^r

" THE STOEY OF OUR LIVES FROM YEAR TO YEAR."-.SHAKBSPBABB. ALL THE TEAE EOUND. A WEEKLY JOURNAL. CONDUCTED BY CHARLES DICKENS. WITH WHICH*IS INCORPORATED HOUSEHOLD WORDS.

W' 16,] SATURDAY, AUGUST 13, 1859. [PBICE 2d.

" Quite sure, my darling! More than that," he A TALE OF TWO CITIES. added, as he tenderly kissed her : "my future is 3in Cftrce 33oo&s. far brighter, Lucie, seen through your marriage, BY CHABLES DICKENS, than it could have been—nay, than it ever was —without it," " If I could hope that, my father! " BOOK THE SECOND, THE GTOLDEN THBEAD. " Believe it, love! Indeed, it is so. Con­ CHAPTEE XVN. ONE NIGHT. sider how natural and how plain it is, my NEVEE did the sun go down with a brighter dear, that it should be so. You, devoted and glory on the quiet comer in Soho, than one young, cannot freely appreciate the anxiety memorable evening when the Doetor and his I have felt that your life should not be daughter sat under the plane-tree together. wasted " Never did the moon rise with a milder radiance She moved her hand towards his lips, but he over great London, than on that night when it took it in his, and repeated the word. found them still seated ui^der the tree, and shone " —wasted, my child—should not be wasted, upon their faces through its leaves, struck aside from the natural order of things, Lucie was to be married to-morrow. She had for my sake. Your unselfishness cannot entirely reserved this last evenine for her father, and comprehend how much my mind has gone on they sat alone under the plane-tree. this; but, only ask yourself, how could my happi­ " You are happy, my dear father ?" ness be perfect, while yours was incomplete r" " Quite, my child," " If I had never seen Charles, my father, I They had said little, though they had been should have been quite happy with you." there a long time. When it was yet light He smiled at her unconscious admission that enough to work and read, she had neither en­ she would have been unhappy vrithout Charles, gaged herself in her usual work, nor had she having seen him, and replied: read to him. She had employed herself in both " My child, you did see him, and it is Charles. ways, at his side under the tree, many and many If it had not been Charles, it would have been a time; but, this time was not quite like any another. Or, if it had been no other, I shoidd other, and nothing could make it so, have been the cause, and then the dark part of " And I am very happy to-night, dear father, I my life would have cast its shadow beyond my­ am deeply happy in the love that Heaven has so self, and would have fallen on you," blessed — my love for Charles, and Charles's It was the first time, except at the trial, of love for me. But, if my life were not to be, stiU her ever hearing him refer to the period of his : consecrated to you, or if my marriage were so suffering. It gave her a strange and new sensa­ arranged as that it would part us, even by the tion while his words were in her ears; and she lengtii of a few of these streets, I should be remembered it long afterwards, more unhappy and self-reproachful now, than I " See 1" said the Doctor of Beauvais, raising , can tell you. Even as it is " his hand towards the moon, " I have looked at Even as it was, she could not command her her, from my prison-window, when I could voice. not bear her light, I have looked at her, when, In the sad moonlight, she clasped him by the it has been such torture to me to think of her neck, and laid her face upon his breast. In the shining upon what I had lost, that I have beaten moonlight which is always sad, as the Ught of the my head against my prison walls, I have looked sun itself is—as the light called human life is— at her, iu a state so dulled and lethargic, that I at its coming and its going, have thought of nothing but the number of "Dearest dear! Can you tell me, this last horizontal lines I could draw across her at the time, that you feel qidte, quite sure no new full, and the number of perpendicular lines with affections of mine, and no new duties of mine, which I could intersect them," He added will ever interpose between us ? /know it well, in his inward and pondering maimer, as he but do you know it ? In your own heart, do looked at the moon, " It was twenty either you feel quite certain ?" way, I remember, and the twentieth was diffi­ Her father answered, with a cheerful firmness cult to squeeze in," of conviction he could scarcely have assumed. The strange thrill with which she heard him

VOL, I, IG S62 [AnputU.lSH,] ALL THE TEAR ROUND. [Condiieltd by go back to that time, deepened as he dwelt upon her, in the moonlight, coming to me and taking it; but, there was nothing to shock her in the me out to show rae that the home of her iiianiea manner cd his refepenoe. He only seemed to life was fuU of her loving remembrance of her contrast his present cheerfiilness and felicity lost father. My picture was in her room, and f with the dire endurance tbat was over. ' was in her prayers. Her life was active, clieerful, " I have looked at her, speculating thousands useful; but my poor history pervaded it all." of times upon the unborn child from whom I •" I was Ihit child, my father. I was not (.1«""' had been rent. Whether it was alive. Whether half so good, but in my love that was I," it had been bom alive, or the poor mother's sliodk " And fS^ showed me ber children," said the had killed it. Whether it was a son who would Doctor of Beauvais, "and they had heard of iDMff some day avenge his father, (There was a me, and had been taught to pity me. Wliea time in my imprisonment, when my desire for they passed a prison of the State, they kept Toigeance was unbearable.) Whether it was a far from its frowning walls, and looked up at its Vi roc son who wouU never know id* father's story; bars, and spok-e in whispers. She coula never who might even live to wei^h the possibility of, delivenr me 5 I imagined that she always brouf^lit his fatlter's having disappeared of his owa will me back after showing me such thmgs. But jftvH and act. Whether it was a daughter, who then, blessed with the relief of tears, I fell upon •J kRb would grow to be a woman," my knees, and .blessed her." She drew closer to him, and kissed his cheek " I am that childj I hope, my father, 0 my and his hand. dear, my dear, will you bless me as fervently to­ 'ii so," " I have pictured my daughter, to myself, as morrow f " ::;:atljaii perfectly forgetful of me—rather, .altogether " Lucie, I recal these old troubles in the .::5noim(l Ignorant of me, and unconscioas of me. I hsrve reason (that I have to-night for loving you better cast up the years of her age, year after year. I than words can tell, and thanking God for my '.r. Lude, have seen her married to a man who knew great happiness. My thoughts, when they were :imel,sac! nothing of my fate, I have altogether perished wildest, never rose near the happiness tliat I Lilclttion" from the remembrance of the living, and in have known with you, and that we have before I raid the the next generation my plaoe was a blank,'* us." niMr. C " My Mher! Even to hear that you had such He leonbraoed her, solemnly commended her thou^ts of a daughter who never existed, strikes to Heaven, aad humbly thanked Heaven for iktEssl to my heart as if I had been that child," having bestowed her on him, By-and-by, tbey " You, Lucie ? It is out of the consolation waat mto the house. and restoration you have brought to me, that There was no one bidden to the mamage bnt these remembrances wise, aaid pass between us Mr, Lorry; there was even to be no bridesmaid 'I II note and the moon on this last night,—What did but the gaunt Miss Pross, The marriage was to I say, just now ?" make no change in their place of residence; " She knew nothing 'Of yon. She cared they had been able to extend it, by taking to "ito be plea nothing for you," themselves the upper rooms formerly belonging 'Meji " So ! But on other moonlight nights, when to the apocryphal invisible lodger, and tliey the sadness and the silence have toudiied me in desired nothing more, a different way—^have affected me with something DoctOT Manette was very cheerful at the Httle as like a sorrowful sense of peace, as any emo­ supper. They were only three at table, and tion that had pain for its foundations oould— Miss Pross made the third. He regretted that 'Uik'ti I have imagined her as ciMaing to me in my cell, Charles was not there; was more than half dis­ and leading me out into the freedom beyond posed to object to the loving little plot that the fortress. I have seen her image in the kept him away; and drank to him affectionately. moonlight, often, as I now see you; except that So, the time came for him to bid Lucie good ^h I never held her in my arms; it stood between night, and thw separated. But, in tbe stiLmeM mce, the little grated window and the door. But, of the third hour of the morning, Lucie came you understand that that was not the child I am down stairs agahij and stole into his room: not ^hst. speaking of ?" free from unsiaped fears, beforehand. " The figure was not j the—^the—image ; the All things, however, were in their places; all fancy ?" was quiet; and he lay asleep, his white hair " No. That was another thing. It stood picturesq[ue on the imtroubled pillow, and bis \ before my disturbed sense of si^it, but it never hands lymg quiet on the coverlet. She put her I%?« moved. The phantom that my mind pursued, needless candle in the shadow at a distance, crept was another and more neal chUd- Of her out­ up to his bed, and put her lips to his; then, ward appearance I know no more than that she leaned over him and looked at him. ^ was like her mother. The other had that like­ Into his handsome face, the bitter waters of '%> « ness too—as yon have—but was not the same. captivity had worn; but, he covered up their Can yoa follow me, Lucie ? Hardly, I think ? tracks with a determination so strong, that M little ^ I doubt you must have been a solitarjr prisoner held the mastery of them, even in his sleep. A to understand these perplexed distinctions." more remarkable face in its quiet, resolute, am Bis colleeted and cairn maunCT could not pre- guarded struggle with an unseen assailant, was \&at her blood fiom mnning cold, aa he thus not to be beheld in all the wide dominions of tried to anatomise his old conditicai. sleep, that night. "Inthat more peaioeful state, I have imagined She timidly laid her hand on-his dear breast, V ^r

CiMrtes Dickens.] A TALE OF TWO CITIES, [AagSSt 18,18S9.] 36S

and put up a prayer that she might ever be as pttera. Enough! Now, my dear Lude," draw­ true to him as her love aspired to be, and as his ing his arm sootiiingly round her waist, "I hear sorrows deserved. Then, she withdrew her hand, them moving in the next room, and Miss Pross and kissed his hps once more, and went away. and I, as two formal folks of business, are anxious So, the sunrise came, and the shadows of the not to lose the final opportunity of saying some­ leaves of the plane-tree moved upon his face, as thing to you that you wish to near. You leave softly as her l^is had moved in juraying for him, your good father, my dear, in hands as earnest and as loving as your own; he shall be taken every CHAPTER XVin. NINE DAX8. conceivable care of; during the next fortnight, THE marriage day was shining bristly, and while you are in Warwickshire and thereabouts, they were ready outside the closed door of the even Tellson's shall go to the wall (compara­ Doctor's room, where ihe was speaking with tively speaking) before him. And when, at the Charles Damay. They were ready to go to fortnight's enoC he comes to join you and your church; the beautiful bride, Mr, Lorry, and beloved husband, on your other fortnight's trip Miss Pross—to whom the event, through a gra­ in Wales, you shall say that we have sent him dual process of reconcilement to the inevitable, to you in the best health and in tbe happiest would have been one of absolute bUss, but for frame. Now, I hear Somebody's step coming to the yet Hngering consideration that her brother the door. Let me kiss my dear girl with an Solomon sliould have been the bridegroom, old-fashioned bachelor blessing, before Somebody "And so," .«aid Mr. Lorry, who eoirld not comes to claim his own," sufficiently admire the bride, and who had been For a moment, he held the fair fece from him moving round her to take in every point of her to look at the well-remembered expression on quiet, pretty dress ; " and so it was for this, my the forehead, and then laid the bright golden hair sweet Lucie, that I brought you across the against his little brown wig, with a genuine ten­ Channel, such a baby! Lord bless me! How derness aud delicacy, which, if such things be Httle I thought what I was doing. How lightly old fashioned, were as old as Adam, I valued the obligation I WJB conferring on my The door of the Doctor's room opened, and he friesnd Mr. Charles!" came out with Charles Darnay, He was so " You didn't mean it," remarked ^e matter deadly pale—which had not been the case when of faet Miss Pross, " and therefore how could they went in togetlier—that no vestige of colour you know it ? Nonsense ^" was to be seen in his face. But, in the com­ "Really? WeU; but dont ray," said the posure of his manner he was unEdtered, except gentle Mr. Lorry. that to the shrewd glance of Mr, Lorry it dis­ ^'I am not crying,^ said IfissBross; "you closed some shadowy indication that the old air are." of avoidance and dread had lately passed over " I, my Pross ?" (By this time, Mr, Lorry him, like a cold wind. dared to be pleasant with her, on occasion.) He gave his arm to his daughter, and took " You were just now; I saw you do it, and I her down stairs to the chariot which Mr, Lorry don't wonder at it. Such a present of plate as had hired in honour of the day. The rest fol­ you have made 'em, is enough to bring tears lowed in another carriage, and soon, in a neigh­ mto anybody's eyes. There's not a fork or a bouring church where no strange eyes looked spoon in the collection," said Miss Pross, on, Charles Damay and Lucie Manette were " that I didn't cry over, last night after the box happily married. came, till I couldn't see it." Besides tbe glancing tears that shone among "I am highly gratified," said Mr, Lorry, the smiles of the little group when it was " though, npon my honour, I had no intention done, some diamonds, very bright and sparkling, of rendering those trifling articles of remem­ glanced on the bride's hand, which were brance, invisible to any one. Dear me! This is newly released from the dark obscurity of one , an occasion ihat makes a man speculate ^on all of Mr, Lorry's pockets. They retumed home I he has lost. Dear, dear, dear! To think that to breakfast, and aU went well, and in due course there might have been a Mrs, Lorryj any time the golden hair that had mingled with the poor these fifty years almost!" shoemaker's white locks in the Paris garret, were " Not at all!" From Miss Pross. mingling with them again in the morning sun- " You think there never roigW; have been a liglit, on the threshold of the door at parting. Mrs. Lorry?" asked the gentleman of that It was a hard parting, though it was not for ' name, long. But, her father cheered her, and said at " Pooh!" rejoined Miss Pross; "you were a last, gently disengaging himself from ber en­ bachelor in your cradle," folding arms, " Take her, Charles ! She is " Well!" observed Mr, Lorry, beamingly ad- yours!" And her agitated hand waved to them , justing his Uttle wig, " that seems prolMible, from a chaise window, and she was gone. ' too." " And you were cut out for a bachelor," pur- Tlie corner being out of the way of the idle ';iied Miss Pross, ".before you were put in your and curious, and the preparations having been radle." ^ . • f' veiy simjile and few, the Doctor, Mr. Lorry, and "Then, I think,** said Mr. Lorry, "that I Miss Pross, were left quite alone. It was wlien was very unhandsomely dealt with, and that I tliey turned into the welcome shade of the cool ought to have had a voice in the selection of my old hall, that Mr. Lorry observed a great change

