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"THE STORT OF OUR LIVES FROM TEAR TO TEAR."—SHAKESPEAEE. ALL THE YEAR EOUND. A WEEKLY JOURNAL. CONDUCTED BY CHARLES DICKENS. WITH WHICH IS INCORPOEATED HOUSEHOLD WORDS.

N°' 247.] SATURDAY, JANUARY 16. 1864. [PRICE 2d. A WHITE HAND AND A BLACK longer recognisable in tbe daUy recurring records of London crime. And thus matters stood on THUMB. the morning on which we re-visit the house of IN THIRTEEN CHAPTERS. the Three Elms. " Do you prefer sitting in the window. Aunt CHAPTER, V. Serocold ?" asked Polly-my-Lamb. " WUl ycu PASSING over a few days, we find our PoUy not be more comfortable here?" arranging a my-Lamb no longer a soUtary little raaiden, tempting cushioned chair near the fire. but nnder the affectionate and rather piercmg " My dear, who are your opposite neighbours, eye of Aunty Serocold—no relation in the world, do you know ?" was the rejoinder. but what, I am sorry to say, is often infinitely " AMrs. Ascroft, I beUeve, ma'am," said the better—an old friend, and also a schoolfeUow of young lady, quietly. good Mrs. Humpage, deceased. " That's one of them, dear. Who else ?" This lady who, though the suns of five-and- " Oh! Captam Broxley." forty summers bad ripened her fair cheek, was " The big man, that always quan-els with lus vet unchosen as a bride, had passed the later chairmen. Yes. WeU ?" years of her life abroad. The death of her " I beg your pardon ?" mother, in HoUand, had occasioned her return to "Who else, dear? Go on," said Mistress her own land; and, at the request ofthe orphaned Serocold, her eyes fixed upon the house. heiress, she had taken up her temporary abode "Ah! yes-aMrs. " in Jermyn-street, and there did her utmost to " Stuff, PoUy ! Once for all, who is that pretty cheer and corafort the lonely Uttle girl. young gentleraan, always making believe to draw, [In the lowest possible tone, let us whisper to in the middle window, but always looking— the reader that Aunty Serocold, who was by looking " nature of a Uvely and social tum, found it sorae- "At2/o«, aunt?" jj» -i A + times a Uttle, even not a Uttle, duU. No power "WeU, it's certamly very odd," said Aunt or persuasion on earth, however, could have Serocold, with a becoming erabarrassraent. " It prevailed with her to say so. The pair saw no unquestionably is odd. 1 wisli he wouldn't, you company, and, now, even Sir Jaraes PolhUl, know Ah ! there he is! It was, I thmk, on the deeply mortified at the failure of his redoubted second dav after ray arrival, that I happened to Ueutenant, had discontinued his visits.] be standing at the window, when a young person In the raean tirae, it had been ascertained -a reraarkably handsome young man-suddenly that the band of Black-Thumbs, far from break­ appeared in the window of the opposite house. ing up, were more active and united than ever. Our eves met. His fell-he withdrew. A few That exceUent brotherhood celebrated then- minutes later, I chanced again to approach the leader's recent successful exploit by stopping window-again he ^^s before me-again his the carriage of the Lord Mayor hunself, as that eves feU, and, wUh an air of diffidence, shaU I dignitary, attended by three footmen and a call it P—once more he precipitately retired. couple of armed retainers, was retuming from These little encounters have been of frequent a performance at Sadler's Wells. Not a groat occurrence, ray dear. If he sees but the flutter did they leave on the persons of any one of the of my dress, in a second he is at his post, but party; biif the greatest audacity was perpetrated ouly to desert it again, with an expression of by Lord "Lob himself, who took off the enraged mingled deference and (vamty would whisper) magistrate's wig and chain of oflice, and rode Sration, which, I must confess, have not been off, decorated with both! This unheard-of wholly without their effect on my mmd. I atrocity provoked the Common CouncU to such thou<^ht at first it might be ^o« / "Dear me, aunt! why should you imagine a degree as to induce the offer of an immense nr,f?" asked PoUv the innocent. reward; and it seemed that Lord Lob, the fear­ ''^ n'U tell you why I knew it wa. not," retumed less, deemed it no unwise proceeding to reUeve the elder spinster. " You happened to come to the metropoUs for a few months of his presence. Ihe window once, during one of these smgular At aU events, his daring and skUful hand was no

247 ^ VOL. 482 [January 16,18C4.] ALL THE YEAR ROUND. [Conducted by interviews. In a second the young man's face To her extreme confusion, an answer was changed ui its whole expression. He coloured returned, with lightning speed, to the effect scarlet, and stole away as though caught in some that the young gentleman would himself fulfil fact, to the tender gravity of which his heart the grateful duty of leaving a few of his best bore testimony." drawings. " But, really, aunty," returned PoUy, blushing a My aunt precipitately glided from the room, little, " I think we may find a more agreeable sub­ ;nor was Miss Serocold visible to mortal eyes, ject to discuss than Master Arthur Haggerdorn." save those of her maid Hester, until near the "Arthur Haggerdorn! So, that's his name! hour of evening refection, when she rustled into Why didn't you say so before ?" the apartment ui a gown of silver-grey, which " Did I not, aunt ? I—suppose I—forgot— had not seen the Ught siuce the grand entertain­ or — didn't remem ^Yes —0 yes — Master ment given at the Hague on the marriage of the Arthur Haggerdorn." Aud thereupon the young Stadtholder's nephew, and now, redolent of lady recounted to her companion the history as lavender, came forth to do honour to the arts— detailed by Mrs. Ascroft, not omitting the inte­ as represented by Master Haggerdorn. rest with which he had inspired his kiud landlady. "Of coui'se we wiU ask him to tea, aunt," said Miss Serocold was sensibly touched, and with Polly, reassured by remerabering Mrs. Ascroft's difficulty refrained from tears. allusions to his juvenUity. "He shaU have "The poor orphan!" she exclaimed. "And, tamarisks and Barbary pranes, and you shaU teU doubtless, now he is striving to do something for him a story." his daily bread. I shall never forgive myself for' So, in due course, that is, at six. o'clock, the having, though involuntarUy, embarrassed these expected guest appeared, proving to be a re­ noble efforts. He must have wasted an iraraen- markably fine infant of nineteen, who, with sity of time at that window. We owe him sorae gaUoping pulse and bewUdered brain, presented reparation, dear. Could we not, now," added bimself, portfolio in hand, and paid his compU­ Aunt Serocold, with raaidenlyhesitation , " send ments to the two ladies. hmi—a little " Miss Serocold dexterously flung her handker­ " Mouey, dear aunt ? He does not want it." chief over the Barbary prunes, and both ladies " Nor would I so far insult his noble nature welcomed their guest not the less graciously as to offer it," said Miss Serocold, warmly. " He because the traces of severe iUness were stiU would wave it from him with disdain! No—send visible on his fair open face. The lad's singular him a Uttle note, you know. Invite hira to tea." beauty, even more striking on a doser inspec­ "My dear aunt! Tea? Are you in your tion, almost awed Aunt Serocdd into sUeuce: senses ?" while PoUy-my-Lamb, who, on seeing the stature " I flatter rayself I ara as collected as yourself, of ber guest, had resolved to be marble, found chUd," retumed Miss Serocold, in a high state of herself transmuted, by force of the laws of hos­ perturbation; "noris there anything so very ex­ pitality, into common clay. traordinary in my proposal. At the Hague, people Agitated as he certaiiUy was, young Hagger- used to come in to tea without being asked at aU. dorn's manner possessed aU the seeming ease I am sure he di-aws beautifully. My dear mother and actual grace of perfect breeding. But the was devoted to the art, and I feel I am but paymg perpetual change of colour, the eager, anxious fitting reverence to her memory ia encoiu'aging expression of the luminous eye, the tremor of its professors to the best of my power." his voice, bore abundant witness to the tempest "But not necessarily by inviting them to tea, of feeling that raged within. PoUy-my-Larab dear." felt, with considerable alarm, that she was be­ "Humph! But it's no matter. Indeed, 1 coramg sUghtly infected, and was conscious of a must beg your pardon for forgetting that I am hearty desire to run away, put her head into myself but a guest." some dark corner, and, bemg thus, like the " You are my dearest, almost my only friend." ostrich, secure from aU peril, weep for a quarter And Polly-my-Lamb kissed and soothed her in a of an hour. But this being, for the present, manner few could resist; but my aunt was hai-d incompatible with her duties as hostess, the to pacify, and contmued to bemoan tbe youth's young lady steeled herself aa much as might be hard fortune, expressing at the same time such a against the sUent fascmations of her visitor, by longing desire to inspect those wondrous speci­ trying to feel both wounded and offended by his mens of art on which he was so unceasingly presence there at aU—the plea of infancy, so employed, tbat PoUy-my-Lamb, wearied out, craftily urged by his landlady, being completely yielded reluctant consent that a verbal message overruled. Why, the impertinent young man should be despatched to Mrs, Ascroft, intimating had absolutely a brown and curling moustache, a wish to examine more closely any of those so sUken-soft, it is true, as to have passed (across productions of the young artist, whose progress the way) for one of those darker shadows which had been unavoidably witnessed over the way. tedious sickness casts on many a fair face. There The young lady reconciling her conscience to this was no help, however. Beard, or no beard, the forward step, by regarding the message as con­ boy—that is, the youth—that is, the man—could fined to Mrs. Ascroft, and instructUig the bearer not-be turned out tiU after tea. accordingly. Now it was that the drawings, which proved Charles Dickens.] ALL THE YEAR ROUND. [January 16, 1864] 483 to be very indifferently-executed studies of highly- Zat IS, my personen, my humans, I cannot uninteresting ruralities, proved an inestimable draw a man, far less," he was goiug to raise his reUef. Never, surely, were the early straggles eyes to the younger lady, but changed his of juvenile artist against the difficulties of per­ purpose, and siraply bowed to the elder. " But, spective and the inexorable laws of gravitation, ah! An evening red! Here is my best." received with such cheering encourageraent. A donkey, upon three swollen legs (fourth invisible), And he produced a smudgy landscape, generaUy mouse-coloured, but representing the god of day who had parted with his shadow in exchange for half suffocated in a mass of red hot vapour, the substance of a thistle as big as his own head, strikmg out frantic rays, like feelers, in every provoked a world of enthusiastic comment. A direction, and wearing altogether the appearance ruined feudal residence, whose toppling towers, of a gigantic crab, bemg grilled on a dullish fire. rising far above a seemingly irapenetrable wood, looked lUje tipsy Titans fighting in a green bog, My aunt fanned herself mvoluntarily. The picture was warm enough, but it was nothmg to restored comparative composure to the erabar­ the gaze of the painter, which dwelt searchmgly rassed group. And, finaUy, a sea view with a upon her. huge black specimen of naval architecture, " I wish he'd look at PoUy a little!" thought perched on the very apex of a mighty wave ray aunt. " So awkward, really!" erected expressly for the purpose, placed every­ To whatever unseen power the araiable lady body completely at ease. appealed, her reraonstrance seemed not in- But, as PoUy-my-Larab regained her accus­ effectual. Miss Humpage requestmg him to tomed calmness, she became ouly more and more draw near her tea-table, Arthur Haggerdom deeply impressed with the singular character of perforce looked towards his inviter. In a second the countenance before her. Again and again his transparent face was dyed in blushes, from did she tum her eyes, almost angrily, aside. As brow to chin. With such extrerae sensibiUty often did they infallibly wander back, untU every the inexperienced PoUy was sorely troubled to Uneament of that face of surpassing beauty was deal. She hardly dared address to him the most rooted in her heart and memory as though en­ ordinary expressions of courtesy, and fortunate graven iu steel. it was for her that Miss Serocold began at this But the voice—the voice ! Prom what choice moment to exhibit manifest tokens of returning cabinet in Nature's laboratory where that skUled life, and presently was able to converse with a craftswoman conceals her rarer gifts, came forth coUectedness PoUy-my-Lamb might envy. What the sounds which, low and tristful as they were, was stUl more satisfactory, the latter obseiTcd dropped upon the ear Uke a raurraur rather that, in proportion as Mr. Haggerdom's attention dreamed than heard ? PoUy-my-Larab felt her was diverted frora her friend, so did that lady's pulse vibrate Uke au accordant harpstring, and, disposition to regain it steadUy augment. longing to be angry at the Uberty thus taken with But now it was that gentleraan's turn to be her nervous system, sighed unwittingly when the distraught and unintelUgible. His repUes were music ceased, and thought her own voice sounded raade at random, wide of the purpose. He raven-like as she strove to answer. contradicted ray aunt in tlie flattest, though As for my Aunt Serocold, had the guest pre­ sweetest, raanner. He laughed at wrong times. served anything Uke reasonable self-possession, He spiUed some cream on the sacred lavender, her demeanour must have astonished him not a and saw it not. All his faculties were graduaUy little. Had those golden curls and translucent centring in one pomt;—tlie consciousness of eyes been exchanged for the hissing snakes and being absolutely in the iramediate presence of stony gleam of a Medusa, they could scarcely the little idol whose sweet face had, he fondly have more effectuaUy subdued her. Por ten beUeved, had power to draw back lus fleeting miimtes after his first appearance, she had sat spirit frora the very portals of the grave. He almost Uke a grey petrefaction, received with knew perfectly weU that he was losmg self- duU bewUdered apathy the youth's respectful possession, and yielding more and more to an greetings, and, after muttering some half-intelli­ insane desire to Ue down by that footstool on gible sounds, became once more entranced in which one of PoUy's little diamond shoe-buckles speechless wonder. We who are entmsted with was at that moment gUstening, to gaze nureproved the key of my aunt's secret soul, perceive one upon the bright young face, and listen for the thought alone assuming positive shape, and wan­ rare words she dropped like jewels on his ear. dering ghost-like through the inteUectual mist, So loug as Miss Serocold's remarks obtained exclaiming, "What upon earth can make this the slightest notice from him to whom they angel m love with mef" were addressed, PoUy-my-Larab was corapara- tively corafortable; but when it became evident "And I, zese poor Umning have broughten that the fire of her ally was wholly ineffective, you, dears madams," went the musical voice in and that the visitor was becoming more and its pretty foreign-EngUsh, " wiz ze fear zat you more unconscious of every object but herself, would sink me for an impostor." the poor child grew anxious and coufused, " Sink you, sir!"' murraured my aunt. blushed, talked nonsense, and, at length, finding "Sink me an impostor, when you saw my the position Uitolerable, rose aud expressed her fignris—sketches." intention of retiring to her room, and committing "' Vigorous,' indeed, sk," said Miss Serocold.

