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Title: Chambers's Journal of Popular Literature, Science, and Art, fifth series, no. 142, vol. III, September 18, 1886

Author: Various

Release date: July 28, 2024 [eBook #74146]

Language: English

Original publication: Edinburgh: William and Robert Chambers

Credits: Susan Skinner, Eric Hutton and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive)


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL OF POPULAR LITERATURE, SCIENCE, AND ART, FIFTH SERIES, NO. 142, VOL. III, SEPTEMBER 18, 1886 ***





[Illustration:

CHAMBERS’S JOURNAL

OF

POPULAR

LITERATURE, SCIENCE, AND ART

Fifth Series

ESTABLISHED BY WILLIAM AND ROBERT CHAMBERS, 1832

CONDUCTED BY R. CHAMBERS (SECUNDUS)

NO. 142.—VOL. III.     SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 18, 1886.     PRICE 1½_d._]




MASSAGE.

A MODE OF MEDICAL TREATMENT.


Massage as a hygienic agent was practised from the earliest times, and
is probably as old as surgery itself, or, as it would be more exact to
say, as old as mankind. The word is derived from the Greek to knead,
and the Arabic to press softly. A Chinese manuscript, the date of which
is three thousand years before the Christian era, contains an account
of operations similar to those of the present day: friction, kneading,
manipulating, rolling—all the procedures now grouped together under
the name of massage. The translator of this curious record, a French
missionary at Pekin, finds it to include all the characteristics of an
ancient scientific mode of treatment; and it has been wittily remarked,
that however it may rejuvenate those who submit to its influence, the
wrinkles of time cannot be removed from its own ancient visage.

With the Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans, a form of massage was the
common accompaniment of the bath, and was used as a luxury, as a means
of hastening tedious convalescence, and to render the limbs supple
and enduring. Rubbing and anointing were sometimes done by medical
practitioners themselves, or by the priests, or sometimes by slaves.
Herodicus, one of the masters of Hippocrates in the fifth century B.C.,
first proposed gymnastics as a cure for disease. He was the superior
officer of the gymnasium at Athens; and by compelling his patients to
undergo various exercises and to have their bodies rubbed, is said to
have lengthened their lives, insomuch that Plato reproached him for
protracting that existence, in which, as years advanced, they could
have less and less enjoyment. He himself, by the practice of his own
remedies, attained the age of a hundred.

The earliest definite information regarding massage comes from
Hippocrates, who says: ‘The physician must be experienced in many
things, but assuredly also in rubbing; for things that have the same
name have not always the same effects, for rubbing can bind a joint
that is too loose, and loosen a joint that is too rigid.’ He also used
the word _anatripsis_, the process of rubbing _up_, and not _down_,
although not understanding the reason of it, as it was not till five
hundred years later that Galen pointed out that the arteries were
not filled with air, as their name would seem to imply. Asclepiades
was probably not far wrong when he founded his school at Rome on the
belief that diet, bathing, exercise, and friction should keep the body
without disease; and Cicero affirmed that he owed as much of his health
to his anointer as he did to his physician. Plutarch tells us that
Julius Cæsar had himself pinched all over daily, as a means of getting
rid of a general neuralgia. Celsus, at the beginning of the Christian
era, advised that rubbing should be applied to the whole body, ‘when
an invalid requires his system to be replenished;’ and Pliny availed
himself of a mode of treatment which was evidently much in fashion in
his day, and derived so much benefit from the remedy, that he obtained
for his physician, who was a Jew, the privileges of Roman citizenship.
It is related of the Emperor Hadrian that one day seeing a veteran
soldier rubbing himself against the marble at the public baths, he
asked him why he did so. The veteran answered: ‘I have no slave to
rub me.’ Whereupon, the emperor gave him two slaves and sufficient to
maintain them. It is quaintly added to this story, that the next day
several old men rubbed themselves against the wall in the emperor’s
presence, when, perceiving their object, he shrewdly directed them to
rub one another.

The works of Plato abound in references to the use of friction; and
numberless passages might be cited from celebrated writers describing
the hygienic exercises of the gymnasium, and the manner in which
children were led by degrees to execute the most difficult evolutions
without fear or risk of fracture. In describing the course pursued,
friction, pressure, malaxation, are all in turn noticed by different
authors, and strongly recommended. The Egyptians were probably the
first among civilised nations to put the system into practice, and
they were copied by the Greeks and Romans. Savary, in his _Lettres
sur l’Egypt_, describes part of the process: ‘After the bath and a
short interval of repose, whilst the limbs retain a soft moisture, an
attendant presses them gently, and when each limb has become supple and
flexible, the joints are cracked without effort; il masse et semble
paîtrir la chaire sans que l’on éprouve la plus legère douleur.’

In the fifteenth century, Henry II. of France decreed that a treatise
should be written upon the hygienic exercises of ancient Rome. Six
years later, Mercurialis took up the question from a medical point
of view; after which, Ambrose Paré, the most renowned surgeon of the
sixteenth century, dilated on the value of the works of Oribasius,
written in the time of the Emperor Julian; and he described three
kinds of friction and the effects of each, and was thought so skilful,
that although a devout Huguenot, he was spared at the massacre of St
Bartholomew.

To Peter Henrik Ling is given the credit of having instituted the
‘Swedish movement cure.’ He was even thought to have invented it; but
he simply founded his system on the _Kong Fau_ manuscript, which is
not only the Chinese system, but that of the Brahmins, the Egyptian
priests, and the Greek and Roman physicians. M. Dally has characterised
his theory and practice as nothing more than a daguerreotype copy of
the _Kong Fau_ of Tao-ssè, and called it a splendid Chinese vase with
its Chinese figures clothed in European colours. Estradère, moreover,
proves that in the _San-tsai-tow-hoei_, published at the end of the
sixteenth century, there is to be found a collection of engravings
representing anatomical figures and gymnastic exercises; amongst these
are figured frictions, pressures, percussions, vibrations—massage
itself, in fact. These movements the Pekin missionaries affirm to have
been in use from time immemorial, and were employed to dissipate the
rigidity of the muscles occasioned by fatigue, spasmodic contractions,
and rheumatic pains. The operators who practised this calling had
no fixed dwelling, but used to walk about the streets, advertising
their presence by the clanking of a chain or by some sort of musical
instrument.

Lepage, in his historical researches on Chinese medicine, relates
that massage was a particular practice borrowed from the Indians, and
that it was by such means that the Brahmins effected their miraculous
cures. The word shampooing is of Hindu origin; but it must be borne in
mind that these Old-world practices were only a faint foreshadowing
of the present scientific method. In his _Dictionnaire des Sciences
Médicales_, Piorry remarks that the simplest form of massage prevails
wherever the people have least outgrown their primitive state; and
travellers describe it as universally common in countries where nature
alone dictates the remedy for accident or disease. Captain Cook, in
his voyage to Tahiti, describes that on arriving they were hospitably
received, and that in the corner of a hut, carefully closed over with
reeds, a large piece of matting was spread on the ground for them, and
that their legs and arms were rubbed and the muscles softly pressed
until all signs of fatigue had disappeared. The _Gazette des Hôpitaux_,
in 1839, relates how massage is practised in the island of Tonga: ‘When
a person feels tired with walking or any other exercise, he lies down,
and his servants go through the various operations known under the
names of Toogi-toogi, mili, or fota. The first of these words expresses
the action of beating constantly and softly; the second, of rubbing
with the palm of the hand; the third, of pressing and tightening the
muscles between the thumb and fingers. When the fatigue is very great,
young children are set to tread under their feet the whole body of the
patient.’

The lomi-lomi of the Sandwich Islanders is much the same thing: the
process is spoken of as being that of neither kneading, squeezing, nor
rubbing, but now like one, and now like the other. Dr N. B. Emerson
relates that the Hawaiians are a famous race of swimmers, and to a
foreigner seem amphibious. When wrecked, they sometimes swim long
distances; and if one of their number becomes exhausted, they sustain
him in the water and lomi-lomi him. When perfectly refreshed, they
proceed upon their watery way.

Baudin, in his _Travels in New Holland_, relates that the individuals
who have the greatest influence amongst the savages are the
_mulgaradocks_, or medical charlatans. A mulgaradock is regarded
as possessing power over the elements either to avert wind and
rain, or to call down tempests on the heads of those who come under
their displeasure. In order to calm a storm, he stands in the open
air, spreads out his arms, shakes his mantle, made of skins, and
gesticulates violently for a considerable time. In order to effect a
cure, he proceeds much in the same way, but with rather less noise: he
practises a mode of rubbing, and sometimes hits the patient with green
rods which have first been heated at a fire, stopping at intervals to
let the pain pass away. The Africans follow the same fashion; and with
the Russians, flagellation and friction by means of a bundle of birch
twigs are resorted to. After the subject has been well parboiled in
a vapour bath, a pailful of cold water is then dashed over him, the
effect of which is described as electrifying. After this, he plunges
into the snow, and thus prepares himself to endure the rigour of the
climate with impunity. The Siberians and Laplanders also are said to
indulge in these luxuries.

To France belongs the credit of giving to modern medicine a scientific
system of massage; and yet, in spite of many able works, and various
discussions at the Academy of Sciences and other learned societies, it
remained a sort of secret practice, almost wholly under the domain of
empiricism; but with the waning interest of French physicians, the
Germans and Scandinavians took up the subject; and about ten years
ago, Dr Mezger of Amsterdam brought massage to be acknowledged as
a highly valuable method. He placed it upon the basis of practical
knowledge, thus taking it out of the hands of ignorant charlatans. He
did not write much about it, but simply employed the teaching of facts.
To physicians who wrote to him for an explanation of his treatment,
he only said, ‘Come and see.’ To Professor von Mosengeil is owing
the present accurate and scientific knowledge of the subject; by his
careful and painstaking observations he has brought massage into high
esteem, so that it is now acknowledged as a special branch of the art
of medicine.

There is, however, a pitfall to be avoided. Dr William Murrell, in
his recent practical work, _Massage as a Mode of Treatment_, gives a
very necessary warning to those who would use it ignorantly. He admits
that it is not free from the taint of quackery, and that the so-called
massage practised in some of our hospitals and under the auspices of
some nursing institutions is a painful exhibition of ignorance and
incompetence, being simply a degenerate form of rubbing or shampooing.
Having lately witnessed the progress of a number of cases under the
care of Professor Mosengeil in Germany, he remarks that the massage of
‘medical rubbers’ is not massage at all, as the term is understood on
the continent, and has little or nothing in common with it. It is quite
a mistake to think we can take John from the stables and Biddy from the
washtub, and in one easy lesson convert either into a safe, reliable,
or efficient manipulator. Dr Murrell has found it successful in various
kinds of paralysis; in writers’, painters’, and dancers’ cramp; and
in the cramp of telegraph office operators, who, just as they have
attained to the highest point of dexterity, find that every movement is
performed with effort and pain, until at last no movement is possible
at all.