/ fev 864 [Aari«tl>«l«M} ALL THE YEAR ROUND. . COonOuatod I7 to have come over the Doctor; as if the golden extract a word from him. He worked, and \^0 arm uplifted there, had stmck him a poisoned worked, and worked, in silence, and words fell blow. on him as they would have fallen on an echo] ess He had naturally repressed much, and some wall, or on the air. The only ray of hope that revulsion might have been expected in him when Mr, Lorry could discover, was, that he sometimes the occasion for repression was gone. But, it furtively looked up without being asked. In tbat, was the old scared lost look that troubled Mr, there seemed a faint expression of curiosity or Lorry; and through his absent manner of clasp­ perplexity—as though he were trying'to rccoucile ing his head and drearily wandering away into his some douots in his mind. own room when they got up-stairs, Mr, Lorry was Two things at once impressed themselves on reminded of Defarge the wine-shop keeper, and Mr. Lorry, as important above all others; the the starUght ride, first, that this must be kept secret from Lucie; *' I think," he whispered to Miss Pross, after the second, that it must be kept secret from all anxious consideration, " I think we had best not who knew him. In conjunction with Miss Pross, speak to him just now, or at all disturb hira, he took immediate steps towards the latter pre­ r;lfr COI I must look in at Tellson's ; so I will go there caution, by giving out that the Doctor waa not Ttolia at once and come back presently. Then, we will well, and required a few days of complete rest. take him a ride into the country, and dine there, In aid of the kind deception to be practised ou &] and all will be well," his daughter. Miss Pross was to write, describing It was easier for Mr, Lorry to look in at his having been called away professionally, and 'ierefc Tellson's, than to look out of Tellson's, He referring to an imaginary letter of two or three ;jaEt a was detained two hours. When he came hurried lines in his own hand, represented to back, he ascended the old staircase alone, having have been addressed to her by the same post. ,,'iiteid] asked no question of the servant; goine These measures, advisable to be taken in any thus into the Doctor's rooms, he was stopped case, Mr, Lorry took in the hope of his coming by a low sound of knocking, to himself. If that should happen soon, be kept Se.essmonis i " Good God!" he said, with a start, " What's another course in reserve; which was, to have a fienit that?" certain opinion that he thought the best, oa the Miss Pross, with a terrified face, was at his Doctor's case. !"BfearDt t ear, " 0 me, 0 me! All is lost!" cried she, In the hope of his recovery, and of resort to Is klore,. wringing her hands, " What is to be told to this third course being thereby rendered prac­ 'Ies; ki Ladybird ? He doesn't know me, and is making ticable, Mr. Lorry resolved to watch him atten­ shoes!" tively, with as little appearance as possible of doing so. He therefore made arrangements to mil Mr. Lorry said what he could to calm her, absent himself from Tellson's for the first tune Mflllis, and went himself mto the Doctor's room. The in his life, and took his post by the window in liiitlieiriiK bench was turned towards the light, as it had the same room. Ihe pi been when he had seen the shoemaker at his work He was not long in discovermg tbat it was before, and his head was bent down, and he was worse than useless to speak, to him, since, on mieslim very busy. being pressed,-^he became woiTied. He abafr " Doctor Manette, My dear friend. Doctor doned that attempt on the first day, and resolved Manette!" merely to keep himself always before bim, as a pew jet The Doctor looked at him for a moment—half silent protest against the delusion into which he inquuingly, half as if he were angry at being had fallen, or was faUing. He remained, there- «jjj 1 spoken to—and bent over his work again. fore, in his seat near the window, readmg and I^iHuJ^'' He had laid aside his coat and waistcoat; writing, and expressing in as many pleasant and • ' his shirt was open at the throat, as it used to be natural ways as he could think 0^ that it was a when he did that work; and even the old haggard, free place. faded surface of face had come baek to him. He Doctor Manette took what was given him to worked liard—impatiently—as if in .some sense eat and drink, and worked on, that first day, of having been interrupted, until it was too dark to see—worked on, half ai Mr, Lorry glanced at the work in his hand, hour after Mr, Lorry could not have seen, for his and observed that it was a shoe of the old size life, to read or write. When he put bis tools .terer Jx and shape. He took up another that was lying aside as useless, until morning, Mr. Lorry rose by hun, and asked him what it was ? and said to him : i^iasint "A young lady's walking shoe," he muttered, "WiRyougoout?" without looking up. " It ought to have been He looked down at the floor on either side finished long ago. Let it be," of him in the old manner, looked up in the old " But, Doctor Manette, Look at me 1" manner, and repeated in the old low voice: He obeyed, in the old mechanically submissive "Out?" 5K manner, without pausing in his work, " Yes; for a walk with me. Why not ?" i?,^iaa "You know me, my dear friend? Think He made no effort to say why not, and said again, TMs is not your proper occupation. not a word more. But, Mr, Lorry thought he Think, dear friend!" saw, as he leaned forward on his bench in the , Nothing would induce him to speak more. dusk, with his elbows on his knees and his bead He looked up, for an instant at a time, when he in his hands, that he was in some misty way was requested to do so; but, no persuasion would asking himself, " Why not ?" The sagacity of ^^

Charles Dtckens.] OUR EYE-WITNESS AT WOOLWICH. [Aogiut 13, 1859.] 365

the man of business perceived an advantage of the place, and to afford him every assistance here, and determined to hold it. which lay in their power towards forming a Miss Pross and he divided the uight into two correct idea of the resources of this splendid watches, and observed him at intervals from the arsenal. adjoining room. He paced up and down for a The great war establishment which covers long tirae before he lay down; but, when he did upwards of two hundred and sixty acres of finally lay himseK down, he fell asleep. In tbe ground, is divided into three departments, which morning, he was up betimes, and went straight are arrai^ed in the following order: to his bench and to work. The Royal Gun Factones, under Colonel On this second day, Mr. Lorry saluted him Eardley Wilmot; cheerfully by his name, and spoke to him on topics The Royal Carriage Department, under Colonel that had been of late familiar to them. He re­ TuUoh; and turned no reply, but it was evident that he heard The Royal Laboratory Department, under what was said, and that he thought about it, Captain Boxer, however confusedly. This encouraged Mr. In the Royal Gun Factories a large portion Lorry to have Miss Pross in with her work, of the brass and iron guns used in our army and several times during the day; at those times, navy are cast, bored, and finished. they quietly spoke of Lucie, and of her father In the Royal Carriage Department are made then present, precisely in the usual manner, and the carriages on which these guns are mounted, as if there were nothing amiss. This was done and by means of which they, and the ammuni­ without any demonstrative accompaniment, not tion they require, are conveyed from nlace to long enough, or often enough, to harass him; and place. it lightened Mr, Lorry's friendly heart to believe While the Royal Laboratory Department is that he looked up oftener, and that he appeared for the constraction of the heavy shot for to be stirred by some perception of inconsisten­ cannon, of sheUs, bullets, cartridges, percussion- cies surrounding him. caps, and many other implements of death and When it feU dark again, Mr, Lorry asked mutilation. him as before: The order in which the Eye-witness visited " Dear Doctor, will you go out ?" the different wonders of this great workshop of As before, he repeated, " Out ?" destruction is that in which he now proposes to " Yes; for a walk with me. Why not ?" treat of them, and as the introduction with which This time, Mr, Lorry feigned to go out when he entered the Arsenal gates was to Colonel he could extract no answer from him, and, after TuUoh, it was naturally the department under remaining absent for an hour, retumed. In the the especial care of that officer which the Eye­ mean while, the Doctor had removed to the witness examined before any other. seat in the window, and had sat there looking It happened that the day on which the Eye­ down at the plane-tree; but, on Mr, Lorry's witness first visited Woolwich was Friday, and return, he slipped away to his bench. that on that day, at one o'clock in the afternoon, The time went very slowly on, and Mr, Lorry's the men employed on the works are paid their hope darkened, and his heart grew heavier again, weekly wages. The amount earned by each and grew yet heavier and heavier every day. workman during the week is calculated before­ The third day came and went, the fourth, the hand, and placed ready for him in a numbered fifth. Five days, six days, seven days, eight compartment of a tray, before wliich each one days, nine days. passes in a regular succession. As the workman With a hope ever darkening, and with a heart reaches the paying-place he hands in his ticket, always growing heavier and heavier, Mr. Lorry on which his number is inscribed. Instantly passed through this anxious time. The secret the money in the compartment bearing the cor­ was well kept, and Lucie was unconscious aud responding number is handed to him, and he happy; but, he could not fail to observe that passes on, the ticket which he has just given up the shoemaker, whose hand had been a little out being considered as a receipt. This is the only at first, was growing dreadfully skilful, and that way in which the thing could be done. The he had never been so intent on his work, and number of men employed in the Arsenal reaches tbat his hands had never been so nimble and to something like twelve thousand, and as they expert, as in the dusk of the ninth evening. work by the piece as well as by time, there are hardly two in the place who receive the same sum. OUR EYE-WITNESS AT WOOLWICH, It would be, therefore, impossible to calculate how much is due to each at the time of payment. OUR Eye-witness has spent the greater part The affair is settled, according to the arrange­ of two days in a careful examination of the ment just described, in a few minutes. Royal Arsenal, at Woolwich. Through acres of timber, ranged in stacks, Before proceeding to enter into any descrip­ your Eye-witness was conveyed to the great tion of what he saw on the occasion of this visit, saw-mUls of the Carriage Department, where the the writer wishes to record here his sense of the logs from which the gun-carriages are made are obligation he is under to Colonel Tulloh, and handed over to a mass of machinery, by which the other officers and gentlemen engaged in the they are hewn into shape with an almost incon­ superintendence of the different departments, ceivable rapidity and precision. The timber is for their readiness to faciUtate his examination moved along on iron tramways, which intersect II

