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

A HOLIDAY IN THE LAKE-COUNTRY.

Let those who have not as yet made up their
minds how or where to spend their summer holiday,
turn their steps towards Lakeland. There,
beauty ever changing and ever charming in all
her multiform varieties, lies in wait for them at
every turn. Life too among the hills has a free
hearty zest, born of the invigorating mountain
breezes, which you search for in vain elsewhere.
The wind, as it sweeps along the hill-side, recalls,
as it fans the weary brow, the quick glad feeling
of existence, the exuberance of gay animal spirits,
which were natural and unprized in careless boyhood,
but which are too often extinguished by the
cares assumed with advancing years.

The steep roads, the green hill-slopes, the peaceful
mossy boulders, the picturesque nooks, in which
nestle quaint little homesteads, and the broad calm
lake stretching out like a great embossed silver
shield at your feet, with the deep shadows of the
hills shading into purple gloom in its shining
ripples—who that has once seen such a picture,
particularly in sunshine, can ever forget it?

In winter evenings, when the curtains are snugly
drawn, and the howling storm shut out, and the
firelight tinges all around with its warm ruddy
glow, pleasant visions of the breezy fells, and the
great hills with their changeful lights and shadows,
and the leafy copses running down to the edge of
the water, recur to the memory. You are again
in the swiftly gliding boat; you lean over to gather
the water-lilies, or to gaze into the clear pebbly-bottomed
abysses of that softly yielding flood.
Again you see mirrored in its crystal depths the
straggling rifts of vapour, or the long rippling
beaches of cloud. The sweet do-nothingness of
the hour, its gay insouciance, or its vanished
romance, are with you once more, and charm you
as of old. It is with a feeling of half-sad tenderness
that you turn away from the mental photograph,
and leaving it safe in memory’s keeping, go
back to your busy commonplace world.

Mr Payn, in his beautiful volume entitled The
Lakes in Sunshine (Windermere: J. Garnett), gives
us a sparkling description of Lakeland. He begins
with Windermere, because, as he says, ‘the scenery
of the northern lakes is unquestionably grander
and wilder, and they should therefore be seen after
their southern sisters.’ Almost every one has seen
Windermere, the queen of English lakes. Many
have seen it as Mr Payn says it is best seen—by a

To such, a magic charm clings ever afterwards to
each tree and shrub, investing those never-to-be-forgotten
days of delicious idling on its pleasant
shores with a glory peculiarly their own.

Among the distinguished people who have done
Windermere and climbed Orrest Head, to gaze
from thence upon the panorama of lake and
mountain and wooded hill and sea which stretch
around, was Beau Brummel, who was, however,
much too fine a gentleman to get up any unfashionable
enthusiasm upon the subject. ‘Charles,’
he would drawl out to his valet, when he was
asked which of the lakes was his favourite—’Charles,
which lake was it we liked best?’

Immediately beneath the tourist, as he stands on
Orrest Head, is Elleray, where ‘Christopher North’
spent so much of his time. He loved the mountains
around, and might be met upon them in all
weathers, in shine or shower; the shower of course,
as is the case all throughout Lakeland, predominating
greatly. As a rule the weather is moist and
often wet, although the dalesmen do not like to
have it called so, or to have any exceptions taken
to the lack of sunshine. They are as irritable upon
the subject as a certain Parsee grandee was, who
when his venerable ecclesiastical host, finding a
dearth of topics of conversation, fell back upon
that standing British theme the weather, and
blandly observed: ‘We have not seen the sun, Sir
Jamsetjee, for many a day,’ shut him up abruptly
with a stern: ‘And what is that to you, sir? The
sun is my god.’

In like manner mist and rain, the tutelary genii
of Lakeland, are under the special protection of
the aborigines. There are a number of pretty{370}
houses in the vicinity of Windermere, and land for
building purposes is in great demand, and very
difficult to be had; for a dalesman, although seldom
caring a straw about the beauty of the scenery,
is passionately attached to the little bit of land he
has inherited from his father, and tenaciously
determined, as he will tell you, ‘to hand it forat,’
that his son may be no worse off than he was
himself. Unfortunately, he has no ambition to
make him better; and the authoress of the Cottagers
of Glenburnie, could she revisit the earth,
might find work enough and to spare amid the
untidy and half-ruinous homesteads of the Lake
country.

Towards the southern end of the lake is Storrs
Hall, where once upon a time a brilliant company
were wont to assemble, Canning, Sir Walter Scott,
Wordsworth, Southey, and Christopher North.
Intellectual Titans! All that of yore awoke your
admiration is here, but not one of your number
lingers to admire! There still are the wooded
coombs and knolls rich in myriad shifting lights
of beauty, the might of the silent hills, the placid
loveliness of the romantic lake; but ye have gone,
and the place that knows you no more preaches to
the musing stranger an eloquent homily upon the
transitoriness of life, and even of that fame which
we fondly call immortal.

There is not in all Lakeland a more picturesque
town than Ambleside. Here, as most people know,
is the Knoll, the pretty little villa in which Miss
Martineau spent the long tranquil autumn of her
life. She built it for herself, and was commended
for the wisdom of her choice by Wordsworth, who
did not break into any poetic raptures over the
lovely scenery; but taking a commonplace view
of the case, said shrewdly: ‘You have made a
capital investment; it will double its value in ten
years.’ He also gave her a piece of advice about
her housekeeping, which had more of calculating
frugality in it than a superficial observer would
have expected from the poetic temperament.
‘You will have many visitors,’ quoth the prudent
bard of Lakeland. ‘You must do as we do. You
must say to them: “If you will have some tea
with us, you are welcome; but if you want any
meat along with it, you must pay for it as boarders
do.”‘

Rydal Mount, Wordsworth’s home, is in the
close vicinity of Ambleside, a sanctuary which Mr
Payn would have closed against all pilgrims except
those who can understand Wordsworth’s works as
well as quote them—a too severe ordeal, which
would well nigh make a solitude of this classic spot.
‘This intellectual winnowing-machine,’ he says,
‘would exclude about ninety out of a hundred of
the well-meaning but really inexcusable folks who
now request admittance at that sacred gate.’

Opposite the principal hotel at Grasmere, upon
the roadside that leads to the Wishing Gate, is
the white cottage in which Wordsworth spent his
early married life, and where De Quincey lived
after him, and filled the little drawing-room with
his library of five thousand books. Here, invigorated
by the mountain breezes, or absorbed in his
books and the beautiful scenery, the far-famed
Opium-eater made a sudden descent from three
hundred and twenty grains (eight thousand drops)
per diem of his favourite drug to forty grains, and
found himself, Mr Payn says, in the novel position
of a man with opium to give away.

One day when he was lounging among the June
roses, a tawny stranger beturbaned and travel-stained
asked an alms of him in the Malay tongue.
Of this half-barbarous vernacular De Quincey was
profoundly ignorant, as indeed he was of all
Eastern languages, the only two Asiatic words he
knew being the Arabic word for barley, and the
Turkish name for opium. So he tried the dusky
suppliant with Greek, which he replied to glibly
in Malay. The end of the strange colloquy being
that De Quincey, divining from the stranger’s
aspect that he also was an opium-eater, bestowed
upon him a large cake of the precious drug; enough,
he calculated, to serve him a fortnight. The
Malay took it, and without more ado, swallowed
it outright, leaving his benefactor transfixed with
horror, staring dumbly after him as he went upon
his way.

For some days afterwards De Quincey was not
unnaturally much exercised in mind, and very
curious to learn from all passers-by if a man with
a turban had been found dead on the road between
Grasmere and Whitehaven. He was not; but
he might as well have been, as far as De Quincey
was concerned; for no shade returning from the
ghostly shores of Avernus to haunt a living foe
ever exacted a more terrible vengeance for unintentional
wrong than did the Grasmere Malay.
For months he haunted with persistent animus
the opium dreams of De Quincey, and was not
exorcised until he had run the gantlet of every
unimaginable horror, far transcending any atrocity
of which a Malay in the flesh could have been
capable.

As a matter of course, in Lakeland there is, for
those who like it, climbing enough and to spare;
but there are not a few sagacious individuals who
have no relish for this exercise, and are ready to
exclaim with Mr Payn: ‘Of what use are photographs
if they do not convey so accurate an idea
of the locality as to save us the trouble and exertion
of conveying ourselves thither! For what is the
effect of the barbarism of walking uphill until
the human frame becomes somewhat inured to it,
just as it becomes inured to taking arsenic or any
other deleterious habit? Why, a trembling of the
legs, excessive pain in the knee-joints, determination
of blood to the head, singing in the ears,
inordinate perspiration, and a desperate desire for
liquids.’ Let all holiday wanderers, not being
members of the Alpine Club, take note of this.
Leaving climbing to those adventurous spirits
who love it, there is no lack of beautiful walks
for more humble-minded pedestrians, only they
must beware not of the dog, but of the bull. These{371}
formidable quadrupeds abound or did abound; and
to find yourself face to face in a bowery glade with
a huge bellowing brute, pawing the ground, distending
his nostrils, glaring at you with his fierce
red eyes, and otherwise unnecessarily exciting
himself, is, to say the least, a situation in which
it would be very difficult even for a Sir Charles
Grandison to preserve an equable dignity of
demeanour.

At Coniston you can, if a member of the Alpine
Club, or qualifying for that honour, do the Old
Man of Coniston; ‘but to recommend the ascent
of such a monster is altogether,’ Mr Payn says,
‘contrary to his principles.’ He rather recommends
the ascent of Black Coomb, a sombre but
majestic hill, from which, said Wordsworth,
‘there is the most extensive sea-view in Britain.’

Perhaps, however, O weary tourist, your head
may not be of the steadiest at giddy heights, and
it may be as well to pause in lowly but safe obscurity
at its base, and there solace yourself with
a description of its glories:

Opposite Wallabarrow Crag is the hamlet of
Newfield, where lived in days gone by a worthy
clergyman, who was known far and near throughout
the little world of the Dales by the name of
Wonderful Walker. In a worldly sense, less blest
than he of whom the poet sings, ‘that he was
passing rich with forty pounds a year,’ for he had
but eighteen, he yet with the help of this slender
income maintained and educated a family of twelve,
and died at the age of ninety worth two thousand
pounds! This of course was not all saved out of
the eighteen pounds a year. He acted as doctor,
schoolmaster, and lawyer for his parishioners, and
lent a hand besides at sheep-shearing and hay-harvest;
for all which diverse services he exacted
and obtained a modest fee.

