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

CONTENTS

HELENA, LADY HARROGATE.
CURLING.
MUSIC AND POETRY.
THE BELL-RINGER.
EXPERIENCES IN CAMP AND COURT.
SHAMROCK LEAVES.
WOODCOCK GOSSIP.
A TRIUMPH OF ART.
EDITORIAL NOTE.

HELENA, LADY HARROGATE.

By JOHN B. HARWOOD, Author of ‘Lady Flavia.’

CHAPTER I.—THREATENED.

‘No, my lord; I do not know him; nor, I think,
does any one in the village. But during the few
weeks that I have been at High Tor Churchtown,
I have seen him very often indeed.’

The speaker was a young girl, of some twenty
years at most. Her bearing was grave and modest,
and her attire scrupulously plain; but there are
cases in which sovereign beauty will assert herself,
and Ethel Gray, the newly appointed school-mistress,
was more than pretty. That slender form
and faultless face, the dazzling purity of the complexion,
and the lustre of the violet eyes, that
contrasted so well with the wealth of dark hair
simply braided back from the temples and twisted
into a massive coil—these conferred beauty, if ever
woman, since Eve’s time, deserved to be called
beautiful.

It was a bright balmy day in June, and through
the large window of the school-room, now open,
floated the scent of flowers and the hum of bees.
Within the room, standing beside the teacher,
were two gentlemen; while on each side of the
table stood the children, their wondering eyes
fixed upon the visitors. They well knew the
kindly face of the gray-haired Earl of Wolverhampton,
the elder of the two, whose park-gates
were almost within sight of the school of which he
was patron. But they had never before seen the
shrewd rugged features of the middle-aged member
of parliament, the Right Hon. Stephen Hammond,
Under-secretary of State, by whom he was accompanied.

Ethel Gray’s words had been uttered in reply
to an inquiry from the Earl as to a swarthy man
of sinister aspect and powerful build who was
lounging near the low gate of the school-house
garden.

‘That is not a face,’ said the Earl, thinking of
quarter-sessions, tramps, gipsies, and poachers—‘which
I am pleased to see here among my good
people.—What is your opinion, Hammond, of the
owner of it?’

‘I think that I had rather not meet him on a
dark night,’ answered the Under-secretary with
a smile. ‘But perhaps, after all, the man is only
some sailor newly paid off; though he has a
reckless unpleasant look in any case.’

Perceiving himself to be an object of attention
to the occupants of the school-room window, the
rough fellow who had been lingering at the gate
now turned on his heel, and with an air half-defiant,
half-abashed, slunk away.

Nor was it long before the old Earl and his
guest, with an urbane word or two of leave-taking
to the pretty teacher, quitted the school, and
re-entered the carriage, which had been awaiting
them in the leafy lane beyond. Lord Wolverhampton,
as the horses’ heads were turned towards
High Tor, looked and felt pleased. He
took an interest in the schools, as he did in every
detail of his property; and he had been anxious
for the Under-secretary’s approbation concerning
them. The Right Hon. Stephen Hammond had,
in the course of the tour which he was hurriedly
making through the country, visited many such
places of education, probably with a view to
Hansard and Blue-books; but he was frankly
willing to give its meed of praise to that of which
his noble host was the patron. And praise from
Mr Hammond was worth the having.

The carriage rolled on between high banks
crested with hazels and gay with wild-flowers,
until at last it passed between the sturdy gateposts
of blue Cornish granite, topped by the grim
heraldic monsters which the De Veres had borne
on their shields in battle for many a year before
they had become possessed of the ancient barony
of Harrogate or the modern earldom of Wolverhampton.{2}
It was a pretty park enough that of
High Tor, with its huge sycamores and avenue of
wych-elms, the fallow-deer feeding peacefully
among the ancient hawthorn trees, the tinkling
trout-stream, and the lofty crag that stood forth
like a giant sentinel, as though to protect the
mansion itself, surrounded by its gardens and
shrubberies.

‘Those are fine beeches!’ observed Mr Hammond,
pointing to a clump of silvan Titans that
reared their canopy of leaves on a hill far away.

‘Ah!’ said the Earl, as a momentary shade
passed across his face; ‘those are not on my land.
They are on the other side of the ring-fence, and
belong to Sir Sykes, at Carbery Chase.’

‘It was all one property once, I think?’ said Mr
Hammond.

‘Yes; but that was a long time ago,’ rejoined
the Earl; but he did not enlarge upon the subject,
and the carriage rolled in silence along the well-kept
road towards the house.

Meanwhile the man whose loitering near the
school of High Tor had attracted some notice, had
cleared the village, and was traversing one of those
deep lanes, with high banks densely wooded, for
which that southern county is famous. The nut
boughs almost interlaced their slender branches
over his head as he passed beneath their shadow,
and the ferns grew so thickly that it was but here
and there, in golden patches, that the broken sunbeams
could filter through them. The wayfarer
was, however, to judge from appearances, by no
means one of those for whom the coy beauty of
wild-flowers, or the soft greenery of the woodlands,
or the carol of the birds, could have any
peculiar attraction. He pushed on, not hurrying
his pace, but moodily indifferent to the hundred
pretty sights and sounds that vainly invited his
attention.

In person the stranger was, as has been mentioned,
powerfully built, and still active and
vigorous, although his crisp dark hair was grizzled
by age or hardship. His keen restless eyes, sullen
mouth, and lowering looks, were scarcely calculated
to inspire confidence. His sunburnt face
had evidently known the heat of a fiercer sun
than that of Britain; and near the corner of the
mouth there was a dull white scar, half-hidden
by the clustering beard. Mr Hammond’s conjecture
as to the seafaring character of the man was
perhaps warranted by his attire, which was of
a coarse blue pilot-cloth, such as is worn not by
sailors only, but by many dwellers on the coast,
whose calling leads them to associate with mariners;
and as regarded his bearing, he might as
easily have been taken for an Australian digger
or Cornish miner as for a seaman.

Such as he was, Ethel Gray was right in saying
that this man’s darkling face had been very
frequently to be seen in the village of High Tor
during the few weeks of her residence there. Who
he was or whence he came, no one knew. But he
did nothing illegal in loitering about the trim
straggling street; and as our modern system does
not encourage rural Dogberries to meddle with
suspected ‘vagrom men,’ he was left practically
unmolested as he lounged to and fro, talking
little, but listening much in the tap-room of the
village ale-house, where the rustics recognised in
him the merit of one who carried spare silver in
his pocket, and would invest a little of it in
eleemosynary pots of beer. Himself not over-communicative,
he seemed to have an aptitude
for making others talk; and if to learn the politics
of the parish was his desire, he certainly ought
to have become tolerably well versed in them.

The swarthy slouching fellow trudged on, indifferent
to the pale blush of the wild-roses, to
the scent of the violets, or to the fresh clear song
of the blackbird. He was thinking, thinking
deeply, perceptibly indeed, had any one been
there to watch him, for the veins and muscles of
his beetling brows swelled and rose frowningly, as
they do with some men while racking their brains.
Presently he emerged into a broader and drier
road than the moist shady lane which he had
traversed, and saw before him the lodge-gates of
a park, the stone piers of which were surmounted
by a pair of couchant greyhounds in marble. One
of the side-gates stood always open, since there
exists an ancient right of way through Carbery
Chase; and unchallenged, the stranger passed
through the gateway and entered the demesne.
It was a fair scene on which he looked. The
golden sunshine fell, as if lovingly, on the rustling
beech-trees and spreading oaks, the ferny dells
and grassy uplands, the ancient trees of the grand
avenue, and the bold blue swell of Dartmoor
rising bleakly to the northward.

Full in front, seen through a vista of lofty elms,
was the great house, rising stately in its fair proportions;
mullion and ogive, and gable and turret,
and every detail, to the very vanes that flashed and
glittered on roof and tower, looking very much as
they must have looked when Queen Elizabeth
deigned to shew her skill as an archeress, to the
detriment of the dappled deer in the wide park
beyond. The silver-plumaged swans yet rode the
tranquil waters of the mere, the burnished pheasants
exhibited their gaudy feathers on the sunny
bank beneath the fir-spinny, and the peacocks
swept their gorgeous trains along the stone terrace
that skirted the house, as when Tudor royalty had
been feasted there.

It is seldom in England that two mansions of
pretensions equal to High Tor and Carbery Court
lie so near together. But in point of splendour
there could be no comparison between the two.
The grand Elizabethan house, justly described in
the red-bound county guide-book as ‘a magnificent
place, now the seat of Sir Sykes Denzil, Bart.,’
far surpassed in size and in symmetry the smaller
and older dwelling of Sir Sykes’s noble neighbour.
No one would have credited the sunburnt stranger
with any great share of artistic taste or architectural
interest, yet he stood still at an angle of the
road whence he could command an uninterrupted
view of Carbery Court, and shading his eyes with
his broad hand, gazed at it with an intentness that
was not a little remarkable. ‘A tidy crib!’ he
muttered at last. ‘No wonder if a chap would
run a bit of risk, and pitch overboard any ballast
in the way of scruples, to be owner of such a place
as that. And yet’——

He snapped his fingers contemptuously as he
spoke, but nevertheless broke off abruptly in his
soliloquy, and drawing out from the breast-pocket
of his rough coat a leathern tobacco-pouch and a
short clay pipe, filled and lighted the latter, and
leaning against the huge bole of an elm-tree, smoked
for some time in silence. But if his outspoken
self-communings had come to an end, it would{3}
seem that the train of thought which had suggested
them had sustained no interruption, to judge by
the stealthy glances which he cast now and again
towards the grand mansion, flanked as it was by
all the appliances of wealth—park and lake and
gardens, home-farm and stabling, pheasantry, and
paddocks where thoroughbred colts disported
themselves during the brief period of liberty that
precedes the education of such equine aristocrats.

A stray policeman passing by would probably
have set down the swarthy stranger as an intending
burglar taking a distant survey of the scene
of his projected operations; but the mixture of
emotions which the man’s callous face expressed
was of by far too complex a character to be summed
up in so commonplace a fashion. There was
covetousness to be sure, and perhaps a spice of
malignity; but what appeared to predominate was a
species of cynical enjoyment of the thinker’s own
cunning, not unusual with crafty but uneducated
persons, who see themselves on the brink of success.
Whatever might be the nature of the man’s
meditations, they were presently cut short by the
sound of hoofs on the smooth road near him, as
a gentleman riding slowly from the lodge-gates
towards the house came in sight.