^ ^4

366 tAii|wtu,iaaal ALL THB YEAR fiOUNI>. {OMMUMilby the whole area of the Arsenal from end to end, ascend through on the stagt whim tbe play of aud from side to side, and is dragged by horses, Macbeth is in course of reprfessntation. Through and sometimes by certain mules brwight over this groove your Eye-witness was told that at from the Crimea, These mules are of such the proper ihonaent the circular saw would lise, immense size, that tbey would be large even for so he drew back from it to a little distance, and horses, and are of snch outrageous obstinacy waited with much curiosity for what was to oome and intractability, that asses or ordinary mules next. In order to show tne capabilities of the are docile creatures in comparison with them. saw, a. trifle in the slu^ of the tmnk of a large To give the reader some idea of the energy tree had to be brought to the saw-mill aud which lias been exerted during the last few years wedged iumly into its place across the fatal at Woolwich, it may be weU to mention tbat, groove. Wlme this was being done, tbe atten. before tbe late Russian war, the roads about the tion of the Eye-witness was solicited to other Arsenal, now so well paved and furnished with matters in the building, but stiU something the iron tramways just mentioned, were in such seemed to whisper in his ear that he should keep an impassable conmtion that the Superintendent his eye upon the groove, andhe did so. He did of tbe Gun Factories informed the writer that weU. four years ago he used to be obliged to go from He had not kept his watch very long, before cme part of the place to another in fisherman's there slowly dawned through the aperture which boots. The changes wrought by the Russian he regarded so eagerly a long steel tooti, war are obvious on every side, and the influence hooked pointed, terrible to look at. Then, as for good, exercised by Colonel TuUoh, Colonel he continued to look, more teeth appeared in a Wilmot, and Captain Boxer, meet one at every continuous succession, aU like the first, hooked turn, and amply justify the amouat of confidence and pointed, and all like the first, terrible to look which has been placed in those gentlemen by at. As this dreadful instrament rose gradually Government, out of the ground it became apparent that these It was but a few years since that a travelling teeth were part of a vast circular plate of commission, consisting of the first named of polished steel, which was very slowly, but quite these officers and certam other gentlemen, made smoothly (or the effect would have been nothing), an expedition through the north of England in coming up like the mocm from behind a bank of search of any new mventions which might be cloud. serviceable ia the pecuL'ar kind of manufacture It rose, then, thus stealthily out of its groove, under their superintendence, and the United tiU half the circumferenoe of this huge spur- States and the Continent have been ransacked as rowel was visible. Then for a single moment well, for anything that could contribute to the it paused, and then—^flew at the tree which had success of the Ajsenal Works of Woolwich. been placed in its way, and, with a screech like Amongst the machinery thus assembled to­ a cry of rage, deadly and remorseless, it tore its gether, the writer was especially struck by two way through the trunk more rapidly than I can sawing machines in the Royal Carriage Fac­ write the words, and slowly sank back again into tories, through which, it wiU fieremembered , we its lair, like a monster that was gorged with are now passmg. One of these was a ribbon blood. saw, and the other a circular saw. The rib­ Instantly availing himself of an offer to go bon saw was brought from Paris and is an in­ down and visit this desperate cliaracter in his valuable instrament in all cases where curved den, your Eye-witness passed through a trap­ or intricate cuttii^ is required. It is a rib­ door, and, descending some steps, eame upon bim bon of perfectly flexible steel, passing round while he was yet buming hot and quivering with '-iiiiet and round for ever, like that leather strap, or recent cruelty. Here, alone, underground, band, which every one has observed as being so this savage of the saw-pit resided, then, in dark­ important a part of all kinds of madiinery. This ness, Btere he meditates on past carnage, and Ita ever moving strip, which is not more than an revels in the thought of more. And here, too, inch wide, and as thin as a paper knife, has one they come from above at times to sharpen up his of its edges serrated with teeth, and against this wicked teeth tiU they yeU under tbe file with edge the thing to be cut is pressed continuously hunger. There was something almost fearful in till it is through. To give some notion of the the suggestion of consciousness about this in­ intricate cutting that may be achieved by means animate thing. Your Eye-witness could not of this ribbon of steel, the writer may mention shake it off, and thinks of the monster now in that he saw the letters V, A., which had been his dark and secret cellar with somethmg: of out with much flourish out of a thin sheet of hatred in his wonder. wood by this beautiful instrament. The wood thus cruelly dealt with, is passed Of a far different character from this delicate on to other workshops, where it is placed under weapon was the next which attracted the notice the action of the different kinds of machinery of your Eye-witness, He had heard of circular which form it into the separate portions of the saws, and had. already conceived that such an guii-carriages,ammumtion cases,and other special engine must be a tiling of mighty capabilities, produce of the Royal Carriage Factories. Of but he had conceived nothing so fine as the fact. these branches of manufacture, one of tbe most Along the whole Imgth of the saw-mill work­ important, and one of the most interesting, shop there ran a very narrow groove—much is the process by which are constructed tie such a one as a flat pasteboard caldron will wheels which are required in vast niunbo* Charles Oickeiu.] OUR EYF-WITNESS AT WOOLWICH. CikiignitI3-,IB»S.] 367 for the service of the cannon, and the perfect from six hiding places on the edges of the flat truth of whose constniction, it wiU be obvious surface on which tbe wheel! was laid', occasion it. to every one, is a quality wholly indispeusjdile Each of these iron blocks is concave on the side to their action, and yet somewhat difficult of at- nearest the wheel, and wil obviously fit exactly taioment. the outside of the feUoe towards which its It is in such a. case as this that machniery course, is ten^ng. These rams are propeUed strikes us at once aa invaluable. Thousands from behind by b^'draulic pressure; and advance of wheel-spokes ail alike, all the same size to a towards the wheel with uniform strength and hair's breadth, are required; what hand-work degtree of progress* And here again that appa­ could turn them out with the exactness of ma^ rent consciousness of the thing operating and chinery ? Again, the circular portion of the the thing operated upon, which has already been wheel, the part on which it runs, is compo^d,, aUuded to in the description of the cu-eular saw,, as most persons know, of a number of short suggests itself very strongly. Here, again, the segments of a circle, all of which,, when jomedi machine is a cruel tyrant and the wheel a helpless together, form the circle complete. These victim; and when that dreadful squeeze, which separate pieces are called felloes. If they are caused a creaking and whining of the wood that not perfectly accurate, how is the wheel to run.? sounded like the groans of women in a crowd, Once more : the carriages and the wheels made waa withdrawn, and when the wheel visibly in this factory are destined for services which so expanded throughout on its release, your Eye­ put their strength to the test, that even the ex­ witness thouglit that the perfectly audible sigh traordinary solidity with which they are con- with which it did so. was neaved like a gasp of stractednot always proof against the shocks they relief. have to sustain. It wiU be seen at once how ne­ That squeeze^ over, all the parts of the wheel cessary it is, in the.event of any part giving way, are together, and so firmly joined that even a to have another member of exactly similar size drive over a newly macadamised street (which is ready to take its place. Here, then, is the func­ the strongest test your Eye-witness can think tion of machinery, and here that function is per­ of) would not shake them, and the iron hoop formed with a uniformity and regularity tha;t being placed outside all, the wheel is completed leave nothing to be desired. Here the felloes and reaiiy to conduct the cannon to the theatre just spoken of are cut in the esaet curve, and of its operations. even with the alternate peg in the one and the; It is difficult to give the reader any idea of hole for its reception in the other, which is to the amount of work going on at one time in unite them together. Here tbe spokes are these workshops at Woolwich: of the number of shaped by instruments whieh revolve so rapidly wheel-apokes being operated upon at the same tbat they are not visible aa they move, but which moment, for instance. It is difficult to convey gradually and swifitly do thdr offiee aa if they the impression of what may be called the orderly worked by magic. bustle which seems to cha3?acterise the place, tbe Nor is this aU. The puttin? together of aU perpetual clatter of the machinery, and the the separate parts of the wheel, which used to rapid actioni of the busy hands that supply it. be accomplished by a long process of knocking This Royal Carriage Department alone contains, and banging, is now effected by one squeeze of as the statistieal account informs us, 22 steam- the liydrauilc press, and effected not only more engines, amounting to a nominal power of rapidly but much more eompletely,. It is a 245 horses, but usually worked at between 300^ curious and interesting arrangement this by and 400, 3 steaiu-hammers> 16 steam-boilers, which the wheel is fLoishedi and is quite worthy equal to 47'5' horse power, and 4265 feet of of description. Tlie different component parts shafting in motion, transmitting- the power to of the wheel are bnought together and laid on a upwards of 300 machines. flat surface. The nave is placed in the centre, tbe spokes are laid aU round it and radiating Infinitely dedicate as are some of tie pro­ from it towards the felloes, which, it will be cesses connected with the department just de­ remembered, are the curved pieees of wood scribed, such aa the cutting of dovetails and which,, when joined together, form the outside mortises,, and the produiction of articles of intri­ circle of the wheel, on which it runs; one end cate form, by means of the guiding influence of of each of the spokes is placed at the mouth of a slip of metal having a profile of the required: tbe hole in the nave which is prepared for its figure'—infinitdy delieate as are some of these reception, and the other end at. the openiag of a operations, they are perhaps less so than those similar orifice in the inner or concave side of the which aire found in the vast workshops of the felloe. The whole as- it now lies, looks like a Royal Laborat/ories, which your Eye-witness disjointed wheel, all the parts of which require next visited,, and where; shot and sheU, fuses, forcing together, a process which wiU demand cartridges, rockets, percussion-caps, and oth«r an excess of strength, as' all the joints are an deadly instruments, are made' in numbers of exceedingly tight fit. Whilst you are thinking whicli it is enough to say^—taking one instance of this, you become conscious of a movement in . alone—that during the late war 10,500 shells your neighbourhood, you become aware of a passed through the shell machines in one day of general stir round about you^ of a slow and twenty-four hours. stealthy nature, and you hasten to ascertain The first process brought under the observa­ what occasions it. Six blocks of iron advancing tion of your Eye-witness in the Royal Laboret- 368 [ABcutM.iau-3 ALL THE YEAR ROUND. [CondoMtt bf tories was that made use of in the manufacture constracted. These important instraments, which of bullets. It is very simple, very easily ex­ are placed in the inside of the slieU, contain the plained, and singularly satisfactory. The lead, deaoly matter which causes it to explode at tlie melted in a furnace, is poured out in a stream proper moment, and are marked with a gradu- as thin and Uquid as water, and as bright as atea scale, by means of which it can be deter­ quicksUver, into a long iron tube, about a foot, mined to a second how long a time shaU elapse or perhaps more, in diameter, and rising in a between the moment when it leaves the mouth of perpendicular position to the height of eight or the mortar and the moment when it bursts into nine feet. As soon as the metal has had time fragments. Your Eye-witness was much struck to set, but not to become cool, a mighty mass by the immense number of processes through of iron, of cyUndrical form, and fitting exactly which one of tliese smaU instruments (not bigger into the tube which contains tbe molten lead, than a beer-tap) has to go before it is com- descends upon it from above. This great iron pleted, and by the regularity with which it mass is perforated upwards, throughout its passes on from one operation to another of cut­ whole length, with a small hole of the exact ting, tuming, tapering, and perforating. This diameter of a buUet, What is the lead to do fuse machinery is capable of providing eight now, under this extreme compression ? There is thousand fuses per day, and is mainly worked but one course open to it, which is to rush up by young lads, wno are employed here in vast through the small hole. It does so, and comes numbers. There was one amongst them who, out at the top of the iron press in a long Une, especially caught the attention of your Eye­ wliich is first wound upon reels and then con­ witness, He was a pale and sickly lad, who, veyed to another part of the Factories, where it whUe working at one of these deadly little is chopped into pieces of the required form, engines of camage, had stuck into one of the which, by-the-by, is very much that of a long, holes of the machine at which he worked, a narrow thimble. The old round bullet is bunch of red sweet-wiUiam, almost entirely superseded now by this one of Percussion-caps staraped out of the sheet oblong shape, though it is difficult to say, with copper, and lapped up at the sides into the the amount of discussion which is now going on required shape, are turned out here at a rate of upon the subject of rifles and rifle charges, how which your Eye-witness can give no idea by long this may be the case. The writer has one figures. They are then filled by one shake of of these thimble-like bullets before him at this the machinery with the requisite grains of moment, with the Uttle box-wood plug and the detonating powder; and one drop of varnish, to Admiralty broad arrow on its thinnest edge, hold this in its place, having faUen into each, comjplete. As he examines it, noting the dull, the cap is finished,an d turns out such a delicate hard point at its end, and poising the bullet in little toy, that an extra allowance is always given his hand, he thinks with sorrow how weU that to the soldiers in action to make up for those deadly weight is formed to crash the subtle which are lost in their efforts to take them up and tender mechanism of some organ more in­ in their thick and homy fingers. tricately beautiful a mUlion-fold than the most complex and deUcate piece of machinery that The making of the cartridges—the thick can be found even among the triumphs of man's paper tubes in which the bullet and its charge invention which are exhioited m this strangely of powder are encased, ready to be rammed into terrible place. the rifle—is almost entirely the work of boys. These youngsters are not so industrious, it seems, A strangely terrible pkce indeed, when one as they might be, and various "dodges" are comes to think of it—a place where courteous tried to make them work. Over each boy's bead, and urbane gentlemen, who subscribe to hos- for instance, is placed upon a framework, a ticket itals and other charities, and who would not showing the amount of work turned out by the Eurt a fly, retire into their "studios" and individual in question during the past week. nuldly spend a moming in taxing their brains This is a good idea, appealing strongly to theur to devise an invention which mil cause the ambition and their sense of shame. Here, as death calculations inscribed upon a fuse to throughout the Arsenal, the plan of work­ work more traly, and to carry a greater certainty ing by "the piece" rather than by time, is and a greater amount of destraction with them. found to answer, A man who is paid by "the Strange to think that this is so, and that, as piece," obviously having every inducement to thmgs are, it is inevitable, and even right; and that get a bigger ''piece" done, than he who is paid the ingenious gentleman who has found out that by the hour. The hour wears away of itself and a shell fiUed with red hot iron wiU sprinkle a the money is won,»but the piece by no means fountain of death around it on its burstmg, more does itself, and if not done, is of course not coinpletely than one containing a charge of ice- paid for. Your Eve-witness thought he could cold bullets, was doing his duty when, with aU tell by the look o'f the boys in the Cartridge the cheerfulness which a successful morning's Factory which had made most during the last work engenders, he communicated his pleasant week, without reference to their tickets, and Uttle discovery to the War-office. certainly there was no occasion to look at tbat After examining the process by which the suspended over the seat of one Uttle man who rifle-buUet is made, and which has just been de­ had fallen fast asleep, with his head upon a heap scribed, your Eye-witness next followed his con­ of cartridges. ductor to the workshop where the fuses are There are some branches of manufactory in ^

