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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78170 ***
+
+
+“_Familiar in their Mouths as HOUSEHOLD WORDS._”—SHAKESPEARE.
+
+
+
+
+                            HOUSEHOLD WORDS.
+                           A WEEKLY JOURNAL.
+
+                     CONDUCTED BY CHARLES DICKENS.
+
+
+        N^{o.} 6.]      SATURDAY, MAY 4, 1850.      [PRICE 2_d._
+
+
+
+
+                        THE HEART OF MID-LONDON.
+
+
+It was with singular pride that Mr. Thomas Bovington of Long Hornets,
+Bucks, viewed his first ‘lot’ of fat bullocks as they filed their way
+out of his stock-yard towards the nearest Station of the North Western
+Railway. They were so sleek, so well fed, and so well behaved, that they
+turned out of their stalls with the solemn sobriety of animals attending
+their own funeral. Except a few capers cut by a lively West Highlander,
+they sauntered along like beasts who had never had a care in their
+lives. For how were they to know that the tips of their horns pointed to
+that bourne from whence few bovine travellers return—Smithfield?
+Smithfield, the Heart of Mid-London, the flower of the capital—the true,
+original, London-Pride, always in full bloom! A merciful ignorance
+blinded them to the fact that, the master who had fed and pampered them
+with indulgent industry—who had administered their food out of the
+scientific dietaries of Liebig; who had built their sheds after the
+manner of Huxtable; who had stalled and herded them in imitation of
+Pusey; who had littered them out of ‘Stevens’s Book of the Farm’—was
+about, with equal care and attention to their comfort, to have them
+converted into cash, and then into beef.
+
+This was Mr. Bovington’s first transaction in bullocks. Since his
+retirement from Northampton (where he made a small fortune by tanning
+the hides he now so assiduously filled out), he had devoted his time,
+his capital, and his energy to stock-farming. His sheep had always sold
+well; so well indeed, that he had out-stocked the local markets; and, on
+the previous morning, had driven off a threescore flock to the same
+destination and on the same tragic errand, as that of his oxen. His
+success in the production of mutton had given him courage: he had,
+therefore, soared to beef. Only the Thursday before a neighbouring
+farmer had pronounced of his herd to his face, that ‘a primer lot of
+beasts he never see—nowheres.’
+
+Mr. Bovington had several hours to spare before the passenger-train was
+due in which he intended to follow his cattle. Like a thrifty man he
+spent a part of it over his stock-book, to settle finally at what figure
+he could afford to sell. He was an admirable book-keeper; he could tell
+to an ounce how much oil-cake each ox had devoured, to a root how many
+beets; and, to a wisp, how much straw had been used for litter. The
+acreage of pasture was, also, minutely calculated. The result was, that
+Mr. Bovington could find in an instant the cost price of each stone of
+the flesh that had just departed of its own motion towards the shambles.
+
+To a mercenary mind; to a man whose whole soul is ground down to
+considerations of mere profit (considerations which many profound
+politico-philosophers deplore as entering too largely into the
+agricultural mind) the result of Mr. Bovington’s comparison of the cost
+with the present market prices, would have been extremely
+unsatisfactory. What he had produced at about 3_s._ 9_d._ per stone, he
+found by the ‘Marklane Express’ was ‘dull at 3_s._ 6_d._, sinking the
+offal.’ Neither had the season been favourable for sheep—at least, not
+for _his_ sheep—and by them, too, he would be a loser. But what of that?
+Mr. Bovington’s object was less profit than fame. As a beginner, he
+wanted to establish a first-class character in the market; and, that
+obtained, it would be time enough to turn his attention to the economics
+of feeding and breeding. With what pride would he hear the praises of
+those astute critics, the London butchers, as they walked round and
+round, pinching and punching each particular ox, enumerating his various
+good points, and contrasting it with the meaner, leaner stock of the
+mere practical graziers! With what confidence he could command the top
+price, and with what certainty he could maintain it for his ‘lots’ in
+future!
+
+Mr. Bovington was as merciful as he was above immediate gain. He could
+not trust the stock he had nurtured and fed, to the uncontrolled
+dominion of drovers. Though hurried to their doom, he would take care
+that they should be killed ‘comfortably.’ He considered this as a sacred
+duty, else he—who was a pattern to the parish—would not have thus
+employed himself on a Sunday. As he took his ticket at the station, the
+chimes for evening service had just struck out. His conscience smote
+him. As his eye roved over the peaceful glades of Long Hornets, on which
+the evening sun was lowering his beams, he contrasted the holy Sabbath
+calm with the scene of excitement into which he was voluntarily plunging
+himself. As a kind of salve to his troubled mind, he determined to pay
+extra care and attention to the comfort of his cattle.
+
+His consignment was to remain, till Smithfield market opened at eleven
+o’clock on the Sunday night, at the Islington lairs. Thither Mr.
+Bovington repaired—on landing at the Euston Station—in a very fast cab.
+On his way, he calculated what the cost would be of all the fodder, all
+the water, and all the attendance, which his sheep and oxen would have
+received during their temporary sojourn. The first question he put,
+therefore, to the drover on arriving at the lairs, was:
+
+“What’s to pay?”
+
+“Wot for?”
+
+“Why,” replied the amateur grazier, “for the feed of my sheep since last
+night!”
+
+“Feed!” repeated the man with staring wonder. “Who ever heerd of feedin’
+markit sheep? Why, they’ll be killed on Monday or Tuesday, won’t they?”
+
+“If sold.”
+
+“Well they’ll never want no more wittles, will they?”
+
+“But they have had nothing since Saturday!”
+
+“What on it! Sheep as comes to Smithfield _never_ has no feed, has
+they?”
+
+“Nor water either?” said Mr. Bovington.
+
+“_I_ should think not!” replied the drover.
+
+As he spoke, he drove the point of his goad into the backs of each of a
+shorn flock that happened to be passing. He had no business with them,
+but it was a way he had.
+
+With sorrowful eyes, Mr. Bovington sought out his own sheep. Poor
+things! They lay closely packed, with their tongues out, panting for
+suction; for they were too weak to bleat. He would have given any money
+to relieve them; but relief no money could buy.
+
+Mr. Bovington was glad to find his bullocks in better plight. To them,
+fodder and drink had been sparingly supplied, but they were wedged in so
+tightly that they had hardly room to breathe. Their good looks—which had
+cost him so much expenditure of oil-cake, and anxiety, and for which he
+had expected so much praise from buyers—would be quite gone before they
+got to Smithfield.
+
+“It aint o’ no use a fretting,” said the master drover, “your’n aint no
+worse off nor t’others. What you’ve got to do, is, to git to bed, and
+meet me in the markit at four.” Naming a certain corner.
+
+“Well,” said Mr. Bovington, seeing there was no help for it, “let it be
+so; but I trust you will take care to get my lots driven down by humane
+drovers.”
+
+Mr. Whelter—that was the master-drover’s name—assented, in a manner that
+showed he had not the remotest idea what a humane driver was, or where
+the article was to be found.
+
+Mr. Bovington could get no rest, and went his way towards the market,
+long before the time appointed. Before he came within sight of
+Smithfield, a din as of a noisy Pandemonium filled his ears. The
+shouting of some of the drovers, the shrill whistle of others, the
+barking of dogs, the bleating of sheep, and the lowing of cattle, were
+the natural expressions of a crowded market; but, added to these, were
+other sounds, which made Mr. Bovington shudder—something between the
+pattering of a tremendous hailstorm, and the noise of ten thousand games
+of single stick played, all at once, in sanguinary earnest.
+
+He was not a particularly nervous man, and did not shudder without
+reason. When he came into the market, he saw at a glance enough to know
+that. He stood looking about him in positive horror.
+
+To get the bullocks into their allotted stands, an incessant punishing
+and torturing of the miserable animals—a sticking of prongs into the
+tender part of their feet, and a twisting of their tails to make the
+whole spine teem with pain—was going on: and this seemed as much a part
+of the market, as the stones in its pavement. Across their horns, across
+their hocks, across their haunches, Mr. Bovington saw the heavy blows
+rain thick and fast, let him look where he would. Obdurate heads of
+oxen, bent down in mute agony; bellowing heads of oxen lifted up,
+snorting out smoke and slaver; ferocious men, cursing and swearing, and
+belabouring oxen; made the place a panorama of cruelty and suffering. By
+every avenue of access to the market, more oxen were pouring in:
+bellowing, in the confusion, and under the falling blows, as if all the
+church-organs in the world were wretched instruments—all there—and all
+being tuned together. Mixed up with these oxen, were great flocks of
+sheep, whose respective drovers were in agonies of mind to prevent their
+being intermingled in the dire confusion; and who raved, shouted,
+screamed, swore, whooped, whistled, danced like savages; and,
+brandishing their cudgels, laid about them most remorselessly. All this
+was being done, in a deep red glare of burning torches, which were in
+themselves a strong addition to the horrors of the scene; for the men
+who were arranging the sheep and lambs in their miserably confined pens,
+and forcing them to their destination through alleys of the most
+preposterously small dimensions, constantly dropped gouts of the blazing
+pitch upon the miserable creatures’ backs; and to smell the singeing and
+burning, and to see the poor things shrinking from this roasting,
+inspired a sickness, a disgust, a pity and an indignation, almost
+insupportable. To reflect that the gate of St. Bartholomew’s Hospital
+was in the midst of this devilry, and that such a monument of years of
+sympathy for human pain should stand there, jostling this disgraceful
+record of years of disregard of brute endurance—to look up at the faint
+lights in the windows of the houses where the people were asleep, and to
+think that some of them had been to Public Prayers that Sunday, and had
+typified the Divine love and gentleness, by the panting, footsore
+creature, burnt, beaten, and needlessly tormented there, that night, by
+thousands—suggested truths so inconsistent and so shocking, that the
+Market of the Capital of the World seemed a ghastly and blasphemous
+Nightmare.
+
+“Does this happen _every_ Monday morning?” asked the horror-stricken
+denizen of Long Hornets, of a respectable-looking man.
+
+“This?” repeated the stranger. “Bless you! This is nothing to what it is
+sometimes.” He then turned to a passing drover, who was vainly trying to
+get some fifty sheep through a pen-alley calculated for the easy passage
+of twenty. “How many are spoke for to-night, Ned?”
+
+“How many? Why five-and-twenty-thousand sheep, and forty-one-hundred
+beasts.”
+
+“Ah! no more than an ordinary market, Sir,” said Mr. Bovington’s new
+friend; “yet you see and hear what’s now going on to wedge these numbers
+in. And it stands to reason, if you’ve got to jam together a fourth more
+animals than there is space for, there _must_ be cruelty.”
+
+“How much legitimate accommodation is there?” asked Mr. Bovington.
+
+“There are pens for two-and-twenty-thousand sheep and they can tie up
+twenty-seven-hundred beasts. Well! you hear; room has already been
+‘spoke for,’ or bespoken, for three-thousand more sheep and
+fourteen-hundred more cattle than there is proper space for.”
+
+“What becomes of the surplus?”
+
+“The beasts are formed, in the thoroughfares and in the outskirts of the
+market, into what we call ‘off-droves;’ and the sheep wait outside,
+anywhere, till they can get in.”
+
+Here the conversation was interrupted by a sudden increase in the
+demoniacal noises. Opposite the speakers, was a row of panting oxen,
+each fastened by a slip-noose to a rail, as closely as their heads could
+be jammed together. Some more were being tied up, and one creature had
+just escaped. Instantly a dozen hoarse voices yelled:
+
+“Out! out! out!”
+
+The cry was echoed by a dozen others.
+
+“Out! out! out!”
+
+A wild hunt followed, and then a shower of blows on the back, horns and
+sides, of the luckless truant. The concentrated punishment of two dozen
+drovers’ sticks made the bull too glad to resume its original station.
+It was then tied up, so tightly, that the swelled tongue protruded. That
+the poor brute should be rendered powerless for motion for some time to
+come, it was ‘hocked;’—that is to say, tremendous blows were inflicted
+on its hind legs till it was completely hobbled.
+
+Mr. Bovington was glad it was not one of his bullocks. “Are _many_
+strangled by these tight nooses?” he asked.
+
+“A good many in the course of the year, I should say. All the rails are
+full now, and the off-droves are beginning.”
+
+The battle raged faster and more furious than ever. In order to make the
+most of the room, they were forming ‘ring-droves;’ that is, punishing
+the animals till a certain number had turned all their heads together so
+as to form the inside of a circle—which at last they did, to avoid the
+blows inflicted on them. Mr. Bovington’s blood ran cold as he witnessed
+the cruelty necessary for this evolution. After every imaginable torment
+had been practised, to get them into the right position, a stray head
+would occasionally protrude—where a tail should be—on the outside of the
+ring. Tremendous blows were then repeated on the nose, neck, and horns,
+till the tortured animal could turn; and when he succeeded, the goad was
+‘jobbed’ into his flanks till he could wedge himself in, so as to form
+his own proper radius of the dense circle.
+
+“I have often seen their haunches streaming with blood,” said Mr.
+Bovington’s companion, “before they could get into the ring. Why, a
+friend of mine, a tanner at Kenilworth, was actually obliged to leave
+off buying hides that came out of this market, because they were covered
+with holes that had been bored in the live animals by the Smithfield
+drovers. He called these skins Smithfield Cullanders.”
+
+“Cruel wretches!”
+
+“Well,” said the stranger, thoughtfully, “I can’t blame _them_. I have
+known them forty years——”
+
+“You are a salesman?”
+
+“I _was_; but they worried me out of the market, for trying to get it
+removed, and for giving evidence against it before Parliament.”
+
+Mr. Brumpton (that was the name of the ousted salesman) did a little
+fattening, now, on a few acres near London; and came occasionally to
+Smithfield to buy and sell in a small way,—just, in fact, as Mr.
+Bovington had begun to do.
+
+“Well,” he continued, “I can’t lay all the blame on the drovers. What
+can they do? If they have got one hundred beasts to wedge into a space
+only big enough for seventy, they _must_ be cruel. Even the labour their
+cruelty costs themselves is terrible. I have often seen drovers’ men
+lying on the steps of doors, quite exhausted. None of them ever live
+long.”
+
+“How many are there?”
+
+“About nine-hundred-and-fifty—licensed.”
+
+A deafening hullabaloo arose again. A new ring-drove was being begun,
+close by. Bovington threw up his hands in horror, when he saw that some
+of his cherished cattle were to become members of it. The lively West
+Highlander was struggling fiercely against his fate; but in vain: he was
+goaded, beaten, and worried with dogs, till forced into the ring.
+
+Bovington hastened to the appointed corner, to expostulate with Mr.
+Whelter.
+
+“How can _I_ help it!” was that individual’s consolation. “I spoke for
+_all_ your beasts; but there was only room for seven on ’em to be tied
+up; so the rest on ’em is in off-droves. Where else _can_ they be?”
+
+“And my sheep?”
+
+“Couldn’t get none on ’em in. They’re a waiting in the ‘Ram’ Yard, till
+the sales empties some of the pens. You’ll find ’em in the first floor.”
+
+“What! Up stairs?”
+
+“Ah, in the one-pair back.”
+
+Mr. Bovington elbowed his way to the Ram Inn, to confirm by his eyes
+what he could not believe with his ears. Sure enough he found his
+favourite ‘New Leicesters’ a whole flight of stairs above ground. How
+they had ever been got up, or how they were ever to be got down,
+surpassed his ingenuity to conjecture.
+
+At length there was pen-room; and sorely were Mr. Bovington’s feelings
+tried. When his little flock were got into the market, they met, and
+were mixed with, the sold flocks that were going out. Confusion was now
+worse confounded. The beating, the goading, the bustling, the shouting;
+the bleating of the sheep; the short, sharp, snarling of the dogs; above
+all, the stentorian oaths and imprecations of the drovers,—no human
+imagination, unaided by the reality, could conceive. Several flocks were
+intermixed, in a manner that made correct separation seem impossible;
+but while Mr. Bovington shuddered at all this cruelty and
+wickedness—SOLELY PRODUCED BY WANT OF SPACE, AND BY THE PREVIOUS DRIVING
+THROUGH THE STREETS—he could not help admiring the instinct of the dogs,
+and the ingenuity of the men, in lessening the confusion—the former
+watching intently their masters’ faces for orders, and flying over the
+backs of the moving floor of wool, to execute them.
+
+“Go for ’em, Bob!”
+
+Like lightning the dog belonging to the drover of Bovington’s sheep,
+dashed over their backs, and he beheld the ear of a favourite wether
+between its teeth. By some magic, however, this significant style of
+ear-wigging directed the sheep into the alley that led to the empty
+pens; and the others were pushed, punched, goaded, and thrashed, till
+each score was jammed into the small enclosures, as tight as figs in a
+drum.
+
+“They seem a nice lot,” said Mr. Brumpton, who had followed the new
+seller; “but how is it possible for the best butcher in London to tell
+what they are, in a wedge like this. Can he know how they will cut up,
+after the punishment they have had? Impossible: and what’s the
+consequence? Why, he will deduct ten or fifteen per cent. from your
+price for bruised meat. It is the same with bullocks.”
+
+Mr. Bovington, at this hint, reverted to his herd of cattle with a fresh
+pang. Crammed, rammed, and jammed as they were between raw-boned
+Lincolnshires and half-fed Herefords—a narrow bristling grove of gaunt
+shoeing-horns—how could his customers see and appreciate the fine
+‘points’ of his fancy stock? He had worked for Fame; yet, however loud
+her blast, who could hear it above the crushing din of Smithfield?
+
+Mr. Bovington, having returned to the rendezvous, leaned against a
+cutler’s door-post—where there was an old grindstone outside (which the
+market-people, by much sharpening of their knives upon it, had worn
+away, like an old cheese)—in profound rumination. He was at a dead lock.
+He could not sell all his stock, and he could not withdraw it; for it
+was so fearfully deteriorated from the treatment it had got, that he
+felt sure the recovery of many of his sheep and oxen would be very
+doubtful. The best thing he could wish for them was speedy death; and,
+for himself, sales at any price.
+
+His reflections were interrupted by the pleasing information, that
+although some of his beasts that were tied up had been sold at the top
+price, only a few of those in the off-droves could find customers at the
+second, because the butchers could not get to see them. “And you see
+they _will_ have the pull of the market, if they can get it.”
+
+Mr. Bovington looked unutterable despair, and told the salesman
+emphatically to _sell_.
+
+“It don’t matter to him,” said Brumpton, who was again at poor
+Bovington’s elbow, “what the animals fetch. Sold for much or little, the
+salesman’s profit don’t vary—4_s._ a head for beasts, and from 10_s._ to
+13_s._ a score for sheep, at whatever price he sells. That’s the system
+here, and it don’t improve the profits of the grazier. Why should _he_
+care what you get, or lose?”
+
+Towards the close of the market, Mr. Bovington perceived, that if it
+cost the animals intense torture to be got into their allotted places,
+it took unmitigated brutality to get them out again. The breaking up of
+a ring-drove might have made a treat for Nero; but honest Mr. Bovington
+had had enough. He retired from the arena of innumerable bull-fights in
+a state of mind in which disgust very much preponderated over personal
+disappointment. “And mentioning bull-fights,” thought he to himself,
+“Upon my life! I don’t think we are so much better than those people in
+Spain after all, while we stand this sort of thing, and eat our dinners,
+and make our wills.”
+
+Mr. Brumpton and he determined to breakfast together, at the ‘Catherine
+Wheel,’ in St. John Street.
+
+“What remedy do you propose for these horrors?” asked our dejected
+friend.
+
+“A market in the suburbs,” was the answer.
+
+“But look at the rapidity with which London spreads. How long will you
+guarantee that any site you may select will remain ‘out of Town?’”
+
+“Ah, that’s the difficulty,” said Brumpton. “In 1808, it was proposed to
+remove the market to the ‘open fields’—Clerkenwell-fields; but, twenty
+years afterwards, there was not a blade of grass to be seen near the
+place. It was covered with bricks and mortar. Rahere-street—in the midst
+of a dense neighbourhood—now stands on the very spot that was suggested.
+Again, only last year a field between Camden-town and Holloway was
+proposed; but since then, houses have been built up to the very hedge
+that incloses it.”
+
+“Islington market seems not to answer.”
+
+“No; _I_ think it lies too low. They can’t drain it properly.”
+
+“What is to be done, then?”
+
+“I’ll tell you what I think would be best. Let a good site be fixed
+upon; and don’t rest contented with that. Fence off, also, a certain
+space around it with appropriate approaches. Let these be kept sacred
+from innovating bricks. Deal with a new cattle-market as the Board of
+Health proposes to deal with cemeteries. Isolate it. Allow of no
+buildings, except for market purposes—of no encroachments
+whatever—either upon the area itself or its new approaches.”
+
+Mr. Bovington was about to hazard a remark about abattoirs, when
+deafening cries again arose in the street.
+
+“Mad bull! mad bull! mad bull!” resounded from Smithfield-bars.
+
+“Mad bull! mad bull!” was echoed from the uttermost ends of St. John
+Street.
+
+Bovington looked out of window. A fine black ox was tearing furiously
+along the pavement. Women were screaming and rushing into shops,
+children scrambling out of the road, men hiding themselves in doorways,
+boys in ecstacies of rapture, drovers as mad as the bull tearing after
+him, sheep getting under the wheels of hackney-coaches, dogs half
+choking themselves with worrying the wool off their backs, pigs
+obstinately connecting themselves with a hearse and funeral, other oxen
+looking into public-houses—everybody and everything disorganised, no
+sort of animal able to go where it wanted or was wanted; nothing in its
+right place; everything wrong everywhere; all the town in a brain fever
+because of this infernal market!
+
+The mad bull was Mr. Bovington’s West Highlander. He was quite prepared
+for it. When he saw him going round the corner, and at the same moment
+beheld a nursemaid, a baby, and a baked potato-can, fly into the air in
+opposite directions, he was horrified, but not surprised. He followed
+his West Highlander. He followed the crowd tearing after his West
+Highlander, down St. John Street, through Jerusalem-passage, along
+Clerkenwell Green, up a hill, and down an alley. He passed two disabled
+apple-women, a fractured shop-front, an old man being put into a cab and
+taken to the hospital. At last, he traced the favourite of his herds
+into a back parlour in Liquorpond Street, into which he had violently
+intruded through a tripe-shop, and where he was being slaughtered for
+his own peace and for the safety of the neighbourhood; but not at all to
+the satisfaction of an invalid who had leaped out of a turn-up bedstead,
+into the little yard behind. The carcass of the West Highlander was sold
+to a butcher for a sum which paid about half of what was demanded, from
+its owner, for compensation to the different victims of its fury.
+
+Mr. Bovington returned to Long Hornets a ‘wiser,’ though certainly
+not—commercially speaking—a ‘better’ man. His adventures in Smithfield
+had made a large hole in a 50_l._ note.
+
+Some of his oxen were returned unsold. Two came back with the ‘foot
+disease’, and the rest did not recover their value for six months.
+
+Mr. Bovington has never tried Smithfield again. He regards it as a place
+accursed. In distant Reigns, he says, it was an odious spot, associated
+with cruelty, fanaticism, wickedness and torture; and in these later
+days it is worthy of its ancient reputation. It is a doomed, but a
+proper and consistent stronghold (according to Mr. Bovington) of
+prejudice, ignorance, cupidity, and stupidity:—
+
+           On some fond breast its parting soul relies,
+           Some pious alderman its fame admires;
+           Ev’n from its tomb, the voice of Suff’ring cries,
+           Ev’n in its ashes live its wonted Fires!
+
+
+
+
+               THE MINER’S DAUGHTERS.—A TALE OF THE PEAK.
+
+                           IN THREE CHAPTERS.
+
+
+                     CHAP. I.—THE CHILD’S TRAGEDY.
+
+There is no really beautiful part of this kingdom so little known as the
+Peak of Derbyshire. Matlock, with its tea-garden trumpery and
+mock-heroic wonders; Buxton, with its bleak hills and fashionable
+bathers; the truly noble Chatsworth and the venerable Haddon, engross
+almost all that the public generally have seen of the Peak. It is talked
+of as a land of mountains, which in reality are only hills; but its true
+beauty lies in valleys that have been created by the rending of the
+earth in some primeval convulsion, and which present a thousand charms
+to the eyes of the lover of nature. How deliciously do the crystal
+waters of the Wye and the Dove rush along such valleys, or dales, as
+they there are called. With what a wild variety do the grey rocks soar
+up amid their woods and copses. How airily stand in the clear heavens
+the lofty limestone precipices, and the grey edges of rock gleam out
+from the bare green downs—there _never_ called downs. What a genuine
+Saxon air is there cast over the population, what a Saxon bluntness
+salutes you in their speech!
+
+It is into the heart of this region that we propose now to carry the
+reader. Let him suppose himself with us now on the road from
+Ashford-in-the-water to Tideswell. We are at the Bull’s Head, a little
+inn on that road. There is nothing to create wonder, or a suspicion of a
+hidden Arcadia in anything you see, but another step forward, and—there!