The chief advocates of massage have been men of note; and although
it is only recently that it has gained an extensive scientific
consideration, it is gradually but surely obtaining a wider circulation
and a higher place as a worthy therapeutical agent.




BY ORDER OF THE LEAGUE.


CHAPTER II.

Without the city walls, hidden by the umbrella pines, and back from
those secluded walks where young Rome takes its pleasure, stood the
Villa Salvarino, almost under the shade of the walls, and hard by the
gate of San Pancrazio. In the more prosperous days of the Eternal
City, it might have been, and indeed was, the residence of some great
Roman family; but aristocracies decline and families pass away; and
the haughty owners were by no means averse from making a few English
pounds by letting it to any traveller who had the inclination or
the means to spend a few months there. The present tenant at this
bright Easter-time, Sir Geoffrey Charteris, of Grosvenor Square,
London, W., and Haversham Park, in the county of Dorset, Baronet,
Deputy-lieutenant, and Justice of the Peace, was a man of long descent.
The pale azure fluid in his veins was not the blood of us poor mortals;
his life-giving stream had been transmitted through succeeding
generations from a long line of gallant warriors and gentle dames;
from fearless ancestors who followed their sovereign at the call to
arms, marched with Richard of the Lion-heart to the Holy Sepulchre,
and maybe crossed swords with the doughty Saladin himself. The title,
conferred upon a Charteris by the Black Prince in person after the
glorious field of Creçy, had known no tarnish as it passed down the
long line of great and good men, soldiers, statesmen, and divines, to
the present worthy representative of all these honours. Not that he had
greatly distinguished himself in any field, save as an Under-secretary
in a short-lived inglorious Ministry, where he had made a lasting name
as the most incompetent individual ever appointed to office, though he
dated every subsequent event and prefixed every after-dinner story by
an allusion to the time when he was in the Earl of Muddleton’s Ministry.

The reception rooms of the villa were crowded when our friends arrived.
It was a kind of informal after-dinner reception, attended by most of
the English visitors lingering after the Carnival, with some sprinkling
of the resident aristocracy; for Sir Geoffrey liked to gather people
round him, birth and genius being equally welcome. Sir Geoffrey
looked every inch an English gentleman, standing there among his
guests. He was apparently about fifty years of age, tall and straight,
thoroughbred from his stiff gray hair to the small shapely feet, as yet
untroubled by the family gout. His eyes were pale blue, and somewhat
weak; his face, clear-cut and refined, with an aquiline nose and a high
white forehead, but the whole marred by a mouth weak and nervous to the
last degree. A connoisseur of art, a dabbler in literature, and last,
but not least, a firm believer in spiritualism.

Enid Charteris, his only daughter and heiress, a girl about eighteen,
must be taken for granted. Imagine in all your dreams of fair women
what a golden-bronzed-haired girl should be, and you have Enid, with
all her charms of manner and person, with that perfect expression
without which the most classic features are cold. She smiled brightly
as the new-comers entered. It is not given to every one to be able to
disguise their likings and antipathies, and it did not need a practised
eye to see her cold greeting for Le Gautier, and the instantaneous
glance for Maxwell.

‘I really began to think you were going to fail me,’ she said; ‘and
this is the last of our receptions too. I shall always have pleasant
recollections of my visit to Rome.’

‘We have been dining with Maxwell, Miss Charteris,’ Visci explained.
‘Could we forget you, if we tried! And now, before you are so engaged
that you can have no word for poor me, I want to ask you a favour. We
are going to my country retreat on Friday, and my sister Genevieve is
dying to see you. Do persuade Sir Geoffrey to come.’

‘Here he is to answer for himself,’ she replied, as the baronet
sauntered up to the group.—‘Papa, you must promise to take me to see
Signor Visci’s country-house on Friday.—Do you hear?’

‘Anything you say is law, my dear,’ Sir Geoffrey answered with comic
resignation. ‘Anything you desire.—Le Gautier, I wish to speak to you,’
he whispered quietly; ‘come to me presently.—Salvarini, you here? I
thought you had forsworn gaieties of all descriptions. Glad to see you
are thinking better of your misanthropy.’

Le Gautier turned off with the baronet somewhat impatiently, leaving
the rest together. Salvarini, looking on somewhat thoughtfully, almost
fancied there was a look of relief in Enid’s face as the Frenchman
left; certainly, she was less constrained.

‘We shall look forward to Friday with great pleasure, then, Signor
Visci,’ she said. ‘I have heard you speak so much of the Villa Mattio,
that I am expecting to see a perfect paradise.’

‘With two Eves,’ Maxwell whispered in English. Visci was not a man to
misunderstand the meaning of true company, so, with a bow and a little
complimentary speech, he turned aside, taking Salvarini by the arm, and
plunged into the glittering crowd.

‘I do not understand the meaning there,’ Salvarini remarked as they
walked through the rooms. ‘If Maxwell means’——

‘Orange blossoms,’ Visci interrupted laconically; ‘and right, too.—Let
us get into the music-room. Le Fanu is going to play.’

Maxwell remained by Enid’s side, toying with her fan and discoursing in
their native language in a low voice. From the expression in his face
and the earnest ring in his voice, there was no doubting the power of
the attraction that chained him there.

‘When do you leave Rome, Miss Charteris?’ he asked, abruptly changing
the conversation. ‘This is your last reception, I know.’

‘We shall leave in the middle of next week for certain. I shall be very
sorry for some reasons, for I have been happy here.’

‘I shall probably return with you,’ Maxwell observed. ‘I have deferred
my departure too long already. It would be pleasant to leave together.’

‘After learning everything that Rome could teach you,’ Enid put in
archly. ‘Then the Eternal City has no more artistic knowledge to
impart?’

‘Yes; I have learned some lessons here,’ Maxwell replied with a tender
inflection, ‘besides artistic ones. I have been learning one lately
that I am never likely to forget. Am I presumptuous, Miss Enid?’

‘Really, Mr Maxwell, you are too mysterious. If I could understand
you’——

‘I think you do understand me; I fervently hope you do.’

For a moment, a little wild-rose bloom trembled and flushed on the
girl’s cheek, then she looked down, playing with her fan nervously.
No reason to say she did not understand now. Maxwell did not follow
up his advantage; some instinct warned him not; and adroitly changing
the conversation, he told her of his life in Rome, each passing moment
linking his chains the firmer. Gradually, as they sat talking, a group
of men gathered round, breaking in upon their tête-à-tête, laughing and
talking after the most approved drawing-room fashion.

In a distant corner, Sir Geoffrey had button-holed Le Gautier, and was
apparently deep in conversation on some all-absorbing subject. The
Frenchman was a good listener, with that rare faculty of hearing all
that was worthy of note and entirely ignoring the superfluous. He was
not a man to talk much of himself, and consequently heard a great deal
of family history; details and information that astute young man had
found valuable on occasions. He was interested now, Maxwell thought, as
he idly speculated upon his face.

‘Yes,’ Sir Geoffrey was saying, ‘I am firmly impressed with that
belief.’ He had got upon his favourite topic, and was talking with
great volubility. ‘There are certain gifted beings who can call spirits
from the vasty deep, and, what is more, the spirits will come. My dear
sir, they have been manifested to me.’

‘I should not wonder,’ Le Gautier replied, stifling a yawn in its
birth. ‘I think you are quite right. I am what people call a medium
myself, and have assisted at many a séance.’

‘Of course you believe the same as I. Let unbelievers scoff if they
will, I shall always believe the evidence of my eyes.’

‘Of course,’ Le Gautier returned politely, his thoughts wandering
feebly in the direction of nightmare, and looking round for some means
of escape. ‘I have seen ghosts myself, or thought I have.’

‘It is no imagination, Le Gautier,’ Sir Geoffrey continued, with all
the prosy earnestness of a man with a hobby. ‘The strangest coincidence
happened to me. My late brother, Sir Ughtred, who has been dead nearly
twenty years, manifested himself to me the other night. Surely that
implies some coming evil, or some duty I have neglected?’

‘Perhaps he charged you with some commission,’ Le Gautier observed, and
pricking up his ears for any scrap of useful information.

‘Not that I remember; indeed, I did not see him for years before he
died. He was an eccentric man, and an extreme politician—in fact, he
got into serious trouble with the authorities, and might even have been
arrested, had he not removed himself to New York.’

‘New York?’ queried Le Gautier, wondering vaguely where he had heard
of this Ughtred Charteris before. ‘Was he connected with any secret
society—any Socialist conspiracy?’

‘Do you know, I really fancy he was,’ Sir Geoffrey whispered
mysteriously. ‘There were certainly some curious things in his effects
which were sent to me. I can show you some now, if you would like to
see them.’

Le Gautier expressed his willingness; and the baronet led the way into
a small room at the back of the house, half library, half studio.
In one corner was an old ebony cabinet; and opening the front, he
displayed a multitude of curiosities such as a man will gather together
in the course of years. In one little drawer was a case of coins.
Le Gautier turned them over carelessly one by one, till, suddenly
starting, he eagerly lifted one and held it to the light. ‘Where did
you get this?’ he asked abruptly.

Sir Geoffrey took it in his hand. It was a gold coin, a little larger
than an ordinary sovereign, and bearing on the reverse side a curious
device. ‘That came with the rest of my brother’s curiosities.—But why
do you ask? You look as if the coin had burnt you.’

For a moment, Le Gautier had started back, his pale face aglow with
suppressed excitement; but as he noticed the baronet’s wondering
eyes upon him, he recovered himself by a violent effort. ‘It is
nothing’—with a smile. ‘It is only the coincidence which startled me
for a moment. If you will look here, you will see that I wear a similar
coin upon my watch-chain.’

Sir Geoffrey looked down, and, surely enough, on the end of Le
Gautier’s pendant was the fac-simile of the medal he held in his hand.

‘Bless me, what an extraordinary thing!’ the startled baronet
exclaimed. ‘So it is! Perhaps you do not mind telling me where you
procured yours?’

‘It was given to me,’ Le Gautier replied, with an enigmatic smile. ‘It
could not help you, if I told you.—Sir Geoffrey, may I ask you to lend
me this coin for a short while? I will tell you some time what I want
it for.’