Cktrln DIoksns.] OUR EYE-WITNESS AT WOOLWICH. .CAiign(tl3,l8S8,] 369 this department which are carried on so rapidly, descends in the darkness of the smithy, Uke a that you find yourself ia contact with the raw sheet of molten gold. It splashes over aa it material and the completed article in the same falls, and each splash, as it drops to the ground, workshop. Thus, in the factory where the sabots flashes in an uncertain radiation like a star that ' are made for the sheUs, you will kick j^ainst is seen through tears. This is even a finer sight half the trunk of a tree with the bark on at than the white-hot blocks of iron seen just before, one step, and the next wUl place you where tbe which it almost blinded one to look at, and wliich completed trencher on which the sheU is to rest seemed to scorch one's eyelashes away as one awaits your inspection. The manufacture of tiie stood at a distance watching them. The shells cast barrels in which the different stores are packed in this place are rolled along a sort of wooden for transport, is also carried on with extraordi­ trough which runs all over the department and nary speed. The staves cut out of the wood, by which they reach other workshops, where bent to the proper form, put together and they go through the processes of cleansing, hooped, almost quicker than the eye can foUow. dl ilUng, and bushing, and are finaUy conveyed, There was something especially agreeable to when finished, to the wharf. your Eye-witness about this peculiar branch of the work. He supposes that this must arise There is, in one part of the enclosed space be­ from his convivial nature and happy associations longing to the Arsenal at Woolwich, a place set with barrels and what they contam, Alas, these apart by itself, and separated entirely from the are destined to hold nothing more toothsome rest of tbe works, which immediately strikes one than gunpowder, fuses, percussion-caps, and as wearing an aspect of its own. Surrounded by cartridges; and although we should doubtless be water, divided from the rest of the Arsenal by a told by gentlemen of the teetotal persuasion canal communicating with tbe Thames, there is that these are infinitely less injurious than the here a marked quietness and hush which is very ordinary contents of barrels, the present writer different from the other portion of the Great La­ is yet of opinion that they are, on the whole, less boratory, but especially from that just described, satisfactory. where the rattle of the machinery and the clang Passing through a large and rough-covered of the hammer cease not for a single moment. building where old iron is wrought again into Here, too, are trees and verdure, the workshops bars, your Eye-witness paused a moment to very smaU and with large spaces between them. notice of what various and inconsistent objects In the canal, branches of which intersect the this " old iren" was made up. Bolts and bars, whole region, are boats of a peculiar flat-bot­ old cuirasses, ancieut gun-barrels battered flat, tomed constraction, and with covered cabins like ill mixed together. And sometimes you wUl gondolas, and here and there are placed at find among these heterogeneous gatherings of regular intervals flre-engines, which, covered metal to be made into cannon-balls many things over with a canopy to keep them dry, have fliat speak of peace and rustic, homely Ufe: so a strange look of litters in which patients ihat by the side of an old gun-lock that has strack with fever are carried to the hospital. snapped away a hundred Uves, you wiU see the There is about this isolated place a stilled sense latch that has belonged to some cottage door— of apprehension, which suggests that it is a a latch that children's fingers have often pressed, territory of risk and the head-quarters of danger. and round which the tendrils of the clematis And so, indeed, it is, but ordered with such above the door have trifled in the sumraer care, guarded with such watchfid diligence, that wind. the place is a triumph of precaution, and a But there is no time here for thought. We standing honour and credit to aU connected with are entering a place barred across to keep out its organisation. It is here that the cartridges intruders. It is the smiths' workshop where the are fflled, that the rockets are driven, and the sheUs are cast, and is vast and black and dark as signals prepared; in one word, it is the pecuUar such places are. It is barred across to keep region set aside for the execution of aU the more people out, because these smiths who cast the dangerous operations connected with the Arsenal. shells are such indifferent, careless sort of fellows, Before entering this department, your Eye­ tbat they wiU run against you, if you don't take witness, and the gentleman who accompanied care, and splash your legs with drippings of him (and to whose patience and courtesy he is the red-hot liquid iron which they carry much indebted), were shod in leather sUppers, about in caldrons in aU directions. Wild, reck­ lest by any chance there might be a naU m the less chaps, who glare at you with eyes that heels of their boots, which, coming in contact show the brighter for their begrimed faces. with some grain of grit, raight raise a spark of Fellows always grand, indifferent, and pic­ fire. In the room in which they were thus shod turesque in their actions as smiths always are, were hanging the ordinary clothes of the work­ and careless !—^why, there is a lad walking about men employed in the place, who are aU com­ the workshop ancl using an iron crowbar some peUed to put on the safety dress of the War De­ six feet long as a waikiug-stick, apparently partment: parting with their own garments not the least affected by the fact that one end of before they enter on tiieir labours lest it should it is bright red-hot. happen that an old tobacco-pipe, or a lucifer- Bright red-hot, too, is the Uquid iron which, match, or anything else considered dangerous by in the casting of the shells, pours out of tbe fur­ the authorities, should be introduced mto the naces into the moulds, looking, as the stream workshops. >« ==^l. 570 CAar« u, MM] ALL THB YEAR ROUND. tCM«a««t«y The houses in which are carried on these from first to last, he was taken into a large bare- iiffc^at processes of danger, ure long low baild- looking brick buiiding, which apuarwitly con. iBgs, fireproof, and oonstnwted with <»e end taiiued notliing but certain conical lieaips of dirt entirely open and simply glased as a window, so ^ed up upon the floor. It was stiU more of a tbat, in the event of an explosion, the line of surprise to him, however, when the superintcn- direction woisdd not be towards the adjoining dent of the place, approaching one of these heaps powder-sheds. There is also between each of the and taking np some of the powder and crumbling Duildings, a massive buttress, or, as it is properly it between his fii^r aad thumb, said, " This is oaUed, a " traverse," of soUd brickwork of im­ what we begin with." mense thickness, which could aet as a eheck " Do you mean to teU me," said your Eye- OB any spread of exfiosion. One building witness, "that canncms are made of that stall'?" of the old kind stiU remains standing by itself. " They could not be made witiout it," said It is as remarkable for its extrenrie lightness of the superintendant. And with tbat he pro­ construction as tbe modem bmldings are for ceeded to develop the whole process from be­ their extreme solidity. It used to be con­ ginning to end. The story was told intcUigentlj sidered the safest plan to make such workshops and w3l, and the reader shall have the benefit as were used for purposes where explosion miglit of it. be apprehended, so sUght, that, in the event of The hea^ of dirt which had caught the atten­ an accident, they would fly to pieces without tion of tbe Eye-witness, and which it had sur­ resistance; a plan in exact opposition to the prised him 80 mudi to hear were indispensable in modem system, and certainly infinitely less the construction of the mighty guns which he rational In this old edifice the rockets are stiU had seen placed about the Arsenal—these heaps driven with tiie old machine called a " monkey," of dirt are composed of a mixture of sand and a leaden weight raised by puUeys and suf­ a sort of fine loam, with the powdered dust of fered to drop at regular intervais upon the coke, oompositiou whidi is to be driven into the A large mass of iron tubing, of much greater rocket-tubes. dimensions than tbe largest cannon that was ever In this department, too, tbe fuses are filled seen, is the next thing required. It looks so like with that composition which is to burn slowly the iron drains which one sometimes sees placed on tUl tbe moment when, reaching the particular by the side of the road when repairs are going hole of communication fixed upon, it touches the on in the sewerage, that for the sake of explicit- powder in the shell and the bursting takes place. ness we will take leave to call this tube a The accuracy of this is, of course, of immense im­ "drain" throughout this description of the gun- portance, and is attained in wonderful perfection. casting operations. Inside this drain, then, is Here also the fireworks required for signals are placed a model the exact size and shape of prepared, and e\ery necessary combustible pro­ the gun required, and the space between this cess is carried on. The covered gondola-Uke boats and the inside of the drain—which ia con­ mentioned above, are used to convey aU these siderable—^is completely filled with the com­ inflammable wares, when finished and packed, to position of saiod, loam, and ooke-dast just de­ the magazines where they are kept: which are scribed, forced ia in a moistened state. It is certain old hulks placed far out in the river, and needless to say that this composition takes the beyond the reach of accident. exact shape of the model which it surrounds, It is gratifying to be able to add, tiiat owing even in the minutest d^pree. If, however, to aU these admirable precautions, no explosion the model were now withdrawn, the mould faas taken place in the whole of this department, which it left, being moist, would tumble to nor does there seem any reason to apprehend pieces. So the next thing to be done, is, to put that any accident wUl occur whUe so much care the whole affafar into a huge oven and there and watchfulness continue to be observed. bake it tiU it is perfedly firm and bard. The Everything is done here with the view of di­ model is then taken out with safety, and a com­ minishing the risk, and even the plantations and plete impression of a cannon is left in tbe inside shrubs, which have been noticed above, as ren­ of the drain-resembiing tube, as perfect as the dering this part of the Arsenal so unlike the print of the savage footmark on the sand of Cra­ others, have been planted with the view of soe's desert islaiM, The aext thing to do, is, to keeping sand, dust, or grit of any kind, from convey the whole of this bulk to the pits in being blown towards the workshops. There is which the guns are ca^. This is done by plenty of grass, too, in the enclosed spaces among means of travelling cranes which ran upon rails the embankments oa which the buildings stand; high above one's head, and then the drain, witn and here a curious combination of peace and war the impression of the cannon in hardened loam caught the attention of your Eye-witness; for in its inside, is placed in a perpendicular po­ in the midst of aU tWs danger and warlike pre- sition in the pit, with the breech end of the pacatioB, the grass in these little meadows had future gun downwards, and the mouth, or what grown to such luxuriance that some m^ were is to be the mouth, upwards. The process » making hay. now simple enough. Close to the opening of '*^o the pit, is a mighty furnace, and from it the It was somewluKfc of a surprise to your Eye. iron of whieh the gun is to be made, reduced to witness when, on requesting that he might be a liquid by the agency of heat, pours into a aUowed to foUow the course of a gun's creation receptacle which the workmen caU a "sow Chnle* Dickena,] OUR EYE'-WITNESS AT WOOLWICH. [AogortlS, I8S9.^ 371 (more about that presently). Thenee. it mns a dozen Uves, to make a hole in a ship's side, to along a spout, and falls—a mass of blazing, carry death with oue charge, and to announce a splashing, red-hot liquid iron—^iiito the mould prinoe's birth with another. we have spoken of, whidi beans, as wUl be re­ There is, in the museum attached to the Gun membered, the impression of the model cannon. Factories, a very curious register kept of the The liquid iron, of course, fills up this impres­ history of each gun, and how it has stood tho sion with perfect exactness. It is then allowed proof. In this registor, which your Eye-wdtness to cool, the joints of the drain are unfastened, was permitted to see, the guns which fail under ihe mould breaks up, and there is a soUd mass the test are recorded, as weU as those which are of iron, the exact shape and siae required, and pronounced fit for service. The register goes into almost ready to be bored. the minutest detaUs, and even the state of the It is conveyed into another building; where weather at the time of the gun's casting, the de­ its "dead head" is cut off. This "dead head" grees of temperature, the quarter of the wind, is a large mass of iron which renders the cannon the pedigree of the iron of which the gun waa when it comes out of the mould, about one- made, where it came from, and by whom it was third longer than is required. The gun is made supplied, aU these thmgs are put down most with this addition, because it is found that carefuUy, and form a register ot immense value tbe worst part of the iron, or its scum, rises and interest. In this museum, too, is an extra­ to the surface: so that in a casting, the upper­ ordinary machine by which the iron is tested most portion of the iron is less dense and strong before it is used at aU, and tbe 4e^ee of pres­ than that bebw. If, therd!ore, tiie gun were sure which it wiU bear aeearately ascertamed. cast tbe right length at onee, t^ iron at the Your Eye-witness saw this machine made use of cannon's m'&uth (which it wiU. be remembered in a manner he could hardly have conceived pos­ was uppermost as the mould stood in the pit) sible. The iron to be tested in this case was would be porous and imperfect, whereas, by this tried by weight: the question being, how muck plan, the porous and imperfect portion is cat off, pressure it would take to tear it asunder. and the iron below is even improved by the The E. W, was much interested in this expe­ condensation effected by ibas superincumbent riment. To him it seemed impossible that a weigiit. piece of iron oould be puUed in two. The tiling This overplus of iron being removed, the appears almost impracticable, even with wood. next process the cannon goes through, is called Let the reader take a lueifer match, which is being "centred." That is to say, the centre about the slightest piece of wood one can think of the section left by the removal of tiie of, and let him, taking hold of ea