Furness Abbey, with its vast piles of splendid
ruins, with its lonely aisles, and roofless dormitories
deserted and time-stricken, appeals to the
gazer with a sense of beauty so full and exquisite
in its calm decay, that content with the loveliness
that remains, he scarcely cares to recall
the glories that have gone by. Dire have been
the alternations of fate through which this
magnificent house of Our Lady of Furness has
passed. In the spacious building which is now
used as the railway hotel, Rogerus Pele, the last
abbot, held his state. Here he was so unwise
as to countenance a local rising against Henry
VIII.; and here, when that Defender of the Faith
had triumphed over all his enemies, he received
from the ecclesiastical commission a list of questions,
one or two of which bothered him not a
little. Had not he, vowed as he was to the stern
Cistercian rule, two wives? Had not one of his
monks one, and another five?—an excess of blessing
which Henry perhaps wisely thought ought
to be included in the special rights of kings only.
How did Abbot Rogerus answer these questions?
Did St Bernard aid in his hour of need this degenerate
son? It is to be feared not; for from this
splendid house—and sure never was poor Cistercian
more richly housed—the abbot and his
monks, obeying the monarch’s stern decree, went
forth for ever.

Hawes-water, a lonely secluded lake, with no
good inn accommodation near it, is visited by but
few tourists, which is rather a pity, as it is one of
the grandest of the sisterhood of meres, although
inferior in picturesque beauty to Ullswater, of
which Mr Payn says, contrasting it with Windermere,
‘that Windermere is very homelike, and
makes one wish to live for ever (or even die) in
one of its many pleasant dwellings; but for grandeur,
it is certainly not to be compared to its
northern sister.’

Thus one by one the sweet smiling lakes pass
by, the bright summer days fade away, and the
pleasant holiday season comes to an end. The
long shadows lengthen lovingly over Lakeland; the
giant hills, like sleepy Titans, nod a last adieu; the
darkling copsewood grows shadowy and indistinct;
the sweet sunny mere in the hollow glimmers in
the distance; the purple haze creeps up the well-known
glens, golden with happy memories; and
the lofty mountains we have or have not climbed,
gloom with deeper shadows. What thanks do we
not owe to all, lake, river, forest, and mountain,
for many delightful hours and pleasant memories!
Again would we recommend our holiday-making
friends to point their route to Lakeland, commencing
say at Windermere.

THE LAST OF THE HADDONS.

CHAPTER XXVIII.—CONGRATULATIONS.

I walked slowly back towards the cottage, taking
myself to task for the foolish doubts and fears
which had so oppressed me. How could I have
been so disloyal as to have a moment’s doubt?
Philip was right: it was not fair to him! As
though the love of a man such as he was, would
depend upon a woman looking more or less
blooming!

No doubt I had looked my very worst, standing
there in the wood, pale and fagged and travel-stained,
in my shabby old bonnet and mean-looking
cloak; a great contrast to Lilian, in her fresh
white pique dress, and with her delicately beautiful
colouring of eyes and hair and complexion. Of
course it was perfectly natural that he should be
sorry to see me looking so worn and faded; all
the more sorry because he loved me. Should not
I have felt pained to see him looking in any way
worse than I had expected to see him; and so
forth; until I had argued myself into a state of
perfect content again, quite convinced that I was
the happiest of women.

Lilian met me at the gate with outstretched
arms. ‘Dear, darling, naughty Mary; if this were
a night when scolding were possible! Why did
you not tell us?’

‘Dear Lilian, it was wrong, I know. But in
truth I was longing to tell you, only—many things
prevented my doing so.’

‘But the wonder is how in the world you could
contrive to avoid talking about him! So grand,
and noble, and good; I am sure he is good.’

{372}

‘Yes, dear, he is good;’ beginning at last to find
it pleasant to talk about him.

‘The idea of your having such a lover hidden up
in your thoughts all the time we were worrying
your life out with our troubles! How could you
have so much patience and sympathy with us—with
me?’

‘Perhaps, Lilian, for the very reason that he was
hidden up in my thoughts.’

‘Well, perhaps it was: yes; I can understand
that, Mary;’ adding with a little sigh, ‘and I
think I can guess now why you did not like talking
about your happiness to me, dear kind sister
that you are!’

‘I am glad that you like Philip, Lilian.’

‘Like him! Of course I do; though there is
not much credit in liking one so nice as he is, I
suppose. He knows how to pay compliments too.
Do you know he paid me such a nice one, Mary?
He said that I reminded him of you, and that he
could trace the influence of your mind upon mine.
I stupidly all the while never guessing the truth!
The idea of your having been engaged for ten
years, and once so nearly married, without your
sister knowing anything about it!’

Afterwards there were dear old Mrs Tipper’s
congratulations to listen to. But although she
was quite as ready as Lilian to say kind things,
and evidently wished to make me understand that
she was pleased for my sake, there was the shadow
of a regret in her eyes, and I thought I knew the
reason why.

Pleasant as it all was, it was even pleasanter to
be once more alone with my thoughts. I sat by
the open window half through the summer night,
my elbows on the sill and my chin in my hands,
trying to get used to my happiness. ‘Tired
nature sunk into repose, scarce told of life;’ but a
light breath of sound—the faint twitter of a bird—the
whispering of the air amongst the roses clustering
round the window—or the soft rustle of a leaf,
seemed to hint that it was dreaming musically, as
befitted a world watched over by the ‘silent sentinels
of the night.’ It was early dawn before I was
sufficiently sobered to betake myself to bed and
attempt to sleep.

When at length sleep came, it was no love-visions
which visited me, only a miserable distortion
of what had taken place, as though some evil
spirit were mocking my hopes. I rose pale and
unrefreshed. The blooming process had certainly
not commenced yet, I jestingly informed myself,
as I tried to smile at the heavy lack-lustre eyes
and white face which my glass reflected. I could
afford no more star-gazing; requiring all the proverbial
beauty-sleep I was able to compass. But I
made the best of myself; and in my pretty fresh
morning-dress was, I flattered myself, somewhat
brighter and pleasanter to look upon than I had
been the night before. Lilian came in before I
had quite finished, to ‘see after me,’ she said, with
a tender greeting.

‘To begin with: I will not have that beautiful
throat so muffled up; and I will have a bow in
your hair and this flower in your dress. Now
don’t be obstreperous. Where is the use of being
a sister, if I may not have such little privileges
as this, I should like to know!’ busily putting a
little touch here and a little touch there to my
toilet.

‘Yes; that is certainly better—now you look
kissable, my dear;’ with a gay little laugh at my
consciousness. ‘It shews beautifully now!’

‘What shews, goosy?’

‘The love and happiness, and all the rest of it,
child. Only look like that when he comes in, and
I shall be quite satisfied. And remember, Mary,
not that mean old bonnet again—not for the
world! Did you order a new and fashionable one
as I bade you, madam?’

I murmured something about a new bonnet
being on its way, but could not speak positively
as to its pleasing her.

‘If you have ordered another old-fashioned-looking
thing, it will have to be taken back to the place
from whence it came; that’s all, my dear. And
until it comes, you must wear your garden-hat;
it is twenty times more becoming than that old
dowdy thing of a bonnet; and I have been up
since five o’clock, if you please, making it pretty
with new ribbon and a few poppies.’

‘Dear Lilian—sister!’

‘Tears! Good gracious, Mary, what are you
thinking of? Pray, consider your nose; pray, do
not spoil the effect! Yes; that’s better; that
will do, my dear;’ with a grave little nod of
approval, as I broke into a smile again.

It certainly was rather amusing. To judge by
her tone, and without looking at her, she might
have been supposed to be an elder sister admonishing
and encouraging a shy young girl. Ah
me! the diffidence I felt arose from a very different
cause, and was of a very different kind from
the diffidence of a young girl. It was nevertheless
very delightful to have her hovering about me
thus; her love so palpable in every word, and
look, and tone. It was doubly precious to me
just now; and perhaps she guessed that it was.
By the time we were summoned to breakfast, she
had succeeded in chasing away some of my morbid
fancies; and she did not allow me to fall back
again, keeping up a constant patter of merry
speeches; at which her aunt and I wore forced to
smile.

Whether Lilian was beginning to see deeper
into my mind than she had heretofore done, I
know not; but one thing was evident: she could
see the kind of treatment I required, and talked
no sentiment. Mrs Tipper looked a little surprised
at her unwonted gaiety, but very agreeably surprised.
Lilian never appeared to greater advantage
than in these playful moods.

‘Of course you and I must be considerate when
Mr Dallas is here, aunty; in the way of finding
our presence required elsewhere, and making occasional
discreet little disappearances, you know.’

‘Nonsense! as though I would allow such a
thing!’ I replied laughingly.

‘And as though such an experienced person as
I did not know the right and proper thing to do!’
She could even jest about her experience.

‘Then I mean to shew you that the most
experienced people may sometimes err in their
notions as to what is right and proper,’ I rejoined
lightly.

But when, just as we had finished breakfast,
Lilian descried Philip coming down the lane, she
ran off with a gay look over her shoulder at me.
Mrs Tipper was already in the kitchen, in
solemn consultation with Becky over the contents
of the larder, intent upon making Philip an
honoured guest. Of course I very quickly had{373}
Lilian in with us, and allowed no more discreet
disappearances. Indeed in the first moments of
my happiness it was sufficient to me to feel
that Philip was present. There was even a kind
of relief in having Lilian with us; and he soon
found that anything which interested him and
me might be freely discussed in her presence.

It was a glorious morning, and we betook ourselves
to the ‘drawing-room.’ The windows were
flung wide; and it was delightful to look from the
cool shaded room to the lovely scene beyond,
bathed in sunshine, the shadows of the light fleecy
clouds sailing in the bright blue sky chasing each
other up the hillside; whilst an occasional sound,
the few-and-far-between strokes of the blacksmith’s
hammer, or the laugh of a child at play, floated
lazily towards us from the village; even the proverbially
busy bee seemed to hum drowsily in the
perfume-laden air.

We agreed that it was a morning expressly
intended to be spent in the half-idle wholly enjoyable
way we spent it: renewing acquaintance
with bits from our favourite authors, trying scraps
of songs, &c., Lilian now accompanying him, and
now me. Then there were our sketches to be
examined and criticised—have I said Philip was
no mean artist?—and our studies to be talked over,
which brought us to Robert Wentworth.

