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*• aercbi^,,. Jfepnrciasef^ spring and the principal producer ; he had : WtieW THE YELLOW ELAG. wonderful powers of foresight, and uncom- I 'Wielet;^ BT EDMUND YATES, mon shrewdness in estimating the chances nd of any venture proposed to him, and with ATJTHOE OF "BLACK SHEEP," » NOBODY'S FOBTHNB," &C &C. all these he was bold and lucky; "far too •^rfTob:- bold," his old employers said, with shaking CHAPTER VII. IN THB CITY. Iraiitjfeoiii!:; heads, as they saw him gradually, but surely, outstripping them in the race; " far *"«dgoodcp, THE descriptions of the great house of Calverley and Company, given respectively too lucky," his detractors growled, when • •Betolief> they saw speculations, which had been siwld sefl tk: by Mr. and Mrs. Calverley, though differing essentially in many particulars, had each a offered to them and promptly declined, •i door-fams,; prosper auriferously in John Lorraine's •l|iMB; u^ty substratum of tmth. The house had been k fa resit:. founded half a century before by John Lor­ .hands. tna bt lei;: raine, the eldest son of a broken-down but As soon as John Lorraine saw the tide ancient family in the north of England, of fortune strongly setting in, he took to himself a wife, the daughter of one of his M Ban Mn. i who in very early years -had been sent up to London to shift for himself, and arriv­ City friends, a man of tolerable wealth and • mfothek great experience, who in his early days dj^iMwerek ing there with the conventional half-crown in his pocket, was, of course, destined to had befriended the struggbng boy, and fame and fortune. Needless to say that, who thought his daughter could not have trnqnllf.fitii like so many other merchant princes, heroes achieved higherhonour orgreaterhappiness. •. VhenatUi of history far more veracious than this, his Whatever honour or happiness may have ac­ it in his own pB first experiences were those of struggbng crued to the young lady on her marriage adversity. He kept the books, he ran the did not last long, for, shortiy after giving icdtoiktiiiic. errands, he fetched and carried for his birth to her first child, a daughter, she master—the old East India agent in Great died, and thenceforward John Lorraine de­ igjljlunltiieiiii St. Helen's—and by his intelligence and in­ voted his Hfe to the littie gu-1, and to the iMnhewnHs dustry he commended himself to the good increased fortune which she was to inherit. gi-aces of his superiors; and was not only When bttle Jane had arrived at a more able to maintain himsehf in a respectable than marriageable age, and from a pretty position, but to provide for his two younger fubsy baby had grown into a thin, acidu­ brothers, who were sipping from the fount lated, opiniated woman (a result attribut­ of learning at the grammar-school of Pen­ able to the manner in which she had been rith. These junior' scions being brought spoiled by her indulgent father), John Lor­ to town, and applying themselves, not, m- raine's mind was mainly exercised as to deed, with the same energy as their elder what manner of man would propose for her with a likelihood of success, Hitherto, brother, but with a passable amount of in­ love affairs had been things almost un­ terest and care to the duties set before known to his Jane, not from any un- them, were taken into partnership by John wilhngness on her part to make their Lorraine when he went into business for acquaintance, but principally because, not­ himself, and helped, in a certain degree, to withstanding the fortune which it was establish the fortunes of the house. Of known she would bring to her husband. these fortunes John Lorraine was the main- I •*-^ VUl* llrtr TEXAS TE6H LIBRAR) "X =?* 50i^ pime 1,1873.1 ALL THE YEAR ROUND, [Conducted by none of the few young, men. who from time affectionately spoke of his senior partner) to time dined solemnly in tfie old-fashioned " seraned to> wisb it, he was not going to house in Brunswick-square, or acted as stand in the way. He wanted a home, and cavaber to its mistress to the Ancient Con- Jane should make him a' jolly one, he'd oesrts, or the King's Theatre, could make take care of that.*^ up their minds to address her in anything Jane Lorraine married George Gurwood, but the most common phrases. That Miss but she did not make him a home. Her Jiane had a will of her own, and a tart rigid bearing and unyielding temper were manner of expressing her intention of hav­ too strong for his plastic, pliable nature; ing that will fulfilled, was also matter of for maay months the struggle for mastery common gossip ; stories were current among was carried on between them, but in the the clerks at Mincing-lane of the " wig­ end George—^joUy George no longer—gave ging " which they had heard her adminis­ way. He had made a tolerable good fight tering to her father, when she drove down of it, and had used every means in his to fetch him away in her chariot, and when power to induce her to be less bitter, less he kept her unduly waiting; the household furtive,; less inexorable in the matter of servants in Brunswick-square had their his dinings-out, his sporting transactions, opinion of Miss Jane's temper, and the his constant desire to see his table sur­ tradesmen in the neighbourhood looked rounded by congenial company. " I have forward to the entrance of her thin, dark tried to gentle her," he said to Lowther figure into their shops every Tuesday Lorraine one day,, " as I would a horse, morning, for the performance of settling and there has never been one of them yet the books, with ffear and trembling. that I could not coax and pet into good Old John Lorraine, fully appreciating' temper; I'd spend any amount of money his daughter's infirmities, though partiy on her, and let her have her own way in from affection^ partly from fear, he never most things if she would only just let me took upon himself to rebuke them, began have mine in a few. I have tried her with to think that the fairy prince who was to a sharp bit and a pair of ' persuaders,' but wake this morally slumbering virgin to a that was no more use than the gentling! sense of something better, to lai^r views She's as hard as nails, Lowther, my boy, and higher aims, to domestic happiness and I don't see my way out of it, that's and married bliss, would never arrive. He the truth. So come along and have a came at last, however, in the person of B and S," George Gurwood, a big, broad-shouldered, If having a B and S—George's abbre­ jovial fellow, who, as a son of another of viation for soda-water and brandy—would Lorraine's early friends, had some time have helped him to see'his way out of his previously been admitted as a partner into difficulties, he would speedily have been the house. Everybody bked good-look­ able to perceive it, for thenceforward his ing, jolly George Gurwood. Lambton Lor­ consumption of that and many other kinds raine and Lowther Lorraine, who, though of liquids was enormous. Wretehed in now growing elderly men, had retained his home, George Gurwood took to drink­ their bachelor tastea and habits, and ing to drown eare, but, as in most similar managed' to get through a great portion of cases, the demon proved himself far too the income accruing to them from the buoyant to be overwhelmed even by the business, were delighted with his jovial amount which George poured upon him. manners, his sporting tendencies, his con­ He was drinking morning, noon, and vivial predilections. When the fact of night, and was generally in a more or less George's paying his addresses to their muddled state. When he went to business, niece was first promulgated, Lambton had which was now very seldom, some of the a serious talk with his genial partner, clerks in the office laughed at him, which warning him against tying himself for was bad enough, while others pitied him, life to a woman with whom he had no which was worse. The story of George's single feehng in common. But George dissipation was carefully kept from John laughed at the caution, and declined to be Lorraine, who had virtually retired from guided by it, "Miss Lorraine was not the business^ and devoted himself to much in his bne," he said; "perhaps a nursing his rheumatism, and to superin­ Httle given to tea and psalm-smiting, but tending the education of his grandson, a it would come all right; he should get her fine boy of five or six years of age, but into a different way ; and as the dear old Lambton and Lowther held many colloquies guv'nor" (by which title George always together, the end of them all being their

i,\j\ji S \ ^ Charles Dickens.] THE YELLOW PLAS. [JtHie 1,1872.] 61 both agreeing that they could not tell widowed Mrs. Gurwood, first conceived what was to be done with George Gur­ the idea of making her an offer of mar­ wood. What was to be done with him riage. Pretty nearly forty years of his life was soon settled by George Gurwood him­ had been spent in a state of bachelorhood, self. Even his powerful constitution had though he had not been without the com­ been unable to withstand the ravages forts of a home. He was thoroughly do­ which constant drinking had inflicted upon mesticated by nature, simple in his tastes, it. He was seized with an attack of deli­ shy and shrinking from society, and en­ rium tremens while attending a race meet­ grossed by his unceasing labour during the Kill ing at Warwick, and during the temporary day, that it was his happiness at night to absence of the night nurse jolly George put aside from his mind everything relating, Gurwood terminated his earthly career by however remotely, to his City toil, and to •fj; Cleans iji jumping from the bedroom window of the sit drinking his tea, and placidly chatting, hotel into the yard below. reading, or listening to his old mother, from Then it was that the investigation of whom since his childhood he had never ^i tile matte the affairs of the firm, consequent upon the been separated. The first great grief of 1^ transacti,,, death of one of the partners, revealed the John Calverley's life, the death of this old *«eliistal)ilesWj serious state in which matters stood. All lady, took place very shortly after he had . 'J' '%. the name and fame, the large fortune, the assumed the reins of government in Mimc- •enormous colonial business, the commercial ing-lane, and since then his home had •iwnldab^ •credit which John Lorraine had spent his been dull and cheerless. He sorely felt the *O»0ftllfflr: life in building up, had been gradually waiut of a companion, but he Icnew nobody ••"d pet info a; crumbling away. Two years more of this whom he could ask to share his lot. He had «y«nttimtofiiife decadence, such as the perusal of the firm's but rare opportunities of making the ac­ OT te own n-': books exhibited had taken place during the quaintance of any ladies, but Mrs. Gur­ last ten years, and the great house of Lor­ wood had been thrown in his way by IhwtriedisR raine Brothers would be in the Bankruptcy chance, and, after some little hesitation, • 'pasnadeR'ii -Court. Then it was that Mr. Calverley, he ventured to propose to her. The pro­ ti»i tiie geiitii:! hitherto only known as a plodding, reliable position was not disagreeable to Jane Gur­ ii, Lowther, my V head clerk, thoroughly conversant with all wood. For some time past she had felt the loss fiyootrfit,tfe; details of business, but never having shown of some constantly present object on which iaf^ ud tei any peculiar capabilities, came forward and to vent her bile; her tongue and her temper made his mark. At the meeting of the ^ere both becoming rusty by disuse, and in the meek, pleasant httle man, now rich creditors he expounded his views so lucidly, and well-to-do, she thought she saw a very and showed so plainly how, by reorganising ^kiiinrotitofi! fitting recipient for both. So John Calverley the business, in every department, it could and Jane Gurwood were married, with fHiOj have i^ once more be put on a safe and proper foot­ what result we have already seen. ing, and reinstated in its old position as one inijptlkii:^' of the leading houses in the City, that the The offices in Mincing-lane remained Ml wr " helm was at once put into his hands. So pretty much in the same state as they had wdtwJCtDdTJt safely and prosperously did he steer the been in old John Lorraine's day, Thoy ^yJQgoettiiJiilr ship that, before old John Lorraine died, had been painted, of course, many times since he first entered upon their occupation, nihiifllfiii!! he saw the business in Mincing-lane, though no lonsrer conducted under its old name but in the heart of the City the brilliancy of llg[|j opoBii^ (Mr. Calverley had made a point of that, paint does not last very long, and in a very and had insisted on claiming whatever was few months after the ladders and scaffold­ due to his ability and exertions), more ings had been removed, the outside wood­ flourishing than in its best days; while work relapsed into its state of grubbiness. There was a talk at one time of making j|gi,soine(!i3 Lambton and Lowther, who had been paid out at the reorganisation of affairs, and had some additions to the buildiug, to provide thought themselves very lucky at escaping accommodation for the increased staff of being sucked in by the expected whirlpool, clerks which it had been found necessary were disgusted at the triumphant results of to engage, but Mr. Calverley thought that the operations of a man by whom they had the rooms originally occupied by Lambton and Lowther Lorraine would do very well 3iB»self« set so little store-, and complained indig­ nantly of their ill-treatment. for the newly appointed young gentlemen, and there accordingly they set up their And then John Calverley, who, as one of high desks and stools, their enormous the necessities involved in carrying out his ledgers and day-books. The elderly men, business transactions, had been frequently who had been John Lorraine's colleagues brought into communication with the

