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diff --git a/77354-0.txt b/77354-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..ba58686 --- /dev/null +++ b/77354-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,2337 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 77354 *** + + + + +“_Familiar in their Mouths as HOUSEHOLD WORDS._”--SHAKESPEARE. + +HOUSEHOLD WORDS. + +A WEEKLY JOURNAL. + +CONDUCTED BY CHARLES DICKENS. + + N^o. 330.] SATURDAY, JULY 19, 1856. {PRICE 2_d._ + {STAMPED 3_d._ + + + + +TABLE OF CONTENTS + + + THE DIARY OF ANNE RODWAY. + BIRD HISTORY. + RHINE-LAND. + MILVERSTON WORTHIES. + SCOTCH COAST FOLK. + CHIP. + CHARLES THE FIFTH’S GLOVE. + + + + +THE DIARY OF ANNE RODWAY. + + +IN TWO CHAPTERS. CHAPTER THE FIRST. + +March 3rd, 1840. A long letter to-day from Robert, which surprised +and vexed and fluttered me so, that I have been sadly behind-hand +with my work ever since. He writes in worse spirits than last time, +and absolutely declares that he is poorer even than when he went to +America, and that he has made up his mind to come home to London. How +happy I should be at this news, if he only returned to me a prosperous +man! As it is, though I love him dearly, I cannot look forward to the +meeting him again, disappointed and broken down and poorer than ever, +without a feeling almost of dread for both of us. I was twenty-six +last birthday and he was thirty-three; and there seems less chance now +than ever of our being married. It is all I can do to keep myself by +my needle; and his prospects, since he failed in the small stationery +business three years ago, are worse, if possible, than mine. Not that +I mind so much for myself; women, in all ways of life, and especially +in my dressmaking way, learn, I think, to be more patient than men. +What I dread is Robert’s despondency, and the hard struggle he will +have in this cruel city to get his bread--let alone making money enough +to marry me. So little as poor people want to set up in housekeeping +and be happy together, it seems hard that they can’t get it when they +are honest and hearty, and willing to work. The clergyman said in his +sermon, last Sunday evening, that all things were ordered for the best, +and we are all put into the stations in life that are properest for us. +I suppose he was right, being a very clever gentleman who fills the +church to crowding; but I think I should have understood him better +if I had not been very hungry at the time, in consequence of my own +station in life being nothing but Plain Needlewoman. + +March 4th. Mary Mallinson came down to my room to take a cup of tea +with me. I read her bits of Robert’s letter, to show her that if she +has her troubles, I have mine too; but I could not succeed in cheering +her. She says she is born to misfortune, and that, as long back as +she can remember, she has never had the least morsel of luck to be +thankful for. I told her to go and look in my glass, and to say if +she had nothing to be thankful for then; for Mary is a very pretty +girl, and would look still prettier if she could be more cheerful and +dress neater. However, my compliment did no good. She rattled her spoon +impatiently in her tea-cup, and said, “If I was only as good a hand at +needlework as you are, Anne, I would change faces with the ugliest girl +in London.” “Not you!” says I, laughing. She looked at me for a moment, +and shook her head, and was out of the room before I could get up and +stop her. She always runs off in that way when she is going to cry, +having a kind of pride about letting other people see her in tears. + +March 5th.--A fright about Mary. I had not seen her all day, as she +does not work at the same place where I do; and in the evening she +never came down to have tea with me, or sent me word to go to her. So +just before I went to bed I ran up-stairs to say good-night. She did +not answer when I knocked; and when I stepped softly into the room I +saw her in bed, asleep, with her work not half done, lying about the +room in the untidiest way. There was nothing remarkable in that, and I +was just going away on tip-toe, when a tiny bottle and wine-glass on +the chair by her bedside caught my eye. I thought she was ill and had +been taking physic, and looked at the bottle. It was marked in large +letters, “Laudanum--Poison.” My heart gave a jump as if it was going to +fly out of me. I laid hold of her with both hands, and shook her with +all my might. She was sleeping heavily, and woke slowly, as it seemed +to me--but still she did wake. I tried to pull her out of bed, having +heard that people ought to be always walked up and down when they have +taken laudanum; but she resisted, and pushed me away violently. + +“Anne!” says she in a fright. “For gracious sake, what’s come to you! +Are you out of your senses?” + +“O, Mary! Mary!” says I, holding up the bottle before her, “If I hadn’t +come in when I did----” And I laid hold of her to shake her again. + +She looked puzzled at me for a moment--then smiled (the first time I +had seen her do so for many a long day)--then put her arms round my +neck. + +“Don’t be frightened about me, Anne,” she says, “I am not worth it, and +there is no need.” + +“No need!” says I, out of breath. “No need, when the bottle has got +Poison marked on it!” + +“Poison, dear, if you take it all,” says Mary looking at me very +tenderly; “and a night’s rest if you only take a little.” + +I watch her for a moment; doubtful whether I ought to believe what she +said, or to alarm the house. But there was no sleepiness in her eyes, +and nothing drowsy in her voice; and she sat up in bed quite easily +without anything to support her. + +“You have given me a dreadful fright, Mary,” says I, sitting down by +her in the chair, and beginning, by this time, to feel rather faint +after being startled so. + +She jumped out of bed to get me a drop of water; and kissed me, and +said how sorry she was, and how undeserving of so much interest being +taken in her. At the same time, she tried to possess herself of the +laudanum-bottle which I still kept cuddled up tight in my own hands. + +“No,” says I. “You have got into a low-spirited despairing way. I won’t +trust you with it.” + +“I am afraid I can’t do without it,” says Mary, in her usual quiet, +hopeless voice. “What with work that I can’t get through as I ought, +and troubles that I can’t help thinking of, sleep won’t come to me +unless I take a few drops out of that bottle. Don’t keep it away from +me, Anne; it’s the only thing in the world that makes me forget myself.” + +“Forget yourself!” says I. “You have no right to talk in that way, +at your age. There’s something horrible in the notion of a girl of +eighteen sleeping with a bottle of laudanum by her bedside every night. +We all of us have our troubles. Haven’t I got mine?” + +“You can do twice the work I can, twice as well as me,” says Mary. “You +are never scolded and rated at for awkwardness with your needle; and I +always am. You can pay for your room every week; and I am three weeks +in debt for mine.” + +“A little more practice,” says I, “and a little more courage, and you +will soon do better. You have got all your life before you--” + +“I wish I was at the end of it,” says she, breaking in. “I’m alone in +the world, and my life’s no good to me.” + +“You ought to be ashamed of yourself for saying so,” says I. “Haven’t +you got me for a friend. Didn’t I take a fancy to you when first you +left your stepmother, and came to lodge in this house? And haven’t I +been sisters with you ever since? Suppose you are alone in the world, +am I much better off? I’m an orphan, like you. I’ve almost as many +things in pawn as you; and, if your pockets are empty, mine have only +got nine-pence in them, to last me for all the rest of the week.” + +“Your father and mother were honest people,” says Mary, obstinately. +“My mother ran away from home, and died in a hospital. My father was +always drunk, and always beating me. My stepmother is as good as dead, +for all she cares about me. My only brother is thousands of miles away +in foreign parts, and never writes to me, and never helps me with a +farthing. My sweetheart--” + +She stopped, and the red flew into her face. I knew, if she went on +that way, she would only get to the saddest part of her sad story, and +give both herself and me unnecessary pain. + +“My sweetheart is too poor to marry me, Mary,” I said. “So I’m not so +much to be envied, even there. But let’s give over disputing which is +worst off. Lie down in bed, and let me tuck you up. I’ll put a stitch +or two into that work of yours while you go to sleep.” + +Instead of doing what I told her, she burst out crying (being very like +a child in some of her ways), and hugged me so tight round the neck, +that she quite hurt me. I let her go on, till she had worn herself out, +and was obliged to lie down. Even then, her last few words, before she +dropped off to sleep, were such as I was half-sorry, half-frightened, +to hear. + +“I won’t plague you long, Anne,” she said. “I haven’t courage to go +out of the world as you seem to fear I shall. But I began my life +wretchedly, and wretchedly I am sentenced to end it.” + +It was of no use lecturing her again, for she closed her eyes. I tucked +her up as neatly as I could, and put her petticoat over her; for the +bed-clothes were scanty, and her hands felt cold. She looked so pretty +and delicate as she fell asleep, that it quite made my heart ache +to see her, after such talk as we had held together. I just waited +long enough to be quite sure that she was in the land of dreams; then +emptied the horrible laudanum-bottle into the grate, took up her +half-done work, and, going out softly, left her for that night. + +March 6th. Sent off a long letter to Robert, begging and entreating +him not to be so down-hearted, and not to leave America without +making another effort. I told him I could bear any trial except the +wretchedness of seeing him come back a helpless, broken-down man, +trying uselessly to begin life again, when too old for a change. It +was not till after I had posted my own letter, and read over parts of +Robert’s again, that the suspicion suddenly floated across me, for the +first time, that he might have sailed for England immediately after +writing to me. There were expressions in the letter which seemed to +indicate that he had some such headlong project in his mind. And +yet, surely if it were so, I ought to have noticed them at the first +reading. I can only hope I am wrong in my present interpretation of +much of what he has written to me--hope it earnestly for both our sakes. + +This has been a doleful day for me. I have been uneasy about Robert, +and uneasy about Mary. My mind is haunted by those last words of hers: +“I began my life wretchedly, and wretchedly I am sentenced to end it.” +Her usual melancholy way of talking never produced the same impression +on me that I feel now. Perhaps the discovery of the laudanum-bottle is +the cause of this. I would give many a hard day’s work to know what to +do for Mary’s good. My heart warmed to her when we first met in the +same lodging-house, two years ago; and, although I am not one of the +over-affectionate sort myself, I feel as if I could go to the world’s +end to serve that girl. Yet, strange to say, if I was asked why I was +so fond of her, I don’t think I should know how to answer the question. + +March 7th. I am almost ashamed to write it down, even in this journal, +which no eyes but mine ever look on; yet I must honestly confess to +myself, that here I am, at nearly one in the morning, sitting up in +a state of serious uneasiness, because Mary has not yet come home. I +walked with her, this morning, to the place where she works, and tried +to lead her into talking of the relations she has got who are still +alive. My motive in doing this was to see if she dropped anything +in the course of conversation which might suggest a way of helping +her interests with those who are bound to give her all reasonable +assistance. But the little I could get her to say to me led to nothing. +Instead of answering my questions about her stepmother and her brother, +she persisted at first, in the strangest way, in talking of her father, +who was dead and gone, and of one Noah Truscott, who had been the +worst of all the bad friends he had, and had taught him to drink and +game. When I did get her to speak of her brother, she only knew that +he had gone out to a place called Assam, where they grew tea. How he +was doing, or whether he was there still, she did not seem to know, +never having heard a word from him for years and years past. As for her +stepmother, Mary, not unnaturally, flew into a passion the moment I +spoke of her. She keeps an eating-house at Hammersmith, and could have +given Mary good employment in it; but she seems always to have hated +her, and to have made her life so wretched with abuse and ill-usage, +that she had no refuge left but to go away from home, and do her best +to make a living for herself. Her husband (Mary’s father) appears to +have behaved badly to her; and, after his death, she took the wicked +course of revenging herself on her step-daughter. I felt, after this, +that it was impossible Mary could go back, and that it was the hard +necessity of her position, as it is of mine, that she should struggle +on to make a decent livelihood without assistance from any of her +relations. I confessed as much as this to her; but I added that I would +try to get her employment with the persons for whom I work, who pay +higher wages, and show a little more indulgence to those under them, +than the people to whom she is now obliged to look for support. I spoke +much more confidently than I felt, about being able to do this; and +left her, as I thought, in better spirits than usual. She promised to +be back to-night to tea, at nine o’clock, and now it is nearly one in +the morning, and she is not home yet. If it was any other girl I should +not feel uneasy, for I should make up my mind that there was extra +work to be done in a hurry, and that they were keeping her late, and I +should go to bed. But Mary is so unfortunate in everything that happens +to her, and her own melancholy talk about herself keeps hanging on my +mind so, that I have fears on her account which would not distress me +about any one else. It seems inexcusably silly to think such a thing, +much more to write it down; but I have a kind of nervous dread upon me +that some accident-- + +What does that loud knocking at the street door mean? And those voices +and heavy footsteps outside? Some lodger who has lost his key, I +suppose, And yet, my heart----What a coward I have become all of a +sudden! + +More knocking and louder voices. I must run to the door and see what it +is. O, Mary! Mary! I hope I am not going to have another fright about +you; but I feel sadly like it. + +March 8th. + +March 9th. + +March 10th. + +March 11th. O, me! all the troubles I have ever had in my life are as +nothing to the trouble I am in now. For three days I have not been able +to write a single line in this journal, which I have kept so regularly, +ever since I was a girl. For three days I have not once thought of +Robert--I, who am always thinking of him at other times. My poor, dear, +unhappy Mary, the worst I feared for you on that night when I sat up +alone was far below the dreadful calamity that has really happened. How +can I write about it, with my eyes full of tears and my hand all of a +tremble? I don’t even know why I am sitting down at my desk now, unless +it is habit that keeps me to my old everyday task, in spite of all the +grief and fear which seem to unfit me entirely for performing it. + +The people of the house were asleep and lazy on that dreadful night, +and I was the first to open the door. Never, never, could I describe +in writing, or even say in plain talk, though it is so much easier, +what I felt when I saw two policemen come in, carrying between them +what seemed to me to be a dead girl, and that girl Mary! I caught hold +of her and gave a scream that must have alarmed the whole house; for, +frightened people came crowding down-stairs in their night-dresses. +There was a dreadful confusion and noise of loud talking, but I heard +nothing, and saw nothing, till I had got her into my room, and laid on +my bed. I stooped down, frantic-like, to kiss her, and saw an awful +mark of a blow on her left temple, and felt, at the same time, a feeble +flutter of her breath on my cheek. The discovery that she was not dead +seemed to give me back my senses again. I told one of the policemen +where the nearest doctor was to be found, and sat down by the bedside +while he was gone, and bathed her poor head with cold water. She never +opened her eyes, or moved, or spoke; but she breathed, and