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middle height, and considerably past middle CASTAWAY. age, thin almost to gauntness, upright in BY THE AUTHOB OP "BLACK SHBBP," "WEECKED IN his caiTiage, rapid and nervous in his POET," &e. &C. movemehts. His iron - grey hair, worn without parting or division, curled in a PROLOGUE, thick crisp mass on his head. His smaU CHAPTER IV. SENTENCED. grey moustache shaded his thin Ups, but " GLAD you have come in, Mr. Riley; his cheeks were whiskerless, and no beard the general has rung twice." softened the outUnes of the strong and " And why didn't you answer the bell ?" heavy jaw, which plainly indicated the asked Mr. Riley, a tall, weather-beaten, owner's possession of a quality charac­ grey-haired man, of soldierly appearance. terised by his friends as firmness, by his " No, I thank you," replied the butler; foes as obstinacy. "when I have known him as long as you, Such outward appearance had Major- perhaps I will, but our acquaintance is General Sir Geoffry Heriot. As he much too short at present, ' and never let entered the room, he looked somewhat me see you before lunch time,* he says to vacantly at the servant, then seating him­ me the other day, and I made up my mind self at his writing-table, spread his letters that I would act accordingly." open before him, and commenced the pe­ "The general's rather short tempered rusal of one of them. Riley waited until in the morning," said RUey, with a grim his master again looked up, when he said, smile as he left the room to answer the " Tou rang, general ?" bell, which pealed out for the third time. Sir Geoffiy roused in an instant. " Short tempered," said the butler to the " Three times, RUey. Where were you ?" footman, who entered the pantry at the " Gone to the stables, general, to look at moment, bearing a tray of glasses; " short the horse that came last night. It's against tempered! He thinks he's among the your orders for any of the servants to come niggers stUl, I suppose, but he'U have to to you in the morning, and I thought you alter all that now he's come over here." would like to hear news of the horse. He'll " Of course he will, Mr. Johnson," said make a fine charger, general, and wUl the footman; "I don't hold with blacks, carry Mr, George splendidly." which is good enough to sweep crossings "How can you teU that?" said Sir and sell tracts, but not figures enough for Geoffry, quickly; " you never saw Mr. in-door service." George!" MeanwhUe, RUey rapidly made his way " No, general, that's true," said RUey ; to the Ubrary, opened the door, closed "but " it carefully behind him, and stood upright "Tou never wiU see him," said Sir at the attitude of attention, waiting for his Geoffry. master to address him. The room was " Never see Mr. George," cried the man empty at the moment, but through a door­ in astonishment; "why I thought in a way at the further end of it came a man month's time he was coming here ?" with quick, hasty footsteps, bearing two "Mr. George Heriot will never come letters in his hand. A man above the here," said Sir Geoffry, looking up sternly

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14G [July 15, 187L] ALL THE TEAR ROUND. [Gandooted by at his servant; " more than that, there is no ^locXy and show him out, without a word. such person." Tou undierstand me, without a word," "No such person as your honour's son ?" " I understand, general," said the man, cried Riley, who, like most of his country­ with his head bent down, and in* lew tone men, when excited flavoured his sentences of voice. with a vast amount of brogue. " Now go !" and Sir Geoffry pointed to " I have no son, Riley." the door. " Is Mr. George dead ?" asked the -man, "It's Mr. George," thought Riley to dropping his voice. himself, as he went slowly down the pas­ "He's dead to me," said Sir Geoffiry, sage ; " W% Mr. G«orge ! He's coming to in the same tone; " do you understand ?" see his father for the last time, and not all " That's just what I don't do," said he, the angels in heaven, or adi'the other things looking up in despair. anywhere else, would make the general " All that you have occasion to know," budge an inch when he has made his mind said Sir Geoffry Heriot, coldly, " and you up to do even so cruel a thing as this." should not know even so muicb, if you had When Sir Geoffry was Mt to himself, not served me faithfully so many years, he took up the longer of the two letters is this: that the person whom I have which lay before him, and read it again hitherto been accustomed to think of as attentively. As he read, the blood flushed my son, and to whose companionship and in his bronzed cheeks, his teeth were set affection I have been looking forward firmly together behind his thin lips, his as the solace of my life, has done some­ eyes kindled, and at length crushing the thing which renders it necessary for me not letter in his hand, he began pacing the merely to discard and disown him, but to room with hasty strides. forget that he ever existed." "A coward!" he muttered, in short, " Tour honour," said Riley, involuntarily broken sentences; " a coward, that is it, taking a step nearer to his master, and neither more nor less. To think, after all speaking with trembling lips and out­ I have gone through and all I have autiei- stretched hands, " to discard and disown— pated, that I should come back to this; is it Mr. George, your son ?" that flesh and blood of mine should receive " Have I any other son, that you need a blow, and, as Goole phrases it, ' sit down ask ?" said Sir Geoffry, unmoved. " Under­ patiently under the insult.' A coward, eh? stand, too, that henceforward his name will Gave this other man the lie, and when he hit never pass my lips, and must never be out, naturally enough—what else could have mentioned by you. I am aware, Riley, been expected of him ?—refused to call him that silence is one of your qualities, but out, but sits down patiently under the have you ever spoken of my son's expected insult. That's the tailor's blood cropping visit here to any of your new associates in up in that—you can never get rid of the the servants' hall?" taint; like gout it will skip one genera­ "Never, Sir Geoffry." tion, but it comes out in the next; it " Never even mentioned his existence ?" passed by me and shows itself in him. Just " Never, general. Mr. George's name has like your low-bred cur, who will fly out never crossed my lips save to your honour, and bark and growl, but runs away directly since we left the regiment." a stick is shaken at him. To think that " That's right; now attend to me. I he should have received a blow, and • expect a visitor to-day. Tou wiU have What does Goole say ?" Here he referred timely notice of his approach, by seeing the to the letter. " ' Townspeople present.' I carriage coming up the avenue, and you am thankful to Providence that I did will take care to be in the way to open the not obey my first impulse, and go up hall-door. Mind that this is done by you, to Cheeseborough to see this lad and his and none of the other servants; let them regiment directly I landed. With the know if they ask anything about it, that it exception of Goole and this man—what is by my special orders. Tou will not ask is his name ? — Cleethorpe — whom he the gentleman his name ; if he gives it, you refers to, they know nothing of me except will keep it to yourself, and not even my name, and they are not likely to re­ repeat it to me. You wiU simply announce member that for long after their drill meet­ him as a gentleman, send the carriage to ing is over, They were all county men, I the stables, and bid the driver come round recollect Goole telling me, and Cheddar is asfain in half an hour's time. When I ring a long way off, and has not much com­ the bell you will see the gentleman to the munication with London, so that I am not ^ X =? Charles Dickons, Jun.] CASTAWAT. [July 15,1871.] 147 likely to be brought across any of them. you are now I know, but what you may be ' This reason for his refusal to fight,' " con­ for the future is for your own decision, and tinued Sir Geoffry, again referring to the utterly without any reference to me." letter, " ' this reason he dechnes to im­ The young man looked up as though part to anybody.' Declines to impart! doubting the evidence of his ears. What does Goole mean by writing such Presently he said: " Tou have had a stuff as that to me, even if he be taken in letter from me, sir ?" by it himself? Reason—a man has no " I have had a letter from Colonel Goole, reason for being a coward save that he is stating what occurred on Thursday night one. And here I am, with this word in a billiard-room at Cheeseborough," said ' coward' ringing out in every sentence, Sir Geoffry. and knowing that it is applied to my own " But from me, I ask," said the young son I man, impetuously; " had you not a letter He stopped suddenly, and threw up his from me, stating that I was coming to you arms in the violence of liis rage and grief, forthwith, and that I would explain that then let them drop by his side, and con­ occurrence ?" tinued mechanically pacing to and ftt) "I had," said Sir Geoffry, quietly; with his chin resting on his breast. "but there was no occasion for you to have Aftei" about an hour had passed away troubled yourself to have come on such an in this manner, Sir Geofiry's quick ear errand. I have no doubt Colonel Goole caught the sound of footsteps in the pas­ states the circumstances correctly; you can sage close to the door. He had only time to take his letter and judge for yourself," throw himself into a chair at the writing- And he threw the letter across the table. table, and to assume the appearance of George Heriot took up the letter and being engaged with his pen, when the door read it through. Sir Geoffry watching him was opened, and Riley appeared, dose intently, muttering as he did so, " And he behind him Sir Geoffry saw the outline of can read of his own disgrace without turn­ another figure, and it required all the self- ing a hair!" command he possessed to subdue the ner­ " The facts are correctly stated, sir," said vous shivering, which ran through him at George, folding the letter, and handing it the sight, from head to heeL back to his father. Riley studiously averted his eyes from " Of course," said Sir Geoffry, contemp­ his master as he made the announcement. tuously; "gentlemen are no more in the *' A gentleman. Sir Geoffry!" Sir Geoffry habit of perverting facts than of submitting replied, " Show him in;" but, after the first tamely to insult. We wiU go through the glance, did not look up from the writing in statements seriatim if you please. Tou front of him untU he heard the sound made and this Mr. Travers," said the general, by the closing door. Then he raised his referring to the letter, "had this quarrel head, and rose from his chair, but as his at a biUiard-table ?" glance fell upon the young man standing "We had." before him, his thoughts leaped back over " He accused you of obtruding on his the abyss of twenty years, and a woman's stroke, and of purposely pushing his arm ?" face, which he had not seen during that "He did." period, but which, when he last looked at " Tou gave him the lie ?" it, bore just the same strange, proud ex­ "Tes." pression, rose before his fancy. He sank " And he then struck you a bbw ?" back in his chair again, and shut the vision "He did." out.with his hand. " That blow you have not attempted to "Father," cried the young man, stepping avenge. Tou remain, as it were, with a forward. red. mark of his buffet on your cheek. Tou In an instant Sir Geoffry was himself have not demanded satisfaction for this again. insult that has been put upon you ?" " Son," he replied, rising to his feet, and " I have not." putting forth his hand to check the young " On the contrary, you have refused to man's advance, " this is the first time we call this man to account ?" have ever interchanged these terms, and it " I have." wUl be the last." " And you dare, sir, to come here and "Father t" again cried the youth. confront me wdth such a decision as that in " I am Sir Gooffry Heriot, if you please, your mouth?" cried the general, almost to you as well as to everybody else. Whom shrieking with rage.