As the rider approached him, the man, who had
been leaning against the tree, started, and with an
impatient gesture, knocked the ashes out of his
exhausted pipe; then jerking down his hat over
his brows with the air of one whose instinct or
purpose it is to shun observation, he strode off,
striking into a side-road which led towards another
gate of the park, by which entrance could be made
from the northward. Some minutes of brisk
walking brought him to the verge of the park,
whence he emerged into a wild and broken district
of imperfectly cultivated country lying at the foot
of the Dartmoor uplands, that rolled away in front
of him to the edge of the horizon.

For some half a mile beyond the park-wall, the
well-tilled fields, the fences in good repair, and the
trim aspect of the few dwellings that studded the
country, differed in no respect from such fields
and fences, such farms and cottages as lay between
High Tor and Carbery. But when the pedestrian
reached a guide-post the pointing finger of which
was inscribed with the words, ‘To Nomansland,
Dedman’s Hollow, and Dartmoor,’ he began to see
before him evidences that he had left behind him
the carefully managed Carbery property, and had
entered on a barren region skirting the Royal
Forest, and inhabited by a race of squatters who
wrested with difficulty a bare subsistence from the
sterile soil.

Passing on amid the ragged hedges, the lean
cattle, squalid children, and tumble-down hovels
of this unattractive population, but acknowledging
twice or thrice a half-sullen nod or growl of recognition
on the part of some male member of the
community who stood whistling or chewing a
straw at gate or gap, the wayfarer at last reached
a spot where, at the junction of four narrow
lanes, stood a dilapidated house of entertainment,
its thatched roof stained and broken, and
with not a few of the panes in its unwashed
windows rudely replaced by boards or sackcloth.
An inscription in faded letters over the low-browed
doorway had reference to a license to
retail beer and spirits for consumption on the
premises, and tobacco; while a board nailed to a
dead tree hard by bore, in thin black characters,
the name of The Traveller’s Rest. And into The
Traveller’s Rest the stranger dived, with all the air
of one who feels himself at home.

CURLING.

When a black frost seals up the ground, and ice
covers our ponds and lochs, among the amusements
then open to those north of the Tweed
there is none more healthful and exhilarating
than the game of curling, the mode of playing at
which we shall presently explain for the benefit
of our non-initiated readers. This ‘manly Scottish
exercise,’ as the old poet Pennycuick calls it, is,
as we once before hinted, the worthiest rival of
golf in Scotland. Alas, however, it fights this
battle under immense disadvantages; the good old
times seem to have passed away, when for weeks
on end,

and good ice might be confidently counted on for a
long time. But being a pastime solely depending
upon ice, and good ice, for its existence, this only
makes the ardent votaries of the game the more
eager to take every advantage of such fleeting
chances as the variable winters of our day send
them. Night has often been added to day, when
the interest in a great match has been more
intense than the frost, and the ice has shewn any
signs of passing away.

It is always a trial for a curler to see a sheet of ice
unoccupied; and when, on a Sunday, the ‘crystal
brig’ on some fine loch lies smooth and keen, who
has not seen hopeful enthusiasts taking a glance
at the virgin expanse, with expression of countenance
impossible to misunderstand! The marvel
is that the strong temptation is so universally
resisted, and that no effect has followed the example
set by that Bishop of Orkney two centuries ago,
whose ‘process,’ says Baillie in his Letters, ‘came
before us; he was a curler on the Sabbath-day.’

No game promotes sociality more than curling;
none unites on one common platform the different
classes of society better than it does.

join in the game without patronage on one side or
any loss of respect on the other. Harmony and
friendly feeling prevail; and if, on the ice as elsewhere,
all men are not equal, it is because a quick
eye, a sound head, and a steady hand make now
the shepherd, now the laird, ‘king o’ a’ the core.’

Though so eminently a Scottish game, evidence
goes to prove that the pastime was brought
to us from the continent not very long ago—three
hundred years or so. Some ultra-patriotic
curlers claim for it indeed a native origin, or
at least one lost in the mists of antiquity,
citing a passage in Ossian to prove that the
Fingalian heroes beguiled their winters with the
game, because in one passage it is said ‘Swaran
bends at the stone of might;’ but this notwithstanding,
it is quite clear that, as in the case of
golf, we are indebted to outsiders for the first
rough sketches of the ‘roaring game.’ The technical
language of the game is all of Low Country
origin, and it is supposed to have been introduced
into this country by the Flemish emigrants who{4}
settled in Scotland about the end of the fifteenth
century. No mention of it is made by any writer
for long after this; but it must have been well
known in 1607, for Camden, in his Britannia,
published in that year, says that in the little
island of Copinsha, near the Orkneys, ‘are to be
found in great plenty excellent stones for the game
called curling.’

At this time and for long after, the game
appears to have been merely a rough kind of
quoiting on ice; indeed for a great part of the last
century its common name in this country was
Kuting. The stones of that day, rough undressed
blocks—so different from the polished missiles now
used—had no handle, but merely a kind of hollow
or niche for the finger and thumb, and were evidently
intended to be thrown for at least part of the
course. Since these days, great strides have been
taken in the improvement of the game; now it is
highly scientific, and with its many delicate strokes,
its ‘wicks,’ calculations of angles, of force, and of
bias, it may without presumption be called the
billiards of ice. In some places, however, the old
game with its primitive implements, usually flattish
stones from the bed of the nearest stream, still
holds its place under the name of ‘channelling.’

In the bead-roll of curling are no such mighty
names as those that golf boasts of; our winter game
has not got mixed up with historic events and
personages, as the older pastime has; but what
her devotees lack in greatness is made up by the
intense affection shewn by them in all ages for
their favourite sport. It appears to have been
a great game with poets. Allan Ramsay and
Burns allude to it, and a host of minor bards
have sung its praises at varying lengths, but
with uniform appreciation of its excellences. One
of the most eloquent passages in Christopher
North’s Winter Rhapsody deplores the failing popularity
of the game in his later days; for like many
other good things, curling has had its ups and
downs in this world. In some few districts where
it once flourished for a time, the interest in the
game has died out; but of later years the establishment
of so many clubs has given a new impetus to
the game, which now prospers in its season beyond
all former experience. The south-western districts
of Scotland were long the chosen home of curling,
and the players of Lanark and Dumfriesshire were
specially renowned for their great skill in the art;
but now it has spread over the whole country, and
the grand matches of the Royal Caledonian Curling
Club witness the friendly rivalry of worthy foemen
from Maidenkirk to John o’ Groat’s, and excite the
enthusiasm of branch clubs south of the Tweed,
and even across the Atlantic.

At Edinburgh, perhaps as much as at any other
place, has the game prospered within the last
century, though in one point the game has lost a
recognition it once had, if we believe the old
tradition that, about a hundred and fifty years
ago, the Town-Council used to go to the ice in all
the pomp and circumstance that it now reserves
for the Commissioner’s procession, with a band
playing ‘appropriate airs’ before it, which discoursed
sweet music while the fathers of the city
gave an hour or two to the game. The citizens
then played on the Nor’ Loch, a sheet of water
which in those days divided the Old Town from
the New; when it was drained they went to the
ponds at Canonmills, and subsequently to Duddingston
Loch, where arose the Duddingston Curling
Club, instituted in 1795, which has done great
things in infusing a new spirit into the game.
Among its members have been many fine curlers
and good fellows, famed in other fields than this;
and even if the Club had done nothing beyond
giving us the capital songs of Sir Alexander Boswell,
Miller, and many others, it would have still
deserved well of its country.

Of late years, however, there has arisen a
mightier than it—the Royal Caledonian Curling
Club—now forty years old, which numbers among
its members most curlers of note, both at home
and abroad; and to which are affiliated all the
local societies, who once a year, when the weather
permits, send their chosen champions to contend
at the grand match held under the auspices of
the Royal Club.

Let us now see how the game is played; and
first we shall give what is perhaps the earliest
description of the game on record, that given by
Pennant in his Tour in 1792. ‘Of all the sports
of these parts,’ he says, ‘that of curling is the
favourite, and one unknown in England. It is
an amusement of the winter, and played on the
ice by sliding from one mark to another great
stones of from forty to seventy pounds weight,
of a hemispherical form, with an iron or wooden
handle at the top. The object of the player is
to lay his stone as near the mark as possible,
to guard that of his partner, which had been well
laid before, or to strike his antagonist’s.’

The game is played on a carefully chosen piece
of ice called the ‘rink,’ which should be forty-two
yards long, unless special circumstances—such
as thaw and consequently ‘dull’ ice—require it to
be shortened. This piece of ice should be as level,
smooth, and free from cracks as possible; there
is usually a trifling bias, which however to the
skilled curler rather adds interest to the game, as it
calls forth additional science in the play.

When the rink is chosen, a little mark is made
at each end; this is called the ‘tee;’ and near
that point stands, in his turn, each player,
whose object is to hurl or slide his stones to the
opposite end, by a swinging motion of the arm.
Each player also endeavours to place his stones
nearer the tee than those of his opponents. In
this respect curling is precisely similar in principle
to the well-known game of bowls. Round the
tees are scratched several concentric circles or
‘broughs,’ a foot or so apart from each other,
by which means the distance at which stones are
lying from the goal is seen at a glance at any
time during the continuance of the ‘end.’ In the
normally long rink, a scratch called the hog-score—usually
made wavy, to distinguish it from
any accidental crack—is drawn across the line
of play near each end, eight yards from the
tee; and any stones that have not had impetus
enough imparted to them to carry them over
this line are ‘hogs,’ and are put off the ice as
useless for that end. A common number of
players in one rink is eight—four against four;
but in some places more play on one side, and
in others less, according to circumstances. As a
general rule each man plays two stones. The
game is counted by points; and each stone of
a side closer than their antagonists’ nearest, is a
point which scores towards the game. It will
be observed that ‘tees,’ ‘broughs,’ and{5} ‘hog-scores’
are in duplicate, for as in quoits and bowls, ends
are changed after each round.

As in bowls so in curling, the office of ‘skip’
of each side is usually given to the best player;
and on his tact and judgment, besides knowledge
of the exact amount of confidence he can place
on the skill of each of his followers depends
much of the success of his side. His chief duty
is to stand at the tee for the purpose of directing
and advising the play of each of his fellows,
always playing last himself, that the critical shot
on which perhaps victory or defeat hangs, may
be in the best possible hands. Thus, in a rink of
four players a side, the skips stand directors until
their third men have played both their stones;
upon which they proceed to the other end and
play theirs.