Z^ 484 [January 16,1864.] ALL THE YEAR ROUND. [Conductedby their guest to the care of her aunt for the said was: " You really leave London to-mor­ remainder of the evening. row ?" Polly had expected an effect of some sort from " And also England, best lady." this forced move, but nothing so violent as it did " Permit me then to ask you," said the lady, produce. The young man turned deadly white, "might it not have been better to postpone tliese like one stricken with a sudden terror. The singular declarations till your return ?" quickened thrpbbing of his heart was painfully "I return never," repUed the lover, empha­ visible. Weakened by recent illness, and with tically, a nervous system wrought to the extrerae point " I do not think I quite understand you, Mr. of sensibility, it seemed as if but a sUglit shock Haggerdom. Are you evincing a becoming con­ was necessary to reduce him to a condition as sideration for the feelings of—of others, in ex­ pitiable as that from which he had so recently pressing your own, thus strongly, under the eraerged. But there was no help for it. The circumstances you mention ? What if you had very violence of his eraotion only suggested more obtained an even more expUcit assurance that clearly to Polly the desirability of at once hand­ your overtures might be acceptable " ing over her susceptible love-patient to calmer " My dear lady! Acceptable ? Is zis then care. Could there be a fitter doctress than Miss possible ? But no—no " Serocold ? Polly-my-Lamb gave him one pleasant " No, by all means, if you prefer it, sir," said smile, and vanished. my aunt, turning her head aside, a Uttle co- "Dear girl! how thoughtful of her!" was quettishly. Miss Serocold's reflection. "Now, my young " You wUl drive me mad wiz joy! I possessed friend, you may speak freely, as I know well one sousand terrors. I shaU name them. First, enough you have been dying to do." that being both so young " The words had scarcely framed themselves in " One of us might be older," thought Miss her thought, when Arthur Haggerdorn was at Serocold, gazing tenderly on the boyish face. her feet: kissing her hands, calling her his " A stranger, an orphan " hope, his blessmg, his guardian angel, imploring " Sucb are commended to our ch—charity," her pity, heaping epithet on epithet, such as sobbed my aunt. nothing but idolatrous affectiou could suggest. " A beggar." Miss Serocold, not absolutely taken by sur­ " I am far from pennUess." prise, was startled at the vehemence of the young " How satisfying is that! I rejoice wiz my lover. She drew her hand coyly away. heart to hear it." " This sudden passion, sir " " Perhaps yoji do," was the mental cohiment. " Sudden! It is twenty-four, forty years of " In spite of all, you bid me hope ? And she, growing!" she will then suffer that I zee her ?" (" How did he guess my age ?" thought my " I beg your pardon ?" said my aunt. aunt.) " She shaU hear my vows ?" "A sousand years it has lived, in zese six « Your " weeks," continued the suitor. "' Passion,' saidst " Vows, excellent madam." you? It is madness. It is De**.' I tell you I " Of what natui-e, may I be allowed " sail die if you withdraw zis face, which has kUled " Great Heavens, madam! Have I not said everysing else in ze world!" she is my life, my goddess, my " " Compose yourself, I entreat you, sir; I have "She!" not said that I intended to withdraw it," said my " Have I not been pouring my gratitudes to aunt, gently. " Pray be calm. This excessive you, for bringing me to gaze so near upon her agitation may be injurious. It is somewhat glorious beauty ? Do I not already love you as embarrassing—I—I am incUned to wish my niece my mother, best lady ?" had not left us !" The shock was severe. Such a castle, how­ " I also, wiz all my heart," cried the young ever unstable its foundations, can hardly topple gentleman. "Recal her, I beseech you, best down without occasioning a sensation of some­ madara." thing having fallen about one's ears. But the " I wiU endeavour to do so, since you desire absurdity of her position, should the mistake be­ it, sir," said my aunt, rather stiffly. come apparent, flashed across my aunt's mind, and, " Desire it ? O, my best madam, you guessed as it were, lighted up the way of escape. She had my secret well. You found what was ze matter in no way committed herself. Her looks and lan- wiz me, and, your tender heart provided ze's gua,ge, though intended to convey a meaning of comfort. To-morrow I from Loudon certainlv their own, had somehow been caught up in the go." torrent of the young man's passion, and borne " To-morrow!" away in a totally different direction. My aunt " Surely, to-morrow. Why stay ? I have accepted it, with a sigh. looked on my angel. I have heard her voice. I "You hesitate, dear lady. WiU you destroy haveher fingers felt. I am ready now to die." the hopes you raised ?" asked the young lover, Miss Serocold felt inclined to suggest that an becoramg greatly agitated. "Now that you increased disposition to live might be a more have spoken, zat is too late. Better madness; legitimate result of these successes. AU she better dess!" His hand closed involuntarUy on Z Charles Dickena] ALL THE YEAR ROUND. [Januarj' 16,1864.] 4S3 a knife that lay beside him on the table. " 0, " Such excuses are permissible." let me zee her ! Let her tell my fortune—zat is, " Not when better are at hand. I thiuk the fate. Eor me, I wUl speak never. To-ra.orrow request is impertment, and —and requiies I frora England for always go, aud my narae and apology." iny history never shaU be hearden more. I shaU " 1 wUl receive it." pamt my bread. I shaU sketch sUently my "And—oh, aunt \—hov; coxdd you ?" burst out Uvings in a foreign shore." (My aunt cast a the young lady. doubtful look at tbe donkey, and thought of very "£h! could I what?" demanded the startled short commons indeed.) " Only I ask to look spinster. agaiu upon hef angel front. I am savage—yes, "Advise me to receive declaratious of—of— X am intoxicate. I drove her from ze roora, goodness-knows-what—attachraent do you call perhaps, wiz ray mad lookhigs. I beseech you, it ?—frora a person to whom I have uever spokeu for you have a good sweet heart of woraan, let her iu ray Ufe, before this night ?" come and stab rae wiz one word—farewell." "/ advise!" ejaculated poor Miss Serocold. He was at her feet again, in his wild anxious " I ara sure I never did anything of the kiud. entreaty. Miss Serocold would not trust herself And, besides, in justice to the young man, I am to look at him. Indeed, she could not have seen bound to say that I do not think his hopes him if she had, the good soul's eyes being suffused extend beyond a few words of fareweU." with tears of genuine compassion; but she gave "Oh, mdeed! That alters the case," said the his hand a gentle reassuring pressure, and, with Uttle lady. " One ought not to seem churUsb, her kerchief to her eyes, hurried from the roora. ought one? WeU—O, aunt, why dou't you Polly-my-Lamb was not at all in bed, but speak ? Tell rae, dear, what ought I to " standing, fully attired, at the window of her " Put on ? Nothing; you look charming." apartment, gazing intently at an opposite house " I raean, ought I to see hira, or not ?" which happened to be in the occupation of one " Go down, by all raeans, dear," said ray auut, Mistress Ascroft. She started round, half- frankly recanting her previous opinions. " You guUtUy, as her friend entered, and became pale cannot do less." as death as she noticed her agitation. PoUy-ray-Larab, justly regarding the later "What has happened, dear? Is he—has counsel as the riper, decided on adopting it, aud he ?" presently—not, however, without a little tremor "He has indeed, dear," said my aunt. " B—but of the nerves—tripped dowu stairs, foUowed by it's not ec—exactly—what we thought. It is her friend. you, deai-j that this singular young gentleraan She had assumed the raost stately demeanour honours with his preference. To be sure, he is of which her pretty little Uthe figui-e was sus­ vei7 young," said Miss Serocold, candidly. " He ceptible; had compeUed her auimated mobUe unplores you to grant him an interview. He features iuto a very iU-fitting mask of iudifference, loves you." which had in it more of discomfort than dignity, "He dares?" and opened the door with a determmation to "And he says that in spite of your brief freeze the young gentleraan, with one Gorgon acquaintance " glance, into the coudition of decorous quiescence "Brief! It is none at all," said Polly, im­ fittest for receiving the little speech of fareweU patiently stamping her Uttle high-heeled shoe. she had arranged, in descending the stairs. "Don't, dear; you may bring him up," cried Nevertheless, as they entered, her eyes Uivoluu- Miss Serocold. tarily fell. "Up, madam !" exclaimed Polly, uow reaUy "Why, ray good gracious!" exclaimed the angry and flushing scadet. " Is he a lunatic—a voice of Miss Serocold. " If he's uot goue!" housebreaker ?" PoUy-ray-Lamb .threw one hurried glance " I don't think he is either; but I do think he round the roora, theu uttered a loud cry, and, is labouring under a degree of mental excitement springmg like a fa\vn towards tlic other side, which you, who have caused it, can alone aUay. knelt by the recumbent form of the youug man. But I should have hesitated to bring his request, "He's asleep !" was Miss Serocold's first per­ had not his quittmg England to-morrow rendered plexed suggestion. it unlikely that his presence should ever ofiend "^o,dead! He's dead! Rmg! Cry !^ CaU you again. WeU, I wUl dismiss him." out! Do soraetlung, aunt! 0, Heaven 1" "He—he—leaves to-morrow, aunt?" said the IVIiss Serocold did everythmg proposed, aud young lady, sitting down. that with considerable energy; then hastened to " Never to return. I could not but feel some PoUy's side. T f „„ pity for one so friendless and desolate. But I The poor boy was lying almost on ins lace. think you act wisely in rejecting his entreaty. I In bis fall, he had displaced the hearth-rug, a need not teU lum in what terms you did so, you portion of wbich was grasped in his hand, while know. I can say you have retired to rest." a dark thread of blood, proceeding from his lips, "Thank you, Aunt Serocold But— crept, like a red snake, across the stone but " "Emotion has kUled him. He has broken a "My dear?" blood-vessel. 0, aunt, aunt, how could you P "I haven't." " Could W*

Z;^ 486 [January 16,1864.] ALL THE YEAR ROUND. [Conductedby " We waited too long. 0, it was cruel." not return within the next half hour, the doctor "Now Heaven forgive you," began poor Miss held that there would be Uttle risk in remov­ Serocold. iug the patient to his own lodgmg; and as Mr. The apartment was rapidly filluig with alarmed Hartshome knew Mrs. Ascroft very weU, he servants. Stephen Gould, the deaf—who had would call, as he returned home, and arrange of late discarded his fixed idea of conflagration, with the good woman as to the best mode of and now, on the appearance of any agitation conveying him thither. ia the household, invariably made a dive across Had any indifferent person taken note of PoUy- the street, and brought up a doctor—quickly my-Lamb's demeanour, since the moment she had foUowed, accompanied by Mr. Hartshome, the been detected by her resuscitated guest in the act busy Uttle practitioner at the corner, who, though of weeping over him—but more especially since present at about the same period at twenty that guest had been pronounced out of danger- different places in the vicinity, possessed the she must have appeared in the light of a very curious property of always being found at home. unfeeUng young person. When the doctor re­ The calm professional presence had its accus­ appeared, she withdrew to the other end of the tomed effect of reducing everybody to silence and apai'tment; and no sooner had he uttered the self-possession. Hartshome lifted the white hopeful words, than she quitted it altogether. face—white, and seemingly impassive, as the " A very self-possessed young lady," thought stone on which it lay—and the poor boy being little Mr. Hartshome, as he buzzed quietly about gently placed upon a mattress which had been his patient, feeling half disposed to remam, and brought in and stretched upon the floor, the see that the latter received humane treatment. Uttle doctor began a closer examination. " She offered to watch bun, with aU the cooUiess " He's d—d—dead!" sobbed Miss Serocold. of a hospital nurse, and now that she knows he's " Not a bit more than you are, madam," said not going absolutely to expire on her hearth-rug, the Uttle doctor, rather sharply. " And, what is walks off, I dare say, to her supper! But she's almost as satisfactory, the bleeding has stopped an heiress, forsooth. Miss is more accustomed for the preseut. When I have exarained the to receive attentions than to expend them on the character of the blood, I shall be able to prove suffering. I hate (if you please, my dear Miss Bless rae! that's unlucky, first time iu my Serocold, hold his head a little higher) coldness Ufe, I've left ray spectacles behind ! I'U not be in very young people. ' So young, and so un- gone one minute. Get you all out of the room but tender!' as the cow said, when she mumbled the two; and let those two, for their lives (or rather, pine-shoots. Well, well. Thank you, my dear for the patient's), not suffer him to be moved, or madam—the spoon—so—just a few of these touched, or even spoken to, till I return." drops before he is moved, and as many after." " I wiU reraain," said Polly, quietly. Only once jnore did Master Haggerdom open " And I," said my aunt. his languid eyes; and, seeing uo one but my Presently there was a trembling of the eyeUd, good aunt, speedily closed them again, unnoticed, the long lashes went heavily, wearily apart, as remaining in that state until he was conveyed in though waking were unwelcome. But the first a sort of funeral procession, with Stephen Gould object that met his view was the face of his little as chief mourner, to his own lodging, and placed lady,_a tear upon her cheek, and a whole world Ul the custody of his landlady. of pity in her eyes. He saw it, for a hectic colour rose in his cheek, and he made a feeble effort to move. CHAPTER VI. Polly remembered the doctor's charge. She IT was some days before the sick-chamber made a gesture, almost fiercely, with her hand. exhibited any tokens of Uving occupancy. The " If you move, you die," she murmured. bUnds remained half drawn, and uot even the The boy repeated his effort, without taking figure of a gUding nurse was visible. A message his eyes from her face, and succeeded iu placing forwarded to Mr. Hartshome on the day after his head about an inch nearer to Polly's foot; the catastrophe, importing Miss Humpage's tben, as though satisfied, suffered his heavy lids desire (after " compliments") to be informed of to close again. the young man's coudition, received a decidedly " If you move hand, or foot, or tongue again, tart reply: "Can't teU her, or anybody, yet. we quit the room," said Miss Serocold. I'm not a witch." The patient lay Uke a stone. "Hang her 'compliments!'" muttered the Back rushed the little doctor, fittmg his glasses little doctor (who was, nevertheless, amenity on his nose as he entered. After a careful exa­ itself to the sex in general, but had conceived mination of the invalid's condition, he was an absolute dislUte to poor Polly). " Why the enabled to assure the anxious witnesses that all dogs" (the doctor's nearest approach to an exe­ danger had for the present passed away. (Good cration) " doesn't she send over to the lad's own Mr. Hartshome was not aware of the new symp­ place P It's nearer. But, no, my lady's fine—- tom that had declared itself during his brief ab­ 'Let some one Uiquu-e of the medical person.' sence, and, oddly enough, nobody mentioned it!) Hang the chit's affectation! Yet, if her lapdog Extrerae quiet, and perfect repose of mind, were had been chokmg with a chicken-bone, she'd now the chief essentials. If the bleedmg should have been down on her knees, shrieking, tearing ^