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62 [June 1,1872.] ALL THE YEAR ROUND. [Conducted by and subordinates in bygone years, still re­ one, and you will see what a twist I'll give mained attached to the business, but their you. However, one comfort is, I'm off at employer, not unmindful of the good last," And Mr, Briscoe jumped from his services they had rendered, and conscious, seat, and proceeded towards the hat-pegs, perhaps, that without their aid he might "No you're not," said Mr. Walker, who have had some difficulty in carrying had commenced a light dessert on a half- out his reorganisation so successfully, hundred of walnuts, which he had pur­ took means to lighten their duties and to chased at a stall on his way; " there's a place them rather in the position of over­ party just come into the private office, seers and superintendents, leaving the William, and as you're picked out for that grinding desk-work to be performed by berth on account of your beauty and su­ their juniors. Of these young gentlemen perior manners, you will have to attend to there were several. They inhabited the her. A female party, do you hear, Wil­ lower floor of the warehouse, and the most Ham ; so brush your hair, and pull down presentable of them were told off to see any your wristbands, and make a swell of your­ stray customers that might enter. The self." ships' captains, the brokers, and the con­ Mr. Briscoe looked with great disgust signees, knew their way about the premises, towards the partition through the dulled and passed in and out unheeded, but occa­ glass, on which he saw the outHne of a sionally strangers arrived with letters of female figure, then, stepping across, he introduction, or foreign merchants put in opened a pane in the glass, and inquired a fantastic appearance, and for the benefit what was wanted. of these there was a small glazed waiting- " I called here some time ago," said room set apart, with one or other of the pre­ Pauline, for it was she, " and left a letter sentable clerks to attend to them. for Mr, Calverley. I was told he was out About a fortnight after Pauline's first of town, but would return in a few days. visit, about the middle of the day, Mr. Perhaps he is now here ?" Walker, one of the clerks, entered the large "Mr. Calverley has returned," said Mr- office, and proceeded to hang up his hat Briscoe, in his most fascinating manner, and to doff his coat, preparatory to put­ a compound of the familiarity with which ting on a sporting-looking garment made he addressed the waitresses in the eating- of shepherd's plaid, with extremely short houses and the nonchalance with which he tails, and liberally garnished with ink spots. regarded the duchesses in the Park. "I Judging from his placid, satisfied appear­ believe he is engaged just now, but I wiU ance, and from the fact that he carried a let him know you are here. What name toothpick between his hps, which he was shall I say?" elegantly chewing, one might have guessed, " Say Madame Du Tertre, if you please,"^ without fear of contradiction, that Mr. said Pauline; " and mention that he has Walker had just returned from dinner. already had a letter from me." "You shouldn't hurry yourself in this Mr, Briscoe bowed, and delivered his way. Postman, you really shouldn't," said message through a speaking tube which Mr. Briscoe, one of the presentable clerks communicated with Mr, Calverley's room. aforenamed. " You will spoil your diges­ In reply he was instructed to bring the tion if you do ; and fancy what a calamity lady up-stairs, and bidding PauHne follow that would be to a man of your figure. You him, he at once introduced her into the pre­ have only been out an hour and a quarter, sence of his chief. and I understand they have sent round As his visitor entered, Mr. Calverley from Lake's to Newgate Market for some rose from the desk at which he was seated, more joints," and graciously motioned her to a chair, "Don't you be funny, WilHam," said looking hard at her from under his light Mr, Walker, wiping his lips, and slowly eyebrows meanwhile. cHmbing on to his stool; " it isn't in your Pauline was the first to speak. After line, and you might hurt yourself" she had seated herself, and Mr. Calverley " Hurt myself," echoed Mr, Briscoe, " I had resumed his place at his desk, she will hurt you, and spoil your appetite too, leaned forward and said, " I have the plea­ when I get the chance, keeping a fellow sure of addressing Mr. Calverley ?" hanging on here, waiting for his luncheon, "That is my name," said John, with a wliile you are gorging yourself to repletion bow and a pleasant smUe. " In what way for one and ninepence. Only you wait till can I have the pleasure of being of service next week, when it's my turn to go out at to you ?"

_ /. I^: Charles Dickens.] THE YELLOW FLAG. tC«»4uc^j. [June 1,1872.] 63 " You speak kindly, Mr. Calverley, and what you will. There," continued Pauline, jour appearance is just what I had ex­ ,'=«'^forti; I'm- brushing her eyes with her handkerchief, 'Coe i, pected. You received a letter from me—a " it is not often that I give way, monsieur; strange letter you thought it; is it not so ?" my life is too stern and too hard for that. " Well," said John, " it was not the sort After he was taken from me I could remain of letter I have been in the habit of receiv­ in Lyons no longer. It is not alone upon ing, it was not strictly a business kind of the heads of families that the Imperial letter, you know." Government revenges itself, so I came lo iL;: 'Ws; " It was not addressed to you in your away to England, bringing with me all that strictly business capacity, Mr. Calverley; I had saved, all that I could scrape together, it was written from the heart, a thing after selling everything we possessed, and which does not often enter into business the result is that I have, monsieur, a sum matters, I beHeve. It was written because of two thousand pounds, which I wish to I have heard of you as a man of bene­ place in your hands, begging you to invest volence and charity, interested in the fate it in such a manner as will enable me to of foreigners and exiles, able, if willing, to live honestly, and with something like de­ do what I wish." cency, for the remainder of my days," " My dear madam," said John Calverley, John Calverley had listened to this recital *Hlitlifii •" I fear you much exaggerate any good with great attention, and when Pauline •* the out i: qualities I may possess. The very nature of ceased speaking he said.to her, with a half- Utaqringj my business throws me into constant com­ grave smile: " The remainder of your *8HlDd munication with people from other coun­ days, madam, is likely, I hope, to be a tries, and if they are unfortunate I endea­ tolerably long period, for you are evidently OS Hue Mn»1^ vour to help them to the best of my power. quite a young woman. Now, with regard '^"•ndleftjli Such power is limited to the giving away to your proposition, you yourself say it IwiWdheinsi of small sums of money, and helping them is unbusiness-like, and I must confess it ^ in a feriiir to return to their native country, to getting strikes me as being so in the highest de­ n?" them employment if they desire to remain gree. You know nothing of me, beyond I niiioed,''Bij| here, or recommending them to hospitals if seeing my name as a subscriber to certain •KwDig nasi they are ill; but yours is a peculiar case, charities, or having heard it mentioned as •3i%witliiiit if I recollect your letter rightly; I have it that of a man who takes some interest in here, and can refer to it " tanintheeiti assisting foreigners in distress, and yet you offer to place in my hands what constitutes •bavJthfUi " There is no occasion to do that. I can explain more fully and more promptly by your entire fortune, and intrust me with the jat m, Mli word of mouth. Mine is, as you say, a disposal of it. I really do not think," said John Calverley, hesitating, " I can possibly ihn Whatn peculiar case. I am the daughter of a re­ tired officer of artillery, who Hved at undertake '' Lyons. At his death I married Monsieur " One moment, Mr, Calverley," said Pau­ triRjifjoipfait Du Tertre, who was engaged as a traveller Hne. " The responsibility of declining to •ticBthatleir for one of the large silk factories there. He take this money will be far greater than was frequently coming to England, and of accepting it, for if you decHne to act for aad deHrdi spoke the language well. He taught it to me I will consult no one else; I will act on edmg fahe lii' jne, and I, to aid an income which was but my own impulse, and shall probably either '.Cihd^jn* small, taught it again to several pupils in invest the sum in some "swindling company, jny native city. My husband, like most or squander and spend it." Frenchmen of his class, took a vivid in­ "You must not do that," said John, edkrii terest in poHtics, and was mixed up in promptly; " you must not think of doing several of the more prominent Republican that. Two thousand pounds is not a very .societies. One day, immediately after his large sum of money, but, properly invested, aiewwwiei return from a foreign^journey, he was a lady without encumbrance," said John, iff to»(*«• arrested, and since then, save on the day with a dim recollection of the formula of of his trial, I have not set eyes upon him. servants' advertisements, " might live very I know not where he is ; he may be in the comfortably on the interest, more especiaUy cachots of Mont Saint Michele ; he may be if she had no home to keep up." jj(r.Cslfef kept an secret in the Conciergerie; he may " But, monsieur, I must always have a be exiled to Cayenne; I know not. All I home, a lodging, a something to Hve in," know is, I shall never see him again. said Pauline, with a shrug. ' Avec ces gens la il faut en finir,' was all " Yes, of course," said John Calverley, the reply I could get to my inquiries—they rather absently, for at the moment a notable must be finished, done with, stamped out. plan had suggested itself to him, and he r =8. 64 [June 1,1872.] ALL THE YEAR ROUND. [Conducted by was revolving it in his mind. " Where are John, motioning her again to her chair, you living now, Madame Du Tertre ?" " This lady, Jane, is Madame Du Tertre, a " I have a lodging—a bed-room—in Po­ foreigner and a stranger in Eng'land," land-street," she replied. " But not a stranger to the history of "Dear me," said John Calverley, m Madame Calverley," said Pauline, rising horrified amazement. " Poland-street ? I gracefully; "not a stranger to the benefi­ know, of course ; back of the -Pantheon— cence, the charities, the piety of Made- very stuffy and grimy, children playing moiselle Lorraine; not a stranger," she battledore and shuttlecock in the street, added, in a lower tone, " to the sainted organ-men and fish-barrows, and all that sufferings of Madame Giirwood. Ah,, kind of thing ; not at all pleasant." madame ! though I have been but a very " No," said Pauline, with a repetition of short time in this great City of London, I her shrug; " but beggars have no choice, have heard of you, of your reKgion, and as the proverb says." your goodness, and I am honoured in the " Did it ever occur to you,*' said John, opportunity of being able to kiss your nervously, "that you might become a com­ hand," And suiting the action to the panion to a lady—quite comfortable, you word, Pauline took Jane Calverley's plum- know, and well treated, made one of the coloured gauntlet into her own neatly family, in point of fact?" he added, again gloved palm, and pressed it to her lips. recurring to the advertisement formula. Mrs. Calverfey was so taken aback at Pauline's eyes gKstened at once, but her this performance that, beyond muttering voice was quite calm as she said : " I have "not worthy," and "too generous," she never thought of such a thing. I don't said nothing. But her husband marked know whether I should Hke it. It would, the faint blush of satisfaction which spread of course, depend upon the faanily," over her clay-coloured complexioai, and " Of course," assented John, " I was took advantage of the impression made to thinking of Do you play the piano, say: Madame Du Tertre ?" " Madame Du Tertre, my dear Jane, is a "Oh yes, sufficiently well," French lady, a widow with a small fortune, *'Ah," said John, unconsciously, " some which she wishes me to invest for her in of it does go a long way. Well, I was the best way possible. In the mean time thinking that perhaps " she is a stranger here in London, as I said " Mrs, Calverley, sir," said Mr. Briscoe, before, and she has no comfortable lodging throwing open the door, and no friends. I thought perhaps that, Mrs. Calverley walked into the room, as I am compelled by business to be fre­ looking so stern and defiant that her quently absent from home, and am likely husband saw he must take immediate to continue to be so, it might break the action to prevent the outbreak of a storm. loneliness of your life if Madame Du Since that evening in Great Walpole-street, Tertre, who speaiks our language well, and when John Calverley had plucked up his plays the piano, and is no doubt generally spirit, and ventured to assert himself, his accomplished, might come as your visitor wife, though cold and grim as ever, had for a short time, and then if you found kept more outward control over her temper, you suited each other, one might make and had almost ceased to give vent to the some more permanent arrangement." virulent rafllery in which she formerly in­ When Jane Calverley first entered the dulged. Like most despots she had been room and saw a lady gossiping with her paralysed when her meek slave rebelled husband, she thought she had discovered against her tyranny, and had stood in the means of bringing him to shame, and perpetual fear of him ever since. making his life a burden to him. Now in " You come at a very opportune mo­ his visitor she «Baw, as she thought, a ment, Jane," said John Calverley, woman possessing qualities such as she " It scarcely seems so," said his wife, admired, but for which she never gave her from between her closed lips. " I was husband credit, and one who might render afraid I might be regarded as an unplea­ her efficient aid in her life's campaign sant interruption to a private interview." against him. Even if what had been told " It is I, madam," said Pauline, rising, her were false, and that this woman were " who am the interrupter here. My busi­ an old friend of his, as a visitor in Great ness with Mr, Calverley is ended, and I Walpole-street Mrs, Calverley would have wiU now retire." her under her own eye, and she believed " Pray stay, Madame Du Tertre," said su:fficiently in her own powers of penetra- V Charles Dickens.] NUTS. [June;l,lS72.] 