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

THE BOARDING-OUT SYSTEM.

Forty years ago or thereabouts, we happened to
make a visit to an hospital for pauper orphan
children in a large city. It was a dismal spectacle.
The little creatures, seated on forms, and dressed in
a poor garb, had a woe-begone appearance. Their
faces were pallid, and a number of them had sore
eyes. The sentiment which arose in our mind was
that the whole affair was unnatural, and morally
and physically unwholesome. Here was a spacious
mansion kept up for the accommodation of
some hundreds of poor children whom destiny had
deprived of their parents. Treated well, as it was
thought, according to regulations, they were evidently
unhappy, and pined for that species of freedom
which is only to be obtained by children
brought up within the domestic circle.

Since that time, so far as Scotland is concerned,
there has been a considerable revolution in the
matter of juvenile pauper management. The plan
of immuring a horde of orphan pauper children in
large buildings under the charge of nurses and
teachers is pretty generally abandoned, not so
much on the score of economy as of common-sense.
Nature has clearly ordained that children are to
be reared, instructed, and familiarised with the
world under the direct charge and responsibility
of their parents. That has been the way since the
beginning, and it will be so till the end of time.
The family system is the foundation of everything
that is valued in our institutions. Our whole
structure of society rests on it. Any attempt to
rear children artificially on a wholesale principle,
is necessarily defective, will prove abortive, and
be attended, one way and another, with bad effects.

Unfortunately there are exceptions to a sweeping
rule. There can be no family system where
parents are removed by death, or what is more
dreadful, where the parents are so grossly dissolute
as to be unfitted for their appropriate duties. In
either case arises the question as to what is to be
done with children who are so haplessly thrown on
public charity. An answer to this brings us to the
root of the matter. If at all possible, we must find
foster-parents who will do the duty of real ones to
the children assigned under proper precautions to
their custody. We are aware that this may not be
always practicable, and where it is not, the grouping
of children in some kind of asylum must still be
perpetuated. Some countries appear to be more
favourable than others to the plan of boarding out
children with foster-parents. For the plan to have
a chance of success, there must be a prevalent
intelligence, with a sense of moral responsibilities,
and that special condition as concerns means of
livelihood which would induce a family to board a
child alien to them in name and birth.

In certain parts of Scotland, the plan of boarding
out pauper children has been so peculiarly successful,
that we purpose to give some account of it.
The children so treated are not all orphans; some
are children deserted by worthless parents; some
are the children of sick, infirm, or lunatic parents;
some are the children of parents who are in prison
or are convicts. In all cases, deep considerations of
humanity have guided the poor-law authorities in
dealing with them. Throughout Scotland at 1st
January 1875, the number of pauper children
boarded out was 4512, among whom there was
nearly an equality of boys and girls. The cost of
each did not exceed ten pounds per annum; that is
to say, for the sum of about four shillings a week a
child is respectably brought up in the house of a
foster-parent. This sum covers cost of bed and
board, school fees, and extras of all kinds. The child
participates in the ordinary meals of the family;
it goes to the nearest school with its companions,
plays about with them, and acquires a knowledge
of country life along with a love of natural scenery.
Instead of being confined in a dull mansion under
a dismal routine of discipline, with the chance of
acquiring bad or at least narrow notions, the
boarded-out child grows up a stout country lad or
lass, and is endued with such general intelligence
as is likely to pertain to the class amidst whom
he or she moves. By these means, the boarded-out
pauper children cease to be paupers. Forgetting
their unfortunate origin, they drop insensibly
into the general population. The catastrophe of{354}
orphanism or deserted infancy is robbed of its
horrors. Surely, this must be deemed one of the
greatest triumphs of humanity.

Of course, the thing could not be done unless
under a scrupulous system of management and
general supervision. The parochial board, with
whom rests the administration, needs to exercise
the greatest vigilance in selecting families to whom
children may be assigned. Agricultural labourers
and small shopkeepers in country villages are, we
believe, considered to be eligible, should character
and everything else bear investigation. Nor,
though boarded out, are the children lost sight of
by the poor-law authorities. They are subject to
the visits of Inspectors, who report on their condition.
In a number of cases, the children are
boarded with relatives, who may be supposed to
take some special interest in them, and are not
disinclined to accept a lesser board than would
have to be paid to strangers. Yet the parochial
boards do not appear to view with favour the
practice of boarding children with relatives who
are perhaps aged and infirm, or are in receipt of
parochial relief on their own account. The person
thoroughly suitable should be in middle life,
engaged in active duties, and fit to act the part of
a foster-parent. For the success of his endeavours
he should be aided in every reasonable way. The
child put under his charge must not wear clothes
bearing the pauper stamp, but be dressed like the
other children in the place. An Inspector reports
on the good effects produced by the removal of
pauper uniform. ‘The hang-dog look of pauperism
gradually disappeared from the faces of the
children—they saw themselves treated as other
children, and soon became as others.’

In the Reports of the Inspectors generally, we
have many pleasing instances of the social value
of the boarding-out system. The significant fact
strongly brought out is that the children do not
return to pauperism. ‘When they leave school,
the boys learn trades or become farm-servants,
and the girls go to service like other country girls,
and many of them get respectably married. When
the children go to service, the family relationship
is still kept up, and they return to their foster-parents
as other children do to their homes, bringing
at term-times, when they get their wages, presents
of tea and sugar, articles of clothing, and
other tokens of affectionate regard.’ We learn that
in some cases the children adopt the name of the
family with whom they are boarded, and as a rule
they are not distinguishable from the younger
members of the family. Did our space permit,
many valuable particulars could be added. Those
who take an interest in this important question in
social economics may be referred to an able and
handy digest, ‘Pauperism and the Boarding-out of
Pauper Children in Scotland, by John Skelton,
Advocate’ (Blackwood and Sons, 1877). The system,
it is to be observed, bears no resemblance to that
vicious practice of farming-out children, which
has been productive of so much demoralisation
and infant mortality. In the boarding-out of
pauper children as described in the work of Mr
Skelton, and now very general in Scotland, the
care that is taken in selecting foster-parents, and
the constant supervision to which they are subjected,
give to the system its peculiar value.
Whether such a system would be applicable to
all parts of the United Kingdom is perhaps doubtful.
It is at any rate important to know that in
Scotland it has been eminently successful, and is
the theme of praise by authorities on the subject.
The Inspector of the poor of Glasgow tells us
that it has been in use in that city for upwards
of a hundred years. How suggestive is this
remarkable fact—how curious to find that in this
as in some other valued public institutions, a
thing may flourish and be spoken of approvingly
for upwards of a century in one end of Great
Britain, and yet be hardly known in another,
or if known, be only treated with scepticism and
indifference.

W. C.

THE LAST OF THE HADDONS.

CHAPTER XXVII.—PHILIP.

I arrived at the Grayleigh Station about seven
o’clock in the evening, and walked slowly and
enjoyably across the fields, altogether forgetting
my dress-troubles as I watched the effects of the
red sunset, a more than usually beautiful one. ‘I
must treat myself to just one look at the dear old
beeches, in this light,’ I murmured; forgetting
fatigue and every other discomfort as I turned
from the stile and went down the lane towards the
woods. I was standing in mute contemplation of
the sunset effects upon the different trees. The
air was calm and still; not a leaf moved, as the
sunlight stole amongst the majestic trees, crowning
one, and robing another from head to foot with its
red glory. I was accepting the rebuke with bowed
head and clasped hands, when suddenly a sweet,
low, girlish laugh—Lilian’s laugh—rang out in the
stillness, near me.

‘There! I told you how it would be. I am not
artist enough for that!’

‘Try again,’ returned a man’s voice, clear and
strong and in its way as musical as her own.

Whose voice—whose? For a moment I felt as
though I were transfixed to the spot where I stood;
then with trembling hands, softly parted the
thickly covered branches which intervened between
me and the speakers. Philip! My heart
had already told me that it was he; and one swift
glance shewed me that it was the Philip of my
dreams—so improved as to bear only an ideal
resemblance to the boy-lover I had parted with.
He had developed grandly during the nine years
we had been separated. Taller and larger in
figure, his handsome bronzed face adorned with an
auburn beard, whilst his gray eyes retained their
old frank kindliness of expression, he looked the
personification of manly strength, physical and
mental.

{355}

Impulsively I advanced a step or two, then
shyly and nervously shrank back again, clinging
to the low outspreading branches of the tree.
Presently, when my foolish heart did not beat
quite so wildly—presently.

‘Yes; that is better. Now a few bold strokes
athwart the horizon. Have you not a coarser
brush?’

‘Yes. I will run in and fetch one.’

‘Cannot I, Miss Maitland? Allow me.’

‘O no; auntie could not tell you where to find
it.’ And away she ran, in the opposite direction
to where I stood.

Without a moment’s pause, in my anxiety for
our meeting to take place whilst he and I were
alone, I stepped hastily forward. He was examining
Lilian’s drawing, when he caught the sound
of my footstep and looked up. His eyes met mine—ah
Philip! ah me!—with the grave calm gaze
of a stranger!

I stood utterly powerless to move or speak; and
perhaps I looked more than ever unlike my past
self in that moment of bitter anguish. But suddenly
the truth flashed upon him.

‘Great heavens—Mary!‘ he ejaculated, catching
me in his arms as I swayed towards him.

I was still speechless; and looking down into
my face, he added gently, it seemed to me sorrowfully:
‘My poor Mary!’

‘Am I so changed as that, Philip?’ I murmured
in a low broken voice.

‘I—I fear you have gone through more than
you would allow me to know about,’ he replied,
reddening. Adding a little confusedly: ‘How was
it that I did not find you at home, Mary?’

‘I did not expect you quite so soon as this,’ I
stammered out quite as confusedly. ‘You said a
month or six weeks, and it is only three weeks
since I received your letter.’

‘I—found myself free sooner than I expected;
and of course set my face homewards at once. I
arrived at Liverpool last evening, and travelled all
night, in order to be here in good time in the
morning.’

‘Did you get here this morning?’

‘Yes; you had only left half an hour or so
when I arrived. I should have met you, they
told me, had I not taken the wrong turning from
the stile.’

‘Had—you a pleasant voyage?’ I asked, terribly
conscious that this was not the kind of talk which
might be expected between him and me at such a
moment.

I think he was conscious of this also. He stood
a moment without replying, then every line in
his face seemed to grow set and firm, and he said
gravely: ‘How is it that your friends here do
not know that I have come to claim my wife,
Mary?’