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148 [July 15, 1871.] ALL THE TEAR ROUND. [Conducted by "I dare," said-George Heriot, very Sir Geoffry laughed aloud. "The old quietly. story," he cried, with a sneer; "the His son's coolness had a subduing effect coward's never-failing plea. So tender of upon the elder man. His look was still his word, so regardless of his honour. And disdainful, and his manner imperious, but to whom, pray, and under what circum­ his voice was considerably moderated as he stances, was this oath given?" said: " To whom ? To your wife : my mother." "Tour daring to do so proves more Sir Geoffry started, and shook himself plainly than anything else that we have as though he had received a cut from a never met before, and that you have been whip. He steadied himself quickly, and brought up in complete ignorance of my then, placing his fingers upon the table, re­ character." mained standing. " I certainly was not brought up to re­ " And you ask under what circum­ gard you either as an idol whom I was to stances," continued the lad. " I wiU tell worship, or as a bully from whom I was you. The first time I can recoUect any to run away," said the young man, stiU aUusion to it was when I was quite a Uttle very quietly. chUd. We were Uving then at Saumer, a Sir Geoffry's face darkened, and he little village within a short distance of seemed as though about to again give vent Boulogne. We used to go into Boulogne to his passion. But he checked himself, in a kind of omnibus, drawn by one horse, and said: and driven by a man named Joseph. It " I am indebted to those to whom your used to start very early in the morning, early days were confided for having failed that the countrywomen might be betimes to represent me in the last objectionable at market with their fruit, and flowers, and character. As to the former," he added, vegetables. And one morning, just as we grimly, " they were not Ukely to make any were skirting the sands, we saw a Uttle mistake about that. However, that is not knot of men gathered roxmd something relevant to the subject at present under which they were slowly carrying away, discussion. Tou allow that all that is said Joseph stopped his horse, and ran to see by Colonel Goole in this matter is true ?" what it was, and coming back told us that " Perfectly true." it was the body of an officer who had been just kUled in a duel. That night I spoke " Then it only remains with me to an­ to my mother about it, and asked her what nounce the determination which I have a duel meant, and why the officer had been come to in the matter. Stay, though. kiUed, After she had explained this, she Colonel Goole tells me that you announce cried a great deal, I recoUect, and made me yourself as having some reason for refusing promise never to allow myself to be mixed to demand satisfaction of this man." up in such matters. The subject was " Of any man," interrupted George. never alluded to again between us until" " Of any man," repeated the general. —and here the lad's voice broke a httle " I beg your pardon, and accept your cor­ —" untU she was dying. We had had a rection in its wider sense. This reason long, long talk, and she had told me of all you declined to state to Colonel Goole, or to that she wished me to do. I was sitting any of your brother officers. Does your ob­ by her; her eyes were closed, and I thought jection to mention it apply equally to me?" she was sleeping, when she suddenly roused " It does not." up, and clutching me by the arm, reminded " No ! Then you can give me your me of the scene which we had witnessed reasons ?" from the Saumer omnibus, and of the " I can." promise which I then made. 'Ton were " And wUl ?" very young then,' she said, 'and you are " Certainly." but a mere child now, but you will have "I confess I shall be curious to hear sense enough to understand me, and to do what can have been your motive for sacri­ what I bid you, when I tell you that it is ficing a very promising career, almost be­ my urgent wish, and that I am going away fore you had entered upon it." from you, and you wiU never see me again. " My sole motive for refusing to fight a Say after me these words : "I swear by my duel—that is the right way to put it, as, hopes of salvation, and by the love I have even had I been challenged, I should have for my mother, that I will never fight a declined the meeting—was, that I had duel, or take part in one in any way." ' 1 sworn a solemn oath never to engage in repeated the words after her, then I laid such an encounter." c^= X ^ Charles Dickens, Jan.] CASTAWAT. [Jnlyl5,187L] 149 down beside her, and she put her arms known and highly respected throughout round my neck, and kept them there tiU the Indian service; and, as I had Uved she died." frugally, I had been enabled to save ample The boy ceased. The vivid recollection means. of what he, had described had excited him " I met your mother in society, and ad­ somewhat as he proceeded, and his narra­ mired her immensely. She was one of two tive had, he imagined, had some effect upon sisters, both of whom were raved about; his father, who sat with his face averted, but your mother's was the softer beauty of and his head resting on his hand. the two, and in manner she was much the But whatever emotion Sir Geoffry might sweeter and more innocent. My attentions have felt, he was careful to let no sign of it pleased her, my position was thought an escape him. After a pause he looked up, eligible one by her friends, and we were and said, in hard, dry tones : married. Within a year of our marriage, "It is a pity you did not think of all and shortly after your birth, your mother this before you gave the lie to your brother presented to me a gentleman named Teld- officer, or that, having done so, you did ham, whom she had known before she not suffer the fact to escape your memory. made my acquaintance. He was an Eng- The circumstances being as they are, I do Ushman, but had lived most of his time not allow for a moment that your state­ abroad, had foreign manners, and was ac­ ment is a sufficient excuse for your conduct. customed to foreign ways. He was a dilet­ But it has had a certain effect. When I tante ariist and an amateur musician, and received your colonel's letter this morning, was supposed to be particularly fascinating I determined upon disowning and discard­ to women. Tour mother took great de­ ing you on account of your conduct as light in his society, and he was so much at described to me by him, without entering our house that I spoke to her about it. She into any parley as to the past or the future. laughed at the time, and told me if I used That determination I adhere to, bnt in con­ my eyes I could see that it was her sister, sequence of what you have said, I feel it who was living with us, that was in reality due to myself to let you know something, Mr. Teldham's attraction, I thought no at least, of the history of the past. When more of it, and shortly after we all went you have heard it, you will more readily abroad, loitering up the Rhine to Baden, comprehend your mother's horror of duel­ where Mr, Teldham joined us, I again ling, and what may perhaps have been a fancied I perceived an understanding be­ mystery to you—the reason that the latter tween your mother and this man, which portion of her life was passed away from was anything but agreeable to me. I me. spoke about it in confidence to her mster, Miss Rose, and although she strove to make " Tour grandfather was a taUor named me believe I was wrong, I was not satis­ Causton, residing in a small hamlet near fied with her explanation, Finally I watched London, where there was a good founda­ their conduct at a grand fancy ball given by tion school. To this school he sent me, a French banker, who was staying at the his son, and there, when quite a chUd, place, and, in consequence of what I saw, I I formed an intimate friendship with a sent Mr, Teldham a chaUenge. Twenty' iad named Heriot. This lad died when four hours after that we met at one of the he was about eleven years old, and his sraaU islands on the Rhine, and I shot him father, who was a clerk high up in the through the chest. With his dying breath India House, adopted me in his place, on he declared that I had been in error condition that I should bear his name, throughout, and that it was not even your and give myself up entirely to his direction. mother with whom I had seen him at the My father was dead at that time, and I ball. He was a man of honour, and did never cared particularly about the tailor's his best to save a woman's reputation, but connexion, so that I gladly accepted Mr. of course his statement was false." Heriot's offer, and, under my new name, I was sent to Addiscombe, and thence into the " What did my mother say ?" inter­ Indian army. I stuck resolutely to my rupted George, profession, never asking for leave of ab­ " She corroborated Mr. Teldham in every sence during twenty years. Then I ob­ particular, and accused me of being a tained a long furlough, and came home to murderer, "said Sir Geoffry, bitterly, "and England. All traces of the Causton name as we held such very unpleasant opinions and the tailor parentage were obliterated regarding each other, I thought it best that by this time. I was Major Heriot, well we should separate, and I accordingly re-

V =?P ^ 7 =3= 160 [July 16,1871,] ALL THE TEAR ROUND. [Conducted by turned to India, Her horror of duelling, For a moment Sir Geoffry was speech­ and the reason of my separation from her, less, his rage choked him, then he saidj, are now, I think, sufficiently explained," "What an insolent rascal! but after all it " Perfectly," said George, "but " was better tham whining. It shows he " One moment," interrupted Sir Geof­ has some pluck left. And I was afraid he fry ; " I have given you this explanation, would whine." which I was by no means caUed upon to do, and I now proceed to state to you my determination with regard to yourself, HOW PARIS MOURNS. Tou have disgraced the name which I have raised, and for the first time that I WE are a large party of joyous people have borne it have caused me to blush at bound from Paris for Versailles, this bright its mention. The name is yours, and I Sunday morning. The train is crammedip cannot forbid your bearing it, but you shaU the tramway omnibuses are in such demand, never again be acknowledged or treated by that to travel by them would involve an me as my son. From this moment I dis­ hour's waiting at the ticket office; the Paris card and disown you, Tou are entitled, cabmen are demanding five times their usual when of age, to your mother's property; I fares; so we take up our position on the am willing to anticipate that event, and roof of a second-class carriage, gratified at aUow you to enjoy the income arising from having found a place at last, and deter­ it now, on condition that you assume mined to enjoy ourselves to the utmost. another name and pledge your word never "We" are French people for the most in any way to reveal your identity, or part. Papa, mamma, two neatly dressed claim relationship with me." children, and a nurse with a basket, from "I am much obliged to you, sir," said which the neck of a wine-bottle and a the young man, struggling to repress his snow-white napkin protrudes; Jules, with emotion, "for your very generous offer, a flower in his button-hole, a pair of tightljt' which does you equal credit as a gentleman fitting ladies' boots upon his feet, proteote and as my father! I will not touch one Antoinette tenderly from the wind which penny of my mother's fortune untU I am cuts sharply through the second-storied legally entitled to it. But, meanwhUe, you carriage, whUe she arranges her shawl co- need have no fear of my degrading that quettishly, and turns from side to side as name by which you set such store, but he directs; two grim-looking old men, which, after all, does not belong to you." who indulge in infantile merriment at An­ " Sir !" cried Sir Geoffry. toinette's airs ; and the rank and file of our " Be good enough to hear me out," said company, workmen from Belleville, shop­ George, quietly. " Tou cannot forget that keepers from the Boulevards, gar9ons from you are my father, more readily than I will the cafes, soldiers in uniform on leave, all rid myself of every recollection that I am rejoice exceedingly at what they have come your son. No intrusion of mine shaU ever out to see. There are several first-class pas­ remind you of my existence. I sliaU leave sengers among us; but this arrangement you to the enjoyment of the reflections on the second-class roof resembles the which cannot fail to arise when you look upper deck of an American steamer, and back upon your estimable conduct, both as is so convenient for sight-seeing, that there a husband and a father. But I anticipate is a positive rush for places there. The the pleasure of seeing you once again. I two Englishmen present are the only mar­ shaU make it the business of my life to dis­ plots of the party. They heave sighs, cover the real history of Mr. Teldham's forsooth, and look horror-stricken, and acquaintance with my mother, and when I draw doleful comparisons between the ap­ find, as I am certain I shall find, that you pearance of the country side now, and were grievously deceived by your own when they last visited Versailles, and com^ vanity and jealousy, I shall have the plea­ port themselves generally, as if they w«^ sure of coming and proving it to you, as visiting some scene of horror instead of » some slight return for your noble conduct merry show. The French people see thiSy towards my mother and myself. And now and with characteristic politeness endeavour I must trouble you to ring the bell and to rouse them from their insular gloom. order the carriage to be brought round." These