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-The Project Gutenberg EBook of Chambers's Journal of Popular Literature,
-Science, and Art, No. 741, March 9, 1878, by Various
-
-This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
-almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
-re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
-with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org/license
-
-
-Title: Chambers's Journal of Popular Literature, Science, and Art, No. 741, March 9, 1878
-
-Author: Various
-
-Editor: William Chambers
-        Robert Chambers
-
-Release Date: August 1, 2020 [EBook #62808]
-
-Language: English
-
-Character set encoding: UTF-8
-
-*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL OF ***
-
-
-
-
-Produced by Susan Skinner and the Online Distributed
-Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-[Illustration: CHAMBERS’S JOURNAL
-
-OF
-
-POPULAR
-
-LITERATURE, SCIENCE, AND ART.
-
-Fourth Series
-
-CONDUCTED BY WILLIAM AND ROBERT CHAMBERS.
-
-NO. 741.      SATURDAY, MARCH 9, 1878.      PRICE 1½_d._]
-
-
-
-
-IN THE GLOAMING.
-
-
-To us Northerners few expressions convey such a sense of peace and
-beauty as this of ‘in the gloaming.’ The twilight hour has had its
-singers and idealisers ever since poetry found a voice and made
-itself a power over men; and so long as human nature is as it is
-now—impressionable, yearning, influenced by the mystery of nature and
-the sacredness of beauty—so long will the tenderness of the gloaming
-find its answering echo in the soul, and the sweet influences of the
-hour be repeated in the depth of the emotions and the purity of the
-thoughts.
-
-Between the light and the dark—or as we have it in our dear old local
-tongue, ‘’twixt the gloamin’ an’ the mirk’—what a world of precious
-memories and holy suggestions lies enshrined! The French _entre
-chien et loup_ (between dog and wolf) is a poor equivalent for our
-‘gloaming;’ and going farther south the thing is as absent as the
-expression. To be sure the sweet Ave Maria of the evening is to the
-pious Catholic all that the twilight is to us; when the church bells
-ring out the hour for prayer, and the sign that the day’s work is done,
-and the hurrying crowd stands for a moment hushed, with uplifted hands
-and reverent faces raised to heaven, each man bareheaded as he says
-his prayer, calling on Madonna to help him and his. But in the fervid
-countries which lie in the sunshine from winter to autumn and from dawn
-to dark, there is no gloaming as we have it. The sun goes down in a
-cloudless glory of burnished gold or blazing red, of sullen purple or
-of pearly opalescence; and then comes darkness swift and sudden as the
-overflowing of a tidal river; but of the soft gray luminous twilight—of
-that lingering after-glow of sky and air which we Northerners know and
-love—there is not a trace. Just as with the people themselves it is
-brilliant youth and glorious maturity, but for the most part an old age
-without dignity or charm. Nothing is so rare in southern climates as to
-see an old woman with that noble yet tender majesty, that gloaming of
-the mind and body, which makes so many among us as beautiful in their
-own way at seventy as they were at twenty. They fade as suddenly as
-their twilight; and the splendour of the day dies into the blackness of
-the night with scarce a trace of that calm, soft, peaceful period when
-it is still light enough for active life and loving duties, after the
-fervour of the noon has gone and before the dead dark has come.
-
-The gloaming is the hour for some of the dearest circumstances of life;
-when heart grows nearer to heart, and there seems to be almost another
-sense granted for the perception of spiritual things. It is the hour
-when young lovers wander through the green lanes between the hawthorn
-and the clematis, while the nightingale sings in the high elm-tree, and
-the white moths flit by like winged ghosts or float like snow-flakes in
-the dusk. Or if it is in the winter-time, they sit in the bay of the
-window half hidden by the curtains, half revealed by the dying light,
-as is their own love. They have no need of speech. Nature and the
-gloaming are the voices between them which whisper in sigh and o’ercome
-all that the one longs to tell and the other yearns to hear; and the
-silence of their lips is the truest eloquence of their hearts. In the
-full blaze of daylight that silence would be oppressive or chilling.
-It would tell either too much or not enough; but in the twilight,
-when speech would be intrusive and commonplace, the mute influences
-of the hour are the best expressions of the soul. In meadow and wood
-and garden the scents of flowers and sprouting leaves, of moss and
-ferns and bark and bud, are more fragrant now than in the freshness of
-even the early dawn—that childhood of the day! They too come like the
-voices of Nature, telling softly secrets which the day cannot reveal.
-Everything is dreamy, indeterminate, and full of possibilities not
-yet realised. The moon is only a disc of unsubstantial vapour hanging
-softly in the sky, where the sunset tones still linger; the stars are
-faint uncertain points scarcely visible through the quivering chromatic
-haze; but gradually all this mystery will sharpen into the confessed
-beauty of the night, when the pale pure splendour of the moon, the
-glorious brightness of the stars, will take the place of the gloaming.
-As yet it is all softened colour and chastened tenderness; all silence
-yet eloquence; and the young lovers wandering by the scented hedgerows,
-or sitting in the bay of the window—they in the soft glow of the
-twilight, while the ruddy firelight floods the rest of the room—are in
-that perfect harmony with the circumstances round them of which the
-other name is happiness. Yes, the gloaming is the hour of love, as
-which of us does not know who has ever loved at all! Look back over
-the lapse of years, and see now what you saw then. You are walking on
-that broad path up the lone fell-side. The young bracken is sending
-out its rich scents, mixed with the odour of thyme and the sweetness
-of the golden gorse; the swallows are wheeling for their last rapid
-flights; the homing rooks are straggling wearily to the elms; the lark
-is singing faintly in his descent; and the honey-laden bees fly heavily
-to their hives. Do you not remember the thoughts, the emotions which
-made life for you at that moment a heavenly poem such as an angel might
-have written? Do you not remember the love which swelled your heart,
-and lifted it up from earth to the very footstool of God? Never can
-you forget the exquisite delight, the unfathomable revelations of that
-hour! It was in the gloaming when you told your love and knew that you
-were beloved, when the rack and the pain of doubt were finally set
-to rest, and the joy of certainty was established! That hour shaped
-your life for weal—alas! sometimes for woe to follow after! But in
-all the woe of the loss, you have the imperishable weal of the gain,
-and are richer by the love that you gave as well as by that which you
-received—by the memories that will never die, and the emotions which
-you can never forget!
-
-The gloaming is the children’s hour, when mamma sings sweet songs,
-or plays for them brisk and lively music, to which they dance like
-shadowy sprites in and out from the dusk to the light. Or what is still
-dearer, she gathers them all close about her, the elder ones touching
-her knees, clinging to her shoulders, while the little one of all is in
-her arms half asleep in a cloud of fairy dreams of vague delight, as
-its curly head rests on her bosom, and the sweet soft voice lulls its
-senses into a state of enchantment, to which no opiate of after-time
-gives aught that is like. Then she tells them stirring tales of bold
-knights and lovely ladies, and how faith and courage conquered all the
-dangers that beset them, and brought them to good issues through evil
-paths. Or in a lower voice, she speaks to them of the great God in
-heaven, who through all His supreme might and majesty, can condescend
-even to the wants of a little child; and she tells them of the sinless
-angels; and of that dear Lord who came on the earth to save weak men
-from the consequences of their own wilful wickedness. She speaks to
-them of His purity, His love, His tenderness, and of the pattern left
-us in His life, by which we may all walk if we will. And to the end of
-their lives they remember those lessons of the quiet gloaming. One may
-go out into wild lands and live there with graceless men and Godless
-companions; but in the midst of all the evil which surrounds him, the
-mother’s words spoken when he was a little lad at her knee, come back
-like cool rains in the parching drought; and the crust of carelessness
-and something worse breaks from his soul as memory leads him back into
-what was the truest and holiest Church of his youth. Or the girl—she
-who now sits with her big blue eyes fixed on her mother, shining with
-pitying tears for the sorrows of the divine Son of Man, for the trials
-of suffering saint and heroic martyr—when she is thrown into the great
-world of fashion and dissipation to become a ‘leader of society,’
-surrounded by temptations of all kinds—she too will remember this hour,
-and all that she learned and felt at her mother’s side. She will turn
-back to the holy lessons of piety and humility, of modesty and honour,
-taught her then by one who fulfilled those lessons in her own life; and
-she will be strengthened to meet her dangers from the memory of those
-pure defences. The mother’s influence never wholly dies; and never is
-that influence more powerfully exerted, its traces more deeply engraved
-than in the gloaming, when the sweet, sad Bible stories are told in a
-low and loving voice, till the whole heart is stirred, and the deepest
-recesses of spiritual consciousness are reached.
-
-The gloaming is the hour of the highest thoughts of which we may be
-capable; the hour when the poet sings his song in his own heart before
-he has written down the words on paper; when the painter sees his
-picture completed by the divine artistry of the imagination before he
-has set his palette or sketched in the outline; when the unformed and
-chaotic thought long floating in the brain, clears itself from the
-mists and takes definite shape, soon to become embodied in creation.
-The youth dreams of that splendid achievement which is to win the great
-game of fortune; he sees himself going up for his degree in advance of
-the rest, cheered by his companions, congratulated by the ‘dons’ as he
-comes out Double-first, or the Senior Wrangler of his year. Or he is
-pleading before the judge at a very early stage in his legal career,
-and winning the most important cause of the term—winning it by sheer
-hard work and strength of brain—with ‘silk’ and perhaps the woolsack to
-follow. Or he is in the House arguing for humanity against statecraft,
-for justice against oppression, for truth against falsehood, and
-carrying the majority with him—making men’s hearts to burn within them
-by reason of his eloquence, his daring, and the intrinsic justice of
-his cause, for the first time indubitably proved by him. Or he has
-written his book, and wakes to find himself famous, the world lifting
-its cap to him in recognition of his success, and the critics united
-in praise, with not a surly note of blame in all the pack. Or he has
-painted his heroic picture—his art of the highest, his theme the most
-heroic—and the Royal Academy opens its doors with a clang to let him
-through. Or he has built his cathedral, and is not ashamed to look
-up at the lines of the old Abbey. Or he has invented his new engine,
-discovered his new planet, demonstrated the hidden law which so many
-suspect and no one has proved. It is the hour for all these grand
-dreams of ambition, all these fairy tales of hope; and if impossible at
-times to realise, yet they are good for the young mind to entertain; as
-it is good for the young athlete to try his strength against superior
-forces, and for the young bowman to aim higher than he can strike.
-
-It is the hour when greatness, yet inchoate and undeveloped, grows
-within its husk—the seed-time of future excellence through the
-fermentation of thought. There must be intervals of preparation, and
-this is one of them. The quiet spell of the gloaming, when the fairest
-visions are seen, the boldest wishes framed, the loftiest points
-reached—how useful it is if taken as the spring-board for the true
-leap—harmful enough if accepted as sufficient in itself; as if the
-hope, the wish, the incoherent intention were enough, and realisation
-always put off till the morrow, did not count. For there is ever the
-danger that day-dreaming should become a habit, and that a man should
-be contented with fashioning a thought in his brain without caring to
-embody it in deed. But there is always danger of misuse in all things;
-and the fear of falling is no bad help towards keeping one’s footing
-firm when the path is slippery and the way-marks treacherous.
