increased of the animal's not betaking himself to{23} some distant locality before the plan of action which is intended to effect his destruction has had time to develop itself. In other words, any faint and accidental signs of a disturbance in a tiger's vicinity will rouse him from his lair, and drive him to green patch or snug retreat miles away, if the weather be cool and cover abundant; whereas with very hot weather and extensive denudation of shade, he will prefer remaining where he is until the sounds assume too decided a character to be mistaken; when the probabilities are that the sportsman will be perfectly ready on his making a move.

The great point to remember in arranging to hunt a tiger is that one of his most prominent characteristics is cunning—and that this must be met by cunning. This is not sufficiently studied, especially by beginners. Eager and enthusiastic for the fray, and for the thrill of satisfaction which the all-important moment of the actual kill inspires, the inexperienced sportsman is too apt to overlook those precautions and preparations which are essential aids to success; or he relies upon others for doing in the above respects what he should attend to himself. The first thing to be done on arriving at the ground where a tiger has safely been marked down by the early despatched scouts is to acquaint one's self thoroughly with its topography. The nature of the ground varies very much; consisting sometimes of a pile of rocks rising from a plain, of a confused mass of hills, or of a large single hill, a river or small water-course stocked with green bushes, and with level jungle or perhaps open ground bordering on both sides; and so on. On being roused from his lair in say a water-course by the beaters, a tiger is very likely to cross over into the jungle, especially if another ravine is not far off to which he can retire. He does so with the express object of getting rid of his disturbers as soon as possible; or let us say that instinct tells him that an entire change of locality is most conducive to his safety. On the other hand, if there be no adjoining cover, a tiger will keep to the same channel and steal along its course. The difference between the two cases represents the comparative prospect of a tiger being bagged. When a tiger is compelled to steal along the channel from which he has been roused, the prospect becomes nearly a certainty, assuming the ‘hank’ to be conducted in a correct manner.

A very slight noise, such as slight coughing, will sometimes start a tiger; while he will at other times refuse to move, although even shots should be fired into the bush or among the rocks where he may be lying concealed. As Colonel Rice, late of the Bombay army, very justly remarks in his book entitled Tiger-shooting in India—and the writer's own experience is entirely corroborative of that statement—no two tigers can be depended on for behaving exactly alike under the same circumstances. An old tiger, and especially one which has been hunted before, is extremely wary, and very difficult to circumvent with even good management; while a young one readily falls a victim, like any other greenhorn. A tigress with young cubs is always very savage, and will sometimes charge anybody approaching her den or other resting-place before her own presence is at all suspected. Three men in the service of the writer were once obliged to take refuge on a rock only some six or seven feet high, where an angry tigress bayed them, and repeatedly threatened to charge home for at least two hours. One of the men was armed with a sword, and the other two had nothing but sticks in their hands. The tigress crouched at the very foot of the rock, which was small but flat-topped, over and over again. She there alternately blinked and glared at the unfortunate men, who only succeeded in keeping her off from actually springing on them by dint of vigorous and incessant shouting, and constantly changing front, according as the tigress herself kept moving from one side of the rock to another, and occasionally retiring a few paces, and then stealing forward and crouching again. The state of their throats and the terribly husky whisper to which their voices were in the end reduced, may easily be imagined. However, down to their humblest followers, hunters as a rule are a merry set, and directly actual danger has passed away the danger is forgotten.

In large covers there are often outlets and lines of exit, in addition to those guarded by a party of say four or five sportsmen, who post themselves at the most important points. These all require to be blocked up, so that a tiger, should he attempt to escape by any of them, may be readily turned on to a path which will draw him under fire. One of the covers in which the writer was fortunate enough to bag several tigers in different years, consisted of a river of about a hundred and fifty yards width, with ravines branching out at different points, and low hills bordering the banks. It was impracticable with fewer than a hundred men, and was best driven by elephants, in consequence of the thick and tangled state of the bushes. It was a piece of ground of the kind described above, offering numerous outlets, as the cover extended right under one of the banks, and ran for some distance along the length of the river; while the bank itself was of no great height, and might be ascended in a moment at any point. The method of blocking up the outlets which the sportsmen themselves cannot watch, is to place over them, on trees, the sharpest and most intelligent of the men that can be selected from among the beaters. They should be instructed to strike the tree with a stone taken up in the hand for that purpose, or to employ any other simple process of producing a noise, so that the tiger may be headed back the moment he is seen to be advancing, and his intention is unmistakable. A blank shot will be necessary to turn a rapidly advancing tiger; and a matchlock or spare gun in the hands of a competent person should in such cases be kept in reserve. Many of the rivers in India during the hunting season are perfectly dry beds, except as to a mere rill or narrow stream. The actual water's edge is, however, almost sure to be the tiger's position, if fringed by bushes sufficiently large to afford him shelter; for he delights in lapping the water frequently, and in laving his limbs during the hottest hours of the day.

With respect to the height a tiger will clear at a bound or series of bounds, some uncertainty seems to prevail. In Captain Shakspeare's Wild Sports of India, the author, when twelve feet up a tree, scarcely thought himself beyond the reach of the man-eater he was expecting, as he believed a tiger capable of springing over{24} that height. In the book of Colonel Gordon Gumming (a brother of the African hunter), a sad case is recorded of his gun-bearer being pulled out of a tree and killed by a wounded tiger through incautiously standing only some eight feet above the ground. But points of this nature are altogether of a secondary character, the slightest vantage-ground being sufficient if the requisites are preserved of a cool head and steady hand to guide the management of an efficient weapon.

To the generality of tastes, the most satisfactory method of hunting tigers is with and upon a well-trained elephant. But when the arrangements are on a very extensive scale, they fail of anything like due effect. On special occasions, elephants have been employed in the hunting-field by the score, and also by the hundred, as in the case of the Prince of Wales's excursions in Nepaul. A cordon of eight hundred elephants was then employed to inclose a jungle and to drive the game on to a central point; but the bag, though good, was disproportionately small, looking to the means and labour employed. Better results might have been obtained if the ground had been traversed in sections with only a few elephants, though this would have required more time, which probably could not be spared. The great object to be kept in view in approaching a tiger for the purpose of obtaining a fair shot, is to do as little as possible towards startling the beast until within a few yards, even though obstructions such as bushes or rocks intervene; for when once a ‘scare’ is excited, a tiger will break through an inclosing line of elephants and probably escape altogether; whereas by being quietly followed up with scouts previously sent forward to note and telegraph his progress, the chances are all in favour of the sportsman.