+There sinks a world of valleys at your feet. To your left lies the
+delicious Monsal Dale. Old Finn Hill lifts his grey head grandly over
+it. Hobthrush’s Castle stands bravely forth in the hollow of his
+side—grey, and desolate, and mysterious. The sweet Wye goes winding and
+sounding at his feet, amid its narrow green meadows, green as the
+emerald, and its dark glossy alders. Before us stretches on, equally
+beautiful, Cressbrook Dale; Little Edale shows its cottages from amidst
+its trees; and as we advance, the Mousselin-de-laine Mills stretch
+across the mouth of Miller’s Dale, and startle with the aspect of so
+much life amid so much solitude.
+
+But our way is still onward. We resist the attraction of Cressbrook
+village on its lofty eminence, and plunge to the right, into Wardlow
+Dale. Here we are buried deep in woods, and yet behold still deeper the
+valley descend below us. There is an Alpine feeling upon us. We are
+carried once more, as in a dream, into the Saxon Switzerland. Above us
+stretch the boldest ranges of lofty precipices, and deep amid the woods
+are heard the voices of children. These come from a few workmen’s
+houses, couched at the foot of a cliff that rises high and bright amid
+the sun. That is Wardlow Cop; and there we mean to halt for a moment.
+Forwards lies a wild region of hills, and valleys, and lead-mines, but
+forward goes no road, except such as you can make yourself through the
+tangled woods.
+
+At the foot of Wardlow Cop, before this little hamlet of Bellamy Wick
+was built, or the glen was dignified with the name of Raven Dale, there
+lived a miner who had no term for his place of abode. He lived, he said,
+under Wardlow Cop, and that contented him.
+
+His house was one of those little, solid, grey limestone cottages, with
+grey flagstone roofs, which abound in the Peak. It had stood under that
+lofty precipice when the woods which now so densely fill the valley were
+but newly planted. There had been a mine near it, which had no doubt
+been the occasion of its erection in so solitary a place; but that mine
+was now worked out, and David Dunster, the miner, now worked at a mine
+right over the hills in Miller’s Dale. He was seldom at home, except at
+night, and on Sundays. His wife, besides keeping her little house, and
+digging and weeding in the strip of garden that lay on the steep slope
+above the house, hemmed in with a stone wall, also seamed stockings for
+a framework-knitter in Ashford, whither she went once or twice in the
+week.
+
+They had three children, a boy and two girls. The boy was about eight
+years of age; the girls were about five and six. These children were
+taught their lessons of spelling and reading by the mother, amongst her
+other multifarious tasks; for she was one of those who are called
+regular plodders. She was quiet, patient, and always doing, though never
+in a bustle. She was not one of those who acquire a character for vast
+industry by doing everything in a mighty flurry, though they contrive to
+find time for a tolerable deal of gossip under the plea of resting a
+bit, and which ‘resting a bit’ they always terminate by an exclamation
+that ‘they must be off, though, for they have a world of work to do.’
+Betty Dunster, on the contrary, was looked on as rather ‘a slow coach.’
+If you remarked that she was a hard-working woman, the reply was, ‘Well,
+she’s always doing—Betty’s work’s never done; but then she does na hurry
+hersen.’ The fact was, Betty was a thin, spare woman, of no very strong
+constitution, but of an untiring spirit. Her pleasure and rest were,
+when David came home at night, to have his supper ready, and to sit down
+opposite to him at the little round table, and help him, giving a bit
+now and then to the children, that came and stood round, though they had
+had their suppers, and were ready for bed as soon as they had seen
+something of their ‘dad.’
+
+David Dunster was one of those remarkably tall fellows that you see
+about these hills, who seem of all things the very worst made men to
+creep into the little mole holes on the hill sides that they call
+lead-mines. But David did manage to burrow under and through the hard
+limestone rocks as well as any of them. He was a hard-working man,
+though he liked a sup of beer, as most Derbyshire men do, and sometimes
+came home none of the soberest. He was naturally of a very hasty temper,
+and would fly into great rages; and if he were put out by anything in
+the working of the mines, or the conduct of his fellow-workmen, he would
+stay away from home for days, drinking at Tideswell, or the Bull’s Head
+at the top of Monsal Dale, or down at the Miners’ Arms at
+Ashford-in-the-water.
+
+Betty Dunster bore all this patiently. She looked on these things
+somewhat as matters of course. At that time, and even now, how few
+miners do not drink and ‘rol a bit,’ as they call it. She was,
+therefore, tolerant, and let the storms blow over, ready always to
+persuade her husband to go home and sleep off his drink and anger, but
+if he were too violent, leaving him till another attempt might succeed
+better. She was very fond of her children, and not only taught them on
+week days their lessons, and to help her to seam, but also took them to
+the Methodist Chapel in ‘Tidser,’ as they called Tideswell, whither,
+whenever she could, she enticed David. David, too, in his way, was fond
+of the children, especially of the boy, who was called David after him.
+He was quite wrapped up in the lad, to use the phrase of the people in
+that part; in fact, he was foolishly and mischievously fond of him. He
+would give him beer to drink, ‘to make a true Briton on him,’ as he
+said, spite of Betty’s earnest endeavour to prevent it,—telling him that
+he was laying the foundation in the lad of the same faults that he had
+himself. But David Dunster did not look on drinking as a fault at all.
+It was what he had been used to all his life. It was what all the miners
+had been used to for generations. A man was looked on as a milk-sop and
+a Molly Coddle, that would not take his mug of ale, and be merry with
+his comrades. It required the light of education, and the efforts that
+have been made by the Temperance Societies, to break in on this ancient
+custom of drinking, which, no doubt, has flourished in these hills since
+the Danes and other Scandinavians, bored and perforated them of old for
+the ores of lead and copper. To Betty Dunster’s remonstrances, and
+commendations of tea, David would reply,—‘Botheration Betty, wench!
+Dunna tell me about thy tea and such-like pig’s-wesh. It’s all very well
+for women; but a man, Betty, a man mun ha’ a sup of real stingo, lass.
+He mun ha’ summut to prop his ribs out, lass, as he delves through th’
+chert and tood-stone. When tha weylds th’ maundrel (the pick), and I
+wesh th’ dishes, tha shall ha’ th’ drink, my wench, and I’ll ha’ th’
+tea. Till then, prithee let me aloon, and dunna bother me, for it’s no
+use. It only kicks my monkey up.’
+
+And Betty found that it was of no use; that it did only kick his monkey
+up, and so she let him alone, except when she could drop in a persuasive
+word or two. The mill-owners at Cressbrook and Miller’s Dale had
+forbidden any public-house nearer than Edale, and they had more than
+once called the people together to point out to them the mischiefs of
+drinking, and the advantages to be derived from the very savings of
+temperance. But all these measures, though they had some effect on the
+mill people, had very little on the miners. They either sent to
+Tideswell or Edale for kegs of beer to peddle at the mines, or they went
+thither themselves on receiving their wages.
+
+And let no one suppose that David Dunster was worse than his fellows; or
+that Betty Dunster thought her case a particularly hard one. David was
+‘pretty much of a muchness,’ according to the country phrase, with the
+rest of his hard-working tribe, which was, and always had been, a
+hard-drinking tribe; and Betty, though she wished it different, did not
+complain, just because it was of no use, and because she was no worse
+off than her neighbours.
+
+Often when she went to ‘carry in her hose’ to Ashford, she left the
+children at home by themselves. She had no alternative. They were there
+in that solitary valley for many hours playing alone. And to them it was
+not solitary. It was all that they knew of life, and that all was very
+pleasant to them. In spring, they hunted for birds’-nests in the copses,
+and amongst the rocks and grey stones that had fallen from them. In the
+copses built the blackbirds and thrushes: in the rocks the firetails;
+and the grey wagtails in the stones, which were so exactly of their own
+colour, as to make it difficult to see them. In summer, they gathered
+flowers and berries, and in the winter they played at horses, kings, and
+shops, and sundry other things in the house.
+
+On one of these occasions, a bright afternoon in autumn, the three
+children had rambled down the glen, and found a world of amusement in
+being teams of horses, in making a little mine at the foot of a tall
+cliff, and in marching for soldiers, for they had one day—the only time
+in their lives—seen some soldiers go through the village of Ashford,
+when they had gone there with their mother, for she now and then took
+them with her when she had something from the shop to carry besides her
+bundle of hose. At length they came to the foot of an open hill which
+swelled to a considerable height, with a round and climbable side, on
+which grew a wilderness of bushes amid which lay scattered masses of
+grey crag. A small winding path went up this, and they followed it. It
+was not long, however, before they saw some things which excited their
+eager attention. Little David, who was the guide, and assumed to himself
+much importance as the protector of his sisters, exclaimed, ‘See here!’
+and springing forward, plucked a fine crimson cluster of the mountain
+bramble. His sisters, on seeing this, rushed on with like eagerness.
+They soon forsook the little winding and craggy footpath, and hurried
+through sinking masses of moss and dry grass, from bush to bush and
+place to place. They were soon far up above the valley, and almost every
+step revealed to them some delightful prize. The clusters of the
+mountain bramble, resembling mulberries, and known only to the
+inhabitants of the hills, were abundant, and were rapidly devoured. The
+dewberry was as eagerly gathered,—its large, purple fruit passing with
+them for blackberries. In their hands were soon seen posies of the
+lovely grass of Parnassus, the mountain cistus, and the bright blue
+geranium.
+
+Higher and higher the little group ascended in this quest, till the
+sight of the wide, naked hills, and the hawks circling round the lofty,
+tower-like crags over their heads, made them feel serious and somewhat
+afraid.
+
+‘Where are we?’ asked Jane, the elder sister. ‘Arn’t we a long way from
+hom?’
+
+‘Let us go hom,’ said little Nancy. ‘I’m afeerd here;’ clutching hold of
+Jane’s frock.
+
+‘Pho, nonsense!’ said David, ‘what are you afreed on? I’ll tak care on
+you, niver fear.’
+
+And with this he assumed a bold and defying aspect, and said, ‘Come
+along; there are nests in th’ hazzles up yonder.’
+
+He began to mount again, but the two girls hung back and said, ‘Nay,
+David, dunna go higher; we are both afreed;’ and Jane added, ‘It’s a
+long wee from hom, I’m sure.’
+
+‘And those birds screechen’ so up there; I darna go up,’ added little
+Nancy. They were the hawks that she meant, which hovered whimpering and
+screaming about the highest cliffs. David called them little cowards,
+but began to descend and, presently, seeking for berries and flowers as
+they descended, they regained the little winding, craggy road, and,
+while they were calling to each other, discovered a remarkable echo on
+the opposite hill side. On this, they shouted to it, and laughed, and
+were half frightened when it laughed and shouted again. Little Nancy
+said it must be an old man in the inside of the mountain; at which they
+were all really afraid, though David put on a big look, and said,
+‘Nonsense! it was nothing at all.’ But Jane asked how nothing at all
+could shout and laugh as it did? and on this little Nancy plucked her
+again by the frock, and said in turn, ‘Oh, dear, let’s go hom!’
+
+But at this David gave a wild whoop to frighten them, and when the hill
+whooped again, and the sisters began to run, he burst into laughter, and
+the strange spectral Ha! ha! ha! that ran along the inside of the hill
+as it were, completed their fear, and they stopped their ears with their
+hands and scuttled away down the hill. But now David seized them, and
+pulling their hands down from their heads, he said, ‘See here! what a
+nice place with the stones sticking out like seats. Why, it’s like a
+little house; let us stay and play a bit here.’ It was a little hollow
+in the hill side surrounded by projecting stones like an amphitheatre.
+The sisters were still afraid, but the sight of this little hollow with
+its seats of crag had such a charm for them that they promised David
+they would stop awhile, if he would promise not to shout and awake the
+echo. David readily promised this, and so they sat down; David proposed
+to keep a school, and cut a hazel wand from a bush and began to lord it
+over his two scholars in a very pompous manner. The two sisters
+pretended to be much afraid, and to read very diligently on pieces of
+flat stone which they had picked up. And then David became a serjeant
+and was drilling them for soldiers, and stuck pieces of fern into their
+hair for cockades. And then, soon after, they were sheep, and he was the
+shepherd; and he was catching his flock and going to shear them, and
+made so much noise that Jane cried, ‘Hold! there’s the echo mocking us.’
+
+At this they all were still. But David said, ‘Pho! never mind the echo;
+I must shear my sheep:’ but just as he was seizing little Nancy to
+pretend to shear her with a piece of stick, Jane cried out, ‘Look! look!
+how black it is coming down the valley there! There’s going to be a
+dreadful starm; let us hurry hom!’
+
+David and Nancy both looked up, and agreed to run as fast down the hill
+as they could. But the next moment the driving storm swept over the
+hill, and the whole valley was hid in it. The three children still
+hurried on, but it became quite dark, and they soon lost the track, and
+were tossed about by the wind, so that they had difficulty to keep on
+their legs. Little Nancy began to cry, and the three taking hold of each
+other endeavoured in silence to make their way homewards. But presently
+they all stumbled over a large stone, and fell some distance down the
+hill. They were not hurt, but much frightened, for they now remembered
+the precipices, and were afraid every minute of going over them. They
+now strove to find the track by going up again, but they could not find
+it anywhere. Sometimes they went upwards till they thought they were
+quite too far, and then they went downwards till they were completely
+bewildered; and then, like the Babes in the Wood, ‘They sate them down
+and cried.’
+
+But ere they had sate long, they heard footsteps, and listened. They
+certainly heard them and shouted, but there was no answer. David
+shouted, ‘Help! fayther! mother! help!’ but there was no answer. The
+wind swept fiercely by; the hawks whimpered from the high crags, lost in
+the darkness of the storm; and the rain fell, driving along icy cold.
+Presently, there was a gleam of light through the clouds; the hill side
+became visible, and through the haze they saw a tall figure as of an old
+man ascending the hill. He appeared to carry two loads slung from his
+shoulders by a strap; a box hanging before, and a bag hanging at his
+back. He wound up the hill slowly and wearily, and presently he stopped
+and relieving himself of his load, seated himself on a piece of crag to
+rest. Again David shouted, but there still was no answer. The old man
+sate as if no shout had been heard—immoveable.
+
+‘It _is_ a man,’ said David, ‘and I _will_ make him hear;’ and with that
+he shouted once more with all his might. But the old man made no sign of
+recognition. He did not even turn his head, but he took off his hat and
+began to wipe his brow as if warm with the ascent.
+
+‘What can it be?’ said David in astonishment. ‘It _is_ a man, that’s
+sartain. I’ll run and see.’
+
+‘Nay, nay!’ shrieked the sisters. ‘Don’t, David! don’t! It’s perhaps the
+old man out of the mountain that’s been mocking us. Perhaps,’ added
+Jane, ‘he only comes out in starms and darkness.’
+
+‘Stuff!’ said David, ‘an echo isn’t a man; it’s only our own voices.
+I’ll see who it is; and away he darted, spite of the poor girl’s crying
+in terror, ‘Don’t; don’t, David! Oh, don’t.’
+
+But David was gone. He was not long in reaching the old man, who sate on
+his stone breathing hard, as if out of breath with his ascent, but not
+appearing to perceive David’s approach. The rain and the wind drove
+fiercely upon him, but he did not seem to mind it. David was half afraid
+to approach close to him, but he called out, ‘Help; help, mester!’ The
+old man remained as unconscious of his presence. ‘Hillo!’ cried David
+again. ‘Can you tell us the way down, mester?’ There was no answer, and
+David was beginning to feel a shudder of terror run through every limb,
+when the clouds cleared considerably, and he suddenly exclaimed, ‘Why,
+it’s old Tobias Turton of top of Edale, and he’s as deaf as a door
+nail!’
+
+In an instant, David was at his side; seized his coat to make him aware
+of his presence, and, on the old man perceiving him, shouted in his ear,
+‘Which is the way down here, Mester Turton? Where’s the track?’
+
+‘Down? Weighs o’ the back?’ said the old man; ‘ay, my lad, I was fain to
+sit down; it does weigh o’ th’ back, sure enough.’
+
+‘Where’s the foot-track?’ shouted David, again.
+
+‘Th’ foot-track? Why, what art ta doing here, my lad, in such a starm?
+Isn’t it David Dunster’s lad?’
+
+David nodded. ‘Why, the track ’s here! see;’ and the old man stamped his
+foot. ‘Get down hom, my lad, as fast as thou can. What dun they do
+letting thee be upon th’ hills in such a dee as this?’
+
+David nodded his thanks, and turned to descend the track, while the old
+man adjusting his burden again, silently and wearily recommenced his way
+upwards.
+
+David shouted to his sisters as he descended, and they quickly replied.
+He called to them to come towards him, as he was on the track, and was
+afraid to quit it again. They endeavoured to do this; but the darkness
+was now redoubled, and the wind and rain became more furious than ever.
+The two sisters were soon bewildered amongst the bushes, and David, who
+kept calling to them at intervals to direct their course towards him,
+soon heard them crying bitterly. At this, he forgot the necessity of
+keeping the track, and darting towards them, soon found them by
+continuing to call to them, and took their hands to lead them to the
+track. But they were now drenched through with the rain, and shivered
+with cold and fear. David, with a stout heart endeavoured to cheer them.
+He told them the track was close by, and that they would soon be at
+home. But though the track was not ten yards off, somehow they did not
+find it. Bushes and projecting rocks turned them out of their course;
+and owing to the confusion caused by the wind, the darkness, and their
+terror, they searched in vain for the track. Sometimes they thought they
+had found it, and went on a few paces, only to stumble over loose
+stones, or get entangled in the bushes.
+
+It was now absolutely becoming night. Their terrors increased greatly.
+They shouted and cried aloud, in the hope of making their parents hear
+them. They felt sure that both father and mother must be come home; and
+as sure that they would be hunting for them. But they did not reflect
+that their parents could not tell in what direction they had gone. Both
+father and mother were come home, and the mother had instantly rushed
+out to try to find them, on perceiving that they were not in the house.
+She had hurried to and fro, and called—not at first supposing they would
+be far. But when she heard nothing of them, she ran in, and begged of
+her husband to join in the search. But at first David Dunster would do
+nothing. He was angry at them for going away from the house, and said he
+was too tired to go on a wild-goose chase through the plantations after
+them. ‘They are i’ th’ plantations,’ said he; ‘they are sheltering there
+somewhere. Let them alone, and they’ll come home, with a good long tail
+behind them.’
+
+With this piece of a child’s song of sheep, David sat down to his
+supper, and Betty Dunster hurried up the valley, shouting—‘Children,
+where are you? David! Jane! Nancy! where are you?’
+
+When she heard nothing of them, she hurried still more wildly up the
+hill towards the village. When she arrived there—the distance of a
+mile—she inquired from house to house, but no one had seen anything of
+them. It was clear they had not been in that direction. An alarm was
+thus created in the village; and several young men set out to join Mrs.
+Dunster in the quest. They again descended the valley towards Dunster’s
+house, shouting every now and then, and listening. The night was pitch
+dark, and the rain fell heavily; but the wind had considerably abated,
+and once they thought they heard a faint cry in answer to their call,
+far down the valley. They were right; the children had heard the
+shouting, and had replied to it. But they were far off. The young men
+shouted again, but there was no answer; and after shouting once more
+without success, they hastened on. When they reached David Dunster’s
+house, they found the door open, and no one within. They knew that David
+had set off in quest of the children himself, and they determined to
+descend the valley. The distracted mother went with them, crying
+silently to herself, and praying inwardly, and every now and then trying
+to shout. But the young men raised their strong voices above hers, and
+made the cliffs echo with their appeals.
+
+Anon a voice answered them down the valley. They ran on as well as the
+darkness would let them, and soon found that it was David Dunster, who
+had been in the plantations on the other side of the valley; but hearing
+nothing of the lost children, now joined them. He said he had heard the
+cry from the hill side farther down, that answered to their shouts; and
+he was sure that it was his boy David’s voice. But he had shouted again,
+and there had been no answer but a wild scream as of terror, that made
+his blood run cold.
+
+‘O God!’ exclaimed the distracted mother, ‘what can it be? David! David!
+Jane! Nancy!’
+
+There was no answer. The young men bade Betty Dunster to contain
+herself, and they would find the children before they went home again.
+All held on down the valley, and in the direction whence the voice came.
+Many times did the young men and the now strongly agitated father shout
+and listen. At length they seemed to hear voices of weeping and moaning.
+They listened—they were sure they heard a lamenting—it could only be the
+children. But why then did they not answer? On struggled the men, and
+Mrs. Dunster followed wildly after. Now, again, they stood and shouted,
+and a kind of terrified scream followed the shout.
+
+‘God in heaven!’ exclaimed the mother; ‘what is it? There is something
+dreadful. My children! my children! where are you?’
+
+‘Be silent, pray do, Mrs. Dunster,’ said one of the young men, ‘or we
+cannot catch the sounds so as to follow them.’ They again listened, and
+the wailings of the children were plainly heard. The whole party pushed
+forward over stock and stone up the hill. They called again, and there
+was a cry of ‘Here! here! fayther! mother! where are you?’
+
+In a few moments more the whole party had reached the children, who
+stood drenched with rain, and trembling violently, under a cliff that
+gave no shelter, but was exposed especially to the wind and rain.
+
+‘O Christ! My children!’ cried the mother wildly, struggling forwards
+and clasping one in her arms. ‘Nancy! Jane! But where is David? David!
+David! Oh, where is David? Where is your brother?’
+
+The whole party was startled at not seeing the boy, and joined in a
+simultaneous ‘Where is he? Where is your brother?’
+
+The two children only wept and trembled more violently, and burst into
+loud crying.
+
+‘Silence!’ shouted the father. ‘Where is David, I tell ye? Is he lost?
+David, lad, where ar ta?’
+
+All listened, but there was no answer but the renewed crying of the two
+girls.
+
+‘Where is the lad, then?’ thundered forth the father with a terrible
+oath.
+
+The two terrified children cried, ‘Oh, down there! down there!’
+
+‘Down where? Oh God!’ exclaimed one of the young men; ‘why it’s a
+precipice! Down there?’
+
+At this dreadful intelligence the mother gave a wild shriek, and fell
+senseless on the ground. The young men caught her, and dragged her back
+from the edge of the precipice. The father in the same moment, furious
+at what he heard, seized the younger child that happened to be near him,
+and shaking it violently, swore he would fling it down after the lad.
+
+He was angry with the poor children, as if they had caused the
+destruction of his boy. The young men seized him, and bade him think
+what he was about; but the man believing his boy had fallen down the
+precipice, was like a madman. He kicked at his wife as she lay on the
+ground, as if she were guilty of this calamity by leaving the children
+at home. He was furious against the poor girls, as if they had led their
+brother into danger. In his violent rage he was a perfect maniac, and
+the young men pushing him away, cried shame on him. In a while, the
+desperate man torn by a hurricane of passion, sate himself down on a
+crag, and burst into a tempest of tears, and struck his head violently
+with his clenched fists, and cursed himself and everybody. It was a
+dreadful scene.
+
+Meantime, some of the young men had gone down below the precipice on
+which the children had stood, and, feeling amongst the loose stones, had
+found the body of poor little David. He was truly dead!
+
+When he had heard the shout of his father, or of the young men, he had
+given one loud shout in answer, and saying ‘Come on! never fear now!’
+sprang forward, and was over the precipice in the dark, and flew down
+and was dashed to pieces. His sisters heard a rush, a faint shriek, and
+suddenly stopping, escaped the destruction that poor David had found.
+
+
+
+
+                       NEW LIFE AND OLD LEARNING.
+
+
+There is not, in the whole of Bacon’s writings, a remark more profoundly
+characteristic of the man and his philosophy, than is embodied in his
+epigram that Antiquity is the Youth of the World. If men could only have
+had the courage to act upon this truth as soon as it was pointed out,—if
+they could but have seen, that, in their mode of reckoning antiquity,
+they made always the mistake of beginning the calculations from the
+wrong end, and that, in everything relating to the progress of
+knowledge, and the advancement of the species, the Present, not the
+Past, should be deemed of superior authority,—how many miseries society
+would have spared itself, and how much earlier it would have profited by
+the greatest of its teachers, Experience!
+
+‘For antiquity,’ says Lord Bacon, ‘the opinion which men cherish
+concerning it is altogether negligent, and scarcely congruous even to
+the name. For the old age and grandevity of the world are to be truly
+counted as antiquity; which are properly to be ascribed to our times,
+not to the younger age of the world, such as it was with the ancients.
+Since that age, in respect to us indeed, is ancient and greater; but in
+respect to the world itself, was new and lesser. And in reality, as we
+look for a greater acquaintance with human affairs, and a more mature
+judgment, from an old than from a young man, on account of his
+experience, and the variety and abundance of the things which he has
+seen, and heard, and considered, just so it is fit also that much
+greater things be expected from our age (if it knew its strength, and
+would endeavour and apply) than from the old times; as being a more
+advanced age of the world, and enlarged and accumulate with numberless
+experiences and observations.’