I had already made Philip acquainted with him,
so far as it could be done by letter, and unfortunately,
as I now felt it to be, I had given more than
one hint of my hopes and expectations respecting
Lilian and Robert Wentworth. It was therefore
natural enough that Philip should watch her a
little curiously when the other’s name was mentioned.

‘He must be a fine fellow!’ heartily said Philip,
when Lilian quoted some remark of Robert
Wentworth’s.

‘He is good,’ simply replied Lilian. ‘Not very
fine, but good.’

‘If you interpret what I say so very literally as
all that, I shall have to be very careful in the
choice of my words, Miss Maitland,’ laughed
Philip.

‘I do not want you to be disappointed in him,
even at first; and he is plain, and rather old.’

Plain, and rather old! That was not Robert
Wentworth to me; but I recollected that I was
not a girl between seventeen and eighteen, and
made no comment.

Lilian looked flushed and nervous as she slipped
her hand into mine, and went on in a low grave
voice to him: ‘Could not Mary’s sister be—Lilian?’

He bowed low, with a murmured word or two
about his appreciation of the privilege; and
seeing that her face was still shadowed by the
recollection which his use of her mother’s name
had called up, he presently contrived to lead to
less embarrassing subjects.

After early dinner—Philip had begged that no
difference should be made in the hour on his
account—we went into the woods, to pass the
afternoon under the grand old trees; taking with
us books, needlework, sketching materials, and
what not, with the persuasion that we did not
mean to be wholly idle. Philip said that it was
done for the purpose of impressing him with due
reverence for our talents; but declared that it was
only idle people who could not enjoy being idle.
He spread all the aids and appliances picturesquely
about us.

‘There; that ought to do, I think. The most
conscientious of workers ought to be satisfied with
that—no one would venture to call you idle now!’
he ejaculated, throwing himself on to the turf
beside us, his hands clasped at the back of his
head and his gray eyes full of fun and mischief.

‘The idea of your thinking you will have
nothing to do but watch us!’ said Lilian. ‘We
shall want lots of help; shall we not, Mary? water
fetched, and pencils cut, and’——

‘No, no; I am sure you are above that sort of
thing. Isn’t it becoming the fashion for ladies to
be independent?’—persuasively.

‘We are old-fashioned, and like to be waited
upon.’

He laughed. ‘I should like to be useful, of
course. But wouldn’t you find me useful to point
a moral? Suppose you were to illustrate the evils
of laziness, for instance, and make me the example;
eh, Mary?’—tossing a bit of twig on to my work.

‘As though I would encourage you that way!’

‘Shew that dimple again, if you please, Miss
Haddon!’

‘You absurd person!’

‘Thank you.’

‘I feel an inclination to be discreet coming on,’
whispered Lilian.

‘Repress it at once,’ I replied very decidedly.

Ah, what pleasant nonsense it was! The woods
rang out with many a merry laugh at our quips
and cranks and gay badinage that afternoon.
Philip affirmed that our lives had been too sombre
and severe, and that he had only arrived just in
time to rescue us from becoming ‘superior’ women.
The brightening-up process devolved upon him.
We could not deny that he had the power. Lilian
altogether got rid of her shyness, and was almost
as frank and outspoken with him as with me.
She gaily claimed to be considered his sister by-and-by;
and drew an amusing picture of herself
in the future as a model old maid. ‘Not prim
and proper, you know—no, indeed; I intend to
be a nice little round woman, to go about loving
and comforting people.’

Philip confessed that he did not greatly affect
old maids, but gravely opined that being round
might make a difference.

I defended them as a ‘worshipful body,’ round
or square; though I did not believe that Lilian
would be allowed to be of the guild.

Lilian thought she would use her own judgment
about it; but I recommended her asking Mr
Wyatt’s advice. At which I was pelted with bits
of grass.

And so passed the hours away until Becky came
to summon us to tea. She gazed so long and so
curiously at Philip, who happened to be talking to
Lilian whilst she gave Mrs Tipper’s message, that
I touched his arm and explained in a little aside
that this was the Becky I had told him about, and
that Becky’s good opinion was worth something.

O yes; he had not forgotten; she was my
protégée, he replied; going on to address himself
to her, asking her whether she approved of his
coming to take me away by-and-by.

Perhaps it was his jesting manner which she
could not understand; perhaps it was some defect
in herself—whatever might be the cause, I saw
that Becky was not so much impressed in his{374}
favour as the others had been. Her quiet decided
‘No, sir!’ highly amused him.

‘Not if Miss Haddon wishes to be taken away,
Becky?’

But he could not get her to say any more.
When he asked for reasons, she only shook her
head, turning her eyes from him to me.

He tried banter. ‘I understood that Miss
Haddon was a favourite of yours, Becky.’

She did not appear to be at all anxious to defend
herself to him, and she knew that it was not
necessary to me. She stood aside for us to pass
without a word; though I saw she eyed him
steadily the while. Moreover, I found Becky a
little cross-grained, when later I made occasion to
ask what she thought of Mr Dallas. ‘He is not so
nice-looking as Mr Wentworth, Miss, to my mind,’
was all she would say; and as I knew that those
whom Becky liked were always good-looking, and
those whom she did not affect were plain, I could
draw my own conclusions. I was foolish enough
to be a little annoyed, replying somewhat sharply:
‘If you do not like Mr Dallas, you yourself, and
not he, will be to blame for it, Becky.’

‘Very well, Miss.’

Something in the expression of her eyes as she
turned away made me add: ‘Do not you think
you ought to be inclined a little favourably
towards the gentleman I am going to marry,
Becky?’

‘Yes, Miss; I know I ought;’ in a low faltering
voice. And that was all I got out of Becky.

RUSSIA AND HER PEOPLE.

A SKETCH.

The outbreak of war in the east of Europe has
directed the attention of the English people to
Russia, with a pretty generally expressed desire to
become more acquainted with a country which
may be destined in the future to play a greater
part than it has yet done in the history of the
world. This desire is a commendable one, for
when two nations shew a mutual longing to
become better known to each other, the risk of
quarrelling is eventually reduced to a minimum,
and as in the case of England and France, a free,
hearty, and unchecked intercourse removes in a
wonderfully short time whole ages of prejudice and
ill-will.

Russia is, however, a difficult country to become
acquainted with, for the traveller finds himself in
an unfamiliar land, peopled by a race of whose
thoughts and feelings he knows as little as he does
of their language; and the information he receives
from the persons he questions is either meagre or
untrustworthy.

Her police regulations are vexatious; and on
entering an hotel the traveller is bound, under
awkward penalties, to give an exhaustive account
of himself in a book kept for the purpose, and not
only to enter into intimate relations with the
authorities, but to have his mind made up as to
his plans, and to purchase a permis de séjour or de
voyage for a certain number of days; and this
leave must not be exceeded without an authoritative
extension of it.

The travelling arrangements for those who
choose to use rail or steamer are pleasant, if one
does not object to a rather oppressive atmosphere
in the carriages, for during the greater part of the
year the Russian’s chief idea is to protect himself
against the inclement climate; and as he keeps
the windows and doors of the public conveyances
hermetically closed, involuntary contact with
him becomes anything but agreeable. But if the
traveller wishes to gain an intimate acquaintance
with Russia, and to see what is the real life of the
people apart from towns and highways, he must be
prepared to take many a long and tedious journey
in a kind of lumbering cradle on wheels, or
peasant’s springless cart; for in some vehicle of
this kind he will have to be bumped and jolted
the livelong day, plagued with dust and heat in
the summer, and in winter liable to frost-bite and
snow-blindness; while he will probably be unable
to get any food beyond what he carries with him
except black bread, pickled cucumbers, and sometimes
eggs. He will also have to sleep at night in
fusty rooms, which are often without beds, and
are almost invariably teeming with insects.

The northern portion of Russia consists chiefly
of forest-land and morass, plentifully supplied with
water, and broken up by numerous patches of cultivation;
and the villages are generally composed
of gray huts built on each side of a straight road
which at times becomes a river of mud.

The big white church with its fine pear-shaped
cupolas rising out of a bright green roof; the
meadow in the foreground, through which meanders
a sluggish stream; the whitewashed manor-house,
with a verandah in front, standing on a bit
of rising ground, and half concealed by a cluster of
old rich-coloured pines: none of these details are
beautiful in themselves, but all combine to form a
very pleasant picture when seen from a distance,
especially in the soft evening twilight. Every
little household in these villages is a kind of
primitive labour association, the members of which
have all things in common, and submit to the
arbitrary will of the Khosain or head of the
family; while the wife of the Russian peasant is
a very unromantic style of female, with very little
sentiment in her otherwise kindly nature; but she
manages to bring up her children on what is the
veriest pittance of a wage, in a manner that would
do credit to many better situated English peasant-women.
In the north-eastern provinces of Russia
the peasant has an extremely hard fight to maintain
against the hostile forces of Nature, his field-labour
sometimes resulting in no gain at all. He
makes a living in various ways; and for whole
days he wanders through the trackless forests in
search of game; or he spends a month away from
his home, fishing in some distant lake; or else
devotes the summer to deep-sea fishing, bringing
home, if he is lucky and frugal, enough money to
tide him and his family over the winter.

In the excellent work, ‘Russia, by D. Mackenzie
Wallace, M.A., 1877,’ from which we derive
many of our facts, the author presents us with a
‘family budget,’ which will give a good idea of
the expenditure of a peasant household in the far
north. Its income during a tolerably prosperous
year was L.12, 5s., chiefly obtained from the sale
of game and fish. The expenditure was L.7, spent
on ryemeal (2240 pounds), to supply the deficit
of the harvest; L.3 on clothes, tackle, and ammunition;
and L.2, 5s. paid in taxes.

{375}

As the peasant family of the old type is a kind
of primitive association in which the members
have their goods in common, so the village may
be described as a primitive association on a larger
scale. It has an administrator at its head, whose
power is limited by the will of the heads of households
themselves, forming a kind of village parliament,
which is directly responsible to the state for
the due and timely payment of all tithes and taxes.
Various are the matters with which this village
parliament has to deal, from the election of office-holders
and the periodical collection of the taxes
up to the redistribution of communal land—a subject
which is often the occasion of lively scenes.
But when once a decision is given, it is respected
as scrupulously as any of the ‘Acts’ of our own
House of Commons.