In hilly tracts where the hills run in long ridges and are flanked or intersected by ravines, as in Rajpootana, tiger-shooting may at all times be conducted on foot with comparative safety. This was successfully done by Colonel (then Lieutenant) Rice from twenty to twenty-five years back. He never once employed an elephant, and treats the notion of doing so with a certain amount of disdain. Confessing to a desire to employ his rifle on the tigers in the island of Singapore, which is (or certainly was) very much infested by them, he remarks: ‘There the old notion prevails that without elephants tigers are best let alone.’ Evidently the Colonel does not consider the elephant a necessary adjunct to the sport, nor did he really find it so. There can, however, be no question that in large swamps and grass tracts, and in fact under all circumstances, an elephant is a most powerful auxiliary, whose importance cannot be over-rated. If trees and such positions are taken to meet the tiger when he first breaks, the advantage of afterwards following him up on an elephant if only wounded, is too obvious to need any comment. But it is of course absolutely necessary that the elephant should be one which can be depended on for making a firm stand before a tiger. The more steady the elephant, the better the aim that can be taken; but the uninitiated should know that there is always some slight oscillatory movement in an elephant, so that a small though perhaps an infinitesimal measure of calculation has to be applied in shooting from its back. From a neglect of this necessity, tigers are sometimes missed at absurdly close quarters, though there may be no actual change in the elephant's position to account for the circumstance, and to justify the miss. On the other hand, as sometimes happens, an elephant may very seriously incommode or perhaps precipitate his rider to the ground, by actually charging a tiger and dropping down on his knees, in order the better to crush the foe. At the same time, an elephant that bolts jeopardises his rider's life in a worse degree, by the reckless manner in which he pursues his flight. Should the jungle consist of trees, there is almost a certainty of the howdah being dashed up against them, or of its being swept off by some projecting bough, which affords a clear passage to the body of the elephant, but not to the howdah and those seated in it. The latter, therefore, run a serious risk of being badly injured or of losing their lives.

One important essential for the obtaining of sport is a liberal expenditure of money. It both sweetens labour and smooths the path to danger. To keep an elephant in prime hearty condition costs about fifteen pounds a month, and good elephants may occasionally be borrowed from native chiefs through the instrumentality of political officers; but unless one has influence enough to insure his being thus favoured, he should make up his mind to hunt on foot. Many men have done, and still do so with the most satisfactory results; while with respect to elephants, some special elements of risk exist, which prove fatal entirely from a want of common forethought. Thus, an unfortunate officer of one of Her Majesty's regiments serving in India ventured into a jungle after a tiger, seated merely on the pad on which a howdah is made to rest; he was thrown off, and fell into the jaws of the enraged beast. A person seated in this manner is at any moment liable to be thrown by a sudden swerve, and such an occurrence is extremely likely when a tiger charges, or suddenly appears before an elephant. The writer remembers an instance within his own experience of being mounted on an elephant off whose back at least a hundred tigers had at various times been killed, and which was therefore generally very staunch, and of there being a second and third elephant on each side of the first; yet on a panther very little bigger than a large cat charging from a bush, the three elephants together turned in an instant and ignominiously retreated for about a dozen yards. The shock of the movement was so great that he was forced back on the seat from which he had just risen the moment before, and must have infallibly been hurled to the ground had he been seated on a pad only. It should therefore be adopted as a rule never to be deviated from, that a tiger should not be approached on an elephant otherwise than in a properly constructed howdah.

But as a contrast to the behaviour of the panther above referred to, a large tiger will sometimes altogether refuse to face an elephant, and will retreat from point to point of a cover until he at last becomes an easy victim; which shews in what extremely opposite lights the subject requires to be looked at.

The duty of arranging a proper plan of attack upon a tiger in any known position is sometimes delegated by the English sportsman to his head native shikaree, who is qualified for that task both{25} by a certain aptitude and a considerable amount of experience; but the best of such men are apt sometimes to fail, and close supervision of them is consequently always necessary. Besides, they are generally trained by those who have them in their service; and a long course of association and reciprocal action between master and servant is needed to produce an efficient henchman. It is therefore advisable for men who are about to begin tiger-shooting to take their initiatory lessons in jungle-craft under the guidance of some brother-sportsman, who can be looked on as a sort of distinguished professor who has already graduated with honours in his studies.

THE BELL-RINGER.

IN FOUR CHAPTERS.

CHAPTER II.—THE STORY OF RUTH.

‘I can't think whatever's come over Nathan; he's that queer there's no such thing as making of him out.’ This remark was addressed by Mark Day, the tenor bell-ringer, to Obadiah Lang, who rang the third bell, a few days after the events narrated in the previous chapter.

‘Ay,’ responded Obadiah. ‘There's the practisin' for Christmas-eve, the practisin' for the carols and for the hymns a' Christmas-day; he don't seem to care about them at all, and when I says to him: “How about the evergreens for the church?” he stared hard, and said: “I'll see;” and walked off.’

‘That ain't all neither,’ said Mark Day. ‘He's wonderful curious about his house. He don't ask nobody in, but stands agen the door, with it in his hand, and seems afraid all the time you are talking to him. My opinion is, trouble's turned his brain. If he don't alter, I shall speak to the parson.’

‘Don't do nothing you're sorry for afterwards,’ replied Obadiah. ‘Y' see Nathan ain't like one of us; he mostly have his reasons for everythink, which ain't the case with everybody nowadays: it's all talk and no do with the many.’

At this moment some one made his way to the churchyard, and to that some one, the men touched their hats respectfully. It was Oliver Peregrine. He brushed past quickly; but had the men been keen observers, they might have noticed that his face was pale and his air abstracted. He was going for a long and solitary walk, his custom when any matter disturbed him, or as Gertrude Peregrine said, ‘when he had a fit of the blues.’ He was not favoured by that young lady, who secretly wondered how Patricia could fancy him. To her sister, Gertrude said nothing of her choice, for Patricia was reserved and distant even to her nearest of kin. Few could imagine how deeply she loved this silent studious man. He himself was far from guessing the depth of her affection, his own being centred not on Patricia but on her inheritance, which would be his by marriage. All his life he had coveted a position with wealth to support it; had determined to make it his; had planned and worked for it; when, just as he was on the point of attaining his ends, Death stepped in, and for the time frustrated his hopes. Again the time drew near, and again Death intervened; while impatient of the delay, the arrival of Colonel Lindsay, whom he well remembered, proved a further source of annoyance.