‘I put off telling them from time to time,’ I
replied in a low voice; ‘but I fully intended
telling them this evening.’

‘Let us go in at once,’ he said hurriedly.

He drew my hand under his arm, keeping it
firmly clasped in his own, and we went silently
towards the cottage. Lilian was turning over the
contents of a box in search of the brush she wanted,
and Mrs Tipper was nodding over her knitting,
fatigued with her day’s exertion. Neither saw us
approach, and both looked up with astonished
eyes when we entered the room; and without a
moment’s pause, Philip introduced me to them as
his promised wife.

‘We have been engaged for the last ten years,’
he said hurriedly, ‘and I have just been taking
Mary to task for not having told you so.’

‘Dear Mary, dear sister, when you ought to
have known how much good it would have done
us to know!’ said Lilian with tender reproach.

‘Better late than never, my dear,’ cheerfully put
in dear old Mrs Tipper, eyeing me rather anxiously,
I fancied.

The ground seemed to be slipping from beneath
my feet and everything whirling round. I suppose
I was looking very white and ill, for Philip gently
placed me on the couch, and Lilian knelt by my
side, murmuring tender words of love, as she
chafed my hands, whilst Mrs Tipper was bending
anxiously over me with smelling-salts, &c. But
I shook my head, and tried to smile into their
anxious faces, as I said: ‘I am not given to
fainting, you know—only a little tired.’

‘The truth is, you have sacrificed yourself for
us all this time, and it is now beginning to tell
upon you!’ said Lilian. Turning towards Philip,
she added: ‘We have all needed her so much, and
she has been so true a friend to us in our time of
trouble, that she has forgotten herself, Mr Dallas.’

He murmured something to the effect that he
could quite understand my doing that.

‘But of course it will all be very different now,’
said Lilian. ‘It will be our turn; and we must
try what we can do to pay back some of the debt
we owe to her.—Now, don’t look fierce, Mary; it’s
not the least use, for petted you will have to be.’

‘Then I am afraid fierce I shall remain,’ I
replied, trying to speak lightly.

‘That is more like yourself, dear. You are
feeling better now, are you not?’ asked Lilian.

‘O yes, quite well; only a little tired from
walking farther than I need have done,’ was my
reply.

‘To think of my talking “Mary” to you all day
without knowing you were more than friends!’
said Lilian, looking up smilingly into Philip’s
face. ‘I know now why you bore the waiting so
patiently, and why we got on so well together.—I
felt at home with Mr Dallas at once, Mary. I
think we both felt that we two ought to be friends.—Did
we not?’

He bowed assent.

‘And you must please try to like me more than
an ordinary friend, Mr Dallas, or I shall be jealous.
Mary is my sister, you know, or at least you will
know by-and-by; and we cannot be separated for
very long; so you must be considerate.’

‘Philip knows more about you than you do
about him, Lilian,’ I put in.

‘I am glad he knows about me, of course, Mary;
but it will take a little time to quite forgive your
reticence about him.—Will it not, auntie?’

‘Auntie’ thought that forgiveness might just as
well come soon as late, in her simple placid way.
Then, to my great relief, a diversion was caused by
tea being brought in. If Philip had not won the
heart of his dear little hostess before, he would
have won it now by his hearty appreciation of the
good things set before him. I quite understood
why, for the first time since Becky had been at the
cottage, her mistress had some cause to complain
of her awkwardness. Becky’s whole attention was
concentrated upon Philip; and she placed things{356}
on the table in a somewhat hap-hazard fashion,
gazing at him the while with curious speculative
eyes.

Afterwards they commenced asking Philip questions
about his voyage and so forth; and the conversation
became less personal. He gave us an
amusing account of his passage, humorously describing
the peculiarities of life on board ship. Then
as night drew on, Mrs Tipper very earnestly pressed
the hospitalities of the cottage upon him. Of course
he would be her guest—a room was already prepared,
and she knew that she need not apologise to
him for its homeliness. She had, I found, arranged
to give up her own room for his use, and share
Lilian’s. But he explained that he was going back
to an hotel in town, having arranged to stay there
for the present.

‘I am afraid I shall very frequently trespass
upon your kindness nevertheless, Mrs Tipper.
You will only get rid of me by giving up Mary,
now.’

At which Lilian laughingly replied, that would
be paying too dearly for getting rid of him. ‘The
better way would be to put up with you, for Mary’s
sake, and so secure you both.’

In truth, Lilian was a great deal more cheerful,
I might say merry, than I had seen her for many a
long day, in her unselfish rejoicing over my happiness.
And the sweet, girlish, modest freedom—the
freedom which is so diametrically opposite to
fastness—of her manner with Philip, was so pleasant
to witness! It was the kind of playfulness
which is so charming in a sister towards an elder
brother, and which so well became her.

When at length Philip was obliged to take his
departure, in order to catch the last up-train from
Graybrook, he bade me, in the matter-of-course
way which seems so delightful in those we love:
‘Come out and set me on my way, Mary; just as
far as the stile, if you feel rested enough.’

Yes; of course I felt rested enough. I went
out with him into the starlit lanes, walking silently
on by his side, happy in the belief that his thoughts
also were too deep for words. How could words
express my proud humility—the deep tender joy—the
love half-afraid of its own strength which I
felt! Would he ever know the heights and depths
of my love? Would a lifetime be long enough to
express it? With it all, I was conscious of a shyness
and awkwardness of manner, born of the
indescribable feeling which accompanies, and gives
a tinge of pathos to, great happiness in some
minds. What was I, to be so blessed? What
other women find their ideal fall short of the
reality, as I was doing? Noble and true as I knew
him to be, I had not hitherto, I think, sufficiently
appreciated the geniality of Philip’s temperament
and his keen sense of humour. I do not know
whether it was more noticeable in contrast with
Robert Wentworth, who certainly impressed one
with the idea that he was older than he was; whilst
Philip seemed younger than his age. His fine
physique too. How very handsome he was, in the
best way, and how grandly careless about it! The
most cynical observer could not have detected the
slightest trace of conceit or self-consciousness in
his tone or bearing. In fine, his was the rare
combination of physical and mental power. Whilst
he possessed the gaieté de cœur almost of a boy, an
appeal to his intellect would call forth the cool
vigorous reasoning of a well-informed thinker.

He had won his way to wealth by dint of intelligence,
persistence, and temperate living, in a
climate which gives some excuse for, if it does not
foster, all kinds of excess, and returned strong in
mind and body to reap the fruits of his labour.
Moreover, he had not been tempted to continue
accumulating wealth for its own sake, nor acquired
the huxtering spirit which self-made men so
frequently do acquire.

‘I think I must not go any farther, Philip,’ I
said, as we reached the stile. ‘You have only to
cross the two fields, and turn to the right when
you get into the road—that leads direct to the
station.’

For a moment he made no reply, and something,
I hardly knew what, brought vividly back to my
mind the remembrance of another who had stood
there on such a night as this, silent beneath the
stars—a remembrance which struck upon my
happiness as might a sudden sword-thrust upon
an enraptured dreamer.

He gathered my hands into his own, and
looking down into my face, said in a low
earnest voice: ‘There can be no necessity for
delay between you and me, Mary. When will you
let me take you away from here?’

‘Take me away from here?’ I repeated, rather
startled by the suddenness of the proposal.

‘I mean, when will you marry me, Mary?’

‘We will talk about that by-and-by,’ I replied,
overwhelmed with happiness again, yet afraid lest
I might shew it more plainly than it is womanly
to do if I said more.

‘Why should there be any delay between you
and me? I—beg of you not to make any unnecessary
delay, Mary. You ought to have been my
wife long ago. I know you would prefer a quiet
wedding, and—afterwards—wouldn’t you like to
travel a few months before settling down? You
used to have a fancy for seeing some of the old
continental towns.’

I could only whisper that it would be very
delightful—with him—lowering my head until my
cheek rested upon his hand. Then to keep my
reeling senses firm, I looked up into his face and
made a little attempt at a jest about his not knowing
me when first we met.

‘Only for a second,’ he replied. And even in
that light I could see that his colour was heightened.
He looked pained too; and I certainly
had not meant to pain him. Amongst my failings
was not that of the desire to be always trying
little wiles to test those I love, as we women
are sometimes accused of doing. I had used the
words solely in jest and to steady myself.

‘Only for a second,’ he repeated; adding gently,
‘and we will soon have you blooming again,
Mary.’

Blooming again! I caught in my breath with a
little half-sob. Then making a strong effort, telling
myself that I must and would behave better than
a love-sick hysterical girl, I lightly replied: ‘What
if my blooming days are over, Philip?’

He bent lower down, to get a better look into
my face, as he said: ‘Nonsense! What makes you
talk in that strain? It is not fair to me.’ Then he
added more gravely: ‘You have always told me
that your friends here are real ones, Mary; and
they seem to be very much attached to you. It
was very pleasant to hear them talk of you in
your absence.’

{357}

‘They are everything and more than I have
described them to be, Philip. Mrs Tipper has
been like a dear old mother to me; and Lilian—the
best and truest thing I can say about Lilian is,
that she is what she looks. No one could be mistaken
about Lilian. Hers is the kind of loveliness
which takes its expression from the mind.’

‘Yes; it is just that. The fellow who could
not appreciate her deserves to lose her.’ I had
given him an account of Lilian’s troubles in my
letters; indeed he was well acquainted with all
that was connected with my life at Fairview. ‘I
only regret that I was not in England at the time.
I suppose it is too late now for’——

‘It is too late for any kind of intervention now;
but if vengeance is in your thoughts, you may rest
content. It will be, I think, quite punishment
enough to be the husband of the girl he has married,
with the remembrance of Lilian. He certainly
loved Lilian.’

‘Ah, that is something! When were they
married?’

‘About three weeks ago,’ I told him. And then
we got talking over the Farrar history, until the
chiming of a distant clock reminded us that he
had but twenty minutes in which to reach the
railway station, in order to catch the last up-train.

‘I shall do it!’ he ejaculated; and with a parting
word and hurried kiss he vaulted over the
stile, and ran across the field, turning once on
the way to wave his hand to me.

SUBMARINE CABLES.

LAYING.