The course of a game is generally something
like this, though in no sport are there greater
variations, or more circumstances calling forth all
that judgment, skill, and experience only can
teach. The ‘lead’ or first player’s object is simple:
he tries to ‘draw’ his shot—that is, to play his
stone up the ice towards the end where stands
his skip directing, so that the stone may lie if
possible within the rings; and if he is a skilful
player, his stone rests say a few feet short of the
tee. The lead of the opposite side probably does
as nearly the same, or with a little more force
applied he perhaps knocks out his opponent’s
stone and lies in its place. Each of the leads
having played two stones, the turn of the second
player now comes. If an opposing stone lies
near the tee, this player tries to change places
with it by driving it away; but if a stone of
his own side is next the tee, his play will be
to ‘guard’ it—that is, to lay his own stone in a
direct line before it, so that the enemy may be
less likely to dislodge it. As the game proceeds
it gets more intricate—the stones round the
tee may have been so placed that the ‘winner’
is perfectly guarded from direct attack. Then is
the time for the display of science: an experienced
player by a cunning twist of the wrist may make
his stone curl so as to carry it past the one that
is supposed to guard the winning stone; or he
may hit a stone near the winner in an oblique
direction, and so cannon off it on to the winning
stone and knock it away. This last is called
‘wicking,’ and is exactly a stroke of the same
kind so necessary in billiards.

And so the game goes on—a game of give and
take; but as Græme says, who can

Stories innumerable are told of the delicate feats
of aiming performed by enthusiasts of the game;
and it is wonderful what skill is often shewn in
the shots taken by good curlers with their unwieldy
looking weapons; the narrow ‘ports’ or
openings between two stones that they can make
their missiles pass through, and the dexterity they
shew in calculating the bias of the ice and the
exact amount of angle necessary to make their
cannons. This too, with stones thirty or forty
pounds in weight!

Each player provides himself with a broom to
sweep up the ice before a too lazy stone; and upon
judicious sweeping much of the game depends.
The shouts of ‘Soop! soop!’ that follow the signal
of the skip; the excited gestures of the ‘capering
combatants;’ the constant cries of victory or defeat
after the frequent changes of fortune; the general
exhilaration of spirits attending a healthy and
exciting exercise in the bracing air of winter—all
tend to make the scene an extraordinary one.
Of course if, instead of the ordinary match or game
among the members of a club, we are witnessing a
‘bonspiel’ or match between two rival clubs or
parishes, the excitement is much intensified. Wraps
put on by the careful goodwives’ hands before the
curlers left home are recklessly cast aside; brawny
arms vigorously ply the besoms; strong lungs
shout out encouragement; and the engrossed combatants
await the issue of a shot in all the attitudes
so cunningly portrayed in Sir George Harvey’s
well-known picture. Of course the point of most
breathless interest is when perhaps one shot
must decide the game. Hear how that inimitable
curling song-writer, the Rev. Dr Duncan,
describes that moment:

where awaits them the true curlers’ dinner of ‘beef
and greens;’ to which simple viands the appetites,
sharpened by the keen frost, do ample justice.
And if a temperate tumbler of toddy is emptied,
what then? A merry evening is spent; and however
keen the contest has been, or strong the
rivalry between closely matched parishes, we can
always say with the old song:

During these jovial evenings, ‘in words the fight
renewed is fought again,’ and many stories of past
curling are told—one of which we shall take an
early opportunity of offering to our readers.

MUSIC AND POETRY.

Art in its different developments may be said to
express one idea—beauty. As in different parts of
the world different languages are spoken, which
all express the same thoughts and feelings, though
in different ways, so all the arts are but the
various ways of expressing the one moving spirit,
the one idea, which is beauty. Painting exhibits
or expresses beauty of colour; Sculpture, beauty
of form; Architecture, beauty of proportion;
Music, beauty of harmony; Poetry, beauty of
thought. Each is in some measure transferable
to, or capable of part expression by, the others.
Thus painting may exhibit the beauty of form as
in sculpture, and architecture may combine the
beauties both of painting and sculpture, while
poetry can in some measure unite the properties
of each art.

The various thoughts and feelings of humanity
are capable of being expressed in art, in every
branch of it. Joy and sorrow, triumph and despair,
can be expressed alike faithfully by music,{6}
painting, or poetry. The pain that is never
entirely absent from this painful earth, aches in
sculpture, in verse, and in melody; the love that
beats in the great heart of the universe, breathes
from the canvas, the marble, and the minstrel.
Two arts especially are so blended as to be
almost synonymous—Music and Poetry. Poetry
is inarticulate music, harmony is song without
words. Poetry is perhaps the highest of all arts,
because all the others appeal to the soul through
the external senses; while poetry, without sound,
without beauty either of form or colour, unites
the power of all. Something of the earth is
necessary to the production of the other arts;
pigments, marbles, strings, instruments of various
sorts are indispensable to all except poetry;
therefore poetry is the divine art, for it comes
direct from the soul. Exquisite word-painting
describes a scene as vividly as any painting; perfect
rhythm is the purest harmony, and all art is
combined in a poem which depicts with the fidelity
of painting, which is symmetrical with the perfect
proportions of architecture, and which breathes
the melody of music.

From the earliest ages, songs have been the
heart-notes of nations; the simplest form of poetry,
yet the most popular, because written directly
from the heart to the heart. Heroic deeds were
celebrated in song, love-stories were immortalised
in song, ere there was a note of written music
or a word of written verse. Thus the twin-sister
arts music and poetry, in their infancy scarce distinguishable,
passed on hand in hand; but with
the lapse of years they grew more divided, their
different features becoming more developed, until
now, their triumphs have apparently raised a
barrier between them, and people forget that they
are twin; but the chord of sympathy is still there.
The union is not less; it is only less visible, because
more intricate. It is impossible briefly to state all
the points where the sister-muses are at one; let us
simply, by pointing out a few examples from the
great masters of each, attempt to shew that music
and poetry are still closely allied.

The three great moving powers of humanity are
Faith, Reason, Passion—the Soul, the Head, the
Heart. Faith, reverence, worship, or by whatever
name may be called that feeling in man which
causes him to adore a being greater than himself,
has been expressed in poetry by Milton; in music
by Handel. Reason, the thoughts of the human
mind, the gropings after a true philosophy, has
been expressed in the poetry of Shelley, in the
music of Mendelssohn. Passion—each varied emotion
that throbs in the heart of man, is expressed
in the poetry of Byron, in the music of Beethoven.
Others might be cited, and resemblances carried
to any extent between poets and musicians; but
the above may suffice, being not merely fanciful
definitions, but thorough truths, fully borne out
in fact; not ideal but real.

There is first the poetry and music in which the
feeling of worship, the element of religion, is prime
agent. Milton can be fairly taken as the poet of
reverence. Owing to the peculiar circumstances
of his life and times, the great power of his verse
is a cry against the follies and sins of a debased
people, an earnest cry for more strength of purpose,
more firmness of will. It all strives to exalt a
Deity who was like to be forgotten by a nation
steeped in the vices and frivolities of Cavalier
times. Grand and impressive his verse flows on,
a mighty flood, with the hidden strength which
shews itself in calm still progress.

Like the full rich notes of the organ sound the
words of Milton, as also the noble chords of Handel,
whose music, like Milton’s verse, is full of adoration.
Strange that both in their later years were
blind. Could it be that the closing of the eyes of
the flesh opened the eyes of the soul to a clearer
vision and a more real conception of the Deity?
The majesty of God, the insignificance of man, the
eternal triumph of good over evil, are their themes,
and in the same tones are they uttered. Handel
and Milton sound like one voice, now in tones of
beseeching tenderness—Miserere Domine wailing
forth the plaint of sorrow in accents piteous with
the burden of woe; again with righteous indignation
they witheringly scathe the enemies of the
truth and the spirit of evil; and, in Gloria in
Excelsis they unite in praising the power of the
Deity above all names, the one spirit, the ‘I am’
of the universe.

From the earliest times until now, man has
been trying to solve the riddle of existence,
eagerly striving after a true philosophy which
shall satisfactorily explain to his reason all the
complex mechanism of his nature. The highest
intellect has vainly striven to pierce the mysteries
of time and eternity, until the torch of reason
becomes only an ignis fatuus, leading to dangerous
wilds, where there is no path. In poetry the pure
reason of man has had few such brilliant exponents
as Shelley. Gifted with daring imagination, his
genius darted in its wild flight like the lightning
from out the storm-cloud; far above the earth his
spirit seemed to float, while he breathed forth his
marvellous song and toyed with the clouds and
the spirits of the spheres. Intellect was his god;
he revelled in the beauty of Nature and in the
mystic shadows of psychological dreams. His
eager soul was ever yearning for a something
undefined to satisfy the vague longings of a mind
that will take nothing for granted, that cannot
believe what it does not understand. Therefore
the works of Shelley are admirable examples of
the poetry of the intellect.

Mendelssohn is his counterpart in music; there
is the same vivid imagination, the same perfection
of harmony, the same wealth of melody in the
works of both. His music displays a rich intellect
and a brilliant fancy; in it there is mechanical
perfection; there is all that knowledge and education
can do; heart only is awanting. His cultured
mind conjures up sweet sounds, delicate airy
visions, grand solemn strains; but there is never
a touch of passion in it all. Carefully polished
into perfection, the intricacies of his music convey
the idea that a vast amount of effort and labour
has been bestowed on their production. But in
this he differs from Shelley, for Shelley’s song is
free, spontaneous as a bird’s, and in it there is
the fire, the passion which Mendelssohn lacks.

Thus, though there are slight differences in the
way in which the intellect is developed in the
works of those two masters, yet they both exhibit,
above all, the reason, the intellect of man in its
highest state of culture. Rich, melodious, dreamy
are they both; and each leaves on the listener the
same impression as of wandering through a land
of perfect loveliness, peopled by beautiful spirits,
chanting music now full of exquisite fancies, and{7}
again uttering wild cries for that rest and peace
which the intellect alone cannot give. A fairy
world is that dream-land of Shelley and of
Mendelssohn.

Ever nearer to human nature is the music of
the heart, the one thing in the universe that
changes not. Intellect with the advancing ages
advances and changes; religions vary in different
lands; but although languages, manners, everything
be different, the heart of man remains the
same: ‘One touch of nature makes the whole
world kin.’ Difference of language or of creed is
no barrier to the appreciation of Shakspeare, of
Mozart, of Raphael. True genius speaks to human
nature from the depths of an intensest sympathy,
a melody, a thought, which no boundary-line can
limit, no distinction of race retard.