+
+Have these pregnant sentences lost their meaning in the two centuries
+and a half that have since rolled away? Let us take the wealthiest and
+most distinguished seminary of learning now existing in England, and
+judge.
+
+At the commencement of the present century, when the Novum Organum had
+been written nearly two hundred years, the examinations at the
+University of Oxford, so far as they were scientific at all, and not
+restricted to learned languages, turned entirely on the scholastic logic
+which the Novum Organum had shown to be a foul obstruction to knowledge.
+The new and true logic, as explained by Bacon, was never mentioned in
+the venerable place; and the new discoveries of the laws of nature to
+which it had led, formed no part of the general course of study, or of
+the subjects of public examination. It was quite possible for an Oxford
+man to have brought away a distinguished degree in the sciences, without
+knowing the truths of universal gravitation, or of the celestial
+motions, or of the planetary forces, or of any one of the provisions
+made by nature for the stability of the system we inhabit; and the very
+highest Oxford degree in the non-scientific departments, did not imply,
+any more than it does even yet, the remotest knowledge of modern
+languages or literature, of modern history or philosophy, of whether it
+might not have been Cromwell who discovered America, or Columbus who
+fought at Marston Moor. For any interest that the students at Oxford
+University were required to take in such matters, the past three hundred
+years might never have existed, or have been utterly annihilated, and
+all their wondrous burden of experiences melted into air.
+
+It was not till after the nineteenth century had begun, that some sense
+of what had been going on in the world outside crept into the cloisters
+at Oxford. Statutes were then passed to recognise the Newtonian
+improvements in philosophy, and recommending, though not necessitating,
+their adoption into the course for honours. Honours nevertheless
+continued to be taken without them; and it is notorious that the soil
+has been ungenial to their growth, and that they never have flourished
+in it. Oxford, in effect, continued up to this day no other than it was
+four centuries ago. Apart from the doubtful discipline of life and
+manners attainable within its walls, it is still no more than a huge
+theological school, where the lay youth of England are admitted to
+participate in such meagre allowance of intellectual training as the
+clergy think safe for themselves; where Manchester and Birmingham are
+ignored; where the Greek and Latin authors continue in the same esteem
+as when they actually contained whatever existed of learning left upon
+the earth, and no education could proceed without them; and from which
+there issue into the world yearly reinforcements of the upper classes of
+society, less able to cope with the wants and duties that surround them,
+and less acquainted with the laws and operations by which the present is
+to be guided into the future, than any self-taught merchant’s clerk at
+Liverpool, or any sharp engineer’s lad at the railway in Euston Square.
+
+Now, what has been the answer from Oxford when reproaches of this kind
+have been addressed to it? What was its answer when ridiculed, forty
+years ago, for teaching what rational men had been laughing at for more
+than a century? It amounted to this—that so intimately had the original
+statutes of the University interwoven the Aristotelian methods with the
+whole course of its studies and exercises, and so sacredly were its
+officers bound to see to the enforcement of those statutes, that the
+last stronghold from which any such learning could be dislodged was the
+University, to which its mere forms and practices unhappily continued to
+be essential, even long after every vestige of reality had vanished out
+of them. In other words it was confessed that Oxford had been so
+constructed as a place of study, that the rules and statutes which
+should have been framed for the reception of truth, in whatever quarter
+it might appear, had turned out to be only available for the retention
+and perpetuation of error; and that Education, whose express province
+everywhere else was to absorb and make profit of every new acquisition,
+was miserably bound, on this spot only, to reject them all. Precisely
+the same arguments have very lately been repeated. When the great ‘whip’
+of the country parsons brought up a majority against the Modern History
+statute twelve months ago, this was the plea on which bigotry rallied
+her forces; and when more recently the statute was again proposed, the
+same plea would have secured it the same reception, if the old flock of
+reverend Thwack-’ums had not meanwhile tired of the expense and trouble
+of being dragged in a drove from their parsonages to the Senate House,
+to bleat forth ignorant _non placets_.
+
+As it was, the History statute was passed with its notable limitation
+against the events of the last sixty years. The Oxford scholar may now
+sail down the stream of modern story as long as the water is smooth, or
+the storm seen only in the distance; but as he nears the explosive point
+of 1789, of which the vast and terrible wrecks are still tumbling around
+us, a huge board warns him of ‘danger,’ and his frail little cock-boat
+of history is driven forcibly all the way back again. Such is the point
+of advance to which the present year of our Lord has brought the
+University of Oxford. Such is the provision made at the wealthiest place
+of education in the world, in the middle of the nineteenth century, for
+that true and subtle understanding of modern life and institutions on
+which the peaceful development of the twentieth century will mainly
+depend! But Oxford was founded by a Church, which, amid all ludicrous
+surrounding evidences of her failures and her follies, still claims to
+be infallible; and the worst peculiarities of the founder cleave to the
+foundation. The next fifty years will have to show, however, whether an
+institution shall be allowed to continue in the annual disposal of some
+half million or more of money for a purpose she so manifestly mistakes,
+that even the learning she prefers to every other is less taught to her
+scholars for the wisdom to be found in it, than for mere constructive
+skill in the language by which that wisdom is conveyed.
+
+Sydney Smith has remarked it as one of the great advantages of the
+classical education in which we are trained in this country, that it
+sets before us so many examples of sublimity in action, and of sublimity
+in thought. ‘It is impossible for us,’ he exclaims, in one of those
+noble lectures on moral philosophy of which the fragments have recently
+been published, ‘in the first and most ardent years of life, to read the
+great actions of the two greatest nations in the world, so beautifully
+related, without catching, _ourselves_, some taste for greatness, and a
+love for that glory which is gained by doing greater and better things
+than other men. And though the state of order and discipline into which
+the world is brought, does not enable a man frequently to do such
+things, as every day produced in the fierce and eventful democraties of
+Greece and Rome, yet, to love that which is great, is the best security
+for hating that which is little; the best cure for envy; the safest
+antidote for revenge; the surest pledge for the abhorrence of malice;
+the noblest incitement to love truth and manly independence and
+honourable labour, to glory in spotless innocence, and build up the
+system of life upon the rock of integrity.’
+
+But is the opportunity fairly afforded for this? Is not the attention
+which ought to be fixed upon Things, to secure any part of the gain thus
+eloquently set before us, for the most part distracted and occupied by
+Words, in the system which commonly prevails? Has not the labour to be
+undergone in obtaining the ready verbal skill exacted in College
+examinations, a direct tendency to weaken our pleasure in the history,
+philosophy, or poetry on which we grind and sharpen that verbal skill?
+We apprehend that this is really the case; and that the old learning
+which Oxford persists in thinking all-sufficient for the wants of our
+new and busy life, is taught upon a method which strips it of its
+noblest lessons, and withers its choicest fruit.
+
+The question is a most serious one for those whom it most immediately
+concerns, and whom it should warn of the danger of too manifestly
+lagging behind the time. At this moment power is changing hands, as
+certainly as in the days of those subtle and eager men who seated the
+ancient learning on its throne; and who would as surely depose it now,
+if founding new universities amongst us, and give it but its due and
+proper place in the expanding circles of knowledge, as, four hundred
+years ago, they admitted its just predominance, and established its
+solitary sway. When periods of such vicissitude arrive, it is for those
+who have been powerful heretofore, to look to their tenures of
+authority. Upon nothing can they hope to rest, if not upon complete
+accordance with the spirit of the age, and a thorough aptitude to its
+necessities and wants. If the education of children is to continue
+imperfect and bad, as Dean Swift tells us he had found it always in his
+experience, in exact proportion to the wealth and grandeur of the
+parents, the next generation of parents will have to look to the
+continued security of their wealth and grandeur. The Earth is in
+incessant motion. The time when it was supposed to be permanently fixed
+in the centre of the universe has passed away for ever, and modes of
+study only suited to that time will have to share the fate that has
+befallen it.
+
+
+
+
+                          THE RAILWAY STATION.
+
+
+       They judge not well, who deem that once among us
+       A spirit moved that now from earth has fled;
+       Who say that at the busy sounds which throng us,
+       Its shining wings for ever more have sped.
+
+       Not all the turmoil of the Age of Iron
+       Can scare that Spirit hence; like some sweet bird
+       That loud harsh voices in its cage environ,
+       It sings above them all, and will be heard!
+
+       Not, for the noise of axes or of hammers,
+       Will that sweet bird forsake her chosen nest;
+       Her warblings pierce through all those deafening clamours
+       But surer to their echoes in the breast.
+
+       And not the Past alone, with all its guerdon
+       Of twilight sounds and shadows, bids them rise;
+       But soft, above the noontide heat and burden
+       Of the stern present, float those melodies.
+
+       Not with the baron bold, the minstrel tender,
+       Not with the ringing sound of shield and lance,
+       Not with the Field of Gold in all its splendour,
+       Died out the generous flame of old Romance.
+
+       Still, on a nobler strife than tilt or tourney,
+       Rides forth the errant knight, with brow elate;
+       Still patient pilgrims take, in hope, their journey;
+       Still meek and cloistered spirits ‘stand and wait.’
+
+       Still hath the living, moving, world around us,
+       Its legends, fair with honour, bright with truth;
+       Still, as in tales that in our childhood bound us,
+       Love holds the fond traditions of its youth.
+
+       We need not linger o’er the fading traces
+       Of lost divinities; or seek to hold
+       Their serious converse ’mid Earth’s green waste-places,
+       Or by her lonely fountains, as of old:
+
+       For, far remote from Nature’s fair creations,
+       Within the busy mart, the crowded street,
+       With sudden, sweet, unlooked-for revelations
+       Of a bright presence we may chance to meet;
+
+       E’en _now_, beside a restless tide’s commotion,
+       I stand and hear, in broken music swell,
+       Above the ebb and flow of Life’s great ocean,
+       An under-song of greeting and farewell.
+
+       For here are meetings: moments that inherit
+       The hopes and wishes, that through months and years
+       Have held such anxious converse with the spirit,
+       That now its joy can only speak in tears;
+
+       And here are partings: hands that soon must sever,
+       Yet clasp the firmer; heart, that unto heart,
+       Was ne’er so closely bound before, nor ever
+       So near the other as when now they part;
+
+       And here Time holds his steady pace unbroken,
+       For all that crowds within his narrow scope;
+       For all the language, uttered and unspoken,
+       That will return when Memory comforts Hope!
+
+       One short and hurried moment, and for ever
+       Flies, like a dream, its sweetness and its pain;
+       And, for the hearts that love, the hands that sever,
+       Who knows what meetings are in store again?
+
+       They who are left, unto their homes returning,
+       With musing step, trace o’er each by-gone scene;
+       And they upon their journey—doth no yearning,
+       No backward glance, revert to what hath been?
+
+       Yes! for awhile, perchance, a tear-drop starting,
+       Dims the bright scenes that greet the eye and mind;
+       But here—as ever in life’s cup of parting—
+       Theirs is the bitterness who stay behind!
+
+       So in life’s sternest, last farewell, may waken
+       A yearning thought, a backward glance be thrown
+       By them who leave: but oh! how blest the token,
+       To those who stay behind when THEY are gone!
+
+
+
+
+                             THE BROWN HAT.
+
+
+‘My son,’ said the wisest of modern men—whose name, of course, it were
+malicious to mention, and foolish also, the object being to promulgate
+charity, not to excite rancour—‘My son, if you would go through life
+easily, I can give you no better rule of conduct than this: _Never wear
+a brown hat in Friesland_.’
+
+Now, though this piece of counsel may sound as hieroglyphical and
+mysterious as the well known precept by _Mr. Malaprop_ administered to
+his offspring, when the latter was about to quit home, ‘Evil
+communication is worth two in the bush,’ it is nevertheless susceptible
+of the clearest and most explicit interpretation. Though the fruits of
+particular and personal experience, it may be applied to every man who
+wears a hat under the sun, the moon, the seven stars, or the Seven
+Dials! let alone the Seven United Provinces!
+
+The Brown Hat whence this saying sprung, was merely a hat of common
+quality and uncommon comfort; soft to the head, not stiff; a screen for
+eyes from the sun; a thing taking no place among the traveller’s
+luggage—claiming no package of its own, and thus offering no
+wrangling-stock to those most tiresome of Jacks among all
+Jacks-in-office—to wit, Custom-house officers. It was a hat which the
+_Hatto_ of hats must have accredited as the very perfection of a quiet,
+middle-aged traveller’s _vade mecum_; something dull-looking, it is
+true, for those whose thoughts are ‘wide-awake;’ something vulgar, for
+any one troubled by aristocratic fancies as to his covering, and who
+loves not to be confounded with his butterman; but withal a hat to be
+defended by every man of sense, to be clung to by every creature capable
+of headaches; a hat one could be bumped about in during a day of sixteen
+hours, in carriage, cart, or third-class railway vehicle; a hat one
+could lie in bed in for nightcap, or sit upon for cushion; a kindly,
+comforting, unobtrusive hat—brown, because it was of the felt’s natural
+colour, pliant as a piece of silk, submissive to wind, impervious to
+rain. What can we say more? A castor, as the Pilgrim’s _Pollux_ put it,
+‘fit to be buried in.’
+
+Yet such was the hat, and none other, which—save your nerves be of
+granite, your cheeks of brass, and your patience the patience of a
+beaver—you are hereby solemnly warned not to wear in Friesland. In
+London, when you please and where you please, but not in Meppel, and not
+in Zwolle, and not in Sneek, and, most of all, not in the market-place
+at Leenwarden. As wisely might you have tried to walk down a
+village-street, in Lancashire, on Lifting-Monday (thirty years ago),
+thinking to escape from the obliging maids and jolly wives, who lurked
+behind their doors, bent on tossing every passing male in a kitchen
+chair, as have hoped for ten seconds of peace,—supposing that in
+Friesland (two autumns since) you took your walks abroad wearing a Brown
+Hat!
+
+It will be, peradventure, imagined by those who are not strong in their
+geography, or who have not studied the Book of Dresses, or who entertain
+little curiosity concerning one of the most noticeable and original
+districts in Europe,—that these touchy Friesland folk themselves don or
+doff nothing worth an Englishman turning his head to admire; carry aloft
+what all the well-bred world carries,—and therefore cannot afford to let
+any one thrive, save under the shadow of the ‘regulation beaver,’ to
+which all polite Europe subscribes. Yet the case happens to be, that if
+there be a land in which perpetual wonderment could make the traveller
+wry-necked, that land is North Holland. Hong-Kong can hardly be
+stranger, either in its composition or its maintenance. _So Sci_ herself
+(in Mr. Sealy’s capital Chinese tale) did not boast a head-tire more
+‘express and surprising,’ than the gentlewomen of all ages, through
+whose active decision and passive contempt the Brown Hat had to run the
+gauntlet.
+
+Let us see if we can sketch this—though by no means catholically sure,
+that some stratum of use or ornament, may not have been overlooked in
+our specification. First, it is conceived that the hair upon the head of
+the Frieslander, must be cut as close as though subject to the
+pumpkin-shell barbarity of the pilgrim-fathers, when their scissors were
+intent on shearing off love-locks. Upon this closely cropped poll, comes
+first a knitted cap (Mrs. Loudon, perhaps, can tell whether there be an
+aristocratic or established stitch formula for its knitting), over that
+a silk scull cap. These tightly put on, the serious business of the
+head-gear begins. The victim is next hooped, bound, lined, circled and
+otherwise clasped up within gilt metal—various in its cut, provided it
+only fits close, ‘as some one said,’ for headaches, to throb against.
+The mistress of _Keetje_, the maid, is fond of having her kettle-cap
+made of gilt silver, sometimes—if she be of old family—of pure gold; and
+you will see her in the market-place, wearing, in addition to this
+precious piece of trepanning, a metal tiara, such as Grecian Queens wear
+upon the stage, stuck over with coarse jewels; nay, more, dangling at
+the sides of her face, a pair of inconceivable gilt pendants, at a
+distance looking like bunches of queer keys, or that minikin household
+furniture our English ladies now choose to suspend from their girdles.
+But this is not all. At the extreme angles of her forehead, _Keetje’s_
+mistress—if a person of high fashion—must stick in two little square
+plots or tufts of frizzled silk, to pass for curls. This done, she may
+put on her cap of the finest lace, with its deep border or flap behind,
+fashioned like the brim of the dustman’s hat, but from the costly
+daintiness of its material, and the creamy whiteness of the throat it
+lies against, somewhat more picturesque. Finally, if _Keetje’s_ mistress
+be a Friesland _Miss Flamborough_ of ‘first water’—a lady who knows the
+world, and has a spirit superior to old-fashioned prejudices—she must
+have by way of crown, all to her four caps (one of precious metals), a
+straw bonnet, a huge, heavy, coal-scuttle, festooned with loops and
+streamers of gaudy ribbon, and thriftily guarded at the edge with a hem
+or barrier of stout and gaudy printed chintz. Thus canopied are the
+comely wives and widows (maidens, possibly dispensing with the bonnet),
+who shrieked, clapped their hands, and, with every other possible
+demonstration of offence, pursued the wearer of the Brown Hat in
+Friesland.
+
+On the habiliments of the male moiety of society, tediousness forbids
+that we should expatiate; the less, as something will thus be left to be
+treated on a future day, when the grave question of apparel may be more
+solemnly entered upon. Enough for the moment, to say that it suits the
+singularities of this critical land: a land in which a Swimming Lion is
+the ensign, and of which His Majesty Topsy-Turvy might be sovereign; a
+land in which there is hardly a crooked horizontal line to be found,
+save among the sand-hills; a land in which, with all its neatness’ care,
+scarce a building, be it church or market-house, palace or exchange, can
+be prevailed upon to stand perpendicular; a land in which for air you
+breathe extract of juniper, turf, tobacco, and stagnant waters, mixed; a
+land in which people eat cheese with their tea, and where a child that
+plucks a nest runs great danger of being whipped as an enemy to Church
+and State—guilty of trying to let in the republican ocean; a land where
+full-grown babies set up clockwork gentlemen and _papier mâche_ swans,
+by way of animating their garden, and the weedy ponds in the same; a
+land where full-grown men undertake and complete some of the most
+magnificent enterprises which science can contrive for industry to carry
+out; a land of teeming plenty and of high prices; a land of bad
+digestions and beautiful complexions. No, the men of this land—the
+shippers of Dordrecht, the potters of Delft, the gardeners of Broet, and
+the dairy farmers of Harlingen, decked out for fair or frolic—must be
+to-day left with all their uncouth and indescribable finery,
+undescribable, it may be, for some future parable.
+
+But as if in the above there had not been indicated enough of what yet
+new and strange for Pilgrim to observe and to tolerate, and to smile at,
+with English supercilious civility in this country, the very names of
+places, even (as a descendant of Dr. Dilworth inadequately remarked),
+‘are neither Christian nor becoming.’ One might bring one’s mind to bear
+to be jeered at or stared at, in a land resounding with pompous and
+euphonious words—by the Wissihiccon, for instance, or on the
+Mississippi, or at Canandaigna, or among the Inscoraras, or when bound
+for Passamaquoddy. Even the prize-scold at Billingsgate was silenced and
+rendered meek by being called a _Chrononhotonthologos_.—There’s much in
+four syllables! But in Friesland the traveller is handed over from
+Workum to Higtum, and from Higtum to Midlum; thence perhaps to Boxum,
+and from Boxum to Hallum, Dokkum, Kollum, &c., &c., &c.; going through
+the whole alphabet of these ‘make-believe’ names, the very study of
+which on the map is enough to make properly-brought-up persons
+disdainful and critical! Yet, so far from feeling any proper sense of
+their own position; so far from the slightest shame or shrinking; so far
+from one single deprecatory ‘_Pray don’t make game of us! We are decent
+folk after all, and well to do in the world, though some of us do come
+from Sueek!_’—these are the people, so lost to every sense of the
+ridiculous at home, as to tumble, towzle, and in every other conceivable
+and contemptuous mode maltreat the useful, comfortable, authentic, and
+in every respect unobtrusively defensible Brown Hat aforesaid! Did its
+wearer stop before a shop-window to look wistfully at one of those
+stupendous jars of pickles, which with a dozen of hard eggs for each
+guest, form so prominent a feature of the Dutchman’s merry-making
+suppers; his coat-tails were sure to be pulled by some grinning child,
+broader than long, and in facture closely resembling Mr. Staunton’s
+broadly-based new chessman. Did he lean over a gate to admire some
+magnificent bird, the brilliant cleanlinesss of which on the green
+carpet, gives us a new idea of the beauty of ox or cow, a head would be
+picked up from the dyke-side; with a liberal emission of casual slang,
+and as likely as not, a stone would have been thrown—did Holland contain
+a single stone for a _David’s_ sling to utter. Did he adventure along
+the Wall of Zwolle on a glowing autumn evening, or meekly take the
+second best place on the _treckschuit_ which was to waft him down the
+canal from Groningen to Delfzel (a water-path in its way, as peculiar
+and contradictory of all received principles as any railroad ever
+carried over house-tops at the Minories, or through the great
+pleasure-gardens and greenhouses of a _Sir Timothy Dod_), it was always
+one and the same story—one and the same contempt—one and the same
+experience. Simple laughed with a most disconcerting and noisy
+sincerity; and Gentle stuffed their handkerchiefs into their mouths—held
+both their own sides and poked their neighbours. ‘Driving Cloud’ or
+other of the Ojibbeway Indians if let loose in Clare-Market, would
+hardly have been made to feel his conspicuousness more signally than our
+traveller. There was neither privacy, place, nor pity, for the Brown Hat
+in Friesland.
+
+Therefore, the wisest of these in advising his son, may have meant to
+say to him, ‘Never throw your oddity in the teeth of other men’s
+oddities.’ You cannot expect immunity for your own whims, if you force
+them upon other people’s whims. Never expect that your ‘_ism_’ will find
+quarter among their ‘_isms_;’ or (to put the adage otherwise) he may
+have desired to recommend a reading backwards of the old maxim—worn
+threadbare, rather by trampling upon, than by carrying about, to
+wit—‘Live, and let live.’
+
+If then you would live a quiet life in Friesland, NEVER WEAR A BROWN
+HAT!
+
+
+
+
+                         ALCHEMY AND GUNPOWDER.
+
+
+The day-dream of mankind has ever been the Unattainable. To sigh for
+what is beyond our reach is from infancy to age, a fixed condition of
+our nature. To it we owe all the improvement that distinguishes
+civilised from savage life,—to it we are indebted for all the great
+discoveries which, at long intervals, have rewarded thought.
+
+Though the motives which stimulated the earliest inquiries were
+frequently undefined, and, if curiously examined, would be found to be
+sometimes questionable, it has rarely happened that the world has not
+benefited by them in the end. Thus Astrology, which ascribed to the
+stars an influence over the actions and destinies of man; Magic, which
+attempted to reverse the laws of nature, and Alchemy, which aimed at
+securing unlimited powers of self-reward; all tended to the final
+establishment of useful science.
+
+Of none of the sciences whose laws are fully understood, is this
+description truer than of that now called Chemistry, which once was
+Alchemy. That ‘knowledge of the substance or composition of bodies,’
+which the Arabic root of both words implies, establishes a fact in place
+of a chimera. Experimental philosophy has made Alchemy an impossible
+belief, but the faith in it was natural in an age when reason was seldom
+appealed to. The credulity which accepted witchcraft for a truth, was
+not likely to reject the theory of the transmutation of metals, nor
+strain at the dogma of perpetual youth and health;—the concomitants of
+the Philosopher’s Stone.
+
+The Alchemists claim for their science the remotest antiquity possible,
+but it was not until three or four centuries after the Christian era
+that the doctrine of transmutation began to spread. It was amongst the
+Arabian physicians that it took root. Those learned men, through whom
+was transmitted so much that was useful in astronomy, in mathematics,
+and in medicine, were deeply tinctured with the belief in an universal
+elixir, whose properties gave the power of multiplying gold, of
+prolonging life indefinitely, and of making youth perpetual. The
+discoveries which they made of the successful application of mercury in
+many diseases, led them to suppose that this agent contained within
+itself the germ of all curative influences, and was the basis of all
+other metals. An Eastern imagination, ever prone to heighten the effects
+of nature, was not slow to ascribe a preternatural force to this
+medicine, but not finding it in its simple state, the practitioners of
+the new science had recourse to combination, in the hope, by that means,
+of attaining their object. To fix mercury became their first endeavour,
+and this fixation they described as ‘catching the flying bird of
+Hermes.’ Once embarked in the illusory experiment, it is easy to
+perceive how far the Alchemists might be led; nor need it excite any
+wonder that in pursuit of the ideal, they accidentally hit upon a good
+deal that was real. The labours, therefore, of the Arabian physicians
+were not thrown away, though they entangled the feet of science in
+mazes, from which escape was only effected, after the lapse of centuries
+of misdirected efforts.