that was +enough for me, because it was enough for life. + +The policeman left in the room was a big, thick-voiced, pompous man, +with a horrible unfeeling pleasure in hearing himself talk before an +assembly of frightened, silent people. He told us how he had found her, +as if he had been telling a story in a taproom, and began with saying, +“I don’t think the young woman was drunk.” Drunk! My Mary, who might +have been a born lady for all the spirits she ever touched--drunk! I +could have struck the man for uttering the word, with her lying, poor +suffering angel, so white and still and helpless before him. As it +was, I gave him a look; but he was too stupid to understand it, and +went droning on, saying the same thing over and over again in the same +words. And yet the story of how they found her was, like all the sad +stories I have ever heard told in real life, so very, very short. They +had just seen her lying along on the kerb-stone, a few streets off, and +had taken her to the station-house. There she had been searched, and +one of my cards, that I give to ladies who promise me employment, had +been found in her pocket, and so they had brought her to our house. +This was all the man really had to tell. There was nobody near her when +she was found, and no evidence to show how the blow on her temple had +been inflicted. + +What a time it was before the doctor came, and how dreadful to hear him +say, after he had looked at her, that he was afraid all the medical men +in the world could be of no use here! He could not get her to swallow +anything; and the more he tried to bring her back to her senses, the +less chance there seemed of his succeeding. He examined the blow on her +temple, and said he thought she must have fallen down in a fit of some +sort, and struck her head against the pavement, and so have given her +brain what he was afraid was a fatal shake. I asked what was to be done +if she showed any return to sense in the night. He said, “Send for me +directly;” and stopped for a little while afterwards stroking her head +gently with his hand, and whispering to himself, “Poor girl, so young +and so pretty!” I had felt, some minutes before, as if I could have +struck the policeman; and I felt now as if I could have thrown my arms +round the doctor’s neck and kissed him. I did put out my hand, when he +took up his hat, and he shook it in the friendliest way. “Don’t hope, +my dear,” he said, and went out. + +The rest of the lodgers followed him, all silent and shocked, except +the inhuman wretch who owns the house, and lives in idleness on the +high rents he wrings from poor people like us. “She’s three weeks in my +debt,” says he, with a frown and an oath. “Where the devil is my money +to come from now?” Brute! brute! + +I had a long cry alone with her that seemed to ease my heart a little. +She was not the least changed for the better when I had wiped away +the tears, and could see her clearly again. I took up her right hand, +which lay nearest to me. It was tight clenched. I tried to unclasp the +fingers, and succeeded after a little time. Something dark fell out of +the palm of her hand as I straightened it. I picked the thing up, and +smoothed it out, and saw that it was an end of a man’s cravat. + +A very old, rotten, dingy strip of black silk, with thin lilac lines, +all blurred and deadened with dirt, running across and across the stuff +in a sort of trellis-work pattern. The small end of the cravat was +hemmed in the usual way, but the other end was all jagged, as if the +morsel then in my hands had been torn off violently from the rest of +the stuff. A chill ran all over me as I looked at it; for that poor, +stained, crumpled end of a cravat seemed to be saying to me, as though +it had been in plain words, “If she dies, she has come to her death by +foul means, and I am the witness of it.” + +I had been frightened enough before, lest she should die suddenly +and quietly without my knowing it, while we were alone together; but +I got into a perfect agony now for fear this last worst affliction +should take me by surprise. I don’t suppose five minutes passed all +that woeful night through, without my getting up and putting my cheek +close to her mouth, to feel if the faint breaths still fluttered out +of it. They came and went just the same as at first, though the fright +I was in often made me fancy they were stilled for ever. Just as the +church clocks were striking four, I was startled by seeing the room +door open. It was only Dusty Sal (as they call her in the house) the +maid-of-all-work. She was wrapped up in the blanket off her bed; her +hair was all tumbled over her face; and her eyes were heavy with sleep, +as she came up to the bedside where I was sitting. + +“I’ve two hours good before I begin to work,” says she, in her hoarse, +drowsy voice, “and I’ve come to sit up and take my turn at watching +her. You lay down and get some sleep on the rug. Here’s my blanket for +you--I don’t mind the cold--it will keep me awake.” + +“You are very kind--very, very kind and thoughtful, Sally,” says I, +“but I am too wretched in my mind to want sleep, or rest, or to do +anything but wait where I am, and try and hope for the best.” + +“Then I’ll wait, too,” says Sally. “I must do something; if there’s +nothing to do but waiting, I’ll wait.” + +And she sat down opposite me at the foot of the bed, and drew the +blanket close round her with a shiver. + +“After working so hard as you do, I’m sure you must want all the little +rest you can get,” says I. + +“Excepting only you,” says Sally, putting her heavy arm very clumsily, +but very gently at the same time, round Mary’s feet, and looking hard +at the pale, still face on the pillow. “Excepting you, she’s the only +soul in this house as never swore at me, or give me a hard word that +I can remember. When you made puddings on Sundays, and give her half, +she always give me a bit. The rest of ’em calls me Dusty Sal. Excepting +only you, again, she always called me Sally, as if she knowed me in a +friendly way. I ain’t no good here, but I ain’t no harm neither; and I +shall take my turn at the sitting up--that’s what I shall do!” + +She nestled her head down close at Mary’s feet as she spoke those +words, and said no more. I once or twice thought she had fallen asleep, +but whenever I looked at her, her heavy eyes were always wide open. +She never changed her position an inch till the church clocks struck +six; then she gave one little squeeze to Mary’s feet with her arm, and +shuffled out of the room without a word. A minute or two after, I heard +her down below, lighting the kitchen fire just as usual. + +A little later, the doctor stepped over before his breakfast time, to +see if there had been any change in the night. He only shook his head +when he looked at her, as if there was no hope. Having nobody else to +consult that I could put trust in, I showed him the end of the cravat, +and told him of the dreadful suspicion that had arisen in my mind, when +I found it in her hand. + +“You must keep it carefully, and produce it at the inquest,” he said. +“I don’t know though, that it is likely to lead to anything. The bit +of stuff may have been lying on the pavement near her, and her hand +may have unconsciously clutched it when she fell. Was she subject to +fainting fits?” + +“Not more so, sir, than other young girls who are hard-worked and +anxious, and weakly from poor living,” I answered. + +“I can’t say that she may not have got that blow from a fall,” the +doctor went on, looking at her temple again. “I can’t say that it +presents any positive appearance of having been inflicted by another +person. It will be important, however, to ascertain what state of +health she was in last night. Have you any idea where she was yesterday +evening?” + +I told him where she was employed at work, and said I imagined she must +have been kept there later than usual. + +“I shall pass the place this morning,” said the doctor, “in going +my rounds among my patients, and I’ll just step in and make some +inquiries.” + +I thanked him, and we parted. Just as he was closing the door, he +looked in again. + +“Was she your sister?” he asked. + +“No, sir, only my dear friend.” + +He said nothing more; but I heard him sigh, as he shut the door softly. +Perhaps he once had a sister of his own, and lost her? Perhaps she was +like Mary in the face? + +The doctor was hours gone away. I began to feel unspeakably forlorn +and helpless. So much so, as even to wish selfishly that Robert might +really have sailed from America, and might get to London in time to +assist and console me. No living creature came into the room but Sally. +The first time she brought me some tea; the second and third times she +only looked in to see if there was any change, and glanced her eye +towards the bed. I had never known her so silent before; it seemed +almost as if this dreadful accident had struck her dumb. I ought to +have spoken to her, perhaps, but there was something in her face that +daunted me; and, besides, the fever of anxiety I was in began to dry up +my lips as if they would never be able to shape any words again. I was +still tormented by that frightful apprehension of the past night, that +she would die without my knowing it--die without saying one word to +clear up the awful mystery of this blow, and set the suspicions at rest +for ever which I still felt whenever my eyes fell on the end of the old +cravat. + +At last the doctor came back. + +“I think you may safely clear your mind of any doubts to which that +bit of stuff may have given rise,” he said. “She was, as you supposed, +detained late by her employers, and she fainted in the work-room. They +most unwisely and unkindly let her go home alone, without giving her +any stimulant, as soon as she came to her senses again. Nothing is +more probable, under these circumstances, than that she should faint +a second time on her way here. A fall on the pavement, without any +friendly arm to break it, might have produced even a worse injury than +the injury we see. I believe that the only ill-usage to which the poor +girl was exposed was the neglect she met with in the work-room.” + +“You speak very reasonably, I own, sir,” said I, not yet quite +convinced. “Still, perhaps she may----” + +“My poor girl, I told you not to hope,” said the doctor, interrupting +me. He went to Mary, and lifted up her eyelids, and looked at her +eyes while he spoke, then added: “If you still doubt how she came by +that blow, do not encourage the idea that any words of hers will ever +enlighten you. She will never speak again.” + +“Not dead! O, sir, don’t say she’s dead!” + +“She is dead to pain and sorrow--dead to speech and recognition. There +is more animation in the life of the feeblest insect that flies, than +in the life that is left in her. When you look at her now, try to think +that she is in Heaven. That is the best comfort I can give you, after +telling the hard truth.” + +I did not believe him. I could not believe him. So long as she breathed +at all, so long I was resolved to hope. Soon after the doctor was gone, +Sally came in again, and found me listening (if I may call it so) at +Mary’s lips. She went to where my little hand-glass hangs against the +wall, took it down, and gave it to me. + +“See if the breath marks it,” she said. + +Yes; her breath did mark it, but very faintly. Sally cleaned the +glass with her apron, and gave it back to me. As she did so, she half +stretched out her hand to Mary’s face, but drew it in again suddenly, +as if she was afraid of soiling Mary’s delicate skin with her hard, +horny fingers. Going out, she stopped at the foot of the bed, and +scraped away a little patch of mud that was on one of Mary’s shoes. + +“I always used to clean ’em for her,” said Sally, “to save her hands +from getting blacked. May I take ’em off now, and clean ’em again?” + +I nodded my head, for my heart was too heavy to speak. Sally took the +shoes off with a slow, awkward tenderness, and went out. + +An hour or more must have passed, when, putting the glass over her +lips again, I saw no mark on it. I held it closer and closer. I dulled +it accidentally with my own breath, and cleaned it. I held it over +her again. O, Mary, Mary, the doctor was right! I ought to have only +thought of you in Heaven! + +Dead, without a word, without a sign,--without even a look to tell the +true story of the blow that killed her! I could not call to anybody, I +could not cry, I could not so much as put the glass down and give her +a kiss for the last time. I don’t know how long I had sat there with +my eyes burning, and my hands deadly cold, when Sally came in with the +shoes cleaned, and carried carefully in her apron for fear of a soil +touching them. At the sight of that---- + +I can write no more. My tears drop so fast on the paper that I can see +nothing. + +March 12th. She died on the afternoon of the eighth. On the morning +of the ninth, I wrote, as in duty bound, to her stepmother, at +Hammersmith. There was no answer. I wrote again: my letter was returned +to me this morning, unopened. For all that woman cares, Mary might be +buried with a pauper’s funeral. But this shall never be, if I pawn +everything about me, down to the very gown that is on my back. The bare +thought of Mary being buried by the workhouse gave me the spirit to dry +my eyes, and go to the undertaker’s, and tell him how I was placed. I +said, if he would get me an estimate of all that would have to be paid, +from first to last, for the cheapest decent funeral that could be had, +I would undertake to raise the money. He gave me the estimate, written +in this way, like a common bill: + + A walking funeral complete 1 13 8 + Vestry 0 4 4 + Rector 0 4 4 + Clerk 0 1 0 + Sexton 0 1 0 + Beadle 0 1 0 + Bell 0 1 0 + Six feet of ground 0 2 0 + --------- + Total £2 8 4 + +If I had the heart to give any thought to it, I should be inclined to +wish that the Church could afford to do without so many small charges +for burying poor people, to whose friends even shillings are of +consequence. But it is useless to complain; the money must be raised +at once. The charitable doctor--a poor man himself, or he would not be +living in our neighbourhood--has subscribed ten shillings towards the +expenses; and the coroner, when the inquest was over, added five more. +Perhaps others may assist me. If not, I have fortunately clothes and +furniture of my own to pawn. And I must set about parting with them +without delay; for the funeral is to be to-morrow, the thirteenth. The +funeral--Mary’s funeral! It is well that the straits and difficulties I +am in, keep my mind on the stretch. If I had leisure to grieve, where +should I find the courage to face to-morrow? + +Thank God, they did not want me at the inquest. The verdict given--with +the doctor, the policeman, and two persons from the place where she +worked, for witnesses--was Accidental Death. The end of the cravat was +produced, and the coroner said that it was certainly enough to suggest +suspicion; but the jury, in the absence of any positive evidence, held +to the doctor’s notion that she had fainted and fallen down, and so +got the blow on her temple. They reproved the people where Mary worked +for letting her go home alone, without so much as a drop of brandy to +support her, after she had fallen into a swoon from exhaustion before +their eyes. The coroner added, on his own account, that he thought the +reproof was thoroughly deserved. After that, the cravat-end was given +back to me, by my own desire; the police saying that they could make +no investigations with such a slight clue to guide them. They may think +so, and the coroner, and doctor, and jury may think so; but, in spite +of all that has passed, I am now more firmly persuaded than ever that +there is some dreadful mystery in connection with that blow on my poor +lost Mary’s temple which has yet to be revealed, and which may come to +be discovered through this very fragment of a cravat that I found in +her hand. I cannot give any good reason for why I think so; but I know +that if I had been one of the jury at the inquest, nothing should have +induced me to consent to such a verdict as Accidental Death. + + + + +BIRD HISTORY. + + +A certain learned physician, named Peter Belon, a native of the town +of Le Mans, the capital of what was then the province of Maine, but is +now the department of the river Sarthe, in France, bethought him that +very little was known in his native country at the time he lived--the +middle of the sixteenth century--of Natural History; and, being moved +by the example of Aristotle (at the trifling distance of nearly +nineteen hundred years) he resolved, having been a great traveller +and eke a great observer (two persons not always united) to give his +fellow-citizens and the