‘Some other time, perhaps.’—Le Gautier threw the coin into its
place.—‘You see, I regard it as a valuable curiosity and relic, or
perhaps I might part with it. You will pardon me.—But I forgot all
about our spiritualistic discourse. As you are a medium, I will ask
you’——

‘At some future time, with all the pleasure in life,’ Le Gautier
interrupted hastily. ‘Meanwhile, it is getting late—past eleven now.’

As they walked back to the salon, the Frenchman was busy with his
thoughts. ‘What a lucky find!’ he muttered. ‘It is the missing
insignia, sure enough, and the ill-fated Ughtred Charteris is mine
host’s brother. I wonder what I can make out of this? There ought to be
something in it, with a feeble-minded man who believes in spiritualism,
if my hand has not lost its cunning. _Nous verrons._’

He showed nothing of his thoughts, however, as he parted from Enid with
a smile and neatly turned compliment. It was getting late now; the
streets were empty as the friends turned homeward, Salvarini bidding
the others good-night and turning off in the direction of his apartments.

‘You had better change your mind, and come with us on Friday, Hector,’
Visci urged Le Gautier. ‘The baronet and his daughter are to be of the
party. Throw work to the dogs for the day, and come.’

‘My dear Carlo, the thing is impossible. Do you think I should be
chained here this lovely weather, if stern necessity did not compel? If
possibly I can get over later in the day, I will not fail you.’

‘I am very sorry,’ Visci replied regretfully, ‘because this is the last
time, in all probability, our friends will meet together for some time.’

‘I am sorry too, Carlo, but I cannot help it. Good-night.’

Le Gautier watched his friend along the moonlit street, a smile upon
his face not pleasant to see. ‘Ah, yes,’ he murmured, ‘it is quite
impossible. Genevieve is a good little girl, but good little girls
are apt to cloy. It is getting dangerous. If Visci should find out,
it would be a case of twelve paces and hair-triggers; and I cannot
sacrifice myself yet—not even for Genevieve.’




ULSTER PROVINCIALISMS.


The people of Ulster may fairly claim a larger share of public
attention than has usually been accorded to them: they have rendered
their province prosperous in a country which is a stranger to
prosperity; they have established and maintained great industries
in a country of decayed trade and ruined commerce. In the colonies,
they have risen in a remarkable degree to positions of affluence and
authority; and in all the British dominions, Ulstermen are found in the
van of commercial and professional life.

The Ulsterman comes of a very mixed descent. Just as the Englishman was
originally a compound of Saxon, Norman, and Dane, so in the Ulsterman’s
veins flows the blood of Irish, Scotch, and English progenitors. The
relative proportion of each element varies much according to locality
and religion. On the shores of Antrim and Down, the population is
in many places almost as purely Scotch as in Ayrshire or Lanark. In
Belfast, Scotch blood predominates; but there was originally a large
English element. In Donegal and Fermanagh, the Celtic element is in
excess. Everywhere, the Protestant derives more from Scotch and English
sources; the Roman Catholic, from Irish.

From the earliest times, there has been a large emigration from
Scotland to the opposite Irish shore. During the reigns of Elizabeth
and James I. the chief settlements from England took place; and the
settlers from both countries gradually pushed back the original Irish
inhabitants to the mountains and into the interior. To this day, there
is a secluded district in County Antrim, known as the Glens of Antrim,
where the Irish language may still be heard, although it has long
departed from other portions of the same county. As we travel westward,
Irish more frequently meets the ear, and in many parts of Donegal it is
the prevailing tongue.

It is not surprising that in a province of such varied lineage,
provincialisms should be numerous and curious. To guard against
misconception, let it be understood that the educated Ulsterman speaks
like educated people elsewhere—namely, with perfect correctness and
scarcely appreciable accent. The peculiar words and phrases about to be
enumerated are heard almost exclusively among the poorer ranks, or, if
employed at all by the educated classes, it is only in jest and with
a recognition of their provincial character. The majority of them are
of Scotch origin; some are found in colloquial and provincial English;
while others are of Hibernian extraction.[1]

[1] We are indebted for much of the information contained in this
article to an excellent glossary compiled by Mr W. H. Patterson,
M.R.I.A., of Belfast.

As might have been expected, proverbs and proverbial expressions form
a large class of these provincialisms. ‘All to the one side, like
Clogher,’ is an allusion to a town in County Tyrone where all the
houses and shops are on one side of the thoroughfare, the opposite
side being a private demesne. ‘That bangs (surpasses) Banagher’ is
an allusion to the great fair held at that spot. When the Ulsterman
wishes to imply that a certain event is extremely improbable, he says
that it will happen at ‘Tibb’s Eve,’ adding the mysterious information
that this is ‘neither before nor after Christmas.’ This expression
is a curiously exact counterpart of the Latin phrase about the Greek
kalends. ‘As blunt as a beetle’ refers to a species of heavy wooden
mallet to which Shakspeare alludes. ‘As busy as a nailer,’ ‘As clean
as a new pin,’ ‘As crooked as a ram’s horn,’ are common Ulster
expressions, which do not call for any explanation. A more mysterious
expression is the curious phrase, ‘As grave as a mustard-pot’—used to
express preternatural solemnity. People of bilious complexion are often
described with more force than elegance as being ‘As yellow as a duck’s
foot.’

The Ulsterman has no special repute for gallantry, yet his simile for
anything exceptionally simple is, ‘As easy as kiss.’ His favourite
phrase when about to impart some very confidential information is,
‘Between you and me and the post.’ A person whose sanity is open to
question is often described as ‘Wanting a square of being round’—a
curiously inexact expression. A person who gapes with wide-mouthed
wonder is said to look ‘like a duck in thunder.’ Similarity of
political or religious opinion is expressed in Ulster by saying that
two people ‘Dig with the same foot.’ ‘A dead man’s plunge’ is a
peculiar Ulster expression; it is applied to the short, sudden, and
rather hollow sound made by a smooth flat pebble when it is tossed into
the air and falls into water upon its edge.

A large class of provincialisms are made up of asseverative
expressions. The Ulsterman often prefaces his remarks by ‘Assay’ (I
say) or ‘A’m sayin’’ (I’m saying). ‘May I never stir’ introduces some
peculiarly solemn assertion. ‘A month of Sundays,’ and still more
strongly, ‘All my born days,’ are emphatic expressions for long periods
of time. ‘Dear help your wit’ expresses commiseration for the innocence
and simplicity of the person addressed.

Ulster adjurations are a curious medley, ‘Heth’ and ‘Feth’ being
frequently used. ‘By Jaiminie King’ is a curious expression often heard
in County Fermanagh. ‘Holy Farmer’ is another obscure form of oath.
‘Hokey oh’ is a phrase implying astonishment and alarm. ‘Hoker’ is used
by Chaucer to express frowardness, and ‘Hocer’ in Anglo-Saxon meant a
reproach. These words probably contain the clue to the origin of this
obscure Ulster provincialism.

Expressions conveying contempt or endearment are common. ‘Bad scran
to you’ is a phrase of angry contempt. ‘Skran’ in Icelandic means
‘refuse.’ Milton used the word ‘scrannel’ (‘scrannel pipes’) to express
poor or mean; and ‘scranny’ still survives in provincial English in
this sense. ‘Bad cess to you’ is another Ulsterism of similar meaning,
of which the origin is more doubtful; possibly ‘cess’ is a contraction
for success. ‘Give me none of your back-talk’ is said by a superior
to an inferior, meaning, ‘Don’t presume to argue the question with
me.’ A ‘Tory rogue’ is still commonly used in Ulster in the sense of a
scamp; but it is often applied to children in a playful sense. It is
an interesting relic of the original meaning of the word Tory—an Irish
outlaw or freebooter. A ‘tongue-thrashing’ is a vigorous phrase for a
severe rebuke. ‘Carnaptious’ means quarrelsome and fault-finding.

Some salutations are characteristic of the northern province. ‘How do
you get your health?’ often takes the place of the more vague, ‘How
do you do?’ ‘The top of the morning to you’ is a cheery way of saying
‘Good-morrow.’

As might have been expected, there is a long array of peculiar
botanical and zoological expressions characteristic of Ulster. Every
district has its local names for flowers, plants, birds, and animals,
and in these Ulster is peculiarly rich. Potatoes are known as ‘spuds;’
‘biller’ means water-cress; ‘daffydowndillies’ is a lengthened form of
daffodils; ‘mayflower’ is the marsh marigold or _Caltha palustris_. The
heads of the common plantain are called ‘cocks’ or ‘fighting-cocks,’
because children make a game of striking them off in mimic warfare. The
dock-plant is called the ‘dockan’ (Scotch), and its leaf is a popular
remedy for nettle-sting; the wood-sorrel is known as ‘cuckoo-sorrel.’

A still longer list of zoological terms might be made out. The
bottle-nosed whale is known as the ‘herring-hog;’ the pollack is called
‘lythe;’ the lobworm used by fishermen for bait is called the ‘lug;’
the stickleback has its name corrupted into ‘spricklybeg;’ the gadfly
is known as the ‘cleg’ (which is also its Scotch name); ‘yilly-yorlin’
(also Scotch) is the yellow-hammer; the ‘felt’ is the redwing; the
‘peeweet’ (Scotch again) means the lapwing; the ‘mosscheeper’ is the
titlark; the cormorant is known as the ‘scart.’

We now turn to some provincialisms which do not admit of a ready
classification. ‘Bis’ is often said for ‘is,’ and ‘bissent’ for ‘is
not.’ Here we have an instance of a very common phenomenon—an archaic
form surviving as a colloquialism or provincialism. A vast number of
our common vulgarisms which we are inclined to regard as breaches
of grammar are simply good grammar out of date; in this case, the
provincialism almost exactly preserves a very ancient form of the verb.
The Anglo-Saxon verb ‘to be’ present tense indicative mood was ‘beom,
bist, bith,’ whence no doubt come ‘bis’ and ‘bissent.’ ‘Braird,’ often
used in Ulster, as in Scotland, of the young springing grain, is the
Anglo-Saxon ‘brord,’ meaning the first blade. ‘Buffer’ in the sense of
‘boxer’ is from the old French word ‘buffe,’ meaning a blow.