Ciiarles Dickens.] ALL THE YEAR ROUND. [January 16,1864.] 487

her hair. Money spoUs her. She was a nice It was excessively mde—raost inconsiderate of pleasant little girl, was PoUy-my-Lamb Humpage, her feelings. He should qiuckly be brought to a before she got her fortune. Is it pride, now, sense of the fault he had been guUty of. She or—humph!—eh ? But, excessive pradery is would never appear at the window again! almost as bad. If she cares about the boy, let On the foUowing day, PoUy-my-Larab engaged her send, like a frank Christian gentlewoman, herself particularly in her own roora, exaraining and ask for him. She'U get no more buUetins sorae lace, untU past one o'clock, after which, from John Hartshome, M.R.C.S." with a slightly-accelerated pulse, she stole down PoUy so far complied with the doctor's mental stairs. Had he waited ? How would he look ? suggestion, that she sent over a formal message Should she be satisfied with this slight punish­ every other day, and received as formal a reply. ment, for the present, and withdraw herself raore "The patient is much the same." graduaUy? At aU events, since sbe had come But, at the same time, it came to pass by some down -Why stay to reason ? As if it were mysterious arrangement, that no change in the within the bounds of possibiUty, O my Polly, mvaUd, be it for worse or better, no faint syllables that you or any woraan, imder the circurastauces, that he had uttered, no wish that he had con­ would have corae down, and not at least ascer­ trived to express, was for many minutes unknown tamed if he was there! Go, "Uke a frank to the tenants of number twenty-seven. Through Christian gentlewoman," and look at the boy the same occult intervention, it became known whom your love, under Providence, has kept that the invaUd was rapidly regaming strength. aUve. Por it's a terrible power committed to ImaUy, by a ridiculous accident, PoUy, who had your weak hand, that of wielding the entire happened to take unwonted pains with her happiness of another's soul, and, if you use it toUette that day, chanced to be standing at the chUdishly, no after-wisdom can redeem the fault. window, when the corresponding casement Half bumbled, she crept to the wiudow, and opposite suddenly became the frame of a Uttle gazed forth. pale-faced picture, with entreatmg eyes, looking The blmds were closely drawn. as if it begged pardon for being yet alive, and There was a strange quiet about the whole was not too sure of obtaming it. PoUy neUher house, which was ordinarily, it should be started nor ran away. Had Mr. Hartshome observed, of somewhat gayer aspect than its been passing at the raoraent, and noticed the feUows, Mrs. Ascroft holdmg that buds aud gentle, gratulating look and pleasant sraile with flowers are exceUent baits for lodgers, as evinciug which she greeted tbe convalescent, he would gentle raral tastes in a landlady, a disposition have received her back to favour on the spot. untainted by the sharp selfish life of London. My lady, however, had no idea of parapermg Not a leaf or a feather was to be seen. \A hat her young—weU!—say friend. So, with a Uttle was yet more extraordinary, PoUy, as her eyes care, she taught the young gentleman to under­ glanced from floor to floor, noticed with a sudden tremor that the entire front might be considered stand that it was of no earthly use to hold a as closed, every sash bemg shut down, aud eveiT perpetual vigU—that, as no discreet fisherman blind drawn! What if he had suffered another expects to snare a trout on a sunny day between attack, and one that had proved fatal ? That the hours of eleven and four—so no Polly was to she had been Us proximate cause, was too fright­ be seen contemplatmg the smiUng landscape of ful a thought, nor was there as yet any reason to Jermyn-street, at any hour but the raeridian. subiect her conscience to such a charge. Having educated her young worshipper thus luspUe of herself, a feeling of jasue appre­ far, PoUy felt it incumbent upon her as a faithful hension took such hold upon her that Polly had teacher, not^ to break faith with her pupil. to sit down, feelmg very sick and was presently Hence, these mid-day raeetmgs recurred with found in tbat position by Miss Serocold, who the regularity of clockwork, untU (so extraor­ shocked at her ghastly face ran to her caught dinary a thing is habit!) I am persuaded that her in her arms, and begged her to tell her what either party would have forfeited dinner, rather was the matter. Finding that the young lady than foregone one moment of the aUotted time. would not or could not reply, my aunt became What passed in these unspoken dialogues, I ana Teriously alarraed, and, ringing the bell, declared not in a position to state. AU I know is, that her'ntention of sendU.g to May-Pair for Doctor Miss Humpage woke one day from a reverie, Pettibone, the faraily physician. with a sudden start, to find tbat Mr. Arthur PoUy shook her head. Haggerdom was restored to perfect health, and "But, my love, you must see some one. Such to wonder what was to be done next. an aUack as this—Ha! how lucky! There s The young lady's first feeling was one ot that good Uttle Hartshome ]ust_ leaving Mrs havmg lost somethmg. She had experienced it, Ascroft's. The very sight of him is as good as a she remembered, in a mUder form, when, years ^u^° il e. ru wave my handkerch.el. Ah he and years ago, she lost a pet goldfinch. Ihen IS Mercy! what a grave face! ^valks, too she lelt angry, and a good deal injured, that Ts though he were following the funeral of his Arthur had not devised some fit means of in­ last patient. There's his knock. forming her that he was no longer entitled to the Pol v made no answer nor resistance Her indulgence due to a Ufe in peril, and that he heait was throbbing like that of acnmmal about I wished the daUy raeetmgs to be discontinued. 488 [January 16,1864.] ALL THE YEAR ROUND. [Conductedby to receive sentence. She was using the brief "Why—did you not teU us that the poor boy interval of the doctor's approach in attempts to was 'gone?'" nerve herself for whatever she might be called "Gone!" shouted the doctor. "Yes. To upon to hear. Greenwich." The doctor entered, with a gait and aspect " Green " faltered my aunt. that completely justified Miss Serocold's criti­ "—wich. It's his birthday. He is greatly cism, and PoUy tumed her white face to him in improved in health, and we had promised him, sUeuce, leaving to her friend the duty of explam­ if aU went weU, a walk this day in Green­ ing the reason of the summons. wich Park. So, about one o'clock (he would After announcing that he could discover no­ not go before), we put him into a chair; and thing beyond the traces of a slight nervous uow, I take it, he is gliding down the Thames, attack, and giving such directions as seemed not the Styx, with old Joyce, my waterman, for needful, he took his hat, and prepared to with­ Charon, and one 'of my steadiest nurses for com­ draw. Then PoUy took courage. panion, gay as any lark." " I—I beg your pardon, Mr. Hartshome, your " But you said Mrs. Ascroft was almost in a patient, Mr.—Mr. Haggerdorn, is " fit from sorrow." "Hm," said the doctor. "Permit me once "Pardon, my good lady; I might have said more." (He felt her pulse.) "Yes. Good from joy. She was overcome with delight in morning." witnessing the pleasure of her favourite at " And—the—young gentleman ?" being able once again to breathe fresh country " I beg your pardon ? Young " air, and wander under tbe waving trees. She "Miss Humpage alludes to our neighbour, raisses him for the moment, as I said, but Mr. Arthur Haggerdorn," explained my aimt. looks forward to his return horae this evening Mr. Hartshome shook his head. with renovated strength, and is busying herself "Ah! Sad-sad." in preparing a little treat to celebrate the And again he offered to retire. day. Good night, my dear young lady," he con­ "You have just left the house, I thiuk, sir. tinued, iu the gentlest tone, as he approached Pray let us kuow." PoUy, " I see that you have no further need of " And a melancholy house it is, ma'am," said doctor or nurse. Am I right ?" the little doctor, with a countenance black as PoUy loQked at him once, blushed, hesitated, night. "She wiU miss him terribly. A kind smiled, and frankly gave him her little hand. soul is Mistress Ascroft. She cried herself He withdrew. almost iuto a fit." Miss Serocold whispered, as she foUowed him " Good gracious, sir! Do you mean us to out, " There is notlung to fear ?" understand that the poor young man " " Nothing Ul the world," said Mr. Hartshome, " I wish you to understand, ray dear madam, quietly. that the day to which this poor boy has looked forward so long and earnestly, with such singular earnestness, like a prisoner for freedom," said METEORIC STONES. the Uttle doctor, almost solemnly, " has at length arrived. Yes, Miss Humpage, since you con­ THE statements made by Livy, Herodotus, and descend to take some kind of interest in this others, regarding the faU of meteoric stones from yoimg orphaned strauger, let me announce to space to the surface of the earth, were a century you that he is gone Eh! my dear Uttle girl— ago discredited by those who were then considered what is this ?" concluded the doctor, m a very to be the authorities in all matters relaling to different tone, as Polly-my-Lamb sunk suddenly science; but the publication of Chladni's pam­ forward on his shoulder in a dead swoon. phlet, of Izaru's work, Des Pierres Torabees du Eagerly did he direct Miss Serocold in the Ciel, and Howard's paper, pubUshed in the Phi­ application of restoratives, aud with an almost losophical Transactions, led to a more intelligent paternal solicitude watch their effect, till a faint consideration of the subject, and the evidence colour revisited her cheek, and the eyelids was found to be so strong in favour of the asser­ quivered with awakening Ufe. Then he placed tion that such stones had reached our planet as her gently on a sofa, enjoined silence for ten hardly to admit of question. There are so many minutes, and, half drawing the curtains, turned recorded instances that it would not be possible to hold a whispered coUoquy with Miss Sero­ to do more here thau mention the chief of cold. them. "Does she suffer frequently from these little On the 1.3th of November, 1799, meteoric attacks ?" he inquired. stones fell in such profusion that the heavens "Little attacks ! Oh, doctor, doctor," sobbed seemed to be raining fire. This phenomenon the lady, " how could you be so sudden ?" was witnessed from points of the earth widely " Sudden!" separated. The Moravian missionaries in Green- " t)eath is sufficiently dreadful—but, to be in­ laud passed several hours in looking at the splen­ formed thus abruptly " did spectacle; and Humboldt describes the ap­ "Death, madam!" exclaimed the doctor, for­ pearance it presented to him in South America. getting his own injunctions of sUence. Eor four hours, he says, there was not a space in Charles Dickens.] ALL THE YEAR ROUND. [January 16,1864.] 489