How is it that the sublimest music and the
most entrancing verse are the results of sorrow?
How is it that ‘sweetness is wrung out of pain, as
the juice is crushed away from the cane?’ Out
of the fire comes the purified gold, and out of the
furnace of trial and pain and sorrow, comes that
perfect sympathy which lies at the root of genius.
Pain develops faculties which would otherwise lie
dormant, and thus out of much suffering grew
the deathless song of Byron and the immortal
music of Beethoven. Nursed by neglect, fostered
by contempt, grew their soul-children into a life
which triumphed over the scorn which had
slighted their infancy—beautiful soul-children,
that shall live for ever in the eternal youth of
genius. So long as the heart of humanity shall
continue to throb, so long shall continue Byron’s
verse and Beethoven’s harmonies. The heart, with
its passionate longings, its hope and despair, its
delight and its utter weariness, is embodied in the
works of both. Strains of infinite tenderness and
burning notes of passionate intensity, go to the
heart of the listener with that strange undefinable
power—that thrill, which is the charm of Beethoven’s
music. That composer once remarked that
‘music should strike fire from the heart of man,
and bring tears from the eyes of woman.’ His
music has accomplished both. The works of other
musicians may delight or astonish; Weber’s sweet
notes have a home in many hearts, and Mozart’s
versatile genius has given to dramatic music its
highest expression; but we venture to say that
none exercises that marvellous fascination, none
weaves the spell of enchantment which dwells
in the burning notes of the master musician.

And in Byron’s poetry there is the same indescribable
attraction, because there is the same
power. At present it is the fashion to sneer at
his magnificent genius, to humble it ever the
lower, the higher is raised the present school,
who write of vague shadowy beings, and are
strangely destitute of genuine life or passion. The
conventional society of the present time is most
fittingly mirrored in the conventional poetry of
the day. Anything like tender emotion is carefully
concealed. In the poetry of Byron there
is no straining after effect, no halting for a word
or a metaphor; on, ever on flows the song in a
resistless tide. His poetry, like that of Burns, his
equally gifted brother, is not made; it breathes,
it burns; and is a genuine creation. In Byron’s
poetry love and hate are no mere affectations;
they are genuinely depicted, and meant; while
sorrow is touched with the tender cadence of a
real grief. There beats in all his verse a true
throbbing heart, with all the inconsistencies
of temperament which belong to human nature.
There is the secret of his power, the magic of his
verse, which must live so long as hearts shall beat
to the tune of love, and there are sorrows in this
world of unrest.

The universality of this heart-music is easily
understood, even though the intellect of man be
ever changing; and each new science in its turn
alter the aspect of affairs; each new philosophy
seem to overthrow the previous schools. As
knowledge becomes more extended, materialism
wages a sterner battle against idealism, and a
‘reason’ that must comprehend all the mysteries
of existence, that must apply the crucible to everything,
bids fair to abolish ‘heart’ altogether, as
an antiquated emotion; and yet throughout all
ages to come, the one touch of nature will still
make ‘the whole world kin.’

Unaffected in the main by religion or education,
we see the same feelings, with all their varying
moods, in the inhabitants of the sunniest climes or
of the lands of winter snows. Thus is the heart
of man ever the same. True genius speaks to that
heart; hence it is universal, and can never die.
The language of Homer is now esteemed dead, but
is the Iliad dead? The land of Dante has been
steeped in a long sleep, but has the Inferno been
forgotten? The birthplace of Michael Angelo is
disputed, but none disputes the power of his
imperishable marbles.

Bright in the beauty of eternal youth, live the
song-notes of genius whether in verse or music;
age cannot mar the freshness of their charm; time
cannot lessen the power of their fascination.
Empires are overthrown, victories lost and won,
kingdoms once in the first rank are fallen behind,
and young nations are spurring on to the front;
the world, ever in a turmoil, is a perpetual kaleidoscope
of change; but through the clang of battle
these voices sound triumphant, and still to the
weary and the suffering they whisper peace and
comfort.

THE BELL-RINGER.

IN FOUR CHAPTERS.

CHAPTER I.—THE DUMB PEAL.

Over hill and dale, over woodland and moor, over
fields and hedgerows, the snow has thrown her
mantle of purity, concealing all defects with a
skilful hand, and making a landscape of fairy-like
beauty, enhanced by the rays of the sun. On the
church belonging to the village of Linden, its
beauty was strikingly revealed, as it lay upon
every moulding, and clothed the ivy clustering the
tower, contrasted by patches of dark-green leaves
where the wind had relieved them of their snowy
burden, and tracing the outline of each narrow
pointed window and jutting buttress. The graves
were thickly covered with Nature’s winding-sheet,
and even the mossy tombstones in this village
‘God’s-acre’ were whitened by the same pure
covering, for the wind had ceased for some hours,
and a ghostly silence pervaded the resting-place of
the dead, until the striking of the village clock in
a dull muffled tone warned the occupants of some
adjacent cottages that it was four o’clock. Clouds
of a light gray colour hung low over the earth,{8}
and Nature reposed in a silence that is often the
precursor of a storm.

The village of Linden was situated in a valley,
picturesquely green in summer, but subject to
heavy snow-drifts in winter, which at times rendered
the road nearly impassable; a fact which
was painfully apparent to a solitary traveller
who was toiling wearily on his way at the
time my story opens. As he drew near the
churchyard, which was situated at the entrance
to the village, he paused to rest on the low wall
surrounding the inclosure, and drew his plaid
around him, as a protection from the cold, for he
shook in every limb, and his breath went and
came in short uneven gasps. A labourer returning
from his work gave him a countryman’s ‘good-e’en,’
but he made no reply; an urchin clambered
over the stile to take a short cut through the
sacred precincts, and stared hard as he brushed
past the muffled form; still he moved not, although
the fast-deepening gloom of the short December
day was sufficient to urge him to hasten to a shelter
for the night. At last, as the church clock struck
the quarter past four, the stranger rose, and mounting
the stile, stepped down into the churchyard.
Removing his plaid from his face, he looked earnestly
around, without fear that he should challenge
recognition; he was alone with the dead. Stumbling
with some uncertainty among the graves, he
made for a distant corner, where a door in the ivy-covered
wall and a neatly kept path (from which
the snow had been lately swept) leading to the
chancel door, shewed it to be a private entrance to
the churchyard. In this corner stood a cross of
Scotch granite, decked with wreaths of immortelles,
and still discernible in the twilight was the
inscription:

In Beloved Remembrance of
Alice, Wife of Charles Peregrine,
who died August 12, 18—, Aged 52.
Her End was Peace.

With eyes which seemed to strain themselves in
his eagerness to read this inscription, the traveller
gathered in the meaning of what he read, and with
cold benumbed fingers painfully traced each carved
letter, to make the dread assurance doubly sure.
Clasping the cross, he sank upon his knees, and
indulged in an agony of grief; at last his emotion
overcame him; the fatigue he had previously endured
augmented his suffering; his arms released
their hold, and he slid from his kneeling position
on to the ground, lying in an unconscious state on
the verge of a newly dug grave, side by side with
the one over which he had been weeping; and in
this dangerous position for a time we leave him.

At a quarter to eight Nathan Boltz, who was
master of the belfry, the bells, and the ringers,
who rung the curfew at eight o’clock, and the
morning bell at five in summer and six in winter,
who was sexton and parish clerk, and one of the
principal members of the choir, came to perform
his usual duty. The tolling of the curfew over,
Nathan turned aside to inspect the grave he had
lately dug; his astonishment was intense at stumbling
over a prostrate form, and but for his activity
he would have been precipitated into the narrow
house so lately prepared by him. Putting down
his lantern, he raised the insensible figure, and
bore it in his arms to his cottage, close at hand;
once there he managed to unlock the door, and
placed the stranger gently on the floor. Running
back swiftly for his lantern, Nathan returned with
it, closed and locked his door upon intruders, and
brought its light upon the face of his guest. No
sooner had he done this than he started back in
dismay. He knew the man, although he had not
seen him for fifteen years, and time had worked
startling changes in that cold impassive face.

‘’Tis he at last!’ whispered Nathan, as if fearful
of being overheard, although he was alone. For a
moment he felt as David might have felt with
Saul sleeping before him; then the passion in
his face died out, and he used every means to
restore the sufferer. For some time his efforts
were in vain, but at last he was successful; and
the first glance bestowed upon him by the stranger
shewed that he too was recognised, although
neither of them spoke.

Nathan was at his post next morning when the
funeral cortège came quietly through the grounds
surrounding the Hall, and was met by the vicar
near the chancel door; but Nathan’s mind was
preoccupied, and he scarcely heard or saw anything
which took place. He went through his
duties mechanically, even to filling up the grave in
silence, although many lingered near him to speak
of her who lay beneath. They thought him
strange, but held him in too much respect to
venture a remark.

Squire Peregrine of Linden Hall had been a
widower only a few months, having been left with
seven daughters, who might have been termed the
widower’s garland. Alas! for that fragile beauty
which fading rapidly droops into an early grave.
The funeral of one fair girl had just taken place;
and for Hilda Peregrine, the bell-ringers would on
that evening ring a dumb peal, which should
speak to every heart in its sorrow, and prove their
sympathy with the bereaved. Six months before,
they had rung for the mother, little anticipating
the early removal of one of her children; she had
passed away from them, beloved to the last. Was
it any wonder that the men took their way to the
belfry in silence, guided by the light of the lantern
flashing on the snow-covered paths? The bell-ringers
of Linden could boast of no slight skill in
their manipulation of the splendid chime of eight
bells which were wont to speak their stirring
language to the villages for miles around. The
sweet and musical bells of Linden had been a
recent gift from the ladies of the Hall, and each
bell bore upon it the name of the giver. Nathan
Boltz preceded the ringers into the belfry. See
him as he stands there divested of his wraps, and
revealed by the light of candles burning in sconces
fixed in the wall. He is a tall and stalwart man of
thirty-five, with a muscular development rarely
excelled, inherited from his father, a Dutch sailor.
His face, of a true Saxon type, is remarkable for its
repose and force of expression; firmness without
obstinacy in the mouth and chin; benevolence
written on the expansive forehead; forgiveness and
charity in the clear dark gray eye.

Nathan Boltz was truly one of Nature’s gentlemen;
a self-educated man, a great reader, a deep
thinker, a humble imitator of the Divine Master.
This was the man who, unaware of his true greatness,
lived a life of real enjoyment in zealously
performing his duties and working for his daily
bread. He had no desire to extend his sphere{9}
beyond his native village; the simple drama of
his life had been played out amidst its rural
scenes, and it had not been destitute of pathos
and variation. Nathan had had a deep sorrow,
which had washed his soul in its tumultuous
waters and left it stranded upon the Rock of Ages;
and when the memory of this sorrow came upon
him, his voice took a deeper tone in the chants and
hymns, and a shadow would obscure the brightness
of his face. He had, like all his fellow-creatures,
many faults; but the good in him outbalanced
the evil.