+
+From the period we have last spoken of, until the commencement of the
+eleventh century, the only Alchemist of note is the Arabian Geber, who,
+though he wrote on the perfections of metals, of the new found art of
+making gold, in a word, on the philosopher’s stone, has only descended
+to our times as the founder of that jargon, which passes under the name
+of ‘gibberish.’ He was, however, a great authority in the middle ages,
+and allusions to ‘Geber’s cooks,’ and ‘Geber’s kitchen,’ are frequent
+amongst those who at length saw the error of their ways after wasting
+their substance in the vain search for the elixir.
+
+A longer interval might have elapsed but for the voice of Peter the
+Hermit, whose fanatical scheme for the recovery of the Holy Sepulchre
+was the cause of that gradual absorption, by the nations of the West, of
+the learning which had so long been buried in the East. The Crusaders,
+or those, rather, who visited the shores of Syria under their
+protection—the men whose skill in medicine and letters rendered them
+useful to the invading armies—acquired a knowledge of the Arabian
+languages, and of the sciences cultivated by Arabian philosophers, and
+this knowledge they disseminated through Europe. Some part of it, it is
+true, was derived from the Moors in Spain, but it was all conveyed in a
+common tongue which began now to be understood. To this era belong the
+names of Alfonso the Wise, King of Castile; of Isaac Beimiram, the son
+of Solomon the physician; of Hali Abbas, the scholar of Abimeher Moyses,
+the son of Sejar; of Aben Sina, better known as Avicenna, and sometimes
+called Abohali; of Averroes of Cordova, surnamed the Commentator; of
+Rasis, who is also called Almanzor and Albumasar; and of John of
+Damascus, whose name has been latinised into Johannes Damascenus. All
+these, physicians by profession, were more or less professors of
+alchemy; and besides these were such as Artephius, who wrote alchemical
+tracts about the year 1130, but who deserves rather to be remembered for
+the cool assertion which he makes in his ‘Wisdom of Secrets’ that, at
+the time he wrote he had reached the patriarchal—or fabulous—age of one
+thousand and twenty-five years!
+
+The thirteenth century came, and with it came two men who stand first,
+as they then stood alone, in literary and scientific knowledge. One was
+a German, the other an Englishman; the first was Albertus Magnus, the
+last Roger Bacon.
+
+Of the former, many wonderful stories are told:—such, for instance, as
+his having given a banquet to the King of the Romans, in the gardens of
+his cloister at Cologne, when he converted the intensity of winter into
+a season of summer, full of flowers and fruits, which disappeared when
+the banquet was over; and his having constructed a marvellous automaton,
+called ‘Androïs,’ which, like the invention of his contemporary, Roger
+Bacon, was said to be capable of auguring all questions, past, present,
+and to come.
+
+To know more than the rest of the world in any respect, but particularly
+in natural philosophy, was a certain method by which to earn the name of
+necromancer in the middle ages, and there are few whose occult fame has
+stood higher than that of Roger Bacon. He was afraid, therefore, to
+speak plainly—indeed, it was the custom of the early philosophers to
+couch their knowledge in what Bacon himself calls the ‘tricks of
+obscurity;’ and in his celebrated ‘_Epistola de Secretis_,’ he adverts
+to the possibility of his being obliged to do the same thing, through
+‘_the greatness of the secrets_ which he shall handle.’ With regard to
+the invention of his greatest secret, we shall give the words in which
+he speaks of the properties of gunpowder, and afterwards show in what
+terms he concealed his knowledge. ‘_Noyses_,’ he says, ‘_may be made in
+the aire like thunders_, yea, with greater horror than those that come
+of nature; _for a little matter fitted to the quantity of a thimble,
+maketh a horrible noise and wonderful lightning_. And this is done after
+sundry fashions, _whereby any citie or armie may be destroyed_.’ A more
+accurate description of the explosion of gunpowder could scarcely be
+given, and it is not to be supposed that Bacon simply confined himself
+to the theory of his art, when he knew so well the consequences arising
+from a practical application of it. On this head there is a legend
+extant, which has not, to our knowledge, been printed before, from which
+we may clearly see why he contented himself with the cabalistic form in
+which he conveyed his knowledge of what he deemed a fatal secret.
+
+Attached to Roger Bacon’s laboratory, and a zealous assistant in the
+manifold occupations with which the learned Franciscan occupied himself,
+was a youthful student, whose name is stated to have been Hubert de
+Dreux. He was a Norman, and many of the attributes of that people were
+conspicuous in his character. He was of a quick intelligence and hasty
+courage, fertile in invention, and prompt in action, eloquent of
+discourse, and ready of hand; all excellent qualities, to which was
+superadded an insatiable curiosity. Docile to receive instruction, and
+apt to profit by it, Hubert became a great favourite with the
+philosopher, and to him Bacon expounded many of the secrets—or supposed
+secrets—of the art which he strove to bring to perfection. He instructed
+him also in the composition of certain medicines, which Bacon himself
+believed might be the means of prolonging life, though not to the
+indefinite extent dreamt of by those who put their whole faith in the
+Great Elixir.
+
+But there never yet was an adept in any art or science who freely
+communicated to his pupil the full amount of his own knowledge;
+something for experience to gather, or for ingenuity to discover, is
+always kept in reserve, and the instructions of Roger Bacon stopped
+short at one point. He was himself engaged in the prosecution of that
+chemical secret which he rightly judged to be a dangerous one, and,
+while he experimented with the compound of sulphur, saltpetre and
+charcoal, he kept himself apart from his general laboratory and wrought
+in a separate cell, to which not even Hubert had access. To know that
+the Friar had a mysterious occupation, which, more than the making of
+gold or the universal medicine, engrossed him, was enough of itself to
+rouse the young man’s curiosity; but when to this was added the fact,
+that, from time to time, strange and mysterious noises were heard,
+accompanied by bright corruscations and a new and singular odour,
+penetrating through the chinks close to which his eyes were stealthily
+rivetted, Hubert’s eagerness to know all that his master concealed had
+no limit. He resolved to discover the secret, even though he should
+perish in the attempt; he feared that there was good reason for the
+accusation of dealing in the Black Art, which, more than all others the
+monks of Bacon’s own convent countenanced; but this apprehension only
+stimulated him the more. For some time Hubert waited without an
+opportunity occurring for gratifying the secret longing of his heart; at
+last it presented itself.
+
+To afford medical assistance to the sick, was, perhaps, the most useful
+practice of conventual life, and the monks had always amongst them
+practitioners of the healing art, more or less skilful. Of this number,
+Roger Bacon was the most eminent, not only in the monastery to which he
+belonged, but in all Oxford.
+
+It was about the hour of noon on a gloomy day towards the end of
+November, in the year 1282, while the Friar and his pupil were severally
+employed, the former in his secret cell, and the latter in the general
+laboratory, that there arrived at the gate of the Franciscan convent a
+messenger on horseback, the bearer of news from Abingdon that Walter de
+Losely, the sheriff of Berkshire, had that morning met with a serious
+accident by a hurt from a lance, and was then lying dangerously wounded
+at the hostelry of the Chequers in Abingdon, whither he had been hastily
+conveyed. The messenger added that the leech who had been called in was
+most anxious for the assistance of the skilful Friar Roger Bacon, and
+urgently prayed that he would lose no time in coming to the aid of the
+wounded knight.
+
+Great excitement prevailed amongst the monks on the receipt of this
+intelligence, for Walter de Losely was not only a man of power and
+influence, but moreover, a great benefactor to their order. Friar Bacon
+was immediately sought and speedily made his appearance, the urgency of
+the message admitting of no delay. He hastily enjoined Hubert to
+continue the preparation of an amalgam which he was desirous of getting
+into a forward state, and taking with him his case of instruments with
+the bandages and salves which he thought needful, was soon mounted on an
+easy, ambling palfrey on his way towards Abingdon, the impatient
+messenger riding before him to announce his approach.
+
+When he was gone, quiet again reigned in the convent, and Hubert de
+Dreux resumed his occupation. But it did not attract him long. Suddenly
+he raised his head from the work and his eyes were lit up with a gleam
+in which joy and fear seemed equally blended. For the first time, for
+months, he was quite alone. What if he could obtain access to his
+master’s cell and penetrate the mystery in which his labours had been so
+long enveloped! He cautiously stole to the door of the laboratory, and
+peeped out into a long passage, at the further extremity of which a door
+opened into a small court where, detached from the main edifice and
+screened from all observation, was a small building which the Friar had
+recently caused to be constructed. He looked about him timorously,
+fearing lest he might be observed; but there was no cause for
+apprehension, scarcely any inducement could have prevailed with the
+superstitious Franciscans to turn their steps willingly in the direction
+of Roger Bacon’s solitary cell.
+
+Reassured by the silence, Hubert stole noiselessly onward, and
+tremblingly approached the forbidden spot. His quick eye saw at a glance
+that the key was not in the door, and his countenance fell. The Friar’s
+treasure was locked up! He might see something, however, if he could not
+enter the chamber. He knelt down, therefore, at the door, and peered
+through the keyhole. As he pressed against the door, in doing so, it
+yielded to his touch. In the haste with which Friar Bacon had closed the
+entrance, the bolt had not been shot. Hubert rose hastily to his feet,
+and the next moment he was in the cell, looking eagerly round upon the
+crucibles and alembics, which bore witness to his master’s labours. But
+beyond a general impression of work in hand, there was nothing to be
+gleaned from this survey. An open parchment volume, in which the Friar
+had recently been writing, next caught his attention. If the secret
+should be there in any known language. Hubert knew something of the
+Hebrew, but nothing yet of Arabic. He was reassured; the characters were
+familiar to him; the language Latin. He seized the volume, and read the
+few lines which the Friar had just traced on the last page.
+
+They ran thus:—
+
+‘Videas tamen utrum loquar in ænigmate vel secundum veritatem.’ And,
+further (which we translate): ‘He that would see these things shall have
+the key that openeth and no man shutteth, and when he shall shut no man
+is able to open again.’
+
+‘But the secret—the secret!’ cried Hubert, impatiently, ‘let me know
+what “these things” are!’
+
+He hastily turned the leaf back and read again. The passage was that one
+in the ‘_Epistola de Secretis_’ which spoke of the artificial thunder
+and lightning, and beneath it was the full and precise recipe for its
+composition. This at once explained the strange noises and the flashes
+of light which he had so anxiously noticed. Surprising and gratifying as
+this discovery might be, there was, Hubert thought, something beyond.
+Roger Bacon, he reasoned, was not one to practise an experiment like
+this for mere amusement. It was, he felt certain, a new form of
+invocation, more potent, doubtless, over the beings of another world,
+than any charm yet recorded. Be it as it might, he would try whether,
+from the materials around him, it were not in his power to produce the
+same result.
+
+‘Here are all the necessary ingredients,’ he exclaimed; ‘this yellowish
+powder is the well known sulphur, in which I daily bathe the
+argent-vive; this bitter, glistening substance is the salt of the rock,
+the _salis petræ_; and this black calcination, the third agent—But the
+proportions are given, and here stands a glass cucurbit in which they
+should be mingled. It is of the form my master mostly uses—round, with a
+small neck and a narrow mouth, to be luted closely, without doubt. He
+has often told me that the sole regenerating power of the universe is
+heat; yonder furnace shall supply it, and then Hubert de Dreux is his
+master’s equal!’
+
+                  *       *       *       *       *
+
+The short November day was drawing to a close, when, after carefully
+tending the wounded sheriff, and leaving such instructions with the
+Abingdon leech as he judged sufficient for his patient’s well-doing,
+Roger Bacon again mounted his palfrey, and turned its head in the
+direction of Oxford. He was unwilling to be a loiterer after dark, and
+his beast was equally desirous to be once more comfortably housed, so
+that his homeward journey was accomplished even more rapidly than his
+morning excursion; and barely an hour had elapsed when the Friar drew
+the rein at the foot of the last gentle eminence, close to which lay the
+walls of the cloistered city. To give the animal breathing-space, he
+rode quietly up the ascent, and then paused for a few moments before he
+proceeded, his mind intent on subjects foreign to the speculations of
+all his daily associations.
+
+Suddenly, as he mused on his latest discovery, and calculated to what
+principal object it might be devoted, a stream of fiery light shot
+rapidly athwart the dark, drear sky, and before he had space to think
+what the meteor might portend, a roar as of thunder shook the air, and
+simultaneous with it, a shrill, piercing scream, mingled with the
+fearful sound; then burst forth a volume of flame, and on the wind came
+floating a sulphurous vapour which, to him alone, revealed the nature of
+the explosion he had just witnessed.
+
+‘Gracious God!’ he exclaimed, while the cold sweat poured like
+rain-drops down his forehead, ‘the fire has caught the fulminating
+powder! But what meant that dreadful cry? Surely nothing of human life
+has suffered! The boy Hubert,—but, no,—he was at work at the further
+extremity of the building. But this is no time for vain conjecture,—let
+me learn the worst at once!’
+
+And with these words he urged his affrighted steed to its best pace, and
+rode rapidly into the city.
+
+All was consternation there: the tremendous noise had roused every
+inhabitant, and people were hurrying to and fro, some hastening towards
+the place from whence the sound had proceeded, others rushing wildly
+from it. It was but too evident that a dreadful catastrophe, worse even
+than Bacon dreaded, had happened. It was with difficulty he made his way
+through the crowd, and came upon the ruin which still blazed fiercely,
+appalling the stoutest of heart. There was a tumult of voices, but above
+the outcries of the affrighted monks, and of the scared multitude, rose
+the loud voice of the Friar, calling upon them to extinguish the flames.
+This appeal turned all eyes towards him, and then associating him with
+an evil, the cause of which they were unable to comprehend, the
+maledictions of the monks broke forth.
+
+‘Seize the accursed magician,’ they shouted; ‘he has made a fiery
+compact with the demon! Already one victim is sacrificed,—our turn will
+come next! See, here are the mangled limbs of his pupil, Hubert de
+Dreux! The fiend has claimed his reward, and borne away his soul. Seize
+on the wicked sorcerer, and take him to a dungeon!’
+
+Roger Bacon sate stupified by the unexpected blow; he had no power, if
+he had possessed the will, to offer the slightest resistance to the fury
+of the enraged Franciscans, who, in the true spirit of ignorance, had
+ever hated him for his acquirements. With a deep sigh for the fate of
+the young man, whose imprudence he now saw had been the cause of this
+dreadful event, he yielded himself up to his enemies; they tore him from
+his palfrey, and with many a curse, and many a buffet, dragged him to
+the castle, and lodged him in one of its deepest dungeons.
+
+The flames from the ruined cell died out of themselves; but those which
+the envy and dread of Bacon’s genius had kindled, were never
+extinguished, but with his life.
+
+In the long years of imprisonment which followed—the doom of the stake
+being averted only by powerful intercession with the Pope—Bacon had
+leisure to meditate on the value of all he had done to enlarge the
+understanding and extend the knowledge of his species. ‘The prelates and
+friars,’ he wrote in a letter which still remains, ‘have kept me
+starving in close prison, nor will they suffer anyone to come to me,
+fearing lest my writings should come to any other than the Pope and
+themselves.’
+
+He reflected that of all living men he stood well nigh alone in the
+consciousness that in the greatest of his inventions he had produced a
+discovery of incalculable value, but one for which on every account the
+time was not ripe.
+
+‘I will not die,’ he said, ‘without leaving to the world the evidence
+that the secret was known to me whose marvellous power future ages shall
+acknowledge. But not yet shall it be revealed. Generations must pass
+away and the minds of men become better able to endure the light of
+science, before they can profit by my discovery. Let him who already
+possesses knowledge, guess the truth these words convey.’
+
+And in place of the directions by which Hubert de Dreux had been guided,
+he altered the sentence as follows:—
+
+                        ‘Sed tamen salis petræ,
+                                LURU MONE CAP UBRE
+                      et sulphuris.’
+
+The learned have found that these mystical words conceal the anagram of
+_Carbonum pulvere_, the third ingredient in the composition of
+Gunpowder.
+
+
+
+
+                          “A GOOD PLAIN COOK.”
+
+
+‘WANTED, a good plain Cook,’ is hungrily echoed from the columns of the
+_Times_, by half the husbands and bachelors of Great Britain. According
+to the true meaning of the words ‘A good plain Cook’—to judge from the
+unskilful manner in which domestic cookery is carried on throughout the
+length and breadth of the land—is a very great rarity. But the
+conventional and the true meaning of the expression widely differ.
+
+‘What is commonly self-called a plain cook,’ says a writer in the
+_Examiner_, ‘is a cook who spoils food for low wages. She is a cook, not
+because she knows anything about cookery, but because she prefers the
+kitchen-fire to scrubbing floors, polishing grates, or making beds. A
+cook who can boil a potato and dress a mutton-chop is one in a
+thousand.’
+
+Such very plain cooks will always exist for dyspeptic purposes, while
+those who are in authority over them remain ignorant of an art which,
+however much it may be slighted, exercises a crowning influence over
+health and happiness. Eat we must; and it is literally a subject of
+vital importance whether what we eat be properly adapted for healthful
+digestion or not.
+
+Medical statistics tell us that of all diseases with which the English
+are afflicted, those arising directly or indirectly from impaired
+digestive organs are the most prevalent. We are falsely accused in
+consequence of over-eating; but the true cause of our ailments is bad
+cooking. A Frenchman or a German devours much more at one of his own
+inexhaustible _tables-d’hôte_ than an Englishman consumes at his
+dining-table—and with impunity; for the foreigner’s food being properly
+prepared is easily digested. ‘The true difference,’ says a pleasant
+military writer in Blackwood’s Magazine, ‘between English and foreign
+cookery is just this: in preparing butcher’s meat for the table, the aim
+of foreign cookery is to make it tender, of English to make it hard. And
+both systems equally effect their object, in spite of difficulties on
+each side. The butcher’s meat, which you buy abroad, is tough,
+coarse-grained, and stringy; yet foreign cookery sends this meat to
+table tender. The butcher’s meat which you buy in England is tender
+enough when it comes home; but domestic cookery sends it up hard. Don’t
+tell me the hardness is in the meat itself. Nothing of the kind; it’s
+altogether an achievement of the English cuisine. I appeal to a leg of
+mutton, I appeal to a beef-steak, as they usually come to table; the
+beef half-broiled, the mutton half-roasted. Judge for yourself. The
+underdone portion of each is tender; the portion that’s dressed is hard.
+Argal, the hardness is due to the dressing, not to the meat: it is a
+triumph of domestic cookery. Engage a “good plain cook”—tell her to boil
+a neck of mutton, that will show you what I mean. All London necks of
+mutton come to table crescents, regularly curled.’
+
+This is but too true: the real art of stewing is almost unknown in Great
+Britain, and even in Ireland, despite the fame of an ‘Irish stew.’
+
+Everything that is not roasted or fried, is boiled, ‘a gallop,’ till the
+quality of tenderness is consolidated to the consistency of caoutchouc.
+Such a thing as a stewpan is almost unknown in houses supported by less
+than from three to five hundred a year.
+
+These gastronomic grievances are solely due to neglected education. M.
+Alexis Soyer, with a touch of that quiet irony which imparts to satire
+its sharpest sting, dedicated his last Cookery-book ‘to the daughters of
+Albion.’ Having some acquaintance with their deficiencies, he laid his
+book slyly at their feet to drop such a hint as is conveyed when a
+dictionary is handed to damsels who blunder in orthography, or when
+watches are presented to correct unpunctuality. It is to be feared,
+however, that ‘the daughters of Albion’ were too busy with less
+useful—though to them scarcely less essential—accomplishments, to profit
+by his hint. Cookery is a subject they have never been taught to regard
+as worthy of their attention: rather, indeed, as one to be avoided; for
+it is never discussed otherwise than apologetically, with a simpering
+sort of jocularity, or as something which it is ‘low’ to know anything
+about. When a certain diplomatist was reminded that his mother had been
+a cook, he did not deny the fact; but assured the company, ‘upon his
+honour, that she was a very bad one.’ People in the best society do not
+hesitate to bore others with their ailments, and talk about cures and
+physic; but conversation respecting prevention—which is better than
+cure—and wholesomely prepared food is tabooed.
+
+Young ladies of the leisure classes are educated to become uncommonly
+acute critics of all that pertains to personal blandishment. They keep
+an uncompromisingly tight hand over their milliners and ladies’ maids.
+They can tell to a thread when a flounce is too narrow or a tuck too
+deep. They are taught to a shade what colours suit their respective
+complexions, and to a hair how their _coiffure_ ought to be arranged.
+Woe unto the seamstress or handmaiden who sins in these matters! But her
+‘good plain cook’—when a damsel is promoted to wedlock, and owns
+one—passes unreproached for the most heinous offences. Badly seasoned
+and ill assimilated soup; fish, without any fault of the fishmonger,
+soft and flabby; meat rapidly roasted before fierce fires—burnt outside
+and raw within; poultry rendered by the same process tempting to the
+eye, till dissection reveals red and uncooked joints! These crimes, from
+their frequency and the ignorance of ‘the lady of the house,’ remain
+unpunished. Whereupon, husbands, tired of their Barmecide feasts—which
+disappoint the taste more because they have often a promising look to
+the eye—prefer better fare at their clubs; and escape the Scylla of bad
+digestion, to be wrecked on the Charybdis of domestic discord. All this
+is owing to the wife’s culinary ignorance, and to your ‘Good Plain
+Cooks.’
+
+We do not say that the daughters of the wealthy and well to do should be
+submitted to regular kitchen apprenticeships, and taught the details of
+cookery, any more than that they should learn to make shoes or to fit
+and sew dresses. But it is desirable that they should acquire
+_principles_—such principles as would enable them to apply prompt
+correction to the errors of their hired cooks. It is no very bold
+assertion that were such a knowing and judicious supervision generally
+exercised, the stomach diseases, under which half our nation is said to
+groan, would be materially abated.
+
+Let us take a step or two lower in the ladder of English life, where
+circumstances oblige the Good Plain Cook and the wife to be one and the
+same person. Many a respectable clerk, and many a small farmer, is
+doomed from one year’s end to another to a wearying disproportion of
+cold, dry, uncomfortable dinners, because his wife’s knowledge of
+cookery takes no wider range than that which pertains to the roasted,
+boiled, and fried. Thousands of artisans and labourers are deprived of
+half the actual nutriment of food, and of all the legitimate pleasures
+of the table, because their better halves—though good plain cooks, in
+the ordinary acceptation of the term—are in utter darkness as to
+economising, and rendering palatable the daily sustenance of their
+families. ‘If we could see,’ says a writer before quoted, ‘by the help
+of an Asmodeus what is going on at the dinner-hour of the humbler of the
+middle class, what a spectacle of discomfort, waste, ill-temper, and
+consequent ill-conduct, it would be! The man quarrels with his wife
+because there is nothing he can eat, and he generally makes up in drink
+for the deficiencies in the article of food. Gin is the consolation to
+the spirits and the resource to the baulked appetite. There is thus not
+only the direct waste of food and detriment to health, but the farther
+consequent waste of the use of spirits, with its injury to the habits
+and the health. On the other hand, people who eat well drink moderately;
+the satisfaction of appetite with relish dispensing with recourse to
+stimulants. Good-humour, too, and good health follow a good meal, and by
+a good meal we mean anything, however simple, well dressed in its way. A
+rich man may live very expensively and very ill, and a poor one very
+frugally but very well, if it be his good fortune to have a good cook in
+his wife or his servant; and a ministering angel a good cook is, either
+in the one capacity or the other, not only to those in humble
+circumstances, but to many above them of the class served by what are
+self-termed professed cooks, which is too frequently an affair of
+profession purely, and who are to be distinguished from plain cooks only
+in this, that they require larger wages for spoiling food, and spoil
+much more in quantity, and many other articles to boot.’
+
+Great would be the advantage to the community, if cookery were made a
+branch of female education. To the poor, the gain would be incalculable.
+‘Amongst the prizes which the Bountifuls of both sexes are fond of
+bestowing in the country,’ we again quote the _Examiner_, ‘we should
+like to see some offered for the best-boiled potato, the best-grilled
+mutton-chop, and the best-seasoned hotch-potch soup or broth. In writing
+of a well-boiled potato, we are aware that we shall incur the contempt
+of many for attaching importance to a thing they suppose to be so
+common; but the fact is, that their contempt arises, as is often the
+origin of contempt, from their ignorance, there not being one person in
+ten thousand who has ever seen and tasted that great rarity—a
+well-boiled potato.’
+
+This is scarcely an exaggeration. The importance attached to the point
+by the highest gastronomic authorities, is shown by what took place,
+some years since, at the meeting of a Pall Mall Club Committee specially
+called for the selection of a cook. The candidates were an Englishman,
+from the Albion Tavern, and a Frenchman recommended by Ude. The eminent
+divine who presided in right of distinguished connoisseurship put the
+first question to the candidates. It was this:—‘Can you boil a potato?’
