CHAMBERS’S JOURNAL
OF
POPULAR
LITERATURE, SCIENCE, AND ART.

SEVENTY YEARS SINCE.

The last representatives of our grandfather’s
generation having passed away, there is no reason
why the following true stories of an old Scotch
house should not be made public, for the entertainment
of others besides those members of the
family to whom only they have hitherto been
known. I have slightly changed the names of
persons and places, but not a detail of the stories
has otherwise been altered from the first-hand
accounts given us by those who were themselves
their heroes and heroines.

On a winter’s afternoon in the year 1816 three
young officers were riding ‘within a mile of
Edinboro’ toun;’ they were pushing on in advance
of their regiment, which was that day marching
into new quarters, hoping to reach the city in
time to choose lodgings for themselves, to whom
rooms in barracks had not been allotted. Suddenly
a gaunt gipsy woman of the Meg Merrilies
type darted out upon them, and laid her detaining
hand upon the bridle of Lieutenant T—— (my
grandfather). He tried to shake his rein free,
but without effect, and the little cavalcade was
brought to a halt by her persistence; then addressing
the gentlemen collectively, but keeping her
eyes upon my grandfather, she offered to tell their
fortunes. The young men laughed at the suggestion,
and the gipsy wife waxed angry. ‘Ye’ll do
little good in Edinboro’ or elsewhere,’ she retorted
roughly to the two captains who had declined her
services. ‘But for ye’ (speaking only to Lieutenant
T——), ‘there’s a bonnie bride waiting in
the first house ye enter!’

My grandfather threw her a shilling and galloped
on with his companions, enduring for some time
their good-natured raillery about the spae-wife’s
prediction; but when they reached the city they
were too much engaged in observing the outsides
of the houses which might afford them the desired
lodgings, to think further of the prophecy. In the
dim light, one large house with closed shutters
looked as if it were untenanted and likely to suit
their requirements; while a light from a lower
kitchen window shewed that some one was left in
charge who could attend to Lieutenant T——’s loud
summons at the knocker. But the young man,
accounted a gallant soldier enough, who had seen
some service in the late wars, was entirely routed
and discomfited by the furious reception his modest
inquiry after lodgings met with from the stalwart
maid-servant who answered the door. ‘Lodgings!
What was the world coming to when a daft young
fool asked if her mistress let lodgings? The family
was away in the north, and this would be a pretty
tale to tell them on their return,’ stormed the cross
maid; and my grandfather, leaving a torrent of
rough language behind him, made his escape down
the steps of the house over whose threshold he had
so mistakenly intruded. He remounted his horse
amid the jeers of his two friends, who reminded
him of his fate predicted by the gipsy, and begged
him, if this were a sample of the ‘bonnie bride’s’
usual temper, to exchange into another regiment
as soon as he married. Eventually the young
men found rooms to suit them, and in a few
days became quite at home in the pleasant capital
of the north, which was just beginning its gay
winter season.

About a week after their arrival the officers
were present at an Assembly ball, and Lieutenant
T—— lost his heart at first sight to a lovely
young débutante of fifteen, with whom he danced
the whole evening. At the close of the ball he
was introduced to a grand turbaned lady, his
partner’s mother; and on seeing the ladies to
their carriage he asked leave to do himself the
honour of calling for them next day. This permission
and their address were given him, and the
latter noted in his pocket-book. The next morning
he eagerly sought out their house, which he
did not recognise as the scene of his first adventure
till Ailie, the same stalwart maid, opened the
door, and this time admitted him graciously.

This visit was followed by many others; and
before a year had passed my grandfather won the
‘bonnie bride’ of the spae-wife’s prediction from
the very house across whose threshold he had first
set foot on entering Edinburgh. They were a very{386}
young pair; he only twenty-one and my grandmother
just sixteen at their marriage; and how
their housekeeping might have prospered or the
reverse I do not know, had not Ailie decided to
take service with the young couple, and maintained
their interests during the wanderings of the
next thirty years as faithfully as she had previously
guarded the honour of her mistress’s house. She
was one of the now extinct race of family servants,
a sort of factotum in the house, where she did her
own work and a good part of every one else’s in a
wonderfully indefatigable fashion, only reserving
to herself the privilege of keeping every one in
order, from the master and mistress down to the
kitchen wench.

To three out of the four generations of our
family whom she served, she was ‘old Ailie;’ and
her flowered chintz bedgown and mob-cap survived
unaltered far into the era of crinoline and
chignon. What stories she had to tell of Madam
our great-grandmother, a very grand dame indeed,
and well-known card-player; and of a certain
Mistress Jean, her favourite heroine, whom some
of us recollect as Aunt Moir, a little soft-faced,
pink-and-white lady, not so imposing to look upon
as the miniature of her powdered mamma, but a
beauty nevertheless in her day. She lived at a
time when it was the acknowledged fate of all
Edinburgh belles to fall a prey to dyspeptic old
East Indians, who having been drafted off as raw
lads to India, were heard of no more till they
returned as nabobs half a century later, to take
their pick of the blooming lassies for whom the
Scottish capital has ever been justly celebrated.

Aunt Moir would describe how she and her
mother went every Sabbath morning to ‘sit under’
Dr M’——; and how, as they mounted the high
steps to the entrance of the place of worship,
the beaus young and old—some in blue swallow-tailed
coats buttoned tight across the chest, and
frilled jabots like protruding fins; others with
military pigtails and riding-boots—stood on each
side of the door and criticised their figures (a
lady’s face in those days being pretty well hidden
by her telescopic bonnet), and more particularly
their feet and ankles, incased in sandalled shoes
and silk stockings. Aunt Moir admitted that
her feet passed their examination creditably
enough, though the criticism was sometimes
more severe than gallant; and one of her young-lady
friends went by the name of ‘Flat-foot Meg.’
But Aunt Jean’s were evidently of a different
order, and were swift and light enough to do
even more than please the fastidious taste of the
Edinburgh bucks. Some years after her marriage
with an old and invalid husband, who had carried
her away from Edinburgh to a country home,
Mistress Moir, little more than a girl still, one day
going over her domains started a hare from a
barley-stook, and throwing all her matronly dignity
to the winds, she pursued Puss through a couple
of meadows, and eventually captured and brought
him struggling to the house. Whether she kept
maukin as a pet and proof of her agility, or converted
him into the excellent soup for which she
has left us her recipe, labelled in a pointed Italian
hand-writing ‘Mistress Moir’s Hare Broth,’ history
does not relate. Let us hope the former fate
was his, for the recipe says in conclusion, ‘Without
the meat of two hares is the broth poor and
meagre.’

Aunt Moir had no children of her own; but
her heart and home were always open to the numerous
members of the T—— family, her nephews
and nieces. She found queer old ornaments,
Indian beads and tartan scarfs, in her store-boxes
for the girls; and the town-bred boys found rare
opportunities for healthful delightful mischief
when the High School released them for their
holidays at Moir. One species of entertainment
was specially sacred to Aunt Jean’s kail-yard: to
mount astride upon tall, well-grown, firm-hearted
cabbages, and rock gently to and fro, with short
leather-breeched, gray-stockinged legs sticking out
straight like a cavalry officer’s, until a warning
crack in the stalk, or the sudden appearance of
Aunt Jean’s Tam rushing round some unexpected
corner, with his climax of threats: ‘I’ll tell
Mistress Alice,’ drove the boys from their position.

A gray-headed, cross-grained old fellow was
Tam, affecting to disapprove highly of the annual
summer incursion of boys and girls into the
Moir fruit-gardens, trampling among his strawberries
that were destined for Mistress Jean’s
preserves, and rifling his bushes for ‘honeyblobs.’
But he had a soft spot in his heart for my mother,
Anna T——, who reminded him, he fancied, of his
little daughter Kirsty, dead thirty years before;
and many a Sunday afternoon did Tam give
mother a helping hand through her portion of the
Shorter Catechism, imposed as a becoming exercise
for the mind by Aunt Moir on each of the
children. Tam was a rigid Sabbatarian of course,
and even his favourite Anna was not exempted
from blame when one Sabbath evening the whole
young party were discovered in pursuit of a marauding
rabbit who had for days past ravaged their
gardens. Ananias and Sapphira, Korah, Dathan,
and Abiram were somewhat irrelevantly cited as
cases in point, or at least as fellow-sinners; but he
ended by muttering to himself, as he left the
abashed T—— children to meditate over his
sermon: ‘An’ the Lord spare me till the morn’s
morn, I’ll shoot that deil mysel.’

Tam had been with Aunt Moir’s parents at Portcorry
before they migrated southwards to Edinburgh,
to settle the boys in life and the girls in
marriage. She had a queer story to tell us of her
childhood connected with Tam’s wife Kirsty, who
lived as nursery-maid in her father’s house, and
had somewhat indifferently, and in the spirit of the
lass who sang,

married Tam the ‘gairdner lad,’ and retired with{387}
him to the lodge. When her little Kirsty was
born, however, she gladly accepted the post of wet-nurse
to the contemporaneous baby just arrived at
the house, and returned to her old position in the
nursery, bringing all her newly awakened maternal
love, as well as her boundless devotion and respect
for ‘the family,’ to lavish upon little weakly
Uncle Donald. Baby Kirsty at the lodge flourished
upon oatmeal porridge administered by Tam’s
clumsy hands, and was soon ‘creeping’ about
everywhere with the big collie dog as her sole
attendant; while up at the house Master Donald
took all the devotion of two mothers to rear him,
and was all-sufficient to Mrs Kirsty, who forgot
husband, child, and home in her tendance of her
foster-son.

At last, almost a year afterwards, the boy being
weaned and fairly strong, it was thought time to
dismiss the foster-mother to her home duties; and
accordingly, after a violent and distressing parting,
she tore herself away from the child and returned
to the lodge for good. That same night Aunt Jean,
a child of nine, who slept in the same room occupied
by the head-nurse and the baby brother, woke
suddenly without any particular reason, and saw by
the dim light of the nursery lamp, Kirsty’s well-known
figure walking to and fro through the room
with the little white bundle of a Donald in her
arms. Presently she laid the quieted child down
in his cot again; and then catching the wide-open
eyes in the next bed, she made a sign to be silent,
turning her head in the direction of the sleeping
head-nurse. Aunt Jean, well aware of various
little nursery jealousies between Mrs Macnab and
Mrs Kirsty, gave a nod of acquiescence, and lay
quite still, watching Kirsty as she softly bent over
the little boy, settled him comfortably, and kissed
him again and again. She was still there hovering
round the cot with noiseless footsteps when the
little girl fell asleep again.