-
-The gloaming is the hour for quiet retrospection of the hours that
-are past, for fearless onlooking to those which are to come, and for
-closer communing with God and one’s own soul. The day is flowing into
-the night through the golden gate of the twilight, just as fervid youth
-and fragrant womanhood, the strength of manhood and the leader’s power,
-are passing through the calm rest of old age into the stillness of
-death. In the gloaming, the soul seems to see the right value and the
-true shapes of things more clearly than it did when the sun was high,
-and the eyes were dazzled with its shine and the blood fevered with
-its heat. Then passion was strong, and with passion, self-will, false
-aims, false beliefs—and disappointment as the shadow lying behind. If
-the power was there to create, to resist, to combat, to subdue, so also
-was the bitter smart and the cruel blow. And there was the inevitable
-deception of the senses. Then the sunlight fell on the stagnant waters
-of the deadly swamp and turned them into lakes of purest gold, which a
-wise man would spend his time well to seek and his strength to possess.
-Now in the twilight the false shine has faded from the low-lying pools,
-and the dank and deadly mists creep up to mark both their place and
-quality. If only he had known the truth of things in time! If only he
-had not believed that marsh-lands were living lakes of golden waters,
-which a man would do well to give his life to gain!
-
-In the daytime, clouds obscured the sun, so that the impatient and
-sore-hearted said in his bitterness that the god had turned his face
-from the earth and from him, and that to-morrow’s glory would never
-rise. Now in the gloaming the hope of that morrow has already lessened
-in anticipation the evil done by the clouds of to-day, and trust and
-hope come in the place of sorrow and despair. The worst has been—make
-room now for the better. No more false seeming and no more blinding by
-the deceived and flattered senses; no more mis-diversion of energy,
-and taking for pure and beautiful waters of life deadly morass and
-stagnant marsh. The gloaming of life sets a man straight not only with
-himself but with things, and gives him a truer knowledge than he ever
-had before. He stands full face to the west and looks into the light,
-which now he can bear, and which he no longer finds bewildering or
-blinding. That time of tumult and passion, of heat and strife, through
-which he has passed, how glad he is to leave it all behind him while
-waiting, watching for the quiet peace of the night through the tender
-softness of the gloaming! How near and yet how far off seem to him the
-unfulfilled hopes of the morning, the mistaken endeavour of the noon,
-the hard labour and fierce struggle of the day! If he had only known
-in time the things which were best for him, how differently he would
-have acted—and now: God’s will be done, and God pardon all his sins! He
-must take things as they stand, trusting in the unfailing mercy; for if
-repentance is good, regret is vain, and the gloaming is for peace, not
-strife.
-
-Slowly the last rays of the sun fade out of the sky, and the lingering
-light as slowly follows. The world lies hushed as a tired sleeper,
-and the moon and the stars come out as watchers—as signs too of other
-worlds and other lives. But the old man sitting pale and peaceful in
-the house-porch knows now what he no longer sees; for the gloaming of
-his life has passed into the deep stillness of something beyond, as
-the day has flowed into the night, and both lie in the hollow of God’s
-right hand.
-
-
-
-
-HELENA, LADY HARROGATE.
-
-
-CHAPTER XIV.—THE SHARING OF THE SPOIL.
-
-The name of Mr Enoch Wilkins, Solicitor in the High Court of Chancery,
-and Attorney-at-law, before, according to the polite legal fiction,
-the Queen herself at Westminster, was deeply inscribed, in fat black
-engraved characters, on a gleaming brass plate which formed the chief
-adornment of the dark-green door of his City office. If this brass
-plate really did gleam, as it did, like a piece of burnished gold, its
-refulgence was due to unremitting exertions on the part of the office
-lad, whose objurgations were frequent as at unholy matutinal hours he
-plied the obdurate metal with rotstone, oiled flannels, and chamois
-leather. For the atmosphere of St Nicholas Poultney (so named from the
-hideous effigy of a begrimed saint, mottled by frost and blackened
-by soot, which yet decorated the low-browed doorway of a damp little
-church hard by) was not conducive to brilliancy, whether of glass,
-brass, or paint, being heavily charged, on the average of days, with
-tainted air, foul moisture, and subdivided carbon, with rust, dust,
-and mildew. Nevertheless Mr Wilkins, who was a master to be obeyed,
-contrived that his plate-glass windows should flash back whatever rays
-of light the pitying sun might deign to direct on so dismal a region,
-girt in and stifled by a wilderness of courts, lanes, streets, and
-yards, and also that door-handles and bell-pulls should be shining and
-spotless as a sovereign new-minted, the door-step a slab of unsullied
-stone, and passage, staircase, and offices as trim and clean as the
-floors of some lavender-scented farmhouse among the cabbage roses of
-Cheshire. These praiseworthy results were not attained without labour,
-sustained and oft renewed, on the part of Mrs Flanagan, the so-called
-laundress, whose washing was effected by the vigorous application
-of scrubbing-brush and Bath-brick; of a melancholy window-cleaner
-from Eastcheap, whose bread was earned by perpetual acrobatic feats
-on narrow sills and outside ledges; and of the office lad already
-mentioned, whose main duties, though he called himself a clerk, were
-those of keeping the externals of his master’s place of business at the
-utmost pitch of polish.
-
-In very truth, although there was a messenger, fleet of foot and
-cunning in threading his way through the labyrinthine intricacies of
-the City, always perched on a leather-covered stool in the antechamber,
-to supplement the services of the office lad, Mr Wilkins had no clerk.
-A great deal of his business was transacted by word of mouth; he
-answered his own letters; and when much of the scribe’s work became
-requisite, some civic law stationer would send in one or two red-eyed
-men in mouldy black, with finger-nails indelibly stained by the ink
-that had become their owners’ element, and a sufficient quantity of
-draught folio paper would be covered with legal copperplate.
-
-The outer office was neatness itself, from the bright fire-irons in
-the fender to the maps on the wall and the rulers and pewter inkstands
-on the desks. And the inner room, where the lawyer himself gave
-audience, was almost cheerful, with its well-brushed Turkey carpet,
-sound furniture, well-stored book-shelves, and general aspect of
-snug comfort. There were those who wondered that Mr Wilkins, whose
-reputation did not rank very high in the learned confraternity to which
-he belonged, should so pointedly have deviated from the tradition which
-almost prescribes dirt and squalor and darkness for the surroundings
-of those who live by the law. There were, not very far off, most
-respectable firms, the name of whose titled employers was Legion, yet
-through whose cobwebbed panes was filtered the feeble light by which
-their bewildered clients stumbled among ragged carpets and rickety
-furniture to reach the well-known beehive chair. But Mr Wilkins was
-a man capable of attending to his own interests, and probably he had
-found out what best chimed with the prejudices of those for whose
-custom he angled.
-
-There was nothing in the room itself to shew that it was a lawyer’s
-office. It might have been that of a surveyor or a promoter of
-companies, for there was nothing on the walls but a set of good maps
-and four or five excellent engravings. Not a deed-box, not a safe,
-was to be seen, and if there were law-books on the shelves they held
-their place unobtrusively amongst other well-bound volumes. Mr Wilkins
-sitting in his usual place, with one elbow resting on the table before
-him, seemed to be indulging in a reverie of no distasteful character,
-to judge by the smile that rested on his coarse mouth as he softly
-tapped his front teeth with the mother-of-pearl handle of a penknife,
-as though beating time to his thoughts. At last, warned by the striking
-of the office clock, the hour-hand of which pointed to eleven, Mr
-Wilkins shook off his preoccupation of mind, and rang the hand-bell at
-his elbow.
-
-The office lad, who called himself a clerk, was prompt in answering the
-tinkling summons of his employer.
-
-‘Any one been here yet?’ demanded the lawyer.
-
-‘Touchwood and Bowser’s articled clerk with notice of new trial in case
-of Green (in holy orders) _v._ Gripson—the bill-stealing case, you
-know, sir, that the country parson chose to go to a jury about.’
-
-‘Ah, yes,’ rejoined Mr Wilkins, again tapping his front teeth with
-the pearl-handled knife, while a look of intense amusement overspread
-his face. ‘Wants another shot at the enemy, does he, the Rev. James
-Green! It was grand to see him in the witness-box, indignantly
-insisting on the fact that not one sixpence ever reached him in
-return for his promissory-note despatched per post, on the faith of Mr
-Gripson’s advertisement and fair words. Then some Mr Jenks, a total
-stranger, happens to give valuable consideration, at third or fourth
-hand, for the stamped paper with the clergyman’s signature, and, Rev.
-Green objecting to cash up, gets a _fi. fa._—a neat contraction of
-_fieri facias_, which, as we lawyers know, is a term which directs
-an execution to be levied on the goods of a debtor, ha, ha!—has it
-backed in Wiltshire, and sells up every bed and chest of drawers in the
-vicarage. Mr Green brings an action against Gripson, who is comfortably
-out of the way, but retains me. We traverse everything, demur to
-everything, put in counter pleas and rebutters, change the venue, and
-play Old Gooseberry with the too confiding Green, whose counsel elects
-to be nonsuited. Now, like a Briton, he is ready for us again.’
-
-Mr Wilkins laughed, and the juvenile clerk re-echoed the laugh.
-Sharp practice, such as that so lovingly narrated by the attorney,
-apparently for lack of a better audience, was congenial to the mind
-of this keen-witted young acolyte of Themis, with whom the proverbial
-distinction between Law and Equity seemed to be very clearly defined.
-
-‘Nobody else called?’ asked Mr Wilkins.
-
-‘Yes. Stout sporting-looking gent, who said he’d make shift, when I
-told him you had stepped out to the Master’s chambers, to come again
-to-morrow. Name of Prior,’ returned the youth.
-
-‘Ah, Nat the bookmaker, wanting to know how near the wind he may sail
-without getting into the sweep-net of a criminal indictment,’ said the
-lawyer placidly. ‘Nothing else, hey?’
-
-‘Only Mr Isaacs of Bowline Court, Thames Street, sent round to say he
-would look in between eleven and twelve,’ was the reply.
-
-‘I’ll see him and any gentleman he may bring with him,’ rejoined Mr
-Wilkins, taking up the newspaper, as the office lad retired; but in
-five minutes returned, ushering in three gentlemen, whose hooked noses,
-full red lips, jet-black hair, and sloe-black eyes gave them a strong
-family resemblance. They were old acquaintances doubtless, for the
-greeting which they received from Mr Wilkins was a familiar one.
-
-‘How do, Moss? How goes it, Braham, my buck? You’re all right, Isaacs,
-I can see for myself.’
-
-Nothing could well be more unlike what, during the regency of the late
-King George IV., was called a buck than was Mr Braham, who was simply
-a corpulent Jew, ineffably greasy in appearance, and who wore a faded
-olive-green greatcoat that might have passed for a medieval gabardine,
-and carried an empty blue bag over his left arm. Mr Moss, his junior
-by some years, was better dressed, but his raven locks fell upon a
-shirt collar of dubious whiteness, and his dingy finger-nails were in
-unpleasant contrast with the splendour of the heavy rings he wore, and
-of the huge emerald in his satin necktie. The youngest of the three, Mr
-Isaacs, a hawk-eyed little man, bejewelled and florid of attire, was by
-far in dress and person the least unclean of the three.
-
-There was a little conversation as to weather and other general topics,
-and then Braham the senior of the three Hebrews pulled out a watch
-as round and almost as big as a golden turnip, and compared it with
-the office clock. ‘Letsh get along,’ he said genially: ‘bushinesh,
-bushinesh, my dears, waitsh for no man.’