‘Now!’ cried Nathan. Instantly the men were
at their posts. Every hand grasped its respective
rope; and there echoed forth on the night-air
the solemn far-sounding peal, carrying the melody
down to earth, catching it and bearing it to
heaven above.

The cottagers opened their doors, and every
heart answered its response of regret and hope as
the bells rang on. At last it was over; the solemn
sound died gradually away, and the silence which
followed seemed the more expressive from the
contrast.

Old Father Time rings many changes; hour by
hour and day by day they steal upon us, imperceptibly
but surely; and we mark their advent
but slightly, until at our yearly gatherings, when
friend meets friend and long-severed ties are
reunited, the missing links shew many a vacant
chair, and faces filled with joy in meeting their
beloved once more, ever and anon cloud over, as
memory recalls departed joys which never can
return.

We return with the mourners to the Hall, where
the sisters can scarcely realise the loss of her who
has so lately been taken from them. Patricia, the
eldest, possesses her father’s hauteur of disposition
and commanding manner. Gertrude, the second,
resembles her mother in person and disposition.
Of the four younger sisters, two of them were
twins, and were a counterpart of their elder sister.
The remaining two had been trained by her whom
they lamented, and were, like her, beloved by all
who knew them. The sisters sat together in
the drawing-room, awaiting the entrance of their
father and another member of the family regarded
in the light of a son—their cousin, Oliver Peregrine,
whose marriage with Patricia was necessarily delayed
by her sister Hilda’s death. These constituted
the family dinner-party.

Oliver Peregrine grew impatient at the decorous
silence preserved by his uncle, who in spite of
his calm demeanour, was feeling the death of this
daughter more than he cared to shew. The servants
who waited had felt real affection for her, and their
sorrow was not an outward form. But the delay
of the marriage chafed Oliver’s temper, and with
difficulty he responded to his uncle’s desire that
all mention of it might be for the present suppressed.
Let us describe him. He was about forty
years of age; tall, thin, and stooping; his hair and
moustache of a faint sandy hue, his light-blue
eyes uncertain and cruel-looking, the mouth thin
and compressed; haughty towards his dependents,
possessing an unblemished reputation, heir to the
greater part of his uncle’s wealth, demanding
respect, of love gaining none. He was a man who
looked suspiciously on every action of those around
him, at the same time given to concealment
himself. He was an accomplished scholar, and had
been educated for a learned profession, being the
orphan son of a younger brother; but as the heir
of Squire Peregrine, he followed his studies as a
recreation, and spent most of his time at the Hall.

Dinner was proceeding in the manner just
described, when up the snow-covered avenue a
carriage rolled silently and swiftly; and presently
the butler handed a card to his master. Squire
Peregrine rose immediately; and all felt the interruption
a welcome one. ‘My old friend Colonel
Lindsay,’ he said in explanation, ‘whom I have not
seen for many years.—Come with me, Patricia,
and bid him welcome.’

They left the room; and after a short interval
returned, bringing Colonel Lindsay with them.
Introductions followed, and he took his seat at the
table. No one present made mention of the time
which had elapsed since last he had visited them.
Many changes of a painful character had taken
place during the interval, and the Colonel avoided
all mention of them until he found himself alone
with his old friend. But when Patricia and her
sisters had left the dining-room, and Oliver with a
slight apology had followed them, the Colonel, in a
few feeling words, referred to the death of Squire
Peregrine’s wife and daughter; then suddenly
changing his tone, he added: ‘And where is the
boy? Where is Bertram?’

Squire Peregrine’s face grew of an ashen paleness,
as in a low voice he answered: ‘Lindsay, I have
no son.’

‘Dead?’ said the Colonel in a penetrating tone,
as if he would read the heart of his old friend.

‘To me and my family for ever. Name him no
more!’

The Colonel took no notice of his tone. ‘His
faults?’ he pressed—‘his faults?’

No one else would have so dared to interrogate
Squire Peregrine; yet again he answered: ‘Abduction
and forgery;’ and his old friend noticed that
he placed the word forgery last.

‘I do not believe it, Charles,’ he said calmly.
‘Against whom were these crimes committed?’

‘Against a pure and innocent village girl, and
against myself. He fled, and all I could do was to
try not to discover him. The girl is dead. To the
last she shielded him. He is the first Peregrine who
has so fallen, and his name is cut off from amongst
us. God grant he may be dead!’

‘He is innocent!’ returned the Colonel in a firm
tone.

Squire Peregrine stared at him as if he thought
him mad. ‘How can you prove that?’ he said
hurriedly.

‘I have no proof but my remembrance of him as
a lad, and an inward conviction that you have
been deceived. Did his mother believe him
guilty?’

‘I cannot say. I did not allow her to mention
him. My two youngest daughters are not aware
they have a brother.’

The Colonel did not press the matter further, but
changed the subject, relating incidents of his life
abroad, and making the time pass pleasantly to his
old friend. But that night the Colonel sat in deep
thought over the decaying embers of his fire, and{10}
had come to a resolution before he sought his
couch. The result was that Dobson the butler
furnished him with full particulars of the sad
event; and unknown to Oliver Peregrine the
prosperity of that worthy was on the wane.

EXPERIENCES IN CAMP AND COURT.

An interesting and gossiping volume of personal
reminiscences, entitled Camp, Court, and Siege: a
Narrative of Personal Adventure and Observation
during two Wars, 1861-65, 1870-71 (Sampson Low
& Co.), has been given to the world by Colonel
Hoffman, an officer whose position during two great
wars enabled him to record much that escaped the
notice of other observers. Colonel Hoffman held
an important post in the Federal army during the
American civil war, and at its close received an
appointment in the diplomatic service of his
country. As Secretary to the American Legation
in Paris, and chargé d’affaires during the temporary
absence of the United States minister, Mr
Washburne, he witnessed the events which preceded
the Franco-German war, and afterwards
remained in Paris, in common with other members
of his Embassy, during the siege. The recollections
he has strung together relate rather to the
byways than to the beaten track of history during
these periods; and it is this fact which gives his
unpretending volume its chief interest and novelty.
Our readers will probably be amused in spending
with us a short time over its pages.

Colonel Hoffman was in 1862 captain on the
staff of Brigadier-general Williams at Hatteras,
an island which lies in the direct route of vessels
bound from the West Indies to Baltimore, New
York, &c. The ‘guileless natives’ of this place
are, we are informed, well known as wreckers, and
in pursuit of this calling they adopt a plan which
is simple but effective. A half-wild kind of horse
called a ‘marsh pony,’ is bred upon the island,
and one of these animals is caught, one of its
legs is tied up, a lantern slung to its neck,
and the pony is thus driven along the beach on
a stormy night. The effect is just that of a vessel
riding at anchor; but other ships approaching are
soon made unpleasantly aware of the difference
between a merchantman riding out the gale, and
this Hatteras decoy.

From Hatteras, Captain Hoffman was ordered
to join General Butler’s expedition to New
Orleans, and proceeded in a vessel which took
three regiments, numbering three thousand souls.
A fact which transpired on the voyage he commends
to the attention of those parish authorities
in England who refuse to enforce the Vaccination
Act. A man who had been ill with small-pox,
but was supposed to be cured, was on board this
vessel, and two days after they had sailed his
disease broke out again. The men among whom
he lay were packed as close as herrings in a barrel,
yet only one took it. They had all been vaccinated
within sixty days.

Ship Island, off Mobile in the Gulf of Mexico,
was their first destination to await supplies for
the expedition. An odd thing here was the abundance
of fresh water obtainable everywhere by
digging a hole two feet deep in the sand; in two
hours it became full, but after using it for a week
the water would be found brackish, when all that
was necessary to procure another supply was to
dig a hole as before. And yet the island scarcely
rises five feet above the sea. While staying at
this place the writer witnessed a curious freak of
lightning. Eight prisoners were sleeping side by
side in a circular tent, when a terrible thunderstorm
broke out. The sentry stood leaning against
the tent-pole, with the butt of his musket on the
ground and the bayonet touching his shoulder.
The lightning struck the tent-pole, leaped to the
bayonet and tore the stock to splinters, but only
slightly stunned the sentry; thence it passed along
the ground and struck the first prisoner, killing
him; glided by the six inside men without injury
to them, but struck and killed the eighth man as
it disappeared.

We now come to the writer’s reminiscences of
warfare.

A characteristic anecdote is told of General
Sherman’s coolness. ‘He had a pleasant way of
riding up in full sight of the enemy’s batteries
accompanied by his staff. Here he held us while
he criticised the manner in which the enemy got
his guns ready to open on us. Presently a shell
would whiz over our heads, followed by another
somewhat nearer. Sherman would then quietly
remark: “They are getting the range now; you
had better scatter.” As a rule we did not wait for
a second order.’ On one occasion Sherman sent
out a strong party to reconnoitre, and Captain
Hoffman asked permission to accompany them.
It was given; and the general added: ‘By the
way, captain, when you are over there, just ride
up and draw their fire, and see where their guns
are. They won’t hit you.’ The order was obeyed,
and Hoffman was not hit; but he does not recommend
the experiment to his friends.

There are occasionally amenities in warfare, and
imbittered as was the conflict between North and
South, still some curious instances occurred. At
the siege of Port Hudson the soldiers on both sides
established a sort of entente cordiale. Growing
weary of trying to pick each other off through
loopholes, one would tie a white handkerchief to
his bayonet and wave it above the parapet; and
presently a similar signal would be made on the
other side. This meant a truce; and in a moment
the men would swarm out on both sides, and commence
chaffing each other. After a while some
one would cry out: ‘Get under cover now,
Johnnie,’ or ‘Look out now, Yank; we are going
to fire,’ when handkerchiefs would be lowered and
hostilities recommence. No one dared to violate
this tacit truce without notice; had any one done
so, his comrades would have roughly handled him.

A striking instance is noted of the effect produced
by the imagination when exalted by the
excitement of battle. A staff-officer by Captain
Hoffman’s side dropped his bridle, threw up his
arms, and said: ‘I am hit; my boot is full of
blood.’ He was helped from his horse, and sent to
the ambulance, the captain mentally wishing him
farewell. Next day he appeared at headquarters
as well as ever; he had been struck by a spent
ball, which had broken the skin, but inflicted no
serious injury. Captain Hoffman saw the same
effect produced on another occasion. A man
limped from the field supported by two others, and
said his leg was broken. He was pale as death,
and had the chaplain to read to him; but the
surgeon was surprised to find no hole in his stocking,
and cutting it off, nothing was discernible but{11}
a black-and-blue mark on the leg. Men notoriously
brave may thus occasionally be imposed
upon by their imagination.