65 tion to enable her to judge of the relations together, we import three hundred thousand between them. So that after a Httle more bushels of these nuts every year. The Ken­ talk the visit was determined on, and it tish cob-nut is a sort of large round hazel­ ^i Pan was arranged that the next day Madame nut. Most of the filberts sold in London »p, li;; Du Tertre should remove to iher new are grown in Kent, the soil of which is in 'ifj quarters. some parts so favourable as to yield thirty "And now," said Pauline, as she himdredweights of filberts per acre — a "^-"tofi, :> knocked at Mr. Mogg's door, whither the highly profitable crop to the grower. We Calverley's carriage bad brought her, grow most of our chestnute; those im­ " and now, Monsieur Tom Durham, gare a ported from France and Spain cost from vous ! For this day I have laid the be­ twelve to sixteen shillings a bushel. The ginning of the train which, sooner or French are so fond of this fruit that they later, shall blow your newly built castle of are said to consume six million bushels of happiness into the air V them annually—more than half a peck of ' •* to Iri!. • ii-.-.d'-.- chestnuts to every man, woman, and child in France. In Spain and North Italy chest­ NUTS. nuts form a regular article of food, pre­ :-(!a;j' served during the winter in layers df sand •'itoherl NUTS play a more imporfant part in every­ or straw, or else husked and dried. Starch day Hfe than most of us are apt to sup­ is made out of a large kind of chestnut. JJ»ttBlul pose. They are usually little things, yet Walnuts, when young and green, are "l^dniB not little in their usefulness. What a nut pickled with the husks; when a little older, jJ*gaietons reaUy is, is rather a puzzling question. Is it either with or without the husks. In the hiclig a seed, or a berry, or a fruit, or a seed-pod, edible state as ripe walnuts, about the month nd or a kernel ? The truth seems to be that, of September or October, they are pro- in commerce and in manufactures, in fami­ nouncedby dietetic philosophers to bewhole- har discourse and in domestic economy, the some when the skin is easily separable from '^•ydearJane.isi name is given, somewhat at random, to all the kernel, but not otherwise. Our importa­ '*»«niifertiis these varieties of vegetable growth. Never­ tions of this fruit are every year increasing, to arot fcr ieri theless, the true nut is a true fruit. Bo- chiefly from France and Belgium; six shil­ •_ hftemeania tanically, a nut (mix) denotes " a one-ceUed lings a bushel is about an average price. iBLoniA,«Ig| friiit, with a hardened pericarp, containing, Almonds are increasing in consumption in when mature, only one seed." Popularly, England very rapidly: they grow luxuri­ a nut is "a fruit which has the seed in­ antly in Spain and Barbary ; indeed, Spain closed in a bony, woody, or leathery cover­ is, par excellence, the country for nuts. ^nKBOB to lei) The sweet almond, besides being eaten as a ione^ndamiil ing, not opening when ripe.'' When in Eng­ land we speak simply of nuts, we usually pleasant fruit, is used in confectionery, and it B^ ORali for conversion into burnt almonds; while ft ? lidaiiiS mean hazel-nuts; on the Continent the name more frequently denotes walnuts. In­ the bitter variety are used in making f%inge wtHi Hqueurs, macaroons, and medicines. Pis­ cluding nuts of aU kinds, all countries, and nodo^fooi tachio-nuts are not much eaten as a fruit; neajgartir applied to all purposes, the consumption is they are more used in cooking and con­ astonishingly large. Mr. P, L, Simmonds, fectionery, and in making soap, hair-oil, who has recently collected much informa­ r, oBii^^ and cosmetics. The dark-eyed Spanish tion on this nutty subject, tells us that, be­ beauties are said to apply an emulsion of sides home growth, we import nuts and pistachio-nut to their black hair. Brazil- nut-produce to the value of three to four nuts are brought chiefly from the country millions sterling annually, more than half which gives them their name, whence our of which is purchased for the sake of the merchants obtain them at about ten shil­ oil contained in the nuts. lings per bushel. Ground-nuts are found Edible nuts, those of which the kernel in a pecuHar position, just under the surftice is eaten as a pleasant fruit, are, so far as of the ground, whence their name, Arachis English taste is concerned, chiefly the hazel, hypogea. They grow abundantly in hot filbert, walnut, chestnut, almond, and cocoa- climates, chiefly near the west coast of nut. Our hazel-nuts, or Spanish-nuts, are Africa, whence they are exported in thou­ nearly all brought from Spain; we buy them sands of tons every year. The kernel is at about ten or twelve shillings a bushel. eaten as a fruit, parched as food, and roasted Among the small rogueries of trade is that as a substitute for chocolate. The meal of giving a rich colour to inferior Spanish is known to be nutritious—good whether nuts before they leave that country, by made into a porridge, a custard, or a beve- means of sulphur fumes. Good and bad N^ M= =)d! 56 [June 1,1872.] ALL THE YEAR ROUND. [Conducted by rage. The prodigious quantity of half a kernels; and there are seven milHon cocoa- million bushels of these nuts is said to be nut trees in Travancore. As for ourselves, imported annually into New York, The we import these nuts almost wholly for French amande de terre, a kind of earth- eating, as a pleasant fruit, and give from nut, is eaten as a fruit, made into orgeat, twelve to eighteen shiUings per hundred for and roasted as a substitute for coffee. Pine- them; they come mostly from the West seeds are really nuts, eaten in some coun­ Indies and Guiana. The milky Hquid con­ tries as an occasional fruit, in others as a tained within the nut is also pleasant to the regular article of food, usually boiled. taste. The oil expressed from the nut is, It is the oil-yielding property of nuts, nevertheless, becoming more important however, which constitutes their chief than the fruit as an edible. Even the Fiji value. Almost every kind of nut contains Islanders, occupying a tiny spot in the oil, in small if not in large proportion, ob­ great Pacific, manage to press out several tainable by pressure and by other means. hundred tons of oil from their nuts, and to The Brazil-nut, just mentioned, will yield export it in AustraHan trading-ships. The nearly half its weight of a bland oil, useful copperah, or dried kernel, is the chief in cooking and confectionery. The almond- source of the oil as usually obtained, A nut is rich in oil, nearly colourless, and Ceylon cocoa-nut tree will, on an average, applied to many purposes in medicine. Oil yield about a hundred nuts each year for obtained from the walnut is much used on sixty or seventy years. From twelve to the Continent in cooking, as a fuel for sixteen nuts will give two quarts of oil, by lamps, and to mix with artists' colours ; the boiling, pounding, pressing, and skimming; nut yields the oil by cold-pressing and then but when the nuts are exported from the hot-pressing. The hazel-nut gives up more country of their growth for oil-pressing in than half its weight of bland oil, used by England or other countries, the kernels are perfumers. The cashew-nut yields oil. dried over a charcoal fire, then dried in the The beech-nut is utilised in England chiefly sun, and, finally, ground into copperah. as a food for swine, who are allowed to cater Hydraulic and steam-presses are now used for themselves under the beech-trees, es­ in Ceylon for pressing cocoa-nut oil; the pecially in the New Forest ; whereas the refuse oil-cake is available as a food for French make coarse bread of beech-nut poultry, and as a rich manure. Another meal, roast it into a substitute for coffee, valuable product of the cocoa-nut is the and obtain from it an oil useful in culinary coir, the fibre which envelopes the shell. concoctions. The candle-nut of the East The nuts imported by us would yield half contains an oil which renders good service a million pounds of fibre annually, if util­ in making soap, in lighting lamps, and as ised ; but the main supply of coir required a drying oil for painters. The nutmeg, by our manufacturers comes to us in bales which we import from the Straits' Settle­ of fibre, already separated from the shell. ments, is chiefly known to us as a spice; but, In order to effect this separation, each nut on being pressed, it gives forth a concrete is struck sharply on the point of a stake oil known as nutmeg-butter; while the oil or spike, stuck in the ground; and the called oil of mace, is really oil of nutmeg fibre, thus loosened, is beaten, soaked, obtained by distillation. The Americans and washed; the tannin contained in it have found out that their hickory-nut is prevents it from rotting. Coir is difficult rich in a limpid oil, very serviceable in to twist into yarn; but, when twisted, it lubricating machinery and watchwork. makes excellent rope and cordage for ships, strong, light, and elastic. The first use of The cocoa-nut eclipses in importance it made in England was to stuff mattresses ; all the kinds hitherto described. Its uses then into rough cordage and mats, brushes, are numerous, valuable, and varied. Our and brooms; but it has gradually come importation of three or four miUion cocoa- largely into requisition for table-mats, fancy nuts every year may seem large; indeed, baskets, netting for pheasantries and poul­ it is large, when compared with the trade try yards, church cushions and hassocks, twenty years back; but it gives us little clothes-lines, garden-string, horses' nose­ idea of the luxurious growth of this fruit in bags, mats and bags for seed-crushers and intertropical climes. There are said to be oil-pressers, and even as a component ele­ two hundred and eighty miles of cocoa-nut ment in the material for womens' bonnets. trees along the coast of Brazil; Malabar, The hard part of the shell is wrought into besides supplying home demand, exports cups, baskets, ladles, spoons, and other tieeii four hundred milHon cocoa-nuts annually, articbs; while, when burnt and pulver- besides an equal value of copperah or dried tCoiatactej,,, Charles Dickens.' NUTS. [Jane 1,1872.] 57 ^ As lor \ aim, ized, it yields a rich jet-black. What are with the cocoa, cacao, or chocolate tree; wtollyj ifroit, called sea cocoa-nuts obtained that name the former, the Cocos nucif era, is from sixty from the circumstance that the nuts were to a hundred feet high; whereas the latter, titiiii found floating on the surface of the sea in the Cacao theobroma, seldom exceeds twenty "^«Th,y from tf the Indian Ocean, For a long time it was feet in height, and is of a very different not known whence they came, but at length growth. it was found out that they grew in the The most really important oil-nut, so far Seychelles Islands, where magnificent as English manufactures, at any rate, are forests of them exist, and where the nuts concerned, is the oil-palm of Africa. The idible 1^^ profusely strew the ground. These nuts cocoa-nut tree is itself one genus of palm, are so large that the shells of some of but the kind now under notice is different. ' I^ontspJ them will hold two or three quarts each; Most of the oil is obtained from the pulpy the sheUs are carved into baskets, bowls, fruit which envelopes the kernel. This jars, dishes, grain measures, liquid mea­ pulp, forming about three-fourths of the sures, paint-bowls, and other articles; if weight of the fruit, is bruised and boiled, J*!!fyobtaijei^ divideji between the lobes, each half is and from it is obtained an oil which, when made to serve as a plate, dish, or cup. fresh, has a pleasant odour Hke that ot It would be no easy matter to enumerate violets; when removed into colder regions all the useful services which the cocoa-nut, it assumes the consistency of butter. The 'TXNBofoi.k and the other parts ot the tree to which it quantity of this semi-soHd oil imported into '•"g.ttdskiiiiift belongs, render to man, especially in the England is becoming enormously large; last year it exceeded one milHon hundred­ "oportedfii] East. The kernel is not eaten as we eat '"OToil.pnssi^i it, as fruit, but is prepared in a variety of weights, having a wholesale value of nearly ways for curries and other dishes; the eighteen hundred thousand pounds sterling. milky juice is reHshed as a pleasant bever­ It is a commodity of much importance to •^ttehdriediiii Central Africa, seeing that the natives are """"d into coppenl age; the oil is used in making stearine candles and marine soap, and, in tropical provided, through it, with numberless useful ^•"wwenowiB articles from England by means of legiti­ peoeoi-initoil;! countries, lamp-oil, ointment, and an aid to cookery; the resin from the trunk, mixed mate industry and commerce, in regions BliUeagafoodi which used to be cursed by slave wars and inam. hsk with the oil from the nut, and melted, forms a substance