-
-‘You’re right, Uncle Jacob,’ chimed in Mr Moss, who could scarcely
-have been, otherwise than figuratively and in oriental fashion, the
-nephew of his stout kinsman, but who was certainly a Jew of a much more
-modern pattern. He, at anyrate, coquetted with soap and water, and had
-discarded the shibboleth in his speech; but it might be doubted whether
-the elder Israelite, for all his repellent exterior, was not the better
-fellow of the two.
-
-‘Business by all means,’ cheerily responded Mr Wilkins. ‘We’ve done
-it together before to-day, and we’ll do it again, I hope, gentlemen,
-for many a day yet to come. It is a very pleasant occasion on which we
-now assemble—nothing less, if I may say so, than the dividing of the
-profits, the sharing of the spoil.’
-
-There was a hearty laugh.
-
-‘Sharing of the shpoil!’ chuckled elderly but still vigorous Mr Braham.
-‘What a boy he ish, thish Wilkinsh, what a boy he ish!’
-
-‘And now for it,’ said Mr Wilkins, rustling over a bundle of papers
-that lay before him. ‘Here we have it in black and white, worth all
-the patter and palaver in the world. These are the baronet’s first
-and second letters, the second inclosing an uncommonly stiff cheque.
-Here are Captain Denzil’s bills—pretty bits of kites they are, renewed
-here and renewed there—and here are our old agreements, notes, and
-memoranda, duplicates of which I’ve no doubt are in all your pockets.
-Pass them round, Isaacs, and take a good look at them first. You’re an
-attorney, you know, and that’s why you’re here, though I don’t believe,
-my friend, that you “pull off” a clear five hundred out of the haul.’
-
-‘Yesh, yesh, he’sh an attorney, ash Wilkinsh saysh,’ said Mr Braham,
-whose laughter was very ready, as that of fat people often is; ‘and sho
-we have him here. Shet a thief to catch a’——
-
-Here a warning kick or other practical exhortation to caution on the
-part of his kinsman appeared to cut short the over-fluency of the bulky
-Hebrew, and he became as mute as a mouse, while Mr Isaacs read aloud in
-a high shrill voice the contents of Sir Sykes Denzil’s letters and also
-a brief summary which Mr Wilkins had prepared.
-
-There was some discussion, but there really was not room for much. Here
-was no compromise, no handing over of so many shillings in the pound.
-Sir Sykes Denzil had paid his son’s liabilities without the abatement
-of a guinea. Mr Braham was to receive what he called ‘shix thoushand
-odd;’ Mr Moss, two thousand eight hundred and seventy-two; four hundred
-and thirty were for Mr Isaacs; and the residue was for Enoch Wilkins,
-Esquire, gentleman.
-
-It was a strange sight when the rolls of bank-notes were produced, to
-see the actual partition of the Bank of England’s promises to pay, the
-vulture beaks bending over the crisp paper, the wary inspection of
-water-mark and number and signature, and the stuffing of pocket-books
-and cramming of purses and stowing away of what seemed to be regarded
-rather as plunder than as lawful gains. Two odd things during this
-transaction were to be noticed—first, that Mr Braham, who was
-incomparably the shabbiest Jew present, met with deference on every
-hand save from irreverent Wilkins; and secondly, that all the Jews
-seemed to take up their money grudgingly, like hounds that have chopped
-their fox in covert.
-
-‘Well done, Shir Shykesh!’ exclaimed the heavy Hebrew with the green
-gabardine and the blue bag. ‘If they wash all of hish short, there
-might be the moneysh, but there wouldn’t be the fun!’
-
-‘We’ll drink Sir Sykes’ health, at anyrate,’ briskly put in Mr
-Wilkins.—‘Sims!’ and he tinkled the office hand-bell as he spoke,
-‘glasses and cork-screw.’
-
-It was good amber-hued sherry, none of your modern abominations, but
-a real Spanish vintage, long mellowed in its dusty bin, that gurgled
-into the glasses under the careful handling of Mr Wilkins. The Hebrews
-sipped, appraised—where could be found judges so critical!—and drank.
-
-‘I’m shorry for the poor young man,’ said Mr Braham, in a sort of
-outburst of sentiment, at mention of Captain Denzil’s name.
-
-‘So that he gets his victuals,’ remarked the Jew attorney curtly, ‘I
-don’t see why he’s to be pitied.’
-
-‘It _ish_ a shelling out!’ was the mild rejoinder of the stout
-Israelite with the blue bag, who seemed to be by far the
-softest-hearted of the company. ‘Of courshe, when I thought he would
-do me, I didn’t care; but now I remember he didn’t get much, not above
-sheven-fifty cash. All the resht wash pictures, wine—not like yoursh,
-Wilkinsh—cigars, and opera-tickets.’
-
-‘He went through the mill, I suppose,’ said Mr Moss, ‘as others have
-done before him, and others will do after him; eh, Uncle Jacob?’
-
-‘Eh, eh, grisht to the mill!’ chuckled the stout proprietor of the
-empty blue bag; and the quartette of confederates soon separated.
-
-Mr Wilkins, left alone, purred contentedly as he poured out and tossed
-off another glass of the sherry so deservedly lauded, and then, rising
-from his chair, took down a Baronetage, bound in pink and gold, and
-fluttered over the leaves until his finger rested on the words:
-‘Denzil, Sir Sykes; of Carbery Chase, county Devon; of Threepham Lodge,
-Yorkshire; Ermine Moat, Durham; and Malpas Wold, Cheshire, succeeded
-_his_ father, Sir Harbottle Denzil, August 18—; married, May 18—;
-formerly in the army, and attained the rank of Major. Is a magistrate
-and deputy-lieutenant for Devonshire. Unsuccessfully contested the
-county at the election of 18—.’
-
-‘To think,’ said the attorney, stroking the book with his fleshy
-hand, ‘how much one can read between the lines of these plausible
-announcements, almost as blandly eulogistic as the inscriptions which
-chronicle on their tombstones fond wives, faultless husbands, and
-parents worthy to be immortalised by Plutarch! How trippingly the
-name of that needy old reprobate Sir Harbottle rolls off the tongue.
-He to be described as of Threepham and Malpas! Say, rather, of any
-foreign lodging or foreign jail, of the Isle of Man while it was yet a
-sanctuary for the debtor, of the Rules of the King’s Bench. But Carbery
-is very genuine anyhow.’
-
-Mr Wilkins paused for a moment, and then mused: ‘I could spoil your
-little game, Sir Sykes—spoil it in a moment, and compel you to exchange
-your D. L.’s uniform of scarlet and gold for—never mind what! So long
-as the goose lays the golden eggs, it would not be the part of a wise
-man to twist her neck.’ Having said which, Mr Wilkins brushed his coat,
-drew on his gloves, and taking up his hat, sallied out. ‘Taxing office;
-back in an hour,’ he said to the office lad as he went out. ‘If I am
-detained, you need not wait for me after two o’clock.’
-
-‘Ten to four, he don’t shew up,’ said the youth, who was accustomed to
-the professional figments which served to beguile credulous clients,
-but who congratulated himself at the prospect of a speedy release from
-duty. ‘If the governor doesn’t put in an appearance by 1.30, I’ll make
-myself scarce, or my name is not Sims!’
-
-Meanwhile, Mr Wilkins made his way through the jostling crowd that
-roared and seethed among the busy streets of the City, until he reached
-an office, resplendent with plate-glass and French-polished mahogany,
-in Cornhill, on the door of which was inscribed, ‘Bales and Beales,
-Stock and Share Brokers.’
-
-There were a good many customers in the outer office, a few of whom
-were quiet men of business, while the others, nearly half of whom were
-anxious-eyed ladies who had reached middle life, seemed flushed and ill
-at ease as they perused and reperused the written and printed memoranda
-with which they all seemed to be provided, and glanced impatiently at
-the ornamental clock on its gilded bracket. The lawyer, as an _habitué_
-of the place, sent in his name, and gained speedy admittance to the
-inner den, where Mr Bales himself, tall, thin, and with a thatch of
-bushy eyebrows projecting in pent-house fashion over his steady blue
-eyes, held out a cool white hand to be grasped by the hot red hand of
-Mr Wilkins.
-
-The head of the firm of Bales and Beales was pre-eminently a cool man,
-and nothing could be in stronger contrast than was his unimpassioned
-bearing and the flutter and flurry of his customers.
-
-‘How about my Turks?’ unceremoniously demanded Mr Wilkins. ‘Of course I
-know they’re down again—confound them!’
-
-‘The fall continues. They have receded, let me see, two and
-seven-eighths since this morning,’ returned the broker, pointing to
-the official bulletin in its frame on the wall beside him. ‘Probably
-they are falling as we speak, for the Bourses of Paris, Amsterdam, and
-Vienna opened heavily.’
-
-‘Well, you _are_ a Job’s comforter, Bales,’ said the lawyer, wiping
-his heated brow. ‘Will this sort of thing go on, hey? Shall I sell, or
-stick to my colours like a Briton? Can’t you give a fellow your advice?’
-
-‘I never advise,’ answered Mr Bales, with his cold smile. ‘Life would
-be a burden to me if I did. I prefer to lay the facts before those who
-do me the favour to come to me, leaving to their unbiassed judgment the
-course to pursue. Here are some Stock Exchange telegrams, part of which
-you will see presently, no doubt, in the evening papers. They help to
-explain the rush on the part of the public to sell out.’
-
-The attorney took the half-dozen square pieces of hastily printed
-paper, yet damp from the press, some of them, which Mr Bales
-courteously proffered him, and at a glance mastered their contents.
-
-‘Can rascally fabrications like this,’ asked the attorney, in a glow of
-something like honest indignation, ‘impose upon the veriest gull in
-Christendom?’
-
-‘Ah!’ answered the unmoved Mr Bales, scrutinising the despatch which
-his irate client held between his finger and thumb, ‘you mean the
-rumour about the sale of the six Turkish ironclads to the Russian
-government? Popular credulity, my dear sir, would swallow more than
-that. You have overlooked the other telegram, which mentions that
-Adamapoulos and Nikopolos, the Greek bankers of Galata, have declined
-to advance to the Porte at twenty per cent. the wherewithal to meet the
-next coupon of the Debt. That report has more weight with business-men
-than the nautical one. Will you give me instructions to sell?’
-
-‘No; but to buy!’ rapped out Mr Wilkins, with suddenness. ‘There must
-come a reaction soon. I’ll take another ten thousand of the Imperial
-Ottomans. I know what you would say, Bales,’ he added irritably: ‘the
-cash I left on deposit won’t cover the margin. Here’—and he produced
-the bank-notes that had fallen to his share in the division of that
-day—‘are funds, and to spare.’
-
-As the lawyer quitted the stock-broker’s office he muttered between
-his set teeth: ‘I stand to win; but at anyrate I know of back-play of
-a safer sort. Sir Sykes Denzil of Carbery, you are a sponge well worth
-the squeezing!’
-
-
-
-
-SENSATIONAL REPORTING.
-
-
-Scarcely a week passes in which the newspaper press is not the medium
-of attracting the attention of the public to a _cause célèbre_ of
-one kind or another. Crimes of brutal violence, of gross immorality,
-of wholesale fraud, have been so terribly prevalent of late, that we
-might almost believe that civilisation and crime are going hand in
-hand; certainly the horrors of the latter go a considerable way towards
-neutralising the blessings of the former, and cause us to pause in our
-self-congratulation upon the progress and enlightenment of the age in
-which we live. At but too frequent intervals some villain is held up
-before the public, and becomes, so to speak, fashionable for the period
-over which his trial extends.