+
+Let us hope that these hints will fructify and be improved upon, and
+that the first principles of cooking will become, in some way, a part of
+female education. In schools, however, this will be difficult. It can
+only be a branch of household education; and until it does so become, we
+shall continue to be afflicted with ‘Good Plain Cooks.’
+
+
+
+
+                     TWO-HANDED DICK THE STOCKMAN.
+                       AN ADVENTURE IN THE BUSH.
+
+
+Travelling in the Bush one rainy season, I put up for the night at a
+small weatherbound inn, perched half way up a mountain range, where
+several Bush servants on the tramp had also taken refuge from the
+downpouring torrents. I had had a long and fatiguing ride over a very
+bad country, so, after supper, retired into the furthest corner of the
+one room that served for ‘kitchen, and parlour, and all,’ and there,
+curled up in my blanket, in preference to the bed offered by our host,
+which was none of the cleanest; with half-shut eyes, I glumly puffed at
+my pipe in silence, allowing the hubble-bubble of the Bushmen’s gossip
+to flow through my unnoting ears.
+
+Fortunately for my peace, the publican’s stock of rum had been some time
+exhausted, and as I was the latest comer, all the broiling and frying
+had ceased, but a party sat round the fire, evidently set in for a spell
+at ‘yarning.’ At first the conversation ran in ordinary channels, such
+as short reminiscences of old world rascality, perils in the Bush. Till
+at length a topic arose which seemed to have a paramount interest for
+all. This was the prowess of a certain Two-Handed Dick the Stockman.
+
+‘Yes, yes; I’ll tell you what it is, mates,’ said one; ‘this confounded
+reading and writing, that don’t give plain fellows like you and me a
+chance;—now, if it were to come to fighting for a living, I don’t care
+whether it was half-minute time and London rules, rough and tumble, or
+single stick, or swords and bayonets, or tomahawks,—I’m dashed if you
+and me, and Two-Handed Dick, wouldn’t take the whole Legislative
+Council, the Governor and Judges—one down ’tother come on. Though, to be
+sure, Dick could thrash any two of us.’
+
+I was too tired to keep awake, and dozed off, to be again and again
+disturbed with cries of ‘Bravo, Dick!’ ‘That’s your sort!’ ‘Houray,
+Dick!’ all signifying approval of that individual’s conduct in some
+desperate encounter, which formed the subject of a stirring narrative.
+
+For months after that night this idea of Two-Handed Dick haunted me, but
+the bustle of establishing a new station at length drove it out of my
+head.
+
+I suppose a year had elapsed from the night when the fame of the
+double-fisted stockman first reached me. I had to take a three days’
+journey to buy a score of fine-woolled rams, through a country quite new
+to me, which I chose because it was a short cut recently discovered. I
+got over, the first day, forty-five miles comfortably. The second day,
+in the evening, I met an ill-looking fellow walking with a broken
+musket, and his arm in a sling. He seemed sulky, and I kept my hand on
+my double-barrelled pistol all the time I was talking to him; he begged
+a little tea and sugar, which I could not spare, but I threw him a fig
+of tobacco. In answer to my questions about his arm, he told me, with a
+string of oaths, that a bull, down in some mimosa flats, a day’s journey
+a-head, had charged him, flung him into a water-hole, broken his arm,
+and made him lose his sugar and tea bag. Bulls in Australia are
+generally quiet, but this reminded me that some of the Highland black
+cattle imported by the Australian Company, after being driven off by a
+party of Gully Rakees (cattle stealers), had escaped into the mountains
+and turned quite wild. Out of this herd, which was of a breed quite
+unsuited to the country, a bull sometimes, when driven off by a stronger
+rival, would descend to the mimosa flats, and wander about, solitary and
+dangerously fierce.
+
+It struck me as I rode off, that it was quite as well my friend’s arm
+and musket had been disabled, for he did not look the sort of man it
+would be pleasant to meet in a thicket of scrub, if he fancied the horse
+you rode. So, keeping one eye over my shoulder, and a sharp look-out for
+any other traveller of the same breed, I rode off at a brisk pace. I
+made out afterwards that my foot friend was Jerry Jonson, hung for
+shooting a bullock-driver, the following year.
+
+At sun-down, when I reached the hut where I had intended to sleep, I
+found it deserted, and so full of fleas, I thought it better to camp
+out; so I hobbled out old Grey-tail on the best piece of grass I could
+find which was very poor indeed.
+
+The next morning when I went to look for my horse he was nowhere to be
+found. I put the saddle on my head and tracked him for hours, it was
+evident the poor beast had been travelling away in search of grass. I
+walked until my feet were one mass of blisters; at length, when about to
+give up the search in despair, having quite lost the track on stony
+ground, I came upon the marks quite fresh in a bit of swampy ground, and
+a few hundred yards further found Master Grey-tail rolling in the mud of
+a nearly dry water-hole as comfortably as possible. I put down the
+saddle and called him; at that moment I heard a loud roar and crash in a
+scrub behind me, and out rushed at a terrific pace a black Highland bull
+charging straight at me. I had only just time to throw myself on one
+side flat on the ground as he thundered by me. My next move was to
+scramble among a small clump of trees, one of great size, the rest were
+mere saplings.
+
+The bull having missed his mark, turned again, and first revenged
+himself by tossing my saddle up in the air, until fortunately it lodged
+in some bushes; then, having smelt me out, he commenced a circuit round
+the trees, stamping, pawing, and bellowing frightfully. With his red
+eyes and long sharp horns he looked like a demon; I was quite unarmed,
+having broken my knife the day before; my pistols were in my holsters,
+and I was wearied to death. My only chance consisted in dodging him
+round the trees until he should be tired out. Deeply did I regret having
+left my faithful dogs Boomer and Bounder behind.
+
+The bull charged again and again, sometimes coming with such force
+against the tree that he fell on his knees, sometimes bending the
+saplings behind which I stood until his horns almost touched me. There
+was not a branch I could lay hold of to climb up. How long this awful
+game of ‘_touchwood_’ lasted, I know not; it seemed hours; after the
+first excitement of self-preservation passed off, weariness again took
+possession of me, and it required all the instinct of self-preservation
+to keep me on my feet; several times the bull left me for a few seconds,
+pacing suddenly away, bellowing his malignant discontent; but before I
+could cross over to a better position he always came back at full speed.
+My tongue clave to the roof of my mouth, my eyes grew hot and misty, my
+knees trembled under me, I felt it impossible to hold out until dark. At
+length I grew desperate, and determined to make a run for the opposite
+covert the moment the bull turned towards the water-hole again. I felt
+sure I was doomed, and thought of it until I grew indifferent. The bull
+seemed to know I was worn out, and grew more fierce and rapid in his
+charges, but just when I was going to sit down under the great tree and
+let him do his worst, I heard the rattle of a horse among the rocks
+above, and a shout that sounded like the voice of an angel. Then came
+the barking of a dog, and the loud reports of a stockwhip, but the bull
+with his devilish eyes fixed on me, never moved.
+
+Up came a horseman at full speed; crack fell the lash on the black
+bull’s hide; out spirted the blood in a long streak. The bull turned
+savagely—charged the horseman. The horse wheeled round just enough to
+baffle him—no more—again the lash descended, cutting like a long
+flexible razor, but the mad bull was not to be beaten off by a whip: he
+charged again and again; but he had met his match; right and left, as
+needed, the horse turned, sometimes pivotting on his hind, sometimes on
+his fore-legs.
+
+The stockman shouted something, leapt from his horse, and strode forward
+to meet the bull with an open knife between his teeth. As the beast
+lowered his head to charge, he seemed to catch him by the horns. There
+was a struggle, a cloud of dust, a stamping like two strong men
+wrestling—I could not see clearly; but the next moment the bull was on
+his back, the blood welling from his throat, his limbs quivering in
+death.
+
+The stranger, covered with mud and dust, came to me, saying as
+unconcernedly as if he had been killing a calf in a slaughter-house,
+‘He’s dead enough, young man; he won’t trouble anybody any more.’
+
+I walked two or three paces toward the dead beast; my senses left me—I
+fainted.
+
+When I came to myself, my horse was saddled, bridled, and tied up to a
+bush. My stranger friend was busy flaying the bull.
+
+‘I should like to have a pair of boots out of the old devil,’ he
+observed, in answer to my enquiring look, ‘before the dingoes and the
+eagle hawks dig into his carcase.’
+
+We rode out of the flats up a gentle ascent, as night was closing in. I
+was not in talking humour; but I said, ‘You have saved my life.’
+
+‘Well, I rather think I have’ but this was muttered in an under tone;
+‘it’s not the first I have saved, or taken either, for that matter.’
+
+I was too much worn out for thanking much, but I pulled out a silver
+hunting-watch and put it into his hand. He pushed it back, almost
+roughly, saying, ‘No, Sir, not now; I shalln’t take money or money’s
+worth for that, though I may ask something some time. It’s nothing,
+after all. I owed the old black devil a grudge for spoiling a blood
+filly of mine; beside, though I didn’t know it when I rode up first, and
+went at the beast to take the devil out of myself as much as anything,—I
+rather think that you are the young gentleman that ran through the Bush
+at night to Manchester Dan’s hut, when his wife was bailed up by the
+Blacks, and shot one-eyed Jackey, in spite of the Governor’s
+proclamation.’
+
+‘You seem to know me,’ I answered; ‘pray may I ask who you are, if it is
+a fair question, for I cannot remember ever having seen you before.’
+
+‘Oh, they call me “Two-handed Dick,” in this country.’
+
+The scene in the roadside inn flashed on my recollection. Before I could
+say another word, a sharp turn round the shoulder of the range we were
+traversing, brought us in sight of the fire of a shepherd’s hut. The
+dogs ran out barking; we hallooed and cracked our whips, and the
+hut-keeper came to meet us with a fire-stick in his hand.
+
+‘Lord bless my heart and soul! Dick, is that thee at last? Well, I
+thought thee were’t never coming;’ cried the hut-keeper, a little man,
+who came limping forward very fast with the help of a crutch-handled
+stick. ‘I say, Missis, Missis, here’s Dick, here’s Two-handed Dick.’
+
+This was uttered in a shrill, hysterical sort of scream. Out came
+‘Missis’ at the top of her speed, and began hugging Dick as he was
+getting off his horse, her arms reached a little above his waist,
+laughing and crying, both at the same time, while her husband kept fast
+hold of the Stockman’s hand, muttering, ‘Lord, Dick, I’m so glad to see
+thee.’ Meanwhile the dogs barking, and a flock of weaned lambs just
+penned, ba’aing, made such a riot, that I was fairly bewildered. So,
+feeling myself one too many, I slipped away, leading off both the horses
+to the other side the hut, where I found a shepherd, who showed me a
+grass paddock to feed the nags a bit before turning them out for the
+night. I said to him, ‘What _is_ the meaning of all this going on
+between your mate and his wife, and the big Stockman?’
+
+‘The meaning, Stranger; why, that’s Two-handed Dick, and my mate is
+little Jemmy that he saved, and Charley Anvils at the same time, when
+the Blacks slaughtered the rest of the party, near on a dozen of them.’
+
+On returning, I found supper smoking on the table, and we had made a
+regular ‘Bush’ meal. The Stockman then told my adventure, and, when they
+had exchanged all the news, I had little difficulty in getting the
+hut-keeper to the point I wanted; the great difficulty lay in preventing
+man and wife from telling the same story at the same time. However, by
+judicious management, I was able to gather the following account of
+_Two-handed Dick’s Fight and Ride_.
+
+‘When first I met Dick he was second Stockman to Mr. Ronalds, and I took
+a shepherd’s place there; it was my second place in this country, for
+you see I left the Old Country in a bad year for the weaving trade, and
+was one of the first batch of free emigrants that came out, the rest
+were chiefly Irish. I found shepherding suit me very well, and my Missis
+was hut-keeper. Well, Dick and I got very thick; I used to write his
+letters for him, and read in an evening and so on. Well, though I
+undertook a shepherd’s place I soon found I could handle an axe pretty
+well. Throwing the shuttle gives the use of the arms, you see, and Dick
+put into my head that I could make more money if I took to making
+fences; I sharpening the rails and making the mortice-holes, and a
+stranger man setting them. I did several jobs at odd times, and was
+thought very handy. Well, Mr. Ronalds, during the time of the great
+drought five years ago, determined to send up a lot of cattle to the
+North, where he had heard there was plenty of water and grass, and form
+a Station there. Dick was picked out as Stockman; a young gentleman, a
+relation of Mr. Ronalds, went as head of the party, a very foolish,
+conceited young man, who knew very little of Bush life, and would not be
+taught. There were eight splitters and fencers, besides Charley Anvils,
+the blacksmith, and two bullock drivers.
+
+‘I got leave to go because I wanted to see the country and Dick asked.
+My missis was sorely against my going. I was to be storekeeper, as well
+as do any farming; and work if wanted.
+
+‘We had two drays, and were well armed. We were fifteen days going up
+before we got into the new country, and then we travelled five days;
+sometimes twenty-four hours without water; and sometimes had to unload
+the drays two or three times a day, to get over creeks. The fifth day we
+came to very fine land; the grass met over our horses’ necks, and the
+river was a chain of water-holes, all full, and as clear as crystal. The
+kangaroos were hopping about as plentiful as rabbits in a warren; and
+the grass by the river side had regular tracks of the emus, where they
+went down to drink.
+
+‘We had been among signs of the Blacks too, for five days, but had not
+seen anything of them, although we could hear the devils cooing at
+nightfall, calling to each other. We kept regular watch and watch at
+first—four sentinels, and every man sleeping with his gun at hand.
+
+‘Now, as it was Dick’s business to tail (follow) the cattle,
+five-hundred head, I advised him to have his musket sawed off in the
+barrel, so as to be a more handy size for using on horseback. He took my
+advice; and Charley Anvils made a very good job of it, so that he could
+bring it under his arm when hanging at his back from a rope sling, and
+fire with one hand. It was lucky I thought of it, as it turned out.
+
+‘At length the overseer fixed on a spot for the Station. It was very
+well for water and grass, and a very pretty view, as he said, but it was
+too near a thicket where the Blacks would lie in ambush, for safety. The
+old Bushmen wanted it planted on a neck of land, where the waters
+protected it all but one side, and there a row of fence would have made
+it secure.
+
+‘Well, we set to work, and soon had a lot of tall trees down. Charley
+put up his forge and his grindstone, to keep the axe sharp, and I staid
+with him. Dick went tailing the cattle, and the overseer sat on a log
+and looked on. The second day a mob of Blacks came down on the opposite
+side of the river. They were quite wild, regular _myals_, but some of
+our men with green branches, went and made peace with them. They liked
+our bread and sugar; and after a short time we had a lot of them helping
+to draw rails, fishing for us, bringing wild honey, kangaroos, rats, and
+firewood, in return for butter and food, so we began to be less careful
+about our arms. We gave them iron tomahawks, and they soon found out
+that they could cut out an opossum from a hollow in half-an-hour with
+one of our tomahawks, while it took a day with one of their own stone
+ones.
+
+‘And so the time passed very pleasantly. We worked away. The young men
+and gins worked for us. The chiefs adorned themselves with the trinkets
+and clothes we gave them, and fished and hunted, and admired themselves
+in the river.
+
+‘Dick never trusted them; he stuck to his cattle; he warned us not to
+trust them, and the overseer called him a bloodthirsty murdering
+blackguard for his pains.
+
+‘One day, the whole party were at work, chopping and trimming
+weather-boards for the hut; the Blacks helping as usual. I was turning
+the grindstone for Charley Anvils, and Dick was coming up to the dray to
+get some tea, but there was a brow of a hill between him and us; the
+muskets were all piled in one corner. I heard a howl, and then a
+scream—our camp was full of armed Blacks. When I raised my head, I saw
+the chief, Captain Jack we called him, with a broad axe in his hand, and
+the next minute he had chopped the overseer’s head clean off; in two
+minutes all my mates were on the ground. Three or four came running up
+to us; one threw a spear at me, which I half parried with a pannikin I
+was using to wet the grindstone, but it fixed deep in my hip, and part
+of it I believe is there still. Charley Anvils had an axe in his hand,
+and cut down the first two fellows that came up to him, but he was
+floored in a minute with twenty wounds. They were so eager to kill me,
+that one of them, luckily, or I should not have been alive now, cut the
+spear in my hip short off. Another, a young lad I had sharpened a
+tomahawk for a few days before, chopped me across the head; you can see
+the white hair. Down I fell, and nothing could have saved us, but the
+other savages had got the tarpaulin off, and were screaming with
+delight, plundering the drays, which called my enemies off. Just then,
+Dick came in sight. He saw what was the matter; but although there were
+more than a hundred black devils, all armed, painted, bloody, and
+yelling, he never stopped or hesitated, but rode slap through the camp,
+fired bang among them, killing two, and knocking out the brains of
+another. As he passed by a top rail, where an axe was sticking, he
+caught it up. The men in the camp were dead enough; the chief warriors
+had made the rush there, and every one was pierced with several spears,
+or cut down from close behind by axes in the hands of the chiefs. We,
+being further off, had been attacked by the boys only. Dick turned
+towards us, and shouted my name; I could not answer, but I managed to
+sit up an instant; he turned towards me, leaned down, caught me by the
+jacket, and dragged me on before him like a log. Just then Charley, who
+had crept under the grindstone, cried “Oh, Dick, don’t leave me!” As he
+said that, a lot of them came running down, for they had seen enough to
+know that, unless they killed us all, their job would not be half-done.
+As Dick turned to face them, they gave way and flung spears, but they
+could not hurt him; they managed to get between us and poor Charley.
+Dick rode back a circuit, and dropped me among some bushes on a hill,
+where I could see all. Four times he charged through and through a whole
+mob, with an axe in one hand and his short musket in the other. He cut
+them down right and left, as if he had been mowing; he scared the
+wretches, although the old women kept screeching and urging them on, as
+they always do. At length, by help of his stirrup leather, he managed to
+get Charley up behind him. He never could have done it, but his mare
+fought, and bit, and turned when he bid her, so he threw the bridle on
+her neck, and could use that terrible left arm of his. Well, he came up
+to the hill and lifted me on, and away we went for three or four miles,
+but we knew the mare could not stand it long, so Dick got off and
+walked. When the Blacks had pulled the drays’ loads to pieces, they
+began to follow us, but Dick never lost heart’—
+
+‘Nay, mate,’ interrupted Dick, ‘once I did; I shall never forget it,
+when I came to put my last bullet in, it was too big.’
+
+‘Good heavens,’ I exclaimed, ‘what did you do?’
+
+‘Why, I put the bullet in my mouth, and kept chawing and chawing it, and
+threatening the black devils all the while until at last it was small
+enough, and then I rammed it down, and dropped on my knee and waited
+until they came within twenty yards, and then I picked off Captain Jack,
+the biggest villain of them all.’
+
+Here Dick, being warmed, continued the story:—‘We could not stop; we
+marched all evening and all night, and when the two poor creturs cried
+for water, as they did most of the night, as often as I could I filled
+my boots, and gave them to drink. I led the horse, and travelled seventy
+miles without halting for more than a minute or two. Toward the last
+they were as helpless as worn-out sheep. I tied them on. We had the luck
+to fall in with a party travelling just when the old mare was about
+giving in, and then we must all have died for want of water. Charley
+Anvils had eighteen wounds, but, except losing two fingers, is none the
+worse. Poor Jemmy, there, will never be fit for anything but a
+hut-keeper; as for me, I had some scratches—nothing to hurt; and the old
+mare lost an ear. I went back afterwards with the police, and squared
+accounts with the Blacks.
+
+‘And so you see, Stranger, the old woman thinks I saved her old man’s
+life, although I would have done as much for any one; but I believe
+there are some gentlemen in Sydney think I ought to have been hung for
+what I did. Anyhow, since that scrimmage in the Bush, they always call
+me “TWO-HANDED DICK.”’
+
+
+    Published at the Office, No. 16, Wellington Street North, Strand.
+            Printed by BRADBURY & EVANS, Whitefriars, London.
+
+------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+
+
+
+                          TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES
+
+
+ ● Fixed typos; non-standard spelling and dialect retained.
+ ● Enclosed italics font in _underscores_.
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78170 ***
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+  </head>
+  <body>
+<div style='text-align:center'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78170 ***</div>
+
+<div class='tnotes covernote'>
+
+<p class='c000'><strong>Transcriber’s Note:</strong></p>
+
+<p class='c000'>New original cover art included with this eBook is granted to the public domain.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class='double titlepage'>
+
+<p class='c001'>“<i>Familiar in their Mouths as HOUSEHOLD WORDS.</i>”—<span class='sc'>Shakespeare.</span></p>
+<div>
+  <span class='pageno' id='Page_121'>121</span>
+  <h1 class='c002'>HOUSEHOLD WORDS.<br> <span class='xlarge'>A WEEKLY JOURNAL.</span></h1>
+</div>
+
+<div class='nf-center-c0'>
+<div class='nf-center c003'>
+    <div><span class='large'>CONDUCTED BY CHARLES DICKENS.</span></div>
+    <div class='c004'>N<sup>o.</sup> 6.]&#8196; &#8196; &#8196; SATURDAY, MAY 4, 1850.&#8196; &#8196; &#8196; [<span class='sc'>Price</span> 2<i>d.</i></div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <h2 class='c005'>THE HEART OF MID-LONDON.</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c001'>It was with singular pride that Mr. Thomas
+Bovington of Long Hornets, Bucks, viewed
+his first ‘lot’ of fat bullocks as they filed
+their way out of his stock-yard towards the
+nearest Station of the North Western Railway.
+They were so sleek, so well fed, and
+so well behaved, that they turned out of their
+stalls with the solemn sobriety of animals
+attending their own funeral. Except a few
+capers cut by a lively West Highlander, they
+sauntered along like beasts who had never had
+a care in their lives. For how were they to
+know that the tips of their horns pointed to
+that bourne from whence few bovine travellers
+return—Smithfield? Smithfield, the Heart of
+Mid-London, the flower of the capital—the
+true, original, London-Pride, always in full
+bloom! A merciful ignorance blinded them
+to the fact that, the master who had fed and
+pampered them with indulgent industry—who
+had administered their food out of the
+scientific dietaries of Liebig; who had built
+their sheds after the manner of Huxtable;
+who had stalled and herded them in imitation
+of Pusey; who had littered them out of
+‘Stevens’s Book of the Farm’—was about,
+with equal care and attention to their comfort,
+to have them converted into cash, and
+then into beef.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>This was Mr. Bovington’s first transaction
+in bullocks. Since his retirement from Northampton
+(where he made a small fortune by
+tanning the hides he now so assiduously filled
+out), he had devoted his time, his capital, and
+his energy to stock-farming. His sheep had
+always sold well; so well indeed, that he had
+out-stocked the local markets; and, on the
+previous morning, had driven off a threescore
+flock to the same destination and on the
+same tragic errand, as that of his oxen. His
+success in the production of mutton had given
+him courage: he had, therefore, soared to
+beef. Only the Thursday before a neighbouring
+farmer had pronounced of his herd to his
+face, that ‘a primer lot of beasts he never see—nowheres.’</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>Mr. Bovington had several hours to spare
+before the passenger-train was due in which
+he intended to follow his cattle. Like a
+thrifty man he spent a part of it over his
+stock-book, to settle finally at what figure he
+could afford to sell. He was an admirable
+book-keeper; he could tell to an ounce how
+much oil-cake each ox had devoured, to a root
+how many beets; and, to a wisp, how much
+straw had been used for litter. The acreage
+of pasture was, also, minutely calculated. The
+result was, that Mr. Bovington could find
+in an instant the cost price of each stone of
+the flesh that had just departed of its own
+motion towards the shambles.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>To a mercenary mind; to a man whose
+whole soul is ground down to considerations
+of mere profit (considerations which many
+profound politico-philosophers deplore as
+entering too largely into the agricultural
+mind) the result of Mr. Bovington’s comparison
+of the cost with the present market
+prices, would have been extremely unsatisfactory.
+What he had produced at about
+3<i>s.</i> 9<i>d.</i> per stone, he found by the ‘Marklane
+Express’ was ‘dull at 3<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i>, sinking the
+offal.’ Neither had the season been favourable
+for sheep—at least, not for <i>his</i> sheep—and
+by them, too, he would be a loser.
+But what of that? Mr. Bovington’s object
+was less profit than fame. As a beginner, he
+wanted to establish a first-class character in
+the market; and, that obtained, it would be
+time enough to turn his attention to the
+economics of feeding and breeding. With what
+pride would he hear the praises of those astute
+critics, the London butchers, as they walked
+round and round, pinching and punching each
+particular ox, enumerating his various good
+points, and contrasting it with the meaner,
+leaner stock of the mere practical graziers!