Thus we see in Russia the ‘commune,’ or ‘mir’
as it is called there, in full working order; and in
a country ruled over by a despotic monarch it is
perhaps the nearest approach to municipal or constitutional
institutions that can with safety be
attempted. The mir was instituted by the present
Emperor or Czar, when he carried out that wise
and humane act which will for ever be associated
with his name—namely the emancipation of the
serfs; and it has scarcely been long enough in
existence yet to predict what form it may ultimately
assume.

The Russian peasantry are, for the most part,
grossly superstitious, and this may be owing in
no small degree to the very inferior religious teaching
to which they are accustomed; for we are told
that they have not the faintest conception of anything
like an inner religious life, but are the slaves
of mere rites and ceremonies. For example,
though a robber will kill a peasant on the highway,
such are his religious scruples, that he will
not eat a piece of cooked meat which he may find
in his victim’s cart, because perhaps it is a fast-day;
and an artisan when about to break into the
house of an Austrian attaché in St Petersburg, first
entered a church and commended his undertaking
to the protection of the saints, then killed the
attaché in question. It is a species of grim fanaticism
which binds the masses in Russia. The
shrines in the public places are crowded with
worshippers, who cover with their kisses the
gilded pictures, while showers of small coins or
copper money rattle into the boxes, which the
priests hold in their hands. From these and other
circumstances, we are warranted in saying that the
Russo-Greek Church is about the most debased
form of Christianity.

Not very high above the working classes of the
towns in the matter of intellectual culture, come
the traders. Many of them are very rich, but
exceedingly ignorant, and do not bear a high character
for honesty; but like every other class in
Russia, this one also is being affected by the great
changes which are taking place, and by which the
old spirit of caste is dying out; while a number
of nobles are infusing new ideas into mercantile
circles.

Far above the trading classes stand the members
of the official circles, who spend their days at their
desks, and while away their evenings at card-playing,
which is carried on to an extent unsurpassed in
any country in Europe. This is doubtless owing
to the eternal dullness which pervades Russian
towns, but which one of their poets has declared to
be the essential characteristic of Russian provincial
life.

We come now to the nobles of Russia, of whom
there is a very considerable number; but very
small value is attached to a mere title, and there
are hundreds of princes and princesses who
have not the right to appear at court, and who
would not be admitted into what is called in St
Petersburg La Société, or for the matter of that,
into refined society in any country. For instance,
not long ago a certain Prince Krapotkin gained
his living as a cabman in the Russian capital.
The only genuine Russian title is Knyaz, which is
commonly translated ‘Prince.’ The bearers of this
title are the descendants of Rurik, of the Lithuanian
Ghedimin, of the Tartar chiefs who were
officially recognised by the czars, and of fourteen
families who adopted it by imperial command
during the last two centuries. Peter the Great
introduced the foreign titles of Count and Baron,
he and his successors conferring the title of count
on sixty-seven families, and of baron on ten. Of
the noble families, very few are rich, and none of
them possess a shadow of political influence.

There are more than a hundred thousand landed
proprietors in Russia, but it must not be inferred
from this that they are equal in point of wealth
to our landed gentry at home. Such is very far
from being the case, for many of them are in a
state of poverty, the wealthy ones not exceeding
four thousand in number. This latter class
includes two distinct schools of landowners, so to
speak; those of the old school being described as
‘contented, good-natured, hospitable, but indolent,
apathetic, and dull;’ while those of the later are
a roystering boisterous set, fond of drinking and
dissipation, and possessing a morbid passion for
sport of all kinds, however demoralising or degrading
it may be.

All travellers in Russia, from Dr Clarke downwards,
have been astonished, and not a little disgusted
with the depravity of official life. The
taking of bribes by persons in authority seems to
be universal, and has been represented as arising
in some measure from the inadequacy of salaries.
From whatever cause, this forms a blot on Russian
society, and which we hope may disappear with
the progress of education and intelligence.

In Russia, it is somewhat satisfactory to learn,
Mohammedans and Christians get on very well
together, and not only help each other, but take
it in turns to be at the head of their several
communes. This shews that under a tolerably
good government the two races may enjoy a great
amount of good-fellowship and freedom, without
any reference whatever to religious differences.

All are loyal subjects of the Czar, to whom all
Russians, of whatever rank or religion, yield an
unhesitating and child-like obedience. But even
this great measure of loyalty does not prevent
them from occasionally resisting his authority
when great interests are at stake, as is proved by
the existence through many centuries of a secret
society called the ‘Raskol,’ which all the power of
the Russian emperors has failed to dissolve. So
long as the Czar, however, identifies himself with
the enthusiasm of his subjects, and especially the
religious portion of them, his authority within
his dominions is irresistible; but should his policy
ever come into collision with the teachings of the
clergy and the feelings of their flocks, the reverence{376}
paid to his sovereignty might be rudely
shaken.

The saddest sight in Russia to a traveller is the
manner in which civil prisoners are treated. It is
a common spectacle to see three or four hundred
poor wretches on their way to Siberia under a
military escort; for most of them are chained
together in couples, while the women and children
who have elected to share their bread-winners’ lot
have also to submit to be treated as criminals.
Poorly clad, and apparently half starved, the wonder
is that any of the party should ever survive the
dreadful journey. A Russian criminal condemned
to exile is sent away with very little ceremony;
but when an officer of the army or other person
of note has been sentenced to banishment for life,
he is dressed in full uniform, and led to a scaffold
in some public place. In the presence of the crowd
he is made to kneel while his epaulets and decorations
are torn from his coat and his sword broken
over his head. He is declared legally dead; his
estates are confiscated, and his wife can consider
herself a widow if she so chooses. From the
scaffold he starts on his journey for Siberia. His
wife and children, sisters or mother, can follow
or accompany him if they choose, but only on condition
that they share his exile.

Mr Arnold in his book entitled Through Persia
by Caravan, relates how, when passing through
Russia, he saw a party of prisoners embarked on
board a steamer on the river Volga. They were
positively caged amid-ships, so that every part
of the interior could be seen, just as in the lion-houses
of the Zoological Gardens, with this difference—that
in the case of the prisoners there
was no overhanging roof to prevent rain or sunshine
from pouring in upon their wretchedness.
At the back of the cage there was a lair common
to all, without distinction of sex or age. And
when all were secured, including the guiltless
women and children, fights occurred for the places
least exposed to the east wind. This is a system
which must surely fade away beneath that public
opinion which is fast becoming too strong for even
autocratic monarchs to despise; for we are told
that the emancipation of the Russian serfs has
made a vast legal, social, and material improvement
in the lower orders of the people; and it
is to the people that the world will look for that
much-needed reform, which will enable Russia,
perhaps at no distant day, to take an honourable
place amongst civilised nations.

An anecdote is related by Mr Wallace, who,
upon one occasion when travelling on the great
plain which stretches from the Sea of Azov to the
Caspian, observed on the map the name Shotlandskaya
Koloniya (Scotch colony). Being curious to
ascertain why a village was so called, he made a
pilgrimage thither and made inquiry. No one
could tell him; but at last he was advised to
ask an old Circassian, who was supposed to be
learned in local antiquities. To this man he
put a question in the Russian tongue, explaining
that he was a Scotchman, and hoped to be able to
find a fellow-countryman in the village; whereupon
the old Circassian replied in broad Scotch:
‘Why, man, I’m a Scotchman too!’ He explained,
however, that he was only a ‘Circassian Scotchman,’
being a native of the Caucasus; and as a
child, had been purchased and brought up by the
Scotch missionaries, who were then patronised by
Alexander I., but were suppressed in the year 1835
by Nicholas.

Those of our readers who may wish for detailed
information as to the general condition of Russia
and her people, may safely be referred to Mr
Wallace’s interesting work.

THE DUKE’S PIPER:

A STORY OF THE WEST HIGHLANDS.

IN FOUR CHAPTERS.—CHAPTER I.

It was an unfortunate business—most unfortunate;
for the Duke’s piper and the Duke’s game-keeper
were the best of friends; they never met at the
Glengolly clachan but they had their ‘glass’ together;
nay, when friends met, such as they—and
it was astonishing how often accident led the
steps of both men to the smoky chimney-cheek of
Betty MacDonald’s clachan—the glass had to pass
to and fro pretty often before the men parted.
And as Betty knew full well that John Cameron
the piper, and Donald MacTavish the game-keeper,
her best customers all the year round,
were critics upon whom no adulterated or diluted
fluid could impose, Betty was careful that to them
at least nothing but the best of whisky and
stoup-measures—erring, if they erred at all, on
the roomy side—should be served. The natural
result of such companionship and mutual consumption
of frequent gills was that John loved
Donald ‘like a vera brither;’ while Donald frequently
assured John, as they stumbled over the
moor together in the gloaming, or more often
when the horned moon was high, that not one of
his own eight brothers was to be mentioned in the
same breath with John—as regarded his, the game-keeper’s,
emotions towards him.

What then were Betty’s feelings, late one unlucky
autumn evening on her return from the
byre, where she had gone to milk her solitary cow,
to find the two friends in the midst of a hot argument,
loud-mouthed both, and looking at each
other across the table, on which stood the almost
empty measure and glasses, with expressions on
their honest gnarled faces that could hardly by
any interpretation be termed mild? And this
before a third guest too, a hairy-visaged gentleman
whom Betty reckoned half-daft, seeing that he
had spent the last three weeks ‘splashin’ a bit o’
auld canvas wi’ paint, and ca’ed it Ben Sluaigh,’
but to whom it nevertheless behoved her to be
polite, taking into account the liberal rent he paid
for her best room. The gentleman sat in his
chair with a tumbler of whisky-and-water before
him, taking little part in the discussion, but smoking
diligently with a broad grin, as Betty noted indignantly
as she went ‘ben’ with her knitting, sorry
to hear the voices of the disputants waxing louder
and louder. Betty had a feminine dislike of argument;
arguments in the clachan were generally
the prelude to blows. Her idea of a ‘good crack’
admitted only of varying shades, not differences of
opinion, softened by frequent application to the
bottle—a good story being not one whit the less
welcome because oft-told. But here were John
and Donald glaring at each other with knit brows,
and John, who could never brook contradiction,
bringing his massive fist down on the table so
that the stoup-measure and glasses swayed.

{377}

‘Ye’re wrang, Tonald, I tell ye again ye’re
wrang—it wass biled!’

The game-keeper thus addressed, only shook his
bald head slowly from side to side, remarking
after a pause, with a smile of superior knowledge
that seemed to fan the flame of his friend’s anger:
‘Na, John, na: it iss nefer biled.’