-
-Every class of society provides its recruits now and again for the
-ranks of the infamous, and no matter to which stratum the criminal
-belongs, one newspaper or another is sure to be ready to report—with
-a minuteness which could not be more detailed if it were inspired
-by personal animosity—every stage and incident of his crime, and if
-procurable and sufficiently sensational, to supply an epitome of his
-antecedent career.
-
-When the influence of the press is properly taken into consideration,
-the responsibility of writing for it is a very serious one. To many
-thousands even in great centres of human life like London, Liverpool,
-Glasgow, or Edinburgh, the daily paper is almost the sole intellectual
-food sought for and within reach; and when we further consider the
-immense circulation of some of our newspapers, nearly approaching a
-quarter of a million a day, and when we think that each copy becomes
-the centre of an ever-increasing circle of information, we may
-reasonably assert that the penny paper, once held in contempt, is
-one of the most potent agents for good or evil which our generation
-possesses; and in proportion to the influence which it exerts, is the
-necessity of that influence being exerted in a right direction. So far
-as regards politics, theology, and social problems, each paper may
-legitimately represent a particular party or sect, and inculcate its
-particular views; but upon certain broad principles of morality, and
-as far as regards general rules for the inculcation and protection of
-public morals, there ought to be no difference of opinion at all.
-
-Without question, the newspapers of our day are animated by a laudable
-desire to act for the moral as well as material welfare of the people,
-and we could not accuse any one of them of voluntarily inserting matter
-having a tendency subversive to morality; but as to what is and what
-is not calculated to taint the public mind, the opinion of the press
-seems to be very undecided. Particularly is this the case with regard
-to the record of crime, which it is part of their duty to publish.
-It is unquestionably advisable that the public should be informed of
-every crime that is discovered; but the scope of the information to be
-given becomes a matter for careful consideration, and upon which some
-difference of opinion may reasonably be expected to exist.
-
-What, it may be asked, is the object of a public report of the trial
-of a criminal? Presumably that by the knowledge of what has occurred
-the public may be on their guard against similar crimes, and that the
-story of detection and punishment may act as a deterrent; the first
-of these objects applying more particularly to what we may call the
-respectable classes, and the latter to the criminal, vicious, or
-viciously disposed. The story of crime should legitimately produce
-in the public mind a sense of indignation against the criminal, of
-pity for the victim, of personal caution; the criminal should not be
-considered a sort of social scapegoat, and the indignation should not
-be Pharisaical, but should have its origin in an abhorrence of the
-crime rather than of the criminal. To the viciously inclined the story
-of detected crime should be a warning and a deterrent, both on the
-score of fear of detection as also upon higher moral considerations.
-The history of crime or of a criminal career is invariably pitiable
-enough; but it is possible in some instances to invest it with a
-spurious interest, and even a sort of meretricious brilliance which is
-calculated to work an immense amount of harm among a certain class of
-people.
-
-The principal object of a newspaper report nowadays would seem to be to
-present the public with an exciting and dramatic narrative, rather than
-a calm, unimpassioned statement of facts; to write, in short, rather
-for their amusement than information. Undoubtedly few things increase
-the sale of a newspaper more than a graphic account of heart-rending
-‘Scenes in Court,’ and the demeanour, for instance, of ladies who have
-been accommodated with seats on the bench! a style of reporting which
-seems to us to be little short of a breach of trust, inasmuch as it is
-pandering to that which it ought to suppress.
-
-It may be said that in criminal cases it is well that the public should
-have the fullest possible details of the proceedings, so that they may
-follow them closely, and perhaps aid in the administration of justice;
-but as public comment upon cases _still under trial_ is not recognised,
-the value of full reports is nullified so far as this consideration is
-concerned. But if a judge, a man of eminent experience in human nature,
-learned in the law, and accustomed to the consideration of every
-variety of evidence; and twelve jurymen, well meaning, unprejudiced, of
-business habits and unimpassioned judgment, cannot be trusted to decide
-a case upon its merits, surely it would be unreasonable to suppose that
-the outside public could do better, reading as they do simply in print
-the words which may have had their significance increased immeasurably
-in either direction by the tone in which they were uttered, by the
-bearing of the speaker, and the voluntary or involuntary gestures which
-may have accompanied them.
-
-When we read detailed accounts of the appearance of prisoners, verbatim
-reports of their most insignificant utterances; when we are given
-details of their meals; when we are told that one prisoner is dressed
-with scrupulous care, and that the affection existing between two other
-prisoners was very apparent to those in court; when we have a picture
-of the judge passing sentence amidst sobbing women; when piquant
-details of past careers are dragged to light, and the various amiable
-or vicious points commented upon, although having absolutely no bearing
-whatever upon the case under consideration—then we cannot avoid the
-conclusion that the main object of all the report is to sell the paper.
-It would be impossible to give the public such information regarding
-the demeanour and tone of witnesses or prisoners as to enable them to
-form a really just and reliable idea; while it is quite possible and
-a very frequent practice to be just graphic enough to make the public
-fancy that they are in a position not only to criticise and speculate,
-but to dogmatise, and even to protest vehemently against the verdict
-of a jury and the sentence of a judge, deliberately given after a long
-and careful inquiry, in which the prisoner had the benefit of counsel
-learned in every intricacy and subtlety of the law. The practice of
-giving detailed descriptions of the personal appearance and social
-habits of criminals, which are now acknowledged features of newspaper
-reporting, has a tendency to invest the prisoners with something of a
-meretricious glory, which ought to be condemned by all properly minded
-people.
-
-If crime has been committed, it is surely injurious to the public
-morals to write or publish anything calculated to elicit misplaced
-sympathy, and it is a poor trade to pander to morbid curiosity. If
-people fairly appreciated not only the wickedness and horror of
-crime, but its almost invariable meanness, pettiness, and misery, its
-feverish restlessness, its ever-haunting dread of detection—crime would
-be robbed of much of its semi-heroic character, and would cease to
-prove so attractive a bait to those who gloat over its every detail.
-It is common to speak of ‘great’ criminals as distinguished from the
-vulgar herd; but there is never anything great in crime. Graphic pens
-pandering to vulgar curiosity may produce a passing interest of even
-absorbing intensity; the crime and the criminal may form a nine days’
-wonder; but the end comes; and as soon as the convict dress is donned,
-the erstwhile man is degraded into a mere automaton, a mere numeral,
-and is utterly dead to the outside world; while if the scaffold should
-be his destined finale, the only thing which survives the wretched
-criminal is his infamy.
-
-Sensational reporting pays, for papers with a reputation for ‘Special’
-descriptions are at a premium whenever there is a _cause célèbre_
-before the public; but it is eminently prejudicial to public morality.
-The remedy rests solely with the proprietors, on whom lies also the
-responsibility of purveying garbage to an unhappily large section of
-readers; but until public opinion forces upon them the fact that they
-are deliberately lowering themselves to the level of the vendors of
-‘Penny Dreadful’ literature, sensational reporting of criminal trials
-is likely to flourish, inoculating the public mind with an unwholesome
-craving for details which should be banished from the pale of
-discussion among people with any pretensions to refinement, good taste,
-or common decency.
-
-
-
-
-THE BONE-CAVE INSCRIPTION.
-
-
-The pleasant town of Q——, among its other attractions, possesses a
-bone-cave. The cave, situated in a little valley close by the sea, had
-not long been discovered to contain bones before it was invaded by an
-army of geologists, who dug deep holes in the floor, and unearthed the
-remains of prehistoric fires, of ancient knives and needles, and of
-even a man’s jaw buried in stalagmite. And every year the fashionable
-people of Q—— made an excursion into the windings of the cavern, under
-the guidance of gnome-like guides with torches.
-
-Within a certain period of its modern history, the Q—— bone-cave,
-like the sacred caves of India, had a high-priest, an exponent of
-its mysteries. He did not, however, dwell in its recesses, but in a
-smart villa overlooking Q—— Bay. He was a local celebrity, and the
-most active member of a committee appointed to examine the cavern. The
-cavern was his hobby, and as it was of tolerably uniform temperature,
-there was no time of year when he did not take delight in exploring
-its mysteries. Every fresh discovery was a joy to Mr Grope; and though
-a sceptical few laughed at him, and even called some of his flint
-knives in question, his researches had thrown much light on geology and
-archæology. One thing alone was wanting—he had found no dates in the
-cave. There were dates and inscriptions in caves belonging to other
-places, and he did not like Q—— to be behind them.
-
-Prefacing, for the benefit of the reader, that stalac_tite_ is the
-substance that hangs to the roof of caverns, like icicles, and
-stalag_mite_ the substance that has fallen to the floor, a concretion
-of carbonate of lime—we proceed with the story. One day, as Mr Grope
-was examining a wall in one of the passages, he thought he detected a
-weakness in the rock, and working at it with his great hammer he found
-that it speedily crumbled away. Soon he had made a hole through which
-he was able to pass, and presently he stood in a small apartment full
-of large stalagmitic blocks, and with a very moderate amount of water
-dripping from the roof. As he flashed his lantern about, his keen eye
-caught sight of artificial markings on the smooth surface of one of
-the blocks. His heart leaped within him. Here of a certainty was at
-last an inscription which, composed of several well-formed letters
-carved on the block but interrupted by breaks, ran as follows:
-
-    F . . ll . . . to . . . Nor.
-          Capt T . . ck
-         r . . m  20  Br
-      15 . . 71  k . . to ret
-
-Mr Grope carefully copied the interesting record into his note-book.
-He looked about for more inscriptions, but this was apparently the
-only one; however, there might be other unexplored caverns beyond. At
-present he must devote himself to deciphering these letters. He had a
-clue in the date 1571, for though there was a break between the ‘15’
-and the ‘71,’ it was only caused by a slight inequality in the block.
-
-That evening, in the seclusion of his study, he devoted himself with
-ardour to the inscription. He did not doubt that it was intended for
-abbreviated Latin. In the sixteenth century every one who could write
-knew Latin, and wrote Latin too when he or she wished to be succinct.
-There were, it is true, only scraps of words on which to proceed, but
-this circumstance did but occasion a pleasing exercise of Mr Grope’s
-ingenuity. The conquest would have been too easy had the words been
-given at length. The very uncertainty had in it that excitement which
-is dear to the hearts of all true antiquaries.
-
-Before he thoroughly set to his task, Mr Grope balanced in his mind
-whether he should treat the inscription as private or political. He
-inclined to the political aspect. If it were private, nothing could
-be made of it, and it was unlikely that a gentleman should carve his
-personal remarks in the depths of a subterranean cave. No doubt the
-letters referred to public matters. For a moment Mr Grope could not
-recollect who reigned in England in 1571; for though he took a great
-interest in history, he was somewhat oblivious about dates. Soon,
-however, a vision of Queen Elizabeth in ruff and farthingale rose
-before him, and then he attacked the first line in good earnest.
-
-    F . . ll . . . to . . . Nor.