ruins are pretty, but there are better With this and a slight bow, the young to be seen than these. Has monsieur, the man turned on his heel, and quitted the stranger, beheld the Tuileries, the esta^ room. blishment of the minister of finance, the .s^ Charles Dickens, Jun,] HOW PARIS MOURNS. [Jtdy 15,1871.J 151 Hotel de Ville ? What pretty edghts are I never saw more industrious or better they! But here, look you, is F©rt Issy; workmen. The one I have quoted sang there, is a whole suburb reduced to ruins; the loudest, but there was a jest on every here, are heaps of stones which were lip, and smiles on all the faces, and when country houses a few months ago; there, the vocalist-in-ehief told the world that, for over the trees yonder, is the crumbling his part, he had found that, whatever hap­ Palace of St. Cloud; and (with mingled pened, it was wise to sing and dance with pride and playfulness this), " None of the a tra, la, la! and that while the wine-flask damage was done by the Prussians, it was was full, and Jeannette smiled, it mattered all the Versaillists and the Commune!" little what came next, there was a general This it is which has crowded the trains with hum of appreciation, as from convivially pleasure-seekers, and has been the moving disposed bees. This happened in a, wing cause of many a picnic. When the train oi the hotel which had only been reopened stops at Sevres a cloud of gaily dressed, a few days, and was occupied for the first chattering people alight, and push their time since the siege; so that when a bed­ way through the wicket with that mixture room door opened, and " Are ye goin' to of docility and impulsiveness which dis­ stop that infernal row now ?" was given tinguishes railway passengers in France. in stentorian tones by an Irish visitor, in­ Many of them carry tasteful, weU-fiUed dignant at being roused so early, the light- baskets, which wiU be opened about noon, hearted house-painters were as much as­ and wiU furnish forth the modest feast of tonished as I was amused. There was a the day. " There are most pretty ruins at fine burst of laughter, I promise you. Not Sevres," it is explained to us; "whole a syllable of the protest was understood. streets of houses have been demolished, But its style and manner were unmistakable, country mansions have been made mere and the word went round how Pierre was singing, and how a large English gentle^ skeletons, and the entire place is one man had been made angry. There were grand ruin." There is so much beaming BOMie "other painters at work a few doors animation in the speaker's manner, that xM, and an hour later, when one of these you ask yourself if he is, by any possi­ looked into" our court-yard for a brush bility, connected with the building trade, which had been borrowed of him the day or can in other ways be likely to benefit by before, the story was told again, with am­ repairs. But it is obvious that the train plifications and suggestions, and by him cannot be filled with masons aad their related to his fellows on Ms return. It is sons, daughters, mothers, aunts, and more than probable that every one of these hangers-on, and, as every one is in equally men were implicated in the deeds of the high spirits, it is clear that the love for an Commune, that their immediatie friends and outing and for something new has over­ brothers are buried in quicklime benearf:h ridden and quenched sorrow at national where they fell fighting, that others of their abasement and shame. Shame did I say ? immediate connexions are in durance vile Why, the people we were travelling with at VersaiUes, to be shortly transported to seemed proud of disaster and defeat. They Cayenne, and that they have each secrets implored us, as it were, to probe their of their own, which it would endanger wounds, and to rejoice over their depth their necks to tell. Talk to them, try and width. It reminded me of the first to gain their confidence, and a lower­ sounds I heard on the morning of my arrival ing look comes into their eyes, and tlie in Paris. The Commune had just fallen, tigerish nature which lies beneath this the blood-stains had scarcely been removed veneer of playfulness betrays itself. But from the streets, arrests were taking place meanwhile they have lost the cast, you see, every hour. I looked for sombre faces, and so it is tra, la, la! uatil the turn comes again, listened for the sound of lamentation and and they shall do their part, to make the rod woe. I found neither. flag wave over the barricade and public Let us dance and sing, with a tra, la, la ! edifices once more. If sorrow comes I laugh the more, with a tra, la, la! came lustily from the throat of a house- There were men in blue blouses patiently painter, who, with a score of fellow- carting away the rubbish from the govern­ labourers, began his work of redecorating ment offices which have been destroyed in the hotel (the proprietor and employer is the Rue de Rivoli, and others gazing up a German, who has just resumed the at the shell of the Tuileries, and wondering charge of his own business, after nine audibly "when the little Thiers would months' enforced absence) at six A.M. order the rebuilding," most of whom, it is 162 [July 15, 1871.] ALL THE TEAR ROUND. [Conducted by fair to conclude, were Communists at heart, these maps lies before me as I write, and it is and had a share in the devastation they plain that as much pains and trouble have would be employed to remedy. There was been given to it as is bestowed upon any neither sympathy nor sorrow, either among other kind of survey. The extensive dis­ them or the shifting crowds of sight-seers. tricts of Montmartre, La Villette, and BeUe- Nor was there—and this appeared the most ville, defy the minute classification which extraordinary feature of all—any of the de­ is given to the rest of the city, and the jected, sullen look which seems appropriate legend, " Some parts struck by shells, and to defeat. This may have been partly others burnt by incendiaries," runs in great policy, for it would have been dangerous red letters over them aU. There is a to liberty, if not to life, to show, by word terrible display of red elsewhere, and, as or gesture, approval of the destruction the urbane shopman explains to me, there wrought by the Commune ; but there was is an appropriateness, a touch of humour a reality about the merriment, a universal on the part of the draughtsman, in making frothiness which could not have been as­ the colour of the Communist party mark sumed. The statues on the Hotel de Ville out its evil deeds. Water-colour drawings on the side nearest the Rue de Rivoli have, of the representative characters among the with one exception, escaped injury. While insurgents are offered for sale in the best the ruined outer wall stands alone, like a shops. The Petroleuse, a wretched object, stage front, and, with nothing behind it, half monster, half lunatic, and with a dia­ its ornaments remain intact, save one of bolical grin on her withered face, stands the allegorical figures, which has been with one hand in her pocket, and a petro­ snapped off at the shoulders. A world of leum bottle in the other; whUe under the witty sayings was expended over this inci­ generic title of the Barricade, a collection dent by the gibing crowd. " Is it Faith, of male wretches are depicted, whose ap­ look you, or Prudence which has lost her pearance marks them as objects to he head ? " " Whose head shall we put on here ?'' arrested and shot, or there is no truth in provoked an endless number of laughing physiognomy. These pictures are beauti­ replies. " Badinguet," " Trochu," " Roche- fully executed, are full of artistic merit, fort," and a score of less-known names and one hundred francs each is asked for were given in succession, until a man, in them. They are for the portfolios of the cap and bells, and with a performing rich, for the tourists who will flock through monkey, was seen to take up his position Paris as usual this summer, and they have in the street close by, when the crowd already met with a ready sale. turned at once to the new amusement. The next print-shop on the Boulevards " Plans of Paris, sir ! five feet by three, attracts a crowd which extends half-way and with all the recent burnings coloured across the pavement. Two drawings, each so as to represent real flames, for seventy- five feet high, and handsomely framed, are five sous! Buy a plan, sir ? It is the the objects of attraction here. In one a bird's-eye view taken while the city is beautiful young woman, who is displaying blazing in twenty places at once, and only rather more leg and bust than is customary seventy-five sous. They charge a franc for in polite society, is being led forward hy a the same thing on the Boulevards—see, figure whom it would be profanity to name sir—published at the office of the Moniteur, in this connexion. The woman has the and authentic. Only seventy-five sous for word Liberty inscribed upon her cap, and a map of Paris in flames." there is a halo of glory on the other head. This is a street appeal to the multitude. She is erect, courageous, strong, and the More elaborate illustrations of the burnings wreck of empires, crowns, thrones, and are to be had in the shops. Here is a monarchs is being crushed beneath her beautifully executed little map for the feet. This young lady is intended for pocket, by a military officer of rank; there, regenerated and republican France. The an equally elaborate performance, glazed, companion picture is inscribed Despotism, and on rollers, and on a much larger scale. and portrays a repulsive hypocrite, in an Both show the injuries inflicted on the city. ermine cloak, and with a heavy white One kind of mark denotes burning, another moustache, kneeling devoutly to the thea­ partial burning, a third whether it is public trical Mephistopheles who is crowning or private buildings, or both, which have him. This elderly gentleman is the Em­ suffered, a fourth where damage has been peror of Germany, depicted as rahng done by shells, a fifth where the houses by Satanic arts ; and if our popular concep­ have been pierced by cannon-balls. One of tions of Mawworm, Mr, Pecksniff, Joseph

^ Charles Dickens, Jun.] HOW PARIS MOURNS. [July 15, 1871.] 153 Surface, and Mrs, Brownrigg could be counted seven shops, in which these were fused, the result would be very like what among the articles displayed in the gay is here given as Kaiser Wilhelm. These windows. Broken shells, with miniature are serious productions, as is the photo­ views of Paris painted in oils upon their graph labelled " Sedan," which hangs close fractured sides; ponderous iron balls, to by. Here the dethroned Emperor Napo­ which lids have been fitted and bottles let leon, the late elect of the people, is por­ in, and which are now inkstands, tobacco- trayed. A bluff gentleman, in robust boxes, snuff-cases, paper-weights, candle­ health, lounges at his ease in. a luxurious sticks, flower-pots, rings, pins, and brooches, open carriage, smoking a cigarette. His all made out of the missiles by means of mien and bearing indicate a luxuriously which Frenchmen were sent to their ac­ selfi.sh nature, profoundly satisfied that its count by Frenchmen—command exorbitant own comforts are secure The chariot prices. If the second siege of Paris, and containing him is drawn by eight spirited the destruction of its noble national monu­ horses, ridden by postUions in the imperial ments by incendiaries, were matters for livery, and its road is over the dead and congratulation, there could not be greater dying on the field of battle. Awful figures joyousness, or more apparent pleasure in" with heads bandaged, as if with grave- vaunting the evidences of what had been clothes, rise from the ground to shake their done. When we passed into the region clenched hands menacingly. Maimed sol­ of caricature, and set ourselves to collect diers implore that they may be spared, and specimens of the political cartoons which that the hoofs of the horses and the chariot have been pubUshed in Paris during the wheels may be directed elsewhere than over last nine months, our task was environed their wounded limbs; and the soldier with difficulty. It was dangerous to ask nurses, who are tending them, shrink in for, and stiU more dangerous to display horror, or utter curses loud and deep at and seU some of these. But we peered the only reply vouchsafed. For the posti­ below the surface and persevered. We lions beat back the wounded with their scoured the districts of La Chapelle, Belle- long whips, and urge the horses over their prostrate bodies at a furious pace, while the viUe, and Montmartre, and whenever we smoker puffs away, as calmly indifferent as found a print or newspaper shop, endea­ if he were in his easy-chair at home. voured to establish confidential relations FoUowing the carriage is a troop of Prus­ with its proprietor. We frequently failed. sian calvary—more as a protection than a Our noble British accent might be as­ guard—and the whole is given as a vera­ sumed—though I flatter myself an average cious representation of what followed the Frenchman is far too sharp-witted to think capitulation of Sedan, It is a horrid pic­ that possible; or we might be English ture. Tou can almost hear the groans and spies in the pay of Thiers; so the prints shrieks of the wounded soldiers, whose offered for sale were, as a rule, either of agonies are being wantonly increased; to-day, or of a period anterior to the Com­ while the active brutaUty of the menials on mune. The Emperor Napoleon in every horseback, the iron indifference of the occu­ attitude of ignominy: as a shoe-black at pant of the carriage, and of the foreign work on the boots of WiUiam ; as a mendi­ troopers who follow in his waie, and with cant with pockets turned inside out to at­ their horses' hoofs give the torture a final tract pity; as a thief making off with stroke, are so vividly rendered, that it is miUions of the nation's money; as a traitor impossible to contemplate them without a handing France over to murderers for pay; shudder. The crowd lingers over this pic­ all these, and scores of others in the same ture fascinated. No one cares to tell them vein, were produced without hesitation, that it is wickedly and maliciously false, or whenever the shopkeeper had any of them that its one object is to pander unscrupu­ remaining in stock. lously to the French passion for viUfying The caricatures of the siege time were, the faUcn, The " man of Sedan" is shown we found, much in the same vein. Mon­ in his true colours. So they say and think, sieur Jules Favre weeping copiously, and poor people, and this photograph of a lying at the very same moment pocketing Bis­ picture has also an extensive sale. marck's gold; Monsieur Thiers negotiat­ ing at foreign courts on behalf of the The cannon-balls and shells which have Committee of National Defence and slyly been converted into ornaments, or into offering for sale a crown, for which the Or­ articles of use, attract plenty of customers, leans princes and the Count de Chambord too. In the course of an hour's stroU I are bidding; General Vinoy suppressing