the heavens equal to three diameters of the moon having an apparent diameter exceeding that of through which one or more of tbese meteors was the moon at the full. not constantly passing; aU of them leaving a Many of these meteors left long trains of lummous traU which endured for seven or eight various coloured Ught behind thera, which m seconds. They were also seen at Weimar; and sorae cases did not disappear for several minutes. a Mr. EUicot, who on that night was at sea These larger bodies, no doubt, passed through between Cape Elorida and the West India Islands, the earth's atraosphere, or tbey would not have says: " The whole heavens appeared as if iUu­ becorae luramous; but it would seem that their mmated with sky-rockets, which disappeared only distance from the earth was so great that, com­ by the Ught of the sun after daybreak. The bined with the velocity with which they raoved meteors, which at one time appeared as numerous in their orbit, the attraction of our planet was as the stars, flew in all possible directions, except insufficient to draw thera to its surface; whUe, feom the earth" (Huraboldt says their direction as regards the lesser bodies, the intensity of the was very regular from north to south), "and heat generated in them by the rapidity with some of them descended perpendicularly over the which they traversed our atmosphere reduced vessel we were in, so that I was in constant ex­ them to ashes, and they only reached us in the pectation of their faUing on us." Exhibitions form of dust, as in the instance related by Pere of this kind have been frequent before and since. la PeuiUee, who says that a shower of sand feU One of these was so brUUant by reason of the on the Atlantic for fifteen hours; and others immense number of these glowmg meteors which might be mentioned of a like kind, in addition to constantly fiUedth e air, that the people of QuUo, those recorded by Siegesbaer and Geoffroy le and those who dwelt in the surrounding country, Cadet, the forraer of whom tells us that a shower imagmed the volcanic mountain of Cayambaro of powdered sulphur feU at Bmnswick in 1721, to be on fire, and were greatly terrified, SiraUar and the latter that a shower of fieiy particles fell falls were seen in Canada, and a person writing at Quesnoy on the 4th of January, 1717. Some of from the North Sea in 1818, related that the the aerolites which have been seen to pass through atmosphere surrounding them looked like an the higher regions of our atmosphere, have been ocean on fire. Equally magnificent displays of of such enormous magnitude, that, if they had the same kind are recorded which have been descended upon the earth in an unbroken state, visible from a large portion of the earth's surface. they must have caused great local damage, even But by far the grandest exhibUion of the kmd if their volume were insufficient to affect the in- on record, was observed in America. Showers of clmation of the axis of the earth. There was fiery meteors had been observed to faU on a one, for instance, supposed to have been at least certain day in November in two succeeding years, five hundred thousand tons in weight, which passed within twenty-five miles of us; and others and m the foUowing year, on the same day of the have been seen to pass us at a higher elevation, month, there was a repetition of the phenomenon imraensely exceeding this in diraensions. Pro­ on a scale which has never been witnessed before bably it was a raeteor of this kmd whicli the or since. " I was," says a South Carolina planter, Arab historians describe as havmg fallen m India "suddenly awakened by the most distressing just previous to the visitation of the frightful cries that ever feU on my ears. Shrieks of horror, epidemic spoken of as the Black Death, which and cries for mercy, I could hear from most of went far towards depopulating the world. In­ the negroes on three plantations, amountmg in deed, they regarded the fall of this meteor as all to about six or eight hundred. Wlule giving rise to the pestilence; for they said it eamestly Ustening for the cause, I heard a famt either generated or was accompanied by a foul voice near the door calling my name. I arose, vapour, which poisoned the air for miles round, and, takmg my sword, stood at the door. At and kUled innumerable persons. this moment I heard the same voice stiU beseech­ ing me to rise, and saying,' 0, my God, the world It would seera that the Creator of the umverse is on fire!' I then opened the door, and it is has provided a shield for the protection of lus difficult to say which excUed me most—the creatures from evUs which are not inevitable awfulness of the scene, or the distressed cries of results of their own wickedness or foUy. We do the negroes. Upwards of one hundred lay pro­ not reraeraber any instance on record m which strate on the ground—some speechless, and sorae an explosion did not take place before the with the bitterest cries, but with theur hands aerolite reached the earth, by which it was raised, iraploring God to save the worid and blown harmless to pieces; some of the fragments them. The scene was truly awful; for never reachmg the earth at different pomts; others, and did rain faU much thicker than the meteors feU tbese probably the larger portions, contmumg towards the earth; east, west, north, and south, their revolutions through space. AJI extraordinary it was the same." AU these meteors seemed to instance of a series of such explosions was ob- emerge from a particular part of the heavens, Srved in Erance, which was subsequently made near a briUiant globe of fire, which remained he subject of an inquiry by a comraission under visible during the entire display: similar globes, the direction of M. Biot. The fPlosions we e many of thera of immense magnitude, but preceded by the appearance of a huge ball of fie seen over neariy the whole of Nomiandy. Then, if traveUing with great velocity, were likewise or five or six rainutes, they foUowed each other seen, one m particular, which is described as 490 [January 16,1864.] ALL THE YEAR ROUND. [Conductedby with great rapidity, and such loudness that they teen hundred pounds, is not a tithe of that were heard aU over a circle about sixty leagues in from wbich it was separated, and which is diameter. They appeared to come from a briUiant still lying on the plain of Otumba, in Buenos cloud. An emission of a vapour resembling smoke Ayres. foUowed each explosion. This was at mid-day, in That these aerolites do as a rale penetrate the an almost cloudless sky, and immediately after earth, we have now ample evidence, and there tbe flrst explosion, and during the whole time may be special reasons why in the cases just men­ they lasted, an immense number of aerolites fell tioned such enormous masses did penetrate so to the ground with a hissing noise. Nearly three sUghtly. I suppose that the larger the mass of thousand of these were afterwards picked up, meteoric iron, the softer it wiU be when it comes the largest of which weighed over seventeen in contact with the earth; moreover, the force pounds. of the coUision will be affected by tbe height at It is not possible to give a positive answer to which the explosion takes place. That these the question: Why is the fall of an aerolite al­ masses really fell from the atmosphere, I believe ways preceded by an explosion ? Generally nobody competent to speak on the subject wiU there is a single explosion, but this is not in­ now attempt to deny; there is the indisputable variably the case, as we have just mentioned one evidence of identity of composition between instance in which there was a succession. Al­ them and those aerolites which have faUen in most simultaneously with the report, the aerolite the presence of witnesses. Nowhere in mines strikes the earth. Whenever this has occurred has iron ever been discovered in a pure state, in the presence of a spectator, it has always been but only in the condition of ore. AeroUtes are found tbat the stone was exceedingly hot. The chiefly coraposed of pure iron, to which are mass of meteoric iron which was dug out of the added in sraall, but slightly varying proportions, ground at a village in the Punjaub, was almost nickel, cobalt, sulphur, zinc, sUica, and mag­ too hot to be touched, though it had penetrated nesia. to a considerable depth in the earth, and some How far this uniformity of constitation may time must have elapsed between its fall and be affected, or produced by fusion in the atmo­ the arrival of the officer of the district on the sphere, and the probable presence of electricity spot. This mass was sent to the eraperor, who drawn up with the vapours about the equator directed it to be made into a sabre, knife, and to descend again at the pole, we do not know dagger. Heat was likewise very sensible in the That they become incandescent in passing case of the stone which feU at Ensisheim on the through our atmosphere, we have seen in hun­ 7th of November, 1492, though it had to be dug dreds of instances quite recently, and the ex­ out of the earth from a depth of between fivean d planation of this is given by the rapidity with sis. feet. This stone was placed in the church which they traverse it, varying accordmg to at_ that place by order of the Eraperor Maxi- estimation, from eighteen to forty mUes a second. miUan, where it raay still be seen; the Erench, The lowest of these rates would be sufficient to who carried it off to Paris during the Revolution, raise the temperature of the mass to a degree havmg subsequently retumed it to the place we can hardly realise. This exceeding vividness whence they had taken it, minus a fragment re­ to a certain extent accounts for the different tamed for the museum of the Jardin des Plantes. versions that are given of the apparent size of One tremendous explosion was said to have ac­ the remarkable fire-ball, seen onthe night of the companied the faUof this meteoric stone, and the 4th of last March: the eyes of different indi­ same was the case with that, weighing fifty-six viduals not being affected alike by strongly pounds, which fell near Captain Topham's luramous objects. This most remarkable raeteor house in Yorkshire, descending perpendicularly was visible over the greater part of England, as to the earth, and burying itself in the chalk weU as on the Continent. Dr. Heis, of the Royal beneath the surface soil. I can myself vouch Academy of Munster, has given a complete for one instance where, at the conclusion of description of it; aud, as he is a professor of the most terrUic thunder-storm I ever witnessed, astronomy, it may be inferred that his account is a tremendous explosion was accompanied by less Ukely to be exaggerated than that of an the faU of a number of fragments of an unscientific observer. He says that in a clear aerolite within a few jards of the house in bright sky, every object near him was suddenly which I was sitting. Some of these I kept in my Ughted up by a fire-ball, apparently about the size possession. of the moon when at the full. The time durmg One of the objections formerly urged against which it was visible, he estimates at from three the assertion that these meteoric stones feU from to six seconds, the speed at which it moved at the atmosphere, was the fact that they were some­ forty-seven miles a second, and its actual dia­ times found on the surface of the earth. Pallas meter nearly fourteen hundred feet. Its brU­ describes an iramense mass of meteoric iron he liancy remarkably dazzling, and its motion at­ met with on a slate mountain in Siberia, aud few tended with a hissing noise. Thus it may be of the thousands who have visited the British inferred that the professor is not far wrong in Museura can have failed to notice a mass of a his estimate, that it approached within seventeen similar kind lying on the floor iu the mineral miles of the earth, and that its volume was as department, which, though it weighs over four­ enormous as he computes it. The long trail of Charles Dickens.] ALL THE YEAR ROUND. [January 16,1864.] 491 Ught, the appearance of which is differently great planet moving between Mars and Jupiter described by different observers, was probably which, havmg exploded, is visibly represented nothmg raore than the ordinary effect produced by the asteroids. Indeed, if it be admitted on the retina of the eye by the passage of a that these roving planets movmg m such ec luminous body. centnc orbits are raerely the fragments of what A simUar phenomenon to the preceding was was once a great whole, it would hardly be pos­ witnessed on the Sth of December last. The sible to dispute that the catastrophe which gave description given of it by many persons who nse to them must at the same time have dis­ saw it, is that of a ball of fire of intense bril- persed through space an innuraerable quantity of hancy, which threw such a strong light, that one fragraents of lesser size, down even to the par­ who saw it in the country says it was equal ticles which, from their having reached the to that of the moon when at the full. There surface of our globe in the form of reddish- are some discrepancies in what has been pubUshed coloured dust, have given rise to the oft-repeated with respect to the appearance it presented. reports of its having rained blood. But the only Apart from the apparent raagnitude, which is real conclusion we can arrive at, is, that we know estimated from four times tbat of Jupiter to no more of the origin of raeteoric stones, than about half the size of the full moou, one describes we do of the origin of the globe on which we it as foUowed by a luminous train; another, that live. it scattered sparks as it went; a third, that just before disappearing, it threw off several baUs of a red colour; and a fourth, that it vanished in an FLORIMEL. explosion. I. The hypotheses which have been suggested THE night is quiet, tliis New Year's Eve, Lull'd in a trance of snow and rime; to explain the origin of these wonderful phe­ For a sighing wind, that seems to grieve nomena are various. Sorae thought meteoric Before the path of the coming time, stones must have been ejected from volcanoes Is rather a silence than a sound,— on the earth; but this was very quickly dis­ Or, at most, the voice of the great profound posed of, by showing that it was irapossible, Of darlcness closing half-way round from the absence of any volcano from which they This orb of earth. And I who sit could have been expelled within many miles of In my curtain'd study, hearkening it, By my study fire companionless, the place where they have faUen. Others sup­ Will send my own voice sighing out posed they might have been thrown out from From the haunted dark of an old distress, volcanoes in the moon; but this hypothesis was Ere yet, in the stormy swirl and shout likewise considered to be destroyed by the Of the bells that clash from every side. objection that during all the ages through which We kiss the lips of the infant Year: the raoon has been observed, no visible change For my heart this night is open'd wide, has taken place on her surface, though the And the wind of verse is rising there. evidence of violent volcanic action at some long I lift the heavy coffin-lid distant period is distinct enough, if we examine From the sweet dead face of the sad dead Past, her with a telescope. It was then suggested that Where it lies all white and still amid The dust which the stealthy years have cast they were generated in the atmosphere by the On the graves of all things. Ah, how fast, action of electricity; but, inasmuch as the In the kindling breath of love and pain, atmosphere does not contain the materials of The buried time grows warm again, which they are composed, in any shape, this And arises living, and speaks to us, hypothesis is not worth consideration. Another As we speak to it! Behold how thus supposition is, that an infinite number of raasses From death to life comes Florimel, of matter, of aU sizes, move round the sun in an The light of her love and loveliness Just shadow'd with awful distance.—Well! orbit which closely approaches that of the earth If I saw her not with the inner eye, at the two opposite points which our planet I should feel her presence none the loss passes through in August and November. In the quick, electric, vital nerves,— There is much that is plausible and probable In the quivering blood,—in the heart that swerves in the idea that at least a portion of the From its natural course,—she standing by. meteoric stones which reach the earth, are of Once more I behold the face of her lunar origm; that they may have been dis­ Whose actions all had the character charged from the moon ages ago; and that they Of an inexpressible charm express'd; have graduaUy been drawn so near the earth, Whose movements flow'd from a centre of rest, that their orbital motion was overcome, and they And whose rest was that of a swallow, rife di-opped down upon its surface. But searaed and With the instinct of reposing life; Whose mirth had a sadness all the while scarred as the moon evidently is by prolonged It sparkled and laugh'd, and whose sadness lay volcanic action, the enormous number of frag­ in the heaven of such a crystal smile ments of matter which have been seen to pass That you long'd to travel the self-same way ^ through our atmosphere seems to disprove the To the brightness of sorrow. For round her breath a notion that they could aU have come from this A grace like that of the general air, source; and we are disjwsed to believe that the Which softens the sharp extremes of thmgs, greater portion are the smaller fragments of a And connects by its subtle, invisible stair 492 [January 16, 18C4.] ALL THE YEAR ROUND. [Conducted by

The lowest and highest. She interwreath'd When I saw stand off from the English coast Her mortal obscureness with so much light The ship that bore her, all its sails Of the world unrisen, that angel's wings Set for the soft Italian gales. Could hardlj' have given her greater right That visit the delicate shore of Nice To float in the winds of the infinite. From leagues of sunlit sea and peace. —Fair blow the warm winds over the sea, And she came on me like a swift surprise, And bright may the lovely country be Making the old earth born anew Where the winter spares the myrtle-tree,— Out of prophetic dawn, as through Divine for ever ; but most of all Those lucid windows of the eyes The souls of us look'd forth, and kiss'd When she by its magic breaks the thrall Suddenly, deeply, darkly : then That keeps her heart from the heart of me! Each of the other's being guess'd The central thought, there lying blest II. Beyond the reach of vulgar ken. Month after month pursued its course, What need of words, which are but faint Bringing me news which I perforce Colours in which we poorly paint Accepted as comfort, though I felt The eternal flame within, when ray The spirit of sadness lived throughout. Mingles with ray, and shoots direct And thus, in a wrestle of hope and doubt, Into the broad celestial day ? I saw the spring in the summer melt, Yet Love, grown human, must affect And the airy flush of summer pass Our brittle human speech; and I Into the autumn's heavier mass. Sought by the weak infirmity October had touch'd the skies with grey, Of words to prove the truth of what And the year was sad with its hastening death ; My innermost nature doubted not; But the west wind breath'd a balmy breath, And at those words the vision died. And the leaves were thick on bough and spray, As I sat at my window, and watch'd the day She answer'd, not with scorn or pride, Wane into the grave, still afternoon, But rather with sorrowful ruth and awe, And heard in a kind of waking dream That, gazing into the distance, saw The distant brook, and the air aswoon The Yes of the heart unratified In tlie branchy trees. Some warning gleam By the stem, awaiting Future. So Of the imminent fact struck through me when 'Twere better that each alone should go A letter, not from her dear pen, Through the desolate stretch of arid sand, Carae to me out of the weary South.— Than find at once the blissful land, Oh, shaking hand ! oh, clammy mouth! Only to faint on the slopes, and bleed Oh, eyes eclips'd in a sudden fear! In the midst of the unpluck'd roses. Strange Oh, heart consumed in frightful drouth! That my eyes were blind, and could not read I dare not read what's written here! In hers, that would so quickly range No border and no seal of black, From bright to dim, the cause of this Yet all—all black with fatal dread! Her faltering answer! For indeed,— Oh, God, absorb me! smite me back As a planet out of the vast abyss To naught! I read—I read it!— Comes with its golden blush sufi'used, And, trembling ever with love and fear, Dead! Withdraws itself to the finer sphere Ah, now I see in rainy light Of heaven's interior ecstasies,— Of tears her answer growing white She faded, smiling, like one unused With new translucence! Not for her To earth ; and as, for a little space, To feel a husband's fondness stir The planet renews its shining grace, Around her heart, where Death bad set And glows on the verge of the utmost dark, His standard while its bloom was wet She kindled at times (though I did not mark With dew of the April moming. She, The changes then) with a light of life, Turning her face away from me, Whereat I marvel I did not weep. Could bear to droop, but could not bear To see the husband's mute despair; No hope! Yet ever within the strife Perhaps to leave, before she die, Of the common world I vow'd to keep The sweet and dreadful legacy The thought of her as a central calm. Of a small failing life,—a child Refreshing myself with the sacred balm Declining, piteously mild, i Of a passion doubly full and deep To its young grave. Ah, bitter fate! From the added sorrow. This I hold,— For Love's sake. Love denies its mate I That a tme affection grows not cold Yet clearer than noon's full garishness Because the sun has left its sky, Are the nights on which such dawns arise, But all the night-time warms it by And sweeter the gall of such distress Its own immortal heat and strength Than the honey of most felicities. Being to its darkness sun and moon And star; and knowing that at length Desire of good, whate'er says Nay, III. The sudden New Year bells burst in, Fulfils itself, by some rough way Trampling the dark with fiery din. Reaching its Eden, though it swoon. I start, and find mj'self once more But still she faded with patient look ; Wreck'd on the Present's craggy shore. Aud, as in a suddenly open'd book, —The Year is dead, the Year is born: I read the peril that lay in wait It is the tender time, and sweet, For the life of my life ; read thus Iato When, pinnacled 'twixt the night and morn, The truth, and felt reliev'd almost. The Year we grieve and the Year we greet Charles Dickens.] ALL THE YEAR ROUND. [January 16,1664.] 493