-
-Now it seemed clear as noonday that Nor was the first syllable of a
-proper name, or at least the name of a place; for Mr Grope remembered
-that in the sixteenth century it was not the custom to begin every noun
-with a capital letter, as it was in the eighteenth. Could it refer to
-Norwich? Norwich was a long way from Q——; but the gentleman in the cave
-might have been mixed up in a conspiracy which embraced the capture of
-several towns. Mr Grope took down Mr Froude’s _History of England_,
-and turned over the pages referring to Elizabeth’s reign in search of
-names beginning with Nor. Then a great light broke upon him, and he
-wondered that he had not remembered his history better. The name of
-Norfolk occurred several times in connection with what Mr Froude calls
-the ‘Ridolfi Plot,’ and the ‘Ridolfi Plot’ was going on in 1571. The
-course of his investigation seemed to flow almost too smoothly now. He
-soon found that the first line ran: ‘Fallete tollite Norfolk’ (Betray
-and take Norfolk); whence it was evident that the man in the cave had
-played false to all parties, and after engaging in the conspiracy,
-had leagued with some fellow-conspirators to betray their chief, the
-unhappy Duke who preceded Mary of Scotland to the scaffold instead of
-sharing her throne. ‘Betray and take Norfolk!’ It was not good Latin
-certainly, but good enough for an inscription where there were so many
-breaks, which imagination could fill up with the elegances of language;
-and the morality was characteristic of the sixteenth century.
-
-The second line of the inscription puzzled Mr Grope more.
-
-    Capt T . . ck
-
-The two words composing it were carved in larger letters, and stood
-by themselves, as if specially important. ‘Capt’ of course meant
-_caput_, a head, and might hint at the approaching loss of Norfolk’s
-own; but the ‘T . . ck’ puzzled Mr Grope sorely, and was evidently
-another cognomen. It puzzled him so much that he resolved to finish the
-remainder of the inscription
-
-    r . . m  20  Br
-
-first, and see if _it_ threw any light on the subject.
-
-The ‘20’ evidently indicated the day of the month; but to what month
-could ‘r . . m’ refer? Could it mean _rosarum mensis_—the month of
-roses? Might not a poetical conspirator thus paraphrase the month of
-June? Norfolk certainly was not beheaded till June 1572; but it was
-possible that a fellow-plotter might have decided on betraying him a
-full year before that date. ‘Br’ perhaps stood for _brevi_, by way of
-urging that the deed should be accomplished summarily; and 1571 spoke
-for itself. The ‘k’ which followed might be either a small or a capital
-‘k,’ but Mr Grope concluded that it was the initial of another proper
-name; and he had soon persuaded himself that the sentence ‘K .. to ret’
-ran: ‘K—— tollite retinete,’ and was intended as an injunction to take
-and retain K——. Who or what K—— was did not much signify, since there
-was no doubt about Norfolk.
-
-It was the second line which continued to puzzle Mr Grope. He brooded
-over it when he went to bed, and could not sleep because of it; but in
-the small-hours of the morning, that season of daring inspirations,
-it flashed across him that ‘Capt T..ck’ meant neither more nor less
-than ‘Caput Turci,’ a Turk’s head. ‘The man may have written _k_ for
-_i_ by inadvertence. But why should a Turk’s head be written about in
-the cave near Q——?’ It struck Mr Grope that the battle of Lepanto had
-been fought in 1571, and that the conspirator might be alluding to
-an invasion of England which was to take place, when the Turk’s head
-should be figuratively cut off. On the following morning, a Dictionary
-of Dates accompanied the ham and toast on Mr Grope’s breakfast-table;
-and he ascertained that the battle of Lepanto had been fought in
-October, whereas he had decided that the inscription was written in
-June, and that it had something to do with English refugees and the
-Turkish fleet. This interpretation certainly gave a wider and more
-European interest to the writing in the Q—— bone-cave. But on further
-consideration, it seemed to Mr Grope that he would hardly be able to
-maintain it in printed controversy with the learned. The Turk’s head
-was pitchforked with so much abruptness among the directions to secure
-Norfolk and K——, that unless it were supposed to be a watchword among
-the conspirators, it seemed impossible to dovetail it in.
-
-The antiquary did not go out that morning; he retired to his study
-and reflected on the difficulties of the Turk’s head. At last another
-light came in upon him, reminding him that there were many inns in the
-country with the sign of the Saracen’s Head, relics of the medieval
-time when the Saracens were the bugbears of Europe. Very likely there
-had been inns called the Turk’s Head in the sixteenth century, when
-Europe was always in terror of the Turks, and Mr Grope even fancied
-that he remembered seeing one with that sign in a village in the east
-of England. Looked at in this new light, the meaning of the inscription
-appeared to be: ‘Betray and take Norfolk at the “Turk’s Head” inn, on
-the 20th of June 1571, with all possible haste. Take and retain K——.’
-
-Writing this out at full length, Mr Grope read it over with fond pride.
-He had thoughts of sending a letter on the subject to that scientific
-paper the _Minerva_ at once, but prudence intervened, and he determined
-that he would first consult Sir H—— T——, the great archæologist, whom
-he had helped to lionise at Q——. It would be as well to say, when he
-wrote to the _Minerva_, that his friend Sir H—— T—— agreed with him as
-to the solution of the mystery; and he accordingly despatched a full
-account of the matter to the great man. That evening Mr Grope dined
-out, and could not refrain from imparting his triumph to a select
-circle of his acquaintances. Mr Grope was generally admitted to be
-the most intellectual resident at Q——. If a strange fish was caught
-in the bay, a strange fossil found in a quarry, or a coin dug up in
-a field, it was always referred to Mr Grope; and there were only one
-or two people who ever presumed to smile at his conclusions. And now
-when Mr Grope dilated on the conspirator and the inscription in the
-newly-found cavern, addressing in his drawling tones the small audience
-in the drawing-room after dinner—for he had kept the sensation for the
-benefit of the ladies—no one arose to dispute his explanation. The
-conspirator’s mention of the month of roses was especially attractive
-and convincing.
-
-But it came to pass that Sir H—— T—— was not quite convinced. That
-savant thought it not impossible that the inscription might have
-something to do with the Ridolfi Plot, as the date was 1571; but as to
-the rest he differed from Mr Grope, courteously but decidedly. He did
-not believe in the Latin, and especially in Mr Grope’s Latin. He did
-not believe in the poetic paraphrase of June. He had read a good deal
-of sixteenth-century correspondence, and had never found a conspirator
-or any one else who spoke of June as the month of roses. ‘Nor’ might
-stand for Norfolk, though such was not Sir H—— T——’s opinion. Did Mr
-Grope think that the inscription was either partly or wholly written in
-cipher?
-
-To say that Mr Grope was not disappointed, would not be adhering to
-the truth. He had arranged the matter in his mind, and had foreseen
-a triumphant career for his inscription among the archæologists and
-historians. It seemed impossible that Sir H—— could doubt such
-inevitable conclusions. The whole thing, as Mr Grope made it out,
-had fitted together like a Chinese puzzle. Yes, he almost resolved
-to persevere in his own view. To hold a controversy with Sir H—— T——
-might make him nearly as great a man as Sir H—— himself. But he felt
-in his heart that no one would side with the Turk’s Head and the month
-of roses when Sir H—— was against them. Mr Grope was convinced of the
-truth of his own interpretation; but he would collect another possible
-meaning or two, and while pronouncing in favour of the first, submit
-the others to the learned public. After all, the idea of a cipher
-opened out a pleasing vista of conjecture. Much conjecture there must
-of course be, when conspirators would write in disjointed fragments. In
-the Ridolfi Plot he possessed at least a basis of operations.
-
-It so happened that our antiquarian friend had some acquaintance with
-a gentleman who was now searching the archives at Simancas for facts
-to confirm a favourite theory, and who had on one occasion dined with
-him at Q——; and to him Mr Grope now conceived the happy thought of
-writing, with a request that he would send him a few of the ciphers
-used by Philip II. and his correspondents. In due time he received
-the keys of five or six ciphers, inclosed in a courteous note. The
-historian himself had sympathy with Mr Grope’s efforts in the cause of
-archæological science, and had besides, a lively recollection of Mr
-Grope’s ’47 port.
-
-And now Mr Grope spent a long morning in his study with the ciphers
-before him, labouring to make them fit in with the inscription. If
-cipher really had been used, it seemed probable that English would have
-been used also. On this assumption, therefore, he proceeded; but the
-first few keys which he applied unlocked nothing but sheer nonsense.
-The next especially attracted Mr Grope, inasmuch as the historian told
-him that it had been used by Mary Queen of Scots. He had reserved it
-as his last hope; and on further investigation he found that in this
-cipher, London was termed Norway, and thus written plainly without
-further disguise. With regard to words which were not proper names, the
-fifth and sixth letters from the one intended _were used alternately_.
-When Mr Grope applied this key to the inscription, he came to the
-conclusion that it suited it admirably, with the exception of that
-unfortunate second line, which had puzzled him so much before. He
-really thought, that as those two words ‘Capt T..ck,’ were written in
-larger letters than the others, and conspicuously placed by themselves,
-they might be actually put down as a watchword; Why not, after all,
-‘Caput Turci?’ The rest of the inscription he transposed as follows:
-
-      h..rr yu Lon
-    w . . . s 20 g w
-     1571  p yu wky.
-
-The sequence of letters was not kept up in the second ‘yu,’ the fifth
-being used where the sixth ought to be; but as the word was apparently
-the second person plural, Mr Grope thought it probable that the
-conspirator would not be particular in his counting where so small a
-word was concerned. It is convenient in such matters to allow for a
-little negligence. In its new aspect Mr Grope saw the inscription thus:
-
-        hurry you Londonwards
-    with speed twenty great wagons
-        1571.  pay you weekly.
-
-Mr Grope’s head now absolutely ached with his efforts, and he drew his
-hand down his long gray beard with a feeling of relief as he leaned
-back in his chair. He nevertheless believed that this last labour
-was in a measure thrown away, and that the first solution was the
-right one. Still there was an air of probability about that ‘pay you
-weekly,’ a matter-of-fact air such as he remembered to have observed
-when reading a printed volume of _Domestic State Papers_; and it would
-sound well to have tried five ciphers on the inscription and found
-a possible solution at last. That same day Mr Grope wrote at length
-to the _Minerva_, describing his discovery of the new cavern and the
-inscription, and giving his two explanations. For himself, he said,
-he believed in the Latin version, though he was aware that he had the
-disadvantage of differing from his learned friend Sir H—— T——. In
-deference to that gentleman’s opinion, he had compared the writing with
-many ciphers in use in the sixteenth century, and now submitted the
-result to the attention of the scientific world.
-
-The learned were only too willing to discuss it, and several letters
-on the subject appeared in the next number of the _Minerva_. One
-gentleman approved the deciphered version; others proposed solutions
-of their own, much more absurd than any which Mr Grope had thought of.
-Next week a letter from Sir H—— T—— himself was printed, in which he
-expressed his opinion in favour of Mr Grope’s second explanation. Mr
-Grope and his new cavern had become famous. The intellectual world at
-Q—— itself was greatly impressed with the erudition of his researches.
-Fashion and science ran into each other a good deal at Q——; and there
-were some needlessly pretty toilets among the party of friends whom
-Mr Grope conducted to visit the muddy recesses of his new cavern.
-There was also a geologist, but he rather despised the inscription as
-being too recent, and talked chiefly about eyeless fish. The young
-ladies, knowing little of either the Duke of Norfolk or the eyeless
-fish, explored the gloomy recesses, and filled them with the sounds of
-laughter and fun. Only one young lady observed to her companions: ‘I
-shouldn’t wonder if Mr Grope is wrong after all.’