Next morning, the first news that came to the
house was that poor Mistress Kirsty had died
suddenly in the night in her own bed of a sudden
attack of heart complaint; brought on, the doctor
said, by the excessive grief to which she gave way
on parting from her adopted son. Tam and little
Kirsty did not miss her much, I believe; nor, sad
to say, did the little lad for whom she had spent
her strength so willingly; but Aunt Jean held
persistently to her story of the ‘vision;’ and the
tale of ‘faithful Kirsty’ is still a beloved tradition
in our nursery. Thanks to her care, Uncle
Donald grew up a strapping lad, and when only
fifteen served at the battle of Waterloo, and was
present at the entry of the allied powers into
Paris. There is still extant a funny etching, executed
by some wit of the regiment, in which Ensign
Donald is represented ‘looting’ a confectioner’s
shop, with drawn sword in one hand and immense
half-demolished brioche in the other; the young
ladies of the counter, attired in the classical costumes
of the First Empire, flying every way from
the onslaught of this hero from the Land o’ Cakes.

They were a kindly race these Scotch relations
of ours; less extravagant in their habits, customs,
and ways of thought than their descendants of the
present generation; handsomer and healthier too,
perhaps, if we judge from the bright eyes and rosy
smiling faces of the portraits they have left us;
though even in these degenerate days, a return to
the early hours, simple habits, and oatmeal porridge
of the last century might yet make our lads
and lassies, who inherit the friendly Scottish nature,
as handsome, healthy, and happy as their grandfathers
and grandmothers were seventy years since.

THE LAST OF THE HADDONS.

CHAPTER XXIX.—PHILIP AND ROBERT.

We found Robert Wentworth with Mrs Tipper,
and he too, I saw, very curiously examined Philip
as they were introduced to each other. Each eyed
the other curiously and critically for a moment
or two, as they uttered the first few words; and I
think each was as favourably impressed towards
the other as I could desire them to be. They
were kindred spirits, and soon recognised that they
were, making acquaintance in easy, undemonstrative,
manly fashion.

Robert Wentworth was like an elder brother of
Philip’s, and there was just sufficient difference
between their minds to give a zest to their companionship.
Philip’s was a more mercurial temperament;
whilst there was a vein of satire in the
other, lacking in him. Lilian thought that Robert
Wentworth had not the same poetical perception
which Philip possessed; but that did not I, for
whom the former had unfolded the hidden meaning,
the subtle essence of some of the poet’s most delicate
imagery. Of course I could not suppose Robert
Wentworth to be Philip’s superior; but neither
would I do him the injustice of calling him inferior.
They were different.

One thing puzzled me not a little as time went
on. Whether it was that my love for Philip made
me shyer and more reticent with him, or whether
he did not look for certain things in me, I know
not; but one part of my mind, which was as an
open book to Robert Wentworth, remained undiscovered
and even unsuspected by my lover. Once
when Philip made a little jest about Lilian’s
romance and enthusiasm, Robert Wentworth smilingly
opined that there were graver offenders in
that way than Lilian; but I knew that I was the
only one to perceive his meaning. If Philip had
any suspicion that the allusion was intended for
me, he did not perceive its application. Would it
have made any difference if I had been able to let
my thoughts flow into words when alone with him?
When I was his wife—when this foolish shyness,
reticence, or whatever it might be, was once overcome—I
knew that he would find me a much more
attractive companion than now. But while I
longed to give more expression to my feelings, I
nervously shrank from doing so. I almost wished
that he would force me to shew my thoughts, as
Robert Wentworth used to take so much delight
in doing.

What girl could love as I did? What love could
be deeper and more intense than mine? Yet the
consciousness that I was not a girl kept me silent
whilst my soul vibrated to every look and word
of his. Ah me—ah Philip! would it have been
wiser to let you see? That night when we stood
together in the moonlight—when you good-naturedly
jested me about my matter-of-fact way of
regarding things—would it have been better to let
you see the volcano hidden beneath the snow? Ah
Philip, when you feared I had caught a chill, and
wrapped my shawl closer about me, would it have{388}
been wiser to let you know why I was trembling
beneath your touch?

I have learned to say: ‘No; better as it was.’

But I have been anticipating. This first evening
of the meeting between Robert Wentworth and
Philip, all was couleur de rose, and my mind was at
rest. I sat more silent than usual, congratulating
myself upon the prospect of the great desire of my
heart being gratified. They two would be friends,
even according to my somewhat exigeante notion
of what friendship should be. Then it was pleasant
to listen to Robert Wentworth’s few words respecting
his appreciation of Philip, so honestly and
heartily spoken.

‘You must not forget that it is a brother’s right
to give you away, when the time for giving away
comes, Mary,’ he said gently, as he and I stood
together by the open window a few minutes, whilst
Philip was turning over the music for Lilian, who
was singing some of his favourite airs for him.

‘Will you? It is kind to wish it,’ I murmured,
feeling that it was a great deal more than kind.

‘Mr Dallas is, I believe, worthy of any man’s
sister, Mary.’

‘I am glad you think so’—I paused a moment,
then, as a sister should, added—’Robert.’

He smiled, and talked pleasantly on, contriving
to set me quite at ease respecting the state of his
own mind. I was now able to persuade myself
that he had been deceived, and that his friendship
for me had never really developed into a stronger
feeling. Presently he said in his abrupt friendly
fashion: ‘Why do you not sing, Mary?’

‘Oh, Lilian sings that so much better than I;
and it is a favourite of Philip’s.’

‘Well, come now and enchant our ears;’ going
towards the piano as Lilian ceased, and looking
out a song which he always said I sang well.
‘Now, do your best.’

But although Philip and Lilian were more than
satisfied, Robert was not. He and I knew that it
was not my best, their kind speeches notwithstanding.
He seemed to have quite changed his
tactics with regard to me—doing everything in his
power to make me appear to advantage in Philip’s
eyes. But he unconsciously deprived me of the
pleasant termination of the day, which I had been
looking forward to. Philip and he set forth
together to walk to the railway station, and of
course there was no moonlight walk for me that
night.

But there was the morrow—many a happy morrow
to come, now, I told myself, looking after
them as they went down the lane together. The
more they saw of each other, the sooner they would
become friends. Lilian, who stood beside me at
the gate, slipped her arm round my waist, and
laid her head against my shoulder in eloquent
silence.

It was fortunate that the day had come round
for paying my promised visit to Nancy Dean. I
felt that I needed some kind of reminder that I
did not live in a world all flowers and sunshine.
I set forth the next morning alone, thinking that
Nancy might possibly feel less under constraint
than if Lilian were present during our interview.
Philip had some banking business to transact
which would prevent his getting down to us until
late in the afternoon; and I had therefore ample
time for my errand before his arrival.

This time I found no difficulty in obtaining
admittance; and was informed that the rules
allowed me to remain an hour, if I chose so to do,
with my friend Nancy Dean. That hour we were
at liberty to spend in either the dining-hall or
exercise-ground, as we chose. We gazed earnestly
and curiously at each other as we shook hands;
and I hope she was as pleased with me by daylight
as I was with her.

Without being handsome or even pretty, Nancy
Dean’s was a face which pleased me much. If
expressing a shade too much self-will and the
firmness which, untrained, is so apt to degenerate
into obstinacy, there was no trace of meanness,
deceit, or dishonesty.

‘You expected me to-day of course, Nancy?’

‘I shouldn’t be here if I hadn’t, Miss,’ she
returned with a grave smile. We had elected to
spend the hour in the open air; and with my arm
linked in hers, we paced slowly up and down part
of the old court-yard, or exercise-ground as it was
called.

‘In that case, I ought to be thankful that no
accident occurred to prevent my coming. It might
have, you know, and then poor I should have had
to bear the blame for anything which followed.’

‘How could you have been to blame if an
accident had happened, Miss?’

‘My dear Nancy, if you had fallen back, some one
would have been in fault, since we could hardly
throw the blame upon an accident.’

‘You mean I should have been to blame, if I
had gone wrong again because you did not come?’

I smiled. ‘I am not altogether sure which of us
would have been most in fault, Nancy.’

‘But how could you’——

‘One thing is clear. I did not succeed in giving
you faith in me, although I had faith in you.’

She looked dubiously at me a moment, then her
eyes slowly filled with tears. ‘Perhaps I haven’t
been ready enough to believe in people. Till now,
nobody ever seemed to believe in me.’

‘It is not for me to judge, Nancy. I can only
say I am pleased that you had the strength and
courage to return here and remain, under the
circumstances.’

‘You seem to know exactly the best thing to say
to encourage me, Miss!’ ejaculated Nancy. ‘And
even when you hit hard, as you sometimes do, I
don’t seem to mind it so much from you as I do
from other people—it’s different, somehow! You
don’t seem to enjoy thinking about my wickedness.’

‘If I thought you wicked, I certainly should
not enjoy thinking so; and if you were, you would
not have come back here. Poor Nancy, I am
afraid it has been rather hard for you!’

‘If you could only know how hard it has been!’
she murmured. ‘Think of never being spoken to
by any of the others for a week; kept in silence
and solitude, and looked upon as the worst
creature that ever breathed!’

‘All the more credit to you for bearing it. But
we will not talk about that. Let us rather think
about the future. I told you I am going to be
married shortly—in a month or two probably—and
then we are going abroad for a time.’

‘Shall I have to stay here till you come back,
Miss?’ she asked anxiously, her face falling at the
thought.

‘No; I do not wish it; that would be too
much to expect. I am sure I shall be able to
make some arrangement for you; possibly I may{389}
arrange for you to stay with a dear old friend of
mine, who has only one young servant, until my
return; but I promise you shall not remain here
much longer.’

This was better; she brightened up wonderfully
again, and we spent the rest of the allotted time
very cheerfully. What was perhaps most cheering
of all to poor Nancy was my little speech about
hoping by-and-by to set things right with her
relations.

‘It’s too late for that, Miss,’ she replied sadly;
‘they know I’ve been in prison, and poor mother’s
gone.’

‘Too late, indeed! Why, there is almost a
lifetime before you in which to prove your innocence!
Besides, after you have lived with me
long enough to enable me to speak from experience,
I will take the matter in hand, and write
to your father and sister. In the meantime, we
must seek for the poor creature for whom you
suffered, and if we can, get her to give evidence
that she put the ring into your box.’

She threw up her head and faced the sky.
‘Thank God!’

‘You see now where thanks are due, Nancy,’ I
said softly.

‘Yes;’ drawing a deep breath.