‘Chew, sir,’ is a form of rebuke applied to a snarling dog. ‘Dwamish’
means faint and sick, from ‘dwam,’ a Scotch word signifying a swoon
or a sudden attack of illness. ‘Dunt’ means a blow, and is old
English and Scotch; Burns says, ‘I’ll tak dunts frae naebody.’ A
‘founder,’ according to our dictionaries, is a term in farriery to
indicate lameness caused by inflammation within the hoof of a horse.
In Ulster, the word is often used to express a chill or wetting
followed by illness. A man after being exposed to the vicissitudes
of weather becomes seriously ill without knowing what is the matter,
and he expresses his condition by saying that he has got ‘a regular
founder.’ ‘Head-beetler’ is used in the same vulgar sense as ‘Head-cook
and bottle-washer’ in some localities. The beetle was a machine
for producing figured fabrics by the pressure of a roller, and
‘head-beetler’ probably means the chief director of this class of work.
A ‘heeler’ is a cock which strikes out well with his heels. In Ulster,
the word is sometimes used for a bold forward woman.

When a child begins to nod and look sleepy, he is told that ‘Johnny
Nod is coming up his back,’ which is understood as a signal for going
to bed. ‘Potatoes and point’ is a curious phrase in which the poverty
of the lower classes in Ireland finds unconscious expression. The idea
is, that the potatoes before being eaten are ‘pointed’ at a herring,
which is hung up to serve as an imaginary relish to the simple fare,
but too precious to be freely consumed. ‘Dab at the stool’ is another
expression referring to eating customs: salt is placed upon a stool,
and each individual, as the potatoes are taken out of the pot, takes
one and ‘dabs’ it at the stool, to get a portion of the salt. ‘Pouce’
and ‘poucey’ mean dust and dusty, but by a common perversion of
language, ‘poucey’ comes to mean a person in a flax-mill who is exposed
to the irritation of dusty particles, and becomes in consequence
short-winded and bronchitic. ‘Roughness,’ as in Scotland, means plenty.
‘Ruction’ signifies a row, a disturbance; possibly it is a contraction
of ructation, from the Latin verb _ructare_. ‘Skelly,’ to squint,
is from the Scotch, and is found in Scott. The Danish is ‘skele.’
‘Smittle,’ also used in Scotland, means infectious, and is connected
with the verb to smite. ‘Think long’ means to be homesick.

We thus see how much curious information and how many relics of the
past are found in the despised vulgarisms of a provincial patois. They
are the fossils of language, and speak to us of vanished peoples and of
ages long gone by.




IN ALL SHADES.


CHAPTER XLVI.

The days went slowly, slowly on, and Mr Dupuy and Harry Noel both
continued to recover steadily from their severe injuries. Marian
came over every day to help with the nursing, and took charge for
the most part, with Aunt Clemmy’s aid, of the young Englishman;
while Nora’s time was chiefly taken up in attending to her father’s
manifold necessities. Still at odd moments she did venture to help a
little in taking care of poor Harry, whose gratitude for all her small
attentions was absolutely unbounded, and very touching. True, she came
comparatively seldom into the sickroom (for such in fact it was, the
crushing blow on Harry’s head having been followed by violent symptoms
of internal injury to the brain, which made his case far more serious
in the end than Mr Dupuy’s); but whenever he woke up after a short
doze, in his intervals of pain, he always found a fresh passion-flower,
or a sweet white rosebud, or a graceful spray of clambering Martinique
clematis, carefully placed in a tiny vase with pure water on the little
table by the bedside; and he knew well whose dainty fingers had picked
the pretty blossoms and arranged them so deftly, with their delicate
background of lace-like wild West Indian maiden-hair, in the tiny
bouquets. More than once, too, when Aunt Clemmy wasn’t looking, he
took the white rosebuds out of the water for a single moment and gazed
at them tenderly with a wistful eye; and when, one afternoon, Marian
surprised him in the very act, as she came in with his regulation cup
of chicken-broth at the half-hour, she saw that the colour rushed
suddenly even into his brown and bloodless cheek, and his eyes fell
like a boy’s as he replaced the buds with a guilty look in the vase
beside him. But she said nothing about the matter at the time, only
reserving it for Nora’s private delectation in the little boudoir half
an hour later.

As Mr Dupuy got better, one firm resolve seemed to have imprinted
itself indelibly upon his unbending nature—the resolve to quit Trinidad
for ever at the very earliest moment, when convalescence and Macfarlane
would combine to allow him. He would even sell Orange Grove itself,
he said, and go over and live permanently for the rest of his days
in England. ‘That is to say, in England for the summer,’ he observed
casually to Nora; ‘for I don’t suppose any human being in his right
senses would ever dream of stopping in such a wretched climate through
a whole dreary English winter. In October, I shall always go to Nice,
or Pau, or Mentone, or some other of these new-fashioned continental
wintering-places that people go to nowadays in Europe; some chance, I
suppose, of seeing the sun once and again there, at anyrate. But one
thing I’ve quite decided upon: I won’t live any longer in Trinidad.
I’m not afraid; but I object on principle to vivisection, especially
conducted with a blunt instrument. At my time of life, a man naturally
dislikes being cut up alive by those horrible cutlasses. You and your
cousin Tom may stop here by yourselves and manage Pimento Valley, if
you choose; but I decline any longer to be used as the _corpus vile_
for a nigger experimentalist to exercise his skill upon. It doesn’t
suit my taste, and I refuse to submit to it. The fact is, Nora, my
dear, the island isn’t any longer a fit place for a gentleman to live
in. It was all very well in the old days, before we got a pack of
Exeter Hall demagogues, sent out here by the government of the day
on purpose to excite our own servants to rebellion and insurrection
against us. Nobody ever heard of the niggers rising or hacking one to
pieces bodily in those days. But ever since this man Hawthorn, whose
wife you’re so thick with—a thing that no lady would have dreamt of
countenancing in the days before these new-fangled doctrines came into
fashion—ever since this man Hawthorn was sent out here, preaching his
revolutionary cut-throat principles broadcast, the island hasn’t been
a fit place at all for a gentleman to live in; and I’ve made up my mind
to leave it at once and go over to England.’

Meanwhile, events had arisen which rendered it certain that the
revolutionary demagogue himself, who had saved Mr Dupuy’s life and all
the other white lives in the entire island, would also have to go to
England at a short notice. Edward had intended, indeed, in pursuance of
his hasty promise to the excited negroes, to resign his judgeship, and
return home, in order to confer with the Colonial Office on the subject
of their grievances. But before he had time to settle his affairs and
make arrangements for his approaching departure, a brisk interchange
of messages had taken place between the Trinidad government and the
home authorities. Meetings had been held in London at which the whole
matter had been thoroughly ventilated; questions had been asked and
answered in parliament; and the English papers had called unanimously
for a thorough sifting of the relations between the planters and
the labourers throughout the whole of the West India Islands. In
particular, they had highly praised the courage and wisdom with which
young Mr Hawthorn had stepped into the breach at the critical moment,
and single-handed, averted a general massacre, by his timely influence
with the infuriated rioters. More than one paper had suggested that Mr
Hawthorn should be forthwith recalled, to give evidence on the subject
before a Select Committee; and as a direct result of that suggestion,
Edward shortly after received a message from the Colonial Secretary,
summoning him to London immediately, with all despatch, on business
connected with the recent rising of the negroes in Trinidad.

Mr Dupuy had already chosen the date on which he should sail; but
when he heard that ‘that man Hawthorn’ had actually taken a passage
by the same steamer, he almost changed his mind, for the first time
in his life, and half determined to remain in the island, now that it
was to be freed at last from the polluting presence and influence of
this terrible fire-eating brown revolutionist. Perhaps, he thought,
when once Hawthorn was gone, Trinidad might yet be a place fit for a
gentleman to live in. The Dupuys had inhabited Orange Grove, father
and son, for nine generations; and it would be a pity indeed if they
were to be driven away from the ancestral plantations by the meddlesome
interference of an upstart radical coloured lawyer.

In this dubitative frame of mind, then, Mr Dupuy, as soon as ever
Macfarlane would allow him to mount his horse again, rode slowly down
from Orange Grove to pay a long-meditated call at Government House upon
His Excellency the governor. In black frock-coat and shiny silk hat,
as is the rigorous etiquette upon such occasions, even under a blazing
tropical noontide, he went his way with a full heart, ready to pour
forth the vials of his wrath into the sympathetic ears of the Queen’s
representative against this wretched intriguer Hawthorn, by whose
Machiavellian machinations (Mr Dupuy was justly proud in his own mind
of that sonorous alliteration) the happy and contented peasantry of the
island of Trinidad had been spurred and flogged and slowly roused into
unwilling rebellion against their generous and paternal employers.

Judge of his amazement, therefore, when, after listening patiently
to his long and fierce tirade, Sir Adalbert rose from his chair
calmly, and said in a clear and distinct voice these incredible words:
‘Mr Dupuy, you unfortunately quite mistake the whole nature of the
situation. This abortive insurrection is not due to Mr Hawthorn or to
any other one person whatever. It has long been brewing; we have for
months feared and anticipated it; and it is the outcome of a widespread
and general discontent among the negroes themselves, sedulously
fostered, we are afraid’—here Mr Dupuy’s face began to brighten with
joyous anticipation—‘by the unwise and excessive severity of many
planters, both in their public capacity as magistrates, and in their
private capacity as employers of labour.’ (Here Mr Dupuy’s face first
fell blankly, and then pursed itself up suddenly in a perfectly comical
expression of profound dismay and intense astonishment.) ‘It is to
Mr Hawthorn alone,’ the governor went on, glancing severely at the
astounded planter, ‘that many unwise proprietors of estates in the
island of Trinidad owe their escape from the not wholly unprovoked
anger of the insurgent negroes; and so highly do the home authorities
value Mr Hawthorn’s courage and judgment in this emergency, that they
have just summoned him back to England, to aid them with his advice and
experience in settling a new _modus vivendi_ to be shortly introduced
between negroes and employers.’

Mr Dupuy never quite understood how he managed to reel out of the
governor’s drawing-room without fainting, from sheer astonishment and
horror; or how he managed to restrain his legs from lifting up his toes
automatically against the sacred person of the Queen’s representative.
But he did manage somehow to stagger down the steps in a dazed and
stupefied fashion, much as he had staggered along the path when he
felt Delgado hacking him about the body at the blazing cane-houses;
and he rode back home to Orange Grove, red in the face as an angry
turkey-cock, more convinced than ever in his own mind that Trinidad
was indeed no longer a fit place for any gentleman of breeding to live
in. And in spite of Edward’s having taken passage by the same ship, he
determined to clear out of the island, bag and baggage, at the earliest
possible opportunity.