Oliver and the Colonel had been secret antagonists in days gone by; for the latter, a brave, honest, God-fearing soldier, disliked the character of the younger man, whom he mistrusted; and from his long and close intimacy with Squire Peregrine, felt at liberty to search into matters of which he had heard, but seen nothing. After some years spent in India, he had returned, to find changes at Linden Hall which grieved and even displeased him. He felt more than ever disposed to mistrust Oliver, but like a skilful tactician, knew that his plans must be laid with the utmost secrecy; his enemies being the obstinate and unforgiving disposition of his old friend, the craftiness of Oliver, and his ignorance of the whereabouts of the outlawed son, to whom he had acted as god-father, and for whom he entertained a true affection. He had heard the story as related by Dobson, whose fidelity was unimpeachable; but found that even that faithful dependent was obliged to acknowledge that the case was as clear as the day, and that Mr Bertram would never be forgiven by his father.

‘Never, sir,’ concluded Dobson; ‘not if he was dying.’

‘And how about the girl's brother, Dobson? You mentioned her brother. Is he still alive? And does he manifest a vindictive spirit towards—towards my god-son?’

‘Not he, sir. Nathan Boltz has forgiven him years ago. Poor Ruth forgave him long before she died; but my master will never forgive him. My mistress died with his name upon her lips; I believe waiting for his return had killed her. It is a sad history, sir.’

Colonel Lindsay had made up his mind he would hear the story from the lips of Nathan himself, and at once. Therefore, on the evening of the day when Mark Day and Obadiah Lang had conversed respecting Nathan, there came a gentle tap on the cottage door, which the owner cautiously opened. In a few words the Colonel made it known that he desired to speak to him; and with some hesitation Nathan bid him enter. The Colonel had excused himself after dinner from returning to the drawing-room, and had wrapped a large cloak over him by way of disguise; this and his fur cap and muffler prevented Nathan from discovering the rank of his visitor until they were seated in the neat and pleasant room in which he usually lived. The cottage staircase led from the kitchen to the floor above; but the door which opened upon the kitchen was shut.

Nathan waited for Colonel Lindsay to speak; he knew that he was a visitor at the Hall, and yet he shewed little anxiety concerning what he might have to say to him. But when the Colonel, with soldierly authority, made known who he was, and that he came for the purpose of hearing the sad story of his sister's life, in order to forward the ends of justice; then Nathan's hands trembled, his lip quivered, and in a low voice he begged to be excused.

{26}

‘No,’ replied Colonel Lindsay with decision and yet kindness in his tone; ‘you must tell me the whole of the particulars, either here or in a court of justice; for I am determined to search them out, for reasons which I shall hereafter explain.’

Nathan gazed at his visitor inquiringly, then gathering his resolution together, he said: ‘If your object, Colonel Lindsay, be to bring the offender to justice, I must utterly decline either in this place or any other to open my lips upon the subject. I will never betray him. I mean that I will give no evidence, not even if I am punished for withholding it.’ He spoke under considerable excitement, but still with caution in his manner.

This was not lost upon the Colonel, who answered: ‘Would you shield your sister's betrayer, the man who beguiled her, and then left her to sustain herself as best she might?’

‘He did not do that,’ replied Nathan; ‘she received an allowance as long as she lived. But I promised her on her dying bed never to reveal anything concerning her; and can I, ought I to break that promise?’

‘Yes!’ answered the Colonel decidedly. ‘Nathan Boltz, you may trust me not to make use of my knowledge against the author of all this sorrow, for the sake of my old friend, for the sake of his son. Can you not trust me?’

‘Yes, sir, I will trust you; but you will not’—— He paused.

‘I will do nothing without your consent,’ said Colonel Lindsay. ‘And now, let me hear it, for time passes. Please, begin at the beginning.’

‘My father,’ began Nathan, ‘was a Dutch sailor. My mother died when Ruth was thirteen, and I two years older. After her death—which happened at a time when my father had returned from a voyage—he did not go to sea any more, but became a labourer under Squire Peregrine, and kept a house for me and Ruth. The Squire was very kind to my father and his orphans; and after a time Ruth learned the dressmaking, and I was apprenticed to the head gardener at the Hall. My sister was a beautiful girl, the belle of the village, and as modest as she was pretty. We were very happy, until the Squire's son came home from college, and began to notice Ruth in a manner which led my father to warn her to beware. She smiled in her innocence, and told him he was mistaken; and as we saw little or nothing of Mr Bertram, the feeling died out. Thus matters remained for more than a year. But when I was twenty and Ruth eighteen, the blow fell with crushing effect upon us all. We rose one morning to find her gone, and to hear that Mr Bertram had also disappeared, after forging his father's name for five hundred pounds. It was useless to pursue the fugitives, even if we had had any clue to their flight; and our desire was frustrated by orders from Squire Peregrine to abandon all search. Day after day we waited and hoped. But it was some months before poor Ruth made her way to us, footsore and weary, and begging forgiveness for her sin. Then we knew that he had not married her; and my father went nigh mad with anger. We had been poor, but free from shame. He thanked God that my mother was dead; and followed her soon after the death of Ruth's baby, which lived only a few weeks. From time to time Mr Bertram sent her money, and when I mentioned him, she always answered: “Have patience, Nathan. He will marry me soon. Do not question me; only trust me.” I was very bitter against him then, and would have killed him if we had met. I told Ruth so; and she shuddered and prayed we might never meet until he had done her justice. So the weary time went on; poor Ruth hopeful and patient; so patient, that I used to wonder how she could live alone year after year and not try to find him, not go mad with grief and disappointment. But so it was. I could never understand her. We cannot all bear trouble alike, sir’——

Nathan stopped suddenly, and turned his face away.

‘Go on,’ said Colonel Lindsay, rather anxiously, consulting his watch; and Nathan obeyed.

‘My sister and I lived together in this manner for more than ten years. She supported herself by dressmaking, and was fully employed, for her history was known, and she was deeply pitied. As she received a regular allowance from Mr Bertram, she must have known at such times where he was; but never allowed me to see or hear anything of her proceedings. Sometimes my violence frightened her. I know now how blind and wrong I was. The Squire, who is a true gentleman, gave me the office of bell-ringer and sexton, and made us many valuable presents; and it was understood that no mention should ever be made by either of us of the blight and sorrow of our life. But one day when my sister heard from Mr Dobson that his young master's name was struck out of the will, and that the young ladies were to be brought up in ignorance that they had a brother, she came home in great distress; and one evening soon after, when she had been with some work to a distant farm, she fainted on this spot where I now sit, causing me great alarm. She would not reveal the cause of her illness; and from that time, which was two years from the date of Mr Bertram's flight, I said nothing to her of her sorrow and its cause. Ten years after that her health gave way, and I saw that her sickness was unto death. Inwardly, I vowed vengeance on the man who had wrought this foul wrong; outwardly, I remained calmly waiting for the end. Every luxury was sent her from the Hall; but Mrs Peregrine did not visit her; no doubt she was forbidden, as her nature was both gentle and forgiving. However, when the end was near at hand, Ruth implored me to fetch her, and I did so. The urgency of my manner prevailed, and she came immediately, alone and on foot. It was too late; Death had arrived before her; and after a few kind words to me, she left. I found all the money Ruth had received from Mr Bertram put by, and used a portion of it for funeral expenses. From the day of her death I was a changed man. She had besought me, charged me, as I would meet her hereafter, to conquer even a desire for vengeance, and had commended Mr Bertram to my care and protection, should he ever return; and so vehement was her manner and so solemn her tone, that I made a vow to obey her dying injunction; and have kept it. I have forgiven, as I hope to be forgiven.’