When a loud clanging bell warned us that the
time for my leaving her had come, I was more
demonstrative in my manner than is customary
with me. Several of the other inmates and their
visitors were congregated in the yard, and I
chose them to see that Nancy Dean had at anyrate
one friend who believed in her. The sudden
flush which covered her face, the expression of the
eyes turned towards the other women, as though
to say ‘You see!’ sufficiently thanked me. It was
a very pleasant walk home.

I was not a little surprised as well as disappointed
to find that Philip did not take kindly
to the idea of my last protégée. He came down
with Robert Wentworth towards the evening, and
Lilian mentioned my afternoon’s errand to the
Home to the latter, who had been extremely
interested in Nancy’s case.

Philip asked several questions about it; but I
could not get him to shew any interest in Nancy,
if he felt any. Indeed I could not help seeing that
the idea of my visiting the Home was distasteful
to him. It was all the more noticeable because
Robert Wentworth had entered so warmly into
the subject, taking my proceedings quite for
granted.

‘What led you to go there, Mary?’

What led me to go there?—what but the
happiness his own letter had brought me. But
that was not a question to be replied to just then,
if ever; so I murmured something about having
met Nancy in a state of desperation, and persuaded
her to return to the Home, &c.

He said very little; his disapproval was more
expressed in his manner than anything else. Seeing
that he objected, and did not care to give his
reasons for so doing, I did not attempt to discuss
the point with him. I must trust to Nancy. If
by-and-by she proved to be a success, it would
be a better argument in my favour than any I
could advance. Besides, I was too happy to allow
a slight divergence of opinion between us to
disturb me. Of course he knew that he would
find me ready enough to yield whenever he
shewed me a reason for so doing; he would find
too, that in my heart of hearts I preferred his
gaining the victory when it came to reasoning,
though it must be a fair field and no favour
between us.

But if Philip did not very favourably regard
my visits to Nancy, he entered warmly enough
into our scheme for improving the cottage homes.
He not only approved but helped us in workmanlike
fashion with a little carpentering and what
not, which we had been unable to compass, beginning
with a bracket and shelves, and launching out
into more ambitious attempts. We began to contemplate
improving the architectural effect with
porches to the doors, over which climbing plants
were to be trained, placing a seat at the side, and
so forth; and if it was not all of the very highest
art as to shape and make, it would be, we flattered
ourselves, picturesque and comfortable-looking.
If the porch proved as attractive as the village
ale-house to sit and smoke in, in the summer
evenings, it would be something gained.

With regard to the interior arrangements, we
were altogether satisfied. Our protégés were
beginning to take some little pride in their homes,
and to brighten up such parts of them as did not
match well with our efforts. We still always took
care to leave some part of the room as we found it,
to serve as a contrast; and the challenge was now
more generally accepted than at first. It must,
however, be acknowledged that we still met with
occasional opposition. When Jemmy Rodgers, for
instance, found that his tobacco jar was not refilled
after being suggestively placed in our way, he
began to shew his independence again; taking to
his old ways and using the table for a kettle-stand.
But we looked upon ourselves as successful enough
to be as independent as he was now, and we took
no further trouble about him or his table. At
which Sally Dent informed us he gave it as his
opinion that we had more ‘grit’ in us than he had
given us credit for having; and that he wasn’t sure
he should not give in and clean the table himself.
To his astonishment a clean table did not open our
hearts; the tobacco jar remained unfilled.

In all our other schemes Philip joined heartily
with purse and hand, and yet he so markedly
stopped short when Nancy and the Home were in
question. How was it? Was his remark about
‘the impossibility of a woman retaining the delicate
grace and refinement of thought—the, so to
speak, bloom of her nature—which is her greatest
charm, if she became too familiar with scenes of
misery and sin,’ intended as a gentle warning to
me?

For whomsoever it was intended, she found a
ready and able advocate in Robert Wentworth.
He very decidedly gave it as his opinion that the
delicate grace and bloom and all the rest of it
could not be got rid of too quickly, if they were to
prevent a woman holding out her hand to any of
her own sex who needed help. ‘But fortunately,
or unfortunately, since there are not too many possessed
of it, it is just the delicate grace of a refined
woman which is required in such cases.’

‘All very well in theory, Wentworth; but if it
came to practice? I am sure you would be as
desirous as I should be to guard a wife or sister
from contact with the degraded?’

‘My dear fellow, not I; unless I feared the possibility
of some of her virtues being rubbed off by{390}
the contact; in that case she would of course
require very careful guarding. But I should be
very proud of a sister who could go safely amongst
those who needed her, be they whom they might.’

Philip waived further discussion with a ‘By-and-by,
Wentworth.’ I believe he thought that it
was not complimentary to Lilian and me to carry
on the conversation in our presence.

I could not but be grateful for the chivalrous
respect which both shewed towards women, though
I could not help contrasting their very opposite
ways of shewing it. One seemed to represent the
chivalry of the past, and the other that of the
present. I could appreciate both: the poetry and
romance of the old chivalry, and the reason and
respect in the new; and I did not ask myself
which was most really complimentary to women,
or whether each was not a little the worse for
being so dissevered from the other. It might be
that in my heart I should have preferred Philip
representing the present rather than the past; but
I did not acknowledge so much to myself.

But all this was only a faint ripple on our
stream, not sufficient to prevent the current from
running smooth.

GOOD MANNERS

Are nothing less than little morals. They are
the shadows of virtues, if not virtues themselves.
‘A beautiful behaviour is better than a beautiful
form; it gives a higher pleasure than statues and
pictures; it is the finest of the fine arts.’ How
well it is then that no one class has a monopoly in
this ‘finest of fine arts;’ that while favourable
circumstances undoubtedly do render good manners
more common among persons moving in higher
rather than in lower spheres, there should nevertheless
be no positive hindrance to the poorest
classes practising good manners towards each other.
For what is a good manner? It is the art of
putting our associates at their ease. Whoever
makes the fewest persons uncomfortable, is the
best-mannered man in a room.

Vanity, ill-nature, want of sympathy, want of
sense—these are the chief sources from which bad
manners spring. Nor can we imagine an incident
in which a man could be at a loss as to what to
say or do in company, if he were always considerate
for the feelings of others, forgot himself, and
did not lose his head or leave his common-sense
at home. Such a one may not have studied etiquette,
he may be chaotic rather than be in ‘good
form,’ as the slang expression is; and yet because
his head and heart are sound, he will speak and
act as becomes a gentleman. On the other hand, a
very pedant in form and bigot in ceremonies may
be nothing better than the ‘mildest-mannered
man that ever cut a throat.’ As we can be wise
without learning, so it is quite possible to be well-mannered
with little or no knowledge of those
rules and forms which are at best only a substitute
for common-sense, and which cannot be
considered essential to good manners, inasmuch as
they vary in every country, and even in the same
country change about with the weather-cock of
fashion. Vanity renders people too self-conscious
to have good manners, for if we are always thinking
of the impression we are making, we cannot
give enough attention to the feelings and conversation
of others. Without trying to be natural—an
effort that would make us most artificial—we
must be natural by forgetting self in the desire to
please others. Elderly unmarried ladies, students,
and those who lead lonely lives generally, not
unfrequently acquire awkward manners, the result
of self-conscious sensitiveness.

Shyness was a source of misery to the late
Archbishop Whately. When at Oxford, his white
rough coat and white hat obtained for him the
sobriquet of ‘The White Bear;’ and his manners,
according to his own account of himself, corresponded
with the appellation. He was directed,
by way of remedy, to copy the example of the
best-mannered men he met in society; but the
attempt to do this only increased his shyness. He
found that he was all the while thinking of himself
rather than of others; whereas thinking of
others rather than of one’s self is the essence of
politeness. Finding that he was making no progress,
he said to himself: ‘I have tried my very
utmost, and find that I must be as awkward as a
bear all my life, in spite of it. I will endeavour
to think about it as little as a bear, and make up
my mind to endure what can’t be cured.’ In
thus endeavouring to shake off all consciousness
as to manner, he says: ‘I succeeded beyond my
expectations; for I not only got rid of the personal
suffering of shyness, but also of most of those
faults of manner which consciousness produces;
and acquired at once an easy and natural manner—careless
indeed in the extreme, from its originating
in a stern defiance of opinion, which I had
convinced myself must be ever against me; rough
and awkward, for smoothness and grace are quite
out of my way, and of course tutorially pedantic;
but unconscious, and therefore giving expression
to that good-will towards men which I really feel;
and these I believe are the main points.’

Vanity again is the source of that boasting self-assertion
which is the bane of manners. He is
an ill-mannered man who is always loud in the
praises of himself and of his children; who boasting
of his rank, of his business, of achievements
in his calling, looks down upon lower orders of
people; who cannot refrain from having his joke
at the expense of another’s character, whose smart
thing must come out because he has not the
gentlemanly feeling that suggests to us

The habit of saying rude things, of running
people down, springs not so much from ill-nature
as from that vanity that would rather lose a
friend than a joke. On this point Dr Johnson
once remarked: ‘Sir, a man has no more right
to say an uncivil thing than to act one—no
more right to say a rude thing to another than
to knock him down.’ The vain egotism that disregards
others is shewn in various unpolite ways;
as, for instance, by neglect of propriety in dress,
by the absence of cleanliness, or by indulging in
repulsive habits. Some think themselves so well-born,
so clever, or so rich, as to be above caring
what others say and think of them. It is said
that the ancient kings of Egypt used to commence{391}
speeches to their subjects with the formula, ‘By
the head of Pharaoh, ye are all swine!’ We need
not wonder that those who take this swine-theory
view of their neighbours should be careless of
setting their tastes and feelings at defiance. Contrast
such puppyism with the conduct of David
Ancillon, a famous Huguenot preacher, one of
whose motives for studying his sermons with the
greatest care was ‘that it was shewing too little
esteem for the public to take no pains in preparation,
and that a man who should appear on a
ceremonial day in his night-cap and dressing-gown
could not commit a greater breach of civility.’

‘Spite and ill-nature,’ it has been said, ‘are
among the most expensive luxuries of life;’ and
this is true, for none of us can afford to surround
himself with the host of enemies we are sure to
make if, when young, we allow ill-nature to produce
in us unmannerly habits. Good manners,
like good words, cost nothing, and are worth everything.
What advantage, for instance, did the book-seller
on whom Dr Johnson once called to solicit
employment get from his brutal reply: ‘Go buy
a porter’s knot and carry trunks?’ The surly
natures of such men prevent them from ever entertaining
angels unawares.