y ^"•^ 154 [July 15,1871.] ALL THE YEAR ROUND. [Conducted by half a dozen journals, and being bribed lumnies on the administration, and so forth. by the editors of others to let them alone ; It was odd to note how thoroughly it was General Trochu studying his plan, and understood that these things were literary handing a large metal key over the euriosities, commanding a fancy price. A walls of Paris to a figure in a Prussian small bundle of halfpenny prints repre­ helmet in exchange for a bag of gold—are senting a daily publication of infamous specimens of the tone and taste of the character, which appeared and was sup­ comic draughtsmen whose productions were pressed under the Commune, could not be most widely appreciated by the people of bought under two napoleons, or about two Paris. thousand per cent more than its cost. " Albums of the Siege" are to be bought The political cartoons of the same in plenty, at all the best print-shops. They period, when the International ruled Paris, consist of highly coloured engravings, in and while the Versaillists were kept at which imaginary incidents of the siege are bay, were only parted with as a per­ told ; and where the Prussians, horse-flesh, sonal favour, backed up by a substantial tho absence of gas, the coarseness of the consideration. These last were the only bread, and the straits to which fashionable ones we met with which g-ave evidence of people were reduced, are told comically the serious purpose we are accustomed to and broadly. There are albums, too, of the see in our own great draughtsmen in times imperial menagerie, showing the late of national crisis. " The People learn their emperor and empress, and the ministers strength," is a giant Samson squeezing the and favourites of their court, in the guise lives out of the pigmy rulers he holds in of the beasts and birds to which their each hand, while the Philistines in the public or private character is popularly persons of the leaders of the National As­ supposed to give them affinity; as well as sembly are crushed beneath his feet; the of the same people in the pillory, and with " Departure of the Commune," is a figure exaggerated and distorted heads. But these of Death on the White Horse, waving a cost some francs each, and are intended for red flag, and leaving fire, blood, and de­ the libraries of those who are curious in struction in his train. Others are blas­ such matters, and who can afford to collect. phemous adaptations of the most awfal I wanted the back numbers of the cheap incidents in sacred history to the purposes publications issued for and bought by the of the hour. Priests are the objects of million, as reflecting day by day the pas­ special derision, as are the governing sions, prejudices, and feelings which were classes generally; but amid much that is uppermost. It was when we asked for indecent and much that is profane, it is those which appeared under the Commune impossible to deny that the popular carica­ that our difficulties began. They were all tures published under the Commune have sold. There had never been any. The a reality and force about them which may speaker was too much gi'ieved at the in­ be looked for in vain in other periods of famies being perpetrated by the scoundrels France's recent agony. They are savage in power (he himself having probably been but earnest, and as such show with advan­ the hero of a barricade) to think of his tage against the miserable gibes against trade; and he was in consequence entirely the emperor, and the personal calumnies ignorant of the prints and publications we which have been levelled against every spoke of. At last, after many protesta­ other public man in turn. As we look over tions in bad French, after producing our folio after folio of caricature, it seems as if passports and asking jocularly if we looked we read the real history of this unhappy Uke spies, or emissaries of Monsieur Thiers natixDu. Later, at the theatre where Theresa or his police, we succeeded in some cases sings, attracting greater and merrier in establishing confidence. Then and not audiences than ever; at the cafe chaiitants, till then did the shopkeeper invite us to his re-opened in the Elysian Fields, where the dwelling room, and produce from far-away painted and bedizened women make their cupboards, and in one instance from the brave show upon the stage, and a eerak mattress of his bed, bundles of printed and Frenchman, dressed as a monthly nurse, pictorial matter. These were not for sale. favours us with his views on the relations We were to understand that clearly. They of the sexes in France; by the ruins of were part of the private collection of the stately edifices which crowds visit as a speaker, and shown to us, his friends, as festal treat; in the gardens where toes are curiosities. He would, for his part, be raised higher than ever, and the laughter sorry, indeed, to vend such atrocious ca­ is as the crackling of thorns under a pot; "V =5 --=^ Charles Diokens, Jun.] READING MADE EAST. [July 15, 1871,] 155 in the streets, in the houses, on the Bourse, In the cenitre of tbe room is a reund on the omnibuses, and in the cafes—you see counter, within which sit the officials, and Caricature. It is the mockery of woe, which communicates with the library out­ indeed; and remembering who these merry side by a long avenue shut in by glass people are, and what they have just gone screens. Outside this counter is another, through, you think of the Bals a Victime of which holds the enormous catalogue, reach­ the first French revolution, and pronounce ing to some hundred volumes; and from those around you to be worthy of their tbis second counter radiate the desks for sires. In those dances, as Mr. Carlyle tbe readers. Nothing more comfortable teUs us, "the dancers have all crape or convenient can be conceive. Tou round the left arm: to be admitted it have a choice in seats even: hard smooth needs that you be a victim, that you have mahogany or softly cushioaed; both glid­ lost a relative under the Terror. Peace to ing smoothly on castors. In the upright the dead; let us dance to their memory. baek of the desk is a little recess &r ink For in all ways one must dan«e." The and prais, steel and quiU; and on each side thing which has been is the thing which a leathern handle. One of these pulls out shall be, and Paris and the Parisians liave a reading-desk, which comes weU forward, not altered a jot since then. and swings in any direction, or at any height: the other forms a ledge on which books can be piled up and be out of the READING MADE EAST. way. A blotting-pad, paper-knife, and convenient pegs under the table for patting OvEE the entrance of the great reading- away bats, &c., complete the conveniences. There are over five hundred of these, each room of the British Museum is appropriately having a number and letter. There are, placed the bust of the late Mr. Panizzi— besides, a number of what might be called the Founder, as he may be eaJled. The " research" tables—small, low, flat, and huge domed hall behind him, his work and broad, which an antiqniarian may have all monument, is one of the wondei-s of Europe, to himself; and: the lid of which lifting up, now reaching to a eonsideraWe number. he finds a convenient repository where he The entrance to this hall is beset wiih can store away all his papers, notes, and difficulties. At the gate of the Museum, books until he returns the next day. Some on a day when the reading-room only is of the more retired of the long benches open, the policemen and warders challenge are reserved "for ladies only;" but they the visitor with a " Reader, sir ?" Allowed do not seem veay much to care for sueh to pass, he crosses the open space, ascends seclusion. the steps, enters uaader the portico, and finds himself at the great haU, with Round the rocan, and within easy reaich, more poUce and warders. Any signs of is a sort of free Ubrary, where every one indecision, and he is sure to be challenged, can help himself. This, as wUl be imagined, "Reader?" If h» cresses boldly, ajid consists of books of general reference, and is makes for the glass-door, where there is very judiciously chosen. It comprises dic­ another janitor with a list, he is stopped tionaries of all languages, the best, newest; once more aad made to show his passport, encyclopaedias of every conceivable sort; unless he have what is called at the long lists of the old magazines, like the theatres, "a face admission." Down the Gentleman's, Annual Register, &c.; ambir long passage he goes, gives up great-coat, tious collections of universal science and stick, umbrella, parcels; passes through knowledge, such as the Pantheon Litte- glass swinging doors, past other detectives, raire, and Diderot's Encyclopaedia; histories and finds himself in the monstrous cathe­ of towns and counties in profusion, and the dral dedicated to learning, and, as some best and most favourite text-books in the say, also to idleness. respective classes of law, theology, medicine, It would be hard to give an idea of the mathematics, physiology, &c. The only fost coup d'oeU; for there is literally no­ weak place is the class of English beUes- thing like it. It has the look nearly of a lettres and biography, which is ordered cathedral, with all the comfortable, fuir- after a very random and arbitrary fashion, nished air of a " snug " library. Colouring comprising such poor books as Beattie's for the sides is furnished by rows of the Life of Campbell, but not Moore's Life of books themselves which run round the Sheridan, having Twiss's Life of Eldon, walls to a height of some forty or fifty feet, and no Life of Sterne, and being without Mrs. Qliphant's remarkable Life of Irving, and are reached by two light galleries. r= "V =g. 156 [July 15, 1871.] ALL THE TEAR ROUND. [Conducted by In fact, it would be hard to say on what On the other side are these directions: principle the choice is made. READERS ARE PARTICULARLT REQUIRED Having chosen a seat—and if you come 1. Not to ask for more than one work on the same ticket. late in the day you have to take a long, 2. To transcribe from the catalogues all the particu­ long walk seeking one—go to the catalogue lars necessary for the identification of the work for your book. And here we may pause wanted. 3. To write in a plain, clear hand, in order to avoid to survey this wonderful catalogue, a library delay and mistakes. of folios in itself. Every volume is stoutly 4. To indicate, in the proper place on each ticket, the bound in solid blue calf, with its lower number of the seat occupied. . 5. To bear in mind that no books will be left at the edges faced with zinc, to save wear and seat indicated on the ticket unless the reader who tear from the violent shoving in of the asks for them is there to receive them. volumes to their places. On every page are C. When any cause for complaint arises, to apply at once to the superintendent of the reading-room. pasted about a dozen neatly lithographed 7. Before leaving the room, to return each book, or entries, and between the pages are guards, set of books, to an attendant, and obtain the cor- so as to allow fresh leaves to be put in, as responding ticket, the reader being responsibh for the books so long as the ticket re-mains un­ the catalogue increases. As the guards cancelled. are fiUed up the volume is taken away and N.B. Readers are not, under any circumstances, to take rebound with fresh guards, so it becomes a book or manuscript out of the reading-room. an illustration of the famous Cutler stock­ Having given in the ticket, the reader ing, with this difference, that the stocking may return to his place, certain of having is gradually increasing in size. Nothing to wait at least half an hour, and he may can be fuller than the arrangements for amuse himself watching the smooth run­ this catalogue, as it even refers you for a ning carts laden with volumes, which arrive biographical notice of a well-known man every moment, and the attendants who to some of those little meagre accounts are seen hurrying along through the glass prefixed to collections of their poems, and screen, each with his pile of books, with to biographical notices and reviews. It their labels fluttering. Considering that also, to a great extent, helps the student to some of these have to walk three-quarters the real names of those who have written of a mile along passages and up steep stairs under assumed ones. This is the new to fetch some remote book, and that often catalogue, but there is an old one partly in the forms are imperfectly filled, the delay print and partly in manuscript, and both is not surprising. A more intelligent, must be consulted if you wish to make your willing, and obliging class of men cannot search exhaustive. Periodical publications be conceived, always ready to volunteer make a department in themselves under assistance, even outside their special duty. the letter P, filling some twenty folio It is pleasant to see how they exert them­ volumes, to which there is an index, also in selves for novices, or for certain old vete­ many folio volumes. London has nearly rans, filling up their forms for them. one folio to itself, Great Britain and France The readers are a very singular and each several. Every entry is complete, motley class. And here it is that some title in fuU, date, place of pubUcation, and reform is wanting. A great deal of the time a press mark, such as —^ ^ > which and trouble of the staff is taken up with o supplying the wants of young boys and is to be copied on a little form like the girls, and general idlers, who come to read following: novels and poetry, and take up the places of others who have real business. It cannot Permission to use the reading-room will be with­ drawn from any person who shall write, or make marks be supposed that the nation meant to pay on any part of a printed book or manuscript belonging for books and attendants, merely to wait on to the Museum, this useless class. A reform in the way of classification would be useful, the putting Press Heading and Title of liark. the Work required. Place. Date Size. these drones in a department of their own, and with one attendant only to wait on them (• Memoirs of Idjs.) 10854. b. London. 