As your Eye-witness passed out of the gates to supplant, those aUready in use. The Arm­ of Woolwich Arsenal (even the posts outside are strong Gun combines extraordinary lightness old cannons), and as he reflected on aU that he with immense length of range and great accu­ had seen, he was struck by the healthy tone and racy of aim. It is loaded at the breech instead activity pervading the whole place, and sought of at the muzzle. It can be used for sheU or to trace it to its source. The great activity for shot equally weU, and the baU which Sir W. observable in all these different departments Armstrong has invented is so regulated that (as succeeds a condition of affairs precisely the has been proved by experiment) it wUl act first reverse. The long peace which preceded our as a cannon-ball and afterwards as a most de- Russian and Indian wars, had been productive of stractive shell. It wiU pass through a ship's side a deadly stagnation and inactivity: just as, iu without exploding, and will burst when it gets individuals, long success and quietness wiU lead among the crew, instead of flying at once mto to a sleepy condition, from which it takes some fragments, as soon as it touches the timbers of stroke of adversity to rouse tbem. The Russian the vessel. The Ughtness of this gun strikes war was such a stroke, and was of absolute ser­ one as a very remarkable feature in it, and is vice in caUing the attention of Government such that we may at once reduce the weight of to the desirableness of increased energy in our naval guns oy nearly three-fourths without connexion with our arsenals and dockyards, impairing the lengtii of their range or the ac­ and to the necessity of a greatly augmented ex­ curacy of their aim. This, as well as the breech- penditure, which has turned out, as all judicious loading capabiUties of the new guns, wUl render liberality does, the safest and wisest of economies. it possible to work them with fewer men and- When is this otherwise ? Where is there such with less risk. The Armstrong shells, made of bad economy as in stinginess—where such cast iron coated with lead, are shaped Uke the certain saving as in a wise but courageous new Minie rifle bullet, and are three diameters in outlay ? The saving effected by Government in length. Such shells can of course be fired preparing their own stores, and doing away with through a gun much more slender than those contracts as much as possible, is very remarkable, used for round charges, and consequently the and is suggestive of the importance of carrying gun itself can be thrust through a smaller port­ the system yet fui-ther, and even, perhaps, of hole, and offers a less conspicuous mark to the applying it to matters connected with the Com­ enemy. While mentioning these advantages of missariat Department, One instance of what the Armstrong Gun, which we know to be true, has been saved by the new plan may be men- we may add tbat rumours have reached us of its 'ioned here in illustration of what has just been being possessed of capabilities such as we are -iid. The cost of a single sheU when fumished hardly disposed to give credit to, and some of by contractors, used, in its completed state, t-a which reports go to the length of ascribing to it be estimated at one guinea—sucn a sheU can the power of sending a shot clean through a now be made at the Arsenal for about thirteen mass of oak nine feet thick, without bursting, and shUlings! Nor is this all. Tbe saving is effected, at a distance of six hundred and seventy yards. and a greater point still achieved, in the supe- It has been lately a topic of much discussion iority of the article manufactured by Crovera- how far Sir WiUiam Armstrong can lay a legiti­ ment to any suppUed by contractors. mate claim to the invention of a gun which bears his name, A great deal has been said and Having concluded his Report of what he did written to prove that be has been forestalled by see at Woolwich, the Eye-wituess now wishes to others ; that as early as 1741, a certain Mr, say a few last words about what he did not see. GUbert Hadley obtained a patent for a breech- He did not see the Armstrong Gun; but only loading cannon, and that other features of the the outside of a buUding in an unfinished state, new gun were found out by different me­ which he was told was being erected for the chanical geniuses at different periods between 'construction of such weapons. the date just mentioned and the present The tendency (which is a very strong one) to moment. keep secret all the particulars connected with Now in all this there is in reaUty nothing that the exact nature and capabiUties of the Arm­ detracts from the credit due to Sir WilUam strong Guu seems to the Eye-wdtness perfectly Armstrong. Are there any instances in the rational and good. The rumours which creep annals of mechanics of any mvention which has out upon the subject—nay, the descriptions and not been led up to by other men ? In the ordi­ diagrams which have appeared—would be of nary history of such matters the inventor merely httle use to foreign powers without a degree of moves on a step. He adds something of his to accuracy which they neither have nor profess what others have discovered before him. He to have; an accuracy which could only be en­ takes their work, thinks over it, comes to it sured by such minuteness of examination and with a fresh eye, detects tbe weak parts and the such exactness of measurement as are not at pre­ imperfections of what is under his considera­ sent, owing to the precautions of Govemment, tion, corrects these things, and adds some point obtainable. distinguisbingly his own. Or he finds other What, however, we do know about Sir Wil­ men labouring through a whole Ufetime to make liam Armstrong's invention is briefly this. It some half-discovered trath of practical service. is an invaluable addition to our engines of war­ They are unable to do so, and their discovery is fare, but it is sunply a thing to be added to, not consequently useless. Once made practicable. 874 C^karatUilIWi] ALL THE YEAR BD^ND. LCoolaaMi- it is—what It was not before—an invention, and for the pecks and bustle of their mother, who be who lias made it so is—in the opinion of one flufls them up aud scrambles tiiem off just in who knows what |»»ctical difS^altiesare-f^-rightly time to be saved from our swift revolvmg wheelg. endowed with t^e credit of the disco^ry. Off they waddle, only disturbed for a .. 01 and, as you look baclc, you see thera ^i where they were before. DIRIVER MIKE. ^ Then tiie magpies—^hwe blade and white clerical-looking birds you see in England, perhaps How can I find words to describe the bar­ once in a long summer day's walk—here you renness of Connemara, except by conrparmg it put them up in couples, ten in a mile, with their to tbat of county Mayo; and bow ean i desciibe long tails and thm ^y, mischievous mann(i-, county Mayo except by comparing it to Conne­ jerking about in the roaa-side trees (when t! -v' mara r are any), or balancing awkwardly on the cluiu!:Y Here have I been riding on one of Bianconi's stone waUs. i cars ten mUes, from CUfden to Galway, and have Then, as for weasels running across the road, not seen a soul yet, and scarcely a body, except and carrion crows looking out for lamb, they are the two half-naked children that were playing seen constantly, and, in Connemara, eagles too round a peat-heap at Ballyrag, and the old wo­ as you wUl hear. JBefore I get to my account man with the grey hair tied in a knot who put- of this energetic Italian Bianconi, who single to the horses at Croppy town. Not a house either but that one hut, beyond the old castle handed has permeated all Ireland with cars, and of the Martins in the lake, which was an­ done more good to poor Ireland in twenty yeare j nounced to us by two or three spindly trees fuU than But I am getting treasonable. In the) an hour beforehand. raidst of these observations, my Bianconi driver, Mike Joyce, breaks out wTt.h a song, written twi Bog, bog, bog, mountain, lake, like the en­ the schoolmaster at Derry Knouring, and, as '* chanted, doomed country in a fairy story. is not devoid of quaintness, I give it: Two inns to-day—the first kept by a Church of England clergyman, the second by the parish Tune of the Ifate CrovM Mng. doctor—do not indicate much traffic or com­ " 0 gra machree, merce iu this beautiful region of blue mist and You don't love me, Or else you wouldn't linger, brown, burnt-sienna-ish bog. It remains, I should This little ring, tbink, muck as it did when St. Patrick, in his Which now I bring, white robe, tramped barefooted to seek audience To slip upon your finger. of the savage Irisii king, who was dressed in wolf­ skins, and had a spiky mace for a walking-stick ; " Colleen asthore, My heart is soiie, much the same as when the black Danes carried Two long I have been waiting, their raven banner tlirough it; quite the same I've feed the priest, as in the croppy times, or wlren cocked-hats and And cooked the feast, swords were seen in Galway streets. It is no lies I'ra stating; A heron stands on one leg, in a meditative It's truth, bedad, I'm stating, way, like a one-legged pensioner, waiting till the " Mavoumeen, then. coach-wheel nearly touches him, as if he were Be one in ten, stopping there to hand the coadiman a parcel. And do not look so taziog, Rushes, with their Uttle green tubes, burnt red- The pig is bought, brown tops, and littie bushes of flowers, are The fisli are canght, pretty enough; but ten mUes of rushes is too The day and hour are flaying ; much of a good thing. H we do see any children, 0 Kitty ain't they :filaying, ragged and picturesque, in the scarlet frocks " Tou smile at me, wom by the Connemara peasantry, they run from O gra machree, us fiightened, Uke a parliament of rats disturbed Love, deiu", you will not linger. 'No blarney, Tom!' by the appearance of a terrier. I'm deaf and domb, There are two other depressing things The ring is on her finger; about Connemara. One is, that tbe road Whoop, boys, it's on her finger," is so wUd, and moumfuUy desolate, and I had complimented him on bis song, when unpeopled, that wild creatures have claimed who shouid get up at a road-side wliisky-shop it, and claim joint possession, particularly where we changed horses, but two bagmen? the wild ducks and the magpies. Tbey form who, having hoisted up their tin boxes and a fea,ture in aU the wUd parts of Ireland. mackintosh-covered bundles of patterns till the Lookmg far ahead down the dry, blue, bard car groamed again, began at once, before the car road, you see suddenly a flock of black spots in moved off, playing at gambling games of cards, the centie of it, perhaps a hundred yards off with an ardour worthy of a better cause. We As you get nearer you find this is a batch of were stiU in sight of Benatola, king of tbe Uttle, callow, half-fledged wUd-ducks, brought twelve Pins (or skittle mountains), and they were here by the fussy mother to dust and sun them­ on tlie seat with their backs to me and Mike, selves from some adiacent bog-hole or clump of who dr»ve sideways, as carmen love to do, friendly rashes. The young ones have never Mike cast a malign glance at tlie bainnen, a» heard of coaches, and would not rise at aU but they imperiously stowed away their tin boxes. CbulM Diakmi,] DRIVER MIKE. lAiWaft U, ISM.] S75

" One would think," he muttered to me, " it tween you, Widdy Grattan, and the agle, till was the Juke of WeUington and Admiral Nelson you give back them cubs, and the boys go out, arm in arm, for a hoUday. I'd upset up again aud put back the birds, and make all them in the next bog-hole for a tmpenny." smooth.' The boys took back the eaglets, But the red-whiskered, fresh-coloured, pom­ and from that day no more lambs were taken pous, slangy bagmen went on throwing down out of the flock; nor was that all, for the agle tbe red and black pipped cards oa the car behaved lUce a jintleman to her, aaid because cushion between them quite unconcerned, the be couldn't give them back—seeing as how they money lying between them in reasonable pools of were picked to the bone—he flew forty mUes a silver. If we had been driving through Para­ day for thirty days running into county Clare, dise they would not have lookea up. and brought oack every day a lamb, to make up As a road-side dog broke out on us from a the number he and his family had eaten. And cabin, Mike began to talk. this is how it was found out. The man that "There's a power of agles," said Mike, sud­ told me, and who lived near the widdy, had denly, " up in Derrychu-e, there. I sometimes lately married a Westport woman, and came out am getting them at three-and-sixpence the of Clare into these very parts, and he declared couple for gentlemen that keep menageries on the brand on the lambs the agle brought back their lawns, I'U tell you a story alx>ut them," was the brand of a squireen from his own neigh- "Give that yelping dog a cut with your bo\u-hood. Now, isn't that mighty quare ?" whip," said one of the gamesters. " It is, indeed," I said, believingly. Mike repUed, seriously, bending down to Mike continued: "WeU, this same Clare maa them, " Perhaps one of you gents would be told me another story of an agle that beats Bana­ kind enough to fling half-a-crown at him. gher, There was a countryman near Bencore who WeU, as I was saying when the dog inter­ used to cross a ford every day to out his little slip rupted me, I had a mau from Letterfrach on of turf to boil the wife's praties with. One day, the box the other ^ay, who was a powerful one as he goes across with bis log over his shoulder on agle stories, but it's not worth teUing,—Hold and his kippeen at his back, balancing himself up. Jinny!" on the stones, that the water dips and tumbles " Oh, the story, by all means, Mike," said I. over, what does he see but a big baste of an " A year or two ago," said Mike, " it may be agle, with wings as big as a fishing-sail, sitting more—there was a poor widdy had her slip of on a rock half-way across, ating a salmon with peaty ground not far from the foot of Benbaun, all the relish of a priest at a weddiug ? The man that big blue feUow there to the right. She had up's with a cleaver he has with brm to cut a just her handful of goats, that nibbled about Ben- stick or two of bog-wood, lets fly at the agle, culLoghduff, and her slice of bog, and such par- who drops the salmon down at his feet, and, quisites as she had got given to her by one of without waiting for the change, flies off, as he the great Martins of BaJlinahinch, before old thought, to his vrife and family in BencuUagh- Craelty to animals reigned in Connemara (rest duff. Pleased enough, the man goes into the bis soul!). Convaynient to the widdy lived an bog, scoops out his kippeenfal of the driest turf, eagle, ' Do yo* see that tree we're passing ?' ties the ccwrds across, hoists the fish, shining said the Clare man to me. 'To be sure I do,' like a new dish-cover, in between the fastenings, said I, ' how can I help it ?—did he Uve in and hurries back to the cabin, glad to bring tbat ?' ' No,' says he, as pat as could be, ' he Biddy, who was aUiug, so pretty a dinner with­ didn't, but he built on that wall just beyont it,' out changing a one pound biU for it. But he Well, one unlucky Friday, the widdy's sons— hadn't got the pot that was to boU that fish; two stout lads, readj for any mischief and more for, as he has got half across the water, flop fond of snapping at snipes and listening to tbe comes his friend the agle down on the creel, gentlemen's beagles than work—climbed up that pitches on his head, gives him a buffeting with wall of a rock, puUing themselves up by the long his wings that half blinds him, and flies off with green strings of ivy and the Uttle hoUybushes the salmon in his claws, that grew in the clefts, and, when up there, " Teaching him to do as he'd be done by," what did they do but bring down two of the said I. young birds. Soon afterwards, the widdy's "DivU anything else," said Mike. "'Be­ kmbs began to decease in number (it was dad,' says the man to Biddy, 'I'm not the yearning season at the time), and so it went on, Christian to be made a fool of by an agle that till only forty of seventy were left. The has only two legs and no arms. No,' says he, widdy, thinking it had been tbe herd, had him ' and he loads a blunderbuss up to the muzzle watcued, and then found out, sure enough, it with swan shot, and goes off to the ford the very was devil a one but the ould thafe ca the next day, and hides under an alder bush to waub world, the agle. So she goes to a wise gossip, for the agle when he came to drink. In about and asks her what was to be done. Says half an hour, he sees a dark spot over Derryclare the gossip to her, 'Have you never done that gradually gets larger as it gets nearer, and iiiy provocation to the agle?' And the by-and-by turas out to be the agle. Now, I'U widdy says to her 'that her sons had taken tache you manners,' says Murphy Joyce, ' but two of the young birds to bring up in the before he could puU the trigger which was bouse as pets,' 'That's it,' says the ould rather stiff—it hadn't been used much smce woman, ' and there'U never be good blood be­ j the throubles in 'ninety-eight—the agle was down S76 [Augut 13,18U.] ALL THE YEAR ROUND. tCflBcez bore on his back an enormous round bundle " Why one of the soupers that went over to of old clothes, wrapped in a rag, that gave tbe black faith in the famine times for soup. him tbe air of Atias, learning the use of She is a nate little girl, and takes in milhnery. ;''(tliat the globes. After much higgling he gets up to I've seen fellows change their faith for a pair ride to Clifom, and ties his buntUe to one of the of breeches," »it jaunting-car raUs, "No?" I said. "Is your portmanty safe, Tom? Are you " Is it no you say; it's yes I say," cried Mike. insured from fire, or wont they msure tmder ?" " There was young Brady, of Moycullen. Wbea said Mike, iu a kindly voice. the committee was giving away the clothes, he " I'm all right, Thag, and thanks to you," sees a pair of breeches as mightUy takes his time- cried grateful Tom. fancy. ' Give me them,' says he, ' aud I kiss the Cbarlee Dickens.] DRIVER MIKE. [Angnit 13,1859.] 377