‘But it iss biled, and iss aye biled, I’m telling
ye, and biled in sweet milk too.—I’m not like
some folk, sir,’ said the piper, turning to address
the stranger in the arm-chair, ‘that talk a lot o’
nonsense apoot what they ken naething apoot.’

‘Whether his oil-cake was boiled or not boiled,’
said the stranger, ‘the bull is as fine an animal
as I have seen in the Highlands; though I was
not sorry, as I sketched him, to have the stream
and a good steep bank between us.’

‘Noo, John, you are trying to impose on the
ignorance o’ the shentleman; that iss what ye
are trying to do, John, and that iss no like ye.
It iss verra pad to let the English shentleman go
away, and it iss savages that he’ll pe thinkin’ we
are in the Hielants, to pe feeding oor young bulls’
(pronounced bills) ‘wi biled oil-cake, as if oor
young bulls needet oil-cake when they hef cood
green grass and plenty; or allooin’ they do need it,
to hef it biled, and them wi’ teeth that if they
wanted wad crack whinstanes. Oh, but it iss a
fine joke to hear ye talk o’ biled oil-cake, John
Cameron!’

‘I’m telling ye, ye’re wrang,’ said the piper
hotly; ‘and it iss nonsense ye’re talking apoot,
Tonald MacTavish!—Though, sir,’ again appealing
to the stranger’s intelligence, ‘it iss not muckle
that a game-keeper can ken apoot the rearing o’
young bulls; they can tell a grouse from a partridge
in a stubble-field on a dark nicht, I’ll alloo
that,’ in a tone implying that he conceded the
utmost; ‘but the rearing o’ young bulls iss oot o’
their line; and for a man that has nefer peen oot
o’ his ain county from the tay he wass born till
the tay o’ his death, to teach anither man wha has
peen roond the whole world moreofer wi’ his
Grace the Teuk—to tell him apoot savages’——

‘I alloo,’ interrupted Donald with a friendly
wave of the hand, having filled and emptied a
glass while John was speaking—’I alloo that there
iss no petter piper in the county—no, nor in the
whole Hielants moreofer, than yoursel’, John
Cameron; and it iss the Teuk himself I hef heard
say as muckle many’s the time that; and prood
I hef peen to hear it; and I hope it iss to this
shentleman and me that ye will pe giving a tune
afore we pairt the nicht; but I canna alloo that
ye are petter acquaint wi’ the subject on hand.
And ye can ask Sandy the Deuk’s grieve yoursel’
apoot it, and he wass in the byre when the bull
was calfed, and he will’——

‘Teffle a tune ye’ll get from me this nicht; and
it iss a obstinate mule ye are, Tonald MacTavish,
and always wass; and as for Sandy MacIntyre,
the Teuk’s grieve, it iss all the parish that kens
him for a foolish ignorant liar!’

The two men pushed their respective chairs a
foot or so farther apart, and looked at each other
in no amiable mood. John the piper was a tall
thin Celt with fiery eyes, that flamed out from a
mass of tangled hair as brown as heather, covering
a low square brow; he was of a much more
inflammable temperament than his friend, whose
high cheek-bones, wide surly mouth, and cheeks
that seemed to have gathered black forests of hair
at the expense of his crown, which was of the
shiny bald order, indicated a vein of Saxon blood
in some progenitor, although his accent and fluency
in Gaelic proved that he was a native of the west.
Under the chair of the piper, Fingal the piper’s
collie, almost as excitable as his master, lay asleep;
and in a corner by the game-keeper’s gun, Jet,
Donald’s placid pointer, lay stretched at full length.
Betty laid down her knitting in some trepidation
when the argument reached this point, and came
in to see if she could not pour oil on the
troubled waters. She found the piper on his feet
with his bagpipes under his arm, evidently much
offended, looking about in the dark for his
bonnet.

‘It iss anither gless o’ whusky ye’ll pe taking
now, Mr Cameron, pefore ye tak’ the road this
cauld nicht?’

‘And it iss verra pad whusky ye hef peen giving
us the nicht, Mrs MacTonald, eneuch to tak’ the
temper away from any man,’ said the piper in
his severest tones.

‘And ye are quite richt there, Mr Cameron,’
said Betty timidly, willing to appease her guest
at the expense of her own reputation; ‘and it
iss myself that iss glad ye mentioned it, for I had
to offer ye some o’ the Cawm’lton-still the nicht,
cass the gentry when they wass on the moor
yesterday shooting took every drop o’ the rale
heather-watter away in their flasks, and left no a
drop wi’ me. But I’m sure, Mr Cameron, ye’ll no
pe so angry wi’ me as that comes to as to go away
angry like that.’

‘The whusky iss cood eneuch, if taken wi’ a
thankful spirit, Mrs MacTonald,’ said Mr MacTavish.
‘But when a man iss prood and stuck-up
cass he has travellet at the heels o’ his betters—but
the Teuk’s dog has done as muckle—while his
own neibors have bided at home, he thinks maype
that naepody kens the tifference atween a reel and
a hornpipe but himself! Gif me another gless,
Mrs MacTonald.—Cood-nicht, John; I drink to
your petter manners.’

John was at the door, having found his bonnet,
but came back to say, shaking his fist in Donald’s
face: ‘It iss an ignorant prute ye are, Tonald
MacTavish, and I scorn to pit my fingers upon ye;
but nae doot ye’ll want me to bring my pipes to
the clachan anither nicht; and nae doot your son
Angus will pe wanting me to learn him to play
the pipes too; and nae doot, when he comes for
that purpose, he will look to have his crack wi’
Maggie! Ye will live, Tonald, my man, to ken it
wass an ill nicht when ye thocht fit to drink to
my petter manners!’

With which flourish, wound up by an emphatic
and defiant snap of the piper’s fore-finger and
thumb in close proximity to the nose of the calmer
game-keeper, the piper marched with what dignity
he could muster, seeing that he carried half a pint
of fierce whisky beneath his belt, from the clachan
to the pathway across the moor, homewards; and
so absorbed was he in cherishing his anger, that
he would not indulge himself on his solitary way
with one of his favourite Jacobite lilts, lest the
sound of the pipes might charm away his wrath.
And his collie Fingal followed sadly at his
heels.

The game-keeper sat for only a short time after
his friend was gone; he gave utterance to a low hard{378}
laugh as the piper disappeared, and then relapsed
into sulky silence. Presently he said, rising to
leave: ‘I’d petter pay ye for my share o’ the
whusky, Mrs MacTonald.’

‘Na; that can remain. Ye will pe here the day
after to-morrow or so, I daresay, to make it up.’

‘Take the money,’ said Mr MacTavish firmly;
‘he will peg my pardon pefore I drink another
drop in his company.’

‘A bad job!’ said poor Betty, with tears in
her eyes, as she slowly counted out to him the
change.

On the afternoon of the same day, Maggie
Cameron the piper’s daughter was in her father’s
dairy busily at work. The piper’s cottage and
small farm-steading stood white and solitary at the
mouth of Glen Heath, barely half a mile from
Inversnow. The score of sheep that strayed about
the glen with the red mark J. C. branded on their
woolly sides belonged to the piper; so also did the
three or four cows that stood cooling their feet in
the heat of the day, in the peat-brown burn that
coursed through the heart of the glen past the
piper’s fields and garden, to the loch. He was
in a moderate way a prosperous man, and after
the manner of men conscious of a bigger balance
than their neighbours at the local bank, he thought
he had a right to dogmatise on occasions. Folks
who knew the piper knew that whoever ultimately
was lucky enough to win the hand of his only
daughter Maggie, would not take her dowerless;
and that the dower would be something by no
means to be sneezed at, was evident when the
Inversnow intellect began to reckon on its finger-ends
the various sources of the piper’s income.
There was first and foremost the farm; the piper’s
crops were ever the earliest and the heaviest; his
mutton was always prime, and the piper knew
well when and to what market to send. Nor on
the Duke’s whole estate were better turnips grown.
Then what milk was to be compared to that which
came from the piper’s byre; and as for the piper’s
butter—churned by Maggie’s own pretty hands—why,
better butter was not to be had in or out of
the parish for love or money. Besides which,
the piper’s white cottage, built on the slope facing
the loch on one side and looking towards the
glen on the other, within a few minutes’ walk of
the best scenery, the best shooting, and the best
fishing in South-western Scotland, fetched—well,
Inversnow did not know how much per month. Let
to the ‘gentry’ during spring, summer, and autumn
of every year, it was in itself another tap of gold
flowing into the piper’s pockets.

For several months in each year the Duke entertained
guests at Inversnow Castle; and it was the
piper’s duty, as it was his pleasure, to march daily
(Sundays excepted, and he grudged Sundays) for
two hours to and fro in the hall of the castle while
the Duke and his guests dined, the sonorous bagpipes
discoursing appetising and digestatory music;
and he was indeed a mean or thoughtless guest
who departed without remembering the piper in
some shape tangible to the piper. Dearly he loved
his money. Nor was he a man likely to let money
readily slip from his grasp when he once fingered
it, and no man in Inversnow was more fertile in
resources for adding to his store. But dearly as
he loved gold, dearly as he loved his sheep, his
cattle, and horses, his dram and his bagpipes, his
one primary treasure was his winsome daughter
Maggie. Rough he might be, but beneath the
hard shell was a true human heart that beat
warmly and tenderly towards her.

Maggie stood, as has been said, busily at work
on the clean paved floor of the dairy, her burnished
milk-pans full of creamy richness, arranged
on shelves along the walls. The dairy was cool
and shady, and the sweet fragrance of the fresh
milk mingled sweetly with odour of late honeysuckles
and fuchsias clambering in at the window.
Between the leaves of honeysuckle there was to
be seen from the window, far off across the sloping
fields, a peep of the loch, the blue sky, and the
heather-clad hills in the distance. The door was
open, and the afternoon light fell upon no more
pleasant sight than the bright shapely Highland
lassie, whose sleeves were tucked up to the elbow,
her dress pinned behind, while her hands were
deftly shaping butter with the aid of a pair of
wooden ‘clatters’ into tempting rounded pats,
each pat being dropped, by a quick graceful turn
of her skilful hands, into a dish of clear spring-water
beside her. Maggie hummed in a sweet
low treble as she worked, an old Gaelic air
that had a touch of melancholy in it, her sole
audience the piper’s monstrous bull-dog, that lay
all her length in the sunshine asleep on the
threshold. Presently the formidable-looking animal
raised her head, pricked her ears and growled;
then, at the sound of footsteps, rose and bounded
down the path; and Maggie, as she paused in
singing, heard a well-known voice cry: ‘Down,
Diana; down, I tell ye; keep down!’ The Highland
girl went on with her work, with perhaps
a tinge of crimson shewing through the sun-browned
face, while a man’s voice rang out
‘Maggie!’ from the kitchen door, and then the
steps turned to the open dairy door.