Again Nathan paused, while a strange peacefulness gathered over his face.

‘Have you finished?’ inquired his visitor, much moved.

{27}

‘Not quite. Soon after the date of Ruth's death, all remittances ceased; and I concluded that he who had sent them was dead. This was one circumstance worth notice. The other, that shortly before her death Mrs Peregrine sent for me, and charged me that should her son return, I would neither do nor say anything to widen the breach between him and his father. For “Nathan,” she said, “I feel convinced that some day he will return. Therefore, for the sake of poor Ruth, who is gone, and for my sake, who will soon follow her, promise me that you will do what you can to bring them together; promise me, Nathan! I have always been so grieved that I was too late to hear what your sister had to say. Poor girl, she had a claim on us, although the world would have smiled at the idea. It is just possible that she might have been married to my son. What do you think?”

‘I told her I thought not; but added that my sister had been very secret in all that she had said and done.

‘“'Tis a great relief to speak of my poor boy,” said Mrs Peregrine, who seemed to forget all difference in rank; “and this will be the last time, Nathan, that we may meet on earth. Bear my words in mind. My end is peace, but one cannot have peace without forgiveness.”

‘I left her almost awe-stricken; it was so wonderful to have had this lesson twice repeated. Neither had said a word of the wrong done to them; it seemed to have faded out before the joy and peace which filled their hearts, and which now fills mine.’

Nathan paused, and again the bright look stole into his face.

‘Well?’ said Colonel Lindsay.

‘That is all, sir,’ answered Nathan, evidently relieved that his visitor rose to go.

‘Nothing more?’ pursued the Colonel, as he buttoned his cloak. He looked straight at Nathan, whose eyes fell before the soldier's searching glance.

‘No,’ he hesitated—‘nothing.’

There was silence. Suddenly a voice from a room above called ‘Nathan!’ twice.

‘Whose voice is that?’ exclaimed Colonel Lindsay. ‘I thought you lived alone?’

‘I do; but this is a friend who is ill, and is staying with me for a time. Excuse me, sir, but I am wanted.’

Again the call for Nathan.

‘Go to your friend,’ said the Colonel; ‘I will not detain you. After you have attended to his wants, come back to me.’

Very unwillingly Nathan opened the staircase door; but no sooner had he turned to go upstairs than he found his visitor behind him.

‘Go on,’ he said, as he paused. ‘I can read you like a book.’ Another moment, and Colonel Lindsay had clasped the hands of Bertram Peregrine, and Nathan had left the two alone.

Alone with Bertram, the Colonel heard his story, sympathised in his trials, related all that had been told him by the Squire, and promised to act as mediator between father and son; for he entertained no doubts as to the truth of the statement, having always believed his god-son sinned against rather than sinning. At the same time he congratulated himself on his true perception of character.

When Colonel Lindsay returned to the Hall he was in a fever of anxiety, distress, and hope; what steps to take he could not tell, but determined to have but one confidant, Nathan Boltz.

CHAPTER III.—TOLLING THE CURFEW.

Oliver Peregrine hated Nathan Boltz; but nobody suspected it, least of all Nathan himself. Oliver longed for the time to come when as Squire of Linden he could shew his hatred, for which he considered he had satisfactory reasons: one being, that Nathan was a favourite in the village and Oliver was disliked; another, that he was a protégé of the Squire's; a third, that he had been a great hinderance to Oliver's schemes. And now this Colonel Lindsay seemed to be smitten with the bell-ringer, for he frequently engaged him in conversation and met him in the belfry to inspect the bells. Evidently the Colonel was mad on the subject of bell-ringing.

But at the end of a fortnight it occurred to Oliver, who was always prying and suspecting, that their visitor must have some deeper motive than this love of bells and their ringers. He set himself to watch. Just now the Hall was very quiet. Christmas would be kept entirely by themselves, therefore Oliver had plenty of leisure. He said nothing to Patricia of his suspicions; he was not communicative, and she forbore to question him.

To Gertrude, Oliver had never appeared more distasteful than at this time; and she missed the presence of the sweet sister in whom she had confided; for Gertrude had her romance. A very degrading affair Patricia would have called it. However, no one knew of it. Indeed Gertrude had dared scarcely confess it to herself. She loved with the depth and purity of a Christian maiden. Whom? None other than Nathan the bell-ringer! Fearful was Gertrude of whispering his name even in the solitude of her chamber. Yet it afforded her a melancholy pleasure that he should have prepared the last resting-places of her mother and sister, and that in some manner, she did not quite know how, his life should be connected with her family.

‘But what recompense can we make him,’ she would argue, ‘in return for Bertram's wrong? Even my father acknowledges that he did this wrong, and has made him pay in full the penalty of his sin.’ And then she would sigh, as she felt how hopeless, how almost criminal was her love. In vain, however, she struggled against it. In her eyes Nathan was the true type of a gentleman; and ‘Oh!’ she would cry, ‘if Bertram felt thus for Ruth, how could he—how could he forsake her in her time of need?’

Sometimes Gertrude had feared that Oliver Peregrine would discover her secret, or suspect her, from her having already refused certain eligible connections approved by her father; but she had no cause to fear: her family had not the most remote suspicion of the truth.

Christmas drew near, while Colonel Lindsay continued his visits to the belfry, where, as we know, certain weighty considerations detained him in converse with Nathan; and several times Oliver had watched the Colonel emerge from the cottage of the man he so detested. At last, with some difficulty, Oliver managed to play the eavesdropper, and gathered from their conversation that{28} the subject of it was closely connected with his uncle.