1862 Octvo, all. Every book ought to be procured ( Piozzi Hay ward. J within ten minutes, and by a system of speaking tubes and small Ufts, the matter John Smith (Signature), could be much simplified. The Museum Date, Feb. 9,1871. ^ ' •g 2 i Number of the \ would run fewer risks from the abstraction I Reader's Seat./ of books, by limiting the number of readers. Please to restore each volume of the catalogue to its There are many traditions in the Museum place as soon as done with. of these robbers, some of whom were always X =fe> Charles Dickens, Jun.] OLD STORIES RE-TOLD, [July 15,1871,] 157 suspected, but to whom the matter never haviour of every one concerned is wonder­ could be brought home : while there was a ful for propriety, and the room is for the " gentleman" who was not suspected, but most part as quiet and orderly as if it were was at last discovered, A Museum book is a church. fortunately very unmarketable, it is so stamped all over; and if a volume had two SAINT SWITHIN. hundred illustrations, every one would THE green ears droop, brown are the leaves, bear this mark. To all libraries come The dust is thick upon the eaves, The babbling brook has long been dry. people with a mania for cutting out prints, Parched is the earth ; the glowing sky and at this one, on a stand made purposely, Shows not one cloud athwart the blue, are exhibited two maimed and defaced The unbent rays pierce through and through The thickest covert. All in vain books, thirty or forty leaves torn out, with The dying flowers sigh for rain, an inscription explaining how they were For rain, sweet, freshening, balmy rain. placed there as a warning, &c. This ex­ No more from larch the throstle sings, hibition is a little undignified, and it seems Even the skylark folds his wings; Mute are the reed-birds in the fen, quite purposeless. The evil-doers would Mute in the willow bole the wren, only chuckle at it, while the weU-conducted The jay in hedgerow makes no stir. have no need of such reminders. The magpie shelters in the fir. The kingfisher and heron in vain The habitues are a curious class. Some, Seek river-bank, and pine for rain, as we have seen, are mere idlers, who come For rain, sweet, bless&d, balmy rain. to read story-books in a comfortable room, It comes, it comes! Life-giving shower ! but the true bookworm is found here in Chirps every bird, expands each flower; It comes, the long-wished boon divine. perfection. There is the shabby man, who Dew pearls upon the gables shine ; has read himself blind over old Latin and It sparkles on the glistening leaves. French books, and who, at this moment, It wipes the dust-blight from the eaves, All earth revives, and sings again. has his face bent to the table over a tiny Glad peean for the gift of rain, duodecimo, the print being about an inch Rain, rain, sweet, freshening, balmy rain. from his eye. Here is the mouldy old anti­ quary, very dirty, with metal spectacles, OLD STORIES RE-TOLD, delving and grubbing in a very pit of books, with bleared eyes, wrinkled cheeks, and (SECOND SEEIES.) toothless gums, and yet he wiU work on THE WRECK OF THE JUNO, till he tumbles into the grave. A famiUar WHEN the second canto of Don Juan figure is that of the tall Don Quixote-look­ appeared, some of the minor critics accused ing man, who wears jack-boots and a black Lord Byron of having stolen his fine de­ serge " soutane," or gown. He has a table scription of the wreck of the Spanish vessel. to himself, covered with little veUum-bound Some of the most pathetic incidents were, books in all languages, and with notes and indeed, as Tom Moore confesses, discovered little manuscript books, all in the neatest in a little pamphlet entitled Narration of penmanship. Here is a dapper man, with the Shipwreck of the Juno on the Coast of a sale catalogue and pencil, who is com­ Arracan in the year 1795, which had been paring books he is about to purchase with favourite reading amongst the boys at the copies in this national Museum. Here Doctor Glennie's school at Dulwich, to are men copying old music, sketching from which Byron went in 1799, But Byron the print books, tracing maps, handwriting, assured Mr. John Murray and Mr. Hob- what not. But what strikes us especially house that the various incidents of the loss is the diligent book manufacture going on, of the vessel were taken from the narra­ proofs being corrected, and manuscript set tives of various wrecks, to wit, those of in order on every side. Not less characteris­ the Juno, the Hercules, the Centaur, the tic are the ladies; and here we shall find Abergaveimy, the Sydney, the Wellington in perfection the strong-minded woman, transport, the Pandora, the Lady Hobart, with spectacles and curls, and a determined the Betsy, the Thomas, and the Peggy. bearing. There are also many nice-looking But the foUowing account of the wreck of girls, who go fluttering about fearlessly, the Juno, with the preservation of fourteen fetching their own books. They are fond of the crew during twenty-three days, of of coming and working in company with a entire famine, will show that for all that husband or sweetheart, when a deal of was most extraordinary and most touching whispering and comparing notes goes on. in such narratives, Byron was indebted But considering that there are often five or to Mr. WiUiam Mackay's intelligent and six hundred people in the room, the be­ thoughtful account of the loss of the timber

y ^W-

158 [July 15,1871.] ALL THE TEAR ROUND. [Condnctedby vessel, in which he was second-mate on the ship made less water, only one pump was coast of India. kept going, and every one, though anxious The Juno, having at Rangoon taken in a grew hopeful. It is true there was a pal- cargo of Burmese teak wood for Madras, pable hole between wind and water along set saU on the 29th of May, 1795. She the stern-post, but the first calm day some was a ship of four hundred and fifty tons men got out in the jolly-boat and nailed burthen, very much out of repaii', and in some tarred canvas and oakum over it, with all respects badly provided for sea. The sheet-lead over all. This at first succeeded crew consisted of fifty-three men, chiefly so far that, in smooth weather, the Juno Lascars, with a few Europeans, and there required pumping only about once in a were also on board the captain's wife, her watch. The crew congratulated each other maid, a native girl, and some Malay sailors ; on having effectually stopped a threatening in all seventy-two souls. leak, and proceeded cheerfully on theu^ From the first everything went Ul. Beat­ voyage. Hope is blind: how could a mere ing out of the Sirian river with the young piece of canvas keep out the seas of the Bay ebb, in five to seven fathoms water, with of Bengal in the very middle of the south­ soft mud, the cranky vessel shoaled sud­ west monsoon ? Better ten such lee-shores denly about six P.M., to a quarter less five at Rangoon than that. They were, how­ fathoms. Immediately ordered about, the ever, soon to be undeceived. The pump-gear helm was scarcely alee when she struck was scarcely repaired when, on the 12th of (out of Scylla into Charybdis) on a sand June, a fresh south-west gale commenced bank. All was hove back to get her off, with renewed fierceness; all went wrong but in vain. Both bower anchors were again, the ship relapsed and made more then let go to prevent her driving; one water than before, the pumps rapidly choked, cable parted, and the second anchor she and the gear was spoiled. The men worked dragged, but the sheet anchor being let for then* Uves at three pumps, a bucket also go, it bit, and the ship brought up. It was was kept hard at it baling, and those who the last quarter ebb, so with struck top­ knew anything of carpenter's tools worked gallant yards and masts, although she with them, and at the pumps, alternately. lurched over dangerously at low water, the Towards the 16th, almost exhausted with Juno floated off with the flood. The anchors fatigue and want of rest after the toil of were hove up, and the unfortunate ship four days and nights, the captain and stood away under a press of sail into deep officers, now painfully alive to their extreme sea, and, as she made no water, every one danger, determined to set aU the saU they hoped the rickety craft had not received could carry to keep her away, so as to fetch, any mortal injury. Unfortunately for her if possible, the nearest coast of Coromandel, shaky timbers, a south-west gale com­ proposing afterwards to coast it along to menced the next day (June the 1st), with Madras, or to bear up for Bengal, as should a very high sea. She laboured and strained, then seem safest and best. They accord­ and very soon sprung a leak. This gale ingly set the close reefed topsaUs and lasting six days, it needed the incessant courses and bore up, but the pumps re­ labour of all hands, working in alternate quired such close labour to keep down the gangs, to keep the ship free, the pump- deadly leak, that it was not in the men's gear being overworked, and getting fre­ power to properly watch and guard the quently out of order. To add to the mis­ sails. The natural consequence was, that fortunes of the Juno, the owners had been before the 18th they were all blown from so disgracefully and blindly careless of the the yards, except the foresail, with which ship's safety as to put no carpenter on they contrived to lay to till the 20th, being board, and scarcely even any carpenter's in latitude seventeen degrees, ten minutes, tools; the sailors, however, contrived to north, and, by reckoning, nine miles west repair the pumps, which, in spite of all of Cape Negrais, expedients, kept constantly choking with The ship now pitched so deeply and the sand ballast. The captain and officers heavily, that it was with difficulty the held several consultations about whether frightened men could be persuaded to keep or not to return to Rangoon; but the their stations. About noon, however, there danger of that low lee-shore (not visible was a gleam of hope, for she wore, and the at all till ten or twelve miles off, when foresaU being hauled up she kept before the the water was only seven fathoms), made wind under bare poles. Great and united the majority decide, as long as any hope re­ efforts were then again made with the mained, to keep her well off the Burmese pumps and buckets, in hopes to clear her, coast. On the 6th the gale abated, the but all in vain. About eight the men =h Charles Dlefcens, Jun.] OLD STORIES RE-TOLD, [July 15.1871.] ] 59 came up from below, pale and hopeless, hours' reflection, it occurred to me that bringing the news that the water had some vessel might heave in sight in the reached the lower deck, upon which the morning. I felt perfectly resigned to my Lascars abandoned themselves to passion­ fate, which seemed inevitable; but from ate despair, and even the Englishmen grew the moment I indulged a hope of being silent. The idea was now general that the saved, I could not endure the idea of an ship would soon sink to the bottom, owing untimely death, and listened the remainder to the weight of the wet sand ballast of the night in anxious expectation of under the timbers, and there was one uni­ hearing a gun, several times imagining I versal cry among the saUors to at once get actually heard one; and whenever I men­ out the boats. tioned this to my companions, each fancied The boats were, unhappily, useless ; for he heard the same report." At daybreak, both the old jolly-boats and the six-oared one of the men calling out what he wished pinnace were shattered and leaky. The cap­ he saw, and therefore believed he saw, tain therefore ordered the mainmast to be the Mussulmen began to shout "Allah! cut away to lighten the ship, and, if possible, AUah!" which, reminding the English­ to delay her sinking till daybreak. About men of the thanks due to God for the de- nine o'clock the mast was feUed, but unfor­ Uverance apparently at hand, they en­ tunately the hamper of it fell on deck, deavoured to fall to prayer. But hope and in the scramble and