Before the days of steam-ships it would have
been almost if not quite impracticable to lay ocean
cables; for in order to do so with accuracy and
success, it is necessary to be independent of wind
and weather as far as possible. The course and
speed of the ship must be under the control of the
navigator, not at the mercy of the winds and
currents, so that he may economise cable, and
prevent undue strain upon it as the depth varies.
Then too it is necessary that the ship should
answer swiftly and surely to his will; that she
should vary her speed, stop, or turn round, as
promptly as he desires. The telegraph-ship is
the helot of her cargo, and should be completely
subservient to the work of laying the cable. A
well-found steam-ship answers all requirements.
Up till a few years ago no specially built telegraph-ship
existed. The majority of cables have been
laid from ordinary iron screw-steamers, fitted with
tanks to contain the cable and paying-out gear.
Recently, however, the steam-ships Hooper and
Faraday (the first belonging to Messrs Hooper,
the other to Messrs Siemens) were specially constructed
as telegraph-ships for their respective
owners. These vessels are very much on a par
in size and carrying capacity. The Faraday is a
ship of five thousand tons burden, and capable of
carrying fifteen hundred miles of main or deep-sea
cable. She is fitted with screws both fore and
aft, so that her motion can be reversed without
turning her in the water. She can thus, without
changing her position, begin hauling in a cable
which she had previously been paying out. Both
of these ships are fitted with three large iron
water-tight tanks for containing the cable—one
fore, one amidships, and one aft. The depth of
these tanks varies from thirty to forty-five feet, and
they are upwards of fifty feet in diameter. The
Hooper has laid the Brazilian coast cables, and
the Faraday the Direct United States Atlantic
cable. Besides the tanks for holding the cable,
the only other peculiarities of a cable-ship, as
distinct from other steamers, are the heavy deck
machinery for paying out the cable and for picking
it up if necessary; the electrical testing-room;
and the stock of large iron buoys she carries lashed
to her gunwales for use in laying.

The cable-ship having been moored alongside
the works where the cable is stored, shipment
begins. The cable presents three aspects of increasing
thickness, namely the shore-end, intermediate,
and main; and thus graduated it is payed
out of the tanks in the works into the tanks of the
ship. When all is aboard, the tanks are filled with
salt-water till the cable is soaked, and the ship
puts to sea.

During her voyage to the place from which she
is to start laying, electrical tests are taken daily
of the cables on board, to see that they continue
sound, and the machinery for laying is got ready.
The souls on board may be divided into three
classes. The engineers, or those in charge of the
mechanical work of the laying, and their helps
‘the cable-hands,’ who do the rough work in the
tanks and on deck, or in putting out buoys from
the ship. The electricians, or those in charge of
the electrical work of the laying, whose duty it is
to see that the cable is all right electrically. The
navigators, or those in charge of the sailing of the
ship, including captain, officers, and seamen. The
engineer-in-chief is generally the head of the
entire expedition; he requires reports from the
chief electrician, and instructs the captain where
to put the ship.

Before laying a submarine cable between the
proposed places it is extremely important to take
soundings and otherwise survey the ocean, so as to
determine the exact route the cable should take.
A cable is too costly to be flung away anywhere
on the sea-bottom, and the sea-bottom is sometimes
of a very unfavourable character. It may
be said that too little attention has hitherto been
paid to this point in cable-laying. Expensive
cables have been manufactured at home, with
their relative lengths of shore-end, intermediate,
and main determined by formula or usage, and
then hid away in seas whose character had been
largely taken for granted; the consequence being
that weighty and very costly shore-end has been
deposited in mud soft as butter where it would
be out of harm’s way; while unprotected main
has been laid along the jagged surface of coral
reefs. The depth and nature of the bottom, the
strength and direction of currents, the temperature
at the bottom, should all be ascertained
beforehand by a special ship appointed to survey
the proposed track of the cable. The best route
for the cable is then laid down on the charts, as a
guide to the navigator and engineers engaged in
the laying.

Great improvements have recently been made
in the method of taking deep-sea soundings. The
ordinary plan is to carry the lead-line (a strong
line or small rope of fine tanned Manilla yarn)
from the stern along the ship’s side to the bows,{358}
and there drop the lead into the sea. As it sinks
the rope runs out off the drum on which it is
coiled, and when the lead strikes bottom the running
ceases. The introduction of fine steel pianoforte-wire
for the rope, by Sir William Thomson,
is a great improvement upon this clumsy method.
The wire sinks quickly through the water, and is
pulled in again with a very great saving of time
and labour. But the most ingenious of all contrivances
for finding the depth of the sea is
Siemen’s Bathometer, a very recent invention.
The bathometer simply stands in the captain’s
cabin like a barometer, and indicates the depth of
the sea over which the ship is passing, just as a
barometer indicates the height of the atmosphere
above. The action of this ingenious contrivance
depends on the attraction of the earth on a column
of mercury. This attraction is proportional to the
earth’s density, and the relative distance of its
crust from the mercury column. Earth being
denser than water, exercises a greater downward
attraction on the mercury. If then there are say
a hundred fathoms of water just under the mercury
instead of a hundred fathoms of earth or
rock, there will be less downward attraction on it.
Taking advantage of this law, the mercury column
is adjusted so as to indicate the power of the attraction
and give the depth of water it corresponds to.

Arrived at the place from which the cable is to
be laid, the first thing done is the laying of the
shore-end from the ship at her anchorage to the
cable-hut on the beach. The cable-hut is generally
a small erection of galvanised iron or stone and
lime to contain the end of the cable and a few
instruments. Cables are never if possible landed
in harbours, or where there is danger from
anchors. A suitable retired cove is generally
selected, not far distant from the town where the
telegraph office is, and a short land-line connects
the end of the cable to the office. In the cable-hut
the land-line and cable meet and are connected
together.

The distance from the ship to the cable-hut is
accurately measured by the ship’s boats or steam-launch,
so as to fix the amount of shore-end necessary
to reach the shore. This is then coiled in a
flat barge or raft, and payed out by hand as the
launch tugs the raft ashore. When the water
becomes too shallow for the raft to float, the men
jump into the water and drag the heavy end
ashore. A trench has been cut in the beach up
to the cable-hut, and into this the end is laid. In
a few moments a test from the cable-hut to the
ship announces that the shore-end is successfully
fixed.

Everything is now ready for the ship to begin
paying out. The anchor has been got up; the
paying-out gear is all in working order; the men
are all at their appointed places. The cable is
being held fast at the ship’s stern, and the running
out by its own weight is prevented. But directly
all are aboard again, the word is given, the screw
revolves, the cable is let go at the stern, and the
real work of paying out begins.

The cable passes from the tank to the stern of
the ship, and from thence to the bottom of the sea.
The weight of that part which hangs in the water
between the ship and the bottom pulls it out
of the ship as the latter moves along. If the
ship were stationary, still the cable would run out,
but then it would simply coil or kink itself up on
the bottom. The object is, however, to lay it
evenly along the bottom, neither too tight nor too
slack, so as at once to economise cable, and to
allow of its being easily hooked and hauled up
again from the bottom without breaking from over-tightness.
The speed of the ship has therefore to
be adjusted to the rate at which the cable runs
out. It should be a little under the rate of the
paying out, so that there is a slight excess of cable
for the distance travelled over. Now the rate at
which the cable runs out from the ship is greater,
the greater the depth; therefore the speed of the
ship must be varied as the depth changes. The
rate at which the cable runs out, however, is not
entirely dependent on the depth. It can be controlled
on board by mechanism. The cable can
be held back against the force pulling it overboard.
But there is a limit to the extent to which
it may be held back, and the tension on it must
not be so great as to overstrain it. It is necessary,
therefore, to know what tension there is on the
cable at any time. To achieve this, two apparatus
are used: the friction brake (for holding the cable
back) and the dynamometer (for indicating its
tension).

The cable is made to run cleanly out of the
tank by being allowed to escape through a funnel-shaped
iron framework called a ‘crinoline.’ This
prevents it from lashing about or flying off as the
ship rolls. It then passes over pulleys to the
paying-out drum, round which it is passed several
times. The paying-out drum is controlled by an
Appold’s friction brake, which is simply a belt
or strap of iron with blocks of wood studded to it
clasping the periphery of the drum and restraining
its revolution by the friction of the wooden blocks.
The tighter the belt is made to clasp the drum, the
greater the friction on the drum, and the greater
the force required to make it revolve. After
passing several times round the drum, so as to
get a good hold of it, the cable passes through
the dynamometer to the sheave or grooved pulley
projecting from the stern, and from thence it
passes to the water. The dynamometer is simply
a ‘jockey pulley’ riding on the cable; that is
to say the cable is made to support a pulley
of a certain weight; and according as the tension
on the cable, due to the weight of cable in the
water, is greater or less, so will the weight of this
jockey pulley supported by the cable cause the
cable to bend less or more. Although this jockey
pulley is the essential part of the dynamometer,
there are three pulleys altogether, two fixed pulleys
at the same level, with the riding pulley between.
The cable passes over both the fixed pulleys and
under the riding pulley. The weight of the latter
bends the cable into a V shape; and as explained
above, the depth of this V is greater as the tension
on the cable is less. In short the tension of the
cable can be told from the depth of the V, which is
therefore graduated into a scale of tensions.

By regulating the friction on the brake the cable
can be held back, under restrictions of tension
indicated by the dynamometer, and the speed of
the ship adjusted to give the proper percentage
of slack. Sixteen per cent. for a depth of two
thousand fathoms is a usual allowance. The slack
should vary with the depth, because of the possibility
of having to hook the cable and raise it up
from the bottom to the surface to repair it. The
revolutions of the drum, the tension on the cable,{359}
the number of turns of the ship’s screw, are constantly
observed night and day as the laying goes
on.

In the electrical testing-room the same watchful
activity prevails. A continuous test is kept applied
to the cable, to see that its insulating power
keeps steady; in other words, to detect any ‘fault’
that may occur in the cable which is being laid.
This is done by charging the cable throughout,
from the end on board the ship to the end left
behind in the cable-hut, with a current of electricity,
and observing on a galvanometer (an instrument
described in a recent paper) the amount of
electricity which leaks through the gutta-percha
from the copper wire inside to the sea-water outside.
To shew that the copper wire too keeps continuous
from ship to shore, a pulse of electricity
is sent along the cable at stated intervals, usually
every five minutes. This is either sent from the
ship to the cable-hut, or from the cable-hut to the
ship by the electricians left on duty there. The
resistance too of the copper conductor is regularly
taken at times, to see whether the conductor
remains intact; for the pulse test only shews that
it is continuous, and would not shew, for instance,
that it had been half broken through.