‘What—if?’ he muttered to himself, but dared not complete his question; and as he walked home, after the Colonel had left Nathan, he grew more and more uneasy, and determined to find out for himself the secret of Nathan's attic window, where for the last fortnight a light had been observed. Conceive his annoyance when, on commencing a cross-examination of the Colonel in a friendly tone, he found the old soldier on his guard, and ready to parry every attack. Foiled on every side by the experienced veteran, Oliver altered his tactics, and made up his mind to use force, as stratagem availed nothing, and to wring the secret from Nathan Boltz.

It was on a dark starless evening that Nathan set out to toll the curfew, accompanied by Bertram Peregrine, who having recovered in a great measure from the effects of his fatigue and exposure, desired to revisit the well-remembered church, in which many of his ancestors were buried. Colonel Lindsay had arranged to meet him there to decide upon an immediate course of action; and the belfry was to be the scene of their consultation. Nathan and his patient soon reached the belfry, whence the tolling of the curfew was to be the signal for the Colonel to join them. But Oliver had invented a mysterious communication which should detain the Colonel in waiting for an imaginary visitor, and give him the opportunity of going instead; therefore while the soldier waited impatiently at the Hall for his unknown correspondent, Oliver borrowed his cloak, and opening the door in the wall before mentioned, entered the churchyard and repaired to the church.

‘I hear the Colonel; he has just come in,’ said Nathan. ‘Will you shew a light, Mr Bertram?’ As he spoke he continued the tolling of the curfew; and his companion descended the stairs with the lantern in his hand; but he saw no one, for Oliver was concealed in the deep shadow of the porch.

Just as Bertram stepped forward saying: ‘This way, Colonel Lindsay,’ the lantern was dashed from his hand, and a violent blow felled him to the ground. He rose and grappled with his antagonist, who maintained a dead silence, until slipping over the steps into the interior of the church, they fell with violence on the stone floor; at the same moment Bertram felt a sharp wound in his side, and uttered a loud cry as Nathan rushed from the belfry bearing a candle in his hand. He saw before him Oliver Peregrine about to escape from the scene, while his cousin lay on the floor of the church bleeding and unconscious.

In a moment Nathan had grasped Oliver in a powerful grip, the signal for a terrible struggle, during which, however, the latter overpowered his antagonist; and the would-be murderer escaped in the darkness, just as Colonel Lindsay, who had begun to suspect treachery, came hastily upon the scene followed by Dobson and two or three of the villagers. The reason of the sudden stoppage of the bell was apparent to all. With faces of horror and affright they gazed upon Nathan, who, breathless and trembling, supported the wounded man upon his arm.

‘What is it? Who is it?’ demanded Colonel Lindsay, as he picked up his cloak, which lay in the porch; but Nathan made no reply; and his interrogator saw that for some unknown reason he purposely kept silence; also that he took no notice of the cloak or the broken lantern, but signed to Dobson to help him to bear Bertram from the church.

Colonel Lindsay at once comprehended the manœuvre; and spreading out the cloak, they laid Bertram gently down upon it; then Nathan, assisted by two labourers and the Colonel, raised him, and preceded by Dobson, whose legs trembled beneath him, bore their senseless burden through the churchyard. ‘To the Hall!’ was the word of command, given and obeyed, as they marched slowly but steadily through the grounds, until they reached the principal entrance. There a crowd of bewildered faces including those of Squire Peregrine, his daughters and servants, met their gaze.

‘Charles,’ said Colonel Lindsay, ‘I bring you your son. You dare not refuse him a home if he is living, or a grave if he be dead.’

The Squire made no reply, but sank upon the nearest chair and covered his face with his hands.

‘Shew me to a room,’ continued Colonel Lindsay.

Now Nathan and the gloomy procession moved up the broad staircase, leaving those below watching their progress in dumb amazement. Patricia was the first to recover, and sign to her father to follow her to the room they had just left. Her movement dispersed the crowd of servants to wonder and talk among themselves; while Gertrude found herself surrounded by her younger sisters, who began eagerly plying her with questions. To all their importunities, Gertrude only answered: ‘Do not ask me—do not ask me;’ and with the tears streaming down her face, which she in vain attempted to control, she mounted the staircase, and with a trembling hand knocked at the door of the room into which her brother had been carried. Colonel Lindsay answered her.

‘May I come in?’ she whispered; and receiving permission, she stepped up to the bed, around which the men were still busy. One glance at her apparently dying brother determined her.

‘Colonel Lindsay,’ she said with forced composure, ‘pray telegraph at once for a physician. Papa cannot collect himself sufficiently; but I am sure he would wish it.’ Then turning to two young men who stood waiting near the door, she despatched them in all speed for the local practitioner, Dr Downes.

Then she addressed herself to Nathan: ‘You will watch my brother, will you not, until I come back? If he should return to consciousness, he will be glad to find you near him.’ Without waiting for a reply, she left the room quietly, but soon returned, prepared to act nurse to the wounded man.

As Nathan raised his eyes, he thought he had never seen anything so charming before; nothing of which he had read could exceed the womanly gentleness and loveliness of that fair face; and his own flushed with shame as he allowed his eyes to dwell upon it longer than in his opinion was consistent with good breeding. ‘And at such a time,’ said Nathan to himself, as he again bent over the prostrate form.

{29}

Gertrude had brought with her an aged servant who had nursed them, and still remained an inmate of the Hall. In spite of the changes produced by time and the circumstances under which she now saw him, Nurse Goodall recognised Bertram at once, and her agitation was extreme; for being fully acquainted with every circumstance connected with his flight, she argued that there could be but one termination to this rash proceeding on the part of Colonel Lindsay—the expulsion of the son now lying at the point of death from his father's roof; for she knew full well the obstinate character of the Squire of Linden, and blamed the Colonel for thus precipitating the end.

As yet, no one in the Hall knew anything further than that the son of the house had returned desperately wounded, and that Colonel Lindsay and Nathan had brought him home: all the rest was mystery unfathomable. At this juncture, the surgeon, Dr Downes, entered the room in a little trepidation, his visits to the Hall being rare, and this message having been sudden and brief. The surgeon perceived a complicated case, and made an examination of his patient. This done, he inquired if any person was present to whom the injured man was thoroughly accustomed. Colonel Lindsay mentioned Nathan and himself. The surgeon then requested Gertrude and the servants to retire, and proposed to wait with Nathan the advent of the physician, who had been telegraphed for. Colonel Lindsay, promising to introduce Dr Ferris directly he arrived, left the room also, and taking Gertrude on his arm, sought the Squire, who was still in conversation with his eldest daughter. Patricia and her father received him coldly, and positively declined to see Bertram.