‘Well, Angus,’ Maggie said in a tone of surprise
that was hardly meant to be taken as real; ‘and
iss it you again? I thought you said yesterday
that the yacht was going to meet some of the
castle-folks at Sheepfell?’

‘The Teuk changed his mind, or had a telegram
or something. But are ye not glad to see me,
Maggie, that ye won’t shake hands wi’ a body?’

‘Deed and I am fery glad to see yourself,
Angus, and well ye ken that; but my hands are
wet wi’ the watter and the butter; and indeed ye
must excuse me.’

‘But it iss a cold greeting to gif a body, that
iss what it iss, no to shake a hand, Maggie,’ said
Angus; ‘or maybe,’ plucking up courage from
the laughter in Maggie’s eyes and the pose of
Maggie’s cheek, ‘maybe that iss what you wanted!’
And Angus boldly bestowed a kiss upon the girl’s
cheek.

‘Oh, Angus MacTavish, and how could ye do
the like o’ that, when ye see I could not protect
myself wi’ my hands among the butter?’

‘Then gif it to me back again, as the song says,’
said Angus, taking his own again, before Maggie
could make any show of resistance.

‘But it iss a wild fellow ye are, and no deserving
this drink o’ new-drawn warm milk I am going to
give ye!’

Maggie wiped her hands in the long white
apron she wore, and turned to fill a tumbler full
of milk from one of the pans.

‘Well, Maggie Cameron, it iss maybe more than{379}
I deserve,’ said Angus, as he took the tumbler from
her hand and raised it to his mouth; ‘but here iss
to your ferry good-health, Maggie!’

‘I believe ye would rather it had been a dram,’
said the girl, as she watched the milk swiftly
disappear down the young sailor’s throat. But
Angus declared that in saying so she libelled him.

‘And now, Maggie, ye must put on your hat
and come with me,’ said Angus seriously, when he
had emptied the tumbler.

‘Go with you, Angus! You’re joking. Wass it
not for your lesson on the pipes ye came? But
dad iss not at home this afternoon—he went the
clachan-way with your father—but he will be
disappointed to hef missed you.’

‘I want you to come to the shore with me,
Maggie; I have something to shew you, and I will
take no denial for this once.’

‘To shew me, Angus? But dad might not be
pleased, if he came home when I wass out, to find
I wass away trifling with you on the shore.’

‘I will answer for that, Maggie Cameron.’

‘Well, it iss true my churning is over, and the
baking o’ the scones can be done when I get back,
but’—— The maiden hesitated.

‘But there’—and Angus lifted the dish of
butter-pats and marched off with them, followed
by Maggie, to the kitchen. ‘Now put on your hat
and come with me.’

While Maggie went to her room, Angus turned
the key in the dairy-door, and hung it on a nail in
the kitchen; and leaving Janet the maid to bring
in the cattle and milk them, the couple started on
their expedition with light hearts.

They were a winsome couple, and Janet—a
goodly lass herself—stood admiring them from the
door-step, not without certain longings on her own
account, as they walked along the pathway that
skirted the meadow, to the bridge at the gate; and
from thence over the stile and across a field,
towards the loch. Margaret Cameron was a tall
well-built girl, yet her head was just on a level
with her companion’s shoulder. Her face was
fresh and sunny, light and shadow playing on
it in quick responsive movement to the mental
mood that happened to rule her. She was young,
not yet out of her teens, full of youthful impulse,
that expressed itself in frequent peals of merry
laughter easily roused; with a tender heart too,
as the sweet blue eyes told, by the quick rush of
tears when she was moved by any tale of woe, or
touched by the chill finger of disappointment.
Angus was a broad-shouldered six-foot sailor,
stooping slightly as he walked, with a bronzed
cheery face, and the kindest of honest eyes, that
looked you straight in the face fearlessly. He had
been for many years one of the most trustworthy
‘hands’ on board the Duke’s yacht, The Curlew,
and was looked up to by the fishing-folks of
Inversnow with all the respect due to a favourite
of the Chief’s, and to one whose ideas had been
expanded by frequent visits to the Mediterranean.

‘Where are we going?’ asked the girl by-and-by,
as Angus struck into a road leading to the town.
‘It iss nefer into Inversnow we are going like
this together!’

‘And are ye ashamed to be seen walking with
me, Maggie Cameron?’

‘Ashamed? No! But it iss not well to be
having folk talking idle gossip apoot us in the
daytime, when maybe I ought to be at home
working.’ Maggie was made the more jealous of
her reputation as a good housekeeper by receiving
a surprised nod at that moment from Mr M’Alister
the grocer, who stood lazily on the door-step of
his shop.

‘Nefer mind what folk say, Maggie. This iss
the way;’ and Angus turned off the main street
to the pier.

‘Eh, Angus, what a pretty little poat—what a
fery pretty poat!’ said Maggie as they reached the
end of the pier and looked down on a tiny boat
resting placidly on the loch.

‘And ye think her a pretty poat now, do ye,
Maggie?’ looking proudly from his achievement
to his companion’s interested face.

‘I nefer saw anything prettier. She sits on the
water like a sea-gull,’ replied the girl warmly.

‘And you can read her name on the stern now,
can’t you, Maggie—eh?’

The maid looked down fixedly and, as she looked,
changed colour. Angus was watching her with
beaming eyes. Painted in distinct blue letters on
an oak ground were the words, ‘Maggie Cameron—Inversnow.’

RAILWAY ACCIDENTS.

The fact that during last year (1876) no fewer
than 1245 persons were killed and 4724 injured
upon the various railways of Great Britain,
is sufficiently startling; for these numbers, we
need hardly remind our readers, exceed those
of the killed and wounded in many a great
battle. The average number killed per annum
during the last five years has been 1295, and of
those injured 4333.

Fortunately, however, for the peace of mind of
the average British passenger, these numbers are
not quite so alarming as they at first sight appear.
That this is so, we shall shew by an analysis of
the causes which led last year to the above-mentioned
losses. Of those killed, no fewer than 305
were trespassers upon railway lines; and between
thirty and forty of these were trespassers with
the deliberate intention of committing suicide.
Again, more than one half of the total number of
persons killed were railway servants; and the
same class furnished no fewer than 2600 of the
4724 cases of injury recorded in the returns.
From their own misconduct or want of caution,
101 passengers lost their lives, and 604 sustained
injuries. Level crossings are each year a very
fertile cause of accidents, and to them no fewer
than fifty-nine of the deaths of 1876 must be
apportioned. We come now, however, to that
which is undoubtedly a fact of the utmost gravity,
namely, that thirty-eight passengers were killed
and 1279 injured from causes over which they
had no control, upon the railways of Great Britain.

In 1874, a Royal Commission was issued at the
request of parliament to inquire into the causes
and cure of railway accidents in Great Britain.
For two years and a half the Commissioners
pursued their labours; and their Report now lies
before us. From it we gather that the Commissioners
examined several hundreds of witnesses,{380}
including officers of the Board of Trade, general
managers of railway companies, traffic managers,
superintendents and assistant-superintendents of
railways, inspectors and sub-inspectors of various
classes, foremen of shunters, station-masters, engine-drivers,
guards, brakemen, shunters, plate-layers,
signalmen, pointsmen, boilersmiths, porters, and
clerks. The Commissioners likewise arranged for a
most valuable series of practical experiments upon
the merits of the various systems of applying
brake-power to trains, to be performed before them
upon a portion of the Midland Company’s railway
near Newark. Of the important results disclosed
by the elaborate system of experiments thus performed
we shall have something to say presently.
In addition to all this, the Commissioners personally
inspected railway premises and works in
various places throughout the kingdom, and investigated
upon their own behalf certain ‘typical cases’
of railway accidents. Whatever conclusions, therefore,
they may have arrived at claim at least
the respectful consideration of all interested—and
who is not?—in the prevention of railway
accidents.

Regret has, we observe, been freely expressed in
certain quarters that the Commissioners have not
seen fit to advise the establishment of a government
department which should exercise a general
control over the practical administration of British
railways. To have done so would, however, the
Commissioners say, not have been in their opinion
‘either prudent or desirable.’ A government
authority placed in such a position would, they
remark, ‘be exposed to the danger either of appearing
indirectly to guarantee work, appliances, and
arrangements which might practically prove faulty
or insufficient, or else of interfering with railway
management to an extent which would soon alienate
from it public sympathy and confidence, and
thus destroy its moral influence, and with it its
capacity for usefulness.’ Whilst, however, the Commissioners
are thus strongly of opinion that any
change which would relieve the railway companies
from the responsibility which now rests upon
them to provide for the safety of their traffic
would be undesirable, they are nevertheless disposed
to believe that legislation—by which the
adoption of certain recognised improvements, and
the construction of certain necessary works for the
greater safety of the traffic, should be made compulsory
upon the railway companies—would be a
public gain. Amongst these improvements and
necessary works are included by the Commissioners
the compulsory adoption of the block and interlocking
systems. The object of the block-system,
we may here remark, is to preserve an arbitrary
interval of space between all trains which are
moving in the same direction upon the same line of
rails. This is accomplished by dividing the line
into sections; and not until a telegraphic message
has been received announcing that a train has
passed out of one section, is another permitted to
enter that section. If properly carried out, this
would prevent the possibility of one train running
into another from behind, which as we all know
has been a frequent cause of accidents.

We are not quite certain whether the Commissioners
have done well in advising that ‘increased
facilities be afforded to the public to obtain redress
by cheap and summary process when trains are
late.’ In the first place the Commissioners have
not attempted to define when a train shall be
held to be unpunctual; that is, whether one or
five or fifteen or fifty minutes is to be held to
constitute unpunctuality; and also whether the
distance which the train has run is, or is not,
to be taken into account. If every passenger by
the Flying Scotchman from Edinburgh to London
is to have a right to an action against the railway
companies, in the event of that train being, say
five minutes late upon its long journey of four
hundred miles, the prospect of litigation thereby
opened is sufficient to appal the hearts of shareholders
in the North British, North-Eastern, and
Great Northern Railways, and to make glad those
of lawyers. Moreover, the Commissioners do not
attempt to define what they mean by ‘a cheap and
summary process’ being afforded to passengers of
bringing actions against railway companies. At
present such actions are occasionally brought in
the County Courts, and it would be difficult, we
think, to imagine ‘a cheaper or more summary process’
than they already afford.