The navigators of the ship are meanwhile as
busy as the rest on board. It is important to
keep the ship as nearly as possible up to the prescribed
course marked on the chart, and in any case
to determine accurately her place whatever it may
be, so that the precise position of the cable on the
bottom may be known, in order to facilitate future
repairs, if necessary. Observations of the sun and
other heavenly bodies are therefore made as often
as feasible, and the navigation of the ship very
carefully attended to.

If a fault should be reported from the testing-room,
the engines are at once reversed and the
ship stopped. The length of cable being payed
out is cut in two within the ship, and that section
still on board is tested first. If the fault is found
to be there, a new length of cable is jointed
on to the section in the sea, and the laying is
again proceeded with. If, however, the fault is
in the section already laid, special tests must
be applied to locate the fault. If it should be
proved to be but a few miles from the ship,
she is ‘put about;’ the end of the section is
taken to the bows, where the picking-up gear is
situated, and the cable is hauled in slowly from the
sea by the help of a steam-winch, the ship going
slowly back the way she has come as the cable
comes on board. This goes on until the fault is
reached and cut out. If the fault should be
proved to be twenty or more miles away, the end
of the cable is buoyed, and the ship proceeds
backward to the locality of the fault. Here she
grapples for the cable, hooks it, and draws it up to
the surface, where it is cut and the two parts tested
separately. The flaw is then cut out of the faulty
part and the cable made good. She then returns
to her buoy, picks up the end there, joints on the
cable on board to be paid out, and continues her
voyage.

Arrived at her destination, the shore-end there
is landed to its cable-hut. A test taken from
there and signals exchanged between the two
cable-huts proclaim the completion of her work.
It only remains to test the cable daily for a specified
period, generally thirty days; and if during
this trial time it remains good and sound, it passes
into the hands of the Company for whose use it has
been laid, and is then employed for regular traffic
and public benefit. In a concluding article we
will describe the working of submarine cables.

THE ROMANCE OF A LODGING.

IN TWO CHAPTERS.—CHAPTER II.

‘Well, Fred, what will you say to all my sermons
on extravagance, when I tell you that I have
actually taken the landlady’s first-floor rooms for
a month; and that without any view to your
advantage, which has hitherto actuated my movements?
You will say it is only a preliminary step
to my employing the artist—who by the way is
not an artist after all—to take my portrait!’

Thus did Mrs Arlington announce her plans
next morning at breakfast to Fred, who offered no
remonstrance. It was enough for him that she
chose to do it; he was too well satisfied and
accustomed to her guidance and good sense not to
fall in readily with everything she did, as the best
possible that could be done; and so he assented
without a remark.

‘You don’t scold me, Fred! I expected your
reproaches; but they will come later; you are too
engrossed at the present moment with the prospect
of the examination before you to-day; but I
have no fear for you; so have none for yourself.’

‘What will you do while I am away?’

‘Stay where I am; study the pictures; read the
backs of all the books through the glass doors of
the bookcase; and think what a churl the owner
is to have locked them up. And this amusement
over, I shall go in search of a piano; we cannot
live for a whole month without one; can we? So
I shall order it to be sent on Wednesday morning
to our new quarters.’

‘Suppose the “gentleman” unlocks his, and sets
up an opposition tune; the jumble of melodies will
be the reverse of harmonious.’

‘Possibly; but then, you phlegmatic youngster,
you wouldn’t keep me without such a resource, for
fear of an occasional discord! Let us hope the
gentleman in question will give place to the ladies,
and be amiable enough to listen without creating
a discord; or he may decamp altogether, if he does
not approve of our performances.’

‘But tell me what has put it into your head to
stay a whole month in London? I thought you
said we had only funds for a week.’

‘Well, my dear boy, it is just this: I have been
thinking that we may as well wait and hear the
issue of the examination; as in the event of your
being among the successful candidates, of which I
have very little doubt, you would be ready to go
to Sandhurst without having to incur the double
expense of the journey home and back again.
Besides, I should like to see the last of you before
I sink into my future oblivion, with no further
call in the world upon my time and attention
beyond writing to you.’

‘What nonsense you can talk, mother, when you
once begin! I suppose you expect me to believe
you are one of the sort that is allowed to go into
oblivion. I bet you ten to one some fellow will
be wanting to marry you when I am at college!’

‘Hush, Fred!’ she said, with a solemnity of
manner she well knew how to assume, that{360}
effectually quenched any conversation the subject
of which she did not approve. ‘It is time you
started.’

‘Forgive me; and good-bye,’ he said, with a
smile, as he prepared to go.

Wishing him ‘God-speed,’ she saw him depart,
and then rung for the landlady.

‘There is no difficulty, I hope, about the rooms?’
she asked.

‘None whatever, ma’am. I’ve told the lady;
and they leave to-night.’

‘Thank you. I wished to know positively before
I ordered a piano. I suppose there is no objection
to my having one, since there is another in the
house?’

‘None whatever, ma’am. Leastways Mr Meredith
is mostly playing and singing when he isn’t
reading or painting, or at his meals; so that I am
well accustomed to the sound by this time. I
like it when he plays lively music. But dear me,
ma’am! there are times when his spirits are low,
or so I take it to be, and then he plays such dreary
doleful tunes, it is for all the world as bad as the
Old Hundred on them barrel-organs.’

‘He is not married, then?’

‘O my! no; not he; nor never likely to be,’
she exclaimed, repudiating the idea of losing her
lucrative lodger under such unfortunate circumstances.
‘His man James says as how he once
painted that there lovely faced young creature to
remind him that women were one and all as
false as—— I wouldn’t like to offend your ears,
ma’am, by naming the unholy gentleman as he
likens them to; which I took to be no great compliment
to myself, seeing I am a woman as was
never false to none, which is saying a good deal,
seeing how selfish and tiresome men are, as a rule,
that it needs us women to be born saints and angels
to put up with them.’

‘I am afraid I can’t quite agree with you there,’
said Mrs Arlington, smiling. ‘I rather think we
give as much trouble as we get, and a little more
sometimes.’

Wednesday morning saw her installed in the
rooms above, which she busied herself in arranging
tastefully, with a view to making their lengthened
sojourn comfortable. Towards evening the piano
came, and she was just about to try it, when an
unusual bustle below-stairs announced the arrival
of the gentleman, Mr Meredith. He was evidently
a person of consideration in the eyes of the household;
such hurrying to and fro and up and down
to have everything as he would like, had not before
been experienced.

‘Glad to see you home, sir,’ said Mrs Griffiths,
courtesying, and beaming with pleasure.

‘Thank you. Have the rooms been occupied?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘I should say you ought rather to be sorry I
have come, then.’

‘Not at all, sir. I’ve been able to accommodate
the lady up-stairs; and right glad I was that she
came when she did, for she has got no troublesome
hussy of a maid to come bothering about my
kitchen.’

‘The same old story, Mrs Griffiths!’ he remarked,
as he smiled pleasantly at her inability to hide her
ruling mania; ‘and now please let me have dinner
as soon as you can, as I have an engagement this
evening.’

He walked round the room, placing his desk and
other articles he had brought with him in order;
examined his pictures, to see that they had not
undergone ruthless treatment at the hands of
deputy-lodgers during his absence. After looking
at them all he paused opposite the portrait of the
young girl, and exclaimed mentally: ‘Yes, there
you are still, heartless mocker! just as you looked
when you defied me and flung back my love in
scorn. And yet—and yet—perhaps had I but
been a little gentler, I might have softened you!’
he cried in remorseful thought as he turned away;
and the look of genuine regret he wore shewed
how deep had been the wound that had the power
still to call up a thrill of pain. ‘Yes, I tried
to break her proud spirit and make it subservient
to mine, and I broke my heart instead! She was
but young; I ought to have known better; but I
was hard and determined, and could brook no
opposition to my will. I had studied life, and
established my views on most points, until I grew
intolerant—a disease natural to culture as well as
creed—and could ill bear to have my opinion
questioned, especially by those who aspired to my
friendship or affection: it interfered with my
visions of harmony. Harmony! It was but a
monotonous dreary unison I was cultivating, to
foster my intense self-love. Bitter delusion! And
from her, above all others, I demanded a slavish
bending of her will to mine. I was jealous of her
possessing an individuality or free right of being
or thought apart from me. I was not content
with her affection; I wanted her blind worship.
No wonder her proud spirit revolted at such a
prospect of bondage, and flung me and my love
far from me. She was wise and right, and I was
too headstrong to humble myself to sue for her
forgiveness, or seek to win her by a nobler course.
My heart was a flint, which it needed her loss to
soften, for I have never seen another like my
darling! Yes, my poor girl, I was unjust and
cruel, and Providence was kind to you in rousing
you to resist!’

In such a strain did his thoughts run, as he
sat waiting for dinner, of which he partook in no
very elated mood. When the spirit wanders in
the sad lone land of irreparable regret, and surveys
with the light of experience how different all
might have been, had our hearts and wills been
differently tuned to action, it is then our footsteps
linger, painfully borne down by a weight,
well nigh fatal to that courage which bids us bury
our dead out of sight, and wander no more amid
the graves of the past, but live afresh in the
light of a new and better day, with high hope and
stern resolve.

Something of this he had done, but not all, for
the torment of self-reproach was at times powerful
to waste his endeavours in fruitless action
or torpid reverie. He was about to sink into the
latter at the close of dinner, as, left alone with his
coffee and cigar, he sat meditating on the past
which he had invoked, when he was startled by
the sound of music and the strains of a melody
which seemed to float to him across the distant
years, and reawaken his heart’s sweetest and
bitterest memories. Ah! how well he remembered
it. It was one he had written and composed for
her of whom he had been thinking; and when
she sang it to him, he could scarce restrain his
tears; but there came a little ‘rift within the{361}
lute’ one day, that soon ‘made all the music
mute.’ Some slight alteration that she had asked
for, jarred upon his sense of its perfection—and
his own—and he refused half haughtily, which she
resented; words succeeded words, until that was
said which could never be forgiven or undone;
and then she asked to have her freedom back,
and he gave it: yes, he gave it! and had never
seen or heard of her after, until now—he hears
the echo of the melody; but the voice—’Can that
voice be hers?’ he cries passionately. Starting
up in his chair he listens, with every nerve vibrating
to the sound, until it is finished. ‘My own
song!’ he exclaims aloud; and then he rings the
bell nervously and summons the landlady. ‘Who
is your new lodger?’ he inquires with assumed
calmness.