‘Charles,’ said the Colonel, ‘I have much to tell you, which had better be said privately. Will you give me a few minutes in your library?’ The tone was so full of meaning, that the Squire rose and led the way. The result of their conference will be shewn in the conclusion of our narrative.

THE SALT MARSHES OF BRITTANY.

Not the least interesting part of France is the wide range of country watered by the Loire. It is here that feudal and historic remains may best be studied; fine old castles, palaces, and abbeys rise before the traveller on all sides. The gloomy Blois, where those arch enemies of French liberty the Guises, were assassinated; the castellated den of Plessis-les-Tours, where Louis XI. carried out his deep-laid schemes, so well described in Quentin Durward; and the high towers and deep vaults of Amboise, which tell of many a tragic conspiracy and massacre. Here too is the picturesque Chénonceaux, with its rich ceilings and tapestry, where Mary Queen of Scots passed some happy days in her sad life, and Francis I. drew around him his joyous court. Joan of Arc unfurled her banner in this interesting province; and the heroic Vendeans lie buried by thousands, martyrs to their religion and their king. It is a bright sunny land; the acacia hedges divide the fields with their elegant white blossoms; the vineyards are loaded with purple grapes, the apple orchards give abundance of cider; a lazy kind of land where the idler may kill time to his heart's content. Yet the Loire cannot boast of equal beauty with the Seine; its raging waters inundate the country in winter, leaving dry shoals in summer; and near its mouth, the district called the Marais is an uninteresting tract of sand, salt marshes, and ponds. It is of this unpromising scene that we would write, where ten thousand persons find occupation in the making of salt.

The interest attaching to the people arises from their extreme simplicity. Thanks to the salubrity of the country, they are a fine hardy race, the men tall and well-proportioned, the women celebrated for their fresh complexions. Watch them as they work in the salt-fields carrying heavy loads on their heads, barefoot, in short petticoats, and running rather than walking on the edge of the ponds. But all this is changed on grand fête days, when the costume of their forefathers in past centuries is worn. It is called the marriage dress, as it is first donned by the women on that day. Since it must last for a lifetime, it is carefully laid aside for special occasions. There is the embroidered cap and white handkerchief for the shoulders, edged with lace; the belt and bodice stitched with gold thread. A gay violet petticoat is partially covered by a white dress, the sleeves of which are either red or white; and an apron of yellow or red silk adds to the smart attire. The red stockings are embroidered, and the violet sandals cover well-shaped feet. As for the bridegroom to this pretty bride, he adorns himself with a brown cloth shirt, a muslin collarette, full knickerbockers, and no less than two waistcoats, one white, the other blue, with a large black cloth mantle over all. To complete his toilet there is a three-cornered hat with velvet cords, white embroidered stockings, and white buckskin shoes. Such is the costume of Bourg-de-Batz; but each village has its own distinctive coiffure. The burning summer sun, whose rays are reflected from the salt marshes as if from a lens, forces all to wear wide-brimmed hats for daily work; the high winds and great changes of temperature necessitating double or triple woollen waistcoats; yet even this time-honoured style of dress has something picturesque about it.

Let us cross to the left bank of the Loire, and ascend the hill into the little town of Pellerin, justly proud of its position and commanding views. From this vantage-ground the eye passes over the indented coast-line where the points of Mesquer, Croisic, and many others advance into the sea. The green pastures and pretty villas of Saint Etienne form the foreground to the barren reaches of the salt district, which extends towards Morbihan, occupying about six thousand acres. The commercial centre of the country is the town of Guérande, perched on a hill, and belonging to a long past age. Its high ramparts, built for defence in troublous times, can only be entered by four gates, which bear the marks of portcullises. Enormous trees entirely conceal it from the traveller, who would fancy he was approaching a green forest, instead of an old fortified place belonging to feudal times. Vines and cereals grow admirably on the higher ground surrounding it, to the very verge of the salt marshes, which are utterly bare. Looking towards the sea, the marks of its fury are apparent, as if Nature wished to collect all her weapons of defence for the inhabitants. Gigantic rocks of capricious forms, sometimes{30} rising like a bundle of lances; sometimes lying on the shore, as if they were Egyptian sphinxes, or lions turned into stone, and polished by the waves; or even resembling these very waves petrified in a moment on some tempestuous day.

Nothing is more easy to describe than a salt marsh. Imagine a market-garden divided into squares; but instead of the green vegetables, each square filled with water, and the walks not level with, but raised above the spaces about ten inches in height. The parallelograms are termed in the vernacular œillets. These are filled with sea-water, which pours in through conduits at high-tide, the water having been stored during a period of from fifteen to thirty days, in reservoirs attached to each marsh. The system of canals through which it passes is of a complicated nature; and the production of the salt constitutes, so to speak, a special branch of agriculture, where the visible help of man assists the hidden work of Nature. The ground must be dug and arranged in a particular manner, that the saline particles may crystallise, just as a field where wheat grows and ripens. Thus, it is not surprising that the salt-workers adopt the professional terms of the farmers. At certain times they say ‘The marsh is in flower;’ they speak of the ‘harvest’ and of ‘reaping the salt.’

It is in the œillet, where the water is only about an inch in depth, that the salt forms, thanks to the evaporation of the sun, and to the current which, slowly circulating through the different compartments, assists the evaporation. The salt which then falls to the bottom of the basin is raked out by the paludier into round hollows made at the edge at certain distances. This is done every one or two days. The art consists in raking up all the salt without drawing the mud with it. In the salt marsh of Guérande they collect separately a white salt, which forms on the surface under the appearance of foam, and is used for the salting of sardines.

It will easily be understood that everything depends on the sky; above all things, the heat of the solar rays is necessary. In cloudy weather there is no crystallisation. Rainy seasons are most disastrous for the paludiers. The harvest varies from year to year; but calculating the produce for ten years, it amounts to three or four thousand pounds of salt in each œillet. Work begins in the month of June, and is carried on till October. The number of œillets varies with the size of the marsh; that of Guérande contains about twenty-four thousand; others are much less. The gathered salt is carried daily to some slope near and packed in a conical form, very much resembling the tents of a camp when seen from a distance. At Guérande the women are seen running in this direction, carrying the salt on their heads in large wooden bowls, holding about fifty pounds; whilst at Bourgneuf the men are employed, who make use of willow-baskets borne on the shoulder. If the salt is sold immediately, the cone is only covered with a little earth. But it more frequently happens that when the harvest is good, speculators buy large quantities to keep until the price rises, and then large masses a thousand pounds in weight are formed, and protected by a thick layer of earth.