+With what confidence he could command the
+top price, and with what certainty he could
+maintain it for his ‘lots’ in future!</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>Mr. Bovington was as merciful as he was
+above immediate gain. He could not trust
+the stock he had nurtured and fed, to the uncontrolled
+dominion of drovers. Though
+hurried to their doom, he would take care
+that they should be killed ‘comfortably.’
+He considered this as a sacred duty, else he—who
+was a pattern to the parish—would not
+have thus employed himself on a Sunday.
+As he took his ticket at the station, the
+chimes for evening service had just struck
+out. His conscience smote him. As his eye
+roved over the peaceful glades of Long
+Hornets, on which the evening sun was
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_122'>122</span>lowering his beams, he contrasted the holy
+Sabbath calm with the scene of excitement
+into which he was voluntarily plunging himself.
+As a kind of salve to his troubled mind,
+he determined to pay extra care and attention
+to the comfort of his cattle.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>His consignment was to remain, till Smithfield
+market opened at eleven o’clock on the
+Sunday night, at the Islington lairs. Thither
+Mr. Bovington repaired—on landing at the
+Euston Station—in a very fast cab. On his
+way, he calculated what the cost would be
+of all the fodder, all the water, and all the attendance,
+which his sheep and oxen would
+have received during their temporary sojourn.
+The first question he put, therefore, to the
+drover on arriving at the lairs, was:</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>“What’s to pay?”</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>“Wot for?”</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>“Why,” replied the amateur grazier, “for
+the feed of my sheep since last night!”</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>“Feed!” repeated the man with staring
+wonder. “Who ever heerd of feedin’ markit
+sheep? Why, they’ll be killed on Monday or
+Tuesday, won’t they?”</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>“If sold.”</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>“Well they’ll never want no more wittles,
+will they?”</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>“But they have had nothing since Saturday!”</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>“What on it! Sheep as comes to Smithfield
+<i>never</i> has no feed, has they?”</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>“Nor water either?” said Mr. Bovington.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>“<i>I</i> should think not!” replied the drover.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>As he spoke, he drove the point of his goad
+into the backs of each of a shorn flock that
+happened to be passing. He had no business
+with them, but it was a way he had.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>With sorrowful eyes, Mr. Bovington sought
+out his own sheep. Poor things! They lay
+closely packed, with their tongues out, panting
+for suction; for they were too weak to bleat.
+He would have given any money to relieve
+them; but relief no money could buy.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>Mr. Bovington was glad to find his bullocks
+in better plight. To them, fodder and drink
+had been sparingly supplied, but they were
+wedged in so tightly that they had hardly
+room to breathe. Their good looks—which had
+cost him so much expenditure of oil-cake, and
+anxiety, and for which he had expected so
+much praise from buyers—would be quite
+gone before they got to Smithfield.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>“It aint o’ no use a fretting,” said the
+master drover, “your’n aint no worse off nor
+t’others. What you’ve got to do, is, to git to
+bed, and meet me in the markit at four.”
+Naming a certain corner.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>“Well,” said Mr. Bovington, seeing there
+was no help for it, “let it be so; but I trust
+you will take care to get my lots driven down
+by humane drovers.”</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>Mr. Whelter—that was the master-drover’s
+name—assented, in a manner that showed he
+had not the remotest idea what a humane
+driver was, or where the article was to be
+found.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>Mr. Bovington could get no rest, and went
+his way towards the market, long before the
+time appointed. Before he came within sight
+of Smithfield, a din as of a noisy Pandemonium
+filled his ears. The shouting of
+some of the drovers, the shrill whistle of
+others, the barking of dogs, the bleating of
+sheep, and the lowing of cattle, were the
+natural expressions of a crowded market;
+but, added to these, were other sounds, which
+made Mr. Bovington shudder—something
+between the pattering of a tremendous hailstorm,
+and the noise of ten thousand games of
+single stick played, all at once, in sanguinary
+earnest.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>He was not a particularly nervous man,
+and did not shudder without reason. When
+he came into the market, he saw at a glance
+enough to know that. He stood looking about
+him in positive horror.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>To get the bullocks into their allotted stands,
+an incessant punishing and torturing of the
+miserable animals—a sticking of prongs into
+the tender part of their feet, and a twisting of
+their tails to make the whole spine teem with
+pain—was going on: and this seemed as much
+a part of the market, as the stones in its
+pavement. Across their horns, across their
+hocks, across their haunches, Mr. Bovington
+saw the heavy blows rain thick and fast, let
+him look where he would. Obdurate heads
+of oxen, bent down in mute agony; bellowing
+heads of oxen lifted up, snorting out smoke
+and slaver; ferocious men, cursing and swearing,
+and belabouring oxen; made the place a
+panorama of cruelty and suffering. By every
+avenue of access to the market, more oxen were
+pouring in: bellowing, in the confusion, and
+under the falling blows, as if all the church-organs
+in the world were wretched instruments—all
+there—and all being tuned together.
+Mixed up with these oxen, were great flocks of
+sheep, whose respective drovers were in agonies
+of mind to prevent their being intermingled in
+the dire confusion; and who raved, shouted,
+screamed, swore, whooped, whistled, danced
+like savages; and, brandishing their cudgels,
+laid about them most remorselessly. All this
+was being done, in a deep red glare of burning
+torches, which were in themselves a strong
+addition to the horrors of the scene; for the
+men who were arranging the sheep and lambs
+in their miserably confined pens, and forcing
+them to their destination through alleys of
+the most preposterously small dimensions,
+constantly dropped gouts of the blazing pitch
+upon the miserable creatures’ backs; and to
+smell the singeing and burning, and to see
+the poor things shrinking from this roasting,
+inspired a sickness, a disgust, a pity and
+an indignation, almost insupportable. To
+reflect that the gate of St. Bartholomew’s
+Hospital was in the midst of this devilry,
+and that such a monument of years of sympathy
+for human pain should stand there,
+jostling this disgraceful record of years of disregard
+of brute endurance—to look up at the
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_123'>123</span>faint lights in the windows of the houses where
+the people were asleep, and to think that some
+of them had been to Public Prayers that
+Sunday, and had typified the Divine love and
+gentleness, by the panting, footsore creature,
+burnt, beaten, and needlessly tormented there,
+that night, by thousands—suggested truths
+so inconsistent and so shocking, that the
+Market of the Capital of the World seemed a
+ghastly and blasphemous Nightmare.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>“Does this happen <i>every</i> Monday morning?”
+asked the horror-stricken denizen of Long
+Hornets, of a respectable-looking man.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>“This?” repeated the stranger. “Bless
+you! This is nothing to what it is sometimes.”
+He then turned to a passing drover,
+who was vainly trying to get some fifty sheep
+through a pen-alley calculated for the easy
+passage of twenty. “How many are spoke for
+to-night, Ned?”</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>“How many? Why five-and-twenty-thousand
+sheep, and forty-one-hundred beasts.”</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>“Ah! no more than an ordinary market,
+Sir,” said Mr. Bovington’s new friend; “yet
+you see and hear what’s now going on to
+wedge these numbers in. And it stands to
+reason, if you’ve got to jam together a fourth
+more animals than there is space for, there
+<i>must</i> be cruelty.”</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>“How much legitimate accommodation is
+there?” asked Mr. Bovington.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>“There are pens for two-and-twenty-thousand
+sheep and they can tie up twenty-seven-hundred
+beasts. Well! you hear; room has
+already been ‘spoke for,’ or bespoken, for
+three-thousand more sheep and fourteen-hundred
+more cattle than there is proper space
+for.”</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>“What becomes of the surplus?”</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>“The beasts are formed, in the thoroughfares
+and in the outskirts of the market, into
+what we call ‘off-droves;’ and the sheep wait
+outside, anywhere, till they can get in.”</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>Here the conversation was interrupted by
+a sudden increase in the demoniacal noises.
+Opposite the speakers, was a row of panting
+oxen, each fastened by a slip-noose to a rail,
+as closely as their heads could be jammed
+together. Some more were being tied up, and
+one creature had just escaped. Instantly a
+dozen hoarse voices yelled:</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>“Out! out! out!”</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>The cry was echoed by a dozen others.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>“Out! out! out!”</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>A wild hunt followed, and then a shower
+of blows on the back, horns and sides, of the
+luckless truant. The concentrated punishment
+of two dozen drovers’ sticks made the bull
+too glad to resume its original station. It
+was then tied up, so tightly, that the swelled
+tongue protruded. That the poor brute
+should be rendered powerless for motion for
+some time to come, it was ‘hocked;’—that
+is to say, tremendous blows were inflicted
+on its hind legs till it was completely
+hobbled.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>Mr. Bovington was glad it was not one of
+his bullocks. “Are <i>many</i> strangled by these
+tight nooses?” he asked.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>“A good many in the course of the year, I
+should say. All the rails are full now, and the
+off-droves are beginning.”</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>The battle raged faster and more furious
+than ever. In order to make the most of the
+room, they were forming ‘ring-droves;’ that
+is, punishing the animals till a certain number
+had turned all their heads together so as to
+form the inside of a circle—which at last
+they did, to avoid the blows inflicted on
+them. Mr. Bovington’s blood ran cold as he
+witnessed the cruelty necessary for this evolution.
+After every imaginable torment had
+been practised, to get them into the right position,
+a stray head would occasionally protrude—where
+a tail should be—on the outside
+of the ring. Tremendous blows were then
+repeated on the nose, neck, and horns, till the
+tortured animal could turn; and when he
+succeeded, the goad was ‘jobbed’ into his
+flanks till he could wedge himself in, so as to
+form his own proper radius of the dense
+circle.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>“I have often seen their haunches streaming
+with blood,” said Mr. Bovington’s companion,
+“before they could get into the ring. Why,
+a friend of mine, a tanner at Kenilworth, was
+actually obliged to leave off buying hides that
+came out of this market, because they were
+covered with holes that had been bored in the
+live animals by the Smithfield drovers. He
+called these skins Smithfield Cullanders.”</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>“Cruel wretches!”</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>“Well,” said the stranger, thoughtfully, “I
+can’t blame <i>them</i>. I have known them forty
+years——”</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>“You are a salesman?”</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>“I <i>was</i>; but they worried me out of the
+market, for trying to get it removed, and for
+giving evidence against it before Parliament.”</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>Mr. Brumpton (that was the name of the
+ousted salesman) did a little fattening, now, on
+a few acres near London; and came occasionally
+to Smithfield to buy and sell in a small
+way,—just, in fact, as Mr. Bovington had begun
+to do.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>“Well,” he continued, “I can’t lay all the
+blame on the drovers. What can they do?
+If they have got one hundred beasts to wedge
+into a space only big enough for seventy, they
+<i>must</i> be cruel. Even the labour their cruelty
+costs themselves is terrible. I have often seen
+drovers’ men lying on the steps of doors, quite
+exhausted. None of them ever live long.”</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>“How many are there?”</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>“About nine-hundred-and-fifty—licensed.”</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>A deafening hullabaloo arose again. A
+new ring-drove was being begun, close by.
+Bovington threw up his hands in horror,
+when he saw that some of his cherished cattle
+were to become members of it. The lively
+West Highlander was struggling fiercely
+against his fate; but in vain: he was goaded,
+beaten, and worried with dogs, till forced into
+the ring.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'><span class='pageno' id='Page_124'>124</span>Bovington hastened to the appointed corner,
+to expostulate with Mr. Whelter.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>“How can <i>I</i> help it!” was that individual’s
+consolation. “I spoke for <i>all</i> your
+beasts; but there was only room for seven
+on ’em to be tied up; so the rest on ’em is
+in off-droves. Where else <i>can</i> they be?”</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>“And my sheep?”</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>“Couldn’t get none on ’em in. They’re a
+waiting in the ‘Ram’ Yard, till the sales empties
+some of the pens. You’ll find ’em in the first
+floor.”</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>“What! Up stairs?”</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>“Ah, in the one-pair back.”</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>Mr. Bovington elbowed his way to the
+Ram Inn, to confirm by his eyes what he
+could not believe with his ears. Sure enough
+he found his favourite ‘New Leicesters’ a
+whole flight of stairs above ground. How
+they had ever been got up, or how they
+were ever to be got down, surpassed his ingenuity
+to conjecture.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>At length there was pen-room; and sorely
+were Mr. Bovington’s feelings tried. When
+his little flock were got into the market, they
+met, and were mixed with, the sold flocks
+that were going out. Confusion was now
+worse confounded. The beating, the goading,
+the bustling, the shouting; the bleating of the
+sheep; the short, sharp, snarling of the dogs;
+above all, the stentorian oaths and imprecations
+of the drovers,—no human imagination,
+unaided by the reality, could conceive. Several
+flocks were intermixed, in a manner that made
+correct separation seem impossible; but while
+Mr. Bovington shuddered at all this cruelty
+and wickedness—<span class='fss'>SOLELY PRODUCED BY WANT
+OF SPACE, AND BY THE PREVIOUS DRIVING
+THROUGH THE STREETS</span>—he could not help
+admiring the instinct of the dogs, and the ingenuity
+of the men, in lessening the confusion—the
+former watching intently their masters’
+faces for orders, and flying over the backs of
+the moving floor of wool, to execute them.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>“Go for ’em, Bob!”</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>Like lightning the dog belonging to the
+drover of Bovington’s sheep, dashed over their
+backs, and he beheld the ear of a favourite
+wether between its teeth. By some magic,
+however, this significant style of ear-wigging
+directed the sheep into the alley that led
+to the empty pens; and the others were
+pushed, punched, goaded, and thrashed, till
+each score was jammed into the small enclosures,
+as tight as figs in a drum.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>“They seem a nice lot,” said Mr. Brumpton,
+who had followed the new seller; “but how
+is it possible for the best butcher in London
+to tell what they are, in a wedge like this.
+Can he know how they will cut up, after the
+punishment they have had? Impossible:
+and what’s the consequence? Why, he will
+deduct ten or fifteen per cent. from your
+price for bruised meat. It is the same with
+bullocks.”</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>Mr. Bovington, at this hint, reverted to his
+herd of cattle with a fresh pang. Crammed,
+rammed, and jammed as they were between
+raw-boned Lincolnshires and half-fed Herefords—a
+narrow bristling grove of gaunt
+shoeing-horns—how could his customers see
+and appreciate the fine ‘points’ of his fancy
+stock? He had worked for Fame; yet, however
+loud her blast, who could hear it above
+the crushing din of Smithfield?</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>Mr. Bovington, having returned to the
+rendezvous, leaned against a cutler’s door-post—where
+there was an old grindstone outside
+(which the market-people, by much sharpening
+of their knives upon it, had worn away, like an
+old cheese)—in profound rumination. He was
+at a dead lock. He could not sell all his stock,
+and he could not withdraw it; for it was so
+fearfully deteriorated from the treatment it
+had got, that he felt sure the recovery of
+many of his sheep and oxen would be very
+doubtful. The best thing he could wish for
+them was speedy death; and, for himself, sales
+at any price.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>His reflections were interrupted by the
+pleasing information, that although some of
+his beasts that were tied up had been sold at
+the top price, only a few of those in the off-droves
+could find customers at the second, because
+the butchers could not get to see them.
+“And you see they <i>will</i> have the pull of the
+market, if they can get it.”</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>Mr. Bovington looked unutterable despair,
+and told the salesman emphatically to <i>sell</i>.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>“It don’t matter to him,” said Brumpton,
+who was again at poor Bovington’s elbow,
+“what the animals fetch. Sold for much or
+little, the salesman’s profit don’t vary—4<i>s.</i> a
+head for beasts, and from 10<i>s.</i> to 13<i>s.</i> a score
+for sheep, at whatever price he sells. That’s
+the system here, and it don’t improve the
+profits of the grazier. Why should <i>he</i> care
+what you get, or lose?”</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>Towards the close of the market, Mr.
+Bovington perceived, that if it cost the animals
+intense torture to be got into their allotted
+places, it took unmitigated brutality to get
+them out again. The breaking up of a ring-drove
+might have made a treat for Nero;
+but honest Mr. Bovington had had enough.
+He retired from the arena of innumerable
+bull-fights in a state of mind in which disgust
+very much preponderated over personal disappointment.
+“And mentioning bull-fights,”
+thought he to himself, “Upon my life! I
+don’t think we are so much better than those
+people in Spain after all, while we stand this
+sort of thing, and eat our dinners, and make
+our wills.”</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>Mr. Brumpton and he determined to breakfast
+together, at the ‘Catherine Wheel,’ in
+St. John Street.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>“What remedy do you propose for these
+horrors?” asked our dejected friend.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>“A market in the suburbs,” was the answer.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>“But look at the rapidity with which
+London spreads. How long will you guarantee
+that any site you may select will remain
+‘out of Town?’”</p>
+
+<p class='c006'><span class='pageno' id='Page_125'>125</span>“Ah, that’s the difficulty,” said Brumpton.
+“In 1808, it was proposed to remove the
+market to the ‘open fields’—Clerkenwell-fields;
+but, twenty years afterwards, there
+was not a blade of grass to be seen near the
+place. It was covered with bricks and
+mortar. Rahere-street—in the midst of a
+dense neighbourhood—now stands on the very
+spot that was suggested. Again, only last
+year a field between Camden-town and Holloway
+was proposed; but since then, houses
+have been built up to the very hedge that
+incloses it.”</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>“Islington market seems not to answer.”</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>“No; <i>I</i> think it lies too low. They can’t
+drain it properly.”</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>“What is to be done, then?”</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>“I’ll tell you what I think would be best.
+Let a good site be fixed upon; and don’t rest
+contented with that. Fence off, also, a certain
+space around it with appropriate approaches.
+Let these be kept sacred from innovating
+bricks. Deal with a new cattle-market as the
+Board of Health proposes to deal with cemeteries.
+Isolate it. Allow of no buildings,
+except for market purposes—of no encroachments
+whatever—either upon the area itself
+or its new approaches.”</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>Mr. Bovington was about to hazard a
+remark about abattoirs, when deafening cries
+again arose in the street.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>“Mad bull! mad bull! mad bull!” resounded
+from Smithfield-bars.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>“Mad bull! mad bull!” was echoed from
+the uttermost ends of St. John Street.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>Bovington looked out of window. A fine
+black ox was tearing furiously along the
+pavement. Women were screaming and
+rushing into shops, children scrambling out
+of the road, men hiding themselves in doorways,
+boys in ecstacies of rapture, drovers as
+mad as the bull tearing after him, sheep getting
+under the wheels of hackney-coaches, dogs
+half choking themselves with worrying the
+wool off their backs, pigs obstinately connecting
+themselves with a hearse and funeral, other
+oxen looking into public-houses—everybody
+and everything disorganised, no sort of animal
+able to go where it wanted or was wanted;
+nothing in its right place; everything wrong
+everywhere; all the town in a brain fever
+because of this infernal market!</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>The mad bull was Mr. Bovington’s West
+Highlander. He was quite prepared for it.
+When he saw him going round the corner,
+and at the same moment beheld a nursemaid,
+a baby, and a baked potato-can, fly into the air
+in opposite directions, he was horrified, but not
+surprised. He followed his West Highlander.
+He followed the crowd tearing after his West
+Highlander, down St. John Street, through
+Jerusalem-passage, along Clerkenwell Green,
+up a hill, and down an alley. He passed two
+disabled apple-women, a fractured shop-front,
+an old man being put into a cab and taken to
+the hospital. At last, he traced the favourite of
+his herds into a back parlour in Liquorpond
+Street, into which he had violently intruded
+through a tripe-shop, and where he was being
+slaughtered for his own peace and for the
+safety of the neighbourhood; but not at all to
+the satisfaction of an invalid who had leaped
+out of a turn-up bedstead, into the little yard
+behind. The carcass of the West Highlander
+was sold to a butcher for a sum which paid
+about half of what was demanded, from its
+owner, for compensation to the different victims
+of its fury.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>Mr. Bovington returned to Long Hornets
+a ‘wiser,’ though certainly not—commercially
+speaking—a ‘better’ man. His adventures
+in Smithfield had made a large hole in a
+50<i>l.</i> note.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>Some of his oxen were returned unsold.
+Two came back with the ‘foot disease’, and
+the rest did not recover their value for six
+months.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>Mr. Bovington has never tried Smithfield
+again. He regards it as a place accursed.
+In distant Reigns, he says, it was an odious
+spot, associated with cruelty, fanaticism, wickedness
+and torture; and in these later days
+it is worthy of its ancient reputation. It is
+a doomed, but a proper and consistent stronghold
+(according to Mr. Bovington) of prejudice,
+ignorance, cupidity, and stupidity:—</p>
+
+<div class='lg-container-b c007'>
+  <div class='linegroup'>
+    <div class='group'>
+      <div class='line'>On some fond breast its parting soul relies,</div>
+      <div class='line'>Some pious alderman its fame admires;</div>
+      <div class='line'>Ev’n from its tomb, the voice of Suff’ring cries,</div>
+      <div class='line'>Ev’n in its ashes live its wonted Fires!</div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <h2 class='c005'>THE MINER’S DAUGHTERS.—A TALE OF THE PEAK.</h2>
+</div>
+
+<div class='nf-center-c0'>
+<div class='nf-center c004'>
+    <div>IN THREE CHAPTERS.</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<h3 class='c008'>CHAP. I.—THE CHILD’S TRAGEDY.</h3>
+
+<p class='c009'>There is no really beautiful part of this
+kingdom so little known as the Peak of
+Derbyshire. Matlock, with its tea-garden
+trumpery and mock-heroic wonders; Buxton,
+with its bleak hills and fashionable bathers;
+the truly noble Chatsworth and the venerable
+Haddon, engross almost all that the public
+generally have seen of the Peak. It is talked
+of as a land of mountains, which in reality are
+only hills; but its true beauty lies in valleys
+that have been created by the rending of the
+earth in some primeval convulsion, and which
+present a thousand charms to the eyes of the
+lover of nature. How deliciously do the
+crystal waters of the Wye and the Dove rush
+along such valleys, or dales, as they there are
+called. With what a wild variety do the
+grey rocks soar up amid their woods and
+copses. How airily stand in the clear
+heavens the lofty limestone precipices, and
+the grey edges of rock gleam out from the
+bare green downs—there <i>never</i> called downs.
+What a genuine Saxon air is there cast over
+the population, what a Saxon bluntness
+salutes you in their speech!</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>It is into the heart of this region that we
+propose now to carry the reader. Let him
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_126'>126</span>suppose himself with us now on the road
+from Ashford-in-the-water to Tideswell.
+We are at the Bull’s Head, a little inn on
+that road. There is nothing to create wonder,
+or a suspicion of a hidden Arcadia in anything
+you see, but another step forward, and—there!
+There sinks a world of valleys at your feet.
+To your left lies the delicious Monsal Dale.
+Old Finn Hill lifts his grey head grandly
+over it. Hobthrush’s Castle stands bravely
+forth in the hollow of his side—grey, and
+desolate, and mysterious. The sweet Wye
+goes winding and sounding at his feet, amid
+its narrow green meadows, green as the
+emerald, and its dark glossy alders. Before
+us stretches on, equally beautiful, Cressbrook
+Dale; Little Edale shows its cottages from
+amidst its trees; and as we advance, the
+Mousselin-de-laine Mills stretch across the
+mouth of Miller’s Dale, and startle with
+the aspect of so much life amid so much
+solitude.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>But our way is still onward. We resist
+the attraction of Cressbrook village on its lofty
+eminence, and plunge to the right, into
+Wardlow Dale. Here we are buried deep in
+woods, and yet behold still deeper the valley
+descend below us. There is an Alpine feeling
+upon us. We are carried once more, as in a
+dream, into the Saxon Switzerland. Above
+us stretch the boldest ranges of lofty precipices,
+and deep amid the woods are heard
+the voices of children. These come from a
+few workmen’s houses, couched at the foot of
+a cliff that rises high and bright amid the
+sun. That is Wardlow Cop; and there we
+mean to halt for a moment. Forwards lies a
+wild region of hills, and valleys, and lead-mines,
+but forward goes no road, except such
+as you can make yourself through the tangled
+woods.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>At the foot of Wardlow Cop, before this
+little hamlet of Bellamy Wick was built, or
+the glen was dignified with the name of Raven
+Dale, there lived a miner who had no term
+for his place of abode. He lived, he said,
+under Wardlow Cop, and that contented him.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>His house was one of those little, solid,
+grey limestone cottages, with grey flagstone
+roofs, which abound in the Peak. It had
+stood under that lofty precipice when the
+woods which now so densely fill the valley
+were but newly planted. There had been a
+mine near it, which had no doubt been the
+occasion of its erection in so solitary a place;
+but that mine was now worked out, and
+David Dunster, the miner, now worked at a
+mine right over the hills in Miller’s Dale.