It is want of sympathy, however, much more
than a bad nature that produces the ill-mannered
hardness of character so well described by Sydney
Smith: ‘Hardness is a want of minute attention
to the feelings of others. It does not proceed from
malignity or carelessness of inflicting pain, but
from a want of delicate perception of those little
things by which pleasure is conferred or pain
excited. A hard person thinks he has done
enough if he does not speak ill of your relations,
your children, or your country; and then, with
the greatest good-humour and volubility, and with
a total inattention to your individual state and
position, gallops over a thousand fine feelings, and
leaves in every step the mark of his hoofs upon
your heart. Analyse the conversation of a well-bred
man who is clear of the besetting sin of
hardness; it is a perpetual homage of polite
good-nature. In the meantime the gentleman on
the other side of you (a highly moral and respectable
man) has been crushing little sensibilities, and
violating little proprieties, and overlooking little
discriminations; and without violating anything
which can be called a rule, or committing what
can be denominated a fault, has displeased and
dispirited you, from wanting that fine vision
which sees little things, and that delicate touch
which handles them, and that fine sympathy
which this superior moral organisation always
bestows.’

Of course we must not judge people too much
by external manner, for many a man has nothing
of the bear about him but his skin. Nevertheless
as we cannot expect people in general to take time
to see whether we are what we seem to be, it is
foolish to roll ourselves into a prickly ball on the
approach of strangers. If we do so, we cannot
wonder at their exclaiming: ‘A rough Christian!’
as the dog said of the hedgehog.

It is difficult to see how the ‘natural-born fool’—to
use an American expression—can ever hope
to become well mannered, for without good sense,
or rather tact, a man must continually make a fool
of himself in society. Why are women as a rule
better mannered than men? Because their greater
sympathy and power of quicker intuition give to
them finer tact. Nor is talent which knows what
to do of much use, if the tact he wanting which
should enable us to see how to do it. He who has
talent without tact is like the millionaire who
never has a penny of ready-money about him.
Mr Smiles illustrates the difference between a man
of quick tact and of no tact whatever by an interview
which he says once took place between Lord
Palmerston and Mr Behnes the sculptor. At the
last sitting which Lord Palmerston gave him,
Behnes opened the conversation with: ‘Any news,
my lord, from France? How do we stand with
Louis Napoleon?’ The Foreign Secretary raised
his eyebrows for an instant, and quietly replied:
‘Really, Mr Behnes, I don’t know; I have not
seen the newspapers!’ Behnes, with much talent,
was one of the many men who entirely missed
their way in life through want of tact.

Nowhere is there room for the display of good
manners so much as in conversation. Well-mannered
people do not talk too much. Remembering
that the first syllable of the word conversation
is con (with), that it means talking with another,
they abstain from lecturing, and are as ready to
listen as to be heard. They are neither impatient
to interrupt others nor uneasy when interrupted
themselves. Knowing that their anecdote or
sharp reply will keep, or need not find utterance at
all, they give full attention to their companion,
and do not by their looks vote him a bore, or at
least an interruption to their own much better
remarks. But beside the rule, that we should not
be impatient to get in our word, that a few
brilliant flashes of silence should occur in our
conversation, another rule is, not to take for our
theme—ourselves. We must remember that, as a
rule, we and our concerns can be of no more
importance to other men than they and their concerns
are to us. Why then should we go over the
annals of our lives generally and of our diseases in
particular to comparative strangers; why review
the hardships we have suffered in money matters,
in love, at law, in our profession, or loudly boast
of successes in each of these departments? Why,
lastly, should the pride that apes humility induce
us to fish for compliments by talking ad nauseam
of our faults? We need not say that low gossip
or scandal-bearing is quite incompatible with good
manners. ‘The occasions of silence,’ says Bishop
Butler, ‘are obvious—namely when a man has
nothing to say, or nothing but what is better
unsaid; better either in regard to some particular
persons he is present with, or from its being an
interruption to conversation of a more agreeable
kind; or better, lastly, with regard to himself.’

A well-mannered man is courteous to all sorts
and conditions of men. He is respectful to his
inferiors as well as to his equals and superiors.
Honouring the image of God in every man, his
good manners are not reserved for the few who can
pay for them, or who make themselves feared.
Like the gentle summer air, his civility plays round
all alike. ‘The love and admiration,’ says Canon
Kingsley, ‘which that truly brave and loving man
Sir Sidney Smith won from every one, rich and
poor, with whom he came in contact, seems to have
arisen from the one fact, that without, perhaps,
having any such conscious intention, he treated
rich and poor, his own servants, and the noblemen
his guests, alike, and alike courteously, considerately,{392}
cheerfully, affectionately—so leaving a blessing
and reaping a blessing wherever he went.’
Certainly the working-classes of England, however
respectful they may be to those whom—often for
interested reasons—they call ‘their betters,’ are far
from being sufficiently polite to each other. Why
should not British labourers when they meet take
off their hats to each other, and courteously ask
after Mrs Hardwork and family? There is not a
moment of their lives the enjoyment of which
might not be enhanced by kindliness of this sort—in
the workshop, in the street, or at home.

We know that extremes meet, and there is an
over-civility that becomes less than civil, because
it forces people to act contrary to their inclinations.
Well-mannered people consult the wishes
of others rather than their own. They do not
proceed in a tyrannical manner to prescribe what
their friends shall eat and drink, nor do they put
them in the awkward position of having to answer
a thousand apologies for their entertainment.
When guests refuse an offered civility, we ought
not to press it. When they desire to leave our
house, it is really bad manners to lock the stable-door,
hide their hats, and have recourse to similar
artifices to prevent their doing so. As, however,
this zeal of hospitality without knowledge is a good
fault, and one not too common, there is perhaps
no need to say more about it. It leans to virtue’s
side.

We must not confound etiquette with good
manners, for the arbitrary rules of the former are
very often absurd, and differ in various ages and
countries; whereas good manners, founded as they
are on common-sense, are always and everywhere
the same. It would be invidious to illustrate this
assertion from the society of our own country, so
we shall import a reductio ad absurdum of etiquette
from Japan. In The Gentle Life, the following
account is given by a resident at the Japanese
court. ‘When one courtier was insulted by
another, he who bore the insult turned round to
the insulter, and quietly uncovering the stomach,
ripped himself open. The aggressor, by an inexorable
law of etiquette, was bound to follow the
lead, and so the two die. The most heart-rending
look ever witnessed was one given by a Japanese,
who, having been insulted by an American, carried
out the rule, expecting his opponent to follow
suit. But the Yankee would do nothing of the
sort; and the Japanese expired in agonies—not
from the torture of his wound, but from being a
sacrifice to so foolish and underbred a fellow—whilst
the American looked at him in a maze of
wonder.’ If it were not so sad, we might laugh at
such accounts of self-torture, as well as at people
of our own acquaintance who, worshipping conventionality,
are ever on the rack about ‘the right
thing to do,’ about ‘good form.’

But this sort of folly should not blind us to
the value of good manners as distinguished from
etiquette.

Were it not for the oil of civility, how could the
wheels of society continue to work? Money,
talent, rank, these are keys that turn some locks;
but kindness or a sympathetic manner is a master-key
that can open all. If ‘virtue itself offends
when coupled with a forbidding manner,’ how
great must be the power of winning manners, such
as steer between bluntness and plain-dealing,
between giving merited praise and flattery.

Men succeed in their professions quite as much
by complaisance and kindliness of manner as by
talent. Demosthenes, in giving his well-known
advice to an orator—that eloquence consisted in
three things, the first ‘action,’ the second ‘action,’
and the third ‘action’—is supposed to have intended
manner only. A telling preacher in his
opening remarks gains the good-will of his hearers,
and makes them feel both that he has something
to say and that he can say it—by his manner. The
successful medical man on entering a sick-room
inspires into his patients belief in himself, and
that hope which is so favourable to longevity—by
his manner. Considering that jurymen are scarcely
personifications of pure reason unmixed with passion
or prejudice, a barrister cannot afford to
neglect manner if he would bring twelve men
one after another to his way of thinking. Again,
has the business man any stock-in-trade that pays
him better than a good address? And as regards
the ‘survival of the fittest’ in tournaments for a
lady’s hand, is it not a ‘natural selection’ when
the old motto ‘Manners makyth man’ decides the
contest? At least Wilkes, the best-mannered but
ugliest man of his day, thought so. ‘I am,’ he
said, ‘the ugliest man in the three kingdoms; but
if you give me a quarter of an hour’s start, I will
gain the love of any woman before the handsomest.’

If kindliness of disposition be the essence of
good manners, our subject is seen at once to shade
off into the great one of Christianity itself. It is
the heart that makes both the true gentleman and
the great theologian. The apostle Paul (see speech
delivered on Mars’ Hill) always endeavoured to
conciliate his audience when he commenced addressing
them. And his letters, as well as those of
his fellow-apostles, are full of sympathy and consideration
for every one’s feelings, because he had
learned from Him whose sympathy extended to
even the greatest of sinners.

THE DUKE’S PIPER.

A STORY Of THE WEST HIGHLANDS.

IN FOUR CHAPTERS.—CHAPTER II.

‘Oh, Angus!’ Maggie held out her hand to
him on the pier, and he held it as in a vice. ‘It
iss your own poat, then, Angus?’

‘No; she iss not,’ said Angus.

‘No?’

‘No! She iss yours, Maggie! I built her for
ye—every inch of her grew under my own hand—and
she’s no a pad poat at all, though it iss me
that says it——’

‘Well, Angus——’

‘Don’t say another word, but go aboard,’ said
Angus, proceeding down the steep slippery steps
to the loch, leading Maggie gallantly by the hand.
Speedily the rope was unloosed, the white sail
spread to the breeze, and the boat moved gracefully
and rapidly, under a glorious sunset sky,
out into the loch. Maggie sat holding the tiller
silently while Angus adjusted the ropes. The
loch was radiant from shore to shore in the rich
evening light; quickly the white houses of the
town were left in the distance; and hardly a movement
but the delicious ripple of water cleft by the{393}
boat’s bow, or the cry of a sea-gull sailing lazily
overhead, disturbed the stillness. Here and there
in the pools among the boulders in lonely parts
of the shore, a heron stood silent as its own
shadow and solitary as a hermit; from the grassy
hollows by the beach a thin white mist rose,
softening the green wooded slopes, and adding a
sense of distance to the heathery ridges in the
background, glorified by the red autumn sunset.
Maggie was supremely happy. When the sail was
fairly set, Angus came and stretched himself by
her side.