-
-A few days later the antiquary met at an evening party, the son of
-an old inhabitant of Q——, who had been dead for some years, but whom
-Mr Grope had formerly known. He had known the son too, who was now a
-Fellow of his college. He was a little blunt, bullet-headed man, and
-when presently the subject of the Q—— bone-cave came up, he said what
-he thought without any preface.
-
-‘I fancy, Mr Grope, you’re wrong about that inscription after all. I
-suppose you never heard my father speak of old Truck the smuggler?’
-
-‘No; I did not,’ said Mr Grope, concealing his feelings, which were not
-of the most comfortable description.
-
-‘Old Truck the smuggling captain,’ continued the little man, ‘used that
-cave pretty freely. That was before the geologists had appropriated
-it, and the barrier was put up. I should not wonder if he sometimes
-wrote hints to his friends on the walls.’
-
-‘But I should not imagine that your father knew any one who lived in
-1571,’ said Mr Grope.
-
-‘Ah! but is the 1571 a date at all? That’s the question,’ said the
-Fellow. ‘My father took an interest in that old sinner, and saw
-something of Truck in his last days in the cottage. The sea has
-encroached now and washed most of it away. And Truck left him his
-curiosities—stuffed birds and china, and his old order-books and
-log-books. I’ll look them out. I would lay a wager that he wrote that
-inscription.’
-
-‘It will take very strong evidence to make that believed,’ said Mr
-Grope. Nevertheless he felt uneasy, and heartily wished that the
-Fellow had not happened to take the matter up. Meanwhile the Fellow
-searched for Truck’s relics, which were now in the possession of his
-brother; and the next morning saw him in Mr Grope’s study together with
-an antique volume, not bound in ‘brass and wild boar’s hide,’ but in
-dilapidated leather, with a musty-fusty odour half a century old. With
-a sinking heart, Mr Grope felt, when first he looked at it, that the
-historical grandeur of his inscription was about to fall to the ground.
-
-‘This was Truck’s note-book,’ said the Fellow. ‘Look here, Mr Grope.’
-And there, on the first page, written in a manner which implied that
-the paper had been rather greasy from the first, were the words ‘Capt
-Truck.’
-
-‘And the cave at Q—— is mentioned pretty often among his
-hieroglyphics,’ said the ruthless Fellow, turning over the dirty pages.
-‘“Directions to be left in the Q—— cave.” I expect there are others
-there besides the inscription you found. Look here; don’t you think
-this must be the identical one?’ And he pointed to some lines which
-ran obliquely across a page: ‘Directions left for Scroggs. Follow to
-Normandy. Rum 20, brandy 15, 71 kegs to return.’
-
-Mr Grope stood stricken to the soul, but not a muscle of his face
-moved. He silently compared this newest discovery with the copy he had
-made in his note-book, in the first flush of his hopes.
-
-There was no denying that this was the true solution of the mystery,
-and that the Ridolfi Plot was nowhere. It was singular that neither
-he himself, nor Sir H—— T——, nor the other gentlemen who had written
-on the subject, had thought of the possibility of the man in the cave
-using straightforward English. At least Mr Grope erred in good company;
-but still he felt that he should have to bear most of the ridicule, as
-the originator of the historical theory, and the investigator who had
-attacked the smuggler’s prosaic inscription with five ciphers used by
-queens and princes in the sixteenth century. However, he was determined
-not to shew his chagrin, and even asked the Fellow to dine with him
-that evening.
-
-Mr Grope wrote honourably to the _Minerva_ to explain the true state of
-the case. He acknowledged that further research proved both himself and
-his friend Sir H—— T—— to be mistaken on the subject of the writing in
-the cave at Q——. Then he mentioned Truck and the smugglers, and gave
-the new interpretation, not without a groan as he wrote ‘rum’ where
-formerly he had written ‘_rosarum mensis_.’ He also communicated with
-Sir H—— on the subject, and Sir H—— dryly replied that he wondered
-the writing should look as if it were three hundred years old, when
-it was really only sixty or seventy. No more was said about it in the
-_Minerva_. And as to the Q—— people, of course they politely refrained
-from letting Mr Grope see that they laughed at him, all except a
-bluff old personage who exclaimed: ‘So your conspirator against Queen
-Elizabeth turned out to be an old smuggler after all!’
-
-The wounds of Mr Grope’s vanity began to heal in time. They smarted
-somewhat when the course of winter lectures at the Q—— Athenæum was
-opened, for he had intended to hold forth triumphantly on the bone-cave
-and the historical inscription. And they bled afresh in the following
-spring when the annual fashionable pilgrimage to the cave took place.
-Still the high-priest has not deserted the temple, for Mr Grope is not
-easily put down; and he often repairs to his old subterranean haunts
-and picks up bones and flint implements. But the entrance to the new
-cavern containing the inscription has been mysteriously filled up
-again; and the gnome who is the nominal custodian of the cave whispers
-to a subordinate official of the Q—— Athenæum: ‘’Twas Mr Grope, he
-closed it ’imself, I’ll warrant. You see, he couldn’t abide it, after
-that there mistake of ’is that they laughed at so. Smugglers ’iding
-there; and Mr Grope, he takes the writin’ for summut to do with grand
-folks that lived three ’undred year ago!’
-
-Poor Mr Grope! That was all that came of the inscription in the Q——
-bone-cave.
-
-
-
-
-THE ‘HEARTS OF OAK’ SOCIETY.
-
-
-One of the oldest and perhaps the largest of the Friendly Societies for
-the benefit of the operative classes, is the ‘Hearts of Oak,’ which
-at the present time numbers over eighty thousand members, and has a
-reserve fund of nearly a quarter of a million. Such extraordinarily
-large proportions has this society of late years assumed, and so
-widespread is its influence and usefulness, that we feel sure a short
-account of its origin and working system will not be without interest,
-and maybe profit to the reader.
-
-Thirty-five years ago—in 1842—the ‘Hearts of Oak Benefit Society’ was
-started at the _Bird-in-Hand_ Tavern, Long Acre, London. Of its history
-for the next twenty years little can be said, save that, although its
-progress was not anything remarkable, it worked steadily and honestly
-at the object it had in view, and thus firmly established itself, if
-it did not produce any extraordinary success. In 1863 the number of
-members had reached eight thousand, a circumstance which rendered a
-removal to more commodious premises necessary; and these were purchased
-freehold in Greek Street, Soho. Notwithstanding, however, this
-increase of business the amount transacted was not considered by the
-promoters of the society in satisfactory proportion to the justifiable
-expectations of such an undertaking, the total number of members having
-in 1865 only reached ten thousand, and this was attributed to the
-result of bad administration on the part of the existing management.
-A change was made in consequence; when the present form of government
-was inaugurated, which had at once the beneficial effect of materially
-increasing the society’s business. So perceptible and rapid indeed
-was the progress of the ‘Hearts of Oak’ after this event, that in the
-year 1874 another removal had to be undertaken; and for this purpose,
-noble premises in Charlotte Street, Fitzroy Square, W., were bought and
-adapted at a cost of twenty thousand pounds, and have since served for
-all the business requirements of the society.
-
-Having said so much for the history of the ‘Hearts of Oak,’ let us now
-briefly turn to the main features and working of the system pursued by
-this huge benefit society.
-
-The predominating principle upon which the system acts seems to
-be a complete reliance upon actual merits and on them alone. As a
-consequence, a total absence of all external show and attraction
-will be found in the administration of the society. It clings to the
-term ‘society’ in opposition to ‘club’ with a most jealous tenacity,
-although we confess to seeing very little difference between the
-strictly lexical significance of the two words. Mr Marshall, the
-able secretary to the society, is of a different opinion, however,
-and holds that the associations which are respectively bound up with
-each term differ considerably; a club being generally looked upon as
-a meeting for social purposes, held as a rule at a public-house. ‘It
-involves,’ he goes on to say, ‘the glass, the pipe, the song, and
-other incidents of what is called good-fellowship; and also in many
-cases regalia, processions, dinners, suppers, and other devices for
-wasting money and weaning men from their homes and their families.’
-Whether such ‘incidents’ are the associations attached alone to a club
-or not, it is not necessary here to determine, it being sufficient
-to know that at all events the ‘Hearts of Oak’ does not rely upon
-any of these things—although it is common to think that only by such
-inducements and attractions can the working classes be brought into
-habits and ways of thrift and saving—and in so doing, the society is
-a standing contradiction to all such opinions. It has never had to
-resort to any such extraneous aid. It does not make use of either
-public-houses or lodges; it indulges in no dinners or suppers, no
-regalia or processions, no pipe, glass, or song; it employs no agents,
-canvassers, or collectors; and it spends no money in commission nor yet
-in advertisements, generally so indispensable an aid to institutions
-of all kinds. Notwithstanding all this, the ‘Hearts of Oak’ has of
-late years admitted more new members than the increase shewn by the
-Odd-fellows, who possess lodges and branches in every part of the
-civilised world.
-
-As already stated, the society now numbers more than eighty thousand
-members, and these are formed into divisions of one thousand each; and
-each of these divisions holds a meeting at the society’s house once
-every month for the transaction of business, &c. Every candidate for
-membership must earn not less than twenty-two shillings per week, and
-his age must not be more than thirty-six; while before election he
-has of course to satisfy the committee upon certain points relating
-to himself and (if married) his wife, and has finally to be generally
-approved of by them. There are certain trades and occupations which
-are considered dangerous and injurious by the society, and persons
-belonging thereto are therefore held ineligible for membership. Each
-member has to pay on entrance a fee of two shillings and sixpence if
-under thirty-two years of age; and three shillings and sixpence if over
-that age and under thirty-six, the highest limit for admittance. The
-periodical contributions amount to about nine shillings and sixpence
-each member per quarter; this sum having been found, however, rather
-more than the total average payment for the last six years. The
-separate items consist of two and twopence a month to the society’s
-stock; and at each quarterly meeting an equal proportion of the claims
-met by the society during the preceding quarter on account of the
-various benefits (not including sickness) it has during that period
-conferred. In fact, each quarter every member is required to clear
-the books of all demands. After having belonged to the society for
-twelve calendar months, a member who up to that time has paid all his
-contributions, can by the payment of an additional fee of two shillings
-and sixpence, become what is termed a _free member_, such members
-having the right to participate in all the benefits which the society
-affords.
-
-The benefits offered by the ‘Hearts of Oak’ are: (1) Sick-pay at the
-rate of eighteen shillings a week to _free members_ for twenty-six
-weeks; and should the illness continue beyond that period, half that
-amount for a further twenty-six weeks; after which the sick member
-becomes entitled to relief from further contributions, and to a pension
-payable at a rate in accordance with the length of his membership.
-_Non-free_ members participate in this benefit, but of course on a
-smaller scale, which, however, is very liberal. (2) Funeral benefits;
-being the allowance of a sum of ten pounds on the death of a _free
-member’s_ wife, and double that amount to the survivors of a free
-member upon his death. Certain proportionate rates are granted on the
-death of a _non-free_ member, half such rates being allowed in the
-event of such a member’s wife dying. (3) Lying-in benefit; which is
-the grant of a sum of thirty shillings on the confinement of a _free
-member’s_ wife; the marriage and birth certificates, duly signed,
-requiring of course to be produced on such occasions. And (4) Loss
-by fire; being a compensation allowance of not more than fifteen
-pounds in the case of any _free member’s_ tools or implements of trade
-getting destroyed or damaged by fire. There are besides these some
-miscellaneous benefits to which _free members_ are entitled, such as
-allowances for imprisonment for debt contracted under circumstances
-that are in a sense justifiable, or allowances to help towards
-defraying the cost of a substitute to _free members_ who are drawn and
-liable to serve in the militia.