+He was seldom at home, except at night, and
+on Sundays. His wife, besides keeping her
+little house, and digging and weeding in the
+strip of garden that lay on the steep slope
+above the house, hemmed in with a stone
+wall, also seamed stockings for a framework-knitter
+in Ashford, whither she went once or
+twice in the week.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>They had three children, a boy and two
+girls. The boy was about eight years of age;
+the girls were about five and six. These
+children were taught their lessons of spelling
+and reading by the mother, amongst her
+other multifarious tasks; for she was one of
+those who are called regular plodders. She
+was quiet, patient, and always doing, though
+never in a bustle. She was not one of those
+who acquire a character for vast industry by
+doing everything in a mighty flurry, though
+they contrive to find time for a tolerable deal
+of gossip under the plea of resting a bit, and
+which ‘resting a bit’ they always terminate
+by an exclamation that ‘they must be off,
+though, for they have a world of work to do.’
+Betty Dunster, on the contrary, was looked on
+as rather ‘a slow coach.’ If you remarked
+that she was a hard-working woman, the
+reply was, ‘Well, she’s always doing—Betty’s
+work’s never done; but then she does na
+hurry hersen.’ The fact was, Betty was a
+thin, spare woman, of no very strong constitution,
+but of an untiring spirit. Her
+pleasure and rest were, when David came
+home at night, to have his supper ready, and
+to sit down opposite to him at the little round
+table, and help him, giving a bit now and
+then to the children, that came and stood
+round, though they had had their suppers,
+and were ready for bed as soon as they had
+seen something of their ‘dad.’</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>David Dunster was one of those remarkably
+tall fellows that you see about these hills, who
+seem of all things the very worst made men
+to creep into the little mole holes on the hill
+sides that they call lead-mines. But David
+did manage to burrow under and through the
+hard limestone rocks as well as any of them.
+He was a hard-working man, though he liked
+a sup of beer, as most Derbyshire men do,
+and sometimes came home none of the soberest.
+He was naturally of a very hasty
+temper, and would fly into great rages; and
+if he were put out by anything in the working
+of the mines, or the conduct of his fellow-workmen,
+he would stay away from home for
+days, drinking at Tideswell, or the Bull’s
+Head at the top of Monsal Dale, or down at
+the Miners’ Arms at Ashford-in-the-water.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>Betty Dunster bore all this patiently. She
+looked on these things somewhat as matters
+of course. At that time, and even now, how
+few miners do not drink and ‘rol a bit,’ as
+they call it. She was, therefore, tolerant, and
+let the storms blow over, ready always to persuade
+her husband to go home and sleep off
+his drink and anger, but if he were too violent,
+leaving him till another attempt might succeed
+better. She was very fond of her children,
+and not only taught them on week days their
+lessons, and to help her to seam, but also took
+them to the Methodist Chapel in ‘Tidser,’ as
+they called Tideswell, whither, whenever she
+could, she enticed David. David, too, in his
+way, was fond of the children, especially of
+the boy, who was called David after him. He
+was quite wrapped up in the lad, to use the
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_127'>127</span>phrase of the people in that part; in fact, he
+was foolishly and mischievously fond of him.
+He would give him beer to drink, ‘to make a
+true Briton on him,’ as he said, spite of Betty’s
+earnest endeavour to prevent it,—telling him
+that he was laying the foundation in the lad
+of the same faults that he had himself. But
+David Dunster did not look on drinking as a
+fault at all. It was what he had been used to
+all his life. It was what all the miners had
+been used to for generations. A man was
+looked on as a milk-sop and a Molly Coddle,
+that would not take his mug of ale, and be
+merry with his comrades. It required the
+light of education, and the efforts that have
+been made by the Temperance Societies, to
+break in on this ancient custom of drinking,
+which, no doubt, has flourished in these hills
+since the Danes and other Scandinavians, bored
+and perforated them of old for the ores of lead
+and copper. To Betty Dunster’s remonstrances,
+and commendations of tea, David
+would reply,—‘Botheration Betty, wench!
+Dunna tell me about thy tea and such-like
+pig’s-wesh. It’s all very well for women; but
+a man, Betty, a man mun ha’ a sup of real
+stingo, lass. He mun ha’ summut to prop his
+ribs out, lass, as he delves through th’ chert
+and tood-stone. When tha weylds th’ maundrel
+(the pick), and I wesh th’ dishes, tha shall ha’
+th’ drink, my wench, and I’ll ha’ th’ tea.
+Till then, prithee let me aloon, and dunna
+bother me, for it’s no use. It only kicks my
+monkey up.’</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>And Betty found that it was of no use;
+that it did only kick his monkey up, and so
+she let him alone, except when she could drop
+in a persuasive word or two. The mill-owners
+at Cressbrook and Miller’s Dale had forbidden
+any public-house nearer than Edale, and they
+had more than once called the people together
+to point out to them the mischiefs of drinking,
+and the advantages to be derived from the
+very savings of temperance. But all these
+measures, though they had some effect on the
+mill people, had very little on the miners. They
+either sent to Tideswell or Edale for kegs of
+beer to peddle at the mines, or they went
+thither themselves on receiving their wages.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>And let no one suppose that David Dunster
+was worse than his fellows; or that Betty
+Dunster thought her case a particularly hard
+one. David was ‘pretty much of a muchness,’
+according to the country phrase, with the rest
+of his hard-working tribe, which was, and
+always had been, a hard-drinking tribe; and
+Betty, though she wished it different, did not
+complain, just because it was of no use, and
+because she was no worse off than her neighbours.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>Often when she went to ‘carry in her hose’
+to Ashford, she left the children at home by
+themselves. She had no alternative. They
+were there in that solitary valley for many
+hours playing alone. And to them it was not
+solitary. It was all that they knew of life,
+and that all was very pleasant to them. In
+spring, they hunted for birds’-nests in the
+copses, and amongst the rocks and grey stones
+that had fallen from them. In the copses built
+the blackbirds and thrushes: in the rocks the
+firetails; and the grey wagtails in the stones,
+which were so exactly of their own colour, as
+to make it difficult to see them. In summer,
+they gathered flowers and berries, and in the
+winter they played at horses, kings, and shops,
+and sundry other things in the house.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>On one of these occasions, a bright afternoon
+in autumn, the three children had rambled
+down the glen, and found a world of amusement
+in being teams of horses, in making a
+little mine at the foot of a tall cliff, and in
+marching for soldiers, for they had one day—the
+only time in their lives—seen some soldiers
+go through the village of Ashford, when they
+had gone there with their mother, for she
+now and then took them with her when she
+had something from the shop to carry besides
+her bundle of hose. At length they came to
+the foot of an open hill which swelled to a
+considerable height, with a round and climbable
+side, on which grew a wilderness of
+bushes amid which lay scattered masses of
+grey crag. A small winding path went up
+this, and they followed it. It was not long,
+however, before they saw some things which
+excited their eager attention. Little David,
+who was the guide, and assumed to himself
+much importance as the protector of his sisters,
+exclaimed, ‘See here!’ and springing forward,
+plucked a fine crimson cluster of the mountain
+bramble. His sisters, on seeing this,
+rushed on with like eagerness. They soon
+forsook the little winding and craggy footpath,
+and hurried through sinking masses of
+moss and dry grass, from bush to bush and
+place to place. They were soon far up above
+the valley, and almost every step revealed to
+them some delightful prize. The clusters of
+the mountain bramble, resembling mulberries,
+and known only to the inhabitants of the hills,
+were abundant, and were rapidly devoured.
+The dewberry was as eagerly gathered,—its
+large, purple fruit passing with them for
+blackberries. In their hands were soon seen
+posies of the lovely grass of Parnassus, the
+mountain cistus, and the bright blue geranium.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>Higher and higher the little group ascended
+in this quest, till the sight of the
+wide, naked hills, and the hawks circling
+round the lofty, tower-like crags over their
+heads, made them feel serious and somewhat
+afraid.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>‘Where are we?’ asked Jane, the elder
+sister. ‘Arn’t we a long way from hom?’</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>‘Let us go hom,’ said little Nancy. ‘I’m
+afeerd here;’ clutching hold of Jane’s frock.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>‘Pho, nonsense!’ said David, ‘what are
+you afreed on? I’ll tak care on you, niver
+fear.’</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>And with this he assumed a bold and
+defying aspect, and said, ‘Come along; there
+are nests in th’ hazzles up yonder.’</p>
+
+<p class='c006'><span class='pageno' id='Page_128'>128</span>He began to mount again, but the two
+girls hung back and said, ‘Nay, David,
+dunna go higher; we are both afreed;’ and
+Jane added, ‘It’s a long wee from hom, I’m
+sure.’</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>‘And those birds screechen’ so up there; I
+darna go up,’ added little Nancy. They
+were the hawks that she meant, which hovered
+whimpering and screaming about the highest
+cliffs. David called them little cowards, but
+began to descend and, presently, seeking for
+berries and flowers as they descended, they
+regained the little winding, craggy road, and,
+while they were calling to each other, discovered
+a remarkable echo on the opposite
+hill side. On this, they shouted to it, and
+laughed, and were half frightened when it
+laughed and shouted again. Little Nancy
+said it must be an old man in the inside
+of the mountain; at which they were all
+really afraid, though David put on a big
+look, and said, ‘Nonsense! it was nothing
+at all.’ But Jane asked how nothing at
+all could shout and laugh as it did? and
+on this little Nancy plucked her again by
+the frock, and said in turn, ‘Oh, dear, let’s
+go hom!’</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>But at this David gave a wild whoop to
+frighten them, and when the hill whooped
+again, and the sisters began to run, he burst
+into laughter, and the strange spectral Ha!
+ha! ha! that ran along the inside of the hill
+as it were, completed their fear, and they
+stopped their ears with their hands and
+scuttled away down the hill. But now
+David seized them, and pulling their hands
+down from their heads, he said, ‘See here!
+what a nice place with the stones sticking
+out like seats. Why, it’s like a little house;
+let us stay and play a bit here.’ It was a
+little hollow in the hill side surrounded by
+projecting stones like an amphitheatre. The
+sisters were still afraid, but the sight of this
+little hollow with its seats of crag had such a
+charm for them that they promised David
+they would stop awhile, if he would promise
+not to shout and awake the echo. David
+readily promised this, and so they sat down;
+David proposed to keep a school, and cut a
+hazel wand from a bush and began to lord it
+over his two scholars in a very pompous
+manner. The two sisters pretended to be
+much afraid, and to read very diligently on
+pieces of flat stone which they had picked up.
+And then David became a serjeant and was
+drilling them for soldiers, and stuck pieces
+of fern into their hair for cockades. And
+then, soon after, they were sheep, and he was
+the shepherd; and he was catching his
+flock and going to shear them, and made
+so much noise that Jane cried, ‘Hold!
+there’s the echo mocking us.’</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>At this they all were still. But David
+said, ‘Pho! never mind the echo; I must
+shear my sheep:’ but just as he was seizing
+little Nancy to pretend to shear her with
+a piece of stick, Jane cried out, ‘Look! look!
+how black it is coming down the valley there!
+There’s going to be a dreadful starm; let us
+hurry hom!’</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>David and Nancy both looked up, and
+agreed to run as fast down the hill as they
+could. But the next moment the driving
+storm swept over the hill, and the whole
+valley was hid in it. The three children
+still hurried on, but it became quite dark,
+and they soon lost the track, and were tossed
+about by the wind, so that they had difficulty
+to keep on their legs. Little Nancy began to
+cry, and the three taking hold of each other
+endeavoured in silence to make their way
+homewards. But presently they all stumbled
+over a large stone, and fell some distance
+down the hill. They were not hurt, but
+much frightened, for they now remembered
+the precipices, and were afraid every
+minute of going over them. They now strove
+to find the track by going up again, but they
+could not find it anywhere. Sometimes they
+went upwards till they thought they were
+quite too far, and then they went downwards
+till they were completely bewildered; and
+then, like the Babes in the Wood, ‘They sate
+them down and cried.’</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>But ere they had sate long, they heard
+footsteps, and listened. They certainly
+heard them and shouted, but there was
+no answer. David shouted, ‘Help! fayther!
+mother! help!’ but there was no answer.
+The wind swept fiercely by; the hawks
+whimpered from the high crags, lost in the
+darkness of the storm; and the rain fell,
+driving along icy cold. Presently, there was
+a gleam of light through the clouds; the
+hill side became visible, and through the haze
+they saw a tall figure as of an old man
+ascending the hill. He appeared to carry two
+loads slung from his shoulders by a strap;
+a box hanging before, and a bag hanging
+at his back. He wound up the hill slowly
+and wearily, and presently he stopped and
+relieving himself of his load, seated himself
+on a piece of crag to rest. Again David
+shouted, but there still was no answer. The
+old man sate as if no shout had been heard—immoveable.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>‘It <i>is</i> a man,’ said David, ‘and I <i>will</i> make
+him hear;’ and with that he shouted once
+more with all his might. But the old man
+made no sign of recognition. He did not
+even turn his head, but he took off his hat
+and began to wipe his brow as if warm with
+the ascent.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>‘What can it be?’ said David in astonishment.
+‘It <i>is</i> a man, that’s sartain. I’ll run
+and see.’</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>‘Nay, nay!’ shrieked the sisters. ‘Don’t,
+David! don’t! It’s perhaps the old man
+out of the mountain that’s been mocking us.
+Perhaps,’ added Jane, ‘he only comes out in
+starms and darkness.’</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>‘Stuff!’ said David, ‘an echo isn’t a man;
+it’s only our own voices. I’ll see who it is;
+and away he darted, spite of the poor girl’s
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_129'>129</span>crying in terror, ‘Don’t; don’t, David! Oh,
+don’t.’</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>But David was gone. He was not long in
+reaching the old man, who sate on his stone
+breathing hard, as if out of breath with his
+ascent, but not appearing to perceive David’s
+approach. The rain and the wind drove
+fiercely upon him, but he did not seem to
+mind it. David was half afraid to approach
+close to him, but he called out, ‘Help; help,
+mester!’ The old man remained as unconscious
+of his presence. ‘Hillo!’ cried David
+again. ‘Can you tell us the way down,
+mester?’ There was no answer, and David
+was beginning to feel a shudder of terror run
+through every limb, when the clouds cleared
+considerably, and he suddenly exclaimed,
+‘Why, it’s old Tobias Turton of top of Edale,
+and he’s as deaf as a door nail!’</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>In an instant, David was at his side; seized
+his coat to make him aware of his presence,
+and, on the old man perceiving him, shouted
+in his ear, ‘Which is the way down here,
+Mester Turton? Where’s the track?’</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>‘Down? Weighs o’ the back?’ said the old
+man; ‘ay, my lad, I was fain to sit down; it
+does weigh o’ th’ back, sure enough.’</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>‘Where’s the foot-track?’ shouted David,
+again.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>‘Th’ foot-track? Why, what art ta doing
+here, my lad, in such a starm? Isn’t it
+David Dunster’s lad?’</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>David nodded. ‘Why, the track ’s here!
+see;’ and the old man stamped his foot.
+‘Get down hom, my lad, as fast as thou can.
+What dun they do letting thee be upon th’
+hills in such a dee as this?’</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>David nodded his thanks, and turned to
+descend the track, while the old man adjusting
+his burden again, silently and wearily recommenced
+his way upwards.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>David shouted to his sisters as he descended,
+and they quickly replied. He called to them
+to come towards him, as he was on the track,
+and was afraid to quit it again. They endeavoured
+to do this; but the darkness was now
+redoubled, and the wind and rain became more
+furious than ever. The two sisters were soon
+bewildered amongst the bushes, and David,
+who kept calling to them at intervals to
+direct their course towards him, soon heard
+them crying bitterly. At this, he forgot the
+necessity of keeping the track, and darting
+towards them, soon found them by continuing
+to call to them, and took their hands to lead
+them to the track. But they were now
+drenched through with the rain, and shivered
+with cold and fear. David, with a stout
+heart endeavoured to cheer them. He told
+them the track was close by, and that they
+would soon be at home. But though the
+track was not ten yards off, somehow they
+did not find it. Bushes and projecting rocks
+turned them out of their course; and owing
+to the confusion caused by the wind, the
+darkness, and their terror, they searched in
+vain for the track. Sometimes they thought
+they had found it, and went on a few paces,
+only to stumble over loose stones, or get
+entangled in the bushes.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>It was now absolutely becoming night.
+Their terrors increased greatly. They shouted
+and cried aloud, in the hope of making their
+parents hear them. They felt sure that both
+father and mother must be come home; and
+as sure that they would be hunting for them.
+But they did not reflect that their parents
+could not tell in what direction they had
+gone. Both father and mother were come
+home, and the mother had instantly rushed
+out to try to find them, on perceiving that
+they were not in the house. She had hurried
+to and fro, and called—not at first supposing
+they would be far. But when she heard
+nothing of them, she ran in, and begged of
+her husband to join in the search. But at
+first David Dunster would do nothing. He
+was angry at them for going away from the
+house, and said he was too tired to go on a
+wild-goose chase through the plantations
+after them. ‘They are i’ th’ plantations,’
+said he; ‘they are sheltering there somewhere.
+Let them alone, and they’ll come
+home, with a good long tail behind them.’</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>With this piece of a child’s song of sheep,
+David sat down to his supper, and Betty
+Dunster hurried up the valley, shouting—‘Children,
+where are you? David! Jane!
+Nancy! where are you?’</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>When she heard nothing of them, she hurried
+still more wildly up the hill towards the
+village. When she arrived there—the distance
+of a mile—she inquired from house to
+house, but no one had seen anything of them.
+It was clear they had not been in that direction.
+An alarm was thus created in the
+village; and several young men set out to
+join Mrs. Dunster in the quest. They again
+descended the valley towards Dunster’s house,
+shouting every now and then, and listening.
+The night was pitch dark, and the rain fell
+heavily; but the wind had considerably
+abated, and once they thought they heard a
+faint cry in answer to their call, far down the
+valley. They were right; the children had
+heard the shouting, and had replied to it.
+But they were far off. The young men
+shouted again, but there was no answer; and
+after shouting once more without success,
+they hastened on. When they reached David
+Dunster’s house, they found the door open,
+and no one within. They knew that David
+had set off in quest of the children himself,
+and they determined to descend the valley.
+The distracted mother went with them, crying
+silently to herself, and praying inwardly,
+and every now and then trying to shout.
+But the young men raised their strong voices
+above hers, and made the cliffs echo with
+their appeals.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>Anon a voice answered them down the
+valley. They ran on as well as the darkness
+would let them, and soon found that it was
+David Dunster, who had been in the plantations
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_130'>130</span>on the other side of the valley; but
+hearing nothing of the lost children, now
+joined them. He said he had heard the cry
+from the hill side farther down, that answered
+to their shouts; and he was sure that it was
+his boy David’s voice. But he had shouted
+again, and there had been no answer but a
+wild scream as of terror, that made his blood
+run cold.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>‘O God!’ exclaimed the distracted mother,
+‘what can it be? David! David! Jane!
+Nancy!’</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>There was no answer. The young men bade
+Betty Dunster to contain herself, and they
+would find the children before they went
+home again. All held on down the valley,
+and in the direction whence the voice came.
+Many times did the young men and the now
+strongly agitated father shout and listen. At
+length they seemed to hear voices of weeping
+and moaning. They listened—they were sure
+they heard a lamenting—it could only be the
+children. But why then did they not answer?
+On struggled the men, and Mrs. Dunster
+followed wildly after. Now, again, they stood
+and shouted, and a kind of terrified scream
+followed the shout.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>‘God in heaven!’ exclaimed the mother;
+‘what is it? There is something dreadful.
+My children! my children! where are you?’</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>‘Be silent, pray do, Mrs. Dunster,’ said one
+of the young men, ‘or we cannot catch the
+sounds so as to follow them.’ They again
+listened, and the wailings of the children
+were plainly heard. The whole party pushed
+forward over stock and stone up the hill.
+They called again, and there was a cry of
+‘Here! here! fayther! mother! where are
+you?’</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>In a few moments more the whole party
+had reached the children, who stood drenched
+with rain, and trembling violently, under a
+cliff that gave no shelter, but was exposed
+especially to the wind and rain.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>‘O Christ! My children!’ cried the mother
+wildly, struggling forwards and clasping one
+in her arms. ‘Nancy! Jane! But where
+is David? David! David! Oh, where is
+David? Where is your brother?’</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>The whole party was startled at not seeing
+the boy, and joined in a simultaneous ‘Where
+is he? Where is your brother?’</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>The two children only wept and trembled
+more violently, and burst into loud crying.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>‘Silence!’ shouted the father. ‘Where is
+David, I tell ye? Is he lost? David, lad,
+where ar ta?’</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>All listened, but there was no answer but
+the renewed crying of the two girls.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>‘Where is the lad, then?’ thundered forth
+the father with a terrible oath.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>The two terrified children cried, ‘Oh, down
+there! down there!’</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>‘Down where? Oh God!’ exclaimed one of
+the young men; ‘why it’s a precipice!
+Down there?’</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>At this dreadful intelligence the mother
+gave a wild shriek, and fell senseless on the
+ground. The young men caught her, and
+dragged her back from the edge of the precipice.
+The father in the same moment,
+furious at what he heard, seized the younger
+child that happened to be near him, and
+shaking it violently, swore he would fling it
+down after the lad.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>He was angry with the poor children, as if
+they had caused the destruction of his boy.
+The young men seized him, and bade him
+think what he was about; but the man
+believing his boy had fallen down the precipice,
+was like a madman. He kicked at his
+wife as she lay on the ground, as if she were
+guilty of this calamity by leaving the children
+at home. He was furious against the poor
+girls, as if they had led their brother into
+danger. In his violent rage he was a perfect
+maniac, and the young men pushing him
+away, cried shame on him. In a while, the
+desperate man torn by a hurricane of passion,
+sate himself down on a crag, and burst into a
+tempest of tears, and struck his head violently
+with his clenched fists, and cursed himself
+and everybody. It was a dreadful scene.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>Meantime, some of the young men had
+gone down below the precipice on which the
+children had stood, and, feeling amongst the
+loose stones, had found the body of poor little
+David. He was truly dead!</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>When he had heard the shout of his father,
+or of the young men, he had given one loud
+shout in answer, and saying ‘Come on! never
+fear now!’ sprang forward, and was over the
+precipice in the dark, and flew down and was
+dashed to pieces. His sisters heard a rush, a
+faint shriek, and suddenly stopping, escaped
+the destruction that poor David had found.</p>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <h2 class='c005'>NEW LIFE AND OLD LEARNING.</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c001'>There is not, in the whole of Bacon’s
+writings, a remark more profoundly characteristic
+of the man and his philosophy,
+than is embodied in his epigram that Antiquity
+is the Youth of the World. If men
+could only have had the courage to act upon
+this truth as soon as it was pointed out,—if
+they could but have seen, that, in their mode
+of reckoning antiquity, they made always the
+mistake of beginning the calculations from
+the wrong end, and that, in everything relating
+to the progress of knowledge, and the
+advancement of the species, the Present, not
+the Past, should be deemed of superior authority,—how
+many miseries society would have
+spared itself, and how much earlier it would
+have profited by the greatest of its teachers,
+Experience!</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>‘For antiquity,’ says Lord Bacon, ‘the
+opinion which men cherish concerning it is
+altogether negligent, and scarcely congruous
+even to the name. For the old age and
+grandevity of the world are to be truly
+counted as antiquity; which are properly to
+be ascribed to our times, not to the younger
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_131'>131</span>age of the world, such as it was with the
+ancients. Since that age, in respect to us
+indeed, is ancient and greater; but in respect
+to the world itself, was new and lesser. And
+in reality, as we look for a greater acquaintance
+with human affairs, and a more mature judgment,
+from an old than from a young man, on
+account of his experience, and the variety and
+abundance of the things which he has seen,
+and heard, and considered, just so it is fit
+also that much greater things be expected
+from our age (if it knew its strength, and
+would endeavour and apply) than from the
+old times; as being a more advanced age of
+the world, and enlarged and accumulate with
+numberless experiences and observations.’</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>Have these pregnant sentences lost their
+meaning in the two centuries and a half that
+have since rolled away? Let us take the
+wealthiest and most distinguished seminary
+of learning now existing in England, and
+judge.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>At the commencement of the present century,
+when the Novum Organum had been written
+nearly two hundred years, the examinations
+at the University of Oxford, so far as they
+were scientific at all, and not restricted to
+learned languages, turned entirely on the
+scholastic logic which the Novum Organum
+had shown to be a foul obstruction to knowledge.