‘Mrs Arlington, sir.’

‘Arlington? Arlington?’ he mutters. ‘Never
heard of her. What is she like?’

‘A tall sweet-looking lady, sir: I was that taken
with I hadn’t it in my heart to turn her from the
door the night she come here; so I gave her your
rooms for a couple of days, for her son and
herself.’

‘Son! did you say? How old?’

‘About sixteen, I should reckon: he has come
up for his examinations.’

‘No; it is not she,’ he thought sadly; ‘she
could never have had a son so old. But it may
be some friend of hers. How else came she by that
song, I must find out.—Thank you, Mrs Griffiths,’
he said aloud; ‘you did quite right to let the
rooms; and since she is such a favourite with you,
you are welcome to the newspapers for her. Perhaps
you had better take them to her every day
with my compliments.’

‘Thank you, sir; I am sure you are most kind;
and I’ll tell her what you say.’

‘I never will believe, ma’am, half as these good
gentlemen say who profess so loud against womenkind.
Here Mr Meredith down-stairs, as James
says swears against a petticoat even if he sees it
hanging in a shop-window, which is most unfeeling-like,
to say the least of it—here’s he been a
begging I’ll bring you the newspapers every day,
with his compliments!’

‘Indeed! That is very thoughtful of him,’ said
Mrs Arlington, smiling at her landlady’s enthusiastic
sense of victory. ‘Pray give him my compliments,
and say how very much obliged I feel.
What did you tell me his name was?’

‘Meredith, ma’am.’

‘Of what family, do you know?’

‘That’s more than I can say, ma’am. Families,
to my mind, is like flowers—a great lot all alike,
but divided into so many branches, it were always
a puzzle I stopped at. I call a pink a pink, and
a carnation a carnation; though the gardener where
I lived in service could tell you they were different
branches of one family, with a long Latin name,
as I never could see not the least bit of good to
remember. So I just follow the same plan with
families, call them by the names as they hold at
birth and baptism; and I only know my gentleman
by the label on his box: “Mr Firman Meredith.”
But if you were pleased to wish to know,
I’ll ask his man James.’

‘Not on any account,’ said Mrs Arlington; ‘I
am not in the least curious; I merely asked for
asking’s sake. Give my compliments and thanks,
nothing more.’

The newspapers paid their regular daily visit for a
week, during which time Mrs Arlington never once
touched the piano when she knew that Mr Meredith
was at home; although he had purposely remained
indoors, hoping he might again hear the song
which so roused his memory on the evening of his
arrival; but after seven nights of waiting and
disappointment, and ineffectual efforts to catch a
glimpse of the lady, who did not go out once
during that time, he grew so restless and impatient,
that in desperation he summoned the landlady
once more to his assistance.

‘Well, Mrs Griffiths, is your lodger gone or
dead? She is a very silent person.’

‘O dear, no, sir,’ said the landlady, smiling.
‘She took the rooms for a month, certain; but she’s
been suffering from a cold; and the young gentleman
has been away most days at his examinations;
but he’s that quiet you’d never know he was in
the house but for his boots.’

‘Had she any visitors the first evening I
arrived?’

‘None, sir. She hasn’t told any of her friends,
I imagine, that she is here; as it is not to be supposed
as how such a well-to-do lady as she seems
is without a whole score of friends, as would keep
me busy at the door if they only knew where she
was.’

‘Do you think she objects to visitors then?’

‘How can I say, sir? Were you pleased to wish
to call?’ she inquired somewhat slily. ‘I’ll speak
to the lady, and find out if it would be agreeable,
if you like, sir?’

‘Please yourself about that,’ he returned with
feigned indifference. ‘If I can be of any service
to her or her son, beyond the newspapers, I shall
be happy to call.’

‘You are very good, sir, I am sure, and I’ll tell
her. She was most grateful for the newspapers.’

With a glow of triumph on her face, Mrs Griffiths
next morning appeared before Mrs Arlington. It
was now her settled conviction that her theories
concerning the unreality of the enmity of certain
men for women was as ‘true as gospel,’ to use her
own phrase; and as there is nothing dearer to
human nature, from the deepest philosopher even
to a speculating landlady, than to feel that they have
hit upon an infallible vein of truth, her rejoicing
was very natural.

She had been planning all the way up the stairs
how she might best introduce such a delicate topic
with due acceptance, for Mrs Arlington was a lady,
she felt, who was not to be taken liberties with;
but impulse overruled discretion, and she burst out
plumply with the question: ‘Would you please
to like the gentleman to call? I think, ma’am,
for all he feigns to hate us, he’s about dying to
come up.’

Mrs Arlington fairly laughed aloud at the
partnership in the compliment assumed by her
good-natured landlady. ‘What do you say, Fred?’
she inquired, appealing to her son, as though
declining the matter for herself.

‘By all means have him up. We should be
Goths to accept his papers, and say “No, thank
you,” to himself.’

‘You can tell him then, Mrs Griffiths, that we
shall be happy to see him this afternoon.’

{362}

‘You will, you mean,’ said Fred. ‘You know I
promised Cathcart to go out with him, at yesterday’s
exam., and spend the afternoon upon the
Serpentine, after our week’s fag.’

‘Very well; then I will receive him. Tant mieux.
I can judge if he is likely to prove a desirable
friend for you, Fred.’

With the afternoon came Mr Meredith’s servant
with his master’s card, requesting to know if Mrs
Arlington could receive him.

Having granted the permission, her face betrayed
unwonted agitation, which it required all
her nerve to control before the door opened and
he entered. He had advanced half-way up the
room to where she stood waiting to receive him,
when their eyes met, and flashed one mutual heart-stirring
glance of recognition, which she was the
bravest to bear, as he started exclaiming: ‘Gertrude
Bancroft!’

‘Firman Meredith!’ she cried, but with calmness,
for she at least was in a measure the more
prepared of the two. They shook hands; nay more;
they met as we meet the loved and mourned, after
years of parting; and then she whispered, as she
held his hand: ‘I am Gertrude, but not the
proud, soulless, imperious girl whose portrait you
have so faithfully preserved. I am now Gertrude
Arlington, whose life, I hope, has not been altogether
spent in vain. And yet mine was not the
whole wrong; was it Firman?’

‘No; my poor girl; God knows it was not. To
myself alone I take all blame.’

‘Nay; I cannot allow that.’

‘But it is the truth all the same,’ he sighed.
‘Had you yielded to my will, I might have slain
you with my cruel stony heart; when you resisted,
as you must have done, matters might have ended
I know not how. Indeed, I might have destroyed
you, as surely as he who takes weapon of steel or
drops of poison to rid himself of her of whom he
has wearied! A merciful God saved you from such
a fate, and me from the worse one of causing it.’

‘You judge yourself too harshly, Firman; I
have no such thought about you.’

‘Not so, Gertrude, believe me. There are
many gone to their rest who, if they could return,
would tell you “he speaks truly:” poor souls,
who have gone to their graves thanking God for
their release from a life which left them nothing
to hope for but death!’

‘Then, Firman, there is nothing to regret between
us; for across the gulf of precious years,
wherein we have each learned so much, we can
clasp hands faithfully as truest friends. May I tell
you, it was for this I remained; for I recognised
the sting I had left in your heart when I saw the
pencil sketch of the portrait you had made; and I
thought that if we could meet once more, and
leave happier impressions than those remaining, it
would be wise and right to thus overcome past evil
with future good. And now once more you are
my friend; are you not?’

‘And nothing more! Ah, Gertrude, have you
no dearer name to promise me, after all these
years of sorrow and loneliness without you?’ he
pleaded.

‘Yes; my whole life shall be yours, if you think
I can make you happy,’ she murmured; ‘but not
unless—have no misgivings, Firman.’

‘Happy! That is a poor word to express the
intensity of my gratitude for this meeting, and
your promise that we shall never part again. Oh!
I too have a past to repair, of which I hope your
future life may be the witness! You are my
Gertrude; and yet, now I look well at you, you
are not mine, for your face has altered, and wears
a softened look, different from the old Gertrude.

‘Let us forget her altogether, and paint me
afresh as I am—a woman, who for years has
prayed for nought else but what is born of
a humble, tender, loving heart. If you find I
possess it, then, Firman, our long parting has not
been in vain. But now we have much to tell
each other of our past lives.’

‘I shall feel more interested in planning our
future,’ he remarked, smiling.

‘Ah, well, whatever we may arrange about that,
I shall consider it a point of honour not to rob Mrs
Griffiths of her pet lodger! It would be base of
me to requite the good Samaritan by running off
with the ass!’ she added merrily; ‘so we must
keep her rooms for the present.’

‘I’ll take the whole house, if that is all, and
then you will be obliged to stay altogether; for
where I am, there you must be also.’

‘And I leave it to you to tell Fred, my boy,’ she
added with a pretty blush, ‘for I feel a guilty
cheat towards him; he has looked upon me as his
mother, I may say, for so many years, I shall
seem like a deserter.’

‘Say rather you have been one, and are now
returning to your colours.’

‘Strange to say, Fred was struck with the portrait,
but found no resemblance to the original.’

‘Because you are no longer the same woman;
the original has gone.’

And thus were happily reunited for life two
who, though severed for a while, had been all
along intended for each other—this was the
Romance of the lodging.

ROUGHING IT.

The explorer traversing a hitherto unknown
country, the soldier engaged in a campaign, the
hunter, the trader, and the settler in the borderlands
of civilisation, have every day and sometimes
every hour to supply by their own ingenuity needs
which for us are satisfied by the simple expedient
of sending to a well-stocked shop for what we
require, or calling in a skilled workman to do a
job for us. Accustomed as we have been all our
lives to procuring our bread and meat from the
baker and butcher, sleeping every night in comfortable
bedrooms, trusting for protection to ‘Policeman
X’ and his brethren of the blue coat and
helmet, and making our journey by rail at fifty
miles an hour—we can hardly realise the position
of a man who is thrown on his own resources for
food and shelter in a wild country, where perhaps
his road lies over scorched plains or through dense
forests. Yet if he only knows how to set about it,
such a man can live and travel or do his work in
comparative safety and comfort. Even on his own
ground the uncivilised is inferior to the civilised
man, for the latter has learned or can learn from
the savage all that is most useful in a wild country,
and can add this local knowledge to the resources
which civilisation has placed at his command. His{363}
natural physical powers are generally superior to
those of an uncultured people, and he can supplement
them by aids derived from art. What is the
piercing sight of an Indian or an Arab scout to the
power of a good field-glass or telescope? And in
the chase or the fight the assegai or the flint-lock
musket stand but a poor chance against the rifle.
Moreover the savage knows only a few shifts or
‘dodges’ peculiar to his own people; but the
explorer has at his command at once the arts of
civilisation and those of hundreds of uncivilised
tribes. He learns from the Eskimo to traverse
the snow on snow-shoes, or make long journeys
with the dog-sledge; he takes the canoe of the
Indian, and the Malayan outrigger; he can build
a half-buried hut like a Tartar, or a palm-leaf
cottage like a negro; he learns from the Guacho to
stop a wild-horse with the lasso; and in the pursuit
of game, the traditional lore of the trappers and
hunters of every land is at his service. If he is
strong, active, and hardy, and can use a few tools,
he can learn in this way a hundred ‘shifts and
expedients,’ either from oral instruction, or from
books such as that which lies before us: Shifts and
Expedients of Camp Life, Travel, and Exploration.
By W. B. Lord, R.A., and T. Baines, F.R.G.S.
Field Office. (30s.)