Like all kinds of property in France, the salt marshes are much divided. More than three thousand proprietors share that of Guérande; and there is a kind of co-operative partnership between the owner and the worker, the latter generally receiving a quarter of the profits, out of which he pays the porters. The gain is, however, miserably small; and the wonder is how the various families manage to exist upon it. Even if the wife and daughter help, the whole family only earn about two hundred and fifty-five francs a year—ten pounds of our money; and in consequence of the season when the salt is collected, the paludier has no chance of increasing his income by assisting the farmers, and can only employ himself in the trifling labours of winter. So low, indeed, have the profits sunk, that in some marshes the expenses have exceeded them; in short there is no kind of property in France that has for the last century undergone more terrible reverses than this. These changes are partly due to the railways, which have provided a much more efficient and rapid means of transport for the east of France than for the west.

There are three large zones in the country where salt is found. In the eastern district it is derived from springs and mines; but in the present day the salt mines are treated like the springs. Instead of dividing the lumps with the pickaxe, galleries are cut through and flooded with water; when this is sufficiently saturated, it is brought to the surface and evaporated in heated caldrons. The aid of the sun is not required; fine or rainy days do not count, and the making of salt becomes a trade for all the year round. In the south the plan is varied, because there is no tide in the Mediterranean Sea. Here, by the help of a mechanical apparatus, the sea-water is pumped into enormous squares, where it crystallises, and the evaporation is accelerated by a continual circulation. With a warm temperature and a cloudless sky, the water requires to be renewed only at intervals, whilst the salt itself is not collected until the end of summer. Thus the poor workmen of Brittany have a more laborious and less remunerative task, though the salt is acknowledged to be of a finer quality.

The family life is necessarily of a very hard and parsimonious character. It is impossible to buy animal food; a thin soup supplies the morning and evening repast, with poorly cooked potatoes at mid-day. Those who are near the sea can add the sardine and common shell-fish, which are not worth the trouble of taking into the towns to sell. The cruel proverb, ‘Who sleeps, dines,’ finds here its literal application; during the winter the people lie in bed all the day to save a meal. There is a strong family affection apparent among them, the father exercising a patriarchal authority in the much-loved home. If they go away, it is never for more than twenty leagues, to sell the salt from door to door. Driving before them their indefatigable mules, borne down at starting with too heavy a load, they penetrate through the devious narrow lanes, knowing the path to every hamlet or farmhouse where they hope to meet with a customer.

The population of Bourg-de-Batz is said to be a branch of the Saxon race, and has hitherto been so jealous of preserving an unbroken genealogy that marriages are always made among themselves. A union with a stranger is felt to be a misalliance.{31} There are some local customs still remaining which point to an ancient origin, a visible legacy of paganism perpetuated to the present day. Such is the festival which is celebrated at Croisic in the month of August in honour of Hirmen, a pagan divinity in the form of a stone with a wide base lying near the sea. Here, with grotesque movements, the women execute round the stone a sort of sacred dance, and every young girl who is unfortunate enough to touch it is certain not to be married during the year. There is an old chapel of St Goustan which shews the tenacity with which the people hold to their traditions. Once a place for pilgrimages, it has not been used for sacred purposes during seventy years, and serves as a magazine for arms. Yet the inhabitants of Batz visit it yearly, and especially pray beneath the sacred walls at Whitsuntide.

Sunday is strictly kept as a day of rest from their toils; then the poorest dress in clean clothes, men, women, and children going in family groups to church. After that, relations and neighbours pay visits. Man is no longer a beast of burden, but shews that he has a heart and a conscience; a happy spirit of good temper and frankness reigns everywhere. Indeed the high moral qualities of the natives, their love of education, and strong attachment to their native soil, make them a vigorous branch of the French nation, and one calculated to gain the traveller's respect.

CRITICAL ODDITIES.

That short pithy criticisms are occasionally as pointed as those that are more elaborated, may be gleaned from the following, which we cull at random for the amusement of our readers.

A little calculation would have saved a well-known novelist being taken to task by a fair graduate of Elmira College, who thus relieved her mind by writing as follows to the College magazine: ‘In a novel of Miss Braddon's, a book of wonderful plot and incident, the hero, after coming to grief in a civilised country, went to Australia to make his fortune; and while yet an apprentice at the pick and shovel, found an immense nugget of gold, which he hid, now in one place, now in another, and finally, was obliged to carry in his under-shirt pocket for weeks. When he reached home its sale made him immensely rich. I had a little curiosity in the matter, and obtaining the current price of gold, found, by a simple computation, that the nugget must have weighed a hundred and ninety-four pounds. A sizeable pocket that must have been!’

Albert Smith had his pronouns criticised in the following neat way by Thackeray. Turning over the leaves of a young lady's album, Thackeray came upon the following lines:

Mont Blanc is the Monarch of Mountains—
They crowned him long ago;
But who they got to put it on,
Nobody seems to know.—Albert Smith.

And wrote underneath:

I know that Albert wrote in a hurry:
To criticise I scarce presume;
But yet methinks that Lindley Murray,
Instead of ‘who,’ had written ‘whom.’

W. M. Thackeray.

Not quite so good-naturedly did Chorley treat Patmore's Angel in the House, in his critical versicles: ‘The gentle reader we apprise, That this new Angel in the House, Contains a tale, not very wise, About a parson and a spouse. The author, gentle as a lamb, Has managèd his rhymes to fit; He haply fancies he has writ Another In Memoriam. How his intended gathered flowers, And took her tea, and after sung, Is told in style somewhat like ours, For delectation of the young.’ Then after giving ‘some little pictures’ in the poet's own language, the cruel critic went on—‘From ball to bed, from field to farm, The tale flows nicely purling on; With much conceit there is no harm, In the love-legend here begun. The rest will come some other day, If public sympathy allows; And this is all we have to say About the Angel in the House.’

This hardly amounted to faint praise, a kind of encouragement Mr Buckstone owned had a very depressing effect upon him when he ranked among youthful aspirants to theatrical honours. ‘I was,’ said the comedian, ‘given by my manager a very good part to act, which being received by the public with roars of laughter, I considered that my future was made. A worthy vendor of newspapers, a great critic and patron of the drama, asked me for an order. On giving him one, I called the next day expecting to hear a flattering account of my performance, but was disappointed. Determined to learn what effect my acting had produced on him, I nervously put the question: “Did you see me last night?” to which he replied: “O yes.” “Well,” said I, “were you pleased?” And he again replied with his “O yes.” I then came to the point with: “Did you like my acting?” And he rejoined: “O yes; you made me smile.”’