world, the benefit of his experience and +opportunities, and take away the reproach which lay like a shadow over +the land. + +Prepared by much study for the cultivation of his favourite pursuits, +he left France in the year fifteen hundred and forty-seven, being +at that time twenty-nine years of age, and travelled successively +through Germany, Bohemia, Italy, Greece, Egypt, Palestine, and Asia +Minor, returning to Paris after three years absence with a large +and valuable collection of plants and specimens of natural history, +which he then occupied himself in arranging, preparatory to the +publication of the knowledge he had acquired. The first work which +he produced was a history of strange fishes and serpents, under the +title “De Aquatilibus;” but, tempting as the subject is, I do not at +present intend to examine it, having another of his productions before +me, which (from the fact of its being a borrowed book, and liable, +therefore, to sudden seizure by its owner, who otherwise would never +get it back), more immediately claims my attention. + +This coveted volume is the celebrated History of the Nature of Birds, +with their descriptions and lively portraits, taken from Nature, and +written in seven books, and is, perhaps, the principal work on which +is founded Peter Belon’s claim to be considered the father of modern +natural history. In the preface to it he promises--and he keeps his +word far better than might have been expected--that nothing shall +appear in these books which is not perfectly true; there shall be no +false descriptions or portraits of suppositious animals; nothing, +in short, that is not to be found in nature. Appropriate to the +publication of a work on ornithology, Peter Belon caused this volume +to be printed, in the year fifteen hundred and fifty-five, by William +Cavellat, in front of the college of Cambray, in Paris, at the sign +of the Fat Hen (a sure sign that Peter Belon came from Le Mans, a +city famous for its poultry); and that there should be no doubt of +the latter fact, the title-page also bore the living portraiture of +a domestic fowl in very high condition, enclosed within a circle, on +the outer rim of which was inscribed the legend “Gallina in pingui,” +an inscription that need not again be translated. A portrait of Peter +Belon, as he appeared to the justly-admiring world, at the age of +thirty-six, also embellished the volume. The learned physician appears +to have been a man with a good, sensible, honest countenance, wearing a +large Crimean beard, and having a cap on his head, the shape of which, +fortunately, has not yet been adopted for the British army. + +Like most other old authors, Peter Belon takes some time before he can +get fairly under weigh. There are, first, the dedication to the most +Christian king--Henry the Second of the name--whose humble scholar the +author declares himself to be. Then follows a homily addressed to the +reader, chiefly for the purpose of assuring him that, in the lively +portraits of the birds which he presents (Ah, could we but reproduce +some of them!), he is not practising on his credulity, but that, such +as he represents them, the fowls are themselves, and that, where he +cannot get an authentic likeness he has refused to invent one. + +The royal privilege to publish, sealed with yellow wax--like a bottle +of good old wine--comes next, and finally appear several copies of +verses in praise of the author, by certain of his friends, which +latter had better be skipped, that Peter Belon’s volume, which has in +it a great deal that is worth reading, may unfold its pages for our +gratification. It is not, however, a resumé of the work, or anything +like it, that I intend to make, but simply a dip into it--here and +there--extending some of the quaint fancies, curious digressions, and +sound opinions with which it is interspersed, always desiring our +reader to bear in mind that the author was a physician as well as a +naturalist. + +A word or two, before he fairly enters on his theme, may be allowed +him to describe the pains he was in the habit of taking to obtain +correct information. “It was my custom,” he says, “during my sojourn +in Padua, to go down the Brenta every Thursday evening, voyaging +all night in order to reach Venice on Friday morning, and to remain +there on Saturday and Sunday, as much for the convenience of seeing +birds as well as fishes; and after having conferred with fowlers and +fishermen, to return from thence on Sunday evening, thus losing no time +by taking the night-boat, and being ready to continue my studies on +Monday morning. During which time, on the aforesaid days of Friday and +Saturday, there was not a single fowler or fisherman who did not bring +to show me every rare creature he had been able to procure.” + +Commencing, then, “ab ovo,” Peter Belon discusses the properties of +eggs; but into the processes of fecundation and hatching which he +describes, I do not propose to enter, the gastronomic view of the +question presenting more novelty. After apologising for the puerility +of the subject, he tells us that in his time the French way of eating +eggs (they have six hundred and eighty-five ways now, if the Almanach +des Gourmands speaks sooth) was by breaking them at the small end +and carefully replacing the shell when emptied into the platter; +while the Germans, on the other hand--reminding us of Blefuscu and +Lilliput--opened their eggs at the side and finished by smashing the +shell; in which latter practice, says Belon, they followed the example +of the ancients, who held it a thing of evil augury to leave the shells +unbroken. Belon then proceeds to discourse on the numerous varieties +of eggs, considering those of pigeons, ostriches, pea-hens, geese, and +swans are ill-flavoured and indigestible,--not objecting to the eggs of +the tortoise or turtle,--but giving the preference, like a person of +taste, to those of the domestic fowl, which, he says, “are supposed by +many in France to assist greatly in prolonging life;” and he instances +the case of Pope Paul the Third, who used, with that end in view, to +eat two new-laid eggs for breakfast every morning. As to their shape, +he remarks that long eggs are supposed to be much better eating than +round ones; but without insisting on this point, he has no hesitation +in declaring that all are highly invigorating, as truffles are, and +artichokes, and raw oysters. Artichokes, indeed, were so much esteemed +in Belon’s time, that “no great nobleman feeling himself unwell would +finish his dinner without them,”--eating them by way of dessert. Belon +objects to hard boiled eggs, or such as are too much fried, “on account +of their engendering bad humours,” but upon poached eggs (œufs pochéz) +he looks with considerable favour. In all cases he prefers plain boiled +eggs (time--three minutes and a quarter) to those which are roasted; +notwithstanding the well-known proverb: “There’s wisdom in the roasting +of eggs.” The best way of preserving eggs, he says, is to keep them in +a cool place, bury them in salt, or dip them in brine. + +As the chicken issues naturally from the egg, so dining upon the one is +the regular sequence to breakfasting on the other. The younger your +pullet, says Belon, the easier it is of digestion, though he allows you +occasionally to eat an elderly male bird, when prescribed medicinally +(hormis le coq, qui est souvêt pris pour medicine). “Roasted or grilled +fowls are generally the most savoury; those which are boiled furnish +more humid nourishment to the body. The first are eaten hot, the last +cold.” This rule, however, does not, he tells us, always hold good: +“Because, if any one writing on the quality of the flesh of birds, +happened to be in a country where the people fed on a particular +kind not eaten elsewhere, and a male bird already old and tough were +offered him (avenait qu’on luy presentast de quelque oyseau des-ia viel +et endurcy), he ought not to conclude that its flesh is necessarily +fibrous and hard.” With all respect for the opinion of honest Peter +Belon, I should be inclined to think that a tough old cock, whatever +his nation, was somewhat difficult of digestion. I have a very vivid +recollection of a fowl of this sort at a certain hotel in Abbeville, +where nothing else was to be had for dinner, which the waiter assured +me was not to be surpassed in tenderness; a quality he might have +displayed towards his family when alive, but which certainly did not +belong to him after he was roasted. It is, perhaps, on the tolerant +principle of respecting other people’s prejudices (I can account for +Belon’s conclusion no other way), that he does not exclude even birds +of prey from good men’s feasts. “We know by experience,” he observes +(not his own experience, I hope), “what has taken place in Crete, where +the young ones of the vulture which have fallen from their rocky nests +near Voulèsmeni, have been proved at least as good eating as a fine +capon. And although some of the inhabitants (the greater part, I should +imagine) think that the old birds are not good to eat, because they +feed on carrion, the fact is otherwise; for good falconers say that +the hawk, vulture, and falcon are excellent meat, and being roasted +or boiled, like poultry, are found to be well-tasted and tender. +(Fancy a tender vulture!) We constantly see, if any of these birds +kill themselves, or break a limb in hunting game, that the falconers +do not hesitate to dress them for the table.” In Auvergne, he adds, +the peasants of the Limagne, and in the mountains, too, eat the flesh +of the goivan, a species of eagle; so that it may be concluded that +birds of prey, whether old or young, are tender,--an inference which I +presume to doubt. One saving clause Peter Belon has, which has at all +times done good service. If people generally are not in the habit of +eating kites, owls, and so forth, there are some who do: “tastes merely +differ”--(les appetits des hommes ne se ressemblent en aucune manière). + +The transition is easy from these delicacies to other less questionable +birds, and the manner of preparing them for the pot or spit; and +brings Peter Belon to what he evidently likes--a good dinner in a +general way. “You may talk,” he says, “of Spaniards, Portuguese, +English, Flemings, Italians, Hungarians, or Germans, but none of them, +in dinner-giving, come up to the French. The latter begin with meats +disguised a thousand ways (mille petits desguisements de chair); and +this first entry, as it is called, consists of what is soft and liquid, +and ought to be sent in hot, such as soups, fricassees, hashes, and +salads”! (Hot salads are a rarity now-a-days). The second course is +roast and boiled, of different kinds of meat, as well of birds as of +terrestrial animals, “it being well understood that no fish is eaten +except on fast-days.” The dinner ends with “cold things, such as +fruits, preparations of milk and sweets.” This is the outline of a +dinner only; but when Peter Belon enters into a detailed bill of fare, +the newspaper report of a Lord Mayor’s dinner pales beside it. A few +of the names of these dishes--as well as they can be translated--are +worth preserving. What do you think of pilgrim capons--lions--made +of the white meat of pullets; wild boar venison with chestnuts; +diamond-pointed jelly; goslings dressed with malvoisie; feet (whose +feet?) with infernal sauce (pieds à la saulce d’enfer); counterfeit +sea-hog; laurelled quails; partridges with capers; veal sausages; hop +salad; chestnut butterflies; golden-backed woodcock pasties; ox-heel +pasties; plumed peacocks; tipsy cake (gasteaux joyeux); little cabbages +all hot (petits chouy tous chaulds); and, amongst other varieties, +pomegranate salad? + +In treating of the uses to which birds have been applied, Peter +Belon does not omit divination. It is pretty clear, however, that +he has no faith in the auruspices, though he lets them down gently. +“These soothsayers exercised their mystery in the contemplation of +the inward parts as well of birds as of other animals, when offered +up for sacrifice. The question must then be asked, whether, by this +inspection, they really could foretell the things that were to come, +and if there were any probability, what they promised turning out true? +There can be little doubt that this system of divination had a very +simple origin, beginning by cajoling private persons, and promising +them what they desired (which is the greatest pleasure men can +receive), and afterwards, by investing it with a religious character, +and turning the same to their own profit.” The French soldiers, in +Belon’s time, imitated the Romans so far as to carry the sacred cock +with their baggage when they took the field; but it was for a very +intelligible species of augury,--to know, by his crowing, when the day +was about to break. Belon had much too good sense to credit either the +superstitions of the Romans or those of his own day, and was probably +only restrained by his fear of the Church, from expressing his opinions +too plainly. Passing from divination to sorcery, he says: “Every +contemplative man must have had reason to despise the ignorant people +who believe that sorcerers have the power attributed to them. We have +seen many condemned to death; but all have been either poor idiots or +madmen. Now, of two things, one must happen: that if they do mischief, +it must either be by the employment of some venomous drug put into +the mouth, or otherwise applied, or by invocations. It is not often +that one hears of people of quality being accused of sorcery--only the +poorer sort; and to tell the truth, no man of judgment would apply +his mind to such absurdities. To prevent the common people from doing +so, it is the custom once a-week to prohibit them formally. It may +easily happen that one of this sort, troubled in his wits, should +fancy incredible things, and even acknowledge to having committed +them; but we must set this down to the nature of their disease.” In +this way sensible Peter Belon disposes of the lycanthropists and other +self-created wizards. On the subject of antipathies, however, he +entertains a belief that it is reasonable; as in the case of the fox +and the stork, which are sworn foes, ever since the practical jokes, I +suppose, which we all know they played on each other. + +Being himself a physician, Peter Belon enlarges upon the maladies of +birds; but he tells us that, with the exception of falcons, which are +more especially under the care of man, they are their own doctors. +“The pelican, which builds its nest on the ground, finding its young +stung by a serpent, weeps bitterly, and piercing its own breast, gives +its own blood to cure them.” (This is a new reading of the old story). +“Quails, when they are indisposed, swallow the seeds of hellebore; +and starlings take hemlock. The herb chélidoine (celandine, from the +Greek kelidon, a swallow) derives its name from the fact that the +swallow administers the juice of the plant to her young. The stork +physics himself with marjoram. Wood pigeons, ravens, blackbirds, jays +and partridges take laurel; while turtle-doves, pigeons, and cocks +prescribe bird-weed. Ducks and geese eat sage.” (Sage enters largely +into the affair, in combination with onions, when ducks and geese are +eaten). “Cranes and herons employ marsh rushes. Thrushes and many +smaller birds swallow the seeds of the ivy--which would be hurtful +diet for man (qui seroit viande mauvaise à l’homme).” Not much worse, +however, than hellebore or hemlock! But it would seem that the eagle +family are exempt from the ordinary ailments of birds; for, in speaking +of the Chrysaëtos, or great royal eagle, Belon tells us: “Eagles never +change their place of abode, but always return to the same nest. It has +thus been observed that they are long-lived. But becoming old, the beak +grows so long that it becomes bent, and prevents the bird from eating, +so that it dies, not of any malady, or extreme old age, but simply +because it cannot make use of its beak.” I fear this is not one of the +facts derived from Belon’s own observation. + +Our fashionable ladies have passion for eider-down; but did they ever +hear that the vulture can supply them with an article quite as soft? +“Their skin,” says our author, “is almost as thick as that of a kid, +and under the throat is a spot about the breadth of a palm, where the +feathers are reddish, like the hair of a calf; and these feathers have +no quills, any more than those on both sides of the neck and under +the wings, where the down is so white that it shines like silk. The +furriers, after removing the large feathers, leave the down, and curry +the skins for mantles, which are worth a sum of money. In France they +use them chiefly to place on the stomach (what we