Bible.' WeU, next day when he went, they'd nibus with a right-hand pocket fuU of marbles. been given to somebody else, so what does Brady For every one that gets in, they move a do hut come back again to the ould faith, though marble into the left-hand pocket; isn't that divU of a haporth of credit he is to that same. cute?" Look there, your honour, at that field where the "Very," said I; "but is he kind to the potatoes are lying out in clean rows. What poor ?' young chUdren for work, and how charming tbat " He is," said MUce, " and to his old drivers, handsome girl with the bare legs shows thera if they do their duty, but if they ruin a horse how to use the long spade. That land was all he is out with them in a jiffy. His way of re­ bog four years ago, and all that torrent fir, too. warding is by taking you off a wUd, scanty It belongs to a Scotch farmer, who tums out bis road, and putting you on a good^oue; or by children to work directly the com begins to changing you from night to day duty. He tried thrive, from six years old to sixteen, aU the same. me once, but I bet mm, I had to take some Tbat gurl is the beauty of the place. Now if he horses for him down into Tipperary, and when I had been Irish she would have been working at got near his house my money ran short, and I her piany, and had her big lump of a novel, and went up to his house, told him my case, and have been looking out of the window for the borrowed flve shiUings. 'Be sure you pay it purty young man." again, my man,' says he, 'next tirae we meet.' "Yes," thought I, and fell into a reverie, I thanked him, drove off, and six months after " tbe Scotch are conquering Ireland. The old this be met me somewhere about here, and got hard drinking, open house days are gone by for on my car to go as far as Clifden. Now I knew ever; vritness the Martins, who ruled half Con­ be had my five shiUings down in his red pocket- nemara and had the lands of a prince; witness book, and remembered it, so I went up to him and and aU the old clans." and said, ' Here's the five shillings, Mr. Bian­ Before I could finish my apostrophe on the coni, that I borrowed at Clonmel, and thanks Middleman question, the Orange and Green to you.' ' Keep it, my good man,' said be, with question, the Absentee question, the Tithe ques­ a pretty smile that did me good. ' I like to see tion, the Popery question, and some others, I my drivers remember their debts.' I'd as soon was intermpted by our stopping to take up one put my head into a menagerie of wild bastes as of the county constabulary, a force which few see him again if I hadn't," armies of Europe could match. The smart Our next passengers were two decent country­ young fellow, in his Ught rifle green, flat cap, women, vrith their gowns tucked up and their and side bayonet, leaped up with a soldierly- shawls dravra over their heads. bke nod to the driver, bound for some session It was getting cold, aud as it grew cold we then sittmg.'.. grew sUent, only now and then blurting out a As he alighted, a mUe further on, Mike said, sentence when we got dovra suUenly, with heads " Good luck go with hiin, it's some poor widdy's butting at the buUying wind, to walk slowly up heart he'U make ache to-night, sorra guide a hUl beside the car. But it was every mo­ bim !" ment with Mike some kind, encouraging, cheeiy "Have you been long in Biancom's service, words. Mike ?" . "WeU, girls, how are you by this tirae ?" cried " Ten years last Rogation." Mike. " Have you ever seen hira ?" A choras of women replied, " Och! dead " Have I ever seen him I Often and often, your entirely with the chill," honour. He's a little, sniart man, with a quick "And if I sat like that," said MUce, re- eye, and have heard him tell his own story how rovingly, " all the time in the car wouldn't I be was shipwrecked, when he was quite a boy, Ee as dead as the fur that was under me ?" then on his way from Rome, and left with only three added, under breath, " There's no worse driving shiUings in his pocket on a desert island. With than the women, 'cause they never get out to these he bought some pictures that he saw in a spare the horse, poor craytur." window in Dublin, and selling these got more, With the exception of a dark avenue just as and 80 on, tiU he started a car, and then another, we entered Galway, which was rendered dan­ till nowhe employs ever so many hundred drivers, gerous by the rash of cars coming home and the divil knows how many horses, and lives from the fair, fiUed with reckless, exhUarated in a grand place near Clonmel, Tbey say if he country people, we had no risks to encounter on gets a halfpenny a day from every horse it our way to tbe semi-Spanish city where judge ; pays him." Lynch hung his own son. " I suppose that B on the harness stands for We had traversed that day a wonderful pano­ bis name," said L rama of Irish scenery, bog, coast town, arras of "An' be sure it does," said Mike. "Every the sea, lakes, and mountains—country wild as horse has its own name and its own harness. Siberia, ending in civUised city, with rich suburbs, He's mighty sharp. He has travellers to packet station, and commerce. In the morniag, , look after us who come about on the road and a stone-built whisky-shop; in the evening, a • are taken up as regular fares, and who note civiUsed hotel, with conventional waiter, and aU down the time they get on aud off to compare it other sophistications. This moraing, untrod with our biUs at the station. Now in London, mountains, miles of snipe track, and wUd duck tbey teU me, they do it by getting into an om­ country; to-night, paved streets, neat shops. 9J[S CAwi>itis.nKI ALL THB YEAR ROUND. tC«n«i4s itsel£ I Some fifteen of them grappled us in vain, GREAT ODDS AT SEA. Two we had sunk, and finely maul'd the rest A LEAP OF ENGLTSTT HISTOKT, But, ss day broaden'd out, it show'd our plight: OtTR ships Tay under Florez. Tou will mind No sail in view but the foes that hemm'd us roun^, Twas three years after Effingham had chased I Save one of the pinnaces, which had hover'd near The Pope's Armada from our English side. To mark onr chance, and now, like hare with hounds, We had been cmifflng in the Westem Main, Was hunted by the Spaniards, but escaped. Sfogeing some Spanish beards; and now we lay^ A bare one hundred men was our first count; Light-ballasted, with empty water-casks, And each slew his fifteen. But by this time And half our crews disabled; our six sail— Our powder was al used, and not a pike Beside two pinnaces and victuallers— Left us unbroken. All onr rigging spoil'd; Pester'd and rommagiiig, all out of sorts. i Our Kiasts gone by the side; our upper works My ship was BICHARD GRENVUXE'S, the Revenge, Shattered to pieces; and tlie ship herself They knew Sir Richard in the Spanish seas, Began to settle slowly in the sea. And told wild stories of him; their brown dames It was computed that eight hundred shot Frighted the babes with fancies of his deeds. Of great artillery had pierced through her side^. So hard-complexion'd was he (they would say) Full forty of our men lay dead on deck; That, when a heahh was drunk, he crush'd the And blood enough, be surey tbe living mias'd glass Sir Richard, badly hurt at the very first. Between his teeth, and swallow'd ewp and all: Would never stand aside till mid of dark; And thea his blood-draughts Tush! such iMe When, as they dress'd his wounds, he was d»t tales! through, "We only knew a gallant gentlemair Tbe surgeon faUSitg on Mm, Still he lived, Who never tnm'd his baek on friend or £9e. Nor blench'd his courage when all hope was gone Well, lying by Florez—as I told" you noir— But, as the morning wore, he cali'd to him The Spanish feres, natook'd for, hove in sight, The master-gunner, a most resolute man. A force of fifty-three great nuan-of-wac And bade him ap£t and sink the unconquer'd ahip, Lord Thomas, taking note of their array. Trusting God's nasrcy, leaving to the foe Deeming it vain to grapple with such odds, Not even a plank to bear their victory. Signall'd his company to wii^ or cut: What worth a few more hours of empty life. And so all did, except our Grenville's ship. To stint full-handed Death of English fame ? Tou see, we anchor'd nearest to the town, Brave Gentleman! I think we had no heart And half our men were sick on shore. Besides, To sink so rare a treasune. Some of us Sir Richard never hurried from a fight. Were stiffening in our pain, and faintly cared We got our sick on board, and safely stow'd For loftier carriage j cowards, were there none:. Upon the ballast; and, that done, we weigh'd. But so it was, that we among us chose By this, the Spaniard's^n our -weather-bow ;• An honourable surrender—the first time And some would fain the captain should be led Our ciptain's word refttsii^. I must own To back his nainaail, cast about, and trast. The Spaniard bore him very handsomely. Onr sailing. Nothing of that mind was he. Well pleased he was te ^ve ns soldier terms He would not so, he sai

Cliariea DidHns.] PITT A POOR BRIDGE. Gtarn»ti3,iasft] 379

With stoutest courage. No man on his face overloaded thorougbfare in the whole world, for Could see the shade of anj' hea-viness. all that. It was all very well—at least com­ So He and Death went proudly on their was. paratively well—before those bustHi^ South- Upon the errand ef Almighty God; u •\^,:'^^ Eastem, South Coast, and North Kent rail­ And God's smile was the gladness of that path. way termini began to lay their heads together, And now immediately on this great fight near the hospital tliat was providentially placed So terrible a tempest there ensued, at my southern base, Tlien I did enjoy an As never any saw or heard the like. occasional calm, and what, I suppose, 1 must Nigh on a hundred sail of merchantmen consider only a fair amount of burdens; but Join'd their Armada when the fight was done. from that day of steam encroachment, my tran- Rich Indian argosies. Of all the beet But thirty-two e'er reach'd a Spanish port auiUity was at an ead. For the last ten years Their men-of-war, so riddled by our shot, there has been, such » frightful increase of per­ Sank one by one; and onr Revenge herseJ^ sons passing through the London-bridge station Disdaining any foreign mastery, alone, that what numbered six hundred and Regardii^ etee her captain's £^'d'intent, twenty-four tlMsosand travellers in eighteeni Went down, as soon as she was newly mann'd, hundred and forty-eight, has reached thirteen Under Saint Michael's Rocks, with all ber crew. millions and a half in eighteen hundred and The Spaniards said the Devil wrought their loss, fifty-eight. Helping the heretics. But we know well Everybody seems desirous of riding or walk­ How God stands by the true man in his woxGc; And, if he helps not, surely will revenge ing across my back, and it pozzies me sometimes The boldly dutiful. My tale is done. to discover what tbey can .find to travel for. It seems to me that there must be much more Sir Walter Raleigh—Grenville's cousin—\& comfort and wisdom in sitting still, or dabbling Has given the tale in fitter words than mine. with your feet in the watei (like I do), than m My story looks like shabby beggat's rags walking over tiie red-hot stones, under the un­ About a hero. But you see the Man. checked glare of a tropical sun, or trusting The diamond shines, however meanly set. Sir Walter laid his cloak before the Queen ; yourself to the merey of a capricious horse, or But Grenville threw his life upon that deck the guidance of a daring driver. The public For Honour's Self to walk on. 'Twas well done. seem, however, to be of quite anotJier way For fifteen hours our hundred kept at bay of thinking; an average day of fonr-and- Ten thou.sand: ©ne poor ship 'gainst fifty-three. twenty liours, during the present year (1859), The Spaniard proved that day our English pith. will witness one hundred and sixty-eight thou­ No new Armada on our cliffs shall look sand persons passing across me, from either side: While English Valour echoes Grenville's farae, one hundred and seven thousand on foot, and sixty-one thousand in vehicles. PITY A POOR BRIDGE, These vehicles (during the same average day of twenty-four hoars) number twenty thousand I BELIEVE that, by this time, the pnblie is four hundred and ninety-eight, inelnding fifty- pretty familiar with me; if not, I know this, four horses that are led or ridden. The same tbat I am pretty familiar with tbe pubUe, I vehiele may, and does, pass over many times in iiave carried them on my baek now for eight-aad- the course ef the day,, as well as the same pas­ weuty years, and my ancestors have carried senger, tuming these figures into the sample ! hem for more than eight centuries. My an­ record of bridge journeys ; bat that, I apprehend, cestors were the old roadways aeross the river makes little difference to me. A man is a man, Thames, known as Old Londioa Bridge, while I for all that, and a hop-waggon is still a hop- am the same roadway (ahont one hnndred feet wa^on. westward of the site of the other) known as The waggons Mid carts in this endless procesr Xew London Bridge, My ancestors were re­ sion number nine thousand and a quarter; the lieved (by an act of Parliament in seventeen " other vehicles"—unclassable trucks of passage hundred and sixty, and by several fires at divers —^reach neariy two thousand and a half; the times) of various eneuinbrances in the shape of cabs are close upon four thousand five hundred, houses and water-works; wbile I, in this present and tbe omnibuses are four thousand two hunr icorcbing month of July, am having my baek dred and eighty-six. iiieuded after a severe course of heavy and With r^ard to these omnibuses alone, they (rowded work, and am waiting for sometlung to struggle up like members retumed to represent iiim up that may improve my prospects and tbe outskirts of London ia some great central '.'ondition. City parliament. They belong to what may be There is no doubt about it, that I am shame­ called two divisions—the railway traffic and the fully overworked, and no gfentleman knows tbds through traflSc—^that is, omnibuses whieh pass better than Mr, Daniel WTiittle Harvey, tbe City over my back simply for tbe railway station, and Police Commissioner. He has done everything others that pass over it on their road to distant tbat au active gentleman could do, by separating suburbs^ the carriage traffic over my baek into fast and What have I done to Paddington that slow—Hglit and heavy—two lines running one Paddington should worry me so ? Eifty- way, and two tbe other, but be carmot perform tbree omnibuses come from that not very in­ a miracle. I may not be very long, and I am teresting part of London eveir day, making certainly not very broad, but I am the most twelve double journeys each, by the way of