confusion the man had deceived the man's sense of sight, as at the helm let the ship broach to, and the it had deceived Mackay's sense of hearing. furious sea made a clear breach over her. This was the most exquisite pang in all At this critical moment Mrs. Bremner, the their sufferings. -captain's wife, who had been in bed below, Day broke on a scene which seemed like ran up the hatchway; Mr. Wade, the chief a glimpse of purgatory. The wind had mate, and Mr. WUliam Mackay, a bwive risen to a furious gale, the turbid sea was and intelligent young Scotchman, the roUing mountains high. The miserable second officer, helping her to the quarter­ Juno, tormented by wind, wave, and all deck rail. They were in the act of making their invisible spirits, was threatening tihe poor frightened woman fast in the every moment to part in pieces. The upper mizen rigging, when the ship came to her deck and the upper part of the hull were utmost bearings, and instantly,, without rapidly separating, and the fragile rigging, more warning, began to settle down. All to which seventy-two miserable wretches hands scrambled up the rigging to escape stiU clung, was fast giving way. The instant death, moving gradually higher shrieks of the women, and of the Lascars, and higher as the ship sank deeper. even more helpless than they, rose higher Captain Bremner, his wife, Mr. Wade, and than even the screaming and mocking Mackay, with a few others, clustered in wind. Some let go their hold in paralysed the mizen-top. AU the rest, but one man, despair, while others, resolute but weak, who stuck to the foretop, clung about the were washed one after the other from the mizen rigging. Mrs. Bremner, having no rigging. covering but a shift and petticoat, com­ The rest were reserved for trials yet plained much of cold, so Mackay, being more dreadful. Three days the gale raged better clothed than her husband, pulled with unabated fury, and each day's sun off his jacket and gave it her. Finding brought fresh misery to the starving men. the vessel did not sink, the survivors now They all felt now that they would remain pulled out their knives and began to cut there cUnging to the wreck tiU famine, with away the yards and rigging from the mizen- its withered hand, should pluck them off. A mast, to lessen the dangerous weight it had horrible thought now rose in every mind, to carry. Though the ship rolled so vio­ though for a long time confessed by no one, lently that it was with difficulty these not even in whispers, that the time must miserable men on the very edge of the soon come when the survivors must pro­ grave could hold themselves fast, many of long their lives by eating the flesh of those them, worn out with fatigue, went to sleep who died before them. The gunner (a before day broke. Roman Catholic) was the first to ask Mackay, from whose fenaily Dr. Charles Mackay, if he thought there would be any Mackay, the poet, is descended, has written sin in having recourse to such an expe­ a sensible and unaffected narrative of this dient. The mizen being dangerously interesting shipwreck. He says : " At first crowded, some of the men left it,, and try­ there did not appear to me the smallest ing to swim forward to the foretop, three ground of hope; yet, after two or three or four perished in the endeavour. X

160 [July 15,1871,] ALL THE TEAR ROUND. Conducted by Mackay, the weH - educated son of a had taught him; that calmed his mind, clergyman in Sutherlandshire, maintained and now stronger to suffer, he endeavoured a magnanimity worthy of his staunch and to make his peace with God, and felt re­ steadfast race. His agitation of mind and conciled to death. his regret at having encouraged false hopes, On the 25th (five days after the wreck he tells us, gradually, after a time, lapsed of the Juno), two men died of hunger, which into a sort of callous, or rather sullen, in­ greatly affected the survivors. Hitherto difference. " I tried," he says, " to doze the horrors had been chiefly those of ima­ away the hours, and wished, above all, for gination, now the terrible reality had them a state of insensibility. The useless lamen­ in its remorseless fangs. The first went off tations of my fellow-sufferers provoked me, suddenly, the other languished some hours and, instead of sympathising, I was angry in great agony, being seized with violent at being disturbed by them. During the vomitings, then with strong convulsions, first three days I did not suffer much from which, in most of the cases, presaged a want of food, the weather being cool and struggUng death. The day was very hot, cloudy, but on the fourth the wind abated, and the sea smooth as glass. The captain the clouds dispersed, and left us exposed to and chief-mate having always expressed the scorching heat of a vertical sun, which great confidence in rafts, some of the men, soon roused me to the keenest sense of my faint as they were, set to work to construct situation," In Mackay the sensation of a raft from the fore-yard, spritsaU-yard, thirst soon began to be exquisitely painful, and some other small spars still towing and he feared he was approaching the agony to the wreck. It was finished next day that some around him seemed already about noon, and the seamen began to get suffering. Having read, in Captain Ingle- upon it; the captain, observing their move­ field's account of the wreck of the Cen­ ment, hurried down from the mi/en-top taur (seventy-four gun ship) in 1782, that with his wife and Mr. Wade, the first- the boat's crew had derived comfort from mate. Mackay, though not believing in the lying down by turns in a blanket dipped plan, followed the example of the rest; the in sea water, he and many of his com­ raft being too small, the strongest men had panions resorted to this expedient, and the cruel necessity of forcing the weaker found that it refreshed them, the pores of off and compelling them to return to the the skin absorbing and filtering the sea wreck. Just as the rope that held the raft water, and leaving the salt on the surface. to the wreck was about to be cut, Mackay This ingenious plan also served to occupy asked Captain Bremner in what direction the men's minds, and kept them from de­ he supposed the land lay, and what pro­ spondency. The night of the fourth day bability he thought there was of their Mackay had a most refreshing sleep, and making it. The captain giving no answer, dreamt of his good old father and the Mackay again endeavoured to persuade manse in Sutherlandshire. He dreamed him and his wife to return to the wreck, he was in a raging fever, and that his but finding that no one would even listen father, dressed in lawn, and with a mitre to him, Mackay remained, and the sailors like a bishop, was praying by his bedside paddled the raft before tho wind with pieces in the well-remembered room in the bleak, of plank which they had shaped into rude friendly old house. Whilst his father con­ oars with their knives. They had not tinued praying the fever ceased, but when­ gone far when, finding the raft stiU over­ ever the prayer stopped the burning and loaded, Mackay again renewed his remon­ pain returned. Then he thought his father strances, and persuaded Wade to put back came up, with a solemn air, to his bedside, and return with him to the mast-head. and brought the sacrament, and just as The crew of the raft, quite wUling to Ughten Mackay rose, and stretched his fevered hand the load on their frail barque, put back, towards the blessed cup, he awoke, with a and again pushing off, faded down below pang of horror, imagining that his father the horizon by sunset. While the raft was was dead, and now, even in heaven, was building Mackay had sometimes resolved looking down in sorrow and in pity on the to go upon her, believing that death in sufferings of his son. He remembered also twenty-four hours would be the inevitable how an uncle of his had once lost a son, result; but he had at last vanquished the and the misery that ensued, and the thought temptation, and God had sent him patience of what his own family would all suffer on and resignation to bear the will of Provi­ his account made his heart heavy. Then dence. he called to mind the old Bible, and all he At daybreak of the 27th the watching had read in it, and the lessons his father men were astonished to see the raft again 'N Charles Dickens, Jun.] OLD STORIES RE-TOLD. [July 15,1871.] 161 alongside them on the opposite quarter from eight hours, and in the intervals, when the which it had set out. The crew had paddled men had not strength enough to descend all night, till their scanty strength was below, they lowered their jackets or pieces gone, then they had drifted at random, and of cloth, with which to wrap round their at dayUght, finding themselves still near fevered bodies. The poor wretches cUng­ the ship, had resolved to return to the ing thus desperately to life, also con­ mast-head. Soon after his return Captain trived to increase their saliva by chewing Bremner began to be delirious, which so pieces of canvas, or of lead. They would alarmed his wife that she fell into convulsions no doubt have eaten their shoes, had they as he clasped her violently in his arms. not partly adopted the Lascar habit, never He was a strong, vigorous man, rather past wearing shoes when it rained, as leather middle age, and his wife was a delicate dressed in India is soon spoiled by wet. The young woman, to whom he had not been few pieces of leather about the rigging married more than eleven months. At were too loathsome in smell and taste to first the sight of his wife had seemed to be eaten even in that dire necessity. have given him great pain, as he reproached After all Mackay suffered, he confesses himself with having brought one he loved that the imagination far exceeded the so much into such danger, but now, in his reality. At first, not thinking it possible to frenzy, it required force to tear her from live more than a day or two without food, he his arms. He raved about a table he saw was astonished to find his Ufe protracted, covered with all sorts of choice meats, and and every hour expected the commence­ stormed because his comrades in misfor­ ment of his mortal agonies, A few hours tune did not give him this or that dish. more, he thought, looking round silently Fearing the consequences, Mackay ab­ at his groaning fellow-sufferers, and we stained as long as possible from salt water, shall be tearing the flesh from each other's though the furious heat seemed to burn bones. This terrible dread of the future him internally. At last, thinking death to reconcUed him to the agony of the present. be at hand, he went down from the mast Many of the men died delirious, and it was and drank nearly two quarts. To his great Mackay's constant prayer to God that his astonishment, however, and delight, the reason would be spared to the last. He supposed poison, instead of injuring him, longed for death, yet dreaded the moment revived his strength and spirits. He fell of soul and body parting, and trembled at into a sound, peaceful sleep; the inward being the last survivor. Every moment heat for a time abated. It is true the new horrors arose, as if to torture those un­ water purged and griped him, but the happy men clinging forlornly to that half- benefit he received was great. sunk wreck in the lonely sea. The dead On the morning of the 28th, Mr. Wade, body of one of the Lascars got jammed in a sudden fit of desperation, declared he among the ropes, and could not be disen­ could bear his sufferings no longer, and gaged for several days. would start on the raft if Mackay would ac­ On the morning of the eleventh day, company him; anydeath, he said, was prefer­ July the 1st, poor Mrs. Bremner woke to able to that they were enduring. Mackay, find her husband dead in her arms, and so more resolute and self-contained, refused weak were the survivors by this time that to go, and tried to dissuade the doomed it was with the greatest difficulty they man. Wade then prevailed on two Italian could contrive to throw the body over­ helmsmen, two Malays, and three or four board, after stripping off some of the dead Lascar sailors, to join him. They pushed man's clothes for his unhappy wife. During off the raft; in a few hours they were this fatal day two more men died in the out of sight. In the evening a squall came mizen, and two more in the foretop. Death on with the darkness, and in that, in all was looming nearer and nearer now. For probability, they perished. This squall, that some time Mackay and the men in the brought death to the men on the raft, mizen had been too weak, to either descend brought life and hope to those on the the rigging, or to shout to their comrades wreck, for Mackay and the rest, spreading on the foretop. Some of the Lascars had out their clothes, from which the heavy gone forward; the total number of survivors rain soon washed the salt, squeezed the was so few that the two tops held them fresh water out of them, and gained such aU, and there the poor fevered, starving Ufe and vigour, that for a time, cheered as wretches clung. if by draughts of wine, they almost forgot It grew worse and worse, Mackay re­ their misery and their despair. After this members little after that; the sensation of there was a shower nearly every forty- hunger was lost in that of weakness, but y X =& 162 [Jttly 1^ 1871,] ALL THE TEAR ROUND. [Oondueted hy when rain fell the men were comparatively ashamed as heiwas to own the fact, after easy. The nights grew more chilly, and the all had a heart, lias sketched this incident weaker the men grew the more they suf­ with an irresistible pathos. Tt forms the fered from the cold. The cold heavy rains eighty-ninth verse of the second canto of after sunset benumbed them, their teeth Don Juan: chattered, and they sometimes feared they