Woman’s wit, in the opinion of Colonel Hoffman,
played an important part at times in the conflict,
the ‘rebels’ gaining many an advantage over the
Northern men by its influence. ‘In such matters,’
he remarks, ‘one woman is worth a wilderness of
men. I recollect one day we sent a steam-boat
full of rebel officers (exchanged prisoners) into the
Confederacy. They were generally accompanied
by their wives and children. Our officers noticed
the most extraordinary number of dolls on board—every
child had a doll—but they had no suspicions.
A lady told me afterwards that every doll was filled
with quinine; the sawdust was taken out, and
quinine substituted. Depend upon it that female
wit devised that trick.’

Woman’s ingenuity also displayed itself in other
ways. A bag of intercepted letters from the Confederate
side gave an instance. A Southern young
lady, writing to her brother-in-law in Mobile,
narrated how she had successfully played a trick
upon a Boston newspaper, compelling it to unwittingly
belaud its foes. She sent them a poem
called The Gypsy’s Wassail, the original in Sanscrit,
with a translation in English, expressing every
patriotic and loyal sentiment. The ‘Sanscrit’
was simply English written backward, and properly
adjusted, read as follows:

The Wassail was published with a compliment
to the ‘talented contributor;’ but in a few days the
trick was discovered and exposed.

We pass on to the writer’s European recollections.
He received his appointment to the Legation at
Paris in 1866, when the imperial court was at the
height of its splendour. The Emperor, when he
designed to be, was always happy in his reception
of diplomates, and the formal introductory
speeches were followed by informal conversations.
He liked to ventilate his English, but could not
speak the language perfectly. To an American
officer (Colonel Hay) he observed, for instance:
‘You have made ze war in ze United States?’
(Vous avez fait la guerre?)—meaning, ‘Did you
serve?’ The colonel was strongly tempted to tell
his Majesty it was not he made the war, but Jeff.
Davis. The Empress spoke English not so fluently
as the Emperor, but with less accent. American
ladies were always well received by her, and her
balls were sometimes called by the envious bals
américains. If the Embassy desired one or two presentations
beyond the usual number, the inquiry
was generally made: ‘Is it a young and pretty
woman?’ and if it were, there was no difficulty,
for the Empress was pleased to have her balls set
off by beautiful and well-dressed women.

Comparison is favourable we are told, in American
eyes, to British over the French imperial
display on a very important occasion—the opening
of parliament by the sovereign, as contrasted with
that of the Corps Législatif. The spectacle in this
country bears the palm, says Colonel Hoffman,
both in splendour and interest. Her Majesty’s
demeanour is much admired. ‘Short and stout as
is the Queen, she has the most graceful and stately
walk perhaps in Europe. It is a treat to see her
move.’ The Empress of the French, however,
created great enthusiasm on these occasions. ‘Her
beauty, her grace, and her stately bearing carried
the enthusiasm to its height. You would have
sworn that every man there was ready to die for
his sovereign. Within less than four years she
sought in vain for one of them to stand by her in
her hour of danger.’

In the year of the last Paris Exhibition (1867),
Napoleon III. entertained in his capital the
Emperor of Russia and the King of Prussia,
the latter accompanied by Bismarck and Moltke.
Sixty thousand men passed before the sovereigns
in review, and it was on the return from the
spectacle that the Emperor Alexander was shot
at by a Pole. The ball struck the horse of
one of the equerries, and blood spurted from the
animal upon the Emperor’s second son, who was
with him in the carriage. It was reported that
the Emperor of the French turned to his imperial
guest and said: ‘Sire, we have been under
fire together for the first time to-day.’ To which
the Emperor replied with much solemnity of
manner: ‘Sire, we are in the hands of Providence.’
That evening the writer saw the Russian Emperor
at a ball at his own Embassy, not more than two
hundred persons being present. He looked pale
and distrait, and Madame Haussmann, wife of the
celebrated baron, was trying, but without much
tact, to make conversation with him. ‘He looked
over her head, as if he did not see her, and finally
turned upon his heel and left her. It was not
perhaps polite, but it was very natural. The
Emperor and Empress of the French made
extraordinary exertions to enliven the ball; but
there was a perceptible oppression in the air.’
The would-be assassin was not condemned to
death, the jury finding ‘extenuating circumstances.’

On the outbreak of war in 1870, the American
Legation was requested to undertake the protection
of North German subjects in France, and procured
the consent of the French government thereto.
Thirteen distinct nationalities, European and South
American, eventually came under the same protection,
and caused plenty of employment. Partly
on this account, when the representatives of the
great European powers had left Paris for Tours,
after the downfall of the Empire, the United States
Legation remained, and its members endured the
unpleasant experiences of the siege. To Colonel
Hoffman, however, the anticipation of this was a
matter of perfect indifference—or rather he looked
forward to it with some degree of liking. ‘I had
quite a curiosity to be a besieged. I had been a
besieger at Port Hudson, and thought that I would
like to experience the other sensation. The sensation
is not an unpleasant one, especially in a city
like Paris. If you have been overworked or
harassed, the relief is very great. There is a calm
or sort of Sunday rest about it that is quite
delightful. In my experience, the life of the
besieged is altogether the most comfortable of the
two.’ And the writer professes to think that the
suffering endured in famous sieges, and the heroism
of the inhabitants, have been much exaggerated.
There were, however, many points of considerable
difference between the circumstances attendant
upon the siege of Paris and that, say, of Saragossa
or Plevna. The Germans never made a bombardment{12}
in earnest. ‘We were being bombarded,
but after a very mild fashion. I have since talked
with a German general who commanded at the
quarter whence most of the shells entered the city.
He assured me that there never was the slightest
intention to bombard Paris. If there had been, it
would have been done in a very different style.’
But shells fell during nineteen days into the city,
and nearly two hundred people were killed by the
explosions. In both bombardments, that by the
Germans and afterwards by the French government
troops, much of the mischief done is reported
to have been caused by the mere wantonness of
the artillerymen, who under such circumstances
are eager to hit something, it matters little what
it may be. Indifference acts also on the side of
the besieged, and during the worst of the bombardment,
men and boys were to be seen lurking
in the Champs Elysées near the Arch, and darting
to secure the fragments of an exploded shell
while they were still too hot to hold, or crying
Obus! and suddenly squatting, to watch the effect
upon elderly gentlemen passing by. A large
business was done in these fragments as relics
after the siege.

As regards provisions, the members of the Legation
were of course as well off as it was possible
to be under the circumstances. The staple diet,
however, which Mr Washburne and the Secretary
preferred to expensive luxuries, was ‘our national
pork and beans, and the poetic fish-ball.’ Occasionally
they indulged in small portions of elephant,
yak, camel, reindeer, porcupine, &c., at an
average rate of four dollars a pound. This meat
came from the Jardin d’Acclimation, where it
was found impossible to get food for the animals.
Colonel Hoffman gives the preference among these
varieties of flesh to that of the reindeer, which
resembles venison, but he thinks all these meats
but poor substitutes for beef and mutton. Horseflesh
was the main stay of the population in the
way of fresh meat; it was rationed and sold by
the government at reasonable prices, nine and a
half ounces per day being allowed to each adult.
It is ‘poor stuff at best,’ says the writer. ‘It has
a sweet, sickening flavour. The only way I found
it eatable was as mince mixed with potato.’

The transmission and receipt of intelligence gave
rise to some of the most memorable experiences of
the siege, and what was done by balloons and
pigeons is likely to form a precedent for similar
episodes in all time. The French had always a
fancy for ballooning, and were probably in advance
of the rest of the world in this respect. They
soon started a service of mail-balloons twice a
week from Paris, despatching them at first in the
afternoon; but it was found that they did not
rise quickly enough to escape Prussian bullets,
and the hour of departure was therefore changed
to one in the morning. The speed of the balloons
was sometimes marvellous. One descended in
Norway on the very morning it left Paris. Another
fell into the sea off the coast of Holland a few
hours after its departure, and the passengers were
rescued by a fishing-smack. Out of ninety-seven
balloons despatched, ninety-four arrived safely—about
the proportion, says Colonel Hoffman, of
railway trains in these later times. Two fell into
the hands of the enemy, and one was supposed to
have been drifted out to sea and lost. A balloon
was seen off Eddystone Lighthouse; and a few
days afterwards a gentleman spending the winter
at Torquay received a letter from the rector at
Land’s End, stating that a number of letters had
drifted ashore, supposed to have been lost from a
balloon, and among them was one addressed to
him. It proved to be a balloon-letter from Colonel
Hoffman, and is still preserved as a souvenir of
the siege—and the sea. The pigeon experiment
Colonel Hoffman considers proved a failure, as so
few birds succeeded in reaching their destination.
Two or three times, however, a carrier arrived
safely, bringing with it one of those marvels
of scientific skill, which under the microscope
revealed correspondence equal to the contents of
a good-sized newspaper.

Not nearly sufficient, in the writer’s opinion, was
done in the way of sorties from Paris. He contends
that the garrison should have made a sortie every
night, with sometimes a thousand and sometimes a
hundred thousand men. ‘Had they done so,’ he
says, ‘they would have soon worn out the Germans
with constant alertes, and with comparatively little
fatigue to themselves. But the entire French army
was in want of organisation.’ On the other hand,
the members of the naval service have Colonel
Hoffman’s warmest admiration. ‘The officers,’ he
says, ‘are a very superior class of men, and the
sailors under them fought gallantly during the war,
for there was a large number of them detailed to
the army. They felt strongly the deterioration of
the sister-service.’ The colonel was once dining at
a Versailles restaurant near a French naval officer,
when one of the army, accompanied by two non-commissioned
officers, entered and made a great
disturbance. ‘Cette pauvre armée française! cette
pauvre armée française!’ muttered the naval officer.

SHAMROCK LEAVES.

BEGGARS.

The poorhouse and the policeman have considerably
abated Irish mendicants, especially in the
towns; but in the country and in remote places,
‘the long-remembered beggar’ is still an institution.
The workhouse is held in abhorrence by
this class of vagrant, and any amount of suffering
is preferred to the confinement, the enforced cleanliness,
and the discipline it involves. The Irish
poor are, as a rule, indifferent to creature comforts.
They love their liberty under hedge and open
sky; and resemble the dog in the fable, who preferred
his precarious bone and freedom to the good
feeding and luxuries of his tied-up friend. A
wretched old woman, decrepit and barefoot, appearing
on the hall-door steps of a house she was
in the habit of visiting, would be remonstrated
with in vain by her patrons, however delicately
the obnoxious subject, the poorhouse, was approached.