Touch for an instant over the gloom, spend one winter in it. We moved to our And the dead thoughts and the living meet. " opening" the first of Mav, aud had the summer Oh, clamour of bells, sweep into my room ! before us. We were full of spirit and hope. Out of the midnight pulse and swell! A new country and a new life, with all before And do not simply ring the knell you to conquer, and the consciousness of strength Of the buried days and the buried dead, For I sit with the spirit of Florimel! to make the conquest, is a constant inspiration. For I sit with the soul that has not fled Ben's bear was his first winning in the game Forth from this soul of mine, nor will; wbich he had set hiraself to play with the wild And as once we heard in the air o'erhead nature of the woods. I was then ten years old, The iron tongues in the steeples tell and that bear is the one thing that stands out That a Year had come, a Year had sped, most clearly in the dim distance of thirty years So now,—^by the heart's deep miracle. ago. Ben had shot the mother bear, and the same ball that kUled her, kUled one of her Dear love! dear ghost! dear memory! cubs ; the other he brought home in his bosom. Beam of the light that does not die! " Poor little fellow," he said, " he is too young Now, while we hear the eddying chime to mourn for his mother, and I intend to be Which marks the solemn season set, a mother to him." And he kept his word. Like the sword-sharp bridge of Mahomet, The smaU beast slept with Ben, always Between the Past and the Future time, laying his nose over Ben's shoulder. He grew Do we not vibrate each to each ? apace; I used to think we could see him grow. Yes. Though the senses may not reach He was very fond of mUk and butter, and he Beyond the graveyard's barren wall, And although we often grope and faU, ate bread and mUk, and mush and milk, with And see no opening, clear or dim, avidity. During the first whiter, his was a Along the horizon's crael rim,— numbed sort of half Ufe. In the early spring Thank God that across the shoals and sands he was a happy bear, going everywhere with Of this perilous life, which is but death, his master, and only miserable if he lost sight We feel at times with a catching breathy of him. He was entirely obedient t.o my The wind that comes from the outer main— brother, and always woke hira m the mornmg. From the sea that bathes the larger lands As my father was about to build a frarae-house, "Where the soul may grow and perfect itself, he sent Ben to buy raaterial of a man who Having space to beat its wings, and attain had a sawmUl in the next town. This waa To the sum of its being broad and high; Bruin's first affliction, for he could not ac­ -Not cramp'd as now on the narrow shelf corapany his raaster. Ben stole away from .Of its undevelop'd capacity. him and when the bear knew that he was gone, —All might be more than any are; he began a search for him. He went to my Our natures languish, incomplete; brother's bed, aud, beginniug at the head in­ Something obtuse in this our star serted his nose under the sheets and blankets Shackles the spirits' winged feet: and carae out at the foot; then he turned and But a glory moves us from afar, reversed the process. This strange search he And we know that we are strong and fleet. would keep up by the hour, if he were not shut And I know, oh Florimel, I know out of the room. He took possession of his That I can wait, and nowise fail, master's clothes and other belongmgs, aud used Until from the ship that delivers me (The ship that hoists no mortal sail) them so roughly, still seeking for theur owner- I see the coast-line dropping low, inserting hiraself into legs o trousers and sleeves And hear the long wind breathe and blow of coat.?-tbat my mother locked everything m In the Year that is and is to be. a wardrobe. Nothing of Ben's was lelt out, exSpt a large folio Bible, ^'hich rested on he ?op of t'le /ardiobe. si. or seven feet from the BEN'S BEAR. fioor. Up this, the bear contrived to climb, and takin- the Bible in a tender embrace, he curled I THIUTT years ago, my father, a half-pay Sraself up, and dropped to the floor with it captam, emigrated to Lower Canada, ne My raother' attempteTto take it from bin,, bu bought a fam in the vicinity of Stanstead, for the first time he showed fight, ^^nv blows where he settled with a family of three boys frora the broomstick were admmistered, but the and as raany giris. There were too many ot us beaT held fast to the book, ajid my mother came off second best frora the contest. /^ ^ wa^^fatal for his means in England, where boys often cost to ber authority, as we discovered a terjards more than they are worth—and possibly this is sometimes trae of gUrls. Brother Ben was When Ben came back, the tear s joy knew no nineteen when we went into the bush: a orave bounSr He lost his love for the sacrgl volume boy, and a good leader for his younger brothers, and had no care what became of it. -tl^ show^ lind a good protector for his sisters, who were S disrespect for ray mother bj taking the butter youuger stUl. , , ,i v, J from the tea-table and eatmg it before 1^^^^^^^^^^^ • We had a log-house, as most settlers had then, to begin with. It was quite an aristocratic edifice for that region, having three large rooms, while most log-houses had but two rooms, and inany but one. It was ceiled with hemlock bark, '' ^^^ T/ralS ^ZV^r/th^vvl between smooth side towards the rooms, for we were to viour.

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494 [January 16, 1864.] ALL THE YEAR ROUND. [Conducted by her love for Ben, and her fear of Bruin. She no need to complain of stolen butter, or a high­ grew miserably afraid of the bear, and, what was way robbery of honey on its way from the pantry worse, the bear knew it. She complained to to the tea-table. Ben suddenly discovered that Ben; but he only said, " Mother, you have only iiis pet was a nuisance. " I don't see how you to be resolute with him. Ellen can drive him away have borne with him so long, mother," he said, in from the table, because she is not afraid of him." the most considerate manner, when he had taken "But I am afraid of him," said my mother, a plum-pudding from a plate in my mother's " and I think he wiU do me harm yet." hands, and had made his way to the woods " Give him a taste of a hot poker, mother, and with it. I'll answer for him afterwards." " I am glad you saw him take it," said my "I would not try it for the world," said my raother. mother. " He must have a prison," said Ben. The bear had his own way very completely, And so it came to pass that the poor bear tUl a circumstance occurred which resulted more was chained, in the centre of the space that had favourably for tbe peace of the family than been cleared and leveUed for our new house, my mother's raUd reraonstrances. We had a with the Ught surveyor's chain used to mea­ neighbour, a Mr. Bennett, who had a very sure land. The bear immediately described a lovely daughter of seventeen. Ben fell in love circle, limited by the length of his chain, which with her, as in duty bound, she being the he walked over, turning a somersault always at prettiest girl in the New World. He had one point, and only stopping to eat, or pay been unable to get auy clue to her senti­ attention to Ben, if he came in his vicinity. ments towards him. She had spent a consider­ Why he inaugurated this particular and pe­ able portion of the past year with a raarried culiar exercise I am unable to say, but I sister in Stanstead, and Ben and the brother-in- have often noticed a tame bear keep up the law being friends, it was there ray brother had circle and the somersault hour after hour, and seen her. Her coolness towards him was a great day after day;. He did not tug at his chain, . torment to an impulsive lover. I beUeve Ben nor quarrel with it, as we poor mortals do with would have served seven years merely to know chains, but apparently accepted it as a provision how she regarded him. At last he lapsed into a state so unhappy and anxious that even his bear of Ben's superior wisdom. This view of the could not comfort him. About this time AUce case, if he took it, was sure to be abandoned at Bennett came home to remain, and in neighbourly bedtime, when he would inevitably break his kindness, she, and a younger sister, came to visit chain, to get into his master's bedroom. His us. She had never seen Ben's bear, and did indomitable desire to Ue on the foot of Ben's not even know of its existence. Ben shut bed, or to hug an old vest under it, was sure Brain into his bedroora in corapliraent to our to naake him break away from any breakable re­ guests, and the afternoon passed pleasantly to straint. Therefore a prison was made for him. aU but the prisoner. When the time came for It was made of smaU logs, " cobbed up :" that Alice and her sister to go home, my brother and is, the ends notched with an axe, and the end of I prepared to bear them company through the a log fitted into each notch. The roof was of woods to their opening. Ben incautiously boards destined for the new house, held in place opened his bedroom for his hat, never thinking by heavy stones. The first night the poor beast of Bruin, and came running to catch ns. The occupied his new den, he raised the boards in Uberated bear ran after his master, and jumped his struggle to get out, impelled by the desire for joy upon bim, hugging him after the manner to seek his master. He got his head out, and of bears. AUce turned aud saw Ben in the (to then hung by his neck, aad so was choked to her) terrible embrace. She shrieked as a girl death. I shed some tears for him, and my with a good voice only can shriek, but instead mother rejoiced. I think Ben was not very of running away, she rushed up to my brother, sorry. Under other circumstances he would and tried to help him lUie a brave girl, crying, have mourned for the loss of his sublimely ugly " Dear, dear Ben, you wiU be killed." pet; but he had a new and life-long pet in pro­ spect—perhaps many other pets after that—and _My brother threw oif the beast, and caught the he had no need of, and no place for, a bear. fainting Alice to his glad heart, saying, " Dear AUce, he is a tame bear, do not be afraid." The poor giri looked like a broken white ON THE SOUTH COAST. lily, she was so frightened at herself and the bear. She could hardly realise that the bear IF I waut to taste the very essence of early was harmless, and she was asharaed of having English history, I betake me to the southern been betrayed mto such an avowal of a tender^ counties of our island, and raore especiaUy to ness for Ben. When she recovered her wits, those parts which border on the Channel. At she said, " 0, I'll never corae here again." Dover I behold the clilfs and beach where the "Indeed you wiU,"_said Ben. "I'U banish great Caesar came with his Roman legions, and Bruin, or imprison him, or do anything you his eagles that had glittered in the sunUght of wish," half the countries on the globe. Round the It was surprising how clear-sighted Ben be­ eastern corner of Kent, where Thanet juts into came regarding faults on the bear's part that he the sea, and North Eoreland and South Foreland had heretofore made light of. My mother had ruffle the waters, to the great anguish of cocbiey Charles Dickens.] ALL THE YEAR ROUND. [January 16,1864.] 495 voyagers like myself, all is Saxon to the back­ fortress was twice taken within two months- bone : names of places, names of people, blue first by the Royalists, and afterwards by the eyes and ruddy cheeks, grey churches with the ParUamentarians. The ruins of Pevensey Castle, moss about their stones, old villages with the reposing sluraberously m then: wide tract of Uchens on their roofs. I forget that any alien marshland, amidst the fiat green meadows, the Italians ever held rule here, and think only of long raeandering dykes, and the countless herds Hengist and Horsa at the head of their Norse­ of sleepy-eyed cattle, is a very mcrastation of men, or of Eowena weaving the meshes of her history, frora the era of the Romans, who built charms round British Vortigera. In Sussex, I the outer waUs, to that of the Normans, who recal tbe days when the Normans and the reared the inner towers, and so down the grand Anglo-Norman Plantagenets, witb tbeir mailed expanse oi our later annals to comparatively warriors and mitred abbots, kept the Saxon recent times, with many a story of war and churls in subjection, and fattened on the heritage festival, and woful imprisonment of kings and they had won. Here, on the sea-shore, is queens and princes. Along the coast, from Pevensey, where the Conqueror landed on Beachey Head to Selsey BiU, and for mUes in­ that memorable September day eight hundred land, the soil is thickly strewn with Saxon and years ago, and, falling on the sand, fiUed the Norman antiquities; and the sight of the coast minds of his followers with gloomy oraens, guardsmen, lounging about with the inseparable tiU WUUara Fitz-Osbert, the duke's steward, telescope under the left arm, wiU remind us of exclairaed that the incident was a favourable the period when a guard was needed for some­ token, for that their leader had "embraced thing more than anti-srauggUng purposes—viz. Sigland with both his hands." Here, to for the protection of the maritime towns and the eastward, is Hastings, where the invader viUages from the ravages of piratical French­ made his proclamation to the English people, men and Spaniards. Past these coasts, in the giving his reasons for claiming the crown; sumraer of 1588, sailed the Great Armada which there, to the north, lies Battle, where the was to make us all vassals of his Most Catholic great straggle took place, and the ruins of Majesty and the Pope; and many an anxious the old abbey which rose in pious recogni- eye raust have looked se^.ward from the coast tidn of the victory yet remaiu in the heart towns and headlands at the slow passage of of their wooded hills. Westward is Lewes, that portentous cloud upon the waters. More where the rebellious barons of the reign of than two centuries earUer — in 1350 — the Henry the Third laid the foundations of EngUsh Spaniards were encountered not far from Uberty, as was set forth in these columns more Winchelsea by an English fleet imder the than a year ago ;* and all about the downs, coraraand of Edward the Third in person, and the woodlands, and the long raarshes, and were beaten, with the loss of fourteen and the sweet grassy meadows, and the ships; during the progress of which action, hUls that are blown by the salt breath of gentle Philippa was staying at William de the sea, are many spots of liistoric inte­ Echyngham's house at Udimore, trembUng for rest, where tbe nobles wrangled and the tbe safety of her lord and children, the more monks and friars feasted in the far mediseval so as her attendants, who had watched the battle frora tbe hills, told her that the Spaniards One raight leam much of " our rough island had forty large ships. You can scarcely men­ story" by merely travelling from town to town tion a single town or village along the coast, m this county of Sussex, visiting the ancient but you 6ud traditions of the place having relics, and looking up the traditions. Eye been sacked and harried several times by would tell us of the reign of Stephen, when the French and Spaniards. In 1545, a party WUIiam de Ypres, Eari of Kent, buUt Ypres of raarauders belonging to the former nation Tower, now used as a jail; of Queen Elizabeth, raade a descent on Seaford, with a view to who gave to tbe town church its coramunion advancing on Lewes, but were repulsed by a table and its clock, both said to have been gentleman of that town, named Sir Nicholas taken frora the Spanish Armada; and of the Pelham ; concerning whom and his feat of attacks on the coast made by tbe Erench in arms, a punning epitaph-writer coraposed this 1377 and 1448. Winchelsea, with its sand- couplet: choked harbour and its decayed prosperity, What time the French sought to have sack't Sea- would speak mournfully of the time when the foord. waves carae up to its feet, bringing with thera This Pelham did repel 'em back aboord. the comraerce of distant lands, alter having engulphed the old city tliat had been founded A French array landed at Rottingdean in by the Roraans. Arundel Castle carries us 1377, and marched over tbe downs towards back to the age of Alfred, and even into the Lewes, but were defeated, and obliged to take to core of old English legendary romance, for the their ships again. Wmchelsea, Rye, Hastings, sometime warder was no less a man than the Brighlhelrastone, and Newhaven, have all at giant Bevis of Hampton; and yet the very various times felt the fury of these maritime same stones are eloquent of the great "war of assaults; aud even as late as 1690 a French ideas" in the seventeenth century, vt^hen the squadron caused great alarm all along the Sussex coast, and fired into Hastings. We who have inherited the traditions of the times of Rodney * Vol. viii. page 184. 496 [January 16,1864.] ALL THE YEAR ROUND. [Conductedby and Nelson can hardly understand our southern less a dream to those who h.ave seen- tbe coast lying at the raercy of a naval power which AcropoUs; and the Csesars Uve once more to we have long known to be vastly inferior to us him who wanders among the ruins of Imperial at sea. And it is equalljr difficult to picture Rome. There are parts of Hastings which, these tranquil ports and inland villages, and though undoubtedly much more modern thau the these breadths of pastoral uplands, where the eleventh century, are yet old enough not to crops grow and ripen undisturbed, as the scene contradict the sentiment of antiquity. The of clamorous battle, rapine, and incendiarism. town that existed at the time of the Conquest The little viUage of Rottingdean, for instance has been almost entirely swallowed up by the —who can fancy it in the hands of a savage sea; but " the new town" is now in itself old— enemy ? Of all quiet places it is surely at least, many parts of it are. Quitting the the quietest. The waves strike against the more fashionable localities, and penetrating into cavernous white clifi's, and now and then the the back streets, you find yourself in a region south wind must come with a roar from sea; of ancient houses, reared on different levels, and but those are the only ungentle sounds it over-peering one anotiier, like wizen old elf-men knows. Go there on a Sunday morning, when playing at bo-peep; with pathways before them all the people are in the (juaint old Norman so much higher than the road, and so utterly church, seated apart on a little knoll of rising unprotected by chains or posts, that, on going ground, and you may think it is the very home at night, you must look out sharp for your Sabbath of creation, such a balmy silence steeps neck; with bits of the old town wall breaking the houses and the billowy land beyond, espe­ in here and there in an utterly unreasonable ciaUy if it be about the harvest season, when manner; with the ruins of the castle (which Nature seems to hush the babbling voices of the has been decaying for the last six hundred years, spring and summer, and the winds themselves or more) on the summit of this West HUl; with are tranquil. A drowsy place, whose dweUings fiiut-built churches, scathed by the fire of the have caught the ripened red of many vanished French in centuries gone by, yet standing up sumraers; whose roofs are painted with the bravely, large, massive, and crambling; and rusty gold of lichen\that have sprung from the kisses of last century's rain and sun; whose with a background of craggy cliffs, Uke an silvery-grey flint walls dividing field from field impending avalanche. A rough and angry coast are touched with the sunny flicker of invading has Hastings; and the sea, time after time, has moss. An enchanted place, you might almost eaten its way into the land, tearing down almost say, haunted for ever by harmonies of winds and the whole site of the original town, and waves, visited by deUcate influences from sea defying every attempt to reconstruct the pier and land; in front a wide expanse of many- destroyed by a great storm in the early part tinted waters, and round about long slopes of Elizabeth's reign. The ruins of that pier of corn-bearing fields, across which, and up may still be seen at low water, and its im­ the high green hills, and over the fau: nestling portance to the town, as forming a harbour of hollows, the chime of the church beUs floated refuge for merchants and fishermen, is testified this Sunday moming in undulating cadence; by a royal proclamation, bearing date the 31st hamlet caUing to hamlet in that community of of October, 1578, wherein we read that since worship. Who can think of the Erench pour­ the carrying away of the pier by the extreme ing like a tempest through this peaceful rage and violence of the sea, " the town is much nook? decayed, the traffique of merchants thither forsaken, the fishing, by reason of the dangerous But the centre of our South Coast memories landing, but little used, the riche and wealthy is certainly Hastings. We date a new epoch of men gone thence, and the poore men yet re­ English history from that little town. The maining would gladly doe the like, if with­ great event connected with Hastings changed out offence of our lawes they might be else­ our destinies as a country, modified our national where received, whereby our people are likely character, revolutionised our language, founded to perishe, and our said port likely to be our aristocratical system, and inaugurated the subverted, and become desolate, or els the long era of feudality. The chivalrous pageant people there by necessitie driven to commit of our medijEval annals takes its start frora that great and heynous offences, to the great hin­ sea-side borough. W^hen I observe the young drance of the public weale, unlesse some jjentlemen in wide-awakes, and the young ladies spedie remedie be for them provided." The m cavalier hats, lounging on the beach, I feel object of the proclamation was to empower inclined to tell them that they are like Madeline certain of the local gentry to coUect voluntary in the Eve of St. Agnes, who went to sleep "in subscriptions for the construction of a new pier. lap of legends old." They are frolicking and The attempt was raade, and renewed over and flirting like so many mfants in the lap of over again in Elizabeth's and subsequent reigns; venerable mother History. The younger ones, but the sea was too strong for the engineers, or when they go back to school, will have a more the subscriptions faUed, or the commissioners vivid and personal idea of Norman William and embezzled the funds, or some other unlucky Saxon Harold from having trodden the ground accident occurred, and frustrated the plan. which felt the shock of their contending forces. Thus Hastings, from having been a place of no Wonderful is the magic which Ues in actual small commerce and of some political importance contact wUh memorable spots. Pericles is (even possessing a mint in the days of Saxon