At present, as most of our readers are aware,
every passenger train which runs a distance of
twenty miles without stopping is bound to carry
with it some means whereby passengers can communicate
with the guard or engine-driver of the
train. The Royal Commissioners, however, have
resolved to recommend that every train which
runs for even eight miles without stopping is to
be provided with a means of communication
between the passengers and the servants of the
company. Why this limit of eight miles has
been arbitrarily fixed upon can only be left to
conjecture. If some simple method could be
devised whereby a passenger could instantaneously
communicate with the servants of the train,
an important benefit would be secured; but so
long as the railway companies continue to call
a small cord hidden away somewhere or other
outside of the carriages, ‘a means of communication
between passengers and the servants of the
company,’ we confess that we do not attach much
practical importance to this last recommendation
of the Royal Commissioners.

We have already mentioned that the Royal
Commissioners caused an extensive series of experiments
to be performed in their presence upon
a portion of the Midland Company’s system near
Newark, in order to test the various methods
which have been invented for applying continuous
brake-power to trains. Before, however, the trials
of the various continuous ‘brakes’ were made,
trials of the amount of brake-power usually supplied
to the trains of some of the chief railway
companies in Great Britain were made. From{381}
these experiments it appeared that with the amount
of hand brake-power usually supplied, a train
going at between forty-five and fifty miles an hour
could not as a rule be brought to a full stop in
much less than half a mile. During the trials at
Newark, the merits of eight different kinds of ‘continuous
brakes’ were tried; and ‘amply proved the
necessity for some greater control over fast passenger-trains
than that hitherto provided in this
country.’ Speaking approximately indeed, it was
shewn conclusively at these trials that a good continuous
brake will reduce the stopping distances
of fast trains to one-third of the distance within
which they can be stopped by the present ordinary
means. With regard to the effect upon passengers
of any sudden stoppages by means of these continuous
brakes, it is satisfactory to know that ‘by
none of the systems used in the trials could the
brakes be applied too powerfully or too suddenly for
the safety of the passengers.’

As the result of these Newark trials, the Royal
Commissioners recommend that it should be made
obligatory upon railway companies to provide
every train with sufficient brake-power to bring it,
at the highest speed at which it may be travelling
and upon any gradients, to an absolute stop within
five hundred yards. They also advise that a large
proportion of the brake-power should be in the
hands of the engine-driver. He is usually the
man who first espies danger; and as when a train
is travelling at the rate of sixty miles an hour, it
passes over eighty-eight feet per second, it will
easily be seen, that however slight may be the
interval necessary for the driver to attract the
attention of the guard, and for that official to apply
his brakes, it may be sufficiently long to cause a
serious accident.

Every newspaper reader must have remarked
the frequent accidents which occur through passengers
(whilst entering or leaving railway carriages)
falling between the steps and the platform.
This being so, it is satisfactory to remark that the
Royal Commissioners have resolved to recommend
that the adoption by railway companies of continuous
foot-boards of sufficient width should be made
compulsory wherever, in the opinion of the officials
of the Board of Trade, ‘the circumstances of the
traffic are such as to render them necessary for the
safety of passengers.’

As regards the important subject of the compensation
which the railway companies are at
present obliged to make whenever a passenger is—through
no fault of his own—killed or injured
whilst travelling upon their lines, the Royal Commissioners
have not thought it necessary to make
any special recommendations. They appear indeed
to think that the principle of self-interest will be
sufficient to make the companies introduce all
reasonable improvements and take all possible
means to secure the safety of their passengers. Mr
Galt, however, one of the Royal Commissioners,
dissents from this view of his colleagues, and
we think with reason. He asks in connection
with this subject the following very pertinent
question: ‘Does the sum paid in compensation
by the companies exceed the expenditure that
would necessarily be incurred for the avoidance
of preventable accidents?’ This question Mr Galt
proceeds to regard from two points of view. First,
the effect of accidents on the market value of railway
shares; and second, the cost which the companies
would have to incur in order to introduce
various well-known means for the prevention of
accidents, which have often been pressed upon their
attention by Captain Tyler and other officials of
the Board of Trade. The effect of an accident
upon the market value of railway shares, even
when it is one of exceptional severity, Mr Galt
shews is only temporarily and never permanently
to lower the value of the shares in the particular
railway company upon whose system it occurred.
The first cost, moreover, of introducing improvements
upon their lines, Mr Galt points out, is felt
very severely by railway companies; whereas the
compensation which they pay for personal injuries
does not at present amount to one per cent. of
their total expenditure. Mr Galt indeed asserts
that the saving which the companies would effect
by the use of every available means for the prevention
of accidents would ‘scarcely amount to a
shilling in the hundred pounds.’ Hence he arrives
at the very disagreeable conclusion, that so far as
the pecuniary principle—apart from all higher
considerations—is concerned, the railway companies’
interests and those of the general public
are diametrically opposed to each other!

We shall conclude this article by giving a brief
epitome of the principal points upon which the
Royal Commissioners have made formal ‘recommendations’
either for the consideration of parliament
or of the railway companies. 1. They have
recommended that discretionary powers should be
conferred upon the Board of Trade to enforce the
extension of stations and sidings wherever the
accommodation provided for the traffic is so inadequate
as to endanger safety. 2. To enforce
the adoption of the block and interlocking systems
on all lines or portions of lines where the introduction
of these improvements is necessary for the
safety of the traffic. 3. To restrict the speed of
trains upon any line or section of a line which is
in a condition to render a high rate of speed
unsafe. 4. To require companies to provide their
passenger carriages with continuous foot-boards.
5. To impose conditions upon companies in certain
cases in sanctioning the opening of new lines. 6.
To require companies to provide foot-bridges or
subways at stations where the absence of such
accommodation is proved to be a source of danger.
7. To require a lodge to be maintained at public
crossings for foot-passengers wherever circumstances
render it necessary for safety. 8. That
railway companies shall be required by law, under
adequate penalties, to supply all trains with sufficient
brake-power to stop them within five hundred
yards under all circumstances. 9. That in
order to produce greater punctuality in the conduct
of the traffic on railways, additional facilities be
afforded to the public for obtaining compensation
when trains are late. 10. That the 31st and 32d
Vict. c. 119, s. 22, relating to intercommunication
in trains, be amended in the manner which we
have indicated above. 11. That the civil liability
of railway companies for accidents to their servants,
and of the criminal liability of persons in railway
employment for acts of negligence endangering
life, be extended.

Some at least of these proposals of the Royal
Commissioners will doubtless be adopted by Her
Majesty’s government, and will be proposed to
parliament, with all the weight of their authority,
during the next (1878) session of parliament.{382}
That the government measure which will embody
these ‘selected’ recommendations of the
Royal Commissioners will satisfy all parties—directors
of railways, railway servants, and the
general public alike—would of course be too much
to hope. But this may at least be confidently
predicted—that if the chief recommendations of
the Royal Commissioners be adopted by parliament,
and be loyally carried out in practice
by the railway companies, they will tend in no
inconsiderable degree to render railway travelling
in Great Britain in the future both much safer
and much pleasanter than it has been in the
past.

DROLLERIES OF THE AMERICAN
BENCH.

Droll things are reported of the bench and bar in
the United States. Perhaps all that is said of them
in the newspapers may have a tinge of exaggeration;
but we do not doubt that there is a considerable
substructure of truth. What, indeed,
but odd sayings and doings can be expected from
judges who are appointed by universal suffrage,
and may in many cases be little better than the
boon-companions of the culprits who are apt to
come judicially before them. We cull a few drolleries
of the American bench for the amusement of
our readers.

Wearied beyond endurance by the tediousness of
a long-winded pleader, a Kentuckian judge put
himself out of his misery and his tormentor out
of countenance by suddenly exclaiming: ‘If the
court is right, and she thinks she air, why then
you are wrong, and she knows you is. Shut up!’
Almost as rude in speech was Judge Dowling, who
after serving as fireman and police-officer, became
by election one of the magistrates of the Empire
City. ‘What are you reading from, sir?’ asked
he of a counsel.

‘From the statute of 1876, your Honour,’ was
the reply.

‘Well,’ said Dowling, ‘you needn’t read any
more; I’m judge in this court, and my statutes
are good enough law for anybody!’

This worshipful gentleman plumed himself
upon deciding ‘according to the equities of the
case,’ law and precedent to the contrary notwithstanding;
they went for nothing with him.

They did not go for much more with the western
administrator of the law, Judge Alec Smith. A
divorce case being called on, he, addressing the
plaintiff’s representative, said: ‘I don’t think
people ought to be compelled to live together
when they don’t want to do so. I will decree a
divorce in this case;’ and the parties concerned
were thereupon declared to be no longer man and
wife. Presently the defendant’s lawyer appeared,
and was not a little surprised to find all was
settled, that the judge had decided without hearing
one side, much less both. He protested against
such over-hasty proceedings, and appealed to the
court to redress the wrong it had committed. The
court not being inclined to own itself in fault, he
was informed it was too late to raise objections;
the decree had been pronounced; but if he wanted
to argue the case ‘right bad,’ the court would
marry the parties again, and let him have a crack
for it.

When Miss Amelia Donnerschley claimed two
hundred dollars from faithless Augustus Berker for
breach of promise, the gentleman justified his
conduct on the plea that after dwelling under the
same roof with the young lady and her mamma
for eight months, he found it so impossible to live
comfortably with the one, that he was compelled
to cry off with the other. The judge inquired if
the mother purposed living with her daughter
after marriage, and receiving an affirmative answer,
asked the defendant whether he would rather live
with his mother-in-law or pay two hundred
dollars.

‘Pay two hundred dollars,’ was the prompt
reply.

Said the judge: ‘Young man, let me shake
hands with you. There was a time in my life
when I was in the same situation as you are in
now. Had I possessed your firmness, I should
have been spared twenty-five years of trouble.
I had the alternative of marrying or paying a
hundred and twenty-five dollars. Being poor, I
married; and for twenty-five years have I regretted
it. I am happy to meet with a man of your stamp.
The plaintiff must pay ten dollars and costs for
having thought of putting a gentleman under the
dominion of a mother-in-law.’