‘And ye think she iss a nice poat, and ye like
her?’ he said, looking into Maggie’s face.

‘It wass fery kind of ye to think of giving me
such a present as this, Angus; but I cannot possibly
take it.’

‘Maggie,’ said Angus, taking her disengaged
hand in his, ‘I hef long wanted to tell you something—indeed
I hef, Maggie—not that I’m a goot
hand at telling anything I want, but—all the time
I wass building her, and that wass longer than ye
might think, Maggie—I hef looked to this moment
as a reward—when I would see you sitting there,
looking that happy and that peautiful—yes,
Maggie, peautiful, and pleased with my work—and
proud am I to see ye so pleased wi’ a
trifle’——

‘But it iss not a trifle,’ said the maiden interrupting
him; ‘it wass a great undertaking! I
nefer saw anything I liked half so much.’

‘But it iss nothing, I tell you, Maggie, to what
I would gif you if you would be willing to take it—nothing!
I would like you, Maggie, to take all
I hef—and myself too. It iss true I am only a
common sailor, but Maggie, my heart iss fery
warm to you. Many’s the time, when I wass a
hundred and maybe thousants of miles away from
here, I wad pe thinking of you—many a time in
the middle of the night, when I wass on the deck
alone, watching and looking at the stars under a
foreign sky, I would single out a particular star
and call it Maggie’s eye, and watch it lovingly,
cass I thocht you might pe looking at it too, even
if you wass not thinking of me thousants of miles
off; and it makes me fery unhappy when I’m a
long way off, to think that maybe I am forgotten,
and some other man iss trying to get your love,
and maybe I losing my chance of happiness for
life, cass, like a fool, I held my peace, when by
speaking a word my happiness and yours might pe
secure.’

Angus’s arm had stolen round the girl’s waist as
he proceeded in the speech that was a direct outflow
from his heart. She did not try to speak for
a little. Angus saw that her eyes were filled with
tears.

‘It wass wrong of ye, Angus, efer to think I
would forget ye,’ she said.

‘Then ye do think sometimes apoot me when I
am not near you?’

‘Angus, how can you pe speaking nonsense like
that!’

‘But it iss not nonsense to me, Maggie,’ said
her lover seriously; ‘I love you, Maggie, as I love
no woman in the world; and Maggie, if you were
to—to—it wad break my’——

It was the old story. Two human souls meeting
under the light of heaven, each recognising in
the other that which each yearned for, to give
completeness to life; the spoken word being the
outward force impelling them towards each other,
as two dewdrops merge into one by a movement
external to both. The Highland girl had no desire
to break her lover’s heart; nay, she was ready to
give her own in exchange for his love with all the
impulsiveness of a simple and true nature. As
the boat sped on they noted not that twilight was
deepening into evening, that the stars were myriad-eyed
above them, and the crescent moon glimmered
over the hills and shone in quivering tracks along
the loch. So it came about that at the same
moment of time when the piper in the clachan was
apostrophising Angus’s father in the words already
recorded—’Nae doot your son Angus will pe
wanting me to learn him to play the pipes too;
and nae doot, when he comes for that purpose, he
will look to have his crack wi’ Maggie,’ &c.—his
daughter’s arms were being thrown impulsively
about Angus’s neck, and Angus himself was the
happiest man in the Western Highlands.

Maggie reached Glen Heath with a joyous
heart. She was there before the piper. She
speedily girt on her apron, and with tucked-up
sleeves proceeded to the more prosaic duty
of baking ‘scones’ that might be warm and
palatable for the piper’s supper; and as she
rolled out the dough, and patted and rolled and
kneaded it, and turned it before the fire until an
appetising browniness covered each surface, she
sang merrily one of the merriest of the sad Gaelic
melodies.

But the piper was late. The white cloth was
spread, and the scones had time to cool, before
Diana leaping to her feet, stretched herself, yawned,
and went to the door sniffing. Maggie opened the
door immediately; the piper swung along the path
unsteadily. The dog went to meet him without
enthusiasm, half-doubtful of her reception, and only
narrowly escaped the kick which the piper aimed
at her.

‘Get out, ye prute!’ he said, as he came in;
and when the animal still came fawning towards
him, he hurled his bagpipes with great force at
her head, only with the result, however, of breaking
the pipe’s mouthpiece. ‘O the prute!’ he
cried when he saw what had happened; ‘she has
proken my favourite shanter—the shanter that
I’ve played wi’ for fifteen years. O the prute!
I’ll cut her throat, to teach her to keep oot o’ my
way. My best shanter too!’

‘Come, dad, you are late,’ said Maggie cheerily,
going to meet him; ‘you hef had a long walk. I
hef boiled some eggs for ye, and baked some scones;
come, hef some supper before ye go to bed.’

‘Ay, ay, ye are a praw lass, Maggie, one o’ the
right sort,’ the piper said. ‘But to think my poor
shanter’s broken. I will nefer see her like again
whatefer!’

The piper sat down to supper with an enormous
appetite, and Maggie waited upon him devotedly,
uncertain whether she should reveal her secret or
not in the present dubious state of her father’s
temper.

‘Anypody peen here for me the day?’ he asked
between mouthfuls.

‘Yes, Angus MacTavish wass here in the afternoon;
and he’——

The piper laid down his knife, looked straight
in his daughter’s face with a fierceness that startled
her, saying: ‘Hang Angus MacTavish and efery
man i’ their black clan! A MacTavish nefer{394}
darkens my threshold again! If Angus MacTavish
efer comes to my house he will live to rue it. I
hate efery living MacTavish!’

Maggie looked in her father’s face amazed. To
violent language she was well accustomed; but
sober or otherwise, she had never heard him utter
a word against the MacTavishes until now.

‘Come, dad,’ she said after a short silence, during
which time she decided it would be better to
say nothing of what was uppermost in her mind
until morning—’come, dad; something has vexed
you to-night. You will be petter in the morning.
Angus iss the best friend either you or I hef in
the wide world.’

‘I tell you,’ burst out the piper, ‘I will not hef
his name mentioned in my hoose, not by you or
any other! And if you go apoot with him, Meg,
as I hef seen ye do lately, I’ll—I’ll maybe pack
you out of doors too!’

The tears were in poor Maggie’s eyes, but she
comforted herself as she put up the bolt in the
door for the night, by assuring herself, as she
heard the piper stumbling up-stairs to his room:
‘Poor dad, he iss worse than usual to-night.’ And
when she slept, she dreamed of Angus.

CHAPTER III.

The piper’s anger seemed to be modified on the
following morning; but he still growled when his
daughter introduced the name MacTavish as he
sat before a steaming bowl of porridge and a basin
of milk, which he attacked with a large horn spoon
and an appetite comparable only to the giant’s who
fell a victim to the adroitness of Jack the celebrated
Giant-killer. Maggie’s enthusiastic account
of Angus’s gift of the boat was received with a
critical coldness that made her heart sink within
her.

‘O ay, Maggie; it iss no doot a peautiful poat—she
wass sure to pe that if Angus built her; but it
iss fery easy to see what Angus MacTavish iss
driving at. Maybe he’ll find he has peen counting
without his host mirofer, if he thinks he iss going
to get you for his wife by gifing you a fishing-poat;
what wass a fishing-poat to a lass like you?—as if
ye wass a poor lass! Ye’re no to pe fashing your
head apoot Angus MacTavish, lass—no; he iss no
doot a cood lad, but no for the like o’ you! There
iss Sandy Buchanan noo, the lawyer’s clerk mirofer,
a far more likely lad to make ye a cood man,
and willing?’

‘O dad, and how can ye pe saying such things
to me on the happiest day o’ my life, for Angus
asked me yesterday to be his wife; and I—I’——

‘Ye what?’ said the piper, laying down his
spoon and eyeing his daughter sternly.

‘Weel, dad, I—I—didna say No.’

‘Then I’m thinking ye’ll hef to go this fery
day whatefer and say “No,” my lass, for I’m
telling ye I won’t hef it!’

Maggie was not generally one of the tearful sort,
but the sudden emphasis of her father’s words
filled her eyes with tears and drove her to silence.
She did not trust herself to speak, but lifted her
pail hurriedly with a flushed face, and went
sorrowfully to milk the ‘kye,’ whose deep impatient
lowing from the byre was urgently demanding
attention. When she was half across the court-yard
she heard her father calling her back. She
turned and went to him.

‘Maggie,’ he said, drawing her to his knee and
holding her brown face between his rough hands
tenderly, ‘it iss not crying ye are, my bonny lass?
No; I wad not hef my lass crying for any MacTavish
that efer drank a dram! Not that Angus
iss a pad lad—no, I will not say he iss that—he
plays the pipes petter than any lad of his years
I efer saw—but the MacTavishes—— Ah weel,
they’re no jist the clan that the Camerons should
marry into. Noo, dry your eyes, lass, and pe off
to your milking mirofer—Crumple iss moaning as
if her udder wass going to crack.’

The maiden said, nothing; she kissed him, but
the smile was all vanished from her face as she
stooped to relieve Crumple of her milky burden.

The piper went to the stable, and the sound of
his whistling rang over the place as he brushed
down his horses and gave them their morning
feed.

Maggie was in strong hopes, as the morning
advanced, that before nightfall, when she expected
Angus to come, the tempest would be over, and
Angus hailed by her father in his old manner.
This hope was dispelled, and poor Maggie made
miserable beyond bearing when her father returned
to his mid-day meal. The piper had early in the
forenoon taken his fishing-rod and gone to a
favourite spot of his known as ‘the Black Hole,’
on the stream, where he had wiled away many an
hour and tempted to the bank many a fat spotted
trout. When he returned to dinner, his daughter
saw with surprise that he brought no fish with
him, and that his fishing-rod was broken into half-a-dozen
pieces; and moreover, that he was white
with anger. Fingal his collie was following with
dejected tail and a torn ear, apparently in as bad
a temper as his master, judging from the snarling
greeting he gave Diana who went to meet them.

‘Py the powers, but I’ll put the law on him;
I’ll hef him put in the jail,’ cried the piper, as
he went into his kitchen and tossed the fragments
of his fishing-rod into a corner. ‘The plaguard,
to preak my fishing-rod and steal my fish
mirofer; but I’ll hef the law on him! He shall
go pefore the shirra as sure as my name iss John
Cameron!’

Maggie did not know that Mr MacTavish was at
the same moment on his way home with a swollen
black eye, carrying with him a goodly fish that
ought to have been in the piper’s basket, ‘Jet’
limping behind his master very much bruised
indeed.