•Mil :-Jii..-..-^:,T_'- Charles Dickens,] ALL THE YEAR ROUND. [January 16,1864.] 497

Athelstan), became little better than a poor pavement on one side of the street, very fit to fishing viUage, tUl Dr. Baillie, at the latter end break people's necks; and you must know of last century, found out the advantage of its there was a pianoforte in the iiouse; and so I warm equable air for his consumptive patients, used to thump the pianoforte to a threateuin<' and so turned the famished little town into a air, and smg the foUowmg words, the absurdit? fashionable watering-place. oi which has made me remember them : The Hastings fishermen, who, with their families, nuraber aboui three thousand per­ If the people of Hastings don't mend this vile sons, have long borne a high reputation for street, beiug excellent seamen; but at one time they I'll Bossum and Cossum, and kick all I meet. also possessed a character of a raore question­ There was another couplet; but, having more able sort. They were great smugglers, and sense in it I suppose, it has slipped my me­ desperate feUows enough in au encounter raory." As I have already intimated, the " vile with the revenue cutters. In very early street" is as "fit to break people's necks" times they seera to have been downright as ever; and Bossum and Cossum stUl hold pirates, sparing neither foreign nor English then- owrn. May the bearers of those faraous vessels, and exciting such terror that, ou enter­ naraes increase and raultiply, and m£iy the ing any port, it was usual for the authorities shadows of their craft upon the waters never there to hold up a hatchet, as a sign of hostility be less! —a custora which is said to be continued even I ara told in the guide-books that Mr. Banks, to this day in some of our western harbours. of Bleak House, Hastings, has made sundry Every now and then, a number of these marauders observations with reference to the atmospherical were strung up, as an example to the rest; but influences of the town and neighbourhood, from they were a reckless set of men, aud went their which it results that "the 'cloudy fine' days way all the same. At the present time they number 46; the 'cloudy,'52; the 'fine-rain,' are a peculiar race, with a physiognomy distinct 42; and the 'cloudy-rain,' 30.5; while the from that of their townfellows, attributable 'rainy' days only amount to nine in the year. partly to their often intermarrying among Frora this it is evident that the number of days themselves, partly to their having, of old, iu ou which the invalid cannot get out ou account their wUd raids on the Erench coast, chosen of the weather is very few; and those on which wives among the women there. Many a pretty he may enjoy the rays of the sun are 280. To bit of corsair romance, I doubt not, might have these must be added 52 which are dry though been picked ont of the family records of these overcast; hence there are 332 days on which a men, had any been kept; stories of love and person may enjoy a walk." I have no doubt adventure, with the sraack of the briny wind in this calculation is perfectly correct; yet I canuot ' them, and the bloom of a certain chivalrous help calUug to mind a day which must have tenderness suffusing the reckless savagery, as been one of those exceptional nine—a day of ood as ever were told of Barbary pirates or perpetual, of inveterate, rain—a day when the f outh American buccaniers. It is curious to air seemed made of rain, and the house fronts find how the sarae famiUes continue from gene­ were soaked and blotchy, and the very sea looked ration to generation in the same caUing, as the wet with a wetness not its ovra.. I had dropped descendants of the exiled French Protestants down on Hastings for a few hours, and, haviug are still weaving with their old hand-looms in no lodgings to go to, and not a soul iu the place the attics of Bethnal-green and Spitalfields. that I could call on, was obliged to divide my When, in 1586, the government of Queen Eli2:a- time between a bar-parlour and forlorn peram­ beth were preparing to defend the country from bulations through the sloppy streets. I glanced the anticipated descent of the Spaniards, a from time to time out of the said bar-pariour return w^as sent in from Hastings of the ships windows, and tried to draw hopeful auguries that could be suppUed by that port, with the from the scud of the clouds; but it rained with a names of their masters and of all the able-bodied gloomy pertinacity. I sallied forth, and looked at mariners under them; and this document (which the old churches and the old houses; and it rained. is preserved in the State Paper Oifice) contains I returned to shelter and to speculation on the a great many names that exist to this hour skyey portents; aud it ramed. I effected a araong the boatmen. Two of them I have my­ sortie towards the castle walls, and saw a high self observed about the town over shop doors— hill, and a grim circumvallation on the top, aud two patronymics remarkable for their jingling a leaden sky ou the top of that; aud the rain. oddity; to wit, Bossum and Cossum. And Once raore I beat back to Quarters, and in savage this reminds rae of a good story of the said mood heaped sundry maledictions on all con­ names told by Leigh Hunt in a letter to oue of nected with Hastings, from the time of William his daughters, and published in the Correspond­ the Conqueror downwards; with special and ence (1862). The writer, referring to a so­ intensified application to certain cooks and journ at Hastings in his early life, says that "a waiters who had stiU further embittered ray fate Mr. Bossum used to visit our landlord, or a by serving rae with an execrable dinner. Aud Mr. Cossum, I forget which, and there was a it rained. In short, it was just such a day as shopkeeper at the entrance of the town, whose that which Mr. Longfellow describes in some name was the other of the two names, whichever dismal verses, when "it rained, and the wind that was; and Hastings had then a vUe high was never weary;" though I was very soon 498 [January 16, 1864.] ALL THE YEAR ROUND. [Conducted by weary of seeing the one and hearing the other. enough to make Hastings the chosen spot of Hastings was assuredly in one of those fits of young lovers in want of sea air, as long as the ill-temper in which, it seems, she only indulges generation lasts ? nine tiraes in the course of each revolving year. But sbe is a beauty for all that, and none the THE CARDINAL'S WALKING-STICK. less so for being in a pet now and then, as it is the lofty privilege of beauties to be. She has "WHY—West? old fellow? West!" the mingled charms of sea-side and woody inland " Crooke, ray boy !" —of beach and cliff, of rock and glen, of field We stood silent for a few seconds, holding and grove, of hUl and dale. Ancient castles and each other's hands, in the first surprise of the churches, ruined abbeys, dismantled priories, unexpected meeting. And as we thus stood, the aud venerable ancestml seats, sprinkle the sur­ strange foreign street, the tall white Roman rounding land, and raake it teem with ever-living houses, balconied aud terraced, vanished like dis­ interest. A submarine forest, overwhelmed for solving views, and before our eyes rose Magdalen centuries, Ues off the beach, the trees just College, Oxford, and the images of two beardless visible at low water, and nuts and branches from undergraduates in cap and gown. At least, I can some of them lying on the sands when the tide answer for myself. Crooke and I had been fast is out. Caves of sandstone, supported on pUlars, friends and college chums, long ago, and I forgot, wind through the cliffs. A score of lovely spots in the pleasure of seeing my companion of weU- with pretty or quaint names—Lovers' Seat, remerabered days, how different were the paths Dripping Well, Fairlight Glen, the Old R,oar, which we now trod. Then gradually carae back &c.—Ue round about the town; and Lovers' to me what had passed, aud how our correspond­ Seat has a story attached to it, which is a good ence had languished first and finally di-opped, story, whether true or false, and it is generally until we who had been so intimate had whoUy lost held" to be true. The heroine was a Miss Boys, sight of each other. I cast a glance at Crooke's of Rye, who was beloved by the gallant Captain garb, that of an ecclesiastic of the Church of Lamb, of the revenue cutter Stag. The old Rome, and could not help sighing. Boys (or, to speak more correctly, Boyses— " You are still an Anglican, 1 see ? Have that is to say, the damsel's father and mother) you been busy all this tirae with tiiat curacy in disapproved of the match, and removed their the north—at Leeds or Halifax, wasn't it ?—or daughter to a lonely farm-house, the Warren; have you a fut benefice from some lucky turn of but she, of course, contrived to slip out at the wheel of fortuue?" asked my old acquaint­ tiraes, and would come at night to a woody spot ance, in a tone that I hardly liked. Probably on the summit of a high cliu, and, like another he had seen my involuntary start when I caught Hero, hold forth a light to Leander, who was sight ofthe habit he wore—a trim black soutane cruising about off shore in his cutter. Very aud hat of moderate brim, not Uke the porten­ naughty of Miss Boys, no doubt, and highly tous Dom Basilic headgear usually assumed by reprehensible, sir, in Captain Lamb; yet, as priests of Italian birth. Hastily I recalled to long as " sex dividual" shall last, the sympathies mind how Crooke had given up his fellowship, of raost raen and women will be on the side of and a fair prospect of preferment, from con­ such adventures; and it is of this stuff that scientious motives; how he had incurred slights poems are made, and baUads that come to us and aversion on the part of his friends; had with a living touch out of the waste of ages. been the cause of grief and anger in his own We raay be sure the captain kept his weather faraily; and, finaUy, how I had vaguely heard eye open towards that cliff, more sharply than of his working with all the enthusiasra of a ever he kept it open for the running of contra­ neophyte soraewhere in London, until a news­ bands into creek or cave. And we may be paper paragraph announced that the Rev. Titus equally sure that every raan on board the cutter Crooke, ex-prizeraan at Oxford, and Fellow of was heart and soul witb the captain as his vessel Magdalen, had gone abroad. From tbat time crept along those darkling waters, with no other forth I had wholly lost sight of him. sound thau the strain of the sail upon the mast, I suppose my old chum saw that I was ruffled and wash of the long waves, waiting for the glim­ by his somewhat flippant remark, for he passed mer of Hero's Ught upon the headlands. Nay, so his arm through mine, saying very gently that much were they concerned in their coraraander's lie begged my pardon ifhe had annoyed rae; but success, that when at length he and the young that I must be lenient with a poor fellow whom lady managed to get one day to HoUington raany of his countrymen and countrywomen, Church to be married, they posted themselves kind-hearted enough at other tiraes, chose to as guards up and down the sylvan paths and condemn unheard. He did not think me narrow- dingles of a thick wood in the raidst of which minded or uncharitable enough to treat him the church is placed, that they might be ready thus. The path he had chosen, from no selfish to repel any rescue, should it be attempted. It motives, was sometimes a very stony one, and was 7iot attempted, and the lovers were duly he did not mind confessing that it had often spliced, and the old folks had the good sense to happened that the coldness or repugnance of forgive and forget, and they all—it is not so old friends had cut him to the soul. stated in the local histories, but I wUl have it so What on earth was I to do? My heart —they all lived happy ever after. Is not this softened towards my old companion iu his ad- Charles Dickens.] ALL THE YEAR ROUND. [January 16,1864.] 499 versify, for I could not but see that the poor I had been appointed just at the commence- fellow was far from happy, and not in very raent of the vacation, and had decided on robust health. His face was sallow and thin, taking that rare opportunity for a short but his eyes were terribly sunken, and his temples rapid continental tour. My tirae was brief, and were getting bald, while there was a nervous ray purse but raoderately replenished, so I was twitching about his mouth that told of anything obliged, though with a sigh, to forego ambitious but content. visions of Greece and Egypt, but it was a great All this time the fierce white light of the mid­ treat to me, after a peep at Paris and the Rhine day sun was pouring down its force upon the and Switzerland, to cross the Alps and visit bleached stones of the pavement, and tne heat that Italy that I had so often pictured to my­ was extrerae. I was glad to step aside into the self, but which I only knew from books. And shadow of a cool caffe, with a gay red and white now I had seen Milan, Venice, Florence, and, awning before it, where a drowsy waiter was more interesting still, to one who traveUed with fanning away the flies with a green bunch of Eustace's volumes in his portmanteau, the old twigs, and where two or three of the foreigners Etrurian cities, and had recently reached Rorae. who chanced to be in Rome at that unfashionable But already my time was waning, there was season, were languidly smoking cigars or sipping much to see, and brief space remained to ex­ iced sorbetti and lemonade. It was, indeed, not plore the wonders of Rome, Pompeu, Poestum, only the hour of a suraraer's day when, accord­ and Hereulaneum, and I raust not miss the ing to the Italian proverb, mad dogs and Eng­ Liverpool packet that left Naples in the first lishmen have a monopoly of the thoroughfares, week of Septeraber, unless I would be a truant but it was August, the most unliealthy part of on the 18th of the raonth. Should I fail to be the year in the Roraan States. Crooke, who, as present at the soraewhat cereraonial opening of I gathered frora his hints, had remained at Rome, the new terra. Dr. Swishington, the august summer and winter, for three years, smilingly head-master, were he so disposed, could asked me how I ventured to the Eternal City at "suspend" me from my duties, and the go­ that dreaded season of sickly heats. vernors had full powers to cancel my appoint­ "My leave is not a long one," said I, laugh­ ment, without official inquiry, or the prospect ing. " School begius again on tbe 1.8th of next of legal proceedings. On this account—not month, and I must be at my post when the bell that I had the sUghtest reason to apprehend rings for early prayers." any hostile feeUng towards myself on the part " School ?" said Crooke, with a puzzled look. of ray future superior, to whora I was person­ "Even so," said I, reddening a little, T ara ally a stranger—I was naturaUy a Uttle nervous. afraid, "but I don't raean that I have gone But I consoled rayself by remerabering the ad- back to the status pupiUaris. Only I have just rairable punctuality, on the whole, which modem been appomted third master at St. Winnipeg's, steara-packets display m the performance of and must enter on my duties at the end of the their service, and by the prospect of a swift and midsummer vacation. Not a bad post, and quite easy summer voyage in that favourite and as good as my deserts entitled me to expect, powerful vessel the Volcano. AU that was though it is not what I used to dream of when necessary was, that I should not permit any cir­ we were lads at college, and I fear I shall never cumstances to interfere with my embarking on be an Arnold. At any rate, I raust raake haste the proper day. So, not to lose the golden if I am to ' do' Rome and Naples." hours of this rare hoUday on classic soil, a chance that might not occur again until my " Ah," said ray forraer friend, " so you are limbs should stiffen and ray hair grow grey, 1 going to Naples." was eager to make the best use of ray time. Lightlv as I had mentioned my appomt­ And it was vexatious to find that tbe duU pro­ ment to'the office of thkd classical master fessional ciceroni, to whora time was of no on the ancient and stately foundation of St. value, except as represented by the piastre Winnipeg's, the post was anything but a earned by a day of plodding beside Murray- matter of mdifference to me. It had cost me consulting tourists, could not distmguish tlie much trouble aud anxiety, and the kind help chaff from the corn. j , ui „iw of friends, to secure my election, and I thought In this strait, Crooke proved a valuab e ally. myself a very lucky curate to obtain it. For­ He had spoken no more than truth when he tunately I had a good degree; I had kept said that he knew Rome thoroughlv.. And he up my classical lore when more brilUant scho ars assured rae that he had ample leisure (his had permitted theirs to rust Uke a useless duties, whatever they were, did not seem sword, and if I could but teach as well as very onerous), and that it would be a pkasure learn, aud win the confidence and respect of the to him to guide me to the cream of that in­ boys, I trusted not to prove unworthy of the exhaustible treasure of antiquities which Rome favour of the governors of that fine old school. For the rest, there was a tolerable house, and '""Dismiss your laquais de place, and accej^ an income large enough, as Emma and I r^e as a volunteer in the f «^« <;;P^^;Jy\ J^^^^J thought, to marry upon. Emma's parents Crooke, with great good bumour. De^^d thought so too; but it had been made a con­ uDon it ru not let grass grow under your eet. dition of our engagement that I should wait You shall 'do' tbe seven-hilled city in less time until I had had at least a couple of terms' ex­ than ever did even a Yankee excursiomst. come perience of the practical duties before me. 500 [January IG, 1864.] ALL THE YEAR ROUND. [Conductedby to Europe to stay his three thousand dollars, refuse entire credence to my friend's statements, and yet miss none of the true lions." highly coloured, no doubt,_ but_ stiU supported The ex-Fellow of Magdalen faithfully kepthis by legions of facts, real or imaginary, and by ail word, and acted as a skilful and zealous guide, raanner of circurastantial evidence, drawn not while I found it a great comfort to be conducted only from newspapers but from private letters, through the wondrous old city by a scholar and of which Crooke translated sundry passages for an EngUshman, instead of the snuff-taking old my behoof, and of which he seemed to possess a Mentor whom he had supplanted, and who re­ never-failing supply. At first I was incredulous, ferred aU buUdings to Nero, and aU pictures to then staggered, and at last I was brought to own Raffaelli. Very kind and attentive ray former that very likely there had been instances of un­ chum certainly proved himself; but there was necessary severity or caprice, and that it might soraething in his manner that perplexed me, for go hard with an ignorant and helpless popula­ it suggested that, for unknown reasons, he was tion, squeezed as in a vice between Chiavone on acting a part. And yet I was_ angry with myself the one hand, aud La Marmora on the other. for the meanness of the suspicion, and drove it And then the cloven foot peeped out. Crooke from my thoughts as an intruder. Why, after very cautiously asked, in a circuitous fashion, if all, should Crooke take the trouble to pioneer I would—if, in a word, I would do him the my steps through church and temple, arena and service of smuggling a few letters over the Vatican, as he did, save from pure kindness and frontier of the new reprobate kingdom of Italy. recoUection of our old friendship. Why, indeed ? He did not ask me to take any peculiar trouble Imprimis, there was nothing to be got out of in delivering these letters, which would be raade me. My former feUow-student was the reverse up into one thick packet, and which I could of a parasite, and declined all invitations to dine easily conceal about my person, while I could with me at my hotel, nor would he even permit siraply leave them at a certain house in the me to pay raore than half the hire of carriages suburbs of Naples. It was wonderful what or boats on the Tiber. As for the idea of Crooke's good the safe arrival of those letters would borrowing my mouey, that was absurd. I had effect. They would heal dissensions, comfort none to spare, as he very well knew, and, more­ those who were ready to perish, restore hope to over, he belonged to a wealthy family enough, the afflicted, stop bloodshed, and, in a word, and had private means, which were quite suffi­ benefit everybody without hurting anybody. But cient for a person of his careful and unostenta­ such was the hard and jealous tyranny of the sub- tious habits. Nor did he appear to be possessed alpine government, that these letters, with all by any pecuUar proselytising fervour. I stood their attendant blessings, would be intercepted, on my guard at first, prepared to do battle, and unless secretly conveyed by an EngUshman, expecting to be battered with the heavy artillery who could hardly be suspected, would^ of Jerome and Augustine, and sapped by the " Stay, my dear feUow," I broke in; and I subtler casuistry of Pascal and Fenelon; but I felt the blood rush up to my face, and set ray was agreeably disappointed. Crooke showed very ears tingling, as I thus interrupted ray old not the sUghtest desire to make a convert of friend, for the idea of seeraing churlish and un­ the third classical raaster of St. Winnipeg's, In­ gracious was one that I flinched from, resolute deed, beyond a hurried assurance, in answer to as I was not to be beguiled into doing what was some tiraid question of my own, that he had wrong. " Stay, Crooke, and don't teU me any "found peace" in his present belief, he was more secrets of state, for it is impossible that alraost silent on the subject of his owu faith and we should think alike upon the point in ques­ calling. tion. You are a far cleverer fellow than I— But he talked freely and amusingly enough always were—and I remember what capital on mundane topics, and displayed great know­ speeches you used to make at our old debates ledge of Italian politics and statesmen, having at the Union at Oxford. You have spoken very endless anecdotes to relate. His view of affairs well now, and I do you the justice to believe in the peninsula naturally differed from mine, that you believe every word you have uttered, but he spoke without bitterness, though in but, you see, I am a plain EngliAman, aud I terras oi gentle blame, of the king and Cavour, can't go with you. I cannot believe the Pied­ and with admUing regret of Garibaldi. The ex- montesc to be detested usurpers, the monks King of Naples he described as a rash and and brigands suffering saints. King Bomba an generous youth, while admitting that there really exUed martyr, and United Italy a myth. And were great faults, coupled with great qualities, sooner than carry a single letter, however well inherent in the Bourbon stock. But he drew a iutentioned, that should tend to plunge back most masteriy and touching picture of the bleed­ those poor Neapolitans into the slough of de­ ing and torn kingdora of Naples, the priests per­ graded servitude they had waUowed in so long, secuted, the bishops insulted, the nobles exUed I tell you frankly'tiiat I would abandon the or captive, the simple peasantry hunted and pleasure of ray journey altogether." harried by cruel soldiers, ground to the earth by taxation, harassed by harsh martinets, civil I began this speech, an unusually long one for and miUtary, from the pedantic regions of Pied­ me, in a diffident and stammering way, but I mont. spoke warmly and earnestly after the first words were out. Stranger as I was in the land, and Now, I had no especial sympathy with brigands few as had been my opportunities of intercourse aud plotters, lay or cleric, but it was difficult to with the natives, I had seen and heard enough X r ^ggg^