The much-married dignitary was not so susceptible
to the charms of the sex as his brother of
Iowa, who refused to fine a man for kissing a girl
against her will, because the complainant was so
temptingly pretty that nothing but an overwhelming
sense of its dignity prevented the court kissing
her itself.

It is lucky for an offender when his judge puts
himself in his place; justice is sure then to be
tempered with mercy, as in the case of the snatcher
of spoons brought before a Georgian court many
years ago. Bela Brown, who then went the circuit
as judge, was an able man, in equal repute as a
lawyer and as a boon-companion. The night
before the court was to open at Dayton, his Honour
went to a tavern kept by Sterrit, and had such
a good time of it with his legal friends that by
midnight he was not quite so sober as a judge
should be. Somebody cleared the table of all its
spoons, and put them into the unconscious gentleman’s
pocket. He was greatly perturbed at finding
them there next morning. They were Sterrit’s
spoons without doubt, for they bore the landlord’s
initials.

‘Polly,’ said the judge to his wife, ‘was I tipsy
when I came home?’

‘Yes,’ said she. ‘You know your habits when
you get among those lawyers.’

Much relieved in his mind, the judge declared
he could understand how the spoons came into his
possession. ‘That fellow keeps the meanest liquor
in the States; but I never supposed it would make
a man steal.’

A day or two afterwards, a man was arraigned
for larceny; he pleaded guilty, but urged he was
intoxicated when he committed the offence.

‘What’s the nature of the charge?’ inquired
Judge Brown.

‘Stealing money from the till at Sterrit’s tavern,’
replied the clerk.

{383}

‘Young man,’ said the judge solemnly, ‘are
you sure you were tipsy when you took this
money?’

‘Yes, your Honour; when I went outdoors the
ground kept coming up and hitting me on the
head.’

‘That will do. Did you get all your liquor at
Sterrit’s?’

‘Every drop, sir.’

Turning to the prosecuting attorney, the judge
said: ‘You will do me the favour of entering a
nolle prosequi; that liquor of Sterrit’s I have
reason to know is enough to make a man do anything
dirty. I got tipsy on it myself the other
night, and stole all his spoons. If Sterrit will
sell such abominable stuff he ought not to have the
protection of this court.—Mr Sheriff, you may
release the prisoner.’

Like the sailor who objected to his captain
preaching and flogging too, offenders generally do
not appreciate being suitably admonished as well
as punished; and no doubt the Californian felt
annoyed when, through incautiously demurring
to the magistrate reproaching him with having no
ambition, he found himself put to the question
with: ‘Where is it, sir? Where is it? Did you
ever hear of Cicero taking free lunches? Did
you ever hear that Plato gamboled through the
alleys of Athens? Did you ever hear Demosthenes
accused of sleeping under a coal-shed? If you
would be a Plato, there would be a fire in your
eye; your hair would have an intellectual cut;
you’d step into a clean shirt; and you’d hire a
mowing-machine to pare those finger-nails. You
have got to go up for four months!’

The Honourable Kiah Rodgers, commonly called
Old Kye, presiding in a Louisiana court, thus
spoke his mind to a delinquent named Kettles:
‘Prisoner, stand up! Mr Kettles, this court is
under the painful necessity of passing sentence of
the law upon you. This court has no doubt, Mr
Kettles, but what you were brought into this
scrape by the use of intoxicating liquors. The
friends of this court all know that if there is any
vice this court abhors it is intoxication. When
this court was a young man, Mr Kettles, it was
considerably inclined to drink, and the friends of
this court know that this court has naterally a
very high temper; and if this court had not
stopped short off, I have no doubt, sir, but what
this court, sir, would have been in the Penitentiary
or in its grave.’

Still more communicative was Judge Kye respecting
his young days when summing up in
an action brought by an overseer for wrongful dismissal
from his situation.

‘The jury,’ said his Honour, ‘will take notice
that this court is well acquainted with the nature
of the case. When this court first started in the
world it followed the business of overseering, and
if there is any business which this court understands,
it’s hosses, mules, and niggers; though
this court never overseed in its life for less than
eight hundred dollars. And this court in hoss-racing
was always naterally gifted; and this court
in running a quarter race whar the hosses was
turned, could allers turn a hoss so as to gain fifteen
feet in a race; and on a certain occasion it was one
of the conditions of the race that Kye Rodgers
shouldn’t turn narry of the hosses.’ Surely it
must have been Old Kye who upon taking his
official seat for the first time, said: ‘If this court
know her duty, and she thinks she do, Justice will
walk over this track with her head and tail up.’

Prone as he might be to discursiveness, we fancy
the Louisiana judge would have laid down the law
a little more lucidly than the worthy to whom a
Minnesota juryman appealed for aid, when his
ideas as to what constituted murder had been confused
by the arguments of counsel.

‘Gentlemen of the jury,’ said this legal luminary,
‘murder is where a man is murderously killed.
The killer in such a case is a murderer. Now
murder by poison is just as much murder as
murder with a gun, pistol, or knife. It is the
simple act of murdering that constitutes murder in
the eye of the law. Don’t let the ideas of murder
and manslaughter confound you. Murder is one
thing, manslaughter is quite another. Consequently,
if there has been a murder, and it is not
manslaughter, then it must be murder. Don’t let
this point escape you. Self-murder has nothing
to do with this case. According to Blackstone and
all the best living writers, one man cannot commit
felo de se upon another; and that is clearly my
view. Gentlemen, murder is murder. The murder
of a brother is called fratricide; the murder of a
father is called parricide, but that don’t enter into
this case. This case is murder, and as I said
before, murder is most emphatically murder. You
will take the case, gentlemen, and make up your
minds according to the law and the evidence, not
forgetting the explanation I have given you.’

When an English judge has passed sentence
upon a criminal, he has done with him. It would
never enter his head to visit a man he had condemned
to death. Judge Smith of Cincinnati had
different notions of judicial etiquette. One Samuel
Covert, about to be executed at Lebanon, had just
taken his last meal, when the judge looked in,
inquired how he felt, and asked for his autograph.
Having obtained the autograph, and learned that
Covert was pretty well, considering circumstances,
the judge shook his hand warmly, saying: ‘Good-bye,
Mr Covert; I shall not see you again.’

‘Good-bye, Mr Smith,’ was the reply. ‘Remember
my last words to you: you have passed sentence
of death upon an innocent man.’

‘That is so, is it, Sam?’ queried the visitor.

‘Yes, sir.’

‘If that be true, you’ve nothing against me;
have you, Sam?’

‘No, sir; you did your duty under the evidence.’

‘Well, Sam, if you are an innocent man, it is a
great calamity.’

‘I am innocent,’ repeated Covert.

The judge then departed, and Covert was
marched to the scaffold.

Judge Smith hardly felt so easy in his mind as
a Californian sheriff did after being interviewed
by a self-confessed murderer, who desired to be
sent to New York to answer for the crime he
had committed in that city.

‘So your conscience ain’t easy, and you want
to be hanged?’ said the sheriff. ‘Well, my friend,
the county treasury ain’t well fixed at present,
and I don’t want to take any risks, in case you’re
not the man, and are just fishing for a free
ride. Besides, those New York courts can’t be
trusted to hang a man. As you say, you deserve
to be killed, and your conscience won’t be easy
till you are killed, and as it can’t make any difference{384}
to you or to society how you are killed, I
guess I’ll do the job myself!’ and his hand moved
to his pocket; but before he could pull out the
revolver and level it at the murderer, that conscience-stricken
individual was down the road and
out of killing distance.

When lawyers behave in such a free-and-easy
way, it is not surprising that a prisoner presumes
to enter into familiar conversation with the bench.
‘An old tippler,’ asked by a Nevadan court
whether he was rightly or wrongly charged with
being intoxicated, pleaded, ‘Not guilty, your
Honour. Sunstroke!’

‘Sunstroke?’ queried Judge Cox.

‘Yes, sir; the regular New York variety.’

‘You’ve had sunstroke a good deal in your
time, I believe?’

‘Yes, your Honour; but this last attack was
most severe.’

‘Does sunstroke make you rush through the
streets offering to fight the town?’

‘That’s the effect precisely.’

‘And makes you throw brickbats at people?’

‘That’s it, judge. I see you understand the
symptoms; and agree with the best recognised
authorities, who hold it inflames the organs of
combativeness and destructiveness. When a man
of my temperament gets a good square sunstroke
he’s liable to do almost anything.’

‘Yes; you are quite right—liable to go to jail
for fifteen days. You’ll go down with the policeman
at once.’ With that observation the conversation
naturally closed, and the victim of so-called
sunstroke ‘went down.’

The bench does not always come off so victoriously.
A prisoner before the court of Keatingville,
Montana, neglecting to remove his hat, the
sheriff was directed to do it for him, and obeyed
instructions by knocking the offending head-gear
off with his rifle. The owner picked it up, and as
he clapped it on his head again shouted: ‘I am
bald, judge!’ A repetition of the performance
followed; at which, waxing indignant, his Honour
rose and said: ‘I fine you five dollars for contempt
of court—to be committed until the fine is
paid!’

The offender walked up to the judge, and laying
down half a dollar, remarked: ‘Your sentence,
judge, is most ungentlemanly; but the law is imperative,
and I will have to stand it; so here is
half a dollar; and the four dollars and a half you
owed me when we stopped playing poker this
morning, makes us square!’

The card-playing administrator of justice must
have felt as small as his brother-judge when he
priced the cow. Being at Little Rock, Arkansas,
on business, that judge strolled into the market,
and seeing a farmer with a cow, stepped up to him
and asked what he wanted for her. ‘Thirty
dollars,’ said the farmer. ‘She’ll give you five
quarts of milk if you feed her well.’

‘Why,’ quoth the judge, ‘I have cows on my
farm, not much more than half as big as yours,
which give twenty quarts a day.’

The cow-owner eyed his new acquaintance very
hard, as if trying to remember if he had seen him
before, and then inquired where he lived. ‘My
home is in Iowa,’ was the reply.

‘Yes, stranger,’ said the farmer, ‘I don’t dispute
it. There were heaps of soldiers from Iowa down
here during the war, and they were the worst liars
in the whole Yankee army. Maybe you may
have been an officer in some of them regiments?’

Without satisfying his interlocutor’s curiosity on
that point, the judge, we are told, ‘slid for the
court-house.’

THE FAIRIES.