useful for filling up the slave trading. Palm oil is used in this fteeoeoi-intt iii seams of ships and boats, covering the country for making many kinds of soap, in^tbeiU and the lubricating grease used for the ifVfoildjiiU corks of bottles, and repelHng the attacks of the white ant; the root possesses narcotic wheels of locomotives and vehicles of HRainii%,ifili properties, and is sometimes chewed like the various kinds; but its great application is •If^rfoalrreqiiiiiJ areca-nut. The terminal bud is esteemed in making candles, for which its introduc­ eouto minlili a deHcacy, although not easily obtainable tion has been notably beneficial. The Africans use the oil, when fresh, as butter. ifad from the lU without cutting down the tree. The sap, RnnBOD, eiuiiii The kernels were formerly thrown away; or toddy, is a beverage, and is also fer­ but as they contain a clear and limpid oil, kpi)oii(^iilili mented to produce palm-wine and arrack- igmnd; odl they are now brought profitably into use : spirit. The dried leaves are used for thateh, the two kinds are distinguished as palm il beaten, soibl and for making screens, mats, baskets, and iim nataised ii i oil and palm-nut oil. The unripe nuts are a kind of plait; while the mid-rib of the used in some parts of Africa for making a a Goirudi&ii leaf serves the natives as an oar. The t^whatwis^i kind of soup. The trunk yields a sap wood of the lower part of the stem is very which constitutes a pleasant and harmless da)idageforslii|> hard, takes a beautiful polish, and is known • Thefintnte^ beverage when fresh, but becomes an to our turners and ornamental joiners as alcoholic intoxicating liquor when kept porcupine wood; the fibrous centre of the even one day. older stems is worked Hke coir into cord­ •aw age and similar articles. The husk of the Our dyers and tanners use so large a ripe nut, when cut across, is used for quantity of valonia as to cost them nearly polishing furniture and scrubbing floors. half a million sterling annually; it is a Within the nut is occasionally found a portion of the nut, the acorn-cup, of an smaU stony substance of a bluish white African tree. Myrobalan, another nut, is hers a colour, worn by the Chinese as a kind of used in tanning and in ink-making. The amulet or charm. In short, the cocoa-nut so-called gaU-nut, or nut-gall, of which the leoopou's"'- tree is one of the most useful products of use in dying and ink-making is extensive, ^pens'lx'i"''' the tropical regions. We must not, how­ is not really a nut; it is an excrescence •HisWf ever, run into a mistake too often made, formed on the trunks of the oak and that of confounding the cocoa-nut tree other trees in Southern Europe, made by X. =^ 68 [Jnne 1,1872.] ALL THB YEAR ROUND, [Conducted by the punctures of the female gad-fly. Vege­ speak of superfluities, because, under differ­ table ivory is the kernel of the nut of a ing circumstances, there clearly exist both Peruvian palm-tree, white, and exceedingly necessary and unnecessary superfluities. hard; they come over to England by According to some philosophers, everything millions, and are made at Birmingham into beyond mere shelter from the storm, and buttons, knobs, spindle-reels, umbrella- bread and water, with an occasional treat handles, and small boxes and trinkets ; of herbs or vegetables, is superfluous. But good chemical charcoal can be made from for most persons, many superfluities beyond the shavings and waste. Betel-nuts are that simple allowance are absolutely neces­ used in the East for chewing, and in saries. StiU, the important fact remains Europe for tooth-powder and tooth-paste. that many, very many superfluities are CoquiUa-nuts, having a hard kernel, are perfectly unnecessary, and may be dispensed used for the same purposes as vegetable with, without any loss either of personal ivory. weU-being or of social position, in the eyes, And thus it is that we give ourselves a that is, of sensible people whose good veritable nut to crack, in attempting to opinion is alone worth retaining. For the enumerate aU the virtues of nuts. greatest of all comforts, short of bodily and mental health, is the consciousness of being out of debt, and the firm resolution SIXPENCE A DAY.. to keep out of debt is certainly a virtue which ought to raise a household in the OP all known maxims, in poetry or prose, estimation of their neighbours and friends. perhaps the one the least in vogue at the Example in frugality is better thant pre­ present day is the notion that " Man wants cept. When the New Poor Law was dis­ but Httie here below, Nor wants that little cussed in the House of Lords, it was long." On the contrary, man wants as objected to it that its dietary was in­ much as possible here below, in this tragi­ humanely insufficient. Whereupon, Doctor comedy of High Life Below Stairs, and Stanley, late Bishop of Norwich, rose and woman sometimes twice as much as possible. startled the Upper Chamber by stating Of course, they have it; their doing with­ that he had tried the regulated allowance out it is quite out of the question. They on his own proper person—that he had must keep up appearances, must do as strictly followed the union house regimen, other people do, and cannot make them­ confining himself to the pauper diet—and selves the scarecrows of their square or that he found it more than sufficient; he their terrace. The consequence too often could not eat it all. The argument seemed is, that they do not have it, however much unanswerable; no test could apparently be they may want it, long. A day comes when stronger than a personal test. And yet they disappear; and none of their former it might have been objected that the quan­ friends can tell you whether they are tity and quality of the food which sufficed squatting in Australia or semi-starving in for the inteUectual, nervous, indoor-living the Seven Dials. ecclesiastic, who had taken nutriment at Between spending twice your income and wiU aU his Hfe long, might be insufficient reducing your horse to a straw a day— for the stolid, outdoor-working labourer, between a house for show, servants for whose bodily frame was Hke an empty show, extravagant dinners and suppers for sponge, ready to absorb and assimilate show, and miserly deprivation of comforts, whatever came uppermost, having never even necessaries—there assuredly exists a had its filli in the course of his Hfe. mean. But prodigality is ever more popular There are two reasons for living on a than prudence. Economy is held to scorn, little, which are quite different, though of as being a mere pretext for penuriousness, nearly equal importance. The first is " Une poire pour la soif," a something economy, the wisdom of cutting one's gar­ against a rainy day, if ever thought o^ are ment according to one's cloth, and the soon forgotten by spendthrifts who, after­ prudence of even leaving a margin and a wards, when cloudy weather, Ovid's tem- remnant wherewith to patch and mend pora nubila, comes, would thankfully accept accidental wear and tear. The other is the the deficient umbrella and pear. consideration of health; how much and One great proof of common sense is to what food, drink, and indulgence are need­ be able to distinguish between the comforts, ful to sustain a person's bodily sfarength, even the luxuries, and the absolutely unne­ and at what point any excess of that limit cessary expenses of living. It is difficult to becomes injurious.- It is clear here thatno

=3* iCou, t&- •.^=^ ^% Charles Dickens.] SIXPENCE A DAY. [June 1.1872.] 59 strict rule can be laid down, except the who are willing to meet (or even approxi­ general principle of moderation in aH mate to) the demand for fair accommoda­ things. The whole wHl depend on the tion at moderate charges. Monsieur Desbar­ work to be done, the climate dwelt in, and roUes boldly carried out the ideas which were even the sex of the individual; for a mother long ago suggested by Topffer's charming nursing a vigorous infant and undertaking Voyages en Zigzag. His grand arcanum its entire care herself, will call for a diet for the economical traveller is to fix his different to that of the young lady whose prices beforehand. Nor can it be too "•'CI** mental and bodily exertions go no further strongly insisted on that the whole art of than light literature and carriage drives. cheap travelling in Switzerland consists in The steam must be kept up, the fire well following that recommendation. Have no alight, and the human locomotive in full shame or hesitation in doing it. The inn­ play and action, whether one lives on six­ keeper would think you a fool if you had. pence, a shiUing, or twenty shillings a day. But here comes the crucial question ap­ Otherwise, it is starvation by inches and plicable to all screwing systems of living. extinction of the lamp for want of oil. Is what can be had for this money sufficient • wnscioasB, Necessity is the mother of invention. to sustain nature under the circumstances ? Economical Hving is naturally the parent A more substantial breakfast than that of economical travelling. Some ten years allowed by Monsieur DesbarroUes is re­ since, there came out in Paris the Voyage quired by most constitutions while making •ioaselioldiit^ d'un Artiste en Suisse, a Trois Francs a walking tour with only two meals a day. I?*"»andfriei4 Cinquante Centimes par Jour—An Artist's Extra fatigue demands extra restoratives. •••ttBtthiipR Journey in Switzerland, at Three Francs Monsieur DesbarroUes' great merit is his and a Half (two shillings and elevenpence) having shown the way to economy in travel- «.I«dx,it»si per Day. The author, Monsieur A. Des- Hng, For most persons his allowance is too barrolles, who practised painting and scanty. But double, or even triple it, and ••najwiiiBoetj palmistry, acquired greater fame as a pro­ it is not dear. "•"•hrroBeaJ fessor of and writer on chiromancy than Travelling on foot is more than ever the •'•' hj statiiic as an artist in any usual acceptation of the only way to see the wayside incidents and fJ^liW aliowaiia word. He was even permitted to inspect rural life of a country. In the coaching •»4ifch(U an imperial hand, which filled him with and diligence days you beheld something wonder and admiration, but the augury of them, and caught occasionally charac­ • fOfBdiiiHi derived from which he discreetly refrained teristic and humorous glimpses of a people- from making public. He was not aUowed On railroads you get sight of almost no­ to see the hands either of the imperial lady thing, as far as the population and their wMffgaaHfh or of her youthful son. Our business, how­ ways are concerned; and on some railroads, tim. Mjt, ever, is with the book of travel, which as in certain parts of Northern Italy, they Mttittlieqiiiii- certainly worked great good, by opening screen that nothing from your view by bdwhiclisiic^ up a cheap Switzerland to modest purses. planting thick acacia-hedges on each side M^ indoor^ To solve the problem, How to see Switzer­ ofthe raU, so that you mighti as weU be In Btrinent li land for three francs and a half per day. travelling between two walls. To avoid Monsieur DesbarroUes' means of locomotion this privation your only help is to take a are Shanks's mare andthe ten-toe carriage. ioiiiiiig bixnis, hired horse-carriage, or to go on foot. Nothing is allowed for that, not even shoe- But pedestrian trips imply the possession leather. Moreover, the traveller must be of strength, sustained by due nourishment. content with two meals a day; breakfast To travel for pleasm-e, and submit to the of coffee, milk, bread, butter, and honey, privations of a pauper, is a less wise pro­ one franc; dinner, a franc and a half, in­ ceeding than to stop at home, A late prelate fcr living" ffl», cluding such an allowance of wine as he of the English Church, distinguished alike can get for the money; bed one franc, with for his Hberal views and his ardent love of a stern refusal to pay for candle or bougie. mountaineering, before his elevation to the Waiter and chambermaid, nothing. Total, bench, once encountered in the Highlands doth, and fl»^ three francs fifty centimes. of Scotland a Cambridge acquaintance who |gj|]|8110d>. This book is amusing from its intense was also exploring their scenery on foot. ridsidnwi*! Anglophobia, which we may pardon, con­ They joined company for awhile, but, as Theoiier^* sidering the service it has rendered. Of usually happens, their pace was not equal, l«,f lancliaj course it is no favourite with numberless one soon outstripped the other. At last innkeepers, who would Hke to see it burnt the laggard could bear it no longer. " Don't mm by the public executioner ; nevertheless, it walk so fast," he piteouslypleaded. "Itis has directed considerable custom to those all very weU for you, who are rich. You