call bosom-friends). +It would scarcely be believed that the vulture’s skin is so stout, +if one had not seen it. Being in Egypt and on the plains of Arabia +Deserta, we have noticed that the vultures are large and numerous, and +the down from a couple of dozen of these would quite suffice for a +large robe. At Cairo, on the Bezestein, where merchandise is exposed +for sale, the traveller may obtain silken dresses lined with the skins +of vultures, both black and white.” + +Belon was a great observer of all the birds of prey, and appears to +have taken many notes of their habits while living near the Monts +d’Or, in Auvergne, under the protection of M. Duprat, the Bishop of +Clermont. It was there he learnt the fact about the peasantry eating +the goivan, called also the boudrée, which he thus describes: “There is +not a peasant in the Limagne (a great plain) of Auvergne who does not +know the goivan, and how to capture him with traps baited with frogs, +or with lime, but more commonly with snares. He is taken principally in +the winter, when he is very good to eat, for he is so fat that no other +bird comes near him in that respect. The peasants lard or boil him, and +find his flesh quite as good as that of a hen. This eagle eats rats, +mice, frogs, lizards, snails, caterpillars, and sometimes serpents.” + +That there may be no doubt about the last-named viand being food for +eagles, one of Peter Belon’s lively portraitures follows the statement, +in which a goivan is depicted in the act of dining on a serpent, +twisted into a figure of eight (as, well he might be), and a number +of astonished frogs and fishes scurrying away for dear life,--all +save one philosophical member of the tadpole family, who, sitting on +the tumultuous waves of an adjacent ditch, calmly contemplates the +scene. It is observable throughout the plates in Belon’s work that the +smaller quadrupeds endure the infliction of being devoured alive with +far greater resignation than the Reptilia. I have before me at this +moment the portrait of a rabbit, on whose back a buzzard is standing as +if in the act of going to sing, while the long-eared animal on which +he has pounced seems to apprehend his fate no more than if he were a +music-stand. A mouse in the claws of a speckled magpie, puts on, in +another plate, an air of equal indifference. + +Amongst the birds of prey known to the French villagers--and to their +cost--is one called by the singular name of White John (Jan le Blanc), +or The Bird of St. Martin,--but why the latter name was bestowed on +it, Belon is at a loss to discover. The first is obvious enough, for +its belly and part of its tail are of spotless white. This fellow is +very daring, and carries off fowls and rabbits from under the eyes of +the owners; he feeds largely, too, upon partridges and all the smaller +birds, so that he is not a Cheap John, at all events. But Belon has +one comfort: White John has a natural antagonist in the Hobby-hawk, +and the way they fight in the air till they tumble entangled to the +ground and are taken, is quite a pleasant thing to see (moult plaisant +à voir). This combat is not depicted; but on the next page there is a +striking delineation of the manner in which a falconer lures a bird +of prey. He does it in this wise: a hawk having caught a partridge, +stands on its back in the air, quietly devouring it, and the cunning +fowler takes this opportunity of approaching with the leg of another +bird in his hand, which he offers on his knees to the hawk, in the +expectation, apparently, that the greedy bird of prey will give up +the whole for a part. Of the share which the falconer’s dog has in +the transaction, I say nothing; because, though in the foreground of +the picture, he is not a quarter the size of the victim partridge. It +must be confessed that Belon’s descriptions are more satisfactory than +the artist’s illustrations. This remark, however, does not apply to +the actual portraits of the birds, which are in most instances very +accurate. Nothing, for instance, can be better done than the Royal +Kite, which some in France call Huo, and others Escoufle. This bird, +being a lover of carrion, is protected; so much so, that “in England a +fine is imposed on those who kill him.” Belon records a pleasant piece +of pastime which this kite affords the infidels: + +“The Turks who live at Constantinople take pleasure in throwing lumps +of raw meat into the air, which the kites pounce upon so rapidly that +they seize and carry it off before it can fall to the ground.” + +The Venetian nobles amuse themselves differently--not with kites, +but cormorants. When the weather is calm, they go out on the lagoons +in light boots, two or three dozen in company, each boat being rowed +by six men, and pulled very swiftly. Having surrounded the cormorant +(like French huntsmen with a fox, to prevent him from getting away and +giving them a run), he cannot rise in the air (why not?), but dives +under the water, and every time he shows his head above the surface, +the noblemen let fly at him with their cross-bows, till at last he is +thoroughly done up, is half-suffocated, and gives in. “It is a fine +sight to behold this sport (c’est un beau spectacle de voir un tel +deduit), and also is to see a cormorant having caught a tolerably-sized +eel, which he tries to swallow, but has to fight a long time with +it before he can get it down.” The cormorants themselves are, oddly +enough, not thought good eating by the common people, who say of them +that they are “a dish for the devil” (qui voudroit jestoyer le diable, +il luy faudroit doñer de tels oyseaux); but Belon does not think them +so bad as they say (toute fois ne sont si mauvais qu’on crië). + +The stork, unfortunately, did not, when Belon flourished, enjoy the +same immunity; for though he admits that the Romans despised them at +table, he says, “now they are looked upon as a royal dish.” He moreover +tells us that the gizzard of a stork is an antidote to poison, and a +remedy against squinting (le gesier de la cigogne est bon contre les +venins et qui en aura mangé ne sera lousche en sa vie)! It appears also +that even the ostrich, which can digest iron, is itself digested by +Libyan gastronomers, who eat the flesh and sell the feathers. + +This tendency to discover what birds are most eatable, is manifested +throughout the volume of Peter Belon. Arriving at the noble Alectrion +or Rooster of the United States, he cites the following recipe, from +Dioscorides, for the concoction of cock-broth. “Take a fine strong old +bird, and having properly trussed him, stuff him well with roots of +fern, the seed of chartamus (whatever that may be), salt of mercury, +and soldanella (a purgative sea-weed), and, having sewn him up, boil +him well down.” A potage this, which bears some resemblance to “the +sillakickaby of the ancients,” described in Peregrine Pickle, and, I +should think, nearly as agreeable. + +The majority of the birds in Belon’s book are accurately described and +too well-known to afford much opportunity for quoting from what he says +of their forms and habits, but now and then we meet with a rara avis. +Such, for instance is the “Gellinote de bois” (Gelinotte) which, though +still found in the Ardennes, and occasionally a visitor to Monsieurs +Chevet’s shop in the Palais Royal, is rare enough to merit description +at second-hand. What their price may be I know not, but three hundred +years ago they cost two crowns a-piece, and were only seen at the +banquets of princes and the wedding-feasts of great lords. “The +feathers on the back are like those of the woodcock; the breast and +belly white, spotted with black; the neck is like that of a pheasant; +the head and beak resemble a partridge; the tail feathers are black +with white tips, the large wing-feathers variegated like the owl; down +to the feet the legs are feathered like the grouse.” If the gelinotte +combines the flavour as well as the plumage of the birds just mentioned +(omitting the owl) I should say it is worth the price which Monsieur +Chevet puts upon it before he stuffs it with the truffles. + +The Vanneau is another bird which, common enough in the marshy +districts of France (particularly in Bourbon Vendée) is, I believe, +unknown in England. It is a wading-bird, and bears some resemblance to +the peacock: hence, its name, corrupted from paonneau to vanneau; but +the peasants call it dinhuit, on account of its cry. It is crested with +five or six long black feathers, and is of changeable hue: in size it +is not much larger than a plover, and is perched on very high red legs. +There is no question about the estimation as a delicacy in which the +vanneau is still held. + +Belon has a good deal to say about quails, and the various modes of +catching them. One way is by means of an instrument made of leather +and bone, which, set in motion, utters a sound like the voice of the +female bird, and is called courcaillet, on hearing which the males run +rapidly and are caught in the fowler’s net; but this device is only +effectual during the season of courting. Every one has noticed how +low the quail’s cages are made. Belon says, it is because they are so +given to jumping and excitement that they would destroy themselves were +the cages higher. Of the crested lark (in French, cochevis), he tells +us, on the authority of several writers of antiquity, that when made +into a broth or roasted--like punch--they cure the colic; we all know +what capital pâtés are made of the lark uncrested. We learn that the +woodcock--how admirable is he, too, in a pâté--though called bécasse, +in French, on account of the length of his bill, ought to be designated +“vvitcoc,” that being an English word, which signifies “cock of the +wood,” and corresponds with the Greek term, “xilomita.” Some people, +Belon says, call him Avis cœca (blind bird), because he suffers himself +to be so easily caught, and he gives a sufficiently lively description +of one mode of effecting his capture. It is as follows:--“He who +desires to take the woodcock must put on a cloak and gloves, the +colour of the dead leaves, and conceal his head and shoulders beneath +a (brown) hat, leaving only two small holes to see through. He must +carry in his hands two sticks covered with cloth of the same colour, +about an inch of the ends of which must be of red cloth, and leaning +upon crutches (rather a lame way of proceeding) must advance leisurely +towards the woodcock, stopping when the bird becomes aware of his +approach. When the woodcock moves on he must follow until the bird +stops again without raising its head. The fowler must then strike the +sticks together very quickly (moult bellement) which will so amuse and +absorb the woodcock that its pursuer may take from his girdle a rod, +to which a horsehair noose is attached, and throw the latter round its +neck, for it is one of the stupidest and most foolish birds that are +known.” I should think so, if it allowed itself to be caught by this +tom-foolery. + +Of birds which are not stupid, but knavish rather, even to much theft, +Belon relates that the magpie is called Margot (the diminutive of +Margaret, as Charles the First called his beautiful sister, the wife +of Henry of Navarre); and the jay (Richard), each on account of their +cry. Being somewhat skinny, the jay is thought rather a tough morsel +by those who desire to dine upon him; but he himself eats everything +that comes in his way, and is particularly fond of peas--green peas +perhaps--at a guinea a pound. The common people think that the jay is +subject to the falling sickness, nevertheless they eat him when they +find him on the ground. It is, perhaps, a weakness in human nature +which cannot be remedied, the tendency to make a meal of everything +that has animal life. But for this, how severely might we not +animadvert on the gluttony of those who, not remembering their song in +spring, devour thrushes in the autumn: yet, that is the best time to +eat them, for they are then perfectly delicious as you would say, with +me, if you had made a diligence supper on thrushes travelling through +the Ardennes. + +But, I fear, if I read any more of Peter Belon’s volume, I shall write +an article on Gastronomy, a thing I had no notion of when I began. Let +me conclude with something more serious than eating--if anything be +more serious: let me lament, with all the world, that so useful a man +as Peter Belon should have been cut off sadly in the prime of his life +and full vigour of his intellect. He was only forty-five years of age +when he was murdered one night as he traversed the Bois de Boulogne on +his way to Paris; whether for the sake of plunder or revenge is not +known. + + + + +RHINE-LAND. + + + We lean’d beneath the purple vine, + In Andernach, the hoary; + And at our elbows ran the Rhine + In rosy twilight glory. + + Athwart the Seven-hills far seen + The sun had fail’d to broaden; + Above us stream’d in fading sheen + The highway he had trodden. + + His farewell crimson kiss he left + On clouds suffused with blushes: + One star beam’d down the dewberry-cleft + Across the mirror’d flashes. + + From cliffs of slate the vintage call’d + In muffled leafage dusky: + And down the river grandly wall’d, + The grape reel’d ripe and husky. + + We reach’d entwining hands to seize + The clusters round us glowing: + Our locks were fondled by the breeze + From southern sandhills blowing. + + The long-neck’d flask was not unbent, + The globed green glass unemptied; + The god of honest pleasure lent + Young Love his powers, untempted. + + Home-friends we pledged; our bridal-maids; + Sweet wishes gaily squander’d: + We wander’d far in faëry glades, + Up golden heights we wander’d. + + Like King and Queen in royal bliss, + We paced a realm enchanted, + A realm rose-vista’d, rich from this, + Tho’ not from this transplanted. + + For this Rome’s frontier foot endear’d, + Her armèd heel made holy; + And Ages grey as Time’s own beard, + Wreathed it with melancholy. + + Old days it has that live in gleams + Of suns for ever setting: + A moth-wing’d splendour, faint as dreams, + That keeps the fancy fretting. + + A gorgeous tracing dash’d with gloom, + And delicately dusted: + To grasp it is to spoil its bloom; + ’Twas ours because we trusted. + + No longer severing our embrace + Was Night a sword between us; + But richest mystery robed in grace + To lock us close, and screen us. + + She droopt in stars; she whisper’d fair; + The wooded crags grew dimmer; + The arrow in the lassie’s hair + Glanced by a silver glimmer. + + The ruin-rock renew’d its frown, + With terror less transparent, + Tho’ all its ghosts are hunted down, + And all its knights are errant. + + The island in the gray expanse, + We watch’d with colour’d longing: + The mighty river’s old romance + Thro’ many channels thronging. + + Ah, then, what voice was that which shed + A breathless scene before us: + We heard it, knowing not we heard; + It rose around and o’er us. + + It rose around, it thrill’d with life, + And did infuse a spirit + To misty shapes of ancient strife: + Again I seem to hear it! + + The voice is clear, the song is wild, + And has a quaint transition; + The voice is of a careless child + Who sings an old tradition. + + He sings it witless of his power; + Beside the rushing eddies, + His singing plants the tall white tower + Mid shades of knights and ladies. + + Against the glooming of the west + The grey hawk-ruins darken, + And hand in hand, half breast to breast, + Two lovers gaze and hearken. + + + + +MILVERSTON WORTHIES. + + +From his sixth year, my brother Davie manifested undeniable symptoms +of the divine afflatus, but it was not until fifteen that he commenced +his immortal poem, “The Vengeance of Bernardo Caspiato.” He was a +delicate, pretty, fair boy, with a spiritual countenance, a noble brow, +and abundance of silky brown hair; quite the poet to look at, and very +like my dear mother, as we all daily observed. It was expected that +he would cover the name of Cleverboots with a halo of glory: unlike +some families, we were the first to believe in our hero, and the most +constant in our faith in his splendid future. At the epoch referred to, +Davie began to tie his collar with a black ribbon, to wear his white +throat exposed, and his beautiful hair very long; his appetite did not +fail him in private, but at our little réunions he always partook of +dry toast and strong green tea; was very silent, abstracted, and averse +to men’s society: the women petted him, and called him “all soul.” He +was very kind-hearted and sweet-tempered, and rather vain, which was +nothing more than natural, considering how he was flattered. + +He had a little room at the top of the house which looked over the town +to Milverston mere, where the immortal poem was commenced. I remember +he began