Cbarles Dickens.] ALL THE YEAR ROUND. [January 16, 1864.] 501 to convince me that the imraense majority of the people had accepted the new order of things, of gems, and costly heirlooms of aU kmds, the lieart and soul, and that rich and poor were cumbrous furniture, carpetless floors, and fres­ ahke full of hope that a brighter and better era coed walls, all seen by the dim Ught of a few than Italy had ever known was dawning through­ sorry candles, pleased ray fancy rauch. There out the country. Everywhere industry seeraed was an illustration of national life and Old World to be springing up into healthy vigour, old modes of thought in everything around, even in rubbish, raoral and raaterial, to be swept away the scanty and cheap refreshments, a ievc cakes, by the sudden touch of improveraent, and popu­ a tew glasses of syrup or lemonade, a little of lations long inert to be awakening into active tlie coramon wine of the country, a collation for and iutelirgent life. Nor could I endure—^liow­ whicii eighteenpenee would have paid amply, ever I might respect Crooke's convictions—that ser^-ed on monstrous silver trays bv domestics he should regard me as a wiUing instrument in m shabby but gorgeous liveries. Aiid the calm, thwarting and irapeding the march of Italian portly marchionesses, with then- fans, their regeneration. black silk and old lace, their diamonds, good- humoured stolidity, and soft voices, were a StiU, my heart smote me at the idea that I study in themselves. Aud so were the snuffy might give pain to my kindly feUow-country- old counts—there seemed to be few or no young man, to whom I yras indebted for much atten­ people at these parties—with theu- decorations, tion since my arrival in Rorae, aud I broke the quaint politeness, and solemn raanner of playing awkward sUence that ensued by sorae expres­ trictrac. sions of regret that I should be obliged to re­ ^ Perhaps part of the charm of these curious fuse the desired service—expressions clumsily reunions was due to sheer vanity on ray part, worded, I ara sure, but none the less sincere. for, as Crooke took care to inform me that an Crooke took the refusal very well indeed. I EngUshman was very seldom admitted into the could see that he was hurt, but he bore the dis- dingy but magnificent saloons of which, with appointraent better than I had expected, wrung hira for my Mentor, I was free, I could not help my hand, said that he " fully entered into my piquing myself on my rare good fortune. " What feeUngs," begged I would allow the subject to a capital subject of conversation," thought I, drop, and, after gazing out of the window for a " my sojourn iu Rome, and the opportunities I minute or two, began to converse on other have had of seeing how Romans reaUy live and topics with more than his usual fiuency of amuse themselves, would hereafter prove." And speech and lightness of spirit. Nor did he I found time to write long descriptions of Ufe again allude to the unlucky subject of the con­ and society in Rome to a correspondent who traband correspondence. was pretty certain to consider my account as a However ardent a si^ht-seer may be, his re­ raasterpiece of all that was graphic and divert­ searches are necessarUy limited to the period of ing. It was when the period allotted for my dayUght, and, even at Rome, the Coliseum is stay began to dwindle until the hours raight be the only lion which can well be explored by the counted, that ray old companion proposed to help of torches or the moon. It was sumraer, present rae at a house the threshold of which I and the Opera company had quitted the city, had not yet crossed. while the foreign residents, and most of the " It is—don't be shocked—a cardinal's palace, Romans who possessed country-houses, were that of Cardinal Campobasso, the ablest scholar, away. But there were a good many palaces and raost judicious coUector of antique statuary stUl tenanted, and Crooke was very kind in in­ and raosaics in all Italy. His Eminence has troducing me to his numerous Italian acquaint­ fine taste, and his noble fortune enables him to ance. My evenings would have been dull gratify it without stint. You are not afraid, enough, spent in the empty sala of my hotel, are you, to be the guest of a cardinal ? I'U but for tms thoughtful attention on the part of pledge rayself that no one shall make even an my former chum. As it was, I was " pre­ effort to win you to our way of thmking." sented" in the drawing-rooms of several of the Crooke went on to teU rae that the Cardiual, Roman nobUity, at whose houses Crooke was who was one of the richest prehates in Italy, and intimate, and was hospitably made welcome at was, araong other things, archbishop of the the frequent "receptions" of sundry ladies of wealthy Neapolitan diocese of Foggia, was just rank. then absent frora Rome, attending to his archie- A reading and rowing man at CoUege, a piscopal duties. But the honours of his palazzo working curate afterwards, and third master were admirably well done by his sister. Hia elect of St. Winnipeg's, I had no experience of sister and his niece, the latter of whom, a young London fashionable life, and the little I had widow, was reckoned among the most beautiful ' heard of it had by no means caused me to aspire women in Rorae. They had a reception on that to an initiation into its social inanities. I dare evening, and Crooke had asked and obtained say the society of the Roman grandees, into perraission to present me. For the first time i wliich, under Crooke's auspices, I was admitted, demurred. It was Thursday, and a hot and was sufficiently tiresome and stupid, but, at any breezeless day, and I had been racing through rate, it was thoroughly new to me, and had a picture-galleries for the last time, had inspected sort of picturesque dulness and gloom about it. the wonderful cabinets of the Doria collection The great shadowy rooms, with priceless pic­ since lunch, and was knocked up and weary. As tures on the waUs, peerless marbles, cabinets for Crooke, nothing seemed to tire him. But 502 [January 16,1864.] ALL THE YEAR ROUND. [Conducted by then I was booked to start, early on the follow­ himself, so his niece declared, would have ing raorning, for the Neapolitan frontier, as stayed away from his diocese, which his vicar No. 3 in the coupe of a shabby green dUigence, could administer, but Cardinal Campobasso was and I should have preferred a night's unbroken a model archbishop. His age and infirmities, repose. I could hardly be terapted, even by my alas! weighed every year more heavily upon him, friend's account of the treasures of classic art, but never was he known to be deaf to the call the Byzantine mosaics, the Greek intaglios, in of duty. the Cardinal's saloons, and was quite deaf to his Then Madame Minetta, begging my pardon praises of the beauty and grace of the fair with the prettiest humility for having wearied hostess. However, I did not wish to be churlish, me with her egotistical praises of the good old and T consented, groaning the while, to put on relative who had been as a parent to her, offered my dress suit, and to accompany Crooke to the to show me some of the Cardinal's rare stores " reception." Indeed, he raade such a point of of curiosities. Very notable and exquisite were my compliance, that I could hardly refuse, little many of the cameos and scraps of many-tinted as I guessed the real reason of his eagerness. mosaic to which she called my attention, hur­ The " reception" at the Campobasso Palace riedly describing them in her low sweet voice, differed in some respects from those dreary but I could hardly distinguish one from the parties at which I had previously been a guest other. I was fairly dazzled for the moment. It while at Rome. The huge mansion was bril­ was not that I was silly enough, or fickle enough, Uantly lighted, the servants wore liveries that to fall in love; my heart never swerved from were grotesque, certainly, but rich and new, and its allegiance to Eraraa, at home in England; there was no lack of music; a well-stored buffet, but there was something in so rauch loveliness and a crowd of corapany, araid which youth and excellence as that of the Cardinal's niece and good looks were mingled in fair proportion. that interested me very much. I fancied, too, It was a real party, in fact, with clean cards on that she was not happy; there was a pensive the tables, instead of the well-thumbed packs raelancholy in her dark eyes, and a sad rausic that the old counts and abbes must have known in her voice, that seemed to hint at hidden sor­ by heart, with a blaze of wax-candles, refresh­ rows. Perhaps she was inconsolable, I thought, ments that were meant to be eaten and imbibed, for the loss of her husband, Coxmt soraething— good singing, and fresh toilettes. The saloons I only know that the name was a long and were gorgeously furnished in the style of Louis sonorous one. Or could it be that she found Quinze, and there were objects of art in even no congenial spirit in that gay and frivolous greater profusion than Crooke had led me to society, amid which her lot was cast. How expect. noble, in any case, were her sentiments, and how My friend introduced rae to the Cardinal's exquisite was her devotion to that good old sister, a stiff old lady in velvet and diamonds, uncle. Cardinal Campobasso. whose name I did not catch, and to the Car­ 1 had plenty of tirae to think all this, for the dinal's niece, Countess Minetta something, but young countess could not, of course, neglect her the latter soraewhat curtailed the introduction other guests, among whom were princes and by giving me her hand with a sort of queenly great ladies, French officers of the garrison. condescension, and observing in tolerable Eng­ Knights of Malta, and bishops, to spend all the lish that she " was glad to see one of whom M. evening in showing Macedonian medallions and Crooke had told her so much good. Her own Syracusan bronzes to the third master at St. papa had beeu half an Englishraan, and she re­ Winnipeg's. But as she glided gracefully gretted to speak his language so imperfectly." through the midst of the compauy, she never I do not think I could describe the Countess passed rae without a bright smUe, and a word Minetta if I were to tiy. I can ouly say that or two in her pretty broken English. And she she was a very beautiful creature, with a dark, introduced me to one or two persons, among almost Spanish cast of face, whieh her black others a handsome young Roman lady, who dress and sparkling jewels set oflf to perfection, looked like Juno, but spoke little, and appeared that she seemed very young, and had a fawn-like ignorant of all topics, save only her parish timidity of manner that was very charming. church, its rich shrines and altar-pieces, and her But what pleased me raost was her great kind­ confessor. Father Bonifaccio, who preached there ness to an undistinguished stranger like myself, in Lent, and her own, the countess's, brother. and her filial affection for her absent uncle, the The latter was a tall young officer in the Pope's Cardinal. Of the latter she spoke with the Noble Guard, very splendid and good humoured, utmost pride and fondness, regretting tliat he but without any of nis sister's keenness of feel­ should have been away from Rorae during my ing or grace of raanner. Of Crooke I saw sojourn there. His Eminence would have^been little. _ He had many friends, and seemed very deUghted to converse with a learned Inglese like busy indeed. myself—ah 1 I must not be bashful about my The party gradually broke up. The guests attainments—^M. Crooke had told them all about took their leave, and I, Uke the rest, made my me—and I should have been sure to like the bow to the Cardinal's sister in black velvet. Cardinal. Why not ? Her uncle was a scholar, The niece I did not see, nor at the moment was a poet, like Petrarch, a father to his flock, the Crooke visible. But before I got clear of the tender protector of the poor, kind and benevo­ ante-chamber, Crooke hurried up and caught ihy lent to aU. Any one less conscientious than arm.