^^ 60 [Jane 1,1872,] ALL THE YEAR ROUND. [Conducted by can take as much out of yourself as you of sight, as well as taste and smell, should like. But I am travelling on a stinted be gratified. Every meal should be beau­ sum per day, and, to confess the truth, I tiful as well as fragrant and delicious; set can't afford to perspire." in a clean and orderly apartment, on a table A similar fear may deter people from of proper sizeand shape, and well placed with reading How to Live on Sixpence a Day.* respect to light and warmth. Let the table­ They may apprehend the loss of their cloth and napkins (which last should be pro­ strength, should they be beguiled into vided at every meal) be clean, fresh, and following its frugal precepts. Let them dis­ as nice as you can afford, and the knives card such vain alarms. Doctor Nichols's and silver bright. Study order and sym­ little treatise is a masterpiece, because, be­ metry in placing the dishes, to make the sides being written with great good sense, table a picture, A vase of flowers or a it admits a certain degree of elasticity. dish of fruit, with green leaves, wUl help, Thus it tells us that " pure light wines are or a vase of cool celery. There is a charm the best drink for men, next to water—far in a nice butter dish. Try not to crowd better than coffee or tea," But how to things. Make every meal a little ceremony get pure light wines while Hving on six­ and a refreshment to all the senses. pence a day it refrains from indicating. Can we hope for a more agreeable guide Some of its rules read like the celebrated to reduced expenditure than the professor Highgate oath: "Never drink hard or who here makes his offers of service ? It dirty water, if you can get that which is would be unfair to reveal how he fulfils his soft and clean." Amplifying the maxim, task, seeing that to know it costs so little. we might interpret its advice as : " Never We may diffidently suggest, however, that Hve on sixpence a day when you can live he is too hard on pork. " Horses, asses, on half a crown, unless you Hke it best," and mules are sometimes eaten, and swine Doctor Nichols is not one of those cruel by many not very particular Christians, ascetics who would rob us of the pleasures though loathed as unclean by Jews and of the table, or who thinks that men may Mahomedans. The hog is an unclean ani­ merit heaven by making every meal a dose mal, and too liable to be diseased and in­ of nauseous medicine. On the contrary, fested with parasites to be safely eaten. besides striving to show that a simple and Pork is a coarse and nasty kind of food, fit cheap diet is not only sufficient for the per­ only for coarse and nasty people." fect nourishment of the body, but condu­ What would WiUiam Cobbett say to that cive to strength of mind and serenity of were he still in the flesh ? Here is what soul, he holds that Hving on sixpence a day he did say before his departure: " A couple may be made even more delightful to the of flitches of bacon are worth fifty thousand senses than indulgence in costly and per­ Methodist sermons and religious tracts. nicious luxuries, and that a pure and simple The sight of them upon the rack does more diet may be as elegant and delicious as it to keep a man from poaching and stealing- is healthful and invigorating. The food thanwhole volumes of penal ste,tutes, though we eat should be pleasant to the taste, so assisted by the terrors of the hulks and the as to cause a good flow of saliva in the gibbet. They are great softeners of the mouth and of gastric juice in the stomach. temper and promoters of domestic harmony. We should enjoy eating, having a good ap­ They are a great blessing. Now, then, this petite from a healthy condition of stomach hog is altogether a capital thing. The but­ and nerves, and an absence of all excess, cher cuts the hog up; and then the house' a spice of the best sauce—hunger; and our is filled with meat! Souse, griskins, blade- food should have some variety, and be bones, thigh-bones, spare-ribs, chines, belly- nicely prepared and served. All the better pieces, cheeks, all coming into use one after if eaten in pleasant company, gaily and the other," mirthfully, and, in every case, with thanks­ Doctor Nichols shall be spared citations giving. What more is wanted to make a from the Almanack des Gourmands, Brillat- true bon vivant ? Savarin, and other authorities and admirers Nor is that all. In another workf he of charcuterie in its hundred and one dilates on "testhetic gastronomy." The forms; he shall hear nothing of Charles- 89sthetics of eating consist partly in this : Lamb and sucking-pig, in the hope that, In our food and its preparation, the sense after due reflection, he will put a little water into his wine, as the French say, and moderate his choirophobia. In spite of * By T. L. Nichols, M,D, Longmans, f How to Cook. Longmans. which hatred of the cloven foot, which

\ =&» Charles Dickens.] CHRONICLES OF LONDON STREETS. [June 1,1872.] 61 cheweth not the cud. How to live on Six­ teenth century. It is spelt Islingetuna pence a Day, if it only helps us to do half in Domesday Book, There is also an Is­ what it professes, is certainly a good six- lington in Norfolk. pennyworth. Fitz-Stephen (a friend of A'Becket), who died in 1191, dilates on the fields and ASTEEOPE. pleasant open meadows to the north of THE green leaves rustle in the breeze, the summer sun London, through which brooks fiowed and is low, where mUl-wheels made a delightful sound. With crimson, and with amethyst, the sky is all Bamsbury, as late as 1295, was nearly all operands, a-glow; ^ to make H^e The plash of oars comes from the lake, the blackbird laid down in corn. The old northern high­ on the thorn ways of London were bad and few. There Sings songs of love to cheer his mate. And on the was only the road from Smithfield through south wind borne, rherei St. John's-street, the Goswell-street-road There comes a sound of tinkling bells from yonder hill­ from Aldersgate, and a bridle-way, once an V?to%J side fold, I little What time the sunset gleaming, tips the clover buds old Roman road, and even these were in with gold. K noses. winter frequently rendered impassable. The The lark grows still, his clarion shrill ceases, and to his bridle-way was much used by travellers '»P»l)legffij, rest Down drops he eagerly to join his brown mate on her on horseback, and carriers with pack-horses. nest. The road from Smithfield was the chief 'rfwyice? Oh air like balm! Oh stUly calm! Oh peaceful summer track between the priories of St. John of night! Jerusalem, and St. Bartholomew in Smith- 'i There is not in the long June days an hour so sweet and bright. field, and was not paved till Richard the ^ however, tk^ As when the eve begins with dew the flower-cups to Second's time. In 1674, Ogleby describes fill, the road from Holyhead as entering Lon­ And lilies float upon the moat; and 'yond the pine- «iteD,andmi»: clad hill, don by Islington, and robberies and mur­ tilir Christiaii!, Ariseth up the evening star, with silver lamp on high, ders were frequent about there at that •« ly Jews ani And 'plaining zephyrs through the leaves of river- period. In 1415, Sir Thomas Falconer,, •nmcleanani. poplars sigh; lord mayor of London, built a postern in dniuludin- When from her couch Asterope comes forth, a dark- the City wall, so that citizens might pass browed queen, ihsl^ eaten And draws her purple star-strewn veil across the into Moorfields and walk on the causeway peaceful scene! towards " Iseldon " and Hoxton, This was the probable origin of the old road leading iCtUieftBjtotk from Moorgate to the Dog-House toll-bar, CHRONICLES OP LONDON I? lenisfiiit near the end of Old-street, a place where STREETS. •toer* the City hounds were once kept, and near ISLINGTON. where the City huntsman formerly lived. I leE^ Mi, ISLINGTON, scarcely two mUes from the In the reign of Henry the Second, kaadoesiuA centre of Roman London, is situated on the scholars and youth of the city took ^tndstealiiir what was once the Ermin-street, or great the air abroad in the summer evenings idMita,thoi^ Northern road of the time of Severus (193, about Clerkenwell, where there were " foun­ {fteUbndi A.D., to 211, A.D,), a period when Tacitus tains of water, sweet, wholesome, and clear, describes London as already "illustrious streaming forth among the glistening ffawfchmiKW. for its widely extended commerce." pebble-stones," The scholars went out in The Roman garrison had a summer camp bands there to play at ball, and the elder citizens came on horseback to see them gl^ Thelni- at Highbury, and it is supposed that the old Ermin, or Hermann-street, led from Cripple- disport, or to hunt and hawk. There were gate to Brick-lane, and crossing the City- also races there every Friday in Lent. road passed the east of Islingtoil to High­ In 1365, Edward the Third, to direct bury and Hornsey Wood, and so by the the exercises in the Finsbury and IsHngton

attorneys and proctors as cliallenging each ton Common, near the Rosemary Branch, other to a shooting-match during the long and were sometimes used by the London vacation. archers. In 1811 they had given place to an Each with solemn oath agree adjoining butt defended with iron plates, for To meet in fields of Finsburie ; volunteer baU-firing; but vestiges of the With loyns in canvas bow-case tyed old marks still remained in the adjacent •^« second da,,; Where arrows stick with mickle pride ; With hats pin'd up and bow in hand, fields. About 1791 there was a revival of All day most fiercely there they stand. archery. In that year a great many archery Like ghosts of Adam, Bell, and Clymme, societies met on Blackheath, The naembers Sol sets, for fear they'll shoot at him. wore green uniforms and half-boots. Some .P<*tioiied^^ In 1682, Charles the Second was present of these societies also frequented a field near at a magnificent cavalcade of the Finsbury Canonbury House, The absurd theatrical llfflllCP archers, when the old titles were bestowed dress is now reserved for benefit societies. upon the winners; but the day was wet, The stage Robin Hood has grown ashamed 5owof{aY(rar:j: and the king was soon obliged to leave the of the modern Foresters, and dresses as he losnre of field. This same year WilHam Wood pub- should. Hshed the Bowman's Glory. This author In the year 1465, the unfortunate Henry ^ti» First, il 15; Hes buried in the churchyard of St. John, the Sixth, having hidden in caves and woods ^ *n4 otlei B Clerkenwell, with an epitaph that begins: for a year, after the battle of Hexham, was TlKms Poiflfl, Sir William Wood lies buried near this stone, taken in Lancashire, by Thomas Talbot, •twioBilaidoir^ In days of archery excelled by nonet and brought to London, with his legs »«AB,aiidQi The title " Sir" was, it appears, only a com­ bound to his stirrups. He was met at pliment paid to Wood by his admiring Islington by the Earl of Warwick, the king­ brother archers. maker, and his gUt spurs tak:en from 'his ^ofttiedT A plan of the fields, in 1737, shows only feet. He was then led to the Tower, Edward «d to proper '< twenty-four of the ancient shooting marks. the Fourth, his conqueror, was shortly after The rest had been obHterated or removed. met and congratulated, between Islington In 1746, however, the Artillery Company and Shorediteh, by the lord mayor and) ananief, obHged a cowkeeper, named Pittfield, to aldermen of London. ttttt's, and dire renew one of these marks, and inscribed it In 1487, Henry the Seventh, after defeat­ bndMUl " Pittfield's Repentance," ing Lambert Simnel, was met in the same ; wA. to uofe The archers revived again in 1753, when way in Hornsey Park. He knighted the ipdUedgmir targets were erected during the Easter and lord mayor, and, between Islington and Whitsun holidays, and the titles of cap­ London, also dubbed Alderman PercivaU iMddittkr tain and lieutenant given for a whole knight. year to the best shots. In 1783, only two On the third Sunday in Advent, 1667, ad bofifaiBgiii' members of the archers' society were living. in the reign of Queen Mary, John Rough, The archers have since been incorporated who had been a preacher among the Black ^^ the dt^: with the Honourable Artillery Company, Friars at StirHng, afterwards chaplain who still have an archers' division attached to the Earl of Arran, and who was the lafl^IindDL.'- to their corps. In 1782, the company, in means of persuading Knox, the reformer, its march out on the Ascension Day, to enter the ministry, was apprehended at forced some chained gates near BaU's Pond Islington. Roger Sergeant, a tailor, who that hindered their access to one of their had betrayed him, informed the ward pifAndgg.' - stone marks. In 1784, they also marched that he, Cuthbert a tailor, and others^ were from Finsbury to IsHngton Common and praying and reading the Bible at the Sa­ It- removed several obstructions, and in 1786 racen's Head, under pretence of learning a :oiiU they gave notice to encroaching landlords play. There was but one way with Bonner. r to remove obstructions, and their pioneers Rough was burnt at Smithfield. But there pulled down several garden-fences, and were was always good seed rising from martyrs' about to attack the brick wall of a white-lead ashes. In September of the same year maij mill, between " Bob Peak's mark" andthe Richard Roth, Ralph AUerton, James d •• -ly "Levant," when submission was made; Anstor, and Margery Anstor, were all burnt »» they then shot an arrow over the inclosure in one fire at Islington. Bonner's fire, as an assertion of the company's right. however, proved a poor unconvincing argu-- In 1791, when the long butts in Isling­ ment, for in the very next year forty in­ ton Common were destroyed by digging nocent people were found in a brick­ gravel, the obstructions were removed and field near Islington, sitting together in the marks replaced Two old shooting- prayer and meditating God's word. Pre­ butts remained till about 1780 on IsHng­ sently came a spy to them who saluted them