B^ 380 [Attritt»,i8se.] ALL TAB TEAR ROUND. CCondneted by

Holbom, and crossing and recrossing me five pathy with, is satisfied with exactly the sam« hnndred and sixty-six times. This is not even traflBc facilities. much more than half enough to satisfy that The last place that imposes upon my active and populous suburb; for another depu­ nature in the matter of omnibuses, is Lewisi tation of thirty-nine Paddington omnibuses wliich crosses mc, with one vehicle, six timi favours me with three hundred and ninety cross­ a day, and winds np the list of crossings witl ings every day by the way of the Strand ; and another total of sixteen hundred and eighty. another deputation of eight, with eighty cross­ This being added to the other total gives a round ings* ^Y t^6 way of tbe New-road and Eins- sum of nearly four thousand crossings, whieb is bury. wliat I have to bear daily from metropolitan and iSfext comes merry Islington, with its twenty suburban omnibuses, in addition to my many omnibuses, making two hundred and forty cross­ other burdens. ings a day. Then follows that invisible forest, St. My period of comparative rest from my mis- John's Wood (as if its neighbour, Paddington, cellaneous trafficmongers is from two o'clock to had not done enough !) with twenty-three of the five o'clock in the early mornin», and my periods same vehicles, making two hundred aud thirty of particular frenzy are from nine o'clock, A.M., crossings. They call themselves City Atlases, to seven o'clock, P.M. At ten o'clock in the although I bear their weight, and they have pro­ morning, I can count, in one hour, nearly thir­ bably some Irish idea that the account is teen thousand five hundred foot and carriage balanced because they carry their passengers. passengers passing across me, besides neaily Hammersmith, with its twenty-six omnibuses, eighteen hundred vehicles; and during tlie hour pays me two hundred and eight of these un­ ending at five o'clock in the afternoon, I am solicited visits every day, and its opposite compelled to bear twelve thousand passengers, suburb, Bayswater, is not far behind it. Four­ mixed, as before, and seventeen hundred mb- teen omnibuses from this latter place cross me cellaneous vehicles. This is being put upou one hundred and forty times by the way of with a vengeance! Holbom; and seven more, by the way of the I often amuse myself by watching my tor­ Strand, are able to swell the list with another mentors, guessing where they have come from, fifty-six crossings. and where they are going to ; admiring some of Brompton—the gay and salubrious Brompton the pedestrians, and some of the cargoes in the —is represented by eighteen omnibuses, which waggons, and taking as little notice as possible, perform their one hundred and eighty crossings of others, for obvious reasons, I have a parti­ a day; and the more remote Putney, with its cular aversion to " knackers' " carts (although twenty-one omnibuses, is only able to reach one I see plenty of them), because the legs of the hundred and sixty-eight crossings. dead horse hang out at one end and bis bead at Distance, in this case, lends a little improve­ the other, like the legs and head of aPatagonian ment to the view, and a little more in the case gentleman who has got into a little boy's bed. of Acton and Ealing. These last-named places, I have no love for those waggons tbat carry with their five omnibuses, cross me twenty skins from the different slaughter-bouses to the times a day, and close the account of my special Bermondsey scraping and drying-grounds, espe­ railway traffic with a daily total of two thousand cially in the middle of a very hot summei-'s day— two hundred and seventy-eight single journeys. the cargo floats about too much in its open car­ The next thing that worries me in connexion riage to please me; but perhaps I am over- with omnibuses, is the through traffic. fastidious. It is far more agreeable to look Kingsland and Newin^ton must start forty- upon a fresh country waggon laden with hay,, nine of these veliicles, which ride daily over my and bearing on its summit a brown-faced boV, back six hundred and eighty-six times; Peckham who is lying at full length on his stomach, and CamberweU are represented by twenty-five chewing a straw. conveyances, which appear two hundred and There are waggons full of round cannon-ball fifty times; Brixton keeps close to these with Dutch cheeses, purple as plums; waggons twenty-four omnibuses, which make two hundred loaded with brown treacly-oozing sugar-casks, and forty single journeys; and Clapham, Balham faithfully attended by a few wasps, and a good Hill, and Tooting, by joiuiag together, come in many flies; heavy brewers' drays filled with next in the race, showing two hundred and large jolting casks, and driven by drowsy giants thirty crossings, with twenty-three vehicles. in flannel costume, who sit asleep upon the The Old Kent-road has very ancient claims shafts. There are strong timber-waggons, piled upon my roadway, and they are received by with heavy yellow planks, like a river-side fourteen omnibuses, which punish me with one wharf; there are coal waggons laden with bLick hundred and ninety-six daily visits, Greenwich sacks and driven by black drivers; and there are I cannot object to on the score of insufficient flour waggons laden with white sacks, and driven acquaintance, and I amiably tolerate forty single by white drivers. There are waggons full of journeys a day, performed by five of these con­ carboys of vitriol, casting a pungent odour about veyances, notwithstanding the existence of the them as they go; waggons full of casks ot oil, railway, smelling like VauxhaU when the lamps have burnt Deptford and Rotherhithe are represented by out; waggons, Uke moving mountains, crawling two omnibuses, tbat make sixteen single journeys under the heavy weight and towering height, of a day; and Wandsworth, which I have no sym­ half a hundred full hop-sacks. ^

Cbarlet Dickens.] PITY A POOR BRIDGE. [Augnst 13,1859.] 381

Now and then, the slow-moving, small- dozing, apoplectic men, whose heavy heads are windowed, smoking-chimneyed fair waggon ap­ buried in their bulging shirt-fronts, roll by in pears to sweU the ceaseless procession; and the feather-bed fitted chariots; servants pass over in gilded carriage of a lord, mayor or a City four-wheeled cabs, on their road to a new place, sheriff. Sometimes I am permitted to gaze upon with their faces looking very anxious, and the tbe very last of the hackney coaches, which whole of their worldly goods exposed on the roof stiU plies for family hire at tne South-Eastem of their conveyance; pleasure vans are seen in railway terminus, and a four-horse stage-coach the throng, filled vrith equal layers of men's hats stiU determined to beat the parUamentary train, and women's bonnets, and watched over by a or perish in the ambitious attempt. gentleman, who stands upon tbe steps, and dis­ Dust-carts claim their right to a passage across turbs the business reveries of the passers-by, by my overloaded back, in company with in­ playing on the cornopean. numerable traveUers' traps that are painted with Joyous boys are being brought from school, sham doors and vrindows, to look like carriages with fishing-rods and cricket-bats sticking out fiUed with the aristocracy, instead of with of the windows of their carriages; and melan­ ribbons, shawls, and lace. SmaU pony-gigs are choly boys are being taken back to school, look­ observed, condncted by timid drivers, who wish ing very sick and miserable in their threadbare tbey had taken a less frequented highway; and cab corners. fast tandem dog-carts, coming from some livery Pale invaUds are being supported in carriages stable near the Stock Exchange, and going to a by anxious friends, who are conveying them to whitebait dinner at Greenwich. some last hope of infirmity, where the winds of There are waggons, again, fuU of brown heaven are said to blow less roughly; and rol­ sides of bacon, lying in the straw, and looking licking sailors are balancing themselves on the like mattresses; waggons fuU of steaming grains, top of bedding placed upon the top of their or dark cocoa-loofing tan; and carts fuU of overloaded cabs on then- way to Portsmouth, to large birch-brooms wmch stick out on each side, join their outward bound vessels. and sweep the windows of the vehicles as they The foot-passengers, who are never forbidden pass. to crowd upon me, even when I am under repair, Here aU desperate omnibus rivalry ceases, aU are often loaded in a way that adds materially " nursing" is unknown, and for five minutes, at to my burden. Baskets, carpet-bags, portman­ least, the weary opposition conveyance is at rest. teaus, reticules, walking-sticks, umbreUas, bird­ Each vehicle takes its allotted place, according cages, dogs, and fish-baskets, I may fairly ex­ to its tum, in its aUotted "fast" or "slow" pect; but, pick-axes, shovels, warming-pans, groove, governed by the dusty poUcemen on chests of drawers, window-blinds, and a variety duty, who stand in the middle of the road. of other simUar things are carried to increase Trucks drawn by donkeys, and fiUed with my torment. Nearly every overloaded vehicle heavy costermongers, returning home after their is driven on my road, and nearly every over­ day's sales are concluded, mingle with other loaded porter or errand-boy is sent across my trucks, f uU of square patches of peat, and drawn foot-way. Taking the number of persons as by boys : or full of toys, in which strange faces weU as the vehicles that pass across me in the of wooden figures peep from between the raUs, course of the year, the delays and loss of time and painted wooden soldiers Ue helplessly on they suffer, and the value to thera of the time their backs, like dead warriors after a battle. they lose, I have often endeavoured to arrive Country drays, from smaU country ale at the money cost of the obstructive annoyance breweries, appear with curtains at their sides, on my back. It seems to be that the national which look like hammock fittings on board debt is a mere mUk-score in comparison. ship; and waggons, filled with empty baskets, Tbe govemment that rules over me is the glide along from the Borough or Covent-garden stem government of Move-on; but accidents wiU Market, while their light but lofty cargo sways occur, even on the best-regulated bridges. Stray on high Uke the leaning "tower of Pisa or the dogs wiU be run over, horses wiU tumble down, spire of Chesterfield church. or hop-waggons will give way; and the latter The humble wheel-barrow is not unrepre­ event is a thing that at once makes itself felt sented in the procession, any more than the through aU the main thoroughfare arteries of cbUd's perambulator (going home quite new), or London, the slender, fragUe, spider-Uke velocipede. One annoyance I am happily spared by my Shining prison-vans, driven and conducted by tormentors, though only from a purely selfish policemen, sometimes give a variety of interest consideration, A stately funeral, making its to the siiow; and also dingy, letter-empty post- pompous way from Finsbury to Norwood Ceme­ ofBce vehicles, with their doors flying open, and tery, never attempts, for a moment, to encumber their dark interiors turned into a free-and-easy my unfortunate oack, but seeks a more con­ omnibus by half-a-dozen bold and ragged boys. genial passage through the black and sUent Fat men squeeze themselves, by pairs, into cloisters of the iron bridge of Southwark, I narrow Hansom cabs, and roll over my back, am afraid that such an extra procession, however with their perspiring, shiny, uncovered heads costly and imposing, would stand but little protruding Irom the hooded front of the vehicle. chance of beiug treated with becoming respect, Ladies pass over me in neat little broughams, to especially if it made its appearance on my road stockbrokers,bankers, dividend-offices,aud visits; in the busy part of the four-and-twenty hours. 882 iAMgn^ u, issa] ALL THE TBAR ROfOTTD. tt:oiHin«««a kj What can I do to obtain out-door relief? to judge of it. It might have been the effects of What can my guardians do to relieve me ? a deeepdio visits, produced by a str-" - : It was of no use placing that fat atatnesteeple, sprouting "On the day the fatal accident occurred, the out of the sewer at my soathcim emd, to carry a boy, in a very Uvely mood, came to his father dock, whieh only tendfe to madden the passen­ and asked him to give him sorae money, with gers, by showing them what time they are stlU permission to go out and buy a bird. His re- losing—what time they have akeady lost. As quest was granted, and he left the house. As weU nugbt my stone parapets be adorned with it afterwards appeared, on his way to make the the choicest exaanples of fresco painting; my purchase, he called on a favourite schoolfellow muddy seat-niches—those Uttle footway har­ to ask him to go with hinu Mr, and Mrs, Stot- M bours of refuge—^be fiUed with smooth-faced hard that aftemoon proposed, what they often did statuettes, and planted with beds of flowers, _ in the summer months, to take a walk together My railway termini tcarmentors axe praise- in the neighbourhood, at in one of the parks. worthily striving to remove themselves and their They went, therefore, to their sleeping-room to traffic by an extension of their Une to Charing- make some change of dress. Mrs. Stothard cross, and let no man dare to stand in their way, had desired a servant to air a gown and to en any pretenee whatever. bring it up to her room. The servant had This 13 something, but it is not all. neglected this last part of the order. Mr. Stot­ It as not the duty of a govemment to do hard was standing before a glass with bis back many things that it does do—not even to biuM toveards Mrs. Stothard, when she suddenly ex­ its own ships, or make its own guns, at a heavy claimed (as if addressing her son), • Tom, what annual loss—but it is the duty of a government do you here ? But, as you are here, go dowa to provide important bridge roadways. My and teUthe servant to bring up my gown.' black neighbour, the iron bridge of Southwark, " Mr. Stotihard, knowing that his son was out was buUt some forty years ago, at a cost of by his permission, said, with extreme surprise, ei^ht hundred thousand pounds, and its pro- ' What do you mean ? Tom cannot be here; he pnetors, I should think, would be glad to sell it is gone out to buy a bird.* for half the money. How often has a much "' I saw him brat this instant, standing bythe greater sum been wasted in the " estimates" of side of the bed yonder,' repUed Mrs. Stothard, a single year, or melted in dishonest, unearned, and a cold chUl ran through her husband's veins, and injurious " pensions" ? as she added, that, when she spoke to bim, he Must I wait for even such a simple reform as moved strangely, seemed to stoop down, and iMs, nntU the worst constitutional monarch and she saw him no more. She was greatly agitated, tbe best director of roadways of his day, has yet xetained a perfect possession of her senses; fulfiUed his supposed destiny by conquering but almost began to doubt their evidence, when England? she heard a knock at the house-door. On eagerly inquiring who it might be, the servant A PHYSICIAN'S GHOSTS, told her that two strangers were below, asking for Mr, Stothard, She rushed down tbe stairs in. and wanted to know tiieir business, Tbey would WITH respect to visual proofs of the moribund teU her nothing, but persisted in their desire to human influence, I might refer to a hundred ad­ see her husband. He at length appeared. They mitted instances. The foUovring narrative is so requested to speak with him alone, *It is remarkable, and so weU attested, tbat although about Tom,' said Mrs, Stothard, in the greatest it has been already given to tiie world, I shaU perturbation of mind, Mr, Stothard and the preface with it those histories that I can give gentlemen went into a front parlour: the door at flrst hand. It is from Mrs. Bray's Life of was shut. The anxious mother could not Thomas Stothard, R.A., and relates to the death restrain the feeUngs of agonised curiosity that of Stothard's eldest son, Thomas, who was killed possessed her; she listened at the door, and by an accident at the age of thirteen. heard that her son Thomas was shot dead by a After mentioning that the boy's mind had been schooUellow, who was accidentally handling a mnch and reUgiously impressed by a singular gun, and who, not knovring it to be loaded, dream that he had had three months before the aimed it at the unhappy boy when thej were accident, Mrs. Bray thus proceeds: about going out together." "But there was a more awful, a yet more Such is the remarkable story told by Mrs. mysterious, circumstance connected vrith the Bray. Of similar narratives, all bearing upon boy's death, which the afflicted mother used to the same point, I could relate a hundred. In­ relate, and to which Alfred Stothard, on reading deed, it J8 a sort of eridence that is always accu­ my first account of it, added some few particu­ mulating on my hands. lars preriously unknown to me, as he had de­ rived them Arom his parents. J do not pretend A well-known medical man, whom I will call Sigismond, naiTated to me the foUovring: ChirlM Dickena J A PHYSIOIAN'S GBOSTa [Angast 13,18S9.] 3^