We have seen other works of the same kind, but
none so complete as this. To the explorer, the
soldier, the settler, and the missionary, it will be
invaluable; and even stay-at-home people who
lead an active life in the country, will gather
many valuable hints from it. To all it will be
of interest, on account of its numberless anecdotes
of successful struggle with difficulties of
every kind, sketches of the arts and customs of
uncivilised man, and notes on the topography
of many lands and the natural history of their
winged and four-footed inhabitants. Here we are
told how to set about building a boat of wood
or skin; how to make a birch-bark canoe; how
to repair a broken axle or wagon-wheel; how to
cross a bridgeless river; how to build a hut or
pitch a tent; to picket horses and secure camels;
to trap wild beasts or snare birds; to find a dinner
where there are no shops, and to cook it without a
kitchen. These are a few of the many subjects
treated by our authors, who are themselves veteran
travellers and explorers, and have learned in the
field much of the knowledge which they here
communicate to others.

It would seem that one of the chief difficulties
in organising an exploring expedition is to decide
upon the stores and provisions to be carried. If
there is not enough of these, the party may be
crippled far from its base of operations; if there is
too much, its movements will be seriously impeded
by the necessity of transport. Much depends upon
the nature of the country. One of the Australian
expeditions which had to traverse districts where
food of all kinds was scarce, had to carry an
enormous amount of stores, the first item in the
list being seventeen thousand pounds of flour; but
then the party consisted of twenty-one men.
Generally an explorer is in the best position who
can start off with only one or two white followers,
the rest of his party being hired natives, well used
to the ways of the country; and we believe the
most successful explorers have been those who, as
far as white men are concerned, have worked
alone or almost alone. Livingstone’s success is a
good proof of this. Mr Lord suggests that in
countries where riding is practicable, explorers
should make up their minds to eat horse-flesh occasionally,
and start with a good train of pack-horses,
each horse being shot and eaten as soon as its
burden is disposed of. He does not appear to
have ever tried the plan himself; and we fear that
at the end of a long march the flesh of a hard-worked
pack-horse would be a very poor substitute
for roast-beef. It is a pity that oxen cannot
be used as pack-animals. They are turned to a
stranger purpose in South Africa, where the
Hottentots and Kaffirs saddle and ride them; and
one of the authors of this book of travel tells us
that he has more than once had a very comfortable
ride on one of these horned steeds.

The Tartars use dogs to carry packs; in the far
north they do the chief work in pulling the sledges,
though the Laplanders chiefly use the reindeer for
this purpose. The Eskimo sledge-dogs are fine
strong animals, nearly allied to the wolf; and
Messrs Lord and Baines give some amusing hints
about their management. The sledge-driver must
never leave his sledge without securing it to a spear
driven into the snow, or the dogs will perhaps start
off of their own accord and distance all pursuit.
They are very quarrelsome; but generally in every
team there is one master-dog, with a very determined
will and strong sharp teeth; and when he
sees the others fighting, he will dash in amongst
them, and vigorously assist his master in restoring
order. When rough ice is to be traversed, the dogs’
paws are protected by little bags or moccasins of
hide. They are not fed till the day’s work is over;
and great care has to be taken that each gets his
proper share, for ‘some are so desperately artful
and cunning that they do all in their power to
delude their master into a belief that instead of
having had their full allowance, it is yet to come.’
The Lapland sled or kerres is different from the
low flat Eskimo dog-sledge. It is shaped something
like a big shoe, and is drawn by the reindeer,
which is used in the same way in Siberia,
and also for riding and carrying packs. In many
countries summer sleds are used. One of the
easiest to make is formed of a forked branch, with
pieces of wood nailed across the fork, the horse or
mule being harnessed to the pointed end. This
is often used by the settler for dragging loads of
all kinds over level ground.

These forked branches and sticks can be turned
to an endless number of uses. Grindstones are
mounted between them; they form yokes for
hanging weights over the shoulders; hooks for
suspending small objects in the hut or tent; racks
for arms and harness. In many countries the
native plough is formed of two forked branches
tied together and dragged by one man, while
another holds it down, and thus scratches a furrow
in the ground. The frontier settler has sometimes
to be content with a similar contrivance, made on{364}
a larger scale, of bigger branches, and drawn by a
couple of his oxen.

Some of the architectural ‘shifts’ are very interesting,
for there is a wide field for ingenuity in
the construction of hut and boat. In the tropics,
huts are very easily constructed by building up a
framework of poles, branches, or bamboos, the
sticks being not nailed but lashed together where
they cross; this rough outline of walls and roof is
then filled in with mats, bundles of rushes, or the
broad leaves of the fan-palm. Another method is
to build the hut of slabs ingeniously formed out of
a very unpromising material—long reeds. A few
sticks are cut and laid parallel to each other on
the ground; then across these a thick bed of reeds
is carefully arranged; another stick is laid on this
bed, exactly over each of the sticks below; the
projecting ends of each pair of rods are then tied
together; and the solid mass of reeds thus secured
can be raised on its lower edge and supported by
props or by other slabs meeting it at an angle,
much as children build houses of cards. In this
way very serviceable stables and outhouses are
often made in India. Having erected his light
hut or pitched his tent, the traveller, if he is
making a prolonged halt, proceeds to furnish it.
Planks and boxes supply seats; and if there is a
pole in the centre, a serviceable table can be made
by fixing a wagon-wheel on it about two and a
half feet from the ground, the pole passing through
the centre of the wheel, and the spokes being
covered with a few small boards. A comfortable
bed is easily improvised. Livingstone had a new
one made every night under his own supervision.
This was his plan. First, he had two straight poles
cut, two or three inches in diameter, which were
laid parallel to each other at a distance of two feet
apart; across these poles were placed short sticks,
saplings three feet long; and over these was laid a
thick pile of long grass; then came the usual
waterproof ground sheet and the blankets. ‘Thus,’
writes Stanley, ‘was improvised a bed fit for a
king.’ The wagon used by the colonists at the
Cape is very like a long hut on wheels, and forms
a very comfortable sleeping-place; while a large
tent can be made by halting the wagon, driving in
a few poles near it, and stretching the tent canvas
from these to the wagon-roof. It has been proposed
too that this roof should be an inverted boat
of waterproof canvas, which could be removed at
pleasure and used in crossing rivers. The wagon
is so large that this seems to be quite a practicable
idea.

Every explorer and traveller must carry some
kind of a boat or canoe with him. If he is without
one, the natives will often make most extortionate
demands for the hire of their own to him; but
if he has one, no matter how small, he can bargain
on much more equal terms. But even if no boats
can be procured, the mere crossing of a river can
always be effected by means of rafts. These can
be made of almost anything; casks, boxes, planks,
reeds, bamboos, all can be pressed into the service;
but we are told, it must be borne in mind ‘that
the cargo a raft can carry above water is always
small, and not at all like the mountain of treasure
invariably represented on that of Robinson Crusoe.’
These rafts are often constructed of very strange
materials. On the Nile they are made of jars,
which are thus brought down the river to be sold
at Cairo. On many of the African rivers they are
made of bundles of sedge-grass; and lying down
on these, the hippopotamus hunters approach the
huge beast; the raft looking so like a natural
accumulation that he does not attempt to get out
of the way till it is too late. On such a raft, made
on a larger scale, the Swedish naturalist Lindholm
and his assistant successfully descended one of the
rivers that feed Lake Ngami. The voyage was a
strange one. The raft was built in a quiet nook
by throwing hundreds of bundles of sedge across
each other, without any other fastening than their
natural cohesion and entanglement. On this huge
floating mass a hut was built, and the two adventurers
then poled it out into the stream, and it went
down the current at the rate of about forty or fifty
miles a day. Occasionally it took the ground at
the bottom, but when a little of the grass tore off,
it floated clear again. As the lower layers became
sodden and pressed together, fresh grass had to be
cut every day and laid on top, till at last there
was six feet of the raft under water. Occasionally
overhanging branches tore off some of the grass,
and once a large projecting trunk lay so close to
the water that it ‘swept the decks fore and aft.’ The
hut was destroyed, and with much of its contents
was carried away into the river; but the travellers
saved themselves by climbing over the bough,
and then repaired the damage and resumed their
voyage. Sir Samuel Baker constructed a much
more singular raft to cross the Atbara River in
Equatorial Africa. A bedstead supported by eight
inflated hides formed the basis of the structure;
and on this was secured a large sponging bath
three feet eight inches in diameter, which formed
a dry receptacle for the ammunition and other
baggage.