-
-These benefits seem to anticipate the chief emergencies that may happen
-in the course of one’s life, as well as providing for the expenses
-always attendant upon death; and the allowances made in respect of them
-are, it must be admitted, very liberal, and are doubtless the means of
-causing so many poor persons to save in this simple manner against the
-occurrence of such untoward incidents.
-
-The success of the ‘Hearts of Oak’ is largely due, however, to other
-causes. Principally, we think, it may be attributed to the great
-economy in its management; as, for instance, it saves a large sum by
-the fact of its not being what is commonly known as a ‘collecting
-society.’ On the contrary, the members bring or send their money quite
-of their own accord; the consequence being that, while the managerial
-expenses of some collecting societies vary from 25 to 70 per cent. on
-the annual income, the expenses of the ‘Hearts of Oak’ amount only to
-3¾ or 4 per cent.
-
-Another favourable point in the system pursued by this society is, that
-all members pay alike. Technically of course this must be considered
-unscientific, but in the aggregate the system is found to pay; just as
-the same charge for a telegram whether it be to Aberdeen or to the next
-street is also unscientific, but practically answers well. The great
-argument in favour of the system seems to be the fact that it promotes
-business—and what more is wanted? Our large insurance companies
-report about one thousand policies as good work for one year; whereas
-the ‘Hearts of Oak’ on its system reports over sixteen thousand new
-members during the same period. On some such system as this it were not
-impossible, we think, for the whole life-insurance business of the city
-of London to be done by one well-conducted office; in which case the
-insured would certainly derive one great benefit—namely, that of having
-to pay very much less, perhaps only one-half of the usual premium.
-
-Another counterpoise to the disadvantage of charging all members alike
-is, that a lying-in benefit of thirty shillings—as already shewn—is
-allowed. To young men this has a great attraction; and the result is
-that the average age of joining the society is only twenty-seven.
-So rapid indeed has been the growth of the ‘Hearts of Oak,’ that an
-average age of the whole society, which ten years ago was nearly
-thirty-four years, is now only about thirty-three years.
-
-One other circumstance which we fancy may have something to do with
-the success of the society is worth mentioning—it is the business-like
-manner in which the system adopted is carried out. Perfect discipline
-among the members is maintained, and a strict adherence to the rules
-that have been made enforced. Every infraction of a rule is promptly
-visited by the imposition of a fine on the offending member; and
-so stringent is the society in this respect, that the amount which
-annually accrues under this head is very large. In the accounts of the
-‘Hearts of Oak’ for 1876 we notice that this item reaches the large
-sum of L.6949, 13s. 6d.; which not only served to defray the year’s
-expenses of the society (namely, L.5819, 9s. 7d.), but left a balance
-of L.1130, 3s. 11d. It can hardly be considered as exactly any merit
-of the society that it is thus able to pay its expenses; yet there
-stands the fact, whatever we may think of it. It is only fair, however,
-to state that the greater part of this large amount arises from a
-fine of ninepence imposed upon members who fail to clear the books
-by their quarterly night. This is levied more as a sort of interest
-for a month’s longer use of the money; and it is a striking instance
-of innate want of thrift on the part of the working classes, that so
-many are willing to pay ninepence for the use of ten shillings for
-the month, rather than arrange to be prompt in their payments. The
-revenue derived from this fine alone is about four thousand pounds a
-year. It is a curious fact too, that of the total number of members
-on the books at any one time, it is always found that just one-third
-will not pay at the quarter, and have therefore to be fined. In thus
-deferring their payments, these members are the means of allowing both
-the monthly and quarterly payments being reserved entirely for the
-purposes of the benefits already enumerated, and for profit; under
-which head the surplus now amounts to forty thousand pounds per annum;
-in point of fact, the cost of management has always been paid for by
-these miscellaneous receipts. This substantial advantage is probably
-caused unwittingly on the members’ part, but it is not the less felt or
-beneficial for all that.
-
-Having briefly pointed out the main features and benefits of the
-‘Hearts of Oak,’ it only remains for us to add one word as to the
-great usefulness of such societies. Notwithstanding the great success
-of the Post-office savings-banks and such other banks as are intended
-for the deposit of small sums, it is our belief that they are not so
-conducive to permanent saving and thrift among the poorer classes as
-may be supposed. The number of deposits in the postal banks in any
-one year is no doubt very great; but on the other hand, the number
-of withdrawals is also great; and from this fact we infer that the
-larger part of the sums placed there is more for the sake of temporary
-safety than with any view of permanent saving. Hence then the great
-usefulness of societies which yield ultimate benefits for present
-contributions. As already pointed out, the difficulty of persuading
-the poorer classes to save in this manner is by no means great; and
-once, therefore, a working man has become a member of such a society,
-he knows he must pay regularly; which when he becomes accustomed to it,
-he only feels as a natural duty, like the house-rent he has to pay,
-or any other such tax. A further advantage of societies too is, that
-his contributions cannot be regained, except indeed at a considerable
-loss; but in the savings-banks it is always at his own discretion to
-draw out his deposits; a discretion often not very wisely used. In
-this comparison, however, it is by no means our wish to suggest the
-slightest disparagement of savings-banks, which in their way are most
-useful to all who are really anxious to lay by. We have only desired to
-shew more forcibly the benefits of societies like the ‘Hearts of Oak,’
-that thereby those whom it may concern may be induced—if they have not
-already done so—to become members.
-
-
-
-
-THE DALESFOLK.
-
-
-Before the spinning-jenny and the steam-engine revolutionised our
-manner of living, there existed among the hills and dales of the Lake
-countries a little community which had its own peculiar manners, laws,
-and customs, and which was something unique in its way, for it seemed
-to be a kind of republic existing in the midst of a great empire. The
-people were what are now called peasant proprietors, but in Cumberland
-and Westmoreland they have always been named ‘statesmen.’ A few of
-these ancient land-owners still exist, and their tenure of the land
-which they possess is not feudal but allodial, in so far as that they
-acquired their estates at a very remote period, either by establishing
-themselves on unoccupied lands like the ‘settlers’ in Australia or
-America, or by conquering previous possessors. Several of these
-statesmen possess estates which have descended uninterruptedly in
-their families since the time of Richard II., and always as ‘customary
-freeholds;’ while one family, the Holmes of Mardale, have inherited
-their land in unbroken succession since the year 1060, when a certain
-John Holme came from Norway and settled in the district.
-
-When James II. came to the throne he set up a claim to all those small
-estates, on the plea that the statesmen were merely tenants of the
-crown. But his claim was met by the sturdy Dalesfolk in a manner which
-he little expected. They met to the number of two thousand, at a place
-called Ratten Heath, and publicly declared that ‘they had won their
-lands by the sword, and by the sword they would keep them.’
-
-Owing to the smallness of the estates, there was not sufficient
-employment in farm-work at all times for a statesman and his family,
-and carding, spinning, and weaving formed the employment for the winter
-months. The men carded, and the women spun the wool yielded by the
-previous clipping. Nearly every household had its weaving-shop, where
-one or two looms were kept, and many of the men were able to weave the
-cloth which served for their own wear and that of their families. The
-linsey-woolsey dresses worn by the women were homespun, and they also
-manufactured linen for domestic purposes.
-
-The process of preparing the cloth was a curious one, and deserves
-mention. After a web of woollen cloth was turned out of the loom, it
-was taken to the ‘beck’ or stream and soaked in the water; then it was
-placed on a flat stone called the ‘battling-stone’ and well pounded
-with a wooden mallet. This primitive operation served instead of the
-elaborate processes through which woollen cloth now passes at the
-fuller’s mill.
-
-The costume of the Dalesmen was rather picturesque, being composed of
-homespun fleeces of white or black, with occasionally a mixture of the
-two colours to save the expense of dyeing. This homely material, which
-is still made in some parts of Scotland and Ireland, has lately become
-fashionable, and is pronounced to be superior for country wear to the
-most finished products of our steam-looms. The coats were ornamented
-with brass buttons, as were also the waistcoats, which were made open
-in front to shew a frilled shirt-breast. Knee-breeches were the fashion
-for centuries, and these were worn without braces, which are quite
-a modern invention. Those used on Sundays or holidays had a knot of
-ribbon and four or five bright buttons at the knee, and those who could
-afford it had them made of buckskin. Their stockings, which were of
-course a conspicuous part of their dress, were also made from their own
-wool, the colour being either blue or gray. Clogs were their ordinary
-‘shoon,’ but when dressed in holiday costume they had low shoes
-fastened with buckles, which were often of silver.
-
-At the present day this picturesque costume is nearly obsolete, but
-some of the old Dalesmen still adhere to the fashion of their youth.
-About five or six years ago a few of them happened to meet at Grasmere
-Fair and stood chatting together for some time without noticing what
-many other persons were remarking, namely, that all of them were
-dressed in the old costume. When they did notice it they all agreed
-that it was a somewhat singular coincidence, and a proper occasion
-for a friendly glass in honour of ‘auld lang syne.’ They were the
-connecting link between the old times and the new, and would probably
-be the last of the Dalesfolk to wear the costume of the bygone age.
-
-The dress of the Daleswomen was not less primitive than that of the
-men. They wore homespun linsey-woolsey petticoats and gowns, a blue
-linen apron completing their attire. The statesman’s daughter who first
-communicated to her native place a knowledge of the glories of printed
-calico is said to have created a great sensation, and was more than
-a nine days’ wonder. The clogs worn by the women were pointed at the
-toes and were clasped with brass instead of iron. Their bonnets were
-made of pasteboard covered with black silk, and in shape resembled a
-coal-scuttle, with the front projecting about a foot beyond the face of
-the wearer.
-
-The houses of the Dalesfolk were not of the most comfortable kind, and
-were similar to those which exist at the present day in many of the
-southern counties of England. Badly constructed with rough-hewn stones,
-and joined with clay instead of mortar, they did not always shelter
-the inmates from the ‘cauld blast;’ while it was no uncommon thing for
-the roofs to be in such a state that when a snow-storm took place in
-the night, people in bed would often find several inches of snow on
-their bed-clothes the next morning. The wood used in the construction
-of the houses was oak; doors, floors, and window-frames being all
-of that sturdy material. The beams were made of whole trees roughly
-squared, while the smaller rafters and joists were split. Most of these
-old buildings had a porch before the outer door, the latter being of
-massive oak, two planks thick, and fastened together with wooden pegs
-(for the carpenters in those days used very few nails), which were put
-in parallel rows about three or four inches apart and left projecting
-about three-quarters of an inch on the outside. About six hundred
-of these pegs were used in its construction, and the making of them
-occupied as much time as it would take to make a dozen doors in our
-busier times. A degree of sanctity was, however, attached to a door by
-these simple folk, and certain charms to be used only at the threshold
-are remembered even now in the Dales.
-
-In dwellings of the usual size there were not more than three rooms
-on the ground floor, namely the living-apartment, the dairy, and the
-parlour, the last being generally used as the bedroom of the master and
-mistress. In some cases there was an out-kitchen, but not in all.