it on a wet evening, and it opened dismally, with a storm; he +had me up there with my plain sewing to listen to the first stanzas; +and he consulted me about one or two difficult rhymes: he was not +sure whether “horror” and “morrow” were correct. I thought not; and, +his birthday falling three days after, I presented him with a rhyming +dictionary. Subsequently, the poem made rapid progress. + +Cousin John had just gone up to London to study law, and my father +wished Davie to be articled to Mr. Briggs, the solicitor at Milverston. +This did not chime in with his taste at all; he stated that it was his +wish to follow the profession of letters. We did not quite understand +this at the time. Cousin Jack said it meant that he wanted to be +the idle gentleman. I had my doubts on the matter. Davie brought my +mother over to his way of thinking. “I shall be very poor, but very +happy, mother,” he used to say; “if you put me to anything else, I +shall be miserable and do no good.” So Davie got his own way; and, as +a preparation for his profession of letters, he stayed at home and +finished “Bernardo Caspiato.” It was a splendid work. I have wept over +it often. The heroine having been executed for witchcraft, her lover, +Bernardo, devotes his life to avenge her; and, after committing a +catalogue of murders, ends by disappearing mysteriously in a flash +of blue lightning to rejoin her in heaven. My mother objected to the +morality of the conclusion; but she acknowledged herself, at the same +time, ignorant of the laws and licence of poetry. + +With this great work, and some minor pieces of equal if not superior +merit, my brother Davie went up to London on foot, with ten pounds in +his pocket, and seventeen years of experience on his head. Cousin Jack +had taken comfortable lodgings for him at a small baker’s shop, kept by +a widow woman with a daughter named Lucy. The dear lad wrote us word +that he was quite suited, and that, after a few days to look about +him, he should carry his immortal poem to a publisher. His hopes were +sanguine; his visions of fame magnificent. + +To our surprise and grief, Bernardo Caspiato was declined with thanks. +Nobody was inclined to publish it unless the author would bear all the +expenses. Davie would not suffer my father to do this--he would earn +money for himself. We wondered how he could do it; but Cousin Jack +lent him a hand, and somebody who had something to do with a newspaper +bought his minor pieces. He lived, at all events, by his own exertions. +At this time, Lucy began to figure in letters to me marked “private.” +It would be impossible to give the whole story as therein developed, +but I will epitomise it as afterwards heard from his own lips. + +He fell enthusiastically in love with Lucy, whose beauty he raved about +as ethereal, heavenly, unsophisticated: before I heard of her at all he +was evidently far gone in the tender passion; and Lucy had listened so +often, and with such a graceful interest, to his literary struggles, +that he fancied he had every reason to believe that his affection was +returned. One morning, however, all these sunny hopes were rudely +dispelled. He had seen once or twice a young man of rustic appearance +in the shop, he had also known him to take tea in the back parlour +with Mrs. Lawley and her daughter, without attaching any significance +to his visits. As Davie sat at breakfast on this particular day, this +individual drove to the door in a gig, and was pleasantly received by +the landlady. He wore quite a festal appearance, and for the first time +a suspicion entered Davie’s mind which changed quickly to a certainty. +After speaking to Mrs. Lawley for a minute or two, the young man ran +out to stop the driver of a waggon loaded with sacks of grain, and, +while holding him in talk, the poor poet from the up-stairs window took +an inventory, as it were, of his rival’s personal graces. He was of +a very tall, straight, and robust figure, with a broad, comely face, +ruddy complexion, and curly brown hair. His voice was like the roll +of an organ, and his laugh the very heartiest of guffaws--altogether, +a very proper man, as Davie, but for his jealousy, must have +acknowledged. The stranger’s rollicking air of gaiety added present +insult to previous injury; and to get out of the hearing of his rich +“ha ha,” which seemed to pervade the whole neighbourhood, Davie +snatched up his hat, intending to walk off his spleen: he pushed +halfway down the stairs, but there paused--just below, in the passage +by the back-parlour door, was the obnoxious rustic, with his arm round +bonny Lucy’s waist, and his lips seeking a kiss; while the damsel’s +hand was put up to shield her cheek, and her tongue was saying, in that +pretty accent which lovers never take as truth, “Don’t, Tom; please +don’t!” Tom caught the uplifted fingers, and held them fast till he +had taken a dozen kisses to indemnify himself for the delay. Davie, +greatly discomfited, retreated to his room, and made cautious surveys +before venturing to leave it again. He quite hated Tom, who was a fine, +single-minded young fellow, guilty of no greater sin against him than +having won blue-eyed Lucy’s heart. + +When Mrs. Lawley came up-stairs to remove her lodger’s +breakfast-things, she looked glowing with importance, and, after a +short hesitation, confided to him the great family secret--Mr. Tom +Burton, of Ravenscroft Farm, had offered for Lucy, and they were to be +married that day week. “You’ll have seen him, sir, maybe?” said the +proud mother; “he’s been here as often as twice a-week; and, when I +told him it behoved him to stop at home and attend to his farm, he’d +tell me that corn would grow without watching; and I soon saw what he +meant. So, as Lucy was noways unwilling, I bade ’em have done with +all this courting and courting, and get wed out of hand. Perhaps, Mr. +David, you’ll be so good as go out for the day, and let us have your +room for breakfast--or we should be proud of your company, sir.” + +The poor poet almost choked over his congratulations, but he got +them out in a way. Soon after, he saw the lovers cross the street, +arm-in-arm, spruced up for the occasion, and looking as stiff as Sunday +clothes worn on a week-day always make rustic lovers look--everybody +who met them might know what they were. Tom had a rather bashful and +surprised expression; as if he were astonished to find himself part +owner of such a fresh, modest, little daisy of a sweetheart, and were +not quite sure that it was her cottage bonnet just below his great +shoulder, for so long as Davie had them in sight he kept looking down +into it to make sure Lucy was there. Davie’s feelings were almost too +much for him, but he made a magnanimous resolve that as Lucy had been +so good and attentive to him, he would make her a present, and, that +he might endure the deepest pangs, that present should be the wedding +dress and bonnet. He went off accordingly, post haste, to a great +millinery establishment, and purchased a dove-coloured silk dress, and +the most sweetly pretty white bonnet, with orange blossoms, that could +be had for money. When Lucy and Tom returned from their walk, he called +her up-stairs and presented them to her. She contemplated them with +surprised delight, blushing and clasping her hands over them: never was +there anything so beautiful. + +Davie bade her try the bonnet on, to see how it would fit, and, +without an atom of coquetry, she put it on, tied the strings under her +chin, and rose on tip-toe to peep at herself in the glass over the +chimney-piece. + +“I must let” (Lucy was going to say “Tom,” but she substituted “mother” +instead); “I must let mother see it!” and she ran out of the room, +leaving the door open, with that intent. But somebody met her on the +stairs, and stopped her for examination. Davie tried to shut his ears, +but he could not help hearing that ominous “Don’t, Tom; please don’t;” +though, as balm to his wounded feelings, he also caught the echo of +a--what shall I say?--a slap? a box?--what do you call it when a pretty +maiden brings her hand sharply in contact with her lover’s cheek? Well, +no matter--it is a something which always is or ought to be avenged by +six kisses on the spot; it was condignly punished in this instance, +for Tom lacked modesty even more than French polish. Davie instantly +slammed the door, and sat down to compose his feelings by inditing a +sonnet on “Disappointed Love.” When it was finished--the lines being +flowing and the rhymes musical--he felt more placid and easy in his +mind; but, before the wedding, he withdrew himself from the house, and +went into country lodgings to hide his griefs. In process of time he +rhymed himself into a belief that he was the victim of a disappointed +passion, the prey of a devouring sorrow; that his heart was a wreck, +a ruin, dust, ashes, a stone, dwelling alone; that life was stale, an +unfinished tale, a hopeless, joyless pageant: all because blue-eyed +Lucy had married Tom Burton of Ravenscroft. + +This was the early love-romance which furnished my brother Davie +with his cynicism, his similes of darts, flames, and wounds that are +scattered everywhere through his verses. Some of the productions of +his troubled muse, after he fled to Highgate, shall be quoted. What +would have been Lucy’s astonishment could she have heard herself +apostrophised in such burning numbers! her orbs of sunny blue would +have dilated until she would have looked, indeed, a round-eyed Juno. +Here is one of Davie’s effusions from a little manuscript-book, bound +in white vellum, the confidante of his poetical woes at this mournful +era:-- + + Thou hast come like a mist o’er my glorious dreaming, + Thy image stands up ’twixt my soul and the sun! + Oh! why, when youth’s noontide of gladness was beaming, + Hast thou darken’d all that it shone upon? + + To see thee, to love thee, ay, love thee to madness, + To know that thou ne’er couldst be aught to me! + To leave thee! and read in my spirit’s lone sadness, + That the love was all hopeless I centred in thee! + +The muse appears at this junction to have been quite troublesome +with her declarations. The following was written one evening instead +of going to dinner like a Christian gentleman to Uncle Sampson’s on +Christmas Day. It stands entitled, I Love Thee! and is written with a +neatness that says little for its spontaneity:-- + + I love thee! O, never did summer sea + Greet sunshine more gladly than I greet thee! + Like dew to spring flowers, like stars to dusk night + Art thou with thy glances of liquid light! + + I love thee, as only those hearts can love + Whose burning devotion is hard to move! + Life, beauty, and hope, thou art all to me,-- + A voice and an echo of melody! + +It seems rather as if sense were made subordinate to sound in some of +these lucubrations, but they are not so bad for seventeen. Davie came +back to Milverston for a little while at this season, and cultivated +his grief, to the great disorder of our regular household. One night he +stayed out so late that my father went in search of him and found him +by the mere, seeking inspiration from the stars. On this occasion he +produced eight more lines, which seem to have been the utmost his muse +could bring for that one time. It is called, in the vellum book into +which it is carefully transcribed, Tell me, my Heart:-- + + Tell me, my heart, the reason of thy sadness, + Why peoplest thou thy solitude with dreams? + Why dost thou shun the scenes of mirth and gladness + To find thy echo in the lonely streams? + + Alas! my heart, that thy poor love should wander, + Where it can meet with nought but cold disdain! + Sad that its treasures thus my soul should squander + Where it can reap but tears and griefs again! + +Good little Lucy would have been sorry, indeed, if she could have known +into what a limbo of anguish Davie was thrown by her marriage; but let +us hope, as she might have done, that the best half of the tortures +were only fancy. I know he had at the worst an excellent appetite for +lamb and asparagus, to which he was very partial. Dear Davie, to read +these effusions, tender imaginations may think of him as fine porcelain +fractured with the world’s hard usage, whereas he is stout and bald, +and wears green spectacles. The law does not undertake to deal with +poetry composed under false pretences, or many would be the sighing +Strephons and doleful Delias brought up for judgment. + +Last summer we had Davie at home for a month, and during that time +occurred the grand incremation of Bernardo Caspiato. I shall ever +regard it as a most cruel sacrifice, and Cousin Jack, who instigated +it, as an illiterate character. Davie brought it forth one evening +when we three were together, and read parts of it aloud: Jack +unfeelingly remarked that it was not like good wine, it did not improve +with keeping; that, like fruit plucked immaturely, it was green and +tasteless; it had not acquired mellowness and flavor, and if stored +up for another twenty years it would not taste better. Davie half +coincided with him; but I did not; so grandly majestic as was the march +of the lines, so delicate and true the rhymes, so thrilling the noble +catastrophe. It exasperated me to see Jack, first yawn to the full +extent of his jaws, then snatch the manuscript from Davie, and toss it +up to the ceiling, retreating afterwards in feigned fear lest he should +be crushed by its leaden fall. An ignoble fate was thine,--immortal +Bernardo! Convicted of the respectable sin of dulness--which none +pardon--thou wert condemned to be burnt! Davie did not act with undue +precipitation; Jack urged an immediate execution, but the poet took a +week to consider of it, and many a pang it cost him. Those who have +written immortal poems and destroyed them will appreciate his feelings; +none else can. Let anybody of experience call to mind the last time +he has read through the letters from his first love, just before she +was married to somebody else; or the letters from that particular old +friend, which it is of no use to keep because he is dead, or you have +quarrelled beyond hope of reconciliation, and then some faint idea will +be conceived of the poet’s sensations at this immolation of his first +love, his particular friend, and his pet child--all in one. + +It was the summer-season, and warm,--I found it very warm; there was no +fire in the grate, and the match-box on the writing-table was empty. +Jack supplied the want eagerly from his smoking apparatus, and Bernardo +Caspiato shrank into a pinch of tinder. I wept. + +“There!” said poor Davie, with a profound sigh, “it took two years to +write and two seconds to destroy--just like an eternal friendship, +an undying affection, or anything of that kind which half a dozen +indiscreet words are at any time enough to annihilate!” + +“Have a cigar, old boy; never mind moralising,” said Jack, to whom a +cigar would be consolation for the death of his grandmother; “have a +cigar; the business can’t be helped.” + +“Poor Bernardo!” said Davie, as feelingly as if he spoke of a brother, +“poor Bernardo! He gave me many an hour’s delightful occupation. I feel +as if I had lost a friend to whom I had been in the habit of confiding +my sentimental vagaries. I’m not sure that it was right to burn him.” + +“Have a cigar,” reiterated Cousin Jack. Davie accepted the offer with a +pensive sigh, put on his green spectacles, and went out for a walk in +mournful mood. It is a serious thing burning immortal poems. Nobody +can tell what losses the world has had in that way--nobody! + + + + +SCOTCH COAST FOLK. + +FOOTDEE IN THE LAST CENTURY. + + +The aged lady whose recollections I condense, and combine with my own +observations, says: + + Remote, but still distinct, the view appears, + Thro’ the long vista of departed years; + +although, towards the conclusion of the American War, the fish town of +Footdee was not one of those “green spots on which memory delights to +dwell.” The town consisted of several rows of low-thatched cottages +running from east to west, between the high-road and the harbour, or, +as it is called, the tide. During the high spring-tides, the furthest +waves came up to the bank of sand on which the ends of the houses were +built. Exteriorly, these cottages appeared comfortless enough, as each +dwelling fronted the back of its opposite neighbour, and, as in the +narrow space between there was a line of dunghills crossed over with +spars, upon which were hung lines, bladders, and buoys, intermixed with +dried dog-fish and skate. Their interior was not more alluring to a +stranger. The earthen-floor was uneven, and sometimes dirty, although +generally sanded over of an evening, or at least every Saturday, in +preparation for the Sabbath. Upon the wood or rafters which stretched +across horizontally from the tops of the walls, was a ceiling of old +oars and bits of drift-wood. The bare rough walls were not whitewashed. +Roof, walls, and rafters were all blackened by smoke from a fire at +one end of the cottage, placed upon the floor, and made of turf and +sea-weed. Soot-drops--curious black glossy accumulations, formed by +a similar process, doubtless, to that which produces stalactites and +stalagmites--hung here and there upon the walls, rafters, and roof. +These collections of pendulous carbon might have been deemed ornaments, +if they had not been signs of defective cleanliness. There was a small +window at each side of the door. Under each window was a clumsy black +bedstead. There was but one small deal table. There were only two or +three chairs, and as many sunkies, or low fixed seats resting upon +stakes driven into the floor, to sit upon. Beside the wall opposite the +door were seen the requisites of the fishing occupation--lines, creels, +murlains, &c. Such were the principal property and furniture visible. +There was no press or cupboard; and the only depository for keeping +things in was a chest or locker, in which lay the precious stores and +the Sunday clothes. The salt-backet, or box, was suspended in the +chimney. + +Such were the cottages in the eighteenth century. In the first quarter +of the nineteenth, the cottages were arranged upon the four sides +of squares, with a large open space in the centre; and outside every +cottage, upon the walls, hung fish-hakes or wooden triangles for drying +haddock. Inside the cottages the walls were occasionally whitewashed; +and there was fixed against the wall a series of wooden shelves for the +preservation and display of delft and earthenware crockery. There were +tea-cups in the cupboard in the corner. The little round table was of +pine-deal, but scrubbed into a whiteness by a truly Dutch cleanliness, +which made it rival tables covered with a fair white linen cloth. The +cruisie, an iron lamp of simple structure, consisting of one cup or +ladle, with a narrow lip for the whale-oil and wick, and another cup +of broader and larger dimensions, to receive the droppings, hangs in +the nineteenth, as in many centuries previously, near the chimney, and +produces, Rembrandt-like, lights and shades well worthy of the study of +an artist who should wish to rival the Dutch painters of the present +day, in the pictures they paint to show the effects of a lamp. + +The costumes of the fishers were, and continue to be, peculiar. The +elderly men wore broad blue woollen bonnets, coarse blue jackets, +and canvass kilts or short trousers. The younger men were rather +good-looking, had good-humoured faces, and were smarter in their dress. +The women wore caps, the original patterns of which still abound upon +the Continent, which did not prevent their features being injured by +the weather, and their skins being tanned by the sun. The middle-aged +women wore stuff gowns, with large flowered calico wrappers or short +gowns, over them. The young girls wore stuff wrappers and petticoats, +with their hair either drawn back with a large comb, which reached from +ear to ear, or fastened up in a very slovenly and unbecoming manner +with a head-dress of red worsted tape. The boys under fifteen were the +worst clad. They ran about in tattered old garments of their fathers’, +a world too wide, and remained in this condition until they were able +to earn a more decent covering for themselves. The little children of +both sexes were comfortably clad in a simple dress of white plaiding, +called a walliecoat, which, with their fair curly heads and rosy +cheeks, made them look very pretty, as they paddled in the pools of +water, and played with their tiny boats. + +In the last century, the fishermen were mostly ignorant of everything +unconnected with their own business. Few of them could read, and none +of the grown-up people could write. Some of the lads could read and +write a little; but as they went to sea in the night, and took their +repose in the day, they were not placed in favourable circumstances for +the development of the social faculties. No instance of intellectual +talent--no single person displaying a tendency towards any art or +science--occurred among them. Music and song, no doubt, contributed +to the enjoyment of their merry meetings; but the music was confined +to a fiddle, and their collection of songs scarcely extended beyond +The Praise of Paul Jones, The Waefu’ Ballad of Captain Glen, and the +Christmas carol of By Southend. As for the women--toiling, as they +were, incessantly--they had no time for mental improvement. But as they +grew old they gained practical knowledge and experience. Many of them +had a knowledge of simple remedies for curing diseases, which obtained +for their prescriptions a preference to those of medical men. Some of +them were supposed to be invested with supernatural powers, which made +it dangerous to offend them. + +I may interpose here a general remark. The superstitions which were +sweepingly condemned by the philosophy of the eighteenth century as +falsehood and imposture, the philosophy of the nineteenth finds to be +true in a sense. Instead of rejecting it in a heap, the student of the +present day shakes and washes the rubbish, and separates the grains of +truth from it. What, I may be asked, was it true that old fish-crones +possessed the powers of witchcraft? I have not a doubt of it. The +word witchcraft comes from wiccian, whence witchery, wickedness. It +means evil influence. Gifted with the power of reading characters and +actions, of seeing consequences and calculating results, and capable +of imparting a bias, laying a snare, adapting a temptation, planning a +vengeance, or instilling a physical or moral poison; and years give all +these powers to malignant intelligence. + +Anything may be twisted into stupid or incredible shapes. When affairs +did not prosper among the Footdee folk, it was attributed to an evil +foot, an “ill fit.” Prior to setting out upon any expedition or +enterprise, they were careful and particular about the first “fit” they +met in the morning. The Scum of the Well was an object of rivalry every +New Year’s Day morning, Old Style. As the midnight hour approached, +and the last moments of the year came on, the women assembled in a +solemn group, around the large old draw-well, and scolded and scuffled +to decide whose pan or bucket should carry off the first fraught (or +first freight). The superstition of the first foot may afford some +explanation of the phrase Putting his foot into it. Prior to commencing +anything, is it not well to note carefully who may be taking the +initiative for evil in it? Is not the first evil foot astir in it a +serious thing for any enterprise? As for the scum of the well, is not +the energetic housewife who obtains the first supply of the first +necessary of life,--water--likely to surpass all rivals in providing +for her household? I opine it is only a sort of piety due to our +forefathers to guess they were shrewder fellows than we might suppose +from our views of their superstition, witchcraft, and sorcery. + +Indeed there is something small in the minds which study superstitions +only to find in them occasions for indulging the sudden elation of +self-glory which Hobbes says is the cause of laughter. Our forefathers +inherited a spirit-world of personifications; and we have inherited +a mass of philosophical abstractions. Our forefathers inherited a +poetical and popular nomenclature, and we express our scientific +generalisations in crack-jaw words of Greek and Latin derivation. +Ghosts, wraiths, witches, fairies, mermaids and water-kelpies, are +personifications which have been covered with ridicule, and undoubtedly +there have been an abundance of ridiculous stories told respecting +them; but I suspect there is philosophy in them after all. The minds of +Coast Folk are peopled from early childhood with spectres belonging to +the land, sea, and sky; and no wonder, since, during long centuries, +catastrophes have desolated the homes of Coast Folk which have issued +mysteriously and terribly from land, sea, and sky. Seven miles from +Aberdeen there is a fishing-village which was buried in a sand-storm in +one night. Almost every soul of the inhabitants was smothered in the +sand-drift, and for many years the spire of the village church alone +marked the spot in the hollow treacherous sand-hills. When a boy I was +warned by words and looks of horror from approaching the fatal locality +where it was thought the wrath of the Almighty had displayed itself +so awfully. Several instances have occurred in which all the men of a +village have gone to sea, and perished in one night. A boat or a corpse +heard of as having been cast ashore on a distant beach, was sometimes +the only tidings ever heard of them. Mermaids have frightened many a +brave man; and, in several of the monthly magazines published in the +last century their existence was as seriously discussed as apparitions +of sea-serpents have been in our own day. Andrew Brands saw one. “I +recollect Andrew perfectly well. He was a stout man, with a broad +good-humoured face, and dark hair, who wore his bonnet upon the back of +his head.” Occasionally employed as a boatman or pilot, he looked more +like a jolly sailor than a sleepy fisherman. One summer day Andrew was +found lying insensible on the hill of Torry which faces the sea upon +the side of the river Dee, opposite to Footdee. When roused, he spoke +confusedly and incoherently. He was thought to be deranged. He was +carried to the ferry and rowed home. After several weeks of delirious +fever he became low and melancholy, and declined to give any account +of his illness. Under medical treatment he recovered, although reduced +to a skeleton. The fearful belief spread through the village that +Andrew Brands had seen something. When questioned after his recovery, +he said in substance: “I was upon the outlook lying upon my breast, +and looking over the top of the rocks, when I saw a creature like a +woman sitting upon a stone. She seemed to have something like a white +sheet, or grave-clothes wrapped around her. Sometimes she combed her +hair, and sometimes she tossed her arms in the air. All her ways were +fearsome, and at last she rushed into the sea, and vanished beneath the +waves. My heart lap (leapt), I grew blind, and I remember nothing more +until I awoke with all my bones sore, and the men lifting me up.” The +medical theory of his illness, as expounded by his doctor, was, that +he had gone out with incipient fever upon him, had fallen asleep in +an exposed situation, and the hallucinations of delirium had done all +the rest. My informant who remembered him well, maintained he had been +unwittingly the Actæon of a bathing Diana at a time when ladies rarely +bathed in Scotland, and had been punished by the vengeance of the +goddess. Probably, however, an accumulation of foam among the stones +of the beach had taken the flickering form of a woman. The white scum +would seem to rise up amidst the black stones, and Andrew Brands was +frightened by a mermaid because he had never been taught the effects +of perspective. Was it in some such way as this that Cytherea herself +was seen by the poetic eyes of a fisherman of Cyprus, issuing from +the froth of the sea until she was wafted in a shell to the shore by +Zephyrus, where the Graces received and adorned her for presentation to +the celestials of Olympus? + +Extraordinary physical phenomena generally precede extraordinary +catastrophes. Everybody has heard of the warning blue lights. During +the night which preceded a storm, in which seven men of a seaside +village were lost, an aged man, I have been assured, saw seven blue +lights passing in solemn procession from the roofs of their cottages +towards their grave-yard. He entreated the men to stay at home, and +not to go to sea. But they were obstinate, and went. He told some old +and some young people, who would listen to him, what he had seen, and +had scarcely finished his vaticination when the lightning leaped high +into the sky, the thunder pealed, and a hurricane lashed the sea into +furious madness. The boats were not far from the shore, but before +they could reach it a boat capsized, and seven men were lost within +sight of their families. A week afterwards, at the very hour of the day +corresponding to the hour of the night of the procession of the blue +lights, the funeral procession of the seven fishermen was seen going +from their cottages by the very way the lights had gone; and beneath +the very spots where the lights stood in the churchyard the corpses +rested for evermore. The law of the elders in these villages is, that +no boats ought to go to sea when the old men say they have seen +the blue lights. The blue lights are possibly electrical facts. The +traditions respecting their direction are as variable as the winds. The +guess is not a very hazardous one, that science would agree with the +old men in warning the fishers against going to sea when the air was +charged with electricity after midnight, in the coldest hours of the +twenty-four. + +When the Footdee fishers were found in the last century to be no more +scrupulous than other people respecting custom-house oaths, an oath was +framed for them, founded upon their superstitious fears, which proved +to be far more effectual than the ordinary one. It concluded with these +words: “If I do not speak the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but +the truth, may my boat be a bonnet to me.” + +Of course the fishers leaned to the side of the smugglers against the +excise and customs officers. Almost everybody did, in the last century +except the lawyers, something of a legal education being necessary +to see the propriety of establishing what Adam Smith, while himself +a Commissioner of the Board of Customs, denounced as the outposts of +Pandemonium. When examined before the courts in smuggling cases, the +fishermen contrived occasionally, under an appearance of simplicity, to +baffle with considerable cunning the cross-examinations of the counsel +for the Crown. Public sympathy was, in those days on the side of the +smugglers, who called themselves free-traders, a designation which +has since attained universal honour. The principle of obedience to +law, the sine quâ non of civilisation, is less easily enthroned upon +uneducated consciences than the principle of buying cheap and selling +dear. Lairds, merchants, and workmen, therefore, all admired the cool +duplicity with which the fishers sometimes evaded the truth when under +cross-examinations. Some of them were once witnesses in a case of +deforcement. The counsel for the prosecution asked a fisherman,--“While +the men were struggling in the water, did you not hear the prisoner +call out, ‘Drown the dogs?’” + +“We saw nae dogs there, sir,” was the demure and composed reply. + +“I do not ask you what you saw; but, on your oath, did you not hear him +call out, ‘Drown the dogs?’” + +“There was nae ony dogs there, sir,” was again the obstinate answer. + +Although no man of distinction in science or letters has ever arisen in +any of these villages, it cannot be doubted they have produced many men +whom Poodle or Doodle might have safely trusted upon his legs on the +floor of the House of Commons to answer the questions of honourable and +independent members. + +A century ago the fishers, who were hardy, industrious, decorous, and +honest, were nevertheless inveterate swearers--a fault which I did not +observe among them in an offensive degree in the nineteenth century. +Indeed, I have heard more swearing from two admirals in a London club +than I ever heard in fishing villages. In the last century, however, +the fishers would use the most tremendous oaths upon the most trivial +occasions. Anger was not necessary to provoke them; the oaths seeming +to be as necessary to the hauling up of a lugger, or the pushing out +of a boat, as the cries of “Yo-hee O!” Persons unaccustomed to hear +the strong phrases of swearing, feel their minds shocked by the ideas +conveyed by them, being ignorant that they have ceased to convey ideas +to the persons who use them. When a lady rebuked one of them for using +the word deil (devil), he said, + +“Eh! mem, I didna think it meant ony ill. Does it mean ony ill? I +thocht it was just a word to dad” (knock) “aboot.” + +The wrath of these good-natured and kind-hearted people was notoriously +harmless. Stabs were unknown, and blows rare among them, but the +language of their vituperation was expressive and opprobrious. My +informant has seen a woman in a passion take up a handful of burning +coals, and lay them down without seeming to feel pain. Ladies drilled +in the control of their