One of the most remarkable features of uncivilised
life is the power savages shew of tracking men
and beasts over immense distances. Many travellers
have spoken of this as something almost
miraculous, yet it is only the result of careful
observation of certain well-known signs; and we
have here before us a collection of very common-sense
hints on the subject. In countries like ours
every trace of foot-print or wheel-track on roads and
paths is soon obliterated or hopelessly confused;
but it is otherwise in the wilderness, where neither
man nor beast can conceal his track. In Kaffirland,
when cattle are stolen, if their foot-prints are
traced to a village, the headman is held responsible
for them, unless he can shew the same track
going out. A wagon-track in a new country is
practically indelible. ‘More especially,’ say our
authors, ‘is this the case if a fire sweeps over the
plain immediately after, or if the wagon passes
during or after a prairie fire. We have known a
fellow-traveller recognise in this manner the tracks
his wagon had made seven years before, the lines of
charred stumps crushed short down remaining to
indicate the passage of the wheels, though all
other impressions had been obliterated by the
rank annual growth of grass fully twelve feet high.’
Sometimes the original soil being disturbed, a new
vegetation will spring up along the wagon-track,
and thus mark out the road for miles. Even on
hard rock a man’s bare foot will leave the dust
caked together by perspiration, so that a practised
eye will see it; and even if there is no track, a stone
will be disturbed here and there, the side of the
pebble which has long lain next the ground being
turned up. If it is still damp, the man or beast{365}
that turned it has passed very recently. If a
shower of rain has fallen, the track will tell
whether it was made before, during, or after the
shower; similar indications can be obtained from
the dew; and another indication of the time that
has elapsed since a man passed by is furnished by
the state of the crushed grass, which will be more
or less withered as the time is longer or shorter.
Other indications are drawn from the direction in
which the grass lies; this tells how the wind was
blowing at the time the grass was crushed; and
by noting previous changes of the wind, one learns
the time at which each part of the track was
made. Much too can be learned from the form of
the foot-prints. Savages generally turn their toes
in, in walking; white men turn theirs out. A
moccasin print with the toes turned out would
indicate that a white man in Indian walking-gear
had gone by; and almost every foot has a print
of its own, which enables an experienced tracker
to follow a single track amongst a dozen others.
Similarly the character of the print will tell
whether the man who made it walked freely or
was led by others; whether he was in a hurry or
travelling slowly; whether he carried a burden;
and if he were sober or tipsy. A horse-track
is equally well marked. It tells when the horse
galloped, where he walked, when he stopped to
feed or drink; and a scattering of sand and gravel
will tell when he was startled by any strange
sight. In all this two things are needed—sharp
sight and careful training. The elephant often
makes a very curious track as he walks; if he
suspects danger, he scents the ground with the tip
of his trunk, and this makes a well-marked serpentine
line in the dust. Elephants have changed
their tactics since rifle-pits were introduced.
Formerly, when their chief danger was a pitfall,
the leader of the herd felt the ground inch by
inch; and if he detected the covering of a trap, tore
it off and left it open. Now they rely much more
on scent, and in this way, often from a great distance,
detect the hunter lurking near their drinking-places.
If so, they will sometimes travel fifty or
a hundred miles to another stream or pool.—Such
is a specimen of this generally amusing book.

FANCHETTE, THE GOAT OF BOULAINVILLIERS.

AN EPISODE OF THE SIEGE OF PARIS.

While the German army inclosed in its iron
grasp the most brilliant and pleasure-loving city of
Europe, transforming in a moment its epicurean
population into a people of heroes, the environs
once so gay and so beautiful had experienced a
change almost as great. Most of the detached
villas were deserted, or occupied by the enemy, and
the villages whose regular inhabitants had either
taken refuge in Paris or fled to a distance, were
repopulated by a singular assemblage of individuals
belonging to all classes of society, and bound
together only by the tie of a common nationality,
and the necessity of finding a shelter and providing
for their daily wants.

The hamlet of Boulainvilliers, which had been
thus abandoned, had received an entirely new
colony, and its beautiful avenue carpeted with
turf of the most lovely green, had all the appearance
of a camp. As long as the season would permit,
cooking was carried on in the open air, and
groups were constantly to be seen surrounding the
fires and exchanging accounts of their mutual
misfortunes.

A painter of Fleurs, bearing the English or
rather Scotch name of MacHenry, was among these
refugees. He had brought with him from Colombes,
where he had before resided, a remarkably beautiful
white goat called Fanchette. This creature, to
which her master was much attached, figures in
the most of his pictures. Light and graceful as
a gazelle, she is represented sometimes cropping
delicately the green branches of the hedgerows and
bushes, sometimes entangled in a maze of brier-roses,
their pink blossoms and green leaves falling
around her in elegant garlands, and contrasting
well with the snowy whiteness of her skin.

Fanchette was a universal favourite; and few
there were at Boulainvilliers who would not have
deprived themselves of a morsel of the bread sometimes
so hard to procure, that they might reserve
a mouthful for the goat, which, however, the saucy
thing would only accept from her particular
friends.

The grace and rare intelligence of the animal
frequently relieved the miseries of the siege.
All were surprised at the wonderful education her
master had succeeded in giving her. He had even
taught her something of his art; and it was really
extraordinary to see the sensible creature busily
employed in arranging pebbles on the ground, so
as to form a rude resemblance to a human profile,
often grotesque enough, but still such as one occasionally
sees on human shoulders; and looking
at her work, one could not help thinking that
after all the lower animals are perhaps not so far
inferior to us as we suppose.

The art with which Fanchette selected from a
bunch of flowers each one that was named to her
was really marvellous. Roses, wallflowers, tulips,
camellias, were promptly chosen from the number,
and it was rare indeed that she made the least
mistake. Two centuries ago they would have
burned the poor beast for a witch.

The exercise which she preferred to all others
consisted in catching on her horns a series of brass
rings which her master threw up in the air. This
she did with the greatest address; and when she
had got a dozen or so of them encircling her brow
like a diadem, she would begin jumping and
galloping and shaking her head to make them
jingle, till, over-excited by their rough music, she
would end by dancing in the most fantastic style
on her hind-feet, till tired at length with her
exertions, she would bound towards her master
and throw the rings at his feet.

Among those who had found refuge in the
hamlet was a child of five years old, called Marie,
the daughter of a peasant whose farm had been
burned by the invaders. She was an object of
general interest in the little colony on account of
her gentle manners, and the sweet but suffering
expression of her pale infantine features. A year
or two previously she had been so severely bitten
in the arm by a vicious dog that the limb had to
be amputated, and her delicate constitution had
never recovered the shock. Fanchette soon took a
great fancy to the little girl; and the doctor having
advised her to be fed as much as possible upon
milk, MacHenry offered that of the goat. It was
beautiful to see the pleasure with which the affectionate{366}
creature took upon herself the office of
nurse, and the avidity with which the child sucked
in the grateful nourishment which was giving her
new life. Fanchette became every day more and
more attached to Marie. She rarely left her, except
when wanted by her master for some new study;
and when it was ended, and MacHenry set her at
liberty, saying: ‘Now be off to Marie,’ with what
joy the creature bounded away, and how rejoiced
was the little one to have again by her side her
darling Fanchette! Nestling her head under the
child’s hand, a world of loving things were interchanged
in their mute caresses.

It once happened that a lady having in her hand
a crown of artificial ivy which she had picked up
somewhere, probably the débris of a school fête
during happier times, placed it on the head of the
little Marie. Fanchette, rising on her hind-legs,
examined it with comical curiosity; and having
made up her mind on the subject, scampered off
to an old tree close by, around whose trunk the
real ivy twined in thick and glossy wreaths,
butted at it with her horns, twisting it round
them, and tearing off long trailing garlands. She
then ran back in triumph to throw her treasures
at the child’s feet, saying as clearly as if she had
the gift of speech: ‘Look! This is better than
the coarse imitation they have decked you with;
this is the real thing!’

Another day the child was looking at herself in
a mirror, and Fanchette immediately began to do
the same. The expression of sadness and wonder
in her eyes seemed to say so plainly: ‘Why are
Marie and I so different? If I were like her I
could speak to her, and then we should love each
other still better!’

One evening Marie, who was sitting by her
mother’s side, began to fidget and complain of an
uneasy sensation in her back. Her mother, busily
engaged with some work, and thinking the child
was only disposed to be troublesome, examined it
slightly, and told her to be quiet; but the poor
little thing continued to complain, when, the
mother getting out of temper, gave her a sharp
slap. Fanchette, who was present at this scene,
presented her horns in a threatening attitude to
the woman, and gently stroked the shoulders of
her little friend with her foot. At the sight of the
dumb animal’s eloquent appeal, the woman began
to relent, and calling the child to her, examined
more carefully the state of things, when she found,
to her horror, one of those large and poisonous
caterpillars called in French ‘processionnaires,’
which had painfully irritated the delicate skin of
the child.

It was about this time that MacHenry, continuing
his artistic labours in spite of all the difficulties of
the situation, resolved on taking for the subject of
a new picture his goat Fanchette nursing the little
Marie. Fanchette lent herself with her usual
intelligence and docility to his wishes; and Marie
was represented lying among grass and flowers
with her four-footed friend bending over her.
This picture, which was afterwards regarded as one
of MacHenry’s best works, obtained the most
signal success at the Paris Exhibition of Modern
Art—the truthfulness of the design, the freshness
of the colouring, and the grace of the composition
being equally striking.

But these bright autumn days soon passed away,
and many may recollect the bitter cold of the sad
Christmas of that dismal winter. Poor little
Marie suffered so severely from it, that after a vain
attempt to recall some warmth by lighting a fire
of brushwood, the only fuel that could be procured,
her mother, as a last resource, put her into her
little bed, in the hope that by heaping upon her
all the clothing she could procure, the child might
regain a little heat; but it was in vain: no heat
came, and the blood had almost ceased to circulate
in her frozen limbs. At this moment Fanchette
arrived, and without waiting for an invitation,
sprang upon the bed. It was in vain they tried to
drive her away; she only clung the closer to her
nursling, and covering the child with her body,
soon restored her to warmth and animation.

There was one among the temporary inhabitants
of Boulainvilliers for whom Fanchette entertained
an unmitigated aversion; this was a knife-grinder
of the name of Massicault. His appearance was
certainly not calculated to produce a favourable
impression, for his features were repulsive and his
expression disagreeable. A low forehead, a scowling
eye, and a short thick-set figure were the
principal physical traits of this personage; nor
were they redeemed by those of his moral character.
He had for his constant companion a large
ill-favoured bull-dog with a spiked collar, who
seemed to share all the evil instincts of his master.
Every one wondered how the knife-grinder managed
to feed this animal at a time when it was
so hard to find the merest necessaries of life for
human beings—and that too without ever seeming
to do a hand’s turn of work; for all day long
he was lounging about, and it was rare indeed to
hear the noise of his wheel. When any one—alarmed
at the threatening aspect of the brute,
who never failed to growl and shew his fangs when
approached—asked his master to call him off,
Massicault used only to reply with an ill-natured
laugh: ‘He has not begun yet to eat such big
morsels as you; but there’s no saying what he
may do one of these days!’

MacHenry was sorry that his goat partook of
the general dislike to this man. He would have
rather wished that she should have tried by her
winning caresses to soften his rugged nature, and
bring him to love the gentle creature that had
gained all other hearts; but as we shall see in the
sequel, things turned out very differently.