‘And it iss the Teuk that wull pe told all apoot
it; the prood teffle, poaching the salmon like a
common thief, and knocking a man apoot as if
he wass a lower animal,’ said the game-keeper,
recording his grievance indignantly to his buxom
wife, in answer to sympathetic ejaculations as
to the state of his eye, when he returned to his
dinner.

True to his word, the piper sent the herd-boy
to the lawyer’s office to tell Sandy Buchanan, with
the piper’s compliments, &c., that Mr Cameron
desired to see him at Glen Heath on important
business.

‘Well, dad,’ Maggie had said impetuously when
she heard this message given to ‘Geordy,’ as they
sat at dinner, hardly understanding from what
motive her father sought the presence of the
detested Sandy Buchanan, ‘I can only say that I{395}
shall not bide in the hoose if that red-headed, ill-looking
man comes to the hoose; I won’t inteed!’

‘Ye are red-headed yourself!’ said the piper
abruptly.

‘No; I’m not.’

‘Yes, ye are. The man canna help himself if
the Almichty gef him a red head. The best o’
folks iss red-headed. I’m red-headed; and ye are
red as a fox or a squirrel yourself, I tell ye’——

‘Well, well, dad, we’ll no quarrel apoot that;
maybe I am; but’——

‘I tell ye what it iss, Maggie, ye will bide at
home when Mr Buchanan comes, and ye’ll pehave
yourself civilly, or maybe it may pe worse for ye.
Angus MacTavish hass turned your head; but
he’ll get a bit o’ my mind maybe yet, as his father
hass pefore him mirofer, and that pefore the set o’
sun too!’

‘O dad, dad! ye’ll break my heart, so ye will,
inteed and inteed ye will, dad, if it iss in that
way ye speak o’ Angus.’

‘I’ll not hef him come apoot my hoose longer!
He iss a wanderin’ rake; efery sailor iss that, and
no fit to make a cood huspand to the like o’ you.’

‘He iss not a rake! Ye are no speaking the
words of truth, father!’ exclaimed the girl passionately.

‘Efery sailor iss a rake, Maggie; eferypody knows
that; and I daresay he iss none better than his
neibors.’

Stung by the cruel words, Maggie ran to the
dairy, where she shut herself in and burst into
a flood of tears. The Highland maid had few
hatreds; she had the impulsive almost passionate
temperament of every true Celt, but her impulsiveness
ran in loving channels. But if she did hate,
she hated warmly—also after the Celtic manner.
And the one living object for whom she felt undying
scorn was this Sandy Buchanan, who knew
more of her father’s affairs than any man in
Inversnow; and whose studied civility to her on
all occasions, and attentions more or less marked,
were resented by her as she would have resented
another man’s insults. Perhaps he was all the
more despised because he kept at a respectful
distance when Angus was at home; a peculiarity
that Maggie attributed to a certain dread of physical
consequences, that was not to be wondered at
in a weak-legged milksop fellow like him. But
whenever the Duke’s yacht was away, Mr Sandy
danced attendance upon her assiduously, insisting
upon seeing her safely home from the kirk on
Sunday evenings, and otherwise thrusting his
obnoxious presence upon her in ways which she
considered offensive.

And sure enough, just as the sun was veering
round to the west, the piper was seated at the
table of his best parlour with a bottle of whisky
and glasses, and a plate of Maggie’s crisp oatmeal
bannocks between him and the detested Sandy
Buchanan, whose breath blew forth gales of peppermint—an
odour that Maggie always associated with
him, and put the worst construction upon—as he
listened patiently to the rather confused statement
of the piper’s grievance. Sandy tried honestly to
look at the case from the piper’s stand-point; but
put in any form, it appeared that if any legal
action was to be taken the decision could hardly
take the only form which would satisfy the irate
piper—namely the immediate arrest, trial, conviction,
and imprisonment of Mr MacTavish for
an undefined number of months in the county
jail. Sandy gathered that the piper had succeeded
in hooking a ‘cood seven-pound grilse;’ that while
he was landing the same, Mr MacTavish appeared
on the scene threatening to report him to the
Duke for poaching; words passed between them,
not of a complimentary nature, ending ultimately
in one of two catastrophes—the piper could not
clearly remember which—either the game-keeper
had seized the piper’s rod with result of breaking
it to pieces, or the piper had broken his fishing-rod
over the game-keeper’s back; and then a
struggle had ensued, the upshot of which was
that the latter walked off with the ‘grilse’ and
a black eye, while the former did the like with
his shattered fishing-rod and empty basket, each
vowing to lay the matter before ‘the shirra.’

The Sheriff, as represented by Sandy Buchanan
the fiscal’s clerk, thought, much to the delight
of the piper, that he had good ground for an
action for assault against Mr MacTavish; and
presently father and daughter (poor Maggie was
compelled to remain in the room to hear the
brutal manner in which he, a Cameron, had been
treated by a MacTavish) were thrown into a state
of mental confusion by the adroit manner in which
Sandy now addressing the piper as ‘our client,’
now as ‘the plaintiff;’ both of which phrases
the piper received and acknowledged in the light
of a personal compliment, and also by liberal but
not very coherent allusion to Act of Queen Victoria
this, and chapter of Act Queen Victoria that;
all tending to prove the piper the most abused and
injured of men.

In the midst of the conference Angus MacTavish
appeared at the door. He indiscreetly opened
it and looked in without knocking. The piper,
who was feeling at the moment keenly alive to
his own importance, with the delightful sense that
he had matter to bring before the ‘shirra’ (as he
called the Sheriff), looked up and frowned, fingering
his glass of whisky the while.

‘What idiot iss it that walks into a shentleman’s
hoose withoot knocking at the door, and withoot
waiting to be asked to come in?’

‘Come, piper,’ said Angus, walking boldly into
the room, somewhat surprised to see Buchanan
there, but holding an outstretched hand to the
piper; ‘it iss not the first, nor the second, nor
maybe the twentieth time I hef bed your hospitality,
and I am thinking it will not pe the last
time—and that without claiming it.’

‘My name is Maister Cameron—Maister Cameron
of Glen Heath, Maister Angus MacTavish! And
apoot its peing the last time or not depends upon
more consiterations than one!’ The piper spoke
with a sternness and pomposity of manner that
made his visitor allow his hand to drop quickly to
his side, and brought an indignant flush to the
young face.

‘What does it all mean?’ said Angus in a bewildered
way, turning to Maggie.

Maggie stood behind her father’s chair the personification
of misery. The man of law sat looking
stolidly before him with the most wooden of
expressions on his pale face.

‘It means,’ said the piper in the same harsh sharp
key, ‘that that is the door, that yonder is the
road, that the quicker ye are there the petter it
will pe for you, and the petter pleased too will all
in this room pe.’

{396}

‘Iss that it?’ said Angus slowly, looking still at
Maggie, and turning again towards the door.

‘No, Angus, no! It iss not true that all in this
room will pe petter pleased that ye should go. It
iss not true!’ burst out the girl in the fullness of
her heart.

‘But it shall pe true!’ shouted the piper, bringing
his hand firmly down upon the table. Angus
did not stay to argue the matter, but sorrowfully
went his way.

‘Stop that whining, Maggie—stop that foolish
whining; I will not hef it!’ said the piper, turning
upon his daughter fiercely, who tried in vain
to repress a sob as Angus disappeared.

‘O Sandy Buchanan, it iss muckle that ye’ll hef
to answer for, if ye’ll make me that I’ll hate my
own father too,’ said the poor girl, storming out
into open mutiny.

‘Leave the room, Maggie!’ cried the piper,
waving his hand. The maiden gladly availed herself
of her dismissal, and fled to the solitude of her
own room. ‘Cott has not gifen to women the
brains to understand pusiness,’ he continued, generalising
apologetically to his guest.

A week passed, and the piper’s wrath against the
clan MacTavish endured. The feud was not one-sided.
Mr MacTavish replied to a letter full of
nothing, expressed in the bitterest legal phraseology,
written by Sandy Buchanan on the piper’s behalf,
by a document of elaborate counter-charges, written
by the banker-lawyer of the town, breathing
threatenings and lawsuits. And the case promised
to be profitable to both of these astute gentlemen,
as such cases generally manage to be.

HINTS TO SICK-NURSES.

Trying as are many, indeed we may truly say
most of the duties of the sick-room, nothing
renders them so much so as the fact that the
disease under which the patient is suffering is of
an infectious, or of a contagious nature.

There is a great deal to be said on the head
of avoidance of infection or contagion, while
nursing a sufferer through disease of either one
nature or the other. In this as in all other matters
connected with sick-nursing, heroic, would-be-martyr-like
conduct is absurd and blamable,
for prudence goes for a great deal, and indiscretion
brings trouble and suffering on others as well
as yourself. ‘I don’t mind what risk I run; I am
too anxious to think about myself!’ always seems
to us a feeble and (to use a strong northern
word) a very feckless sort of remark, only made,
in nine cases out of ten, to exact the tribute of
a surprised or admiring look. On the contrary,
the aim and end of every sick-nurse should be to
do as much good and be as much comfort as
possible with the least possible risk. To achieve
this, the smallest and most apparently trivial
precautions are worth taking, in order to prevent
the friends and relatives about you having the
additional trouble and anxiety of nursing you as
a second invalid, just when ‘number one’ is
recovering.

‘I am so anxious I can’t eat! I haven’t touched
a morsel to-day!’ are by no means uncommon
remarks to hear from the lips of some one who is
nursing, or assisting to nurse a case of infectious
disease. Yet this abstinence is just the very worst
thing you can possibly do under such circumstances,
and the most calculated to render yourself an easy
prey to that unseen influence pervading the air,
and like the seeds of some poisonous plant, ready
to take root if soil be found favourable to its
growth. Feebleness, over-weariness, exhaustion,
want of sufficient nourishment—all these things
aid in preparing this suitable soil, and woo the
disease germs that are floating about in the air
to take root and bring forth bitter fruit. A vigorous
cheerful person, capable of strong self-control,
often seems able to defy the closest contact with
disease; and even if some malaise (often closely
allied to the disease of the patient) knocks over
the willing nurse for a time, the elastic constitution
of body and mind seems to throw off the
poison, and no serious illness results. Nothing is
more common than the occurrence of these spurious
attacks of illness, allied to that from which the
person nursed is suffering, and the following case
is an example.