And o'er him bent bis sire, and never raised should all perish together from exposure. His eyes from off his face, but wiped the foam From his pale lips, and ever on him gazed ; When the sun rose, however, the heat And when tho wish'd-for shower at length was come gradually rendered their limbs pliant; the And the boy's eyes, which the dull film half glazed, spirits of these staunch seamen revived, they Brighten'd, and far a moment seem'd to roam, He squeezed from out a rag some drops of rain indulged in conversation, and sometimes be­ Into his dying child's mouth—but in vain. came even cheerful. Then gradually the The boy expired; the father held the clay. heat increased to a meridian furnace, and in And looked upon it long. that furnace of burning air and scorching On the evening of July the 10th (tweoty blindness, their purgatorial torments began days, as far as they could calculate, since again, and they wondered how they could the luckless Juno was wrecked), some one ever have wished the cold and paralysing muttered he saw something like land in the night rains to have ceased. horizon to the eastward. The assertion Kind death stole in, and hurried off more was heard without emotion, and no one for victims. Some struggled hard, wrestled a time woke from his torpor of despair to for life, and died in bitter agony. Nor, as look east or west. Tet only a few minutes Mackay shows in his narrative of a most after, Mackay languidly raising his head affecting instance, did the weakest always to observe the faint grey line in the horizon, seem to die the easiest. Mr, Wade's cabin- saw every eye turned towards it. They all boy, a stout, vigorous lad, died easily, and continued looking, though not very ear­ almost without a groan. Another boy of the nestly, till night closed in, then all, after same age, but paler and more weakly, held comparing observations, agreed that it was out long. The fathers were both together land. in the foretop. When the first boy died, Mrs. Bremner and others now eagerly the father, told of his son's illness, replied, asked Mackay his opinion, and if he with torpid indifference, " I can do nothing thought there was yet a possibiUty of for him." The other, touched to the quick, escape. Mackay had little hope ; he replied hurried down, weak and starving as he was, that the line on the horizon to the east did and, watching long for a favourable mo­ not appear to him to be land; if it was, ment, crawled on all fours along the there was at least one comfort, that it weather gunwale to his son in the mizen would most likely soon put an end to rigging. Only three or four planks of the their sufferings, as the wreck would cer­ quarter-deck just over the weather quarter- tainly ground, and would be beaten to gallery remained, but to this spot the father pieces in a few hours. On that account brought the lad, making him fast to the Mackay had been long dreading the sight rail, lest he should be washed away. When­ of land, but now he had grown indifferent ever the boy was seized with a fit of vomit­ to anything, and incapable of any acute ing the father Ufted him up with all a sensation either of joy or sorrow. " I re­ woman's tender care, and wiped away the member," says Mackay, " that on waking foam from his lips; if a shower came he at daybreak next morning I did not think made him open his mouth to receive the cool of looking to see whether there was land drops, and softly squeezed them into it from in sight or not, till some one in the foretop a piece of rag. In this situation both re­ waved a signal with a handkerchief that mained four or five days, till the lad ex­ it was so. I then felt an inclination to get pired. The unfortunate father sat gazing up and look; but happening to be in an long and wistfuUy at the pale face, as if easy position, with my arms folded so as to unable to realise the fact, and so remained press my stomach, I was too indifl'erent to watching it in silence, till a sea came, and turn myself round. My neighbours were carried the corpse, as if in pity, away. more affected; some one got up and de­ Then he rose, wrapped himself in an old clared it was land, which roused another, sail, sank down, and rose no more, though and, by degrees, all of us. It appeared to he lived four days longer, his limbs being me like land, but still I was neither sure seen to quiver when a wave broke over him. nor much interested about it." Mrs. This scene made an impression even on Bremner then asked Mackay, who liitherto men now dead to the world, and familiar had kept such a brave heart and such a with misery in every shape. Byron, who. firm trust in God, if he thought it was the =33 Charles Dickens, Jun.] CTGLD STORIES RE-TOLD. [July 15,1871.] 163 coast of Coromandel. He replied sarcastic^ spect

y '"^ 5"A'; 1(34 [July 15,1871.] ALL THE TEAR ROUND. [Conducted by with the heat. When he awoke from a re­ Malkin had approached his room. A man freshing sleep, he found that the natives in a waistcoat with black calico sleeves to had rescued Mrs. Bremner and her maid. it, seemed to be awaiting them at the other There was great uncontrollable joy at the end, leaning against the great door that meeting round the fire. That very night closed the perspective, with his arms folded, the wreck parted in two, the bottom re­ and one leg crossed over the other, an atti­ maining on the rocks, the upper part float­ tude in which we have seen ostlers smoking ing so near the land that the two men left in inn-yards at stable-doors. on board waded to the beach. Seeing them, the man stood erect, with The conclusion of this interesting narra­ the key in his fingers. tive must be briefly told. The Hindoos " This way, please, Miss Maud," said who conveyed the survivors to Chittagong, Mercy, pushing forward, as she observed deserted Mackay, who walked slower than the young lady hesitate, as if doubtful the rest, and he would have died but for whether she was to pass that barrier. the charity of a Portuguese pedlar going " Miss Vernon, A A Fourteen," said to Arracan, who gave him rice, onions, Mercy, briskly, to this janitor, who forth­ chillies, and tobacco, and taught him how with opened the heavy door. to produce fire, to scare the tigers at night, They saw now before them the continua­ by rubbing together pieces of bamboo. tion of the long gallery which is interritpted Eventually an English officer, command­ by this massive door. ing at Ramoo, hearing of his countryman's The man held out his hand as she gave distress, sent a havildar and two sepoys to him a little printed check; he looked at it, escort him •^afely to the settlement, where and said: he was loi,.led with sympathy and kind­ " Tes, aU right, A A Fourteen." And ness. he opened the first door to the left. On a Uttle disk of ivory sunk in the door-post, were the number and letters, hut THE ROSE AND THE KEY. so small that you might not have observed them. CHAPTER LXri. MAUD'S BEDROOM. At home at last! There was Miss Ver­ MEECT CRESWELL led the young lady by non's luggage on the carpet, A muffed a back stair. She was interested; every­ glass lamp, the same as those she had ob­ thing was so unlike Roydon, As they served in the lobbies, only much more traversed the passage leading to the hall, powerful, shed a clear light over every the sounds of music again swelled faintly object in the room, from the ceiling. on her ear; and she saw servants going to It was the same room which had been and fro, in the corridor, in the fuss and assigned to Doctor Malkin, a short time jostle of trays, ices, and claret-cup and before; but some alterations tending to glasses, soup and tea-cups. improve the style and convenience of its Up the stair went Maud and her femme arrangements had been made; and now de chambre, and the sounds died out. The it looked not only a spacious and comfort­ stairs and passages were lighted, rather able, but even a handsome bedroom. dingily, by small muffed lamps, which " Heaven defend us 1 What an awful seemed to be fixed in the ceilings. Only picture that is!" exclaimed Maud, as she at two points, on the level which they had stood before the picture of the abbess, that now reached, a yard or two apart, did they was placed over the chimney-piece, '-* What encounter a living being. They were a a deathlike, dreadful countenance! Who pair of strong middle-aged housemaids, is it? No relation of Lady Mardykes, I who, each in turn, stopped and looked at hope ?" Maud with a transitory and grave curiosity " I don't know, indeed, miss," answered as she passed. Mercy, thus appealed to, "I was never in " Isn't she pretty, poor little thing ?" this room before." said the fatter of these two to her com­ The kreese, no suitable decoration for a panion. lady's apartment, had been removed. "Pretty and proud, I dare say; 'tis a Maud turned away. good house she's come to; it won't do her " I wonder why Lady Mardykes lights no harm, I warrant you," answered the her rooms and galleries so oddly," she darker-visaged and leaner woman, following pursues, talking half to herself, as she the young lady with a half-cynical smile. looked up at the lamp in the centre of the They were now in the long passage ceiling; "I fancy myself in an immense through which, a few nights before. Doctor railway carriage." a^z

^ -h> Charles Dickens, Jan.] THE ROSE AND THE KET, [July 15,1871,1 165 A dressing-room opened from this apart­ long, thick hair about her shoulders; and ment, to the right, and beyond that lay Mercy Creswell stood by, brush in hand, Mercy Creswell's room, accessible in turn arranging it. by a door from the dressing-room. Each When all this was over the young lady, of these rooms was Ughted in the same beginning to feel a Uttle sleepy, was glad way. to get to her bed. " Are all the bedrooms in this house A double cord, with a ring like an old- marked with numbei's and letters Uke fashioned handle of a beU-rope, hung by this ?" her bed, and the use of this Mercy Cres­ " Every one, miss." well explained. Drawing the cord in one " I can't say I admire that arrangement, direction had the effect of moving a shade nor the lighting. One thinks of an hotel. under the lamp in the ceUing, and of thus If Miss Medwyn were here," she added, reducing the room to darkness, an4 in the more merrily, " I should certainly, late as opposite direction of removing this shade it is, dress and go down to the concert, I again, and readmitting the light. Having should Uke to see the dresses and the tried this two or three times, and found people. I fancy the house is very full," that she could manage it perfectly, she dis­ "It is always that, miss; I never knew missed her maid, lay down, and drew the it hotherwise." shade; and the room being in total dark­ "And a very gay house ?" ness, she addressed herself to sleep, » " Too gay for me, miss. Always some­ But there is a tide in the affairs of men thing going on, A too much of a racket, other than that which Shakespeare wrote I don't think it's good for no one," said of at least, and which, taken at the flood, Mercy, half stifling a dreary little yawn. leads on to slumber, but which once passed She had not been laughing since their ap­ may never come again for half a night; and proach to the house, even at mention of Maud soon began to fear she had suffered Miss Medwyn's name; but on the contrary, it to escape her; for after lying for some as she would have said herself, was " rather time still, with eyes closed, she felt more in the dismals." wide awake than when she had first tried " Lady Mardykes's aunt is here; Mrs. to sleep. Pendel, of Pendel WdOds ? Tou have seen She turned on her other side, and lay her often, of course ?" stiU; but in vain she tried and exhausted "The Honourable Mrs. Pendel? Oh, all the common expedients for inducing dear, yes, miss, hoftentimes." sleep; they all failed. " She was here a day or two ago, cer­ An hour had passed, and sleep seemed tainly. Can you tell me whether she is further than ever. here now ?" Perhaps a question which mingled un­ " No; she's not here now, miss." bidden in all her speculations had some­ "That's very odd, for Lady Mardykes thing to do with the postponement of her wrote to beg of her not to go away. Tou sleep. Was she likely to see Mr. Marston had better go down and ask." next morning among the guests ? " No use in life, miss; I know she's not She was listening now with excited at­ here—she's gone. We was talking about tention for far-off sounds of music; but her this morning, before I left here." the house was too vast, and if the concert " WeU, it doesn't so much matter. Lady was stiU going on, which was not indeed Mardykes will be here in the morning. very probable, its harmonies were lost in Don't mind those dresses to-night; you distance long before they could reach her can do all that in the morning; just lay ear. The silence was intense, and more my dressing-case there, and give me my unfriendly to sleep than some Uttle hum of dressing-gown. Thanks ; and I think I'U distant Ufe might have been. go to my bed." Now and then came one of those odd " Would you, please, like a bit of supper creeks or cracks in the woodwork of the or something first, miss ?" room, which spirituahsts assign to mys­ "Nothing, thanks; but perhaps you terious causes, and more sceptical philoso­ would, Mercy," phers simply to a -change of temperature; " I had my supper, miss, thanks, at the and ever and anon a moth would bob Pig and Tinder-box. Servants never sups against the window-pane with a Uttle tap. so late here, miss; it is against the custom But these sounds were far enough between of the house." to be a little startling when they did come; The young lady, in her dressing-gown and the sUence of the long intervals was and slippers, sat before the glass, with her intense. =^ ^^\. %. X y