-
-Long after the use of coal and fire-grates became general throughout
-England these people still continued to burn peat and wood upon the
-open hearth, and it was not until half the present century had elapsed
-that, railway communication making coal cheaper, and the increased
-value of labour making peat dearer, coal finally triumphed and open
-fire-places gave place to grates. The old chimneys had no flues, and
-were very wide at the bottom, gradually contracting towards the top,
-and in these chimneys hams, legs of beef, flitches of bacon, and whole
-carcases of mutton were hung up to dry for winter consumption.
-
-The food of the Dalesmen was confined almost wholly to the simple
-products of their own farms. They consumed a large portion of
-animal food, and as sheep and cattle were in the best condition for
-slaughtering in autumn, it was then that the Dalesfolk stocked their
-wide chimneys with a supply of meat for the winter and spring. Tea,
-coffee, and wheaten bread were very little known in the Dales; oatcake
-(Anglicè), or ‘haver-bread’ as it was termed, being used. The people
-brewed their own beer and drank it at nearly every meal. Such, with
-milk, butter, and cheese, was the food of these honest folk, and they
-seemed to have thriven well on it. When tea, coffee, and sugar came
-into general use, an old Dalesman remarked that he wondered ‘what t’
-warl’ wod cum tew after a bit when fowk nooadays couldn’t git their
-breakfast without hevvin stuff fra baith East and West Indies.’
-
-Until the middle of last century the roads of the two counties were in
-a wretched state; and instead of wheeled carriages, pack-horses and in
-some cases sledges were used for conveying things from one place to
-another. There is an old man now living in Grasmere whose grandmother
-could remember the present church bells being brought thither by
-sledges along the old road over the top of White Moss, then the main
-road between Ambleside and Grasmere. A man and his wife often rode to
-market together on the same horse, the woman sitting behind on what
-was called a pillion. But the Dalesfolk were not very particular as to
-their turn-out, for a piece of turf dried and cut into the proper shape
-often served them as a saddle. Other saddles were pads of straw; and
-on market-days, after business was over, such of the farmers as were
-convivially disposed stayed on at the public-house or inn, holding a
-‘crack’ and drinking till a late hour; and while a spree of this kind
-was going on, it often happened that the poor hungry horses would break
-loose and eat up all the straw pads, thus leaving their owners to ride
-home bareback!
-
-The Dalesfolk were rather superstitious; and there is an old story in
-the local records about the way in which the first lime was introduced
-to the district. It was carried on the back of a horse, and as they
-neared Borrowdale a thunder-storm came on, and the lime in the sack
-began to smoke. Thinking the sack was on fire, the man in charge went
-and filled his hat with water from a ditch, and threw it into the sack.
-As this made things worse, he grew terribly alarmed, and thinking the
-Evil One had something to do with it, he pitched the lime into the
-ditch, and leaping on to the horse, galloped home as fast as he could
-go.
-
-Ploughing was attended with hard labour to those employed, and it
-required at least three men and three horses to work one plough. The
-horses were yoked one before another, and it was as much as one man
-could do to drive them. A second man held the plough-beam down, to
-prevent the plough from slipping out of the earth; while it was the
-work of a third to guide the whole concern, this part of the business
-requiring the most skill. Sometimes a fourth man was employed with
-pick and spade to turn up the places missed by the plough. Very little
-skill or labour was expended in the making of the implement, and it was
-nothing unusual for a tree growing in the morning to be cut down during
-the day, and made into a plough, with which a good stroke of work was
-done before night.
-
-These good people worked much harder than their descendants of the
-present day. Their hours of labour were much longer, and much of
-what they did by hand is now done by machinery. Though ignorant and
-unrefined, they were honest and hospitable, and possessed a great deal
-of sound shrewd common-sense. In those days many of them followed
-several handicrafts, for the division of labour was not such as it is
-now; and a remarkable instance of this diversified ability is to be
-found in the life of the man who was the parish priest of Wordsworth’s
-poem, _The Excursion_. This worthy man—whose history we have slightly
-alluded to in an article in this _Journal_ on the Lake Country—was the
-son of a poor statesman, and was the youngest of twelve. At the age of
-seventeen he became a village schoolmaster, and a little later both
-minister and schoolmaster. Before and after school-hours he laboured
-at manual occupation, rising between three and four in the summer,
-and working in the fields with the scythe or sickle. He ploughed, he
-planted, tended sheep, or clipped and salved, all for hire; wrote his
-own sermons, and did his duty at chapel twice on Sundays. In all these
-labours he excelled. In winter-time he occupied himself in reading,
-writing his own sermons, spinning, and making his own clothes and those
-of his family, knitting and mending his own stockings, and making his
-own shoes, the leather of which was of his own tanning. In his walks he
-never neglected to gather and bring home the wool from the hedges. He
-was also the physician and lawyer of his parishioners; drew up their
-wills, conveyances, bonds, &c., wrote all their letters, and settled
-their accounts, and often went to market with sheep or wool for the
-farmers.
-
-He married a respectable maid-servant, who brought him forty pounds;
-and shortly afterwards he became curate of Seathwaite, where he
-lived and officiated for sixty-seven years. We are told that when
-his family wanted cloth, he often took the spinning-wheel into the
-school-room, where he also kept a cradle—of course of his own making.
-Not unfrequently the wheel, the cradle, and the scholars all claiming
-his attention at the same moment, taxed the ingenuity of this wonderful
-man to keep them all going. To all these attainments Mr Walker—or
-‘Wonderful Walker,’ as he was called—also added a knowledge of fossils
-and plants, and a ‘habit’ of observing the stars and winds. In summer
-he also collected various insects, and by his entertaining descriptions
-of them amused and instructed his children. After a long and extremely
-useful, nay we might say heroic life, which extended over nearly
-the whole of the last century (he having been born in 1709), this
-remarkable Dalesman died on the 25th of June 1802, in the ninety-third
-year of his age. In the course of his life he had, besides bringing up
-and settling in life a family of twelve children, amassed the sum of
-two thousand pounds, the result of marvellous industry and self-denial.
-
-The chapel where this celebrated man entered upon his sacred duties was
-the smallest in the Dales, the poet Wordsworth, Mr Walker’s biographer,
-describing it as scarcely larger than many of the fragments of rock
-lying near it. Most of these small chapelries were presided over by
-‘readers,’ men who generally exercised the trades of clogger, tailor,
-and butter-print maker, in order to eke out their small stipend. The
-livings were not worth more than two or three pounds a year, and the
-ministers were dependent upon the voluntary contributions of their
-parishioners. Their stipends, beside the small money-payment mentioned
-above, comprised ‘clothes yearly and whittlegate.’ The former meant
-one suit of clothes, two pairs of shoes, and one pair of clogs; and
-the latter, two or three weeks’ victuals at each house according to
-the ability of the inhabitants, which was settled among themselves; so
-that the minister could ‘go his course’ as regularly as the sun, and
-complete it annually. Few houses having more than one or two knives,
-he was obliged to carry his own knife or ‘whittle.’ He marched from
-house to house, and as master of the flock, had the elbow-chair at the
-table-head. Some remarkable scenes were often the result of this droll
-arrangement, and many good stories are current with reference to it.
-A story is told in Whythburn of a minister who had but two sermons,
-which he preached in turn. The walls of the chapel were at that time
-unplastered, and the sermons were usually placed in a hole in the
-wall behind the pulpit. On Sunday, before the service began, some wag
-pushed the sermons so far into the hole that they could not be got out
-with the hand. When the time for the sermon had arrived, the minister
-tried in vain to get them out. He then turned to the congregation and
-said that he could touch them with his forefinger, but couldn’t get
-his thumb in to grasp them. ‘But however,’ said he, ‘I will read you a
-chapter of Job instead, and that’s worth both of them put together!’
-
-There was a curious custom at one time in the Dales of holding market
-at the church. Meat and all kinds of things were displayed at the
-church doors, and it often happened that people would make their
-bargains first and hang their goods over the backs of their seats.
-Though such practices have long been discontinued, there are still
-people living who have heard the clerk give out in the churchyard
-the advertisements of the several sales which were to be held in the
-neighbourhood. One good custom there was, however, which might be often
-practised now with advantage in small towns and villages, namely, that
-of the churchwardens going round the village during divine service and
-driving all the loungers into church.
-
-The Dalesfolk had their sports too, the chief of which was the one
-for which Cumberland and Westmoreland have ever been famous, namely
-wrestling. They were also keen hunters; and until quite a recent period
-a few couples of hounds were kept in every dale, and when the presence
-of a fox was betrayed by a missing lamb or a decimated hen-roost, all
-the dogs and nearly all the men in the parish entered in pursuit of the
-depredator, and were seldom balked by their victim.
-
-Some songs that were in vogue in the Dales a hundred years ago are
-still sung, chiefly at fairs by itinerant ballad-mongers. Some of the
-tunes are very antique, as for instance, _St Dunstan’s Hunt’s Up_,
-mentioned by Sir Walter Scott as lost and forgotten, but which is still
-played on the fiddle every Christmas-eve. The festivals held from time
-to time in the Dales were such as were very common in all parts of
-‘Merrie England’ when our forefathers worked hard, and money was much
-scarcer than it is now. That they worked harder on the whole is a thing
-which admits of two opinions; but one thing is certain, namely, that
-their work was of a steady, careful, easy-going kind, whilst now it
-is all bustle and drive, in the endeavour to cram into a few fleeting
-hours as much as they could do in a whole week. Such as we find the
-world, however, we must put up with it, content, like them, to keep
-pegging away, and meeting the storms and buffetings of life with the
-same courageous spirit which enabled them to add their mite towards the
-honour, glory, and welfare of our common country.
-
-
-
-
-A SPRING MORNING.
-
-
-    When sparrows in the brightening sun
-    Chirped blithe of summer half-begun
-    And sure to prosper—over-bold
-    With rifled stores of crocus gold—
-    When lilacs fresh with morning rain
-    Tapped laughing at my window pane,
-    And soft with coming warmth and good
-    Mild breezes shook the leafy wood:
-
-    Then, ere the first delight was spent,
-    Adown the sunny slope I went,
-    Until the narrowing path across,
-    Soft shadows flickered on the moss
-    Of beechen buds that burst their sheath,
-    And twining tendrils, while beneath,
-    Where twisted roots made hollows meet,
-    Grew budding primrose at my feet.
-
-    There all the riddles of a life
-    Which vexes me with aimless strife;
-    The broken thoughts, that not with pain
-    Nor patience ere will meet again,
-    Were laid aside, nay, seemed to drop
-    As, when loud jarring voices stop,
-    The waves of silence rise, and spread,
-    And meet in circles overhead.
-
-    How life might grow I seemed to guess;
-    Life knowing no uneasy stress
-    Of partial increase; strong in growth,
-    Yet ever perfect, dawning truth
-    Which swayed each hour that took its flight
-    An added empiry of light,
-    That neither cloud nor mist might stay,
-    Slow brightening to the perfect day.
-
-    Though autumn hours will come again,
-    And leafless branches drip with rain
-    On sodden moss, yet having seen,
-    I keep my faith: each spring-tide green—
-    When drooping life puts off its gloom,
-    And burned roots bear scented bloom—
-    With tender prophecy makes sure
-    My heart to labour and endure.
-
-       *       *       *       *       *
-
-Printed and Published by W. & R. CHAMBERS, 47 Paternoster Row, LONDON,
-and 339 High Street, EDINBURGH.
-
-       *       *       *       *       *
-
-_All Rights Reserved._
-
-
-
-
-
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