A lady nursing a friend in small-pox, after
lengthened attendance in the sick-room, was
attacked by faintness, shivering, a sensation of
nausea, and violent headache. Both the nurse and
her friends concluded that a seizure of the loathsome
disease from which the patient was suffering
was inevitable. However, the following day
several large blotches appeared on various parts
of the body; all unpleasant symptoms gradually
disappeared; and in a day or two—without the
original sufferer having had any idea that her
nurse was kept away by anything more serious
than need of rest—she was able to return to her
duties, and never suffered any further deterioration
of health. In the same way we have known
those who were nursing cases of fever to be suddenly
attacked by sore throat, headache, and
vertigo, these symptoms passing off after twenty-four
or forty-eight hours, and no further evil
resulting. A vigorous constitution, care while
nurse-tending as to diet and exercise, joined to a
mind calm and equable, and ready to face all
possibilities without flurry, feverish excitement,
or fear, will in many cases enable the sick-nurse
to throw off the seeds of disease. But a malignant
influence which floats in the atmosphere
of the sick-room, pervading the breath of the sick
person, and hanging like a bad odour about the
bed-clothes, carpets, and even the wall-paper of the
room, is necessarily a difficult enemy to evade—and
such is infection. And any one who has a
timorous dread of it is far better away from the
sick-room.

This is, we think, a matter that cannot be too
strongly insisted upon. To watch for symptoms
is often to develop them; and constant dwelling
upon the condition of any one organ of the body,
and apprehension as to disease in that organ, will
often produce at all events functional derangement{397}
if no greater evil. By this we do not mean that
neglect of one’s self is ever justifiable, but only that
fearful and timorous apprehension is deleterious.

So strongly has this fact impressed itself upon
us with regard to infection, that we even think it
would be well to strain a point, and encourage a
person to absent herself from the sick-room, rather
than run the risk of having a nurse of this temperament
near a patient suffering from disease of a
catching nature. In sickness the perceptions are
often rendered painfully acute, and the mind
naturally much concentrated on itself, is therefore
ready to take offence or be troubled by trifles.
We have seen a patient shrink from the ministrations
of a person whom he felt to be in a state
of fear.

Just in the same way, if the duties of the sick-room
are (as they often must be) unpleasant, a
look of aversion or disgust is enough to wound the
sufferer beyond the power of caress or words to
heal! A woman who turns sick, or is obliged to
put a handkerchief to her nose at a foul smell—who
shudders at the sight of blood, ought never
to be in a sick-room. The same may be said of
one who is always feeling her own pulse, or (as
we once saw) looking at her own tongue in the
glass (by no means a graceful proceeding), to see
if symptoms are ‘declaring themselves.’ All or
much of this sort of nervousness may be affectation;
but at the same time we must not judge
unkindly of those who from natural temperament
dread infection, and are therefore likely to fall a
prey to it.

And now, taking it for granted that we have a
tolerably sensible woman to deal with, and that
she is called upon to nurse a case of fever, small-pox,
diphtheria, or any such-like unpleasant ailment,
what precautions are best calculated to
reduce the risk of infection to a minimum?—a
risk which we cannot do away with, but are
certainly called upon to guard against to the
utmost in our power. Attention to diet, so as
to ward off great exhaustion at any time, and
taking at least half an hour’s exercise in the open
air, are excellent rules to observe. Never go into
the sick-room fasting. And here we must strongly
urge upon every sick-nurse the value of coffee as a
restorative. In times of cholera epidemics among
our soldiers, the first precaution the authorities
invariably take is to order a cup of strong coffee
to be served out to each man the first thing in the
morning. The effects of this plan are known to
be admirable.

Take a brisk walk shortly after your breakfast;
order a cup of hot strong coffee to be ready when
you come in, and take it before going into the
patient’s room. Nothing helps to throw off the
weariness of a night’s watching like this turn
in the fresh air (even if taken of necessity under
an umbrella), and the coffee braces the nerves
and invigorates the system.

To speak of the avoidance of alcoholic stimulants
is to enter upon delicate ground; though
we are of opinion that in serious cases the nurse
should seldom touch anything stronger than coffee
throughout the whole time. This abstaining gives
a power of recovering with great promptitude from
the effects of long-continued watching and heavy
duties in the sick-room. Depend upon it that the
recurring glass of sherry, the oft-repeated ‘nip’ of
brandy-and-water, do a world of harm both in the
sick-room and out of it.

That wine and brandy are valuable restoratives
in weakness, cannot be denied; and it is
certain that there are many constitutions which
need a moderate amount of stimulant; but that
stimulants are taken to a perfectly needless and
most pernicious extent, even by those who by
no means come under the term ‘drunkard,’ and
that among these are numbered women as well
as men, is a stubborn and unhappy fact. One of
the many evils resulting from this over-use of
stimulants is this: when severe illness and prostration
call for wine or brandy, the system is so
used to their action that but little benefit accrues;
at all events, little when compared to that prompt
answer the constitution gives to even small doses,
when that constitution has either made very
sparing use, or no use at all, of such whips and
spurs to the energies of life.

The proper ventilation of a sick-room is a
most important means of lessening the danger of
infection; and this more particularly in such
diseases as fever, small-pox, or diphtheria—that is,
diseases coming distinctly under the head infectious.
In those which are contagious, ventilation
is of course also important, but not equally so.
And this leads us on to speak of the difference
between infection and contagion. Infection is
subtly diffused through the atmosphere, the patient’s
breath, the clothes, hangings, walls, &c. Contagion
consists in the disease being propagated by the
emanations of the sick person. It is therefore
obvious that the latter (contagion) is more easily
guarded against by a prudent person than the
former (infection). The plentiful use of disinfectants
seems to be one of the best preventives
against contagion; but of course all such details
are generally regulated by the medical man in
attendance, and no better advice can be given to
the amateur sick-nurse than to follow his directions
implicitly.

We will, before leaving this subject, quote one
passage from Dr Aitken’s excellent work, The
Science and Practice of Medicine. In volume one,
page 222, he says: ‘Ill-health of any kind therefore
favours the action of epidemic influences.’
Thus then, we see how one of our highest medical
authorities bears out the truth of what we have
said—namely that for the sick-nurse to neglect her
own health—to go without sufficient and regular
food—in a word, to lower by any means whatever
the standard of her own physical condition, is to
intensify the risk of infection or contagion for herself,
and trouble and anxiety for those belonging
to her.

We have no belief in the disinfecting of clothes
that have been worn during attendance on cases of
an infectious nature. It is far better to wear an old
dress, wrapper, shawl, &c., and when the illness is
over have them burned. The same thing applies
to clothing worn by the patient.

We remember one most lamentable case where
(as was supposed) everything was disinfected,
washed, and exposed to the air; yet the gift of a
night-dress to a poor woman resulted in virulent
small-pox, and the sufferer, a young married
woman, was cruelly disfigured in spite of the best
care and nursing an hospital could give.

It comes then to this: infection cannot be{398}
evaded; but risk may be reduced to a minimum
by an observance of the precautions we have noted,
by the exercise of plain common-sense, and by the
reality—not romance—of devotion to the work
undertaken by the sick-nurse.

INDIAN MILITARY SPORTS.

For the following amusing account of some of the
more popular of Eastern regimental sports we are
indebted to an officer in India. He proceeds as
follows:

The sports of the native Indian cavalry, commonly
called Nesi Basi, are much encouraged by
the authorities, as to excel in them requires steady
nerve and good riding. I believe it is the custom
in most regiments to devote one morning a week
to these essentially military games. They are most
popular with the men, it is easy to see, for besides
the hundred or so who generally turn out to compete,
the greater part of the regiment is present on
foot as spectators.

The proceedings generally commence with tent-pegging
pure and simple. A short peg is driven
into the ground, while some two hundred yards
distant the competitors are drawn up in line, each
on his own horse; for the native sowar, like the
vassal of our own past times, comes mounted and
armed to his regiment. While off duty the native
soldier can dress as he pleases, so on occasions like
the present, individual taste breaks forth in showy
waistcoat or gorgeous coloured turban. Each man
carries a bamboo spear in his hand. At a signal
given by the wordi major or native adjutant, the
first man, his spear held across his body, starts at
a canter; his wiry little country-bred knows as
well as he does what is in hand, and as the speed
quickens to a gallop, the pace is regular and
measured, enabling his rider to sit as steady as a
rock. When about fifty yards from the object the
sowar turns his spear-point downward, bends well
over the saddle till his hand is below the girth,
and then, when you almost think he has gone past,
an imperceptible turn of the wrist and—swish—the
spear is brandished round his head, with the peg
transfixed on its point. Another is quickly driven
into the ground, and the next man comes up; he
too hits the peg, but perhaps fails to carry it away
to the required distance, for it drops from his spear-point
as he is in the act of whirling it round his
head. This does not count, and he retires discomfited.
The third misses entirely; the fourth strikes
but does not remove the peg from the ground;
while after them in quick succession come two or
three who carry it off triumphantly. With varying
fortune the whole squad goes by; and it is
interesting to note the style of each horseman as
he passes, some sitting rigid till within a few yards
of the mark; others bending over and taking aim
while still at a distance; some silent, others shouting
and gesticulating; while one no sooner has his
steed in motion than he gives vent to a certain
tremolo sound, kept up like the rattle of a steam-engine,
till close upon the peg, which having skilfully
transfixed, he at the same time throws his
voice up an octave or two, in triumph I suppose,
as he gallops round and joins his comrades. Two
or three men now bring up their horses with
neither saddle nor bridle, and with consummate
skill, guiding them by leg-pressure alone, carry
off the peg triumphantly, amid well-deserved cries
of ‘Shabash!‘ from the spectators.

The next part of the programme is ‘lime-cutting.’
Three lemons are put up on sticks about
twenty yards apart; and as the sowar gallops past,
tulwar in hand, he has successively to cut them in
two without touching the sticks—a by no means
easy feat. Then three handkerchiefs are placed on
the ground; and a horseman, riding barebacked
a good-looking bay, flies past in a very cloud of
dust, and on his way stoops, picks up, and throws
over his shoulder each handkerchief as he comes
to it.

And now we come to the most difficult feat
of all. A piece of wood a little larger than a tent-peg
is driven into the ground, and a notch having
been made in the top, a rupee is therein placed so
as to be half hidden from view. The feat is to
ride at this, lance in hand, and to knock out the
rupee without touching the wood—a performance
requiring rare skill and dexterity; yet it is generally
accomplished successfully, once or twice, by
the best hands of the regiment.

Perhaps the proceedings may close with something
of a comic nature, one man coming past
hanging by his heels from the saddle, shouting
and gesticulating; others facing their horses’ tails,
firing pistols at a supposed enemy, with more
antics of a like nature, often ending in an ignominious
cropper, though the nimble fareem generally
succeeds in landing on his feet.