As for Harry Noel, he, too, had engaged a berth quite undesignedly in
the self-same steamer. Even though he had rushed up to Orange Grove
in the first flush of the danger to protect Nora and her father, if
possible, from the frantic rioters, it had of course been a very
awkward position for him to find himself an unwilling and uninvited
guest in the house which he had last quitted under such extremely
unpleasant circumstances. Mr Dupuy, indeed, though he admitted, when
he heard the whole story, that Harry had no doubt behaved ‘like a very
decent young fellow,’ could not be prevailed upon to take any notice of
his unbidden presence, even by sending an occasional polite message of
inquiry about his slow recovery from the adjoining bedroom. So Harry
was naturally anxious to get away from Orange Grove as quickly as
possible, and he had made up his mind that before he went he would not
again ask Nora to reconsider her determination. His chivalrous nature
shrank from the very appearance of trading upon her gratitude for his
brave efforts to save her on the evening of the outbreak; if she would
not accept him for his own sake, she should not accept him for the sake
of the risk he had run to win her.

The first day when Harry was permitted to move out under the shade
of the big star-apple tree upon the little grass plot, where he sat
in a cushioned bamboo chair beside the clump of waving cannas, Nora
came upon him suddenly, as if by accident, from the Italian terrace,
with a bunch of beautiful pale-blue plumbago and a tall spike of
scented tuberose in her dainty, gloveless, little fingers. ‘Aren’t
they beautiful, Mr Noel?’ she said, holding them up to his admiring
gaze—admiring them, it must be confessed, a trifle obliquely. ‘Did you
ever in your life see anything so wildly lovely in a stiff, tied-up,
staircase conservatory over yonder in dear old England?’

‘Never,’ Harry Noel answered, with his eyes fixed rather on her
blushing face than on the luscious pale white tuberose. ‘I shall carry
away with me always the most delightful reminiscences of beautiful
Trinidad and of its lovely—flowers.’

Nora noticed at once the significant little pause before the last word,
and blushed again, even deeper than ever. ‘Carry away with you?’ she
said regretfully, echoing his words—‘carry away with you? Then do you
mean to leave the island immediately?’

‘Yes, Miss Dupuy—immediately; by the next steamer. I’ve written off
this very morning to the agents at the harbour to engage my passage.’

Nora’s heart beat violently within her. ‘So soon!’ she said. ‘How very
curious! And how very fortunate, too, for I believe papa has taken
berths for himself and me by the very same steamer. He’s gone to-day to
call on the governor; and when he comes back, he’s going to decide at
once whether or not we are to leave the island immediately for ever.’

‘Very fortunate? You said very fortunate? How very kind of you. Then
you’re not altogether sorry, Miss Dupuy, that we’re going to be
fellow-passengers together?’

‘Mr Noel, Mr Noel! How can you doubt it?’

Harry’s heart beat that moment almost as fast as Nora’s own. In spite
of his good resolutions—which he had made so very firmly too—he
couldn’t help ejaculating fervently: ‘Then you forgive me, Miss Dupuy!
You let bygones be bygones! You’re not angry with me any longer!’

‘Angry with you, Mr Noel—angry with you! You were so kind, you were so
brave! how could I ever again be angry with you!’

Harry’s face fell somewhat. After all, then, it was only gratitude.
‘It’s very good of you to say so,’ he faltered out tremulously—‘very
good of you to say so. I—I—I shall always remember—my—my visit to
Orange Grove with the greatest pleasure.’

‘And so shall I,’ Nora added in a low voice, hardly breathing; and as
she spoke, the tears filled her eyes to overflowing.

Harry looked at her once more tenderly. How beautiful and fresh she
was, really! He looked at her, and longed just once to kiss her. Nora’s
hand lay close to his. He put out his own fingers, very tentatively,
and just touched it, almost as if by accident. Nora drew it half away,
but not suddenly. He touched it again, a little more boldly this time,
and Nora permitted him, unreproving. Then he looked hard into her
averted tearful eyes, and said tenderly the one word, ‘Nora!’

Nora’s hand responded faintly by a slight pressure, but she answered
nothing.

‘Nora,’ the young man cried again, with sudden energy, ‘if it is love,
take me, take me. But if it is only—only the recollection of that
terrible night, let me go, let me go, for ever!’

Nora held his hand fast in hers with a tremulous grasp, and whispered
in his ear, almost inaudibly: ‘Mr Noel, it is love—it is love! I love
you—indeed I love you!’

When Macfarlane came his rounds that evening to see his patients he
declared that Harry Noel’s pulse was decidedly feverish, and that he
must have been somehow over-exciting himself; so he ordered him back
again ruthlessly to bed at once till further notice.




A LEOPARD HUNT.


It was my good fortune, a great many years ago, to be cantoned at
Julbarri. I say ‘good fortune,’ for so I considered it; but I am
afraid, if you had asked at our mess for votes as to whether I ought
to qualify the word fortune with the adjective ‘good’ or ‘bad,’ I
should have got very few to vote for my word. Good fortune I considered
it, nevertheless; for I was an ardent sportsman; Julbarri was almost
untried ground; and the neighbouring jungles abounded in game of many
kinds, among which the rhinoceros, the tiger, and the leopard were by
no means few and far between. And yet I cannot deny that for any one
who was not a sportsman, Julbarri was about as slow a station as could
be picked out in all the length and breadth of our vast Indian empire.
It was situated in an out-of-the-way corner of Bengal; and there was no
large station within a couple of hundred miles of us where a man with
social and gregarious tastes could go for a few days to get rid of the
oft-told tales and well thrashed-out politics of the limited circle
of our small mess-table. Julbarri was, alas, a single-corps station;
and except a Civil officer or two, the whole society consisted of the
gallant British officers of the distinguished 76th Native Infantry; a
nice set of fellows enough, I allow; but still the best of listeners
must in time grow inattentive to Smith’s ideas on the comparative
merits of Arab and English horses; and it is difficult to wage any
real warfare with Jones as he challenges you for the hundredth time to
defend Lord Gough’s tactics at Chilianwalla.

At the time of which I write, our society was at a peculiarly low
ebb. The drill season was over; the hot weather was coming on; and
the leave season had begun. There was so little work to be done, that
our colonel had taken pity on our isolation, and had been unusually,
perhaps almost unauthorisedly, liberal in the matter of leave; and
our mess, small enough at its best, had dwindled and dwindled, until
now not more than half-a-dozen unfortunates daily stretched their legs
beneath its well-spread mahogany. For me, the approaching heat had no
terrors, the smallness of our society no ennui, and the prospect of
escape from Julbarri no charms; for the beginning of the hot weather
is the very time when the best shooting can be obtained, and I had
long been watching the drying up of the grass in the jungles, and had
been looking forward to the time when we might start a tiger with
some chance of bagging him. There was one thing in which we were
particularly fortunate: we had attached to our regiment nine elephants
as a part of our regimental transport. I need scarcely say that it
was not long before we had the elephants and their mahouts (drivers)
thoroughly trained for shooting. The largest elephants we trained to
carry our howdahs, and the smaller we used to form a line to beat the
jungles and drive out the game. With these elephants we had lots of
fun, and there were few weeks after the shooting season began in which
some of us did not go out two or three times. We generally took it in
turns; four of us went out, and two remained behind to look after the
regiment and the station.

We kept three or four shikarees (native hunters), who were constantly
going about the villages and jungles within a radius of six or seven
miles of cantonments; and as soon as they heard of a tiger having
killed a bullock or any other animal, or as soon as they discovered the
fresh footmarks of any animal worth going after, they would come in and
give the _khubber_ (news); and then those whose turn it was would send
the elephants and their arms on towards where the game had been seen,
and would follow themselves on horseback as quickly as possible. The
best kind of _khubber_ was when a bullock or any other large animal
had been killed. The tiger usually prowls round some village or some
place where cattle is pastured and kept for the night; and when he sees
his opportunity, will spring on some unfortunate animal which has got
separated from the rest of the herd, or has remained out too late in
the jungle, heedless of the herdsman’s call home, will kill it with a
blow of his paw, and drag it into some neighbouring jungle thicker and
denser than that immediately around the village.

Nothing shows more the marvellous strength possessed by the tiger than
the way in which he carries his victim away. I remember the first time
I was shown where a tiger had dragged a full-grown bullock. I could
not believe it possible; and it was not until after we had killed the
robber—only an ordinary-sized tigress—and I had carefully gone over
on foot the ground where she had dragged her prey, that I found that
she had not only dragged the dead bullock—an animal, I should think,
considerably beyond her own weight—over very rough ground and through
a dense cane-brake; but that in some places, as the marks showed, she
must actually have lifted the fore-quarters of the bullock off the
ground in her mouth, and have walked several yards with it in that
position. When the victim has been dragged to what the tiger considers
a position of security, it will sit down and make a good meal, and
then retire a short distance from its prey to some particularly thick
bush or tuft of grass, and there remain until the following night, and
then return for another meal. In consequence of this well-known habit,
‘a kill,’ as it is called, is the best of all _khubber_, and in such
cases, if the tiger has not been disturbed, the sportsman is almost
sure to find him lying somewhere close to the carcase; and if his
arrangements are well made, is pretty sure to get a shot at him.

Our shikarees, stimulated by liberal backsheesh when their news
resulted in a bag, used often to bring us in _khubber_; but sometimes
the news was not very good; and when this was the case, the less
ardent sportsmen of our number would frequently refuse to go out, and
would make over their turn to me. I never refused, for I was young and
enthusiastic enough to love the fun and the excitement of the hunt,
even when our expedition resulted in no bag; and did not care for the
chaff with which my sedater comrades would greet me on my return.
Sometimes, however, the laugh was on my side; but I was wise enough,
with a view to future contingencies, not to indulge in it too much.

We had been having very fair sport on and off for about six weeks, and
the animals in the jungles close around the station seemed to have
been all killed off or driven away; for a whole week passed, and no
_khubber_ good enough to tempt even me did our shikarees bring. It
was the seventh blank day, and as we sat at our _chota hazri_ (early
morning cup of some invigorating but harmless beverage), under the
shade of a splendid mango-tree which grew conveniently close to our
messhouse veranda, my chum and I were discussing the necessity of
taking a week’s trip across the river which skirted our station, and
were trying to cajole our companions into letting us have the use of
the elephants for so long a time. We had nearly succeeded in persuading
them of the uselessness of expecting to get any more shooting close
to Julbarri, and two of the least enthusiastic of our Nimrods had
actually given in, when into the compound and right up to our table who
should dash but Jamala, the very best and most trustworthy of all our
shikarees! Almost breathless, he stammered out: ‘Sahib, sahib, two such
huge tigers! Their pugs are as big as that;’ and he described with the
end of the stick he held in his hand a figure in the dust, intended to
portray the size of their footprints, which would have done credit to
a well-grown mammoth. ‘They have killed a bullock in the Kala jungle,
only six miles off; and I am sure they were still there when I left
half an hour ago. I ordered the elephants to be got ready as I passed
the lines.’