" I was staying." said he, " down in Wales,.at a singular coincidenoe; and yet I consider it a beautiful but lonely cettage. 1 was in a only as a coincidence," melancholy and distressed mood, on acooHOkt «f Lt is remarkable how generally—indeed imi- an absent friend whom I dearly loved, and whom vei'saUy—I have found that, Uke Dr. Sigismond, I knew to be dangerously ill. One eveniug, lat* tiie seers of apparitions were not believers in in autunm, I was sitting by a fire, whioh was ac­ apparitions. I do not find that fear or super­ ceptable at that season, but, as I am fond of air, stition has gcovra out of these visitations, but bad left unclosed the window of mj littie sit­ the contrary; and this unbeUeving belief, this ting-room, which opened down to the ground, quiet acceptance of a fact as a fact, argues, and gave access to tbe lawn in front of the I think, an instinctive feeling that such visita­ bouse. There was a bright moon shining o«t^ tions are subject to a natural law, and are not doors, so that I could see distinetiy anything those resd presences from another world, at the movuig in the garden. Suddenly il saw very idea of which we revolt as vrith an innate sense near to the window what seemed to me the face of disorder and incongruity. and figm'c of the friend about whom I was Another singular faet, respecting thought- anxious, I did not see him as a shadow, or as impressing by dying friends, is that nearly all an unsubstantial shape and coinage of the brain, the apparition stories which have been related to but as a real material being, as completely ex­ me by the seere themselves have not come out ternal to myself as you are jd; this moment. As of the mouths of pale, vrild, distractedly staring tbe last accounts of my friend had been more mortals, but of decent-looking bodies, who were favourable, I made no doubt it was himsdf, who remarkable for what is called "good sense." bad by some miracle oome down to Wales. I Sometimes, as in the foregoing story, the nar­ must say, however, that this was more an im­ rator has been a doctor, a man of fact, and ma­ pression arising from the reaUty of the appear­ terialistic tendency; sometimes a staid mathe­ ance than any consequence of reasoning aoout matician, who would ask, a propos of Milton's the matter. The whole took place so quickly, I Paradise Lost, the famous question,'" What does bad no time to reflect. I went out to meet my it prove ?" Another remarkable thing is, that aU |friend, but, as I passed into the garden, he seemed these commtm-sense narrators believed in their to recede from me, and to retire altogether from ovra stories, but not in ghosts; and that, when my view. I went round the Utt£ territory, hard-pressed by tbe number of recorded risions calling out and looking round the shrubberies similar to their own, which invariably occurred for my friend; but, as I saw nothing, I began under simUar circumstances, namely, at the very to conclnde the whole affair had been my fancy. moment when the person supposed to be beheld So I returned into the parlour, saying to myself, was in the act of dying; all agreed in one com­ ' How strange I' I sat dovm by the fire again, mon explanatioai, visual delusion and mere coin- but, with a sort of restlessness, had taken a cidence. different chair to what I had at first, and placed These ghost-seers, then, were not credulous myself in it on the other side to where I had persons; nay, so little credulons, as to refuse to been sitting before, so that the empty chair connect by any substantial link two phenomena faced me. Suddenly^ as I lifted up my eyes, I whieh—not twice, but twenty times—occurred saw my friend sitting in the opposite chair. This in sequence. Phibsophy says othervrise, the time there seemed no possibiUty of ilktsion. doctrine of chances says othOTvrise, Bacon and There he was, looking at me most kindly and Babbage (in any matters not ghostly) say other­ affectionately. The Ught of the fire shone wise. Phenomena that happen more than a few brightly on his face, whioh was a remarkably times eoincidentiy are aUowed to be related in handsome one, and which now bore tiie aspect the manner of cause and effect. of health. There was about the countenance a The two instances of simple rision resulting beauty and a radiance that looked angeUeal, from thought-impressing at the moment of and which I shaU never forget. The next mo­ death, which I am about to bring before the ment I lost my reeoUection, and was only reader, were related to me by just one of those aroused frojn a kind of fainting fit by the resto­ undeniable witnesses. They were told me by ratives applied by my landlady, who had heard the Rev. W, W—^n, mathematical tutor at one ' me faU heavUy on the floor, where she found me of the Cambridge colleges -. a man of talent, and lying Senseless." of undoubtedly hard brains, for be has written "Well," I asked, "and was your friend dead ?" more than one work upon tbe most crabbed " Yes, he had died on the same night, and, as questions of Fluxions and the Differential Cal­ far as could be ascertained, at the very hour culus—works highly esteemed. when T thought I saw him." "Well," I asked, « does not this strike yon?" Number One happened to the Professor him­ "It is singular, certainly," responded the self. doctor; "but my fainting fit showed I was in a ^'When I was about ten years old" (W, disordered state, such as mighl^ probably, pro­ W n loquitur) " 1 was taken much notice of duce an ocular iUusion." by a lady of rank and fortune. My own mother bemg d^id, tiiisexoeUent person almost suppUed " Yes, but what say you to your friend having to me her place. Very often I stayed for weeks died at the identical time of his appeaxing to in her house. The last time that this was the you?" case. Lady M. was suffering from indisposition. " Oh 1" was the answer, " that was certainly First she kept her room, then her bed. I had [Augujt 13, ISH,] 884 ALL THE YEAR ROUND. not seen her for some days, but that she was daughter's moments were numbered, had never dangerously iU I was not told. Indeed, from left the sick-bed for a single moment, and ia her native kindness of heart, I am sure aU those her arms the poor patient breathed her last, at about me were studiously warned not to alarm the identical time when the appearance visited or distress me by speaking to me of Lady M.'s Mr, W n. precarious state. Yet, though I felt that the The second story told me by mathematical watchful care of this lady was stiU over me, Reverend W n, runs thus: that through her invisible attention my meals At St. John's College, Cambridge, was a pro­ were brought to me as usual, and my pony came fessor of the name of FaUowes, ci-devant senior to the door at the accustomed hour, I was rather vn-angler, " a rosy man right plump to see." pining for the society of my kind friend, and He was an especial friend of Mr, W n, who often asking, 'When shaU I be aUowed to see was in the habit of seeing him constantly. One Lady M. P The answers to this question were rooming calling upon him, Mr. W n found evasive. But the last thing a cliUd thinks of his friend in his dressing-^ovra at a later hour is death. I had no fear that Lady M. would than usual, reclining on his sofa, and looking pale and dispirited. To continue in the wor(fi die. V 1 1 J " One night I was lying in my little bed. It of Mr. W n : " I asked FaUowes, ' What is was winter. The fire cast a bright Ught all over the matter vrith you ? Are you iU ?' ' No II the room, I had not long been in bed: I had am not iU,' I rallied him on his despondency, not been asleep. Indeed, 1 know that I was at and entreated him to teU me the cause. He that moment as wide awake as I am now. said, ' You wiU laugh at me if I teU you.' I Suddenly, though I neither saw nor heard the assured him, I promised him, that I would not.' door open, I saw Lady M. quite distinctly, ad­ At length, after much pressing, he said,' If ever vancing as if from the door towards my bed. I saw any one, I saw my_friend M, last night at She was dressed in a white wrapper. The fire the foot of my bed.' • Why,' replied I, 'he is shone upon her face, I never doubted that it in Scotiand.' ' I know it!' said FaUowes, 'aud was herself. Stretching out my arms, I cried, that is the wonder of it, and the horrible thing. • Oh ! Lady M., are you indeed come once more For he appeared to me with dripping hair, and to see your Uttle prince ?' (her favourite name swoUen features, and with aU the appearance of for me). But she did not answer a word. She a drowned corpse. And I cannot get it out of came on to vrithin a certain distance of my bed, my head that something has happened to bim.' then stood stiU, and looked upon me with such ' My dear friend,' I said, ' you have only bad a an intense expression of kind affection that I horrible dream, and be sure nothing will come never saw equaUed, Then, somehow, I can of it,' However, do aU I could, I found it im­ hardly teU iu what manner, she seemed to possible to remove the impression from Fallowes's retreat from me, and, as it were, to go out through mind. For days he contmued melancholy, and at the wall. She was gone. But I did not feel length one morning he put a letter into my hands frightened, I supposed that Lady M., having with merely these words: ' You see I was right!' come, as she sometimes did, to my room, to see The letter was to narrate that on tbe very I had everything comfortable, had feared to night when FaUowes had received tbe impres­ disturb me by speaking, and so had gone out sion, his friend had been drowned in crossing a quietly somehow bythe door, or a door, of course. ford in Scotland." So I feU asleep, greatly comforted and pleased by M[any of my contemporaries at Cambridge having seen Lady M. remember that portions and distortions of t "The next moming there was a mixture of story (of which I now give the correct versioa), sUence and mysterious sound in the house. were dimly bruited about, and that it was r^ Strange persons crept about. I was hindered ported (which was the trath) that FaUowes could from going near the door of Lady M.'s chamber. never endure to be interrogated on tbe subject. At last I was told, in answer to my reiterated They vriU also bear vritness that Fallowes did entreaties that I should see Lady M., for she was not look like a man addicted to seeing ghosts. now weU, I said (had she not come herself to my room the preceding night ?), that Lady M. Tf ow ready, price Is,, was dead—had expired at the very moment (as Uniform with PICKWICK, DAVID OoppEEriBiD, BLKAK far as could be ascertained) when I had seen HOUSB, &C., her, the evening before, come to my bedside The Third Ittonthly Part of and look at me so yeamingly." A TALE OF TWO CITIES. I, of course, asked tbe Professor if, by possi­ biUty, Lady M, (unwatched during that moment) BY CHARLES DICICE^S. might really (as in the case of some other sup­ With Two Illustrations on Steel by HABLOT BROWKK, posed spectre) have come to his ,bedside, and To bo completed in Eight Monthly Parts, returned to die in her own. room ? The Pro­ CHAPMAN and HALI„193, Piccadilly, W., AHD^ fessor declared that such a thing was impos­ "AxLTHB YBAE ROUND" Office, 11, Wellington-r'- sible, for Lady ML's ovra mother, knovring her North. Loudon, W,C.

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