gestures, if not of their feelings, in +boarding-schools, witnessed, with great astonishment, the violence +with which the women expressed grief and lamentation. The boats were +frequently in great danger in crossing the bar, and on these occasions +the women assembled upon the beach would tear their hair, clap their +hands, and utter piercing cries and shrieks. The simple and natural +principles upon which their marriages were formed, the chastity and +honour in which the married fishers lived, and the connubial and +family happiness of their homes, may explain, in part, the violence +of the emotions and the exuberance of the gestures of the wives when +their husbands were in danger. A fashionable dame of London related +sarcastically that she had known a fisherwoman of the Scotch east +coast who required four men to keep her from throwing herself over the +rocks when her drowned husband was carried into her cottage, become +calm in a fortnight, recommence work in a month, and marry again in a +twelvemonth. The poor child of nature had no sentiment! + +The marriages of the fishers were as natural and simple as the unions +of Isaac with Rebekah and Boaz with Ruth. Perversions about dowries, +pin-money, establishments, and settlements, did not interfere with the +natural action of mutual interest and honest preference. They married +young. The young man and young woman had probably played together in +childhood. Running, leaping, tumbling, paddling, laughing, the children +of the fishers are as joyous as their fathers are serious; and if their +mothers could not match them against the children of the Tuileries’ +Gardens, or of St. James’s Park, in point of pretty costumes, they +could challenge the world for them in regard to the healthiness of +their respiratory organs and the glee of their animal spirits. The boys +and girls soon become useful, the elder children being early employed +to nurse the younger. Both boys and girls thus grow up in systematic +training for the performance of the duties of their lives. + +The boy or lad went out to sea with the men, and worked at the oar +until he got enough of money to buy a share of a boat--and a boat +with its nets costs from a hundred and fifty to two hundred pounds. +When he had a share of a boat, he required some one to bait his lines +and sell his fish. Among the girls he knew, and whose tempers he had +tested in play, he naturally selected the girl he liked best, and asked +her first; and then, perhaps, like Kepler, the great astronomer, he +had a list in his mind, and asked one girl after another until he was +accepted. On the other hand, it is probable the principles of affinity +may sometimes have been in operation for years, and the boat may have +been a greater difficulty than the wife. As soon as they were betrothed +by the consent and blessings of the old folks, the young woman went +to live with her future father and mother-in-law for a week or two, +and in the house with the young man. No doubt she had been taught by +her own mother to search for bait, to tip and bait the lines, and do +all manner of household work; but the fisher-people judged wisely she +would be all the better for knowing all her mother-in-law could teach +her; and her husband would be likely to think all the more of her for +being as clever as his own mother could make her. A few days prior to +the marriage, she returned to her father’s roof, and the ceremony took +place in the house of her childhood. After the ceremony, the young +couple went to a house of their own. They went in procession from the +paternal to the connubial home. A fiddler playing merry strains, headed +the procession, and he was followed by a boat-mate of the bridegroom, +carrying the flag of the boat. When the bride arrived before the door +of the home of her husband, his boat-mates rolled their flag around +her. The spectators witnessed the ceremony in silence until she was +enveloped in the folds, and then they applauded the actors in it with +loud and long cheers. The ceremony seemed to be a public intimation +that the young wife was henceforth placed within the sanctuary of the +honour of the crew, who engaged themselves solemnly to protect her from +insult and injury, as brave men defend their flag. + +When a young couple had not money enough to pay for the share of the +boat, the furnishing of the house, and the expenses of the wedding, +they had what was called a penny-wedding. There was nothing royal or +aristocratic in a penny-wedding, to which any one might come who chose +to pay a shilling. The significance and rationale of the penny-wedding +was this: “We are a couple of young people who think it better to +marry than to do worse, and we deem it foolish and wicked to begin the +world with debt. We therefore invite you, good neighbours, to amuse +yourselves by dancing at our marriage, and, by paying as generously +as may be convenient for the amusement, help us to begin the world +with a fair chance of making both ends meet.” A common argument in +favour of the penny-wedding was: the young man wants ten pounds of +his share of the boat, and many persons gave their money who never +went to the dances. The canvas for the penny-wedding took place among +the carpenters, coopers, and sailors of the port; and employers, +shopkeepers, ship-owners, and captains had generally a half-crown to +spare for the young couple. The dinner at a penny-wedding consisted +of abundance of meat and Scotch broth, served in broad pewter dishes. +After dinner, the party adjourned to the links or downs, to dance “the +shame dance;” and then they danced until they were tired. Known bad +characters were inexorably excluded, decorum rigorously maintained, +and “liberties” would have been indeed dangerous in a community in +which every woman lived under the protection of a flag and at least +half-a-score of hard fists. A severe critic of propriety would not +probably have approved the amount of public kissing at a penny-wedding. +Indeed, in this respect, Footdee resembled more the Court of the Neva +than the Courts of the Thames or of the Seine; but in regard to the +moral essentials of the problem of life, if there be a word of truth +in court chronicles, the courtiers and courted of all the three royal +rivers might have learned lessons from the Coast Folk of Footdee. + + + + +CHIP. + +THE CONGRESSIONAL PRIZE-RING. + + +The forcible mode in which debates are conducted in the parliament of +the United States, and the personal encounters which sometimes follow +them, are believed by the present generation, to be novelties and only +recently brought to a culminating point by the Honourable Preston +S. Brooks’s life-preserver, upon the head, face, eyes, and body of +Senator Charles Sumner. This is a mistake. Fifty years ago, exciting +debates often ended in a regular stand-up fight in the lobby of the +House of Representatives. The combatants stripped, a ring was formed, +bottle-holders appointed, and the battle fought and reported quite in +the style of Moulsey Hurst and Bell’s Life in London. + +In corroboration of this statement we present to our readers the +following paragraph copied from the New York Evening Post of December +the thirteenth, eighteen hundred and five, into the Annual Register for +eighteen hundred and six:-- + + On Friday last, the well-known Leib, one of the representatives + of Pennsylvania, and the leader of the Duane party, and Joseph H. + Nicholson, one of the representatives of Maryland, met in the Congress + lobby about one o’clock, when Leib immediately called Nicholson + a liar; and, thereupon, commenced one of the best fought battles + recorded in the annals of congressional pugilism. The fight continued + till the sixty-fourth round, when Leib had received such blows as + deterred him from again facing his man. He protracted the fight; + falling after making a feeble hit. In the round which ended the fight, + those who backed him advised him to resign; which he did after a + combat of one hour and seventeen minutes. The combatants were both + very much beaten. + + + + +CHARLES THE FIFTH’S GLOVE. + + +There are few foreign trips, for English holiday-makers, that answer +better than a run into Belgium. Belgium is easily got at, and easily +left. Its features are varied and not vast. You can explore its +interior, inspect its circumference, and take the whole of it in, +without being tired. It is a pocket kingdom. Instead of wearing your +patience, as France does, when you are in a hurry to get from one +end of it to the other, you can dart across it with the ease of a +swallow skimming over the Isle of Wight. Moreover, Belgium is rich in +matters of interest considerably beyond the proportions of its size. +It gives you the idea of an originally extensive country, which has +been subjected, like an ungainly truss of hay, to hydraulic pressure. +For its area, it feeds a very large population. The district of St. +Nicholas, near Ghent, carries five thousand two hundred and ten +souls per square league--the space required, in savage life, for the +maintenance of a single individual. The large towns lie so close +together, that, as soon as you have done with one, by entering a +railway carriage you are landed in another in two, three, four, or five +quarters of an hour. + +A lovely May morning blesses, with its lucky omen, our approach to +the frontier. All nature smiles as we glide along. The orchards +are bedecked in white, pink, and green. Get ready your tubs, O +cyder-drinkers, the apple-trees promise you a plentiful supply! +Remember, however, that there’s many a slip between the apple-blossom +and the lip. The sower strides over the well-powdered earth with +measured step, and with white apron heavily laden. “Take that, old +lady,” he mentally exclaims, as each handful is scattered, “and give +me fifty-fold back again.” The cows in the meadows lie basking in the +sun, with their feet doubled under them. They are chewing the cud, +to give the grass a short respite, and to allow it a little time to +grow in peace. The homesteads are overtopped by clumps of poplars, +whose young and maidenly leaves blush ruddy pink at the touch of +the sunbeam. On the skirts of the forest are prudent oaks, who are +waiting till the blackthorn winter is over, before they put on their +summer fashions. Along the road which crosses our railway come Flemish +wagons, like triumphal cars in the processions of Ceres, and not of +Bacchus, but of the twin gods Baccy and Beer. And so we rush over a +flat fertile land, till we pass Roubaix, a wilderness of bricks and +mortar. Tourcoing also, and ditto; both very rural in their aspect for +manufacturing towns, and with atmospheres that Bradford and Leeds might +envy. At Mouscron, we are safely over the border. The custom-house +officers, I suppose, are ordered to ascertain whether new arrivals are +personally cleanly in their habits; for, as soon as they have inspected +my oiled-silk sponge-bag, my comb, and my bit of soap (which latter +they don’t supply you with at inns), they tell me I may lock up our +baggage again. It is too bad that they should rumple Mademoiselle’s +muslin-dress, with which she intends to make a sensation, into a wisp, +and should further annoy her by calling her Madame; but they are not a +bad set of fellows on the whole, nor wanting in a certain cordiality +of manner. They look at my passport, enter it in their book, and then +bid me good morning by name, as if they had known me for the last ten +years. They are Flemings, no doubt. You may know a Flemish man or woman +by the friendly vocatives with which they interlard their conversation. +Mon ami or mon cher ami is ever on their lips, while addressing you. +“What are you looking for, my friend?” asked a market-woman, whom +I had never in my life seen before--unless, perhaps, twenty years +ago, when she must have been a little girl. “I want half a hundred +cauliflower plants,” I replied.--“Ah, my dear friend, you won’t find +that for another fortnight. But you’ll come and see me again in another +fortnight; you’ll come to me for them, won’t you, my dear friend?” + +Returned once more to our railway carriage, a change has come over +the spirit of our journey. We lose the red-legged soldiery of France, +exchanging them for others with grey and pepper-and-salt continuations. +The military, too, are men of taller stature, with more flesh upon +their bones. Generally, the Belgians feed better than the natives of +the north of France, and show it in their personal appearance. Piebald +or rusty-brown monks and nuns flutter about and read their breviaries +in greater profusion. Belgium is still a monastic stronghold of +brotherhoods and sisterhoods; and the clergy are struggling hard for an +increase of power. + +The aspect of the country from Mouscron to Ghent is ever rich and +highly cultivated. The crops are mostly grown in ridges, with deep +furrows between them, indicative of a strong clayey loam, but wet. Of +wood, as in France, little is to be seen compared with England, except +where congregated into forests. Here and there are a few plantations of +Scotch firs, set very thick, to spindle them up for poles and railings. + +Railway travelling is cheaper (by something like a third), than in +France, and, consequently much cheaper than in England; children under +eight years of age pay half-price; under three, and in arms, nothing; +but certainly the article you get for your money is inferior in quality +to that furnished by the first-named country. In France every traveller +is allowed sixty pounds (French) of luggage gratis, independent of his +small personalities; in Belgium none at all. Whatever you do not take +into the carriage with you, such as a carpet-bag or basket of moderate +weight, has to be paid for in addition to your ticket. The first-class +carriages are handsome and comfortable, but small. The third-class +chars-à-bancs are open at the sides, exposed to the wind, the rain, and +the snow, which sometimes rake them fore and aft; in inclement weather, +they are not fit to carry sheep and cattle, much less human beings. +Dogs in Belgium pay third-class fare, but are snugly stowed away in +a baggage-wagon. In one of these locomotive pens for men, women, and +tender children, a fat hog might have his health seriously injured as +the consequence of a long day’s journey. + +The State is the sole proprietor of nearly all the Belgian railways; +and while it paternally confers on its subjects the benefit of cheap +circulation and traffic, it might also modify an arrangement which is +no other than unfeeling, and is deficient in that humanity which a +government ought to exercise towards all under its protecting sway, +without reference to wealth or rank. The second-class carriages are +tolerable, with stuffed seats and a little horizontal stripe of +stuffing to ease the back, and ladies may travel in them; but they are +of scant dimensions, very naked inside, and unprovided with any hooks +for hats or caps, or with receptacles for sticks and umbrellas. The +seats are fancifully arranged with a sort of passage left between them, +to give the means of stepping from one to the other, as if you were +occupying a little parlour; but the result is no addition to comfort. +The signal for starting is given, not by the whistle of the engine, but +by a little musical flourish, a tir-ely, consisting of three notes, +blown on his bugle by the conductor of the train. Of the officials, +general civility and obliging behaviour is the rule. The passengers’ +luggage department would be improved by assimilation with the system +adopted in France. But nations are often like wilful children; they +are determined to have a way of their own, for the sake of having it. +They refuse to attend to good advice, because it is counsel given by +another; and they persist in some evidently inconvenient mode of doing +things, merely to show that they are independent agents, and that they +can and will follow their own devices. + +Ghent, with its hundred thousand inhabitants and its considerable +trade, has still the air of a town half-asleep, as if you had caught +it yawning and stretching at half-past three on a summer’s morning. +Its extent is much exaggerated in the current printed descriptions. +Charles the Fifth’s time-honoured pun--“I could put Paris into my Gand” +(that is, my glove)--is apocryphal and highly improbable. If you doubt +it, mount the tower of the beffroi. People who lose their way in a +labyrinth of lanes, always fancy they have travelled over an enormous +area. Now, the map of Ghent puts you in mind of a Medusa’s head, or of +the clustered worms that are taken out into the country, on a sultry +day, to participate in the pleasures of a fishing party. Buy a map of +Ghent, colour the streets blue, the river Escaut yellow, the river Lys +red, and you will have a faithful representation of the famous Gordian +knot, if you happen never to have seen one before. I long wandered +about the streets of Ghent, trying to find the city, and could not. +It is a town made up of bits of west-ends, Faubourg St. Germains, and +fashionable suburbs, with no heart or kernel to it--no Cheapside, no +Ludgate Hill, no Rue de Rivoli, no Rue St. Honoré. There is a slight +recovery of suspended animation in the Marché-aux-Grains and the Rue +des Champs; but the pulse, even there, beats very feebly. The market +tries (when it is not market-day) to manifest its vitality in an +unhealthy, spasmodic way, by book-stalls of amatory literature, over +which a little censorship would be no great tyranny. In the street, to +enter a fashionable lace and embroidery shop, we had to ring at the +glass-door, as if it had been a private house. After waiting, while the +lady up-stairs gave a touch of arrangement to her cap and her hair, +we were duly admitted to make our purchase, much in the style of a +morning call. Elsewhere, in the modern quarters, you see unbroken lines +of large, handsome, well-painted houses, hybrids between a palace and +a ladies’ boarding-school. Business may be transacted therein, but it +is done in the quietest possible way. You see dentelles (lace), or +calicots (calicos), engraved on a neat brass-plate on a house-door, +as if some private individual,--Monsieur Dentelles, or Madame Veuve +Calicots,--were living there on their property, in great state and +dignified retirement. The older portions of the town are decorated +with houses built before the window-tax was born or thought of,--with +quaint, pointed gable ends, as if a child had been trying to cut fancy +conic sections out of a red brick wall. But in whatever direction you +wend your way, you can’t go twenty steps without crossing a bridge. For +the convenience at once of the land-carriage and the canal navigation, +these are swing bridges; often you have to wait while a barge, laden +perhaps with vegetable mould for the pot-plants in training by one of +the Vans,--Van Houtte, Van Schaffelt, or Van Geert,--intercepts the +passage. The time is not exactly lost, because it allows you to stare +about you without rudeness. But soon, the bridge-swinger takes his toll +from the barge, which he collects by means of a wooden shoe at the end +of a string fastened to a fishing-rod; the isthmus of planks is then +replaced, and resounds with the pattering of gros sabots. Certainly, +the popular costume is droll, in its extremes. At top, the women wear +a close-worked cottage hat of straw, with three dabs of blue ribbon +stuck on behind; at foot, they are garnished with masses of hollow +timber, which must be a serious drain on the Belgian forests. But hats +worn by women at the same time with sabots, are, in French eyes, or +in eyes accustomed to France, as utterly anomalous a combination as a +fish-tailed mermaid, or a man-headed centaur are considered, on cool +reflection, by Professor Owen. Conspicuous in the air rise the portly +towers of St. Nicholas, St. Michel, and St. Bavon, around which, and +the lofty houses, multitudinous swifts, whirl and scream, in delight at +the abundance of their insect game. The canals are propitious to the +propagation of gnats. Where is the carcase, there are the vultures; and +where are the gnats, there flock the swifts. + +That the quietude of the town is more apparent than real, and that busy +life is going on within, is plain from the Belgian fashion of sticking +looking-glasses outside the houses, at angles (sometimes they glance +in three directions) which allow the inmates to catch a glimpse of +passers-by, without being seen themselves. “Au Nouveau Miroir,” (the +new looking-glass) is occasionally used as the sign of an inn. The +mirrors are generally on a level with the first-floor; and a smaller +one receives the rays it reflects straight from the entrance door; so +that Not at home is easily responded to the inquiries of a dun, or +worse, a bore. It is not one city alone which adopts the system of +quicksilvered peepers; nor is the custom new, but was probably first +introduced by peculiarities of historical and political situation. In +Belgium, it has not always been convenient to open the door to every +new-comer. + +“If you please, monsieur,” we politely ask, “have the goodness to tell +us which is the way to the Botanic Garden?” + +“N’entends Français,” is the reply, accompanied by a disclamatory shake +of the head. It is a reminder that the Flemish tongue is master here, +in actual fact, if not by legal right. Even the government is obliged +to come to a compromise, and affix the names of the streets to their +corners both in Flemish and in French. The railway porter, who handed +us our luggage, was deaf and dumb as far as we were concerned, and +signed us over to a brother medium. The coachman who drove us to our +inn just comprehended the words “Hôtel de Flandre”--and a capital and +recommendable hotel it is--but he comprehended no more of the further +clever remarks addressed to him. Many of the Gantois who do speak +French manage it so badly, and are so decidedly not at home in it, that +you feel quite delighted at your own superiority to them, born Belgians +though they be. But Flemish has so close a relationship to our own +vernacular, that the names of trades over the shops, the bills, and the +public notices, are as amusing to read as it is to hear a foreigner +speak broken English. Drap Straet is Cloth, or Draper’s Street. One +man sells alle soorte of wares; another offers you cart-grease under +the name of wagen smeer; kelder te huren is cellar to hire; kamer te +huren is chamber to hire. A koperslager is a coppersmith. Professions +which require no interpreter are the bakker, the matte-maeker, the +timmerman, the apotheker en drogiste, and the boekhandlaer. The three +grand literary elements are announced for sale as pennen, inkt, en +papier. If your family is small, you may be content with securing Een +Huis to let; but should you be expecting a large and sudden increase, +you had better engage Twee Huyzen, if adjacent. In the Apelmerkt, you +could hardly mistake the fruit that is sold there. When thirsty, you +may go and drink a glass of dobbel-bier at the hospitable sign of De +Roose; or you may prefer to patronise the Oliphant (without a castle), +or the Bruyn Visch,--that is to say, the Red Herring. Good little boys +and girls punctually attend a zondagschool. Booksellers’ windows invite +you to the perusal of Flemish novels; such as Een Zwanenzang (a swan’s +song), by Jan Van Beers, and De Zending der Vrow (Woman’s Mission), by +Hendrik Conscience. + +“How triste, how sad it is for you not to be able to speak Flemish!” +ejaculated a dame who sold goeden drank, but who could not, though +she would, converse with me. In such cases, it rarely strikes the +tongue-tied Flemings belonging to the portion of society below the +middle-class, that they are like the fox who was minus a tail. They +are content with, and would have other people learn, a language which +confines them, as tightly as a tether fastens a cow, to a few score +square leagues of the earth’s vast superficies. But a striking point +in Flemish popular manners, is the forming themselves into bands +and societies. These little close corporations are perhaps, in some +degree, the result of their narrowly-diffused tongue. And so the +blue-bloused archers of one town go and shoot against the black-capped +long-bows of another, distant a quarter-of-a-day’s pedestrian journey; +the chorus-club of Schoutenhoul will pay a fraternal visit to the +orpheonists of Raspenscraep. In the French army, the French Flemings +hang together like bees at swarming-time. Here at Ghent, the workmen, +even at leisure hours and meal-times, form themselves into companies. +Young people, both girls and boys, run together in distinct and +closely-grouped herds, like flocks of young lambs at the same age. One +would think that babies in Flanders came all at once, in falls, in +imitation of the lambing season with Southdowns and Leicesters. + +But the Botanic garden--where is it? Let us first look at our map, +and then at the corner of the street, and endeavour to pilot our way +thither. In Belgian towns, generally, if you use your eyes with the +slightest expression of inquiring curiosity, up starts a phantom +before you, like a most impertinent Jack-in-the-box, calling himself a +commissionaire, but who must not be confounded with a superior being, +the French commissionaire. Where these creatures come from, I cannot +tell. They suddenly appear before you, as if the air had curdled itself +into human form. Peep into a shop window, and you have one at your +elbow; gaze up at a steeple, and, when you look down, you will find +a commissionaire between your legs; turn the angle of a street, on a +walk of discovery, and round the corner you knock your nose against a +commissionaire. They start from behind doors, down staircases, out of +cellars, from the dark mouths of narrow lanes; and I believe that, upon +inquiry, they would be found now and then to drop from the roofs. They +follow you about with the hungry look of a beast of prey, regarding +you as the game on their preserve, and themselves as very forbearing +to spare you a little while. I do not say that no respectable man +exercises the calling of commissionaire; but, whenever such jewels are +found, they ought to be set in sterling gold. In age, they vary from +sixteen to sixty. They deal in cigars, and have often a select female +acquaintance. They are mostly seedy in garment, cloudy in complexion, +uncleanly in person, offensive in breath, jargonic in speech, forward +in manner, and given to drink. Commissionaires attach themselves to +every hotel, as leeches hang to the side of their vessel, ready to +fix on anything that has blood or money to yield; and these consider +themselves the head of their profession. But there are wandering +commissionaires who prowl about the streets, willing to make themselves +useful in any way--too useful, at times, many people might think. + +One fellow, who pleaded his large family at home, and whom I took for +an hour or two to get over the ground more quickly, disappeared every +time we came to anything that required more than a minute to examine. +Each disappearance had for its object the injection of a dram into his +weakly stomach, which relieved me from listening to his account of +the lions. But, after a little unsteadiness, he tripped and tumbled +on the ground, and concluded by running into an iron post with a +violence that must have done serious damage to the post. I confess to a +prejudice against Belgian commissionaires, and never employ them when +I can help it. They attack you in the very churches. “You won’t leave +the cathedral without paying the concièrge,” was the parting remark +of a young commissionaire whose services I persisted in declining; +and, while hunting for the Botanic garden, I can’t proceed without +interruption, but am obliged to say to a person who continually crosses +my path, “I have already told you three times I do not want you. Cannot +you take an answer, and leave me to myself?” + +The garden, when found at last, is a painful instead of a pleasurable +sight, and must be far from gratifying to the citizens of Ghent. It +is a warning to avoid, and not an example to follow, as all botanic +gardens ought to be. The hardy perennials are the only plants in good +condition; among these is a remarkable Andromeda arborea. The enormous +carp, rising and sinking in their pond, are a lingering remnant of +former prosperity. In the houses, dirt, dust, thrips, scale, red +spider, and aphis, threaten to get the upper hand, and to establish +their dynasty on a permanent footing. A fine Doum palm, in a handsome +but filthy cage of glass, excites pity by its wretched want of comfort. +Other unhappy captives, lank and lean, bald and mangy, beg hard for +some one to have compassion on them. There are many noble specimens in +a deplorable way. + +Two small-leaved standard myrtles, in boxes, cannot be less than a +hundred and fifty or two hundred years old. Their trunks measure +thirteen or fourteen inches in circumference; it would be difficult to +find many such in Europe. A leading English nurseryman has endeavoured +to get them across the water; it is a pity he cannot, for they would +be properly cared for here. There are many other far-from-every-day +myrtles, which the head of the establishment seems trying hard to kill. +He is the Celestine Doudet of greenhouse evergreens; his pupils do not +thrive; his oleanders are in the last stage of suffering. The alleged +excuse is want of sufficient accommodation and hands; but when a thing +is to be done, it is not a bad plan to do it yourself. Had I such +handsome orange trees, so neglected, so begrimed with soot, I would get +up at three in the morning, and, in my shirt-sleeves, with an apron +on, with a bucket of soapsuds and a sponge in hand, would mount an A +ladder and work away, day after day, till the task was done. But are +there no such things as garden engines in Ghent? A Victoria, in a tank, +contrives to wash itself partially, though tattered and torn about the +leaves; but it is not clear what business a pit of pine-apples has in a +place for study, where scantiness of room is complained of. One plant, +or two, are all right and proper, but a botanical lecturer does not +want a crop of anything. + +Near the entrance of the garden stands a vase, conspicuously mounted on +a pedestal, in which grows what the official who did the honours was +pleased to point out as a rose-bush grafted on an oak-tree. I shook my +head in disgust at the falsehood. “Look,” he insisted, “the stem is +an oak-stem, the side branches are covered with oak-leaves, and the +central twig is the rose which has been grafted in the middle. You can +see that its leaves are rose-leaves, can’t you?--and it is full of buds +coming into flower.” + +“No, no; it is only a trick,” I answered, without apologising for +flatly contradicting him. “You have perforated the stem of the oak from +the root to the top; through the tube thus made you have inserted the +stem of a rooted rose-bush; but there is no union between the two, like +the junction of a scion with the stock. It grows independently in the +earth, as the oak-plant does, although encased within it; and you call +that grafting a rose on an oak, which I am gardener enough to know to +be impossible.” + +“Ah! you know that. You have found it out. And yet, many people, when +they see this specimen, go away persuaded that we have succeeded in +grafting a rose on an oak.” + +I made no further remark than my looks expressed; but I thought +that botanic gardens were instituted for the teaching of accurate +information and useful facts, and not to mislead ignorant persons and +to propagate error. An educational establishment, subsidised partly +by the government and partly by the town, forgets its duties when +it blazons forth a charlatanism which would upset the principles of +vegetable physiology and stultify the hard-earned acquirements of +science. + + On the 18th of July was published, price Five Shillings and Sixpence, + neatly bound in cloth, + + THE THIRTEENTH VOLUME + OF + HOUSEHOLD WORDS, + + Containing the Numbers issued between the Nineteenth of January and + the Twelfth of July, Eighteen Hundred and Fifty-six. + + Complete sets of Household Words may always be had. + + +_The Right of Translating Articles from_ HOUSEHOLD WORDS +_is reserved by the Authors_. + + +Published at the Office, No. 16, Wellington Street North, Strand. +Printed by BRADBURY & EVANS, Whitefriars, London. + + + + +TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES + +This is from Volume XIV of the series. + +New original cover art included with this eBook is granted +to the public domain. + +Transcriber has generated a Table of Contents. + +This file uses _underscores_ to indicate italic text. + +This file uses =equal signs= to indicate boldface text. + +Itemized changes from the original text: + + On page 1, changed “for” to “for.”, + near “morsel of luck to be thankful” + On page 1, changed “bed-side” to “bedside”, + near “the chair by her” + On page 4, changed “sweet-heart” to “sweetheart”, + near “with a farthing. My” + On page 8, changed “be” to “he”, + near “wrings from poor people” + On page 20, changed “bird” to “Bird”, + near “or The Bird of St. Martin” + On page 29, changed “melody!"” to “melody!”, + near “and an echo of” + On page 29, changed “again!"” to “again!”, + near “reap but tears and griefs” + On page 42, changed “third class” to “third-class”, + near “chars-à-bancs are open at the side” + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 77354 *** |