Here was news with a vengeance; but alas, it was my turn to stay in
cantonments; and with such splendid _khubber_ as this I could not, of
course, even hint the suggestion of an exchange. It was the custom of
those going out, to borrow all the firearms of those remaining behind;
so I and Castleton, who was my comrade in misfortune, made over our
Joe Manton guns and our Purdeys to our luckier companions, and wished
them good speed with the best grace we could muster; and if we betrayed
our feelings a little by throwing after them the parting exhortation,
‘Mind you don’t miss the fifteen-footer,’ well, I really think we ought
to be forgiven.

Castleton was a married man; and I must crave the ladies’ pardon for
omitting in my list of our Julbarri residents the really charming Mrs
Castleton and her fascinating sister, Miss Jervoise. As soon as the
hunters had gone, Castleton turned to me, and said: ‘You had better
come over and lunch with us, Watson. You’ll only be breaking your heart
over visions of those two fabulously footed tigers, if you lunch at
mess alone.’

I thanked him; and two o’clock found me receiving the commiserations
of the two fair ladies, while they pressed upon me the usual profuse
hospitality of an Indian luncheon. We had reached the dessert stage,
and Mrs Castleton was just pressing me to taste some specially
delicious plantains which a neighbouring rajah had sent her the
day before, when the bearer came in, and making a salaam, said to
Castleton: ‘A man has just come from that little hamlet of Goree; he
wants the sahib log to go out and shoot a leopard which has just killed
one of his kids, and is now lying eating it in a small patch of jungle.
Goree is only a mile and a half from here.’

We stared blankly at each other.

‘What can we do?’ said Castleton.

‘Do? Why, go and shoot it, of course!’ exclaimed the enthusiastic Miss
Jervoise.

‘But, Kate dear,’ broke in Mrs Castleton with wifely solicitude, ‘the
elephants are all away, and how can they shoot it?’

‘Oh, I am not thinking about the elephants,’ replied Castleton; ‘but
Watson and I have lent all our rifles and guns, and we haven’t a single
thing of any kind left.’

‘There are the sepoys’ rifles,’ I suggested. ‘We could take one of them
apiece; and, you know, we can’t let the leopard get off without having
a try for him. Can we?’

‘Yes, there are the sepoys’ rifles, certainly,’ replied Castleton
rather doubtfully; ‘but’——

‘And I have got a couple of spears,’ I interrupted. ‘Oh, do let us go
at once, before he is disturbed.’

‘Well—all right; we’ll try it,’ said Castleton hesitatingly.

I lost no time in running home and changing into a shooting costume.
Castleton sent his orderly off to the lines for our weapons; and by
the time I had returned with the spears, the orderly reappeared with
a couple of rifles and a packet of cartridges. So, a very short time
saw us mounted on our horses and following our guide out to the little
village of Goree.

‘I am not very sure about the wisdom of this business,’ said Castleton.

‘Oh, it will be all right,’ I replied. ‘We must be careful not to fire
until we are pretty sure to kill—that’s all.’

‘Hm, yes, I suppose so,’ assented my comrade somewhat doubtfully.

As a matter of fact, it was not an overwise business. Our regiment
was armed in those days with the short two-grooved Brunswick rifle,
a muzzle loader, of course, and one in which the bullet had to be
hammered into the muzzle with a small wooden hammer carried for the
purpose, before it could be rammed down with the ramrod. This rendered
the process of loading so dreadfully slow that practically it would
make it quite impossible for either of us to get more than one shot,
and it is no easy matter to kill a leopard with one bullet, however
well placed. If he were not killed, he would be pretty certain to
charge, and we should be in an awkward plight.

Matters did not look much more encouraging when we reached Goree. The
_khubber_ was good enough: there was the place where the kid had been
struck, and there were the drops of blood and footprints of a large
leopard leading into a patch of dense cane-jungle about one hundred
yards long and sixty yards broad, and we had very little doubt that
he was in there, sure enough. We arranged, somewhat rashly, that we
would enter the jungle from nearly opposite ends of the patch and
work towards the centre. If either of us saw the leopard, we were,
if possible, first to whistle and then to call out before shooting.
We did this with a double object—first, that we might not shoot each
other; and secondly, that if one of us wounded the beast and he came
towards the other, we might be on the lookout for him, and not be
taken unawares. So we separated; and I cautiously entered the left end
of the patch, while Castleton made his entrance on the right. My end
of the jungle was thicker than Castleton’s; but the edge was fairly
clear, and by peering under the brake, I could see four or five yards
in front of me. Very soon, the cane and bushes became so dense that I
had to clear away the leaves with one hand while I held the rifle ready
cocked in the other. We had each a sepoy accompanying us and carrying
our second weapon, the spear. To my man I gave instructions that the
moment I fired, I would hand him back the rifle, and he was to give me
the spear. Of course I kept him behind me, so that he should be in no
danger. We had not begun our advance more than two or three minutes,
and had not penetrated, at our slow and cautious pace, more than about
twenty yards, when Castleton whistled. I at once stood still. After a
slight pause, he called out in a sort of stage whisper: ‘I see him; but
it’s a nasty shot. I can only see his hind-quarters, and there is a lot
of jungle in the way. Shall I shoot?’

‘Fire away,’ I replied, in an equally melodramatic tone, heartily
wishing that his chance had been mine. In about half a minute the
report of Castleton’s rifle rang out. It was followed by an angry
roar somewhere from my right front, and there was a dead silence. The
smoke from Castleton’s rifle came floating over my head; but though I
listened intently with my rifle half raised to my shoulder, not the
sound of a footstep or the cracking of a twig could I hear. At last
Castleton called out: ‘I’ve hit him, but not badly, I think; and he has
gone off in your direction.’

Giving Castleton time to reload, I again began moving forward with even
greater caution than before. I had advanced only a few paces, when on
pushing aside a screen of leaves thicker than usual, and thrusting my
head into a bush, I met a sight that made my heart jump: there, within
about six feet of me, crouched the leopard, his eyeballs glowing like
balls of green fire in the dark jungle, a look of the most savage
mischief on his face, and evidently just on the point of springing
straight at me. My first impulse was to throw my rifle to my shoulder
and fire at once; but more quickly than a flash of lightning came the
conviction, like a living voice speaking in me: ‘If you do, and if you
don’t kill him dead, he’ll kill you.’ My nerves seemed to grow steady
at once, and I checked my first rash impulse. Then keeping my eye fixed
on his, I raised my rifle slowly and deliberately, took a steady aim,
and fired. A dull groan and a desperate convulsion followed, and then
in half a minute all was still. My faithful sepoy had duly obeyed my
instructions; he had taken my rifle and had given me the spear, and
with this spear held at the charge, ready to receive the leopard if he
came my way, we waited until the convulsion subsided. Then peering in
again, we found that the leopard had gone back; and it was not until we
had advanced some ten yards that we came upon him lying dead. It shows
the marvellous vitality of the feline race; for though the ball was a
heavy one, and had crashed right through the brain, yet he had managed
to go fully eight yards from where he was crouching. Had the ball been
turned aside at all by a twig, or had it glanced off his skull, he
would almost certainly have made his spring, and in a jungle so dense I
could hardly have hoped to keep him off or defend myself.

I called up Castleton at once, and we soon pulled the leopard out of
the thicket. We found Castleton’s bullet had hit him in the side,
but far back, so as not to interfere in any way with his powers of
attack. I congratulated myself on a lucky escape. The villagers were
delighted at the death of a robber which had more than once laid their
flocks under contribution, and pressed their services on us to carry
him home. A procession was soon formed, and we returned to Julbarri
in triumph with the leopard swung on a pole in front of us. The other
hunters had not returned; so we had ample time to exhibit our prize to
the sympathetic eyes of Mrs Castleton and Miss Jervoise. In about an
hour, the others returned, wearied and disgusted. The tigers had been
disturbed before their arrival, and had betaken themselves to some
very heavy jungle, whence, in spite of their best efforts, they were
unable to dislodge them. It required a lot of good feeling on their
part to make them congratulate us as heartily as they did; and I hope
our sympathy with their ill-luck showed itself quite untinged with any
sense of our own better fortune.




A TALE OF TWO KNAVERIES.


IN FOUR CHAPTERS.—CHAP. III.

In the course of the next three months, Mr Blackford’s relations with
his crazy client Willoughby entered upon a somewhat uncomfortable
phase. He had continued his heartless game with the poor wretch,
entertaining him with purely imaginative accounts of the superhuman
exertions which were being made on his behalf, and bleeding him with
a rapacity which grew with each successive extortion. He had in this
way obtained nearly a hundred pounds, when something happened which
he might have foreseen had he not been blinded by his greed, and which
caused him to entertain very unpleasant misgivings. Had Willoughby
been a sane man, pursuing a sane object, these repeated demands for
money, unaccompanied by any tangible performance, would have aroused
suspicions which would have manifested themselves in the usual manner.
But being as he was, his disease coloured everything which happened to
him; and the perfectly natural suspicions which arose in his mind made
themselves heard only by the mocking voices of his airy persecutors. So
one morning he informed Mr Blackford that the persons who followed him
wherever he went had adopted fresh tactics.

‘They have managed to find out what I come here for,’ said he, ‘and
they are trying to frighten me out of doing so in a very curious way.
In fact,’ he continued with an uneasy laugh, ‘they have taken to
slandering you as well.’

‘And what are they good enough to say about me?’ inquired the
solicitor, in much surprise.

‘Of course I pay no attention to it. I have every confidence in you; I
am sure you are doing the best you can for me—as you are, are you not?’
added the unfortunate client, with a look of pitiful appeal, which
would have softened the heart of any but a necessitous and perfectly
unprincipled man. As it was, Mr Blackford experienced an unpleasant
spasm in the place where his conscience used to be, before it had
dwindled away like an unused muscle.

‘Of course I am,’ he replied. ‘I hope you don’t doubt it?’

‘Oh, certainly not; on the contrary,’ returned Willoughby, with a
courteous bow. ‘But last night they mentioned your name in a most
unpleasant way. “He went to the wrong man when he went to Blackford.”
That was what one of them said. And another answered: “Yes, Blackford
is altogether on our side. He’ll spend all his money on Blackford,
and get no good whatever.” And they said—they said—— I can’t remember
everything; but it was all to the same effect. Of course that kind of
thing makes a man uneasy—naturally. Isn’t it disgraceful that the law
can do nothing to protect one from such persecution?’