On one of the last fine days of that sad year,
a crowd having gathered round her while her
master was amusing himself by exhibiting her
intelligence in the selection of the fruit and flowers
he named, in which she acquitted herself with her
usual sagacity, MacHenry bade her fetch an apple.
There were some still hanging on a tree in a
neighbouring garden; but instead of running off
as usual to the well-known place, she went right
up to the knife-grinder, and pushing aside with
her paws the skirts of his coat, displayed two
pockets stuffed with something, which the crowd,
amid shouts of laughter, declared to be stolen
apples. The artist tried to call off his goat, and
the man drove her away with curses; but two
vigorous peasants immediately laid hold of him,
and insisted on seeing the contents of the suspicious
pockets; which proved to be, as all had supposed,
apples stolen from the tree in question.
The discovery only increased the rage of Massicault,
who swore with the most fearful oaths that
he had never touched one of them, and that the{367}
apples found in his possession had been given to
him by a friend. Though none believed him,
several, in order to get rid of a disagreeable affair,
feigned to do so, and he was finally let off; but
many thought they had thus got a clew to the
authorship of several robberies recently committed
to the prejudice of different members of the little
community.

This misadventure excited in the knife-grinder
a violent hatred against Fanchette, which was
heartily shared by his worthy companion the bull-dog.
The latter was an object of special terror
to poor little Marie. Fanchette seemed to understand
the fears of the child, and whenever the
dog approached her, she would lower her horns,
as if to protect her nursling and defy her enemy.
These demonstrations of valour were generally
successful, the dog slinking off with glaring eyes
and drooping tail.

One day Fanchette nestled up close to her
master, putting her foot upon his arm, and having
succeeded in gaining his attention, ran off to a
particular spot, where she stopped to sniff the grass,
and then trotting back, she renewed several times
the same manœuvre. MacHenry, persuaded that
something extraordinary must be the matter, rose
and followed her. When she reached the spot,
putting aside like a terrier dog the long herbage
with her feet, she displayed to view a leather
pocket-book, which the artist picked up and examined.
An instant sufficed to shew that it belonged
to the knife-grinder, and its contents proved that
this man was one of the numerous spies the
Germans had constantly and everywhere in their
service. He found besides in this pocket-book,
pushed under the covering, the picture of a child,
one of those common photographs which have no
other merit than a certain resemblance.

The very day that this pocket-book was found
a frightful scene took place. Little Marie was
sitting on a low stool eating a morsel of bread,
which she was sharing with Fanchette, when the
bull-dog chanced to pass. The animal stopped for
a moment, and looked at her; then as if overcome
by the temptation, he suddenly darted at
her and snatched at the bread. He was prevented,
however, by the goat, and with a toss of
her horns she sent the ferocious beast sprawling
to some distance; but he was only stunned, not
seriously hurt; and furious at his repulse, he
sprang upon the poor goat, seized her by the throat,
and shook her with rage. Marie uttered piercing
shrieks, and MacHenry having got hold of a stick,
ran to the rescue. A sharp blow on the head
caused the dog to lose his grip of poor Fanchette,
and turn against his new enemy, seizing him by
the shoulder; but a peasant coming to the assistance
of the artist, forced the dog again to let go;
and limping off and growling, he at last took
refuge beside his master, who all the while had
been an unmoved spectator of the scene.

Great was the general grief at the sight of poor
Fanchette motionless on the grass, bleeding profusely
from the wound in her throat; and strong
the indignation excited by the ferocity of the dog
and the conduct of its brutal master. Many were
the threats muttered against both; and there is
little doubt that the dog at least would soon have
paid the penalty he deserved had Fanchette’s
wound been mortal; but on examination it was
found to be less serious than it appeared, and her
master’s care of her soon effected a complete cure.
The inhabitants of the hamlet, however, resolved
not to let slip the opportunity for getting rid of
the obnoxious knife-grinder. This ill-favoured
individual was received whenever he shewed himself
with cries of ‘Be off and quickly too, and be
thankful we do not throttle your wretch of a dog
first.’

Unable to resist the general storm of indignation,
the man and his worthy companion were
about to take their departure; but they had hardly
reached the entrance of the village, when they
were met by a party bringing along with them an
orphan boy of about six or seven years of age,
whose parents had been found murdered some
days previously in one of the detached cottages of
the neighbourhood, which some still ventured to
inhabit. The child, at the sight of the knife-grinder
and his dog, uttered a loud cry and covered
his eyes with his hands.

‘What is the matter, my poor little fellow?’
asked one of the by-standers. At length he was
able with difficulty to reply, his words interrupted
with deep sobs: ‘That man! that dog! It was
they that killed my mother! I saw it all from
behind the curtain in which I was hid.’

Every one looked in astonishment at his neighbour,
not knowing whether to believe the strange
assertion of the child; when MacHenry produced
the pocket-book and informed those around him of
its contents. The child immediately cried out that
it was his mother’s; and had any doubt remained
it would have been dispelled by looking at the
portrait that was contained in it, for its resemblance
to the poor little boy was striking.

In presence of such proof, there could be no
hesitation, and two men immediately set off in
pursuit of the fugitive; but he had already got
a considerable advance, and fear lent him wings,
so that before they could reach him he had gained
the protection of the German outposts. He did
not succeed, however, in evading the fate he
merited, for shortly after the news arrived that
the wretched man had fallen into the hands of a
detachment of French francs-tireurs, and having
been convicted of being concerned in the burning
of a farm, was immediately condemned and shot.

MacHenry adopted the orphan boy, and never
had cause to repent of his generous action. ‘I
have now two children,’ he used gaily to say; ‘for
my gentle intelligent Fanchette is almost as dear
to me as if she were a human creature!’

LIME-JUICE.

Some interesting facts have been communicated
to us, arising out of the publication of our recent
article on ‘Lime-Juice’ (March 24, 1877). It appears
that some years ago Messrs Sturge of Birmingham
established a Company for developing
the resources of the island of Montserrat in the
West Indies. Attention was directed chiefly to
the production of genuine lime-juice, mainly for
the extraction therefrom of citric acid, of which
Messrs Sturge are extensive manufacturers in
this country. With this object in view, they
paid sedulous attention to the maintenance of
extensive lime-tree plantations. All the ripe
sound fresh fruit is selected first, for the production
of lime-juice, while the remainder becomes
available for citric acid. The juice is bottled{368}
immediately on its arrival in this country. In
1874 the Company were the owners of no less than
five hundred lime-trees in full bearing in the little
island of Montserrat; and the number has since
been increased by the conversion of unprofitable
sugar-plantations into profitable lime-tree plantations.
The collection and manipulation of the
ripe limes give healthy employment to large
numbers of women and young persons.

When Dr Leach, medical officer on board the
Dreadnought, called public attention in 1866 to
the recent appearance of scurvy in merchant-ships,
he induced the Board of Trade to take up the
matter seriously. This led to the passing of an
Act in 1867, ordering the provision of lime-juice
or lemon-juice in every merchant and passenger
ship, and its use every day by every person on
board. It is, however, known that lemon-juice
is not so effective as lime-juice as an anti-scorbutic;
and that, moreover, the best lime-juice
does not require to be ‘fortified’ with ten or fifteen
per cent. of alcohol to preserve it, which appears
to be necessary for lemon-juice and inferior lime-juice.
In the navy more strictness is observed.
Lime-juice only is permitted; it must be prepared
from ripe sound fruit, gathered in particular
months of the year; and must bear analytical
tests touching its citricity, flavour, and condition.
As a consequence, scurvy is now almost unknown
in the royal navy, except in the case of the recent
Arctic Expedition, the particulars of which will
no doubt be fully investigated and set forth by
the Admiralty Committee duly appointed for that
purpose. The navy is, we believe, supplied
invariably with the best lime-juice only, to the
exclusion of lemon-juice, and also to the exclusion
of such juice of the real lime as requires, on
account of its poorness of quality, to be fortified
or ‘doctored’ with strong crude spirit. Very
likely, in this as in so many other instances,
cheapness is at the bottom of the whole affair:
mercantile lemon-juice (even if called by the name
of the lime) being cheaper than navy lime-juice.
If so, it affords a sad instance of the misuse of the
good word economy; for it certainly is not economical
to imperil the health of the crews in trading-ships,
and of passengers in emigrant-ships, by the
use of that which is ‘cheap and nasty.’ Something
there is in the common juice which renders
it very unpalatable to the men, who often shirk
their prescribed dose unless strictly watched.
Let us hope that the Report of the Arctic Committee
will strengthen the hands of the Board of
Trade to deal with this matter.

AFFECTION IN BIRD-LIFE.

A correspondent having read our recent article
on Bird-affection, kindly sends us the following
singular instance of intelligence and affection on
the part of a duck. ‘We have,’ he tells us,
‘two white ducks; the one designated Mr Yellowbill
being wonderfully intelligent, yet fond of
fun. My little son and he have great games
together. The lad throws out an india-rubber ball
a longer or shorter distance, leaving it for the bird
to decide whether it shall be pursued with a flying
or a running movement. In either case, the ball
is swiftly seized by duckie, and returned to the
thrower, who keeps up the game until both have
had enough of it. Another peculiarity of Mr Yellowbill
may be mentioned. At the splashing of
water from an adjacent well he is aroused, and will
instantly fly towards the scene of action, plunge in,
bathe, jump out, flap his wings joyfully, and “like
a bird,” take himself off again. But the story of
affection for his kind must now be told. The
other day, when swinging on a gate, my little boy
felt something tugging at his trousers, and on
looking round discovered the duck, who, he
supposed, invited him to a game at ball. So down
he got, and caressed his feathered friend as the
preliminary. The duck, however, continued pulling
away in so unusual and persistent a manner that
the lad decided to go whither he was led; and lo!
at the corner of an outbuilding was found poor
Mrs Yellowbill, lame of a leg and quite unable
to waddle along. Meanwhile her husband continued
to manifest the greatest concern about
her, yet did not forget his manners and grateful
acknowledgments, but bowed and better bowed to
those around who had now come to the rescue;
shewing that even a duck may act and feel as a
gentleman. The cause of hurt referred to has not
been ascertained; but happily Mrs Yellowbill is
now quite well, and her husband is as lively as
ever.’

LENACHLUTEN,

A WATERFALL IN ARGYLESHIRE.

H. K. W.