K 64 [June 1,1872.] ALL THE YEAR ROUND. [Conducted by Ofoniffell and observed their purpose. Soon followed calling upon citizens and noblemen who had a constable with six or seven foUowers, houses there. armed with bows and bills. He, observing King James, on his arrival in London to their looks, at once arrested them. They accept the crown, was met at Stamford were first taken to a beer-house and then HiU by the lord mayor and aldermen, to a justice. Of the forty all but twenty- gorgeous and stately in their scarlet gowns seven escaped. Twenty-two of these were and gold chains. They were followed over sent to Newgate. There, by the infamous the IsHngton fields to Charing-cross by neglect of those cruel times, before Habeas five hundred grave citizens in velvet coats, Corpus, the men were detained seven weeks and all mounted on horseback. before examination, and then told by their Charles the First, on his return from keepers that they would be released if they Scotland, in 1641, rode across the fields would only hear a mass. Finally, thirteen from Newington to Hoxton, and entered of these poor inoffensive pious people were the City at Moorgate, accompanied by his burned—seven in Smithfield, and six at queen, the Prince of Wales, the Duke of Brentford. York, and a splendid cavalcade. Within In 16y9, the Earl of Essex rode through the year, the fields that that cavalcade Islington, from his house in Seething- trampled over was lined with trenches lane, on his way to Ireland, accompanied and ramparts, for in October, 1642, the by a great train of noblemen and gentlemen committee of the militia of London gave on horseback. orders to fortify all the roads leading to In 1562, the queen went from the Tower London and Islington fields, near Pancras through Houndsditch to the Spittle, and Church, Mile-end, &c. Many thousands down Hog-lane over the fields to the Charter of men and women went out to work, House. From thence, a few days later, she the common council and train-bands set­ went to the Savoy over the fields; and ting the example. May 9th, two thousand shortly after came from Enfield to St. porters went out to dig. May 26th there James's ; the hedges from Islington being were five thousand cappers and felt-makers. cut down to make the way nearer for her. Another day four thousand to five thou­ There were many ponderous and tiresome sand shoemakers. June 5th six thousand small jokes about Islington introduced at tailors volunteered. It was the enthusiasm the great Kenilworth masques, in 1575. of old Rome again. During these alarms One of the euphuistic speakers, wearisome a battery and breastwork was thrown up as Lely, and as fantastic in his conceits as in the Goswell-street-road, another at the Sir Philip Sidney, talked much of the end of St, John's-street, a large fort with " worshipful village that supplied London four half bulwarks at the New River upper bridals with furmety for porridge, un- pond, and a small redoubt near Islington chalked milk for flawns, cream for cus­ Pound, tards not thickened with flour, and fresh In 1653, a plot to assassinate Cromwell butter for pie-paste. " The Islington arms,'' was detected, and among those sent to the says the squire minstrel of Middlesex, Tower was Mr, Vowell, a schoolmaster, at "should be three plates between three milk- Islington. Vowell died bravely, at Charing- tankards, proper; a bowl of furmety for cross. He professed his adherence to God crest, with a dozen horn spoons sticking in and the Church; commended his soul and it; supporters, a grey mare and her foal; his large family to God's providence ; and the motto, 'Lac caseus infans.' " The cry prophesied a Restoration; then, as there of the mUk-wives of London in Shakes­ was no ladder there, he swung himself coolly peare's time was " fresh cheese and cream;" from a stool, fetched by the guard. a grey mare, sometimes followed by her Colonel Okey, one of the king's judges, foal, carried the milk tankards. was originally, according to report, a com­ It was when riding beyond Aldersgate mon drayman at an Islington brewhouse. to Islington, one evening in 1681, to take The staunch old colonel left CromweU the air, that Queen Elizabeth was disturbed when he assumed the supreme power, and alarmed by a number of begging rogues and fled into Holland. After the Resto­ from the IsHngton brick-kilns environing ration he and Miles Corbet and another her. That night seventy-four beggars, some were seized at Delft, and sent to London, bHnd, others great usurers and very rich, where they were hung, drawn, and quar­ were sent to BrideweU, and from thence tered, but Okey's limbs were not hung on the strongest of them to the Lighters. the gates, as those of his companions were, Elizabeth was fond of Islington, and was because, in his last speech, he had spoken often, in her Httle excursions, in the habit of well of the king. A IWw Charles Dickens.] CHRONICLES OF LONDON STREETS. [June 1,1872.] 65 Cromwell himself is said to have once been frequently sketched by the latter Hved in a house at the north side ofthe Up­ essayist. per HoUoway-road. This tradition is not Bunbury, that clever but slovenly drafts­ ^ '} Stairf^ true, but Oliver's great ally, the Leicester­ man, produced, in 1770, a caricature of a shire baronet, Sir Arthur Hasilrigge, re­ London citizen in his country viUa, and w scarlet go»5 sided there ; for in May, 1664, he related to called it the Delight of Islington. Above ;K Mowed ov. the House how the Earl of Stamford and two it he has written the following series of of his servants, for some old Cavalier grudge, fierce threats : fi a velvet« had attacked him, as he was riding along act the road leading fromPerpool-lane to Clerk­ " Whereas my new pagoda having been •las return&5 enwell, on his way from Westminster to his clandestinely carried off, and a new pair of house in IsHngton, and had struck him dolphins taken from the top of my gazebo 'WtMstlieMi by some bloodthirsty villains, and whereas ^D, and eDtaJ: with a drawn sword, and " other offensive instruments," upon which Sir Arthur was a great deal of timber has been cut down «»»I»nied byl; and carried away from the Old Grove, that '»Je8,tlie Laker calmly enjoined to keep the peace and not send or receive any challenge. was planted last spring, and Pluto and Pro­ avalcade. % serpine thrown into my basin, from hence­ *t tiiat cavslai There was a piece of ground in the Back- forth steel-traps and spring-guns will be »i ii& tKidf road, built on about 1811, which was for­ constantly set for the better extirpation of OeW)ei,16«i merly called the Ducking-pond Field, and such a nest of villains. • rf London git the reservoir was once an open pool, called " By me, the Ducking-pond. Goldsmith alludes to a lie raids leaii;! " JEREMIAH SAGO." iddi, near PSBCD pond in the midst of the town, probably on I Muy thoH the green, or in the front of Pullin's-row. On a garden notice-board, in another rat out to m The Wheel-pond of White Conduit House print after Bunbury, of the same date, was also famous for this sport; and a duck- •d tnin-baids i is this inscription: hunt was advertised at this place as late as " THE NEW PARADISE. yMi,twothoB 1810, but prevented by the magistrates. " No gentlemen or ladies to be admitted An old comedy has embalmed for us the ijpenudfelt-niab: with nails in their shoes." gmd to fire tk charges at Islington inns in 1681. A half­ DC ^ six tlioQs: witted knight, two town gallants, and a Goldsmith was fond of Islington, and I'liraiieentknsk gentlewoman of no great reputation are frequently mentions it in his prose works. Dnnnglieseala paying their reckoning, which comes to The reckless, happy poet was fond of occa­ nine and elevenpence. The tapster, by re­ sionally spending there what he called " a quest, detaUs the items: Cakes two shillings; shoemaker's holiday." Three or four of it4gid,inotl>eiatt ale as much; quart of mortified claret his nearest friends rendezvoused at his ^,luge fort li eighteenpence ; stewed prunes a shilHng ; chambers in the Temple, at about ten A.M., ttbHewBiverf and a quart of cream half a crown. " That for breakfast. At eleven they marched is excessive," says Lady Jolt. "Not," says off up the City-road to dine at Highbury the tapster, " if you consider how many car­ Barn, where there was a good ordinary of rier's eggs miscarried in the making it, and two dishes and pastry at tenpence a head, the charge of isinglass and other ingre­ including a penny to the waiter. The dients to make cream of the sour milk." company consisted of Hterary men, a few Then come other charges, two threepenny Templars, and some retired tradesmen. Hilidleienceto^ papers of sugar a shiUing; bread, and a At about sis o'clock they adjourned to pound of sausages. White Conduit House to drink tea and IsHngton continued to be a great place punch. The expenses of this harmless for country excursions from Queen Anne's day's amusement never exceeded a crown days, when Addison visited it for his each, often only from three shiUings and health, and dated Spectators from the quiet sixpence to four shillings, for which Gold­ spot whose humours coarse Ned Ward had smith and his party obtained fresh air, ex­ epitomised, down to the time of Goldsmith ercise, a good dinner, and pleasant conver­ and Bonnel Thomton. In 1756, George sation. Colman, in a farce, describes the bustling Islington was then full of gardens. There with which a citizen's wife packs up neats' was Daubeney's, upon the site of Dobney's- ,tlieB^ tongues and cold chickens, preparatory to place, an old house with bowling-green, going down to her husband's country box garden, and ponds, which were laid out in in the coach-and-three from the end of 1767 by a man named Johnson, About Cheapside. The feasts of hot rolls, and 1770, Price, an equestrian performer, ex­ the tea-drinkings at White Conduit House, hibited feats of horsemanship at this place, the ale-bibbing and the smoking of pipes while his rival, named Sampson, performed in snug summer-houses at Islington, have his exploits in a field behind the Old Hats. V -^ 66 [June 1,1872.] ALL THE YEAR ROUND. [Conducted by QjrWi' These men are said to have been the only pity, and she began to pack her trunk in predecessors of Astley. preparation for a journey which must begin The Angel, now the great omnibus house, before twenty-four hours should go past. is described in 1811 as possessing very old There was no reason to fear that Paul staircases, and a yard surrounded by gal­ would refuse to accompany ber, and every fftSn leries. The Lion, which stood in the north­ cause for haste, for the mood of his mind west comer, by White Lion-street, was much had changed since his arrival at Monas­ used by drovers, and bore on the front a terlea. He no longer lived in that lion rampant gardant in bold relief, with quiescent condition which was almost a the date 1714. At the opposite corner state of unconsciousness. Things which he stood a house with lofty stuccoed ceilings, saw around him here seemed striving to and a stone chimney-piece with the story of arouse his memory, and a struggle was Orpheus charming the brutes, in relievo. beginning between the reason obscured IsHngton had been visited by the plague within him, and that power by whose several times before the great scourge of agency he was affHcted; the result being a 1665, when five hundred and ninety-three growing irritability which threatened to persons died there of the pestilence, chiefly increase to wildness did he remain long in in the months of August and September. the atmosphere which induced it. So Miss The story of how the plague arrived at Martha made rpreparations for her journey, Islington is one of the most ghastly epi­ while Paul wandered in his restless fashion sodes of that terrible period, A sick about the fields and moors; and May citizen, who had broken out of his house hovered between the two, now silently in Aldersgate-street, amd come to Islington, helping her aunt, now seeing that Paul was refused admission, both at the Angel was safe. Her face was white and her eyes and at the White Horse, He then applied had that look in them which we turn upon at the Pyed Horse, pretending that he was the dead; yet she was ready with her hands, free from all infection, was on his road to and had her wits about her, and did not Lincolnshire, and only wanted a night's heave a sigh, nor shed a tear. lodging. The people, expecting some When the Kearneys, watching their drovers next day, had only a garret-bed opportunity, had left their cave in the empty, A servant showed him. the room, mountain, they had sought shelter for a which he gladly accepted, saying, with a night with a ifriend in the lowland, about a sigh, that he had seldom laid in such a mile away on their road from Tobereevil. lodging, but would make shift, as it was Here they must wait for ithe eldest gossoon but for one night, and in a dreadful time. who had been hired by their friend Bid, to He sat down on the bed, and ordered a drive her on an errand to Camlough, The pint of warm ale. Next morning one asked Kearneys waited gladly, suspecting that what was become of the gentleman. The Bid's mysterious journey had something to maid, starting, said, " Bless me, I had for­ do with Paul; that she was making an gotten him." When they went up, they effort to save them though she had not found the ,man dead across the bed, Ms thought fit to inform them of the venture. clothes pulled ofi, his jaw faUen, his eyes The errand was one of importance, that the open, and staring frigbtfuUy, and the rug house-mother knew, for had not Bid got a of the bed clasped tight in one hand. The loan of Miss Martha's Httle waggon-cart for alarm was great.; the distemper spread in­ the journey ! Now when the gossoon had stantly to houses round about, and four­ made the mule a bed in the stables, put the teen persons died of the plague that same cart in the shed, and left Bid enjoying her week in IsHngton. ibreakfast at Monasterlea, he ran off to tell his mother that Mr, Paul had come home at last. THE WICKED WOODS OF TOBEREEVIL. Then Mary, the mother of all the BY THB ArrTHOB OP " HESTER'S HISTORY," Kearneys, rose up and thanked the Lord for sending her this friend who would take CHAPTER XXXIX. A STRANGE NIGHT. the trouble out of her heart. So easily will WHEN Miss Martha saw the condition people grasp at hope that Mary began ito be­ into which Paul had strangely fallen, she lieve that Paul had come all the way from agreed with May that it would be well to Camlough for the sole purpose of forcing remove him to new ; scenes and leave his Simon to restore her to her home. She restoration to time and Providence. Her would go to Monasterlea with all her chil­ anger was at once lost and forgotten in her dren round ber, and relate to young Mr. •^: ^'^">»Saiste4% Charles Dickens.] THE WICKED WOODS