Mr Blackford thought it best to laugh the matter off. ‘Well,’ said
he jocularly, ‘if we can but catch sight of them, I’ll soon disabuse
them of any such idea.—Don’t you pay any attention to their nonsense.
Of course they would like to put you off the scent. The rascals! I’d
give a good deal to get fairly at them. It won’t be long, now, before
I do so. We are well on their track; and once we have them before the
magistrate, we’ll pay them out for all the trouble they’ve given us.’

Willoughby rose to go. ‘I hope, as you say, that it will not be long
now,’ said he, with a doubtful and dissatisfied air. ‘You see, it is
wearing me out, and I have spent a good deal of money over it, besides.
One of them threatened to kill me last night. If anything of that kind
is to be attempted, they won’t find me an easy victim, Mr Blackford! I
shall try to be beforehand with them, at anyrate. I’m not a man to be
played with too long.’

And there was a look in the madman’s eyes as he spoke, and a kind
of quiver through his brawny muscles, which seemed to say that the
moment was fast approaching when playing with him would be a very risky
amusement indeed.

‘By George!’ said the solicitor to himself, wiping his forehead, when
he was once more alone, ‘this is getting rather too warm. The fellow
gave me quite a turn. If he takes _that_ notion into his head, things
may become awkward.’ And Mr Blackford decided that the time had arrived
for communicating with Willoughby’s friends in Cape Town. He would have
tried to induce the police to move in the matter at once; but this
remedy, as he knew, was difficult and uncertain, and should it fail,
would but add to the danger. He wrote off then and there, representing
in feeling language the condition of his unfortunate client, which he
stated he had only just discovered, and urging that some one should
come to England immediately, with a view to putting the lunatic’s
person and property under proper control. Of course he said nothing
about the money he had extorted for his phantom services. Fortunately,
it was against his principles to give receipts unless they were
demanded, which in this case they had not been, and all the payments
had been made in cash; so he left it to be inferred that his exertions
had been gratuitously rendered entirely from a sense of duty, and
delicately hinted at their continuance on a different footing. Practice
‘In Lunacy’ is very lucrative; and Mr Blackford was not the man to
neglect such chances as came in his way.

After this, owing to certain instructions which Mr Blackford gave to
his staff, Willoughby found it surprisingly difficult to obtain a
satisfactory interview with his solicitor. If he made an appointment
by letter, Mr Blackford had always been unavoidably called out, and
the time of his return was certain only in that it would be very late.
If the client called unexpectedly, he always found the lawyer putting
on his hat and gloves in a violent hurry, to attend some important
appointment; and the interview was restricted to a short conversation
as they walked through the streets, with ready assistance at hand on
all sides. Willoughby’s manner under this treatment grew more and more
unsatisfactory. Jobson, the clerk, who knew nothing of the business in
hand, never suspected the visitor’s peculiar condition, and cheerfully
assured him, according to orders, that all was going on well. But
this did not satisfy him; and on the few occasions of his seeing the
lawyer in person, he made that gentleman extremely uncomfortable by the
growing gloom and wildness of his looks, and by persistent references
to the hints of treachery which his mysterious foes continued to throw
out.

Suddenly, he discontinued his visits. A fortnight went by, during which
he made no sign; and then something happened which drove him entirely
out of Mr Blackford’s mind. This was the receipt of a letter written
by Lucy Wedlake, at the request of her uncle, who wished to see his
solicitor at once on important business. It was added that Mr Franklin
had been seriously ill, but was now much better, and it was hoped that
with care he would soon recover.

Mr Blackford found his client in his bedroom, propped up with pillows
in a chair by the fireside. It was evident at the first glance that he
had received a heavy blow. His face was anxious and watchful, like that
of one who expects from hour to hour the advent of a dreaded enemy, and
fears to be taken unprepared. It was with little trace of his ordinary
rough irritability, and with a tremulous and feeble voice, that he bade
the solicitor sit down, for there was a deal to talk about. He had had
‘an attack,’ he said; the doctors told him it was the heart, and he
must be very careful. They had to say something for their money, of
course; still, it might be true. We must all go some time; and his time
might be short. He had committed an injustice, which must be put right
at once. His niece had done her duty by him, and he had broken his
promise to her. It was his wish to make a fresh will at once, leaving
her the whole of his property, according to his original intention.

‘I’ve planned it all in my mind,’ said he. ‘It is to be for her alone,
mind you; her husband shall never touch a penny that I can keep from
him. He’s an impudent upstart. He spoke to me as no man ever ventured
to speak before; and I doubt he’s brought me to my grave, through being
upset the way I was. Take that pen and paper, Blackford, and set it
down just as I tell you. The money is to be invested, and the income to
be paid to my niece Lucy Wedlake as long as she lives; after her death,
the capital is to be divided equally among the children. If she has no
children, it’s all to go to the Vintners’ Company. That cuts out Thomas
Wedlake, doesn’t it? That’s all right.—Now about yourself. I suppose
you consider that you’re an injured man, don’t you—hey?’

To this question, put with some approach to Uncle Franklin’s usual
manner and tone, Mr Blackford found it difficult, in the then state of
his emotions, to make any reply whatever. He managed to stammer out,
with a ghastly attempt at a smile, that he was aware that he had no
right to expect——

‘No more you had,’ interrupted Mr Franklin; ‘that’s very true; so
there’s little harm done. Though I don’t say but what I’ll do something
for you too. That has happened to me which makes a man think of things
he usen’t to mind. Maybe I’ve no right to disappoint you altogether,
after what I led you to expect. I might have employed another lawyer to
make this will; but I thought you were entitled to have what business
was to be got out of the thing. And you shan’t say I was unhandsome.
Put yourself down for a thousand pounds.’

Mr Blackford expressed his gratitude as well as he could, which was
not very well; but it was a great deal more than he felt under the
circumstances.

‘You have named no trustees,’ said he, recovering himself a little; ‘it
will be necessary to do so. I myself should be very happy’——

‘No,’ said the old man; ‘I don’t care for lawyers as trustees; they
never seem to run straight. Let me see—put down William Brown, of the
Stock Exchange, and James Harberton, of Leadenhall Street, merchant.
Give them each a hundred pounds for their services. They won’t refuse
to act when they find their names in the will; if they were to be asked
beforehand, they’d say no; so don’t you tell either of them till I’m
gone. And talking of that—don’t let my niece or any one else hear a
word about this. I shall keep the will myself this time, and you will
be the only person to know where it is to be found. Otherwise, they’ll
all be scrabbling after it as soon as the breath is out of me—perhaps
before; and it may be a whim, but I don’t like the notion. Lucy’s a
good sort; but then she is only a woman, and curious, like the rest of
’em. I shall tell her to send for you when the right time comes; and
then you can lay your hand upon the will and do what’s needful—which
will bring a little more grist to your mill, to console you. Get the
thing ready by to-morrow at this time, and bring it here with two
witnesses, as before. Bring the old will as well; I wish to destroy it
myself.’

‘That is hardly necessary,’ said the solicitor, catching at he knew
not what straw of hope; ‘it will be effectually revoked by the later
document.’

‘Don’t you argue with me; do as I tell you. I say I shall destroy it
with my own hands; then there can’t be any question about it.—Don’t
fail to come to-morrow; I want to get it over. I don’t think there’s
much time to waste. If you were to take me anywhere near a churchyard
and lay me down, I doubt I shouldn’t be in a hurry to get up again.’

Mr Blackford attempted a politely deprecatory murmur, but was testily
interrupted. ‘Oh, I daresay you won’t be sorry to get your money. I’m
tired talking. Mind you do just as I have told you.—Good-day.’

It was not until he found himself sitting in his own room, staring
blankly at the opposite wall, that the solicitor realised the full
weight of his misfortune. He had no feeling of anger; the blow, though
he had all along had a lurking presentiment of it, was too cruel
and staggering, now that it had fallen, to arouse any such emotion.
He was bitterly disappointed. A thousand pounds! But a few months
ago, a thousand pounds would have seemed a fortune, and the windfall
would have set him planning innumerable ways of turning it to the
best advantage. But what was it now to him, who had been deprived
of the expectation of a sum which would have rendered all planning
unnecessary, only to be resorted to as a recreation, for the remainder
of his life? Nothing, and worse than nothing—a mere tantalising taste
of the good fortune which ought in justice—so it really appeared
to him—to have been his. And must he now give up all his hopes?
Must he remain for ever a mere plodding man of business of doubtful
reputation—even with a thousand pounds of capital? Were the delights
of unlimited leisure, of freedom from thought for the morrow, of
unstinted gratification of animal appetites, of worldly consideration,
never to be his, after all? He was fast approaching middle life;
the time remaining to him for the enjoyment of all these things was
growing shorter and shorter. To the purer pleasures of honest labour,
to the noble ambition of building up a modest fortune by dauntless
perseverance and undeviating rectitude, in the hope that some day,
with folded hands, he might fearlessly await the end in the quiet of
an old age free from reproach—to all this he was utterly a stranger;
nor would the prospect, had it been suggested, have at all allured
him. His life had been one of poverty tempered by knaveries too petty
to attract punishment; his dream of success had been one of sudden
and unearned wealth, coming without effort, to be applied only to
selfish gratification. To such men, crime, as crime, presents nothing
repulsive; they abstain from it only so long as it offers no advantage
commensurate with the risk. Given advantage and opportunity, crime
follows with the certainty of a mathematical demonstration. He would
not give way without a struggle. He could not. Something must be done.
But what?

He opened his safe, and took out the will which was to have made him
rich, and by that time to-morrow would be a mere piece of waste paper.
He read it through, dwelling on every word with the bitterness of one
who takes leave of hope for ever. When he came to the end, he gave a
slight start of surprise—the date was blank. It had been left blank,
he remembered, when the document was signed. He had intended to fill
it in on his return to the office, but he had forgotten to do so. It
should have been the 28th of November. What did it matter now! He threw
the will on his desk with a despairing gesture, and walked up and down,
trying to think. His brain was in a whirl; he could see no loophole of
escape from the impending sacrifice. Then he remembered—and it came to
him as an additional stab—that he had his bread to earn; whatever else
he might do, he must at present carry out his client’s instructions. He
must with his own hands prepare the instrument which was to rob him—so
he put it to himself—of his just expectations.

As he turned to the table, his eye again fell upon the blank space at
the end of the will where the date should have been inserted; and at
that moment, the crime which was to come to his aid stepped up softly
behind him and whispered its first hint into his ear.