A more appreciative critic was the lady who after seeing Garrick and Barry severally play Romeo, observed that in the garden scene, Garrick's looks were so animated and his gestures so spirited, that had she been Juliet she should have thought Romeo was going to jump up to her; but that Barry was so tender, melting, and persuasive, that had she been Juliet she should have jumped down to him.

An old seaman after looking long at the picture of ‘Rochester from the River,’ cried: ‘Yes, that's it—just opposite old Staunton's, where I served my time—just as it used to look when I was a youngster no higher than my stick. It's forty years since I saw the old place; but if the haze would only clear off, I could point out every house!’

When M. Gondinet's Free was produced at the Porte St Martin Theatre, a Parisian critic commended the playwright for rendering a good deal of the dialogue inaudible by a liberal employment of muskets and cannon; and then conjugated Free thus: ‘I am free to go to the play; thou art free to be bored by the first act; he or she is free to be bored by act second; we are free to be bored by the third; you are free to be bored still more by the fourth and fifth acts; and they are free to stay away for the future.’

M. Gondinet's drama was seemingly as fitting a subject for the pruning-knife as the play of which Mark Twain, speaking for himself and partner, deposed:{32} ‘The more we cut out of it, the better it got along. We cut out, and cut out, and cut out; and I do believe this would be one of the best plays in the world to-day, if our strength had held out, and we could have gone on and cut out the rest of it.’

An Ohio politician ‘on the stump,’ stayed the torrent of his eloquence for a moment, and looking round with a self-satisfied air, put the question: ‘Now, gentlemen, what do you think?’ A voice from the crowd replied: ‘Well, Mr Speaker, if you ask me, I think, sir, I do indeed, that if you and me were to stump the state together, we could tell more lies than any other two men in the country, sir; and I'd not say a word myself, sir, all the time.’ The orator must have felt as grateful as the actor whose impersonation of the hero of Escaped from Sing-Sing impelled a weary pittite to proclaim aloud that the play would have been better ‘if that chap hadn't escaped from Sing-Sing;’ or the Opera tenor whose first solo elicited from Pat in the upper regions the despairing ejaculation: ‘Och, my eighteen-pince!’

A young negro, carefully conducting an old blind woman through the Philadelphia Exhibition, stopped in front of a statue of Cupid and Psyche, and thus enlightened his sightless companion: ‘Dis is a white mammy and her babby, and dey has just got no clo' onto 'em at all, and he is a-kissin' of her like mischief, to be shuah. I's kind o' glad you can't see 'em, 'cause you'd be flustered like, 'cause dey don't stay in de house till dey dresses deyselves. All dese figures seem to be scarce o' clo', but dey is mighty pooty, only dey be too white to be any 'lation to you and me, mammy.’ Then turning to a statue in bronze: ‘Dere be one nigger among 'em which is crying over a handkerchief. Dey call him Othello. Mebbe his mother is dead, and he can't fetch her to de show, poor fellow!’

An American officer riding by the bronze statue of Henry Clay in Canal Street, New Orleans, was asked by his Irish orderly if the New Orleans ‘fellers’ were so fond of niggers that they put a statue of one in their ‘fashionablest’ street. ‘That's not a nigger, Tom; that's the great Clay statue,’ said the amused officer. Tom rode round the statue, dismounted, climbed upon the pedestal, examined the figure closely, and then said: ‘Did they tell yez it was clay? It looks to me like iron!’

Tom's ignorance was more excusable than that of the Yankee who, learning on inquiry that the colossal equestrian figure in Union Square, New York, was ‘General Washington, the father of his country,’ observed: ‘It is? I never heard of him before; but there is one thing about him I do like—he does set a horse plaguy well.’ A compliment to the artist, at all events.

Perhaps Salvini took it as a compliment when his Othello was compared to the awakening fury of the Hyrcanian tiger disturbed at his feast of blood, and his Hamlet described as ‘a magnificent hoodlum on his muscle, with a big mad on, smashing things generally;’ and the Boston actress was delighted to know her ‘subtle grace, flexible as the sinuosities of a morning mist, yet thoroughly proportioned to the curves of the character, was most especially noticeable.’ But the Hungarian prima donna must have felt a little dubious as to the intentions of the critic who wrote of her: ‘Her voice is wonderful. She runs up and down the scale with the agility of an experienced cat running up and down a house-top, and two or three fences thrown in. She turns figurative flip-flaps on every bar, tearing up the thermometer to away above two hundred and twelve, and sliding down again so far below zero that one feels chilled to the bone.’ The fair singer would probably have preferred something in this style: ‘Miss —— wore a rich purple suit with a handsome shade of lavender, a white over-garment, tight-fitting, with flowing sleeves, and a white bonnet trimmed with the same shades of purple and lavender, and she sang finely.’

That has the merit of being intelligible. The writer was not in such a desperate condition as the Memphis theatrical reporter who lauded an actress as ‘intense yet expansive, comprehensive yet particular, fervid without faultiness; glowing and still controlled, natural but refined, daring anything, fearing nothing but to violate grace; pure as dew, soft as the gush of distant music, gentle as a star beaming through the riven clouds. With mystery of charms she comes near to us, and melts down our admiration into love; but when we take her to us as something familiar and delicious, she floats away to the far heights of fame, and looks down on our despair with countenance of peaceful lustre and smiles as sweet as spring.’ If the lady did not reciprocate, her heart must have been of adamant.

Printed and Published by W. & R. Chambers, 47 Paternoster Row, London, and 339 High Street, Edinburgh.

CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL
OF
POPULAR
LITERATURE, SCIENCE, AND ART.

CONTENTS

THE JUBILEE SINGERS.

HELENA, LADY HARROGATE.

CHAPTER II.—AT CARBERY CHASE.

TIGER-SHOOTING.

THE BELL-RINGER.

CHAPTER II.—THE STORY OF RUTH.

CHAPTER III.—TOLLING THE CURFEW.

THE SALT MARSHES OF BRITTANY.

CRITICAL ODDITIES.

THE WELL-KNOWN SPOT.

CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL OF POPULAR LITERATURE, SCIENCE, AND ART.

CONTENTS

THE JUBILEE SINGERS.

HELENA, LADY HARROGATE.

CHAPTER II.—AT CARBERY CHASE.

TIGER-SHOOTING.

THE BELL-RINGER.

CHAPTER II.—THE STORY OF RUTH.

CHAPTER III.—TOLLING THE CURFEW.

THE SALT MARSHES OF BRITTANY.

CRITICAL ODDITIES.

THE WELL-KNOWN SPOT.

CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL
OF
POPULAR
LITERATURE, SCIENCE, AND ART.