OF TOBEREEVIL. [June 1.1572.] e? '7^ust^ Finiston the dismal tale of her distress. But beggary, but I'm here yet mysel', sir, wid first, ought she not to wait to see if Bid the little girshes an' gossoons. An' I would come and fetch her ? She waited made bould to tell mysel' that if I seen a 'y^ander^ till past sunset, and yet Bid had not sight o' yer honor you would remember ye appeared; the tmth being that the old had a wish for us, an"d put a word in woman was engaged with Miss Martha, and wid yer uncle to let us go back to our Httle knew that the Kearneys would not think house. We built it a'most oursel's, sir, ^^ ^ 4o5 of departing till she went to see them off. when be threwn us out before, an' Httie Bid would not quit Monasterlea tUl Miss Nan's getttin a clever ban' at the basket ^in«i striviD;, Martha and Paul were fairly started on makin'. The gossoons'U be men after a bit, '4 a 8truBgle\ their journey. plase the Lord ; an' there's not an idle bone fi w«on ok,, But Mary Kearney had not patience t;o in them, an' rtbey'll pay it back fto yer power by ^ wait for this. As soon as twilight began honor," ; the resnlt 1)91!, to fall she started with her children and Paul stood listening, somewhat Hke a ^^^ threateii; walked to Monasterlea. Paul was walking deaf man who suddenly found that he lie remainloj; up and down the road with his head bent could bear; his eyes fixed on the woman ttdaosdit. Sol on his breast, and his hands clasped behind while he devoured all her words, •••fcrlierjims him in that dreary restless way which was "Simon put you sont 1" he said, "Is •tertstlessfet habitual with him now. He stopped now that what you have told me ? Simon, the 1 Mm; audi and then and passed his hand over his miser, put you outf You and how many forehead, and threw up his face with a look others ?" J ^ DOT sfe of pain, as if he strove to recover his "Thirty famiEes, sir. Sure I thought itieeingtlijtft memory at one bound, whereas it would yer honor known it." Miliite!sidk? only return to him by slow degrees. Some­ "I did not know)it," said Paul,'" or I iidudivetiifiii! times he stamped his foot in despair, or should have seen "to it before. You may mdjTittilier'ii& kicked the pebbles outof his path, as if they go now, my woman, and I wiU settle with tntlier, andii had angered him. His mood was indeed Simon." Itter. changing, and it were well that he was He walked quickly up to the cottage; iji, iratdiiBgs out of the country. Suddenly, Mary May met him on the garden path, and \ liar cave is Kearney and her cliildren came round him, looked at him in amazement; his eyes . M^ ^Iter i; it being still just light enough for people were flaming, his mouth was moving ner­ to see each other dimly. They came vously. He was walking straight towards MifenTob lightly along in their bare feet, and sur­ the door, and did not see her. tifiiediest^^ rounded him swiftly and suddenly, Paul "Paul!" she said. "Oh, what is the iriheirfmndl starting as if ghosts had risen up to con­ matter?" front him. This sensitiveness in itself was " Nothing," he said, fiercely, " only I am evidence of a change; a few days ago he going to settle with Simon. This has been would not have started if the strangest a long time delayed. I was born to do it; visions on earth had passed under his eyes, and look at me, a man come to my time of sheK life, and my work still undone ! I have D9^ " God save you, Misther Paul!" AeK "Mrs. Kearney!" cried Paul, looking been astray this long time; I had quite ,rf«j)0*Bce keenly in her face. forgotten my duty; but a messenger has "See that now !—how well he knew me, just come to remind me of it. Simon has an' it dark I" said the woman. " Lord driven out the people to die about the love you, Misther Paul! it's you that had world. He has repeated the sin of the the wish for us. We have walked the first Finiston; it now remains for the last one to punish him, and put an end to this jiftBidenj'^ roads back to get a word wid you." " What is it ?" said Paul, with some­ foul race!" thing of his old air. It seemed as if the He pushed into the ball and took his start with which he had greeted these old gun down from the wall. friends had helped him in his struggle, May said, " What are you going to do ? and shaken some of the mists out of his Come in here and teU me." And she brain. drew him into the parlour and turned the " It's on'y our little trouble, sir. I mane key in the lock behind them, that Simon—that's the miser—I mane yer " Do ?" cried Paul, " Why, of course, I uncle, sir, has threwn a heap 0' us out of will shoot him through the heart. I often our houses, Misther Paul. O' course you told you," he said, testUy, "that I have know that, sir, an' some o' us is dead, an' got to do this thing, and you would not undher groun' out o' his road, an' some o' beHeve me. But now you shaU have proof us is gone across the say. Some is gone to of it," ^ d?= =h [Conducted by 68 [June 1,1872,] ALL THE YEAR ROUND. [5# " Very well, but you must wait a little; barred up, so that no one, not even a mad­ You have nothing to load your gun with; man, could make his way inside the walls. your things have not arrived," She should find Paul wandering about the " That is most provoking. How soon avenue, or in the woods, or about the win­ will they be here ?" dows; would find him and bring him "Oh, in about half an hour; in the home. mean time you can rest yourself, so as to be Her heart beat so thickly and her feet better able for your work," She shook went so fast that she had often to pause up the pillows on the couch, and he fiung for breath, leaning against a hedge or tree, himself impatiently upon them, taking out straining her eyes everywhere in hopes of his watch to count the minutes; while seeing a figure, either behind her or before May, hovering about the room, began telling her on the road. At last she was obHged some laughable story. After a time he gave to go more quietly, l6st, having utterly her his attention and put away the watch. exhausted herself, she should faint at the Presently, she began to sing softly a drowsy sight of Paul, and be of no further use to lullaby, which she had heard mothers him. singing to their babies in the cabins; and The beautiful calm country lay aU around Paul listened to her tranquiUy, having ber, the hills wrapped in solemn shadow, quite forgotten his passion as well as the but with lustrous peaks, majesticaUy cause of it. At last he lay so still that she crowned with stars in the sky; sad gUm- turned her head cautiously to observe him, mering fields and moors with all their and found that he was asleep. She brought human lights extinct at the moment; the wrappings and covered him, so that he patient and melancholy land that had suf­ might rest there safely during the night, fered and smiled and been beautiful under for it was now eleven o'clock, and she the tread of many afflicted generations, hoped he would not wake till the morning. born to a cruel time, but perhaps to a kind She locked him in the room, and the house- eternity, " How long, oh Lord, how long?" bold went to rest. seemed written over the wistful face of the Yet May could not sleep, only lay staring valley. The woods had caught no tender at the little pools of moonlight on the floor, glance from the moon, but rolled in black a.nd wondering about the ending of this masses against the sky, as if the surges of sad drama, in which she played so sore a their wicked restlessness would flood the part. Would Paul ever get well again ? fair face of the heavens, drowning the Would he, indeed, seek the miser when be innocent stars which grew like blossoms of wakened on the morrow, and accomplish light therein. Thus appeared the woods in his madness that doom which he had in the last hour of their magnificent pride dreaded before the madness came ? She and might, even while there was a red spot could not sleep while there was so much in the midst of them that glowed and pulsed to be prayed for: that Paul might be saved Hke an angiy thought in their heart. from impending evil, and guided into the May did not notice it, as she pierced her keeping of good and faithful hands. way through the crowding trees to the In the midst of her sad thoughts she avenue. She had seen smoke and flames heard a noise; and sat up and listened in­ in the distance when she first set out on the tently. Surely that had been the sound of road; but fire-wreaths were common on a window opening! She did not wait a the mountain now, and the sight bad been moment, for there was but one thought in no surprise. her mind. She went swiftly to the parlour As she drew near the dreary mansion door and opened it softly, softly. The moon she sickened at the thought of approaching shone into the room; the window was wide it with such a terrible fear in her mind. open; and Paul was gone. Was it not altogether fantastic this journey She dressed herself rapidly and fled out of hers in the midnight ? How could she of the house, hurrying down the garden have allowed terror so to work upon her— and out on the road. She could see a long knowing Paul as she did, and that he way before her in the clear midsummer would not hurt a fly ? A man quite un­ night, which is scarcely night at all. Paul armed ! What barm could he do to ano­ was not to be seen, but her lively terror ther, even if Simon's doors and windows could only lead her flying feet in one direc­ were not locked and barred ? Perhaps, tion. She sped, Hke the wind, towards even now be was safe at home, having Tobereevil, thinking as she went along of returned to his rest after roving a little, in the HkeHhood of the mansion being well his wild way, about the fields. Admitting Charles Dickens.] THE WICKED WOODS OF TOBEREEVIL. [June 1,1872.] 69 these thoughts, she leaned tremblingly through which Paul had passed with Simon against a tree, and again strained her eyes on the day when they had first met as towards the thickets and across the moors. uncle and nephew, when Paul had con­ The grey early dawn came creeping sented to share the miser's interests and to over the scene ; frown after frown dropped touch the miser's gold. That door led, as from the trees, and groups and masses of she knew, to Simon's sitting-room; and it unknown something threw off their sombre also lay open. A second threshold was mystery, and became broken-down fences, crossed—she advanced a few steps, and did clumps of ragged hedge, pieces of ruined not need to go further. Simon was sitting wall, or bushes of unsightly shape ! The in his chair ; his head lay back so that the bogs showed their dreariness, the river face was almost hidden, his arm hanging threw up a steel-like ray, and the marshes over the chair, the long skeleton fingers gave forth pale glimmers of beautiful hues: nearly touching the ground. The old man a grey look of awe was on the face of the was a corpse; his breast covered with waking world, as if the coming of a new blood, and blood lying round about him on day had been a fearful and unexpected the floor. boon. The dull shoulder of the mansion This was the ghastly spectacle on which rose above some bristling trees ; and there May and the cold dawn looked in through was a great roar in the air coming from door and window. A terrible cry—of more the distance. May noticed it without than fear, of more than horror—rent open thinking of it, for every one knew of the May's lips, and made the old house echo grumbling of the woods ; but the trees of as it had never before echoed, even to the Tobereevil had never made such a sound cries of the lamenting winds, Simon did as this before. not stir—nor was anything startled within She told herself that she had much better the cursed waUs except the echoes. May go home, yet could not bear to turn till tried to fly, with some vague idea about she had first walked round the mansion to saving some one spinning round and round see that the fastenings were all untouched, in her dizzy head; but, though the spirit and that no wandering footsteps, save her might will the body would not obey, and own, were about the place. There was a she fell on the floor of the hideous cham­ dreadful fascination for her in the nearness ber. For a long time she lay there silent, of the stern grey walls; she could not turn motionless, dead—like a second victim to her eyes away, and began walking quickly whatever hatred had spilt an old man's towards them. blood on the floor by her side. While She had been there but once before, and the long spell of silence lasted the Hght did not quite know her way among the grew clear in the room, and the dreadful vagrant bushes and straggling trees to the sight it looked upon became more fuUy re­ front of the bouse. She found herself at vealed in all its details. It was a colour­ the back, and walked round many sides less, grey morning, the sun had not yet and gables, noticing with relief how well risen, and yet there was a bright red glow the windows were barred, and thanking lying on the ground outside, and Cfeeping like a gilding round the window frames. God for the miser's caution, which was It shone in through the panes, and danced good for something at last, " When the with fearful frolic over the awful figure in back is so weU guarded," thought she, "it the chair, glancing on May, and dying her is not likely that the front wiU be found white dress as the feeling of Hfe returned neglected. The door wUl be locked and gradually into her body. At the risk of bolted." Then May came steaHng round bringing madness with it, consciousness the last corner ofthe bouse. But the hall- came creeping back to her. door was lying open I A cry of anguish rose in her beart, but She wakened to life again, struggHng the sound of it did not come through her with a pain at her heart, which seemed try­ lips, as she drew near the open door hover- ing to crush it, that she might have death ingly, as a blessed spirit might approach and peace; but her healthful youth would the mouth of hell, seeking for some lost not have it so, and out of her struggle came one, sorely afraid to enter, yet impelled by recollection, and with it the strong wiU and the love that is stronger than death. She self-forgetting impulse which had already carried her so far in this adventure. She could not but go in; her feet carried her rose to her feet, and staggering, indeed, and across the hall, moved by the same fascina­ still half-stunned, and covering her eyes tion which had drawn them towards the witb her hands, that she might not behold trees. Away to the right was the door