It was a revelation. Mr Blackford, as he sat and thought out the
details, though by no means a religious man, almost considered it to be
providential. No shrinking from the cruel wrong he was about to commit,
no sentiment of justice or compassion interfered with his determination
to avail himself of it to its fullest extent. He set to work at once.
His first step was to walk across to the law-stationer and inform him
that the writer who had witnessed a will on a former occasion would
be required for a like service to-morrow. The testator, he explained,
was the same; he was making a fresh will; he was an eccentric old
gentleman, who insisted that the very persons who had attested the old
will should also attest the new one; and he took the precaution of
seeing the writer himself and making sure of his attendance. As he went
back to the office, he warned Jobson that he, too, would be required
for the same purpose.

He got down his books and set to work. He drew the new will with the
greatest care and accuracy, according to the instructions which he had
just received. Everything was vested in the trustees named, in trust to
pay the income to the testator’s dear niece Lucy, the wife of Thomas
Wedlake, for her life, for her separate use, free from the debts,
control, or engagements of her present or any future husband. After her
death, the fund was to be divided amongst her children as she should
direct; in default of children, the whole to be paid to the Vintners’
Company of London. Nothing was neglected; all the usual and proper
powers and provisos were inserted with careful attention to detail.

The previous will he had fair-copied with his own hand, instead of
handing it to his clerk or law-stationer. He did the same in this
case, though the document was longer and the transcription involved
considerable labour. His next proceeding, in the eyes of another
lawyer, would have seemed very curious, for lawyers are extremely
particular about the preservation, for future reference, of the draft
of any deed or other document which they prepare; but the draft of
this will Mr Blackford tore to fragments, which he afterwards burned
in the grate. He was taking unusual pains, in fact, to carry out the
testator’s wishes, that no one beside himself and his solicitor should
be aware of the contents of the will.

It was now past his usual lunch-time; and he strolled into the outer
office, and sent his boy to get him a dry biscuit and a glass of
brandy-and-water. Until this arrived, he stood chatting to Jobson on
indifferent subjects; and then intimating to him that he was going to
be extremely busy with private affairs, and must not be disturbed on
any account whatever, he retired with his spare meal. He locked the
door of his room behind him; he was about to enter on an important
part of his operation. He took up the old will—that which was to be
destroyed on the morrow—and examined it carefully as he ate and drank.
It was copied on a piece of the paper known as ‘demy;’ it occupied the
whole of the first page and four lines of the second. Then followed the
long and cumbrous attestation clause, with Mr Franklin’s straggling and
irregular signature against it. Taking a paper of the same size, shape,
and quality, the solicitor made an exact and laboured copy, or rather
fac-simile. It had the same number of lines, and each line contained
the same words as in the original. One or two unimportant erasures and
carelessly formed letters were faithfully repeated. The signature, ‘Wm.
Franklin,’ was transferred by means of tracing and carbonised paper,
and then gone over and touched up with the pen, until a most successful
imitation was produced. Two small blots, or rather splutters, had
been made by the testator in writing his name. Their positions were
accurately ascertained by measurement, their outlines transferred
with the tracing-paper and then filled in with ink; a final touch of
which Mr Blackford was reasonably proud, as indicating real genius.
The result was a duplicate, which only a very careful scrutiny could
have distinguished from the original of the will which was in his own
favour. This ended his labours for the present.

Next day, Mr Blackford presented himself and his two witnesses before
his client with the new will for signature. The old man, who was in
much the same condition, read it through for himself and expressed his
approval. The usual formalities were gone through, and the witnesses
dismissed.

‘Now,’ said Mr Franklin, ‘have you brought the other will?’

‘I have, as you requested me to do so,’ said the solicitor, producing
it; ‘though, as I said at the time, it was not necessary.’

‘Never mind,’ said his client, taking it from his hand; ‘it’s just as
well out of the way. How do I know what tricks a lawyer might be up to?’

To this speech, in Mr Franklin’s best style, the solicitor made no
reply; he was conscious of being ‘up to tricks’ of a rather elaborate
nature. His client read the revoked will through with the same care
as he had bestowed on that which superseded it. When he came to the
signature, something about it seemed to arrest his attention; he turned
it to the light and inspected it closely. Mr Blackford’s heart thumped
uncomfortably against his ribs.

‘Curious!’ said Mr Franklin slowly; ‘I never knew myself to miss
dotting an _i_ before.’

He continued to pore over the signature, making grumbling comments,
in an undertone, for some seconds, during which Mr Blackford felt an
almost irresistible desire to snatch the document from him and knock
his venerable head against the wall. At last, to the solicitor’s
intense relief, he tore it across and across and threw it upon the
fire, where it was quickly destroyed.

‘That’s done with,’ said Mr Franklin. ‘The next thing is to put this
one away where no one but you and I will know where to find it. I
prefer to keep it here, because then I shall know it’s all safe. As to
the last, it didn’t so much matter; you were the person most interested
in its safety, so it was very well that you should have the custody
of it. It’s different now.—D’ye see that half-dozen of books on the
shelf in the recess? At this end, you’ll find a big old illustrated
Prayer-book. Put the will in there, and remember the page.’

Mr Blackford took down the book, which opened of itself—ominously
enough—at the service for the Burial of the Dead. He did not mention
this circumstance, but put the folded paper in its place and closed and
replaced the volume.

‘That’s well,’ said Mr Franklin in a weary voice. ‘I’m weaker than I
thought; all this has tired me out.—Good-bye, Blackford; shake hands.
You’ll do your part at the proper time; I shall tell ’em to send for
you. Don’t forget—the old Prayer-book at this end of the shelf.’

‘I won’t forget,’ replied the lawyer; ‘but I hope it may be many a long
day yet before I am called on to remember.—Good-bye, sir.’

Uncle Franklin did not reply; he was lying back on his pillows with
closed eyes; and so Mr Blackford left him.

The first steps of his scheme had been well planned, well carried
out, and had met with entire success. He had been obliged, it is
true, to forge a duplicate of the former will; but the forgery had
just been put out of evidence by the testator himself. There was
nothing to bear witness against him on that score. There were now two
wills in existence, both bearing the testator’s genuine signature,
both attested by the same witnesses, and both dated—or shortly to be
dated—on the same day; the only difference between them being the
trifling one, that the will which was between the leaves of the old
Prayer-book was in favour of Lucy Wedlake, while that which remained
in Mr Blackford’s possession constituted him the sole legatee. The
witnesses, having merely signed their names to two documents of very
similar appearance on two different occasions, would be quite unable to
say which they had last attested, for they knew nothing of the contents
of either.

So far, so good. What was to be the next step? That, as Mr Blackford
perceived, was a matter requiring very careful consideration.




BIG UNDERTAKINGS.


Nothing seems too big for the present age, for we are continually being
startled with something new and something immense, which has either
been just completed, or is about to be carried out, or, at anyrate,
is projected or proposed. Within the last few weeks three new schemes
have been either commenced or suggested in Switzerland, Greece, and
Canada. The first-named scheme in Switzerland is proposed by an Italian
engineer named Agudio, of Milan, for making a way through the Simplon,
which he declares he can do by a tunnel of only six thousand and fifty
metres, the traction and haulage being done by hydraulic power. He says
that by this means from three to four thousand tons of goods could be
safely transported without any breaking-up or trans-shipment of trains;
while the cost of the whole proceeding would be only twenty-eight
millions of francs.

Number Two project consists of the bold but practical scheme of
draining the Lake of Copaïs, near Thebes, in Bœotia, by which an area
of a hundred square miles will be added to the territory of Greece.
The acquiring of so very large a piece of land, which may be put to
useful purposes, though undoubtedly one of vast importance, is not the
only object intended to be effected by the proposal—the other being
the destruction of one of the greatest fever-producing places in the
country by reason of the pestilential malaria always arising from the
waters of this lake. This alone would be an unspeakable blessing to the
country round, and money should be readily forthcoming for the carrying
out of so beneficial an undertaking. The rivers now flowing into the
lake would be employed for irrigation and other purposes of practical
utility.

Number Three project proposes to connect Prince Edward Island with the
Canadian mainland by means of a submarine railway tunnel, by which
all communication can be kept open with the inhabitants of the island
during the winter, a circumstance at present almost impossible, from
the terribly rigorous nature of the winter climate of Canada; but
Canada is bound legally to do everything that is possible to keep open
a communication with this island at all times and by all means, for the
accommodation and assistance of the hundred and twenty-five thousand
persons who constitute the present population. The distance of the
island is only six miles and a half, and the bed of the Northumberland
Straits, under which the railway will be carried, presents no very
apparent difficulties. The depth of water is on the island side
thirty-six feet; and ten feet six inches on the New Brunswick side; and
about eighty feet in the middle. The tunnel will be eighteen feet in
diameter, and will be made of ‘chilled white cast-iron,’ in sections,
these latter being bolted together with inside flanges, exactly in
the same way in which the little tunnel for foot-passengers under the
Thames, and known as the ‘Tower Subway,’ was constructed some years
ago. The cost of this undertaking is estimated at about one million
sterling. It has been well considered and highly commended, and will be
brought before the Canadian parliament very speedily, when the scheme
will no doubt be fully sanctioned, as it has many warm supporters in
the Legislative Assembly. Canada will therefore have her ‘submarine
railway’ long before her illustrious ‘mother’ on this side the Atlantic.




AUTUMN DAYS.


    A wealth of beauty meets my eye—
      Yellow and green, and brown and white,
    In one vast blaze of glory fill
              My happy sight.

    The rich-robed trees, the ripening corn,
      Bright coloured with September fire—
    Fulfilment of the farmer’s hope,
              And year’s desire.

    Sweet in the air are joyous sounds
      Of bird and bee and running brook;
    And plenteous fruits hang ripening round,
              Where’er I look.

    The mellow splendour softly falls
      On morning mists and evening dews,
    And colours trees and flowers and clouds
              With thousand hues.

    O dreaming clouds, with silver fringed!
      I watch ye gathering side by side,
    Like armies, in the solemn skies,
              In stately pride.

    I love the woods, the changing woods,
      Fast deepening down to russet glow,
    When Autumn, like a brunette Queen,
              Rules all below.

    The soul of Beauty haunts the heavens,
      Nor leaves for long the warm-faced Earth,
    And like a mother, the kind air
              To life gives birth.

    But Death rides past upon the gale,
      And blows the rustling golden leaves;
    They whirl and fall, and rot and die,
              And my heart grieves.

    Farewell! O Autumn days—farewell!
      Ye go; but we shall meet again,
    As old friends, who are parted long
              By the wild main.

                WILLIAM COWAN.

       *       *       *       *       *

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

       *       *       *       *       *

_All Rights Reserved._





*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL OF POPULAR LITERATURE, SCIENCE, AND ART, FIFTH SERIES, NO. 142, VOL. III, SEPTEMBER 18, 1886 ***


    

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