/y Charles Dickens.] ALL THE YEAR ROUND. [January 16, IS6L] 503 " Come back. West, for just a moment! clouds and through the hot haze the bumins Countess Mmetta has something to say to sun glared like a red ball. Early as had be^ yon." our start frora Rome, it was dusk when we left So she had. In her sweet soft voice, and with lerracma, and dark night when we got to the her flashing dark eyes a Uttle more hidden by frontier town of Fondi. The boundary Une lies the drooping lashes than I had seen them before, as all travellers know, some four railes north of ^e asked me to do her a favour, if she might the latter place, and there we had duly under- presume on the kindness of one who must regard gone the usual routine of inspecting passports, her merely as a troublesome stranger. But Eng­ tapping pockets, and "visiting" luggage. AU lishmen were always ready, she had heard, to tbs had passed over pretty smoothly" and as the fulfil a lady's entreaty—was it not so ? Ah, so officer of the Dogana Reale returned me my lier papa had told her in her childhood! She keys, I felt that I was fairly out of Papal Rome, was so reluctant to trouble me, but M. Crooke and a denizen of Living Italy. But at Fondi said I was going to Naples next day, and tbe we found lighted torches, a guard under arms, temptation was too strong to be resisted. Would and unwonted signs of activity at the second I obUge her ? She asked nothmg alarming. But custora-house. the Cardinal-Archbishop was gouty and old, and he had left his favourite stick, which usuaUy "Body of Bacchus!" cried the conductor, supported his tottering steps, dear man, behind letting down the glass on my side of the coup^, hira in Rome. He had written twice to his " soraething must be up. Signers and dames, niece from his palace at Foggia, lamenting, in you are invited to descend for the gratification of the royal officers. A second search takes serio-comic fashion,the want of this well-remem­ place." bered staff, which he missed sorely. He had sticks in plenty, but none suited him like this Out we got, grumbling, sleepy, and disgusted old favourite, which had belonged to his father. at this unexpected call on our obedience, and Prince Julian Campobasso, and was a sort of again portmanteaus were unstrapped, bags forced heirloom. to disgorge their contents, and trunks uncorded and unlocked. The second search was very " The aged have their fancies, you know," severe, and I was caUed on to explain the pur­ said the young widow, smiling with angelic be­ port of even ray English papers ana manuscripts, nignity, as she finished this explanation: "here poor Emma's letters inclusive, while several is the stick. H you would kindly take care of cards and notes of invitation from the Roman it on the joumey, and leave it at Capua with grandees were set aside and remitted to the the Cardinal's factor, Signor Boccotristo, whose custody of the controller. The scrutiny was house is opposite the chief hotel, you would long and rainute. Our pockets, even, were reaUy oblige us all. The dear good uncle ! I emptied, and the failure of aU these efforts to know his kind old eyes will brighten when he discover anything contraband only seemed to sees this quaint cratch of his once raore!" sour the temper of the officials, who eyed us The stick was a curious one, a tall and stout with actual hostUity, the reason of which I staff of sorae dark wood, probably ebony, with a could not guess. silver ferrule, a cratch handle of ivory, serrated " That stick, English signor; that stick ?" bythe file, and a profusion of ivory rings let into I handed over the Cardinal's staff, smiling the the wood. It looked ancient, the very ivory while, to a lynx-eyed person in uniform. A fat being discoloured by age to a pale yellow tint, good-humoured chief clerk in plain clothes and I could easily fancy tbat its farailiar support smiled too, and shrugged his shoulders. might be endeared by custom to its venerable " Blessed Gennaro, Signor Vulpini, we must owner. Of course, I willingly undertook to exe­ not vex the forestieri for nothing. Give the cute the countess's commission. My road led EngUsh illustrious - one his cane back agam. me through Capua, and a walking-stick was no Cospetto, man, we don't care, as the Tedeschi formidable addition to my baggage. I pledged used to do, even if there be a sword or a durk myself, however, never to lose sight of the Car­ m that slip of old wood." dinal's stick until, at Capua, I should resign my But what was ray dismay, when the prym» trust. The countess thanked me in her bewitch­ personage addressed, unscrewing the crutch ing way, and I took my leave. handle of the cane, drew from a hoUow in the Crook saw me off next moming, early as was staff itself, not a sword, but a long roll of closely- the hour of my departure. I took my place in written papers, which had been craftily con­ the dUigence, along with sorae intensely national cealed in that receptacle, and of which I had fellow-passengers, who insisted on keeping the been the unconscious bearer. There was a hum, windows closed, and who sustained nature on and then a Babel of vociferous exclamations, cigarettes and slices of melon, as we rolled and all the officers rushed, as to a focus, to the along. The Cardinal's stick was in ray hand. spot where the papers were rustling m the " Good-by, and a good journey. West, old boy. hauds of the wily finder. Ferhaps we shall never meet again, but I shan't "Instructions to the band of Chiavone! forget you. Mind you take care of the stick," cried one, seizing a document. were the last words of my Oxford friend. "The College of Cardinals, to all regular and The diligence, with its load, jangled aud jolted secular clergy, greeting!" bawled another. but slowly along the road through the Pontine "A regular commission of lieutenant-general, Marshes; the dust hung around us in heavy under the hand of Francesco de Bourbon, Kmg 504 ALL THE YEAR ROUND. [January 16,1864.] of the Sicilies, to Hernan Mendez, the Spanish never intended that your captivity, if the papers brigand," cried a third; " and here are letters of which you were the unwitting bearer should to all the worst conspirators and most pig-headed faU into wrong hands, should be avery long one. codini in Naples, enough to hang the messenger He wrote to my uncle the consul, and we have ten times over. See, comrades, to the English­ lost no time in settling matters with the au­ man !" thorities at Naples. I have come over here I had scanty time given me to protest my on purpose to effect your release, and if you innocence. Collared, hustled, my hands pinioned can start at once, I should be happy to have behind my back, I was paraded off to jail be­ your company back to Naples. Here, Giacomo, tween two soldiers with drawn bayonets, re­ Beppo, wnatever you call yourself, unlock those garded by my fellow-travellers as little better irons, can't you ? English wrists get chafed than a demon, and hooted by a large ragged by such bracelets." population tbat seemed to start from porch and The jailor, as obsequious and apologetic now stone stair, from hovel and cavernous house, as rough and suspicious formerly, removed my throughout the ruinous old town. I scarcely chains, and before I well knew where I was, I had leisure for reflection, before I found rayself was whirling away from Fondi, by the side of thrust into a bare and darap room, whicii con­ my kindly young countryman, who seemed to tained but a truckle-bed and a broken stool, but consider the whole matter a capital joke, pushed, which yet was reckoned the state chamber of perhaps, a little too far. the prison of Fondi. " Hard on you, I must say," remarked he, What I underwent in that wretched place of " but the Italians could only judge by appear­ confinement, during several of the longest and ances. They are not to blame, you know; but, most miserable days that I ever spent, I scarcely excuse me, Mr. West, how could ^oyflet yourself like to think of. I was not wilfully ill treated. be hoodwinked as you were ? It was known The jailer and his subordinates were rough, but apers of a treasonable nature were on their way; not cruel. It was the hard fare, the extreme Eut bah ! I dare say you are sick of the subject." discomfort, the blank monotony of my captivity With aU our speed, and my deliverer was that I felt so bitterly. The prison had been very good natured in hurrying on when once I designed, inthe Bourbon times, forthe reception had told my reason for haste, I did but reach of mountain robbers, but what might have been the Chiaia at Naples, and jump into a boat, as endurable to thera, the grim bare room, the bed torrents of black smoke gushed from the of coarse sacking, covered by a fiea-infestedrug , Volcano's chimney. The boatman pulled and the polenta and rancid bacon, tried my spirit shouted, and just as the huge paddles began to sorely. The people persisted in regarding rae as revolve, we were alongside, and I was hauled a great criminal. A judge came to visit me, and up the side-ladder. a greffier with hira, and I was interrogated, "Just saved the boat, sir. Cast off there, cross-exarained, worried to my wits' end. In Johnny, and, now, go on ahead !" shouted the vain I protested ray good will to Italy, and ray captain. And off we went. utter ignorance that the staff contained papers But when the dreaded eighteenth came roufad, dangerous to the State. The judge only shrugged the third classical master of St. Winnipeg's, his shoulders. And all this time the days were very lean and sunburnt, was at bis desk m the dropping one by one into eternity, and the time of ancient hall, and Dr. Swisherton nodded to him the packet's sailing drew near. The eighteenth with civil approval. The third classical master of September would come, and St. Winnipeg's is at home there now; his name is the Rev. school would assemble, raasters and boys, but WiUiam West; his Italian misadventures seem the third classical master—where was he ? In Uke a dream in the distance; and Emma is his an Italian prison, unwashed, hungry, despairing, wife. He has never heard anything raore of his and the governors would no doubt proceed to a former chum at Magdalen College, Mr. Titus new election. Emma! Crooke. " Mr. West, you are free !" said a tall young EngUshman, coming sud^lenly into the room Now ready, and to be had at all the Libraries, where I lay, sullen and desponding, on the HAED CASH, wretched bed. "Unscrupulous as he is, your In 3 vols., 3l8. ed. precious coUege friend, what's his name, Crooke, London: SAMPSON Low, SON, and Co.

Volume XI. will begin on the lath of February, 1864, with a New Serial Story, entitled QUITE ALONE, BY GEORGE AUGUSTUS SALA.

The Right of Translating Articles fiom ALL THE YEAR RpruD is reserved by the Authors.

PnWinhpri «t ths Office N—r 7rJntPd>iT CTWutfiNG: Bvs'!!'.--i :iw