{13}

‘Now, Biddy, it is all very well in summer to
go about; but in this bitter wintry weather, would
it not be better to go where you would have a
good bed and shelter, and be warmed and fed
and comfortably clothed, instead of shivering
about, ragged and hungry? Why not try—only
for a while, you know, till summer comes
back—why not try the poorhouse?’

‘The poorhouse!’ (firing up); ‘I’d rather die
than go there! I’d rather lie down under the
snow at the side of the road and die! But sure
the neighbours will help me. There isn’t one
‘ill refuse me an air of the fire or a night’s lodging,
or maybe a bit and sup of an odd time. And
you’re going to give me something yourself, my
lady, avourneen, you are! Don’t I see it in yer
face? You’re going to bring out the dust of dry
tay and the grain of sugar and the couple o’ coppers
to the poor old granny. Ah yes! And
maybe the sarvant-maids will have an ould cast
petticoat to throw to her, for to keep the life in
her ould carcase this perishing day.’

Before the famine of 1846-7, which brought about
a change in the food of the peasantry, systematic
begging was the annual custom. Potatoes
were then the sole food of the working-classes, and
the farmers paid their labourers by allowances of
potato-ground (half or quarter acres), with seed
to till it. Money, therefore, was little in circulation
among the lower orders. In the interval
between the consumption of the old potatoes and
the coming in of the new—expressively known
as ‘the bitter six weeks’—there were occasionally
great privation and distress. Whole families turning
out of their cabin and leaving it with locked
door, might at this time be seen trooping along the
roads—the father away ‘harvesting’ or getting
work where he could. As they went along, stopping
at every cabin on their route, a few potatoes
would be handed to them—less or more, according
as the stock of the donors was holding out—so
that by nightfall the bag on the mother’s back
would have increased to sufficient proportions to
furnish a good meal for the family. And thus
they continued to live until the new potatoes were
fit to dig, when the cabin-door was unlocked, and
plenty once more the order of the day.

The charity of the poor to the poor is very
touching, and nowhere do we see more of this
than in Ireland. The people are naturally good-natured
and full of kindly impulses; and they
attach moreover, a superstitious, almost religious
value to the blessing of the poor, with an equal
dread of their curse.

A fatal instance of the latter feeling occurred
near Limerick some years since.

A young man fell in love with a girl who did
not return his affection; telling him plainly that
it was useless to persevere, as she never could care
for him. He took his disappointment so much to
heart that he fled the country and went off to
America.

Maddened with rage and despair at the loss of
her only son—the darling of her heart and her
sole support, for she was a widow—the bereaved
mother went straight from the ship that took away
her boy, to the young woman’s house. Kneeling
down on the threshold, and stretching her arms to
heaven with frantic gesticulation, she called down
its vengeance upon her trembling hearer, pouring
forth a torrent of imprecations upon her head.

By the broken heart of her son—by the widow’s
hearth made desolate—by the days and nights of
lonely misery before her, she cursed the girl!
And the latter, appalled by her bitter eloquence,
and superstitiously convinced that those awful
curses would ‘cleave to her like a garment,’ never
rallied from the terror and the shock to her nerves
of this vindictive outbreak. She went into a
decline, haunted by the woman’s dreadful words;
and her death confirmed the popular belief.

To return to our subject. Although the use of
Indian meal and griddle-bread as articles of food
in place of the exclusive potato, together with
increased wages and the payment of labour in cash
instead of kind, have abolished the annual begging
migrations, mendicants still abound. The tourist
season brings them out, as numerous as the flies in
summer, and equally troublesome. A party of English
clergymen visiting Killarney were pestered,
as most travellers are there, by beggars. These
reverend gentlemen had, for greater convenience,
adopted the usual tourist costume, with the exception
of one who belonged to the ultra High Church
party, and retained his clerical garb in all its
strictness. His dress caused him to be mistaken
by the peasantry wherever he went for a Roman
Catholic priest; and he was not a little startled
when, in Tralee, a girl flung herself down on her
knees before him in the muddy street to ask his
blessing. The abject obeisance of the people to
their priests in those days, was an unaccustomed
sight to an English clergyman.

The traveller in question soon became accustomed
to the position, and used it for the benefit
of his party. Tormented on one occasion by the
importunities of a crowd of beggars who followed
them, he suddenly stopped. Drawing a line across
the road with his stick, he cried to the clamorous
troop: ‘Pass that mark, and the curse of the priest
will be upon you!’ All fled in a moment!

Another time the same individual utilised the
mistake in the cause of humanity. The party were
travelling on a jaunting-car, and going up a steep
hill, the driver was flogging his horse unmercifully.

‘My friend,’ said the clergyman, addressing the
man, ‘do you know what will happen to you, if
you do that—when you go to the next world?’

‘O no, yer Riverence. And sure how could
I?—What is it now?’ pulling off his hat and
looking greatly frightened.

‘You will be turned into a horse, and devils
will be employed to flog you, just as you’re flogging
now that poor beast of yours.’

‘Ah, don’t, yer Riverence—don’t say that now!
for the love of heaven, sir, don’t! An’ I’ll
promise on my two knees to give him the best of
thratement from this out, and never to lay whip
into him that way again.’

The beggars in towns are often very caustic in
their remarks, and indulge in personalities more
witty than polite, when unsuccessful in their
demands.

{14}

A late well-known Fellow of Trinity College,
Dublin, remarkable for a peculiarly shaped and
very ugly nose, resisting the importunities of a
woman for ‘a ha’penny for the honour of the
blessed Vargin,’ she turned upon him with: ‘The
Lord forgive you! And that He may presarve yer
eyesight, I pray; for faix ’tis yerself has the bad
nose for spectacles.’

Another spiteful old beldam of the same stamp
attacked Sir A. B. for alms, following him down
the whole length of Sackville Street. The baronet
had tender feet, which with other uncomely
infirmities, caused his gait to be none of the most
graceful.

‘Ye won’t give it—won’t ye?’ broke out the
woman in an angry whine. ‘O thin, God help the
poor! And look now; if yer heart was as soft as
yer feet, it wouldn’t be in vain we’d be axing yer
charity this day.’

‘That the “grace of God” may never enter into
your house but on parchment!’ was the terse and
bitter anathema in which another gave vent to her
wrathful disappointment. She knew that all writs
are on parchment, and had probably learned from
cruel experience the formula with which they
commence: ‘Victoria, by the grace of God, Queen,
&c.’

The ingenious proceedings of Captain C——
touching the mendicant fraternity, should not be
omitted while on the subject.

When about to be quartered with his men in
Mullingar, a friend told him before going there
that the place was infested with beggars; and that
his predecessor, the commanding officer of the last
troop, had been greatly annoyed by them. The
captain listened attentively, resolving to take his
measures. On the night of his arrival at the hotel
he called up the waiter.

‘I am informed,’ he said, ‘that you have a great
many beggars in this town.’

‘Well, yes, sir; we certainly have,’ replied the
waiter.

‘I wish to see them all—all collected together
under the windows of this hotel. Do you think
that could be managed?’

‘If you wish it, sir. O yes; Certainly, sir,’ said
the man, with the usual waiter-like readiness to
promise everything under the sun; albeit a little
taken aback at so unusual a request.

‘Very well; let them be all here to-morrow at
twelve o’clock precisely.’

Such a motley assemblage of rags and wretchedness
as presented itself under the hotel windows
next day was seldom seen. The tidings had
spread like wild-fire; and from every lane and
alley of the town came crowding in the blind, the
lame, the maimed, the aged—beggary, deformity,
idiotcy, and idleness in all their varieties. Curiosity
and greed were equally on the qui vive,
and the excitement of the eager crowd may be
imagined.

At length the captain appeared on the balcony.
There was a breathless silence.

‘Are you all here,’ he said, ‘every one?’

‘Every mother’s sowl of us, plaze your honour,
barring Blind Bess with her crippled son, and the
Gineral.’

‘Then call Blind Bess and the General,’ said the
captain. ‘I want you all.’

‘Sure enough, here’s Bess,’ cried a voice, as a
double-barrelled mendicant in the shape of a blind
woman with a sturdy cripple strapped on her
shoulders, came hurrying up.

‘And here’s the Gineral driving like mad up the
street. But sure yer honour won’t give him anything—a
gintleman that keeps his carriage!’
shouted a wag in the crowd.

A dilapidated old hand-cart dragged by a girl
now made its appearance. It was covered at top
with a piece of tattered oil-cloth, and from a hole
cut in the middle of this protruded the head of
‘the Gineral,’ decorated with the remains of an old
cocked-hat. The shrivelled face of the old cripple
was half covered with a grizzly beard, and his
rheumy eyes peered helplessly about in a feeble
stare.

‘Now,’ said the captain, ‘ladies and gentlemen’——
A murmur in the crowd, especially
among the feminine portion.

‘Ah thin, bless his darlin’ face; ’tis he that has
the civil tongue in him, and knows how to spake
to the poor!’

‘Not a bit o’ pride in him; no more than in the
babby unborn!’

‘Sure any one to look at him would know he
was good! Isn’t it wrote upon his features?’

‘No nagur [niggard] like the one was here before
him, that never gave a poor man as much as a dog
would keep in his fist.’

‘Ladies and gentlemen—you are, I am told, all
here assembled. I have requested your attendance
in order to state that I have given, for your
benefit, one pound to the parson, and one pound
to the priest of the parish; and further to inform
you that during my stay in Mullingar, not a single
farthing beyond these sums will I bestow on any
one of you!’

A howl of disappointment rose from the listeners.
The captain did not wait to note the effect of his
words. He disappeared into his room in time to
be out of reach of the chorus of abuse with which—their
first surprise over—his speech was received
by his enraged audience.

WOODCOCK GOSSIP.

From a recent number of that entertaining journal
of sports and pastimes, Land and Water, we take
the following account of the curious habits of the
woodcock.