166 [July 15, 1S71.] ALL THE TEAR ROUND, [Conducted by She listened ; but not a footstep could So she must be content to wait till morn­ she hear—not a distant barking of a dog, ing, for an explanation of the noises that not a sound of life anywhere. had startled the unusual quiet of the night. It was an oppressive and melancholy I dare say she would soon have grown silence. At length she thought she heard drowsy, for she really needed sleep, and a distant clock strike two, and the sound the healthier associations that were by this died away, leaving the sUence deeper. time, again, uppermost in her mind, would It continued. Some time passed. She have prepared the way for its approach, lay in the dark with her eyes open, lier had she not again been disturbed, just as head on the piUow, without a stir, but she was about to return to her bed, hy awake and excited. noises which she could not account for. But on a sudden her ears were startled This time they proceeded from the quad­ by a loud and horrible sound. rangle under her window; men's voices Close to her door, in the gaUery, there were talking low, and steps were audible arose a howling and weeping, and a clang on the gravel walk that runs along that at the bolts of the massive cross door. side of the house. This was followed by ironical laughter. She placed herself close to the glass and Then came a silence, and then more of the looked down. same slow, jeering laughter, and then The terrace that passes under the win­ another silence. dows, the same along which she had that Maud had started np in her bed, and night approached the house, is very broad, sat with her heart throbbing violently, affording a wide belt of grass between iiie almost breathless, listening with the chill gravel walk and the wall of the house. of terror. This distance enabled her without difficulty To her relief this horrid sound next time to observe the people who were now on the was heard at a comparative distance. She path. heard otlier men's voices now in low and The elevation of this terrace raised it vehement dialogue, and sounds of shuffling above the level of the shadows, and in the feet, of gasping, tugging, and panting, as vivid moonlight, she saw the figures that if a determined struggle was going on; appeared, distinctly. The window from once or twice, a low laugh •^^'as heard; and which she was looking was as neariy as then came a yell loud and long, which possible over the door through which she seemed passing further and further away, had entered the house. and was soon lost quite in the distance; a Some half-dozen men, with their hats door clapped, the place was silent. on, were waiting on the broad walk before For some minutes Maud was afraid to it. Two or three more in a short time came stir. But summoning courage she sprang out from the house and joined them. Then from her bed, venturing to lock the door. three gentlemen dressed in those black But she could discover neither lock nor cloaks, with which undertakers drape bolt; but, to her comfort, found that it was chief mourners, entered tlie terrace walk, nevertheless secured. She made her way from the point at her left, at which the to the window; drew the curtain, opened door from the court - yard communicates the shutter a little, and looked out. with it. They were walking very slowly side by side, and he who was in the middle CHAPTER LXIII. MORE SIGHTS AXD SOUNDS, had a handkerchief in his hand, and ap­ THE moon was low now; all was motion­ peared to be weeping. less and silent. Long shadows were thrown They passed the window, and the group from the tall hedges and trees upon the of men on the walk drew back tow ard the misty gi-ass; and the croquet-ground and house as they did so; and the three geB^ flower-garden, with all the pleasant antici­ tlemen in black continued to walk slowly pations associated with them, lay full in up and down that portion of the promenade view beneath. that lay to her left. Encouraging the cheerful train of The group of men who are standing he- thought to which this prospect gave rise, fore the door breaks up : some half-dozen she sat in her dressing-gown and sUppers for go into the house, and only three remain some time at the window, and then, intend­ where they were. ing to question Mercy Creswell on the sub­ Maud is becoming more and mone ject of the uproar that had so scared her, curious. and no doubt her maid also, she tried the A man whose square build looks squairenc, dressing-room door ; but the handle at this as she looks down upon him, steps out. He side was gone, and the door fast shut. looks alone: the terrace after the three mea N Obarles Dickens, Jnn.] THE ROSE AND THE KET. [July 15,1871.] 167 who are walking down it. He looks up Closing the shutters, and drawing the towards the moon. There is no mistaking curtains, she now bethought her seriously that pale still face, with the jet-black beard. of the necessity of getting a little sleep, if He is Antomarchi. she did not intend looking Uke a ghost The three gentlemen turn about, and are next morning, which certainly was very now approaching him. He advances two far from her wish. or three steps toward them, and takes off So into her bed she got again, and draw­ his hat, and makes a particularly low and ing the cord once more, the light vanished, ceremonious bow. One of these gentle­ and she lay down determined at last to go men advances at a qmek pace, makes him to sleep. a bow in return, and they talk together. All was profoundly silent again, and The other two continue to pace, as before, Maud was now, after the lapse of some slowly up and down the walk, eight or ten minutes, beginning at last Antomarchi approaches the door, amd the to feel the approaches of sleep, when she gentleman who joined him a few minutes fancied she heard something brushing very before is at his side. They stop. The softly by the great arm-chair near the side three men who were lounging near the door of her bed. are suddenly, as it were, called to atten­ Was she ever to get to sleep in this un­ tion. Antomarchi waves his hand slightly lucky bed ? Even the idea that a cat had towards the door, and says something to got into her room was not pleasant; for his companion, who turns about, and at his nursery tales of the assassin-Uke propensi­ quickest walk rejoins his two friends. ties of the tribe (especially of black cats, These gentlemen, hearing what he says, and why should not this one be black ?) when stop and turn about, and slowly walk to­ their tendency to throttle and murder wards the door. There is some little fuss sleepers in the dark was favoured by op­ there; first one and then another man portunity, crowded upon her recollection. emerges from it and retorns, and new, She listened intently. She heard in a with white scarfs and hat-bands, bearing a Uttle time a slight click, as if a trinket or long coffin on a bier, come forth the men coin was stirred on the table near. There who had gone in. A man steps out last, was no other noise, and nothing very for­ and shuts the door softly. Is it Darkdale ? midable in that. But still she could beai' She can't be quite sure. the uncertainty no longer. The darkness It is not easy to distinguish colours, at and silence were oppressive; she put her any distance, by moonlight; but Maud hand out and drew the cord, and in an in­ thinks that this coffin is covered with red stant the soft light from the lamp in the velvet, and that the large plate and big ceUing filled the roona, aaid disclosed every nails upon it are gUded. object. Immediately behind this coffin the three She was not alone. A figure, perfectly gentlemen walk, and Antomarchi after stiU, was standing about a yard from the them, till it disappears round the corner of side of the bed, toward the foot. She the house, away to her left, at which the stared at it for some time, hardly believing door she had passed that night gives access that what she saw was real, before she to the court-yard. recognised in the short squat person in a A strange feeling of disgust and fear woollen night-gown, Mercy Creswell, her now, for the first time, steals over her. ugly femme de chambre. What is she to think of a house in whieli, "How on earth did you come in?" at whUe an inmate lies dead and coffined, all length Maud exclaimed. the fiddUng and singing, and vanities and " La! miss, how ?" repeated Mercy, feasting of a banquet, proceed unchecked ? who gained a Uttle time for reflection by What is she to think of the right feehng such repetitions. " How did I come in ? and refinement of a hostess who can permit i came as quiet as I could, through the so extraordinary a profanation ? dressing-room door, please, miss." The sombre images summoned to her " What do you want here, please ?" de­ fancy by the scene she has just witnessed, manded Miss Maud, a little peremptorily, gave for the time a sickly character to the for she was losing patience. " I did not moonlit prospect, and the now solitary call for you, and 1 think I should have been walk so lately traversed by the scanty and asleep by this time, if you had remained mysterious funeral procession. quietly where you were. What do you Maud left the window, and drew the want ?" shade from the lamp, and in a moment the " I ? I came, miss—what I wanted was warm light filled the room cheerily. —I came to see was you sleeping comfort- ^ y ^^as-

168 ALL THE TEAR ROUND. [July 15, 1871.] able, having been, as you was, complaining Mardykes does things her own way. She's of your head." not that sort, neither; but there's a part " WeU, don't mind trying to see in the of tlie house down at that end farthest from dark any more please. I wonder you did the hall-door, there is sometimes people in not tumble over the furniture. Tou'd have she does not know from Adam, saving your frightened me out of my wits if you had ; I presence, miss." have been made so awfully nervous. There " I don't in the least comprehend you," were such horrible noises in the gallery, said the young lady, in unaffected amaze­ just outside my door; and I had hardly ment. got over that, when, of all things in the " I mean this, when people is ordered world, a funeral passed out of this house." the waters here for a week, miss, there being " La ! though really, miss?" no hotel, miss, nor inn, nor nothing of no " Tes, really, such a grisly idea ! Didn't sort, near Lady Mardykes's, if it should you hear the people under the windows ? 'appen to be a lady or gentleman of con­ What are you made of? But you must sequence, a lord or a countess, or sich hke, have heard the person who made such a she would give them the use of a room or hideous uproar in the gallery." two ill the house, you see, and so, now Maud paused with her eyes upon her. and then, of course, it can't be helped. " Well, I wouldn't wonder if it was, There will be a lady or gentleman die, see­ miss, that might easy be," said Mercy. ing all as comes to drink the waters is " But didn't you hear it; what canyon more or less sick and ailing always ; and I mean by affecting to doubt it ? Tou won't have known a many a one die here," allow that you know, or see, or hear any­ " And without any interruption of the thing. Tou must have heard it." amusements — the music and dancing?" " Tes, I did hear it," said Mercy, who re­ persisted Miss Vernon, solved, at length, to be candid ; " a man hol- " La ! none in life, miss, why should looing and crying, and laughing, and I think there ? Let them go out as they come in, I should know pretty well what itwas, miss." private. When you have seen as many " That's just what I want you to tell me." corpses as I have, here, laid out in their " Well, I heard this morning there's a caps and sheets, you'll think no more of servant of one of the great people here them than you would of so many yellow that's got fits and raving, saving your wax statutes—what's a coffin but a box of presence, miss, from drink." cloth ? If there's no one I don't care for " My gracious! that horrible complaint in it, why should I fret my eyes out? that Doctor Malkin told me about! And Not I. I wouldn't look over my shoulder why don't they send him to an hospital ?" to see corpse or coffin; I wouldn't think " So they will, miss, I'm told, in the twice about it; 'tis all fancy, miss." morning." "Well, as you say, I shall probably " But what about the funeral ? Tou know all about it from Lady Mardykes were here this morning, and know the to-morrow, and now, really, you must go; servants. It was evidently some person and pray don't return till it is time to caU of rank, and you must have heard of it. A me in the morning. Good-night." person of that sort could not have been " Good-night, miss." lying dead in the house, without your And the maid withdrew. knowing something of it." " WeU," thought Maud as she lay down, " Well, no—really, miss, I knew there " I have heard that Lady Mardykes keeps was some one, I forget his name, a lord, I an odd house ; but anything like this, could do believe, lying very bad, some days ago, any one have conjectured ?" and gave over—and most like it is the And very soon after this reflection Maud same—but Lady Mardykes, she'll be here Vernon was fast asleep. in the morning, she can tell you all about it." The Back Numbers of the PUESKNI SEEIBS of " But do you mean to say that such ALL THE YEAR ROUND, things happen, in the midst of balls and Also Cases for Binding, are always kept on sale. concerts, in Lady Mardykes's house ? Do you mean to say that if I had a fever and The whole of the Numbers of the FIRST SERIES of died here, Lady Mardykes would not sus­ ALL THE TEAR ROUND, pend her gaieties tiU I was buried ?" CONDUCTED BY CHAELES DICEIENS, Are now iu print, and may be obtained at the Office: " Oh! miss, la ! you know, miss. Lady 26, Wellington-street, Strand, W.C, and of all Booksellers.

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