/ A 70 [June 1,1872.] ALL THE YEAR ROUND. [Conducted hy again the sight that had nearly killed her, murderer nor that of a madman, but the she fled back across the haU and out of the clear, honest voice of Paul Finiston in his house. senses. May knew it of ohL;, it. was a Then she found herself wrapped in the sound sweet and unhoped for, and each glare of the burning woods; hissing and echo of it pierced her brain with a state of roaring the fire roUed towards her over the perilous joy. The revulsion of feeling heads of the nearer trees, which were not was so sudden that it almost robbed her a yet drawn into the furnace, though it shone second time of her senses; and as she right behind them. Clouds of smoke blot­ wheeled round to obey the call she doubted ted the heavens, and were luridly pierced her own sanity, and moaned aloud piteously by the savage flames, which seemed to es­ in the agony of uncertainty. Was she, too, cape with every groan from the hearts of mad, and did she imagine happy sounds the perishing trees. Now that it had got which could be heard no more on earth ? mastery over the woods, the fire spread She began running towards the direction with a terrible rapidity, licking up root and from which the sound had reached her. branch, devouring oak, and beech, and When the hot mist that had obscured her chestnut, wrapping away in its embraces eyes clearedaway a Httle and allowed her to stalwart trunks and writhing boughs, and see, she perceived Paul coming to meet opening up such a raging abyss between her, walking rapidly, pushing his way heaven and earth, that it seemed ae if the through the bushes from that side of the spirits of fire had been let loose out of their wood not as yet approached by the fire. It kingdom, and the world having been given seemed as if he had descended from the up to them, the last day had begun. mountain. He was quickly at her side,, May stepped out from the shadow ofthe and threw a protecting arm round her. grim house into a scorching atmosphere, " You are going to faint," he cried, that made her eyes grow dim and her breath "What can have brougi-t you out here seem to burn. Her dress, her flesh, her alone ?" hair grew hot, so that she felt as if already* May shuddered and shrank from him, wrapped in the flames, while the fire half " Simon is dead !" she said. " Simon is encircled her at the distance of about a murdered !" hundred yards. With still the one idea of Paul started. "Simon murdered!" he Paul's madness possessing her, the thought said, awe-struck. " What da, you mean ? flashed through her mind that this new How do you know P" • j '; •"' horror must be in some way owing to it— " I mean—I know—oh God, Paul, oh that he himself was even now buried in God !—teU me you did Hot do it !" yonder furnace; "Paul! Paul!" she "I?" Paul drew back and looked at shrieked in a h%h shriU note that pierced her with horror. the smoke-clouds and reached further than "Forgive me! forgive me! I think my the beUowing of the trees; and, bereft of senses have left me. Oh Heaven, what I all reason, she rushed frantically towards have suffered! Oh this terrible, terrible the flames. night!" A few wild steps and her feet stopped " My darling, calm yourself! You are again. What was that ? Oh! what was distracted by the sight of this extraordi­ it ? Not the roaring of the trees nor the nary fire. It has frightened you out of hissing of the flames—not the groaning of your sleep. It is very strange and awful; the newly-attacked giants, whose bodies but can be traced, I do not doubt, to some were girdled by fire—not like to any of simple cause—the great heat of the weather, these was the sound that made her stop. or some sparks from the fires on the moun­ It was Paul's voice caUing to her. " May ! tain. You were raving just now, saying May!" it cried, in a loud and ringing that Simon had been murdered; the fire voice; and it was not coming from the has not reached the house, and he shall cer­ fire, though if it had summoned her from tainly be saved, I was hastening to look tiuence she would have obeyed it. It was after him when I caught sight of your coming fitjm behind her—from the side white dress." where lay fields and meadows and the river May looked in his face with a puzzled cooling the land. and wistful gaze. "May! May!" This time the voice " Paul!" she said, " are you sure you are sounded nearer to her—Paul was not far in your right senses ?" away—he could see her and was calling Paul smiled, though he was uneasy, to her; and it was not the voice of a thinking her a Httle crazed by fright. Charles Dickens.] THE WICKED WOODS OF TOBEREEVIL. [June i, 1872.] 7l " I think I am," be said. " I feel Hke a Paul! he is lying murdered in his chair! sane man, I am more in my right senses I thought you had done it in^ your mad­ at least than you are !" i ness. Forgive me, Paul! I thought it was Still she looked at him wonderingly and in your madness." fearfully. Paul had become deadly pale, " Is this " Do you remember last night ?" she all true r" he said, " Am I dreaming, or said. are you ?" " Yes," he answered, smiling, and will­ " Neither, neither—we are both too wide ing to humour her. "I do remember last awake. It is aU true that I have said. night; should you like to bear an: account But you did not murder Simon, Paul ? of it ? I wakened with the moonlight, Your senses had returned to you when you where you allowed me to fall asleep on iihe wakened out of your sleep ? You know sofa, in your pariour. I could not go to what you have been doing ail the time sleep again, and turned out to enjoy the since you left the house ?" night, and to think over a crowd of things Paul reeled under her words, and leaned which came into my head. I got up into heavily against a tree. May stood before the hUls, and soon saw that the woods were him like a figure of snow,, and waited for burning, I Avatched them for some time, bis answer- The fire hissed and roared, knowing that there was nothing for it but and they neither saw nor heard it. to let them burn themselves to death " "I remember aU distinctly," he said at May shuddered. last; " I have not the slightest doubt. My "And then: I suddenly thought about mind has been sound and clear since I Simon; and was bxirrying down to save wakened out of my sleep and left the house. him when, as I say, I caught sight of you," I know what I have been doing; and I did May Hstened; still looking at him with not murder Simon. Must I beHeve all that that pale, unsatisfied gaze. you teU me ?—itie unspeakably strange and " But, before all that ?" sbe urged) him. awful!" " Do you remember what happened in the " Hie did not do it," said May, speaking evening, and yesterday, and the day be^ to herself in a kind of rapture. " He did fore?" not do it at aU—he did not even know of " Of course, I do," he said., " On the it. Stay, Paid; indeed I will not faint. day before yesterday I escorted Miss Arch­ I have turned a little bHnd, but, indeed, I bold to Camlough, and returned to Monas­ shall not faint." terlea yesterday evening. I came home He held her up in his arms till the swoon­ late ajad very tired, ajid was allowed to sleep ing sensation left her. Suddenly a sharp upon your sofa. How this came to be is the cry broke from her. only thing I am not perfectly clear about. " The curse is now at an end," she said; But why do you question me like this, aad " the last miser is dead ! Even the prophecy what does it all signify ?" is fulfilled—murdered !" she shndderedi May looked half relieved, yet stilBter- ^'Noi by a kinsman of hia own," said rifiad. PauL "Paul," she said, "it wae April when " No," said she, " but still the curse is you went to Camlough with Katherine ended; and yon axe free and need fear no Archbold, and now it is July." more." " May, you are dreaming !" he cried. " I do not fear anything,." he saidi,- "un­ " Oh Paul, oh Paul! it is you who have less it be pain for you." been out of your senses. You went to It was very plain, indeed, that whatever Camlough, you became ill and. lost your mischievous powers had hitherto irritated mind, and they kept youth ere. I went and- aaid maddened Paul, had at last given up stole you away that you might be cured. their hold of him, and had left him in While you were gone Simon ill-used the possesion of the fecnlties that God had people, and they were in distress. Last given him. He spoke and moved with a night they told you this, and, in your mad­ calm and self-contained air which May had ness, you threatened to murder Simon. I nevernoticed as belonging to him. Thought­ soothed the idea out of your mind, and you ful and awe-struck as he was at tiiis nio- fell asleep. Afterwards, when you awoke, ment, there was stiU no trace of that con­ I heard you quit the house, and followed fusion of trouble—that gloom and nervous you in terror lest the idea of doing harm dread—which had always been so painfully might still be working in your mind. I visible in him when grief or perplexity had found Simon's door open; and, oh God, thrust themselves in his way. Even in his "^ c5= =)p 72 ALL THE YEAR ROUND. [June 1,1872,1 joy there had always been a feverishness fires that the shepherds has for ever goin' and uncertainty which had not suggested night and day !" suggested a third, " Oh, peace nor any well-grounded happiness. murther! here's Misther Paul and Miss Now, there was a quiet look of strength in May hersel'." his face—an expression of resolved content " They've been lookin' after Simon," said in his eyes, as if he would say: " Come a fourth, " Bad as he is, a body coiddu't what may, I will weather this storm;" for see him burnt." he already saw it coming, though May did " God knows frizzlin* would be too good not as yet. She thought of nothing at the for him all the same. Save ye, Misther moment but the wondrous change in Paul; Paul! This is a terrible night we have." and joy, mingled with awe, fiUed up all her " Vei-y strange and terrible," said Paul. consciousness, leaving no room for antici­ " But there is something more awful stiU, pation of things to come. Paul was re­ up at the house. Sunon Finiston has been stored to her, or rather given to her newly. murdered." As she clung to his arm, and he led her from " Murdered !" A hum of horror rose and the spot, she felt him to be at last possessed sank into silence. There was an extraor­ of that power, strong and fine, on which dinary look on every face. she could repose, by which he should govern " God knows he desarved it!" cried a himself and others without hindrance of woman fiercely, breaking the sUence. doubt or fear. What her faith had dis­ "Oh, ay!" said a man, "but some wan cerned latent in him, hidden by the over­ be to done it on him." shadowing of some mystery inscrutable, "That's the point," said the farmer, she now beheld manifested to her senses. solemnly, with a sombre look at Paul. Truly and indeed she had got matter for "Thou shalt not kill." joy. Hitherto she had been the stronger— Some of the people looked askance at had battled for him and protected him as the young couple, and others gazed away the man might protect the woman. Now, from them with grief and embarrassment the God-given strength and dignity of man in their faces. Paul quickly saw the signs had appeared and asserted its superiority of the storm that was coming upon him, over her own ; and, with a sigh brimful of and his greatest desire was to see May bliss, the woman fell back into her place, safely at home. Paul led her away, with her face to the " I must take this lady home, my men," fields and the cool river. He wanted to he said to them, " and then I will return bring her home as quickly as possible, so to you. Will you hurry on and remove that he might return and have Simon's the body before the flames get up to the body carried decently from the house be­ walls ? There is not a moment to lose." fore the flames should get round the waUs, "Ay, ay!" they said, assenting, and As they hurried along they saw numbers moved slowly on. There was a heavy of people running from all sides, attracted doubt on their minds, and Paul knew it. by the strange spectacle of the burning " Till wan o' them be murdered by a woods; all the early risers in the neigh­ kinsman of his own," muttered the farmer bourhood having been attracted from their to himself. " I did not think Paul Finiston homes by so extraordinary a sight. They had it in him." were talking and gesticulating as they ran, "Oh ye coward!" cried a woman who suggesting causes for the phenomenon, and caught or divined his words. " Oh ye iU- giving vent to their amazement. minded man !" " Oh, good Lord !" cried a woman, " the "I didn't say nothin'," said the man. divil himsel' must ha' whisked a spark out " It's the law's affair, not mine." o* heU wid him by mistake when he was night-walkin' as usual in the woods !" Now ready, price 58,6d., bound in green cloth, "Whisht wid your blatherin'," said a stout farmer. " The heat o' the weather's THE SEVENTH VOLUME jist enough for to do it. A fiash o' fork 0» THB NBW SEBIBB OS Hghtnin' when the branches is that dhry!" ALL THB YEAR EOUND. " A wheen o' sparkles from yon cursed To be had of all Booksellers.

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