‘Probably no kind of game is more keenly
sought after in this country than this, the head of
the Snipe family; and we will undertake to say
that many an ardent gunner, who has become
aware that some of these birds of passage have
already reached our shores, will keep a more than
usual sharp look-out for “cock” when beating up
his coverts for pheasants and such-like perennial
game. It is astonishing what a fillip to the day’s
sport a single woodcock added to the bag will
give. Row after row of cock-pheasants, noble in
proportions, and in their really beautifully variegated
plumage, may be laid out with other game
on the lawn at the evening count-up, and the host
may proudly scan these evidences of the prowess
of himself and his guests and the excellence of his
preserves; but his eye will always seek its goal in
that little russet-coloured bird, the only representative
of his species, amongst the other spoils of the{15}
chase. The man too who has been lucky enough
to have shot him, no matter how indifferently he
has behaved at those occasional “rocketers” that
have presented themselves to him during the day,
is regarded as the hero of the party. The reasons
why this annual visitant has such distinguished
attention paid him, and always such a warm
welcome awaiting his arrival, are that, compared
with other game, he is scarce, peculiar, inconstant
in his habits, difficult to shoot, and last, but not
least, unsurpassed by any, and equalled by few
other birds that fly in these islands, as a gastronomic
delicacy. There are very few places in
England where even in the most favourable seasons
woodcock are found in sufficient numbers to warrant
shooting expeditions being organised purposely
for their pursuit, but they are generally
taken with the rest, extra vigilance being observed
in beating out all likely localities. The first
immigration of the woodcock from the continent
generally takes place some time in October, when
he will be generally found near the coast for some
few days after landing. He is purely a winter
visitant and nocturnal, and arrives in England
with an easterly wind, and by the light of the
moon or in the early dawn. If the elements are
unfavourable to his flight, or he is too weak to
accomplish the whole journey without a rest, he
drops wherever he can find a rock or an island in
his course. Lighthouse keepers sometimes find
him dead on the lantern, and occasionally, on
Lundy Island, woodcocks are found in considerable
numbers, thin and weak, and but the shadow of
what they will be a few days after their arrival at
their favourite boring-grounds. During migration-time
the inhabitants used to set nets from house to
house in the street of Heligoland to trap them, and
probably do so now.

‘As soon as they have recovered strength enough
after landing they disperse, and take up their
quarters generally in the neighbourhood of springs
and soft boggy grounds, but there is no dependence
to be placed on their movements. A dozen may
be seen in one covert to-day, while to-morrow not
a single bird can be found in the whole district.
To-day they are flushed amongst the heather on
the hill-sides; to-morrow in the deepest and most
thickly-wooded dells, or under the hollies and
laurels in the home-covert drives. To describe
the personal appearance of this confirmed rover is
not necessary, as his long beak, bright eye, tête
carrée, old-oak coloured body, and his black-and-white
tipped tail, are well known, and although
there are occasionally found specimens somewhat
differing in colour and size, one may live in an
ordinary cocking district for twenty years and
never meet with one of these variations in the
colour of his coat, although some very much varying
in proportions from their fellows may be
killed in the same district every season.

‘His peculiarities may perhaps be worth notice.
His wings are each provided with a little symmetrical,
pointed feather, found at the extremity
of what is known as the bastard wing, which
feather was many years ago sought after by
miniature-painters for mounting, to use as a brush
in the exercise of their art. The ear is a curious
structure, is as proportionately large as that of the
owl, and is situated at the extremity of the gape of
the beak. The eyeball is enormous, and together
with the ear, occupies nearly all the external
space on either side of the head. The sexes are
almost undistinguishable by external marks, although
some naturalists affirm that the outermost
feather in the wing of the hen-bird presents a
stripe of white on the exterior veil, which in that
of the cock-bird is regularly spotted with black;
this is a very fine distinction, and not always to be
depended on. Another criterion is the size, which
offers a peculiarity in that the hen is generally the
larger bird. Woodcock are great gluttons, and to
this fact we think it very probable their solitariness
is partly attributable. Like a goose to a Cornishman—Cornishmen
are reputed heavy feeders—one
boring-ground may be enough for one woodcock,
but is “starvation for two.” Recognising
this fact, apparently our long-billed friends do not
usurp each other’s feeding-ground, having probably
an instinctive knowledge that the tenant in possession
can find sufficient accommodation for the
vermiform portions of life to be found therein.
Hence a feeding-ground seldom yields more than
one woodcock, although when that one is shot its
place is very commonly found occupied by another
the next day. Where the latter came from, or
why it did not jointly occupy with the former
tenant—except for the reason adduced above—is a
mystery.

‘The manner of flight of a woodcock when
flushed is very irregular. Sometimes he will flap
lazily down a ride in front of you like an old red
owl startled from his noonday sleep and stupefied
by the glare of the sun. At other times he will
rise and dart about and zigzag amongst the stems
of the trees with a velocity scarcely credible after
witnessing an example of one of the owl-like
flights previously mentioned. When he indulges
in his twisting and darting tricks, he is a wonderfully
easy bird to miss. Sometimes he will fly off
slowly for a short distance, turn sharply to the
right or left behind a tree, bush, hedge, or other
object, dart swiftly onwards for fifty yards or so, and
suddenly drop, or perhaps, as if receiving a new
impetus from his sudden change of direction, speed
away to some far-distant shelter. In covert, however,
a woodcock’s ulterior point, whatever peculiarities
of flight he may indulge in on being flushed,
is generally the first opening between the tree-tops;
when shooting, therefore, as a general rule
fire at the first glimpse, no matter how near he is—for
the chances are it is the only sight of him
you will obtain—and hold the second barrel ready
for the aforesaid opening, through which, if you
keep a sharp look-out, you may see him dart.’

A TRIUMPH OF ART.

On the Peacock island in Potsdam we find amongst
the white marble statues an image of Rachel, the
celebrated French tragedian, placed there in
memory of her triumph over a monarch who had
been by no means friendly disposed towards her.
We mean Nicholas, Emperor of Russia, whose
dislike to her had been caused by her republican
sympathies and turbulent sentiments, which he
abhorred, and on account of which he had prohibited
her entrance into Russia; he is even{16}
known to have said that he wished never to set
eyes on her. This inclement verdict of the powerful
monarch was no small stumbling-block in the
great tragedian’s way, for Russia is a mine of gold;
foreign artists and many a Rachel and Patti of
our days might relate wonderful, almost fabulous
tales of costly gems raining down upon them on
the stage amid the enthusiastic cheers of an
enchanted audience.

Therefore Mademoiselle Rachel was highly
pleased when in the summer of 1852 she received
an invitation to act before the court at Potsdam,
where the Emperor Nicholas was just then staying
as the king of Prussia’s guest. The famous actress
had been desired to recite several scenes from
French plays, but neither in costume nor in company
of other actors. She therefore arrived attired
in black, the most costly lace covering her
beautiful arms and shoulders; but the gentleman
who, by the king’s orders, was at the station to
receive her, expressed his doubts whether the
royal and imperial party would not object to so
melancholy and mournful an apparel; and on
reaching the palace, the artist was kindly invited
by the late Princess Charles (sister to the Empress
Augusta, and wife of the Emperor’s brother) to
wear a few gayer-looking things of her own. Such
an offer could not be refused, and Mademoiselle
Rachel appeared in the gardens adorned with roses.
On inquiring for the stage, she was told that there
was none erected, and that she was expected to
stand on a grass plot in front of the seats of her
noble audience. This demand roused her quick
temper, so that she was on the point of returning
to Berlin, when her official attendant, the above-mentioned
gentleman, pacified her by remarking
that she would be on the same level with the
audience, that her art would prove the greater for
the want of any stage apparatus; and (last but not
least) he reminded her of how much was at stake—an
enormous honorarium and perhaps the repeal
of that fatal interdiction. After a moment’s hesitation
and a struggle with herself, Mademoiselle
Rachel took her cicerone’s arm, and suffered him
to lead her to the spot destined for her performance.

The evening was lovely; the moon, half-hidden
behind a group of poplars, threw her silvery light
on the pond and the gently murmuring fountain.
A few torches and lights illuminated the face of
the artist, while the court sat in the shadow.
Deep silence ensued upon her appearance—one
could hear the crickets chirp—and then she began
her orations. The listeners seemed spell-bound:
that was not human speech, it was music dropping
from her lips. She was determined to be irresistible;
and she succeeded so well, that even the hitherto
unfriendly Emperor himself, won by her art, rose
from his seat when she had ended, and meeting
her half-way, kissed her hand in presence of
the assembled court, assuring her that henceforth
she would be welcome in Russia.

What were the praises, flatteries, and congratulations
of the others who were crowding round
the happy artist, compared to the homage rendered
to her by the mighty ruler of Europe’s vastest
country, the monarch from whom a sign ordered
thousands of his subjects to be or not to be!

Thus was one of the greatest autocrats in Europe
won over by the acting and the elocution of—a
woman!

EDITORIAL NOTE.

In entering on the forty-seventh year of
Chambers’s Journal, we are able to say with
some pride that at no period in its long career has
the work, to judge from its circulation, been more
acceptable. In other words, the issue is greater
than ever, notwithstanding the numerous rivals
in cheap literature that have sprung up, and to
which we have never had any particular objection;
for in this as everything else there is room for all.
This prolonged and even increased appreciation
of the Journal is, however, a little surprising.
From the time we penned the opening address in
1832, a kind of new world has sprung up. We
feel ourselves to be surrounded by masses of people
who have no recollection of the backward state of
affairs in the reign of William IV., because they
were not then born. Our professed object, as
originally set out, was to offer some elements of
popular instruction, without trenching on matters
of political or religious discussion, and that was
done to the best of our ability. Originally the
humbler classes were chiefly aimed at, but it soon
became apparent that the work found its main
supporters among families of a considerably higher
station in society; aspiring youths in the middle
classes, especially, adopting it as a weekly
favourite. We are happy to think that among
the sons and grandsons of those early patrons
the work is received with undiminished interest.
While one generation has succeeded another, we
have in the varying fashions of the day never
swerved from the principle on which we set
out. Obloquy and vulgar persecution have been
employed to gain us over to take a side. All
in vain. At the outset we had resolved that
nothing should induce us to become the sycophants
of any sect or party whatever, and we can
safely aver that that resolution has been kept.
What others may do is nothing to us.

Does not the result bear the useful moral,
that honest independence of principle is best
after all? Dozens of rivals patronised by sects
and parties have within recollection gone down;
and here we are after six-and-forty years as
lively as ever—rather better. It is well understood
that Chambers’s Journal is a publication
which does not intrude any peculiar views on
religion or politics; that it tries to avoid controversial
topics; and aims only at offering wholesome
amusement and instruction—in short, always
something which will, if possible, elevate and
amuse, while in no respect offending. We feel
that that has been the rôle assigned to us by
Providence, and we intend to keep it. Encouraged
by ever-increasing success, we shall continue to
spare no pains in making the work an entertaining
Magazine for the family fireside. In offering
these few explanations, the Editors—which in the
present case is almost equivalent to Publishers—again
have pleasure in acknowledging their obligations
to the long roll of writers who help to
sustain them in their efforts.

W. & R. C.