The sports of the infantry are of a totally
different nature. The last time I had an opportunity
of being present at a tamasha of this kind
was a pleasant breezy day on the banks of the
Ganges. A space about twelve yards by fifteen
was prepared by picking up and softening the
ground till it presented the appearance of a
minute portion of Rotten Row. One side of this
space was reserved for the European officers and
their friends; while round the other three stood or
squatted the sepoys and any of their acquaintances
from the neighbouring villages whom they chose
to invite. In the rear were booths, whose owners
were doing a brisk trade in native sweetmeats,
while some twenty tom-toms kept up a discordant
and never-ending din. Every native present, from
havildar to sepoy, was clothed only in the langoti
or loin-cloth, to give free play to the muscles of
the limbs and chest. At each corner of the arena
stood a man in authority, like a Master of the
Ceremonies, to see that the sports were carried on
in a proper manner and that nobody allowed his
temper to get the better of him. One of these
was a remarkably fine-looking man, who, had he
been of somewhat lighter hue and clothed in the
garments of civilisation, might have passed as an
English aristocrat of the first-water; while another,
of powerful build and with mutton-chop whiskers,
was the very image of an eminent City man of my
acquaintance.

We arrived on the scene a little late, but were{399}
immediately shewn to a seat, one of the native
officers coming up to hand us a plateful of cut-up
almonds and cocoa-nut, with raisins and spices
intermixed. Of course we took some, as this was
the native welcome. We were hardly seated when
two wiry-looking young men stepped into the
arena. First, they each bent down and raised to
the forehead a little earth in the right hand.
This was poojah, or a request for help from their
deity in the approaching struggle; though I suspect
in most cases it was a meaningless performance;
for I saw a little Christian boy who played first-cornet
in the band, go through the same manœuvre.
The two wrestlers then went to opposite corners,
and began some of the queerest antics I ever saw,
slapping their chests, thighs, and arms; first hopping
on the left, then on the right foot; bending over
and jumping back, and recalling in some degree
the movements of the ballet; and then, after a few
feints, they clutched each other by the arms close
to the shoulder, while their two bullet-heads met
together and acted as battering-rams. This went
on till one man presented a chance by incautiously
lifting his foot, when down he went in a trice, his
adversary falling on him. This, however, was not
a ‘fall.’ While on the ground, they turned and
twisted and writhed like snakes, their lean legs
curling round each other in a manner marvellous
to behold, their efforts being greeted every now and
then by applause, led by the Masters of the Ceremonies
aforesaid, given in a sing-song way, and
always ending in a long-drawn ‘Tee’ (Victory). It
was almost wearisome to watch them, until at
length the bout was brought to an end by one
man being fairly thrown on his back, his adversary
keeping clear. This was a true ‘fall.’

Couple after couple set to in the same way, sometimes
a raw youth requiring the friendly admonition
of the watchful M. C. to make him keep his
temper, though I must say the friendly way in
which these exceedingly rough sports were carried
on was deserving of the highest praise.

I could hardly believe my eyes when I saw the
aristocrat and the mutton-chop whiskers man,
throwing aside their dignity, enter the arena and
go through the same antics, the latter’s pirouettes
and pas de Zéphir resembling the gambols of a
young elephant; but nevertheless they went
through the affair as their predecessors had done.

Between times the little boys from the neighbouring
villages would rush in as they saw their
opportunity, and seizing a long sword with a
handle that covered the arm to the elbow make
cuts and points innumerable at a supposed enemy,
dancing the while, and never leaving the spot
where they commenced. The meaning of this I
could not divine, but it pleased the spectators, for
they did not withhold their applause, the aristocrat
himself on one occasion prolonging the usual
‘Tee’ in a sonorous voice after every one else had
finished.

I was told that this sort of thing went on from
early morning till sunset; but though interesting
for an hour, it soon begins to pall on the ordinary
European; so, after seeing a little single-stick and
club practice, excellent of their kind, we took our
departure.

I think nothing can speak better for the class of
men we have in our native army than the genuine
interest they take in these thoroughly manly
sports. While engaged in them, the habitual mark
of deference worn by the native soldier in the
presence of his officer drops from his face, and we
can see him as he is, with all his keen appreciation
of fun and skill, in which he is not one whit
behind his white comrade in the regular army.

A PROMISING FIELD FOR EMIGRANTS.

Among the colonial papers just laid before parliament
will be found an account, by the governor of
Tasmania, of a tour recently made by him, in
company with the Minister of Lands and Works,
through the north-eastern and eastern districts of
that very fine island, worthy to be called the
England of the southern hemisphere, which seem
to us to meet the requirements of the class of
emigrants alluded to; and it is to these localities
that the following brief notes refer.

The north-eastern districts of Tasmania are only
now attracting general attention, owing to the
recent discoveries of tin; and Mr Weld undertook
his long journey on horseback because he was
desirous of seeing for himself enough to enable
him to judge of their capabilities both as mining
and agricultural districts. The result, as will be
seen, sufficed to convince him that the future
of Tasmania will be materially affected by the
development of these regions. The north-eastern
corner of the island is chiefly hilly, and even
mountainous; but it contains large tracts estimated
at fully seventy thousand acres of undulating
and almost level land of very superior quality,
and the soil of a great part of the hills themselves
is exceedingly rich. Mr Weld describes the country
as being almost entirely clothed with the most
luxuriant vegetation. The Eucalypti on the flats
and rich hill-sides attain a great size; and the
valuable blackwood, the native beech or myrtle,
the silver wattle (Acacia dealbata), the sassafras,
and the tree-ferns and climbers, add beauty to
the forest. The tree-ferns are most remarkable
for the great profusion and luxuriance with which
they grow, reaching occasionally a height of thirty
feet, and being thickly spread over the whole
district.

The region, Governor Weld says, may be
described from a settler’s point of view as a
‘poor man’s country;’ that is, it is best adapted
for settlement by men who will labour with their
own hands, and who have sons and daughters
to work with them. The following anecdote is
suggestive, and is worthy of reproduction in its
entirety: ‘In the heart of the district I remained
a day at the comfortable homestead of a most
respectable settler, a native of Somersetshire,
named Fry, who, with the assistance of his wife,
four sons, and five daughters, had in eight years
cleared and laid down in grass about two hundred
and fifty acres of the three hundred acres he
owns, milks fifty cows, and lately obtained a
prize for cheese at the Melbourne Exhibition. I
could not but be struck at the indomitable energy
of this family, which had penetrated alone into
a then pathless forest, and attacked its huge trees{400}
with such determination, doing everything for
themselves, working hard all day, and at night
taught lessons, prayers, and even music by the
father.’ Capitalists, Mr Weld adds, would find
such a country too expensive to clear; but the
man who can always be cutting down or ringing
a tree himself, by degrees sees the light of day
break largely into the forest, and though he
will not make a fortune, he will make a home
and an independence, and all his simple wants
will be supplied.

The district alluded to is capable of keeping
thousands of such families in health and plenty.
Surely then we are right in looking upon this
as a promising field for the class of emigrants
of which we have spoken. In addition too to
its capabilities from an agricultural point of
view, the country is not without mineral wealth;
and a region roughly estimated at some fifteen
hundred square miles, and but partially prospected,
has been found to contain tin in such
quantities as to warrant its being called ‘a rich
tin-bearing country.’ Fair profits are being made
in working this mineral; some of the claims
are worked by men on their own account, others
in part by working proprietors and in part by
men employed by them on wages; and again there
are two or three companies of capitalists employing
managers and labourers. Labour is scarce and
dear, and labourers are being imported from Melbourne;
wages range from fifty shillings a week for
the best labourers downwards; and on farms men
get twenty shillings a week and rations. The
great difficulty the north-eastern districts labour
under is want of roads; the tin has consequently
to be carried—at a cost of ten to thirteen pounds a
ton—to Bridport on the north and George’s Bay
on the eastern coast, on the backs of horses, by
bush-tracks over steep hills and across ravines and
water-courses. The population is at present comparatively
sparse, but there cannot be much doubt
that it will rapidly increase as means of communication
improve; and steps are already being taken
to that end as far as the limited resources of the
colony will allow.

On the east coast, Governor Weld saw some fine
land, good farms, and neat villages, especially in
the Fingal and Avoca districts; but as a rule he
considers that this region is more remarkable for
climate and scenery than for any continued extent
of good land; coal exists in this part of the colony,
and there are some fine stone quarries at Prosser’s
Bay, from which the Melbourne post-office was
built.

In conclusion, and to render our brief remarks
regarding this colony as a field for emigration
more complete, we add the opinion expressed with
respect to the stretch of country lying between the
Ramsay River and the west coast of the island, by
Mr Charles P. Sprent, who was sent to examine it
in the spring of last year. He thinks that it is of
little use for agricultural purposes, and that it does
not contain any large amount of valuable timber;
but he adds in his Report to the colonial government,
there are sure indications that this part of
Tasmania abounds in mineral wealth, although it
may be that the search will be arduous and slow.
As in the case of the Hellyer River, so it is with
the Pieman; wherever the softer schists occur,
gold is found in small quantities; and Mr Sprent
has not the slightest doubt that in both rivers
gold will be found in paying quantities, both
alluvial and reef gold. Tin and gold occurring
together in some spots near the Pieman in what
is called ‘made’ ground, would indicate that the
country higher up the river is worthy of examination,
and he would recommend prospectors to try
the neighbourhood of Mount Murchison and the
Murchison River. As an inducement to prospecting
the western country, it may be mentioned that
over three hundred ounces of gold have been
obtained in one season from the Hellyer River,
and that a party of Chinamen have done exceedingly
well there since that time. Copper has been
discovered on the Arthur River in several places;
and copper, lead, tin, gold, and platinum have
been found in the vicinity of the Parson’s Hood
and River Pieman, not to mention the discoveries
at Mount Bischoff and Mount Ramsay.

The Report upon which this brief account is
mainly based will be found in ‘Papers relating to
Her Majesty’s Colonial Possessions, Part I. of
1876;’ which may be obtained from the offices
for the sale of Parliamentary Papers. The agents
of the Board in London are ‘The Emigrants’ and
Colonists’ Aid Corporation (Limited),’ 25 Queen
Anne’s Gate, Westminster, to whom all applications
for ‘Land Order Warrants,’ as well as general
information about the colony, should be made.

‘EVER BELIEVE ME AFFECTIONATELY YOURS.’