+The new and true logic, as explained
+by Bacon, was never mentioned in the venerable
+place; and the new discoveries of the
+laws of nature to which it had led, formed no
+part of the general course of study, or of the
+subjects of public examination. It was quite
+possible for an Oxford man to have brought
+away a distinguished degree in the sciences,
+without knowing the truths of universal gravitation,
+or of the celestial motions, or of the
+planetary forces, or of any one of the provisions
+made by nature for the stability of the system
+we inhabit; and the very highest Oxford
+degree in the non-scientific departments, did
+not imply, any more than it does even yet, the
+remotest knowledge of modern languages or
+literature, of modern history or philosophy,
+of whether it might not have been Cromwell
+who discovered America, or Columbus who
+fought at Marston Moor. For any interest
+that the students at Oxford University were
+required to take in such matters, the past
+three hundred years might never have existed,
+or have been utterly annihilated, and
+all their wondrous burden of experiences
+melted into air.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>It was not till after the nineteenth century
+had begun, that some sense of what had been
+going on in the world outside crept into the
+cloisters at Oxford. Statutes were then
+passed to recognise the Newtonian improvements
+in philosophy, and recommending,
+though not necessitating, their adoption into
+the course for honours. Honours nevertheless
+continued to be taken without them;
+and it is notorious that the soil has been
+ungenial to their growth, and that they
+never have flourished in it. Oxford, in effect,
+continued up to this day no other than it
+was four centuries ago. Apart from the
+doubtful discipline of life and manners attainable
+within its walls, it is still no more than
+a huge theological school, where the lay
+youth of England are admitted to participate
+in such meagre allowance of intellectual
+training as the clergy think safe for
+themselves; where Manchester and Birmingham
+are ignored; where the Greek and Latin
+authors continue in the same esteem as when
+they actually contained whatever existed of
+learning left upon the earth, and no education
+could proceed without them; and from which
+there issue into the world yearly reinforcements
+of the upper classes of society, less able
+to cope with the wants and duties that surround
+them, and less acquainted with the
+laws and operations by which the present is
+to be guided into the future, than any self-taught
+merchant’s clerk at Liverpool, or any
+sharp engineer’s lad at the railway in Euston
+Square.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>Now, what has been the answer from
+Oxford when reproaches of this kind have
+been addressed to it? What was its answer
+when ridiculed, forty years ago, for teaching
+what rational men had been laughing at for
+more than a century? It amounted to this—that
+so intimately had the original statutes
+of the University interwoven the Aristotelian
+methods with the whole course of its studies
+and exercises, and so sacredly were its officers
+bound to see to the enforcement of those
+statutes, that the last stronghold from which
+any such learning could be dislodged was the
+University, to which its mere forms and practices
+unhappily continued to be essential,
+even long after every vestige of reality had vanished
+out of them. In other words it was confessed
+that Oxford had been so constructed as
+a place of study, that the rules and statutes
+which should have been framed for the reception
+of truth, in whatever quarter it might
+appear, had turned out to be only available
+for the retention and perpetuation of error;
+and that Education, whose express province
+everywhere else was to absorb and make
+profit of every new acquisition, was miserably
+bound, on this spot only, to reject them all.
+Precisely the same arguments have very lately
+been repeated. When the great ‘whip’ of
+the country parsons brought up a majority
+against the Modern History statute twelve
+months ago, this was the plea on which
+bigotry rallied her forces; and when more
+recently the statute was again proposed, the
+same plea would have secured it the same
+reception, if the old flock of reverend Thwack-’ums
+had not meanwhile tired of the expense
+and trouble of being dragged in a drove from
+their parsonages to the Senate House, to bleat
+forth ignorant <i>non placets</i>.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>As it was, the History statute was passed
+with its notable limitation against the events
+of the last sixty years. The Oxford scholar
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_132'>132</span>may now sail down the stream of modern
+story as long as the water is smooth, or the
+storm seen only in the distance; but as he
+nears the explosive point of 1789, of which the
+vast and terrible wrecks are still tumbling
+around us, a huge board warns him of
+‘danger,’ and his frail little cock-boat of
+history is driven forcibly all the way back
+again. Such is the point of advance to which
+the present year of our Lord has brought the
+University of Oxford. Such is the provision
+made at the wealthiest place of education in
+the world, in the middle of the nineteenth century,
+for that true and subtle understanding of
+modern life and institutions on which the peaceful
+development of the twentieth century will
+mainly depend! But Oxford was founded by
+a Church, which, amid all ludicrous surrounding
+evidences of her failures and her follies,
+still claims to be infallible; and the worst
+peculiarities of the founder cleave to the foundation.
+The next fifty years will have to show,
+however, whether an institution shall be allowed
+to continue in the annual disposal of
+some half million or more of money for a purpose
+she so manifestly mistakes, that even the
+learning she prefers to every other is less
+taught to her scholars for the wisdom to be
+found in it, than for mere constructive skill
+in the language by which that wisdom is conveyed.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>Sydney Smith has remarked it as one of
+the great advantages of the classical education
+in which we are trained in this country, that
+it sets before us so many examples of sublimity
+in action, and of sublimity in thought. ‘It is
+impossible for us,’ he exclaims, in one of those
+noble lectures on moral philosophy of which
+the fragments have recently been published,
+‘in the first and most ardent years of life, to
+read the great actions of the two greatest
+nations in the world, so beautifully related,
+without catching, <i>ourselves</i>, some taste for
+greatness, and a love for that glory which is
+gained by doing greater and better things
+than other men. And though the state of
+order and discipline into which the world is
+brought, does not enable a man frequently to
+do such things, as every day produced in the
+fierce and eventful democraties of Greece and
+Rome, yet, to love that which is great, is the
+best security for hating that which is little;
+the best cure for envy; the safest antidote for
+revenge; the surest pledge for the abhorrence
+of malice; the noblest incitement to love
+truth and manly independence and honourable
+labour, to glory in spotless innocence,
+and build up the system of life upon the rock
+of integrity.’</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>But is the opportunity fairly afforded for
+this? Is not the attention which ought to
+be fixed upon Things, to secure any part of the
+gain thus eloquently set before us, for the most
+part distracted and occupied by Words, in the
+system which commonly prevails? Has not the
+labour to be undergone in obtaining the ready
+verbal skill exacted in College examinations,
+a direct tendency to weaken our pleasure in
+the history, philosophy, or poetry on which
+we grind and sharpen that verbal skill? We
+apprehend that this is really the case; and
+that the old learning which Oxford persists
+in thinking all-sufficient for the wants of our
+new and busy life, is taught upon a method
+which strips it of its noblest lessons, and
+withers its choicest fruit.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>The question is a most serious one for
+those whom it most immediately concerns,
+and whom it should warn of the danger of
+too manifestly lagging behind the time. At
+this moment power is changing hands, as
+certainly as in the days of those subtle and
+eager men who seated the ancient learning
+on its throne; and who would as surely
+depose it now, if founding new universities
+amongst us, and give it but its due and
+proper place in the expanding circles of
+knowledge, as, four hundred years ago, they
+admitted its just predominance, and established
+its solitary sway. When periods
+of such vicissitude arrive, it is for those who
+have been powerful heretofore, to look to
+their tenures of authority. Upon nothing
+can they hope to rest, if not upon complete
+accordance with the spirit of the age, and a
+thorough aptitude to its necessities and
+wants. If the education of children is to
+continue imperfect and bad, as Dean Swift
+tells us he had found it always in his experience,
+in exact proportion to the wealth
+and grandeur of the parents, the next generation
+of parents will have to look to the
+continued security of their wealth and
+grandeur. The Earth is in incessant motion.
+The time when it was supposed to be permanently
+fixed in the centre of the universe
+has passed away for ever, and modes of study
+only suited to that time will have to share
+the fate that has befallen it.</p>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <h2 class='c005'>THE RAILWAY STATION.</h2>
+</div>
+
+<div class='lg-container-b c010'>
+  <div class='linegroup'>
+    <div class='group'>
+      <div class='line'>They judge not well, who deem that once among us</div>
+      <div class='line'>A spirit moved that now from earth has fled;</div>
+      <div class='line'>Who say that at the busy sounds which throng us,</div>
+      <div class='line'>Its shining wings for ever more have sped.</div>
+    </div>
+    <div class='group'>
+      <div class='line'>Not all the turmoil of the Age of Iron</div>
+      <div class='line'>Can scare that Spirit hence; like some sweet bird</div>
+      <div class='line'>That loud harsh voices in its cage environ,</div>
+      <div class='line'>It sings above them all, and will be heard!</div>
+    </div>
+    <div class='group'>
+      <div class='line'>Not, for the noise of axes or of hammers,</div>
+      <div class='line'>Will that sweet bird forsake her chosen nest;</div>
+      <div class='line'>Her warblings pierce through all those deafening clamours</div>
+      <div class='line'>But surer to their echoes in the breast.</div>
+    </div>
+    <div class='group'>
+      <div class='line'>And not the Past alone, with all its guerdon</div>
+      <div class='line'>Of twilight sounds and shadows, bids them rise;</div>
+      <div class='line'>But soft, above the noontide heat and burden</div>
+      <div class='line'>Of the stern present, float those melodies.</div>
+    </div>
+    <div class='group'>
+      <div class='line'>Not with the baron bold, the minstrel tender,</div>
+      <div class='line'>Not with the ringing sound of shield and lance,</div>
+      <div class='line'>Not with the Field of Gold in all its splendour,</div>
+      <div class='line'>Died out the generous flame of old Romance.</div>
+    </div>
+    <div class='group'>
+      <div class='line'><span class='pageno' id='Page_133'>133</span>Still, on a nobler strife than tilt or tourney,</div>
+      <div class='line'>Rides forth the errant knight, with brow elate;</div>
+      <div class='line'>Still patient pilgrims take, in hope, their journey;</div>
+      <div class='line'>Still meek and cloistered spirits ‘stand and wait.’</div>
+    </div>
+    <div class='group'>
+      <div class='line'>Still hath the living, moving, world around us,</div>
+      <div class='line'>Its legends, fair with honour, bright with truth;</div>
+      <div class='line'>Still, as in tales that in our childhood bound us,</div>
+      <div class='line'>Love holds the fond traditions of its youth.</div>
+    </div>
+    <div class='group'>
+      <div class='line'>We need not linger o’er the fading traces</div>
+      <div class='line'>Of lost divinities; or seek to hold</div>
+      <div class='line'>Their serious converse ’mid Earth’s green waste-places,</div>
+      <div class='line'>Or by her lonely fountains, as of old:</div>
+    </div>
+    <div class='group'>
+      <div class='line'>For, far remote from Nature’s fair creations,</div>
+      <div class='line'>Within the busy mart, the crowded street,</div>
+      <div class='line'>With sudden, sweet, unlooked-for revelations</div>
+      <div class='line'>Of a bright presence we may chance to meet;</div>
+    </div>
+    <div class='group'>
+      <div class='line'>E’en <i>now</i>, beside a restless tide’s commotion,</div>
+      <div class='line'>I stand and hear, in broken music swell,</div>
+      <div class='line'>Above the ebb and flow of Life’s great ocean,</div>
+      <div class='line'>An under-song of greeting and farewell.</div>
+    </div>
+    <div class='group'>
+      <div class='line'>For here are meetings: moments that inherit</div>
+      <div class='line'>The hopes and wishes, that through months and years</div>
+      <div class='line'>Have held such anxious converse with the spirit,</div>
+      <div class='line'>That now its joy can only speak in tears;</div>
+    </div>
+    <div class='group'>
+      <div class='line'>And here are partings: hands that soon must sever,</div>
+      <div class='line'>Yet clasp the firmer; heart, that unto heart,</div>
+      <div class='line'>Was ne’er so closely bound before, nor ever</div>
+      <div class='line'>So near the other as when now they part;</div>
+    </div>
+    <div class='group'>
+      <div class='line'>And here Time holds his steady pace unbroken,</div>
+      <div class='line'>For all that crowds within his narrow scope;</div>
+      <div class='line'>For all the language, uttered and unspoken,</div>
+      <div class='line'>That will return when Memory comforts Hope!</div>
+    </div>
+    <div class='group'>
+      <div class='line'>One short and hurried moment, and for ever</div>
+      <div class='line'>Flies, like a dream, its sweetness and its pain;</div>
+      <div class='line'>And, for the hearts that love, the hands that sever,</div>
+      <div class='line'>Who knows what meetings are in store again?</div>
+    </div>
+    <div class='group'>
+      <div class='line'>They who are left, unto their homes returning,</div>
+      <div class='line'>With musing step, trace o’er each by-gone scene;</div>
+      <div class='line'>And they upon their journey—doth no yearning,</div>
+      <div class='line'>No backward glance, revert to what hath been?</div>
+    </div>
+    <div class='group'>
+      <div class='line'>Yes! for awhile, perchance, a tear-drop starting,</div>
+      <div class='line'>Dims the bright scenes that greet the eye and mind;</div>
+      <div class='line'>But here—as ever in life’s cup of parting—</div>
+      <div class='line'>Theirs is the bitterness who stay behind!</div>
+    </div>
+    <div class='group'>
+      <div class='line'>So in life’s sternest, last farewell, may waken</div>
+      <div class='line'>A yearning thought, a backward glance be thrown</div>
+      <div class='line'>By them who leave: but oh! how blest the token,</div>
+      <div class='line'>To those who stay behind when <span class='fss'>THEY</span> are gone!</div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <h2 class='c005'>THE BROWN HAT.</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c001'>‘My son,’ said the wisest of modern men—whose
+name, of course, it were malicious to
+mention, and foolish also, the object being to
+promulgate charity, not to excite rancour—‘My
+son, if you would go through life easily,
+I can give you no better rule of conduct than
+this: <i>Never wear a brown hat in Friesland</i>.’</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>Now, though this piece of counsel may
+sound as hieroglyphical and mysterious as
+the well known precept by <i>Mr. Malaprop</i>
+administered to his offspring, when the latter
+was about to quit home, ‘Evil communication
+is worth two in the bush,’ it is nevertheless
+susceptible of the clearest and most explicit
+interpretation. Though the fruits of particular
+and personal experience, it may be
+applied to every man who wears a hat under
+the sun, the moon, the seven stars, or the
+Seven Dials! let alone the Seven United
+Provinces!</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>The Brown Hat whence this saying sprung,
+was merely a hat of common quality and
+uncommon comfort; soft to the head, not
+stiff; a screen for eyes from the sun; a thing
+taking no place among the traveller’s luggage—claiming
+no package of its own, and thus
+offering no wrangling-stock to those most
+tiresome of Jacks among all Jacks-in-office—to
+wit, Custom-house officers. It was a hat
+which the <i>Hatto</i> of hats must have accredited
+as the very perfection of a quiet, middle-aged
+traveller’s <i>vade mecum</i>; something dull-looking,
+it is true, for those whose thoughts
+are ‘wide-awake;’ something vulgar, for any
+one troubled by aristocratic fancies as to his
+covering, and who loves not to be confounded
+with his butterman; but withal a hat to be
+defended by every man of sense, to be clung
+to by every creature capable of headaches;
+a hat one could be bumped about in during
+a day of sixteen hours, in carriage, cart, or
+third-class railway vehicle; a hat one could
+lie in bed in for nightcap, or sit upon for
+cushion; a kindly, comforting, unobtrusive
+hat—brown, because it was of the felt’s
+natural colour, pliant as a piece of silk, submissive
+to wind, impervious to rain. What
+can we say more? A castor, as the Pilgrim’s
+<i>Pollux</i> put it, ‘fit to be buried in.’</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>Yet such was the hat, and none other, which—save
+your nerves be of granite, your cheeks
+of brass, and your patience the patience of a
+beaver—you are hereby solemnly warned not
+to wear in Friesland. In London, when you
+please and where you please, but not in Meppel,
+and not in Zwolle, and not in Sneek, and,
+most of all, not in the market-place at Leenwarden.
+As wisely might you have tried to
+walk down a village-street, in Lancashire, on
+Lifting-Monday (thirty years ago), thinking
+to escape from the obliging maids and jolly
+wives, who lurked behind their doors, bent on
+tossing every passing male in a kitchen chair,
+as have hoped for ten seconds of peace,—supposing
+that in Friesland (two autumns since)
+you took your walks abroad wearing a Brown
+Hat!</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>It will be, peradventure, imagined by those
+who are not strong in their geography, or who
+have not studied the Book of Dresses, or who
+entertain little curiosity concerning one of the
+most noticeable and original districts in
+Europe,—that these touchy Friesland folk
+themselves don or doff nothing worth an
+Englishman turning his head to admire; carry
+aloft what all the well-bred world carries,—and
+therefore cannot afford to let any one
+thrive, save under the shadow of the ‘regulation
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_134'>134</span>beaver,’ to which all polite Europe subscribes.
+Yet the case happens to be, that if
+there be a land in which perpetual wonderment
+could make the traveller wry-necked, that
+land is North Holland. Hong-Kong can
+hardly be stranger, either in its composition
+or its maintenance. <i>So Sci</i> herself (in Mr.
+Sealy’s capital Chinese tale) did not boast a
+head-tire more ‘express and surprising,’ than
+the gentlewomen of all ages, through whose
+active decision and passive contempt the
+Brown Hat had to run the gauntlet.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>Let us see if we can sketch this—though by
+no means catholically sure, that some stratum
+of use or ornament, may not have been overlooked
+in our specification. First, it is conceived
+that the hair upon the head of the
+Frieslander, must be cut as close as though
+subject to the pumpkin-shell barbarity of the
+pilgrim-fathers, when their scissors were
+intent on shearing off love-locks. Upon this
+closely cropped poll, comes first a knitted cap
+(Mrs. Loudon, perhaps, can tell whether there
+be an aristocratic or established stitch formula
+for its knitting), over that a silk scull
+cap. These tightly put on, the serious business
+of the head-gear begins. The victim is
+next hooped, bound, lined, circled and otherwise
+clasped up within gilt metal—various in
+its cut, provided it only fits close, ‘as some
+one said,’ for headaches, to throb against.
+The mistress of <i>Keetje</i>, the maid, is fond of
+having her kettle-cap made of gilt silver, sometimes—if
+she be of old family—of pure gold;
+and you will see her in the market-place,
+wearing, in addition to this precious piece of
+trepanning, a metal tiara, such as Grecian
+Queens wear upon the stage, stuck over with
+coarse jewels; nay, more, dangling at the
+sides of her face, a pair of inconceivable gilt
+pendants, at a distance looking like bunches
+of queer keys, or that minikin household
+furniture our English ladies now choose to
+suspend from their girdles. But this is not
+all. At the extreme angles of her forehead,
+<i>Keetje’s</i> mistress—if a person of high fashion—must
+stick in two little square plots or tufts
+of frizzled silk, to pass for curls. This done,
+she may put on her cap of the finest lace, with
+its deep border or flap behind, fashioned like
+the brim of the dustman’s hat, but from the
+costly daintiness of its material, and the
+creamy whiteness of the throat it lies against,
+somewhat more picturesque. Finally, if
+<i>Keetje’s</i> mistress be a Friesland <i>Miss Flamborough</i>
+of ‘first water’—a lady who knows
+the world, and has a spirit superior to old-fashioned
+prejudices—she must have by way
+of crown, all to her four caps (one of precious
+metals), a straw bonnet, a huge, heavy, coal-scuttle,
+festooned with loops and streamers of
+gaudy ribbon, and thriftily guarded at the
+edge with a hem or barrier of stout and gaudy
+printed chintz. Thus canopied are the comely
+wives and widows (maidens, possibly dispensing
+with the bonnet), who shrieked,
+clapped their hands, and, with every other
+possible demonstration of offence, pursued the
+wearer of the Brown Hat in Friesland.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>On the habiliments of the male moiety of
+society, tediousness forbids that we should
+expatiate; the less, as something will thus be
+left to be treated on a future day, when the
+grave question of apparel may be more
+solemnly entered upon. Enough for the
+moment, to say that it suits the singularities
+of this critical land: a land in which a
+Swimming Lion is the ensign, and of which
+His Majesty Topsy-Turvy might be sovereign;
+a land in which there is hardly a crooked
+horizontal line to be found, save among the
+sand-hills; a land in which, with all its neatness’
+care, scarce a building, be it church or
+market-house, palace or exchange, can be
+prevailed upon to stand perpendicular; a
+land in which for air you breathe extract of
+juniper, turf, tobacco, and stagnant waters,
+mixed; a land in which people eat cheese
+with their tea, and where a child that plucks
+a nest runs great danger of being whipped as
+an enemy to Church and State—guilty of
+trying to let in the republican ocean; a land
+where full-grown babies set up clockwork
+gentlemen and <i>papier mâche</i> swans, by way
+of animating their garden, and the weedy
+ponds in the same; a land where full-grown
+men undertake and complete some of the most
+magnificent enterprises which science can
+contrive for industry to carry out; a land of
+teeming plenty and of high prices; a land of
+bad digestions and beautiful complexions.
+No, the men of this land—the shippers of
+Dordrecht, the potters of Delft, the gardeners
+of Broet, and the dairy farmers of Harlingen,
+decked out for fair or frolic—must be to-day
+left with all their uncouth and indescribable
+finery, undescribable, it may be, for some
+future parable.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>But as if in the above there had not been
+indicated enough of what yet new and strange
+for Pilgrim to observe and to tolerate, and to
+smile at, with English supercilious civility in
+this country, the very names of places,
+even (as a descendant of Dr. Dilworth inadequately
+remarked), ‘are neither Christian
+nor becoming.’ One might bring one’s mind
+to bear to be jeered at or stared at, in a land
+resounding with pompous and euphonious
+words—by the Wissihiccon, for instance, or
+on the Mississippi, or at Canandaigna, or
+among the Inscoraras, or when bound for
+Passamaquoddy. Even the prize-scold at
+Billingsgate was silenced and rendered meek
+by being called a <i>Chrononhotonthologos</i>.—There’s
+much in four syllables! But in
+Friesland the traveller is handed over from
+Workum to Higtum, and from Higtum to
+Midlum; thence perhaps to Boxum, and from
+Boxum to Hallum, Dokkum, Kollum, &#38;c., &#38;c.,
+&#38;c.; going through the whole alphabet of
+these ‘make-believe’ names, the very study of
+which on the map is enough to make properly-brought-up
+persons disdainful and critical!
+Yet, so far from feeling any proper sense of
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_135'>135</span>their own position; so far from the slightest
+shame or shrinking; so far from one single
+deprecatory ‘<i>Pray don’t make game of us!
+We are decent folk after all, and well to do in
+the world, though some of us do come from
+Sueek!</i>’—these are the people, so lost to every
+sense of the ridiculous at home, as to tumble,
+towzle, and in every other conceivable and
+contemptuous mode maltreat the useful, comfortable,
+authentic, and in every respect unobtrusively
+defensible Brown Hat aforesaid!
+Did its wearer stop before a shop-window to
+look wistfully at one of those stupendous jars
+of pickles, which with a dozen of hard eggs
+for each guest, form so prominent a feature of
+the Dutchman’s merry-making suppers; his
+coat-tails were sure to be pulled by some
+grinning child, broader than long, and in
+facture closely resembling Mr. Staunton’s
+broadly-based new chessman. Did he lean
+over a gate to admire some magnificent bird,
+the brilliant cleanlinesss of which on the
+green carpet, gives us a new idea of the
+beauty of ox or cow, a head would be picked
+up from the dyke-side; with a liberal emission
+of casual slang, and as likely as not, a
+stone would have been thrown—did Holland
+contain a single stone for a <i>David’s</i> sling to
+utter. Did he adventure along the Wall of
+Zwolle on a glowing autumn evening, or
+meekly take the second best place on the
+<i>treckschuit</i> which was to waft him down the
+canal from Groningen to Delfzel (a water-path
+in its way, as peculiar and contradictory
+of all received principles as any railroad ever
+carried over house-tops at the Minories, or
+through the great pleasure-gardens and
+greenhouses of a <i>Sir Timothy Dod</i>), it was
+always one and the same story—one and the
+same contempt—one and the same experience.
+Simple laughed with a most disconcerting and
+noisy sincerity; and Gentle stuffed their
+handkerchiefs into their mouths—held both
+their own sides and poked their neighbours.
+‘Driving Cloud’ or other of the Ojibbeway
+Indians if let loose in Clare-Market, would
+hardly have been made to feel his conspicuousness
+more signally than our traveller.
+There was neither privacy, place, nor pity,
+for the Brown Hat in Friesland.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>Therefore, the wisest of these in advising
+his son, may have meant to say to him,
+‘Never throw your oddity in the teeth of
+other men’s oddities.’ You cannot expect
+immunity for your own whims, if you force
+them upon other people’s whims. Never
+expect that your ‘<i>ism</i>’ will find quarter
+among their ‘<i>isms</i>;’ or (to put the adage
+otherwise) he may have desired to recommend
+a reading backwards of the old maxim—worn
+threadbare, rather by trampling upon,
+than by carrying about, to wit—‘Live, and
+let live.’</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>If then you would live a quiet life in Friesland,
+<span class='sc'>Never wear a Brown Hat</span>!</p>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <h2 class='c005'>ALCHEMY AND GUNPOWDER.</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c001'>The day-dream of mankind has ever been
+the Unattainable. To sigh for what is beyond
+our reach is from infancy to age, a fixed condition
+of our nature. To it we owe all the
+improvement that distinguishes civilised from
+savage life,—to it we are indebted for all the
+great discoveries which, at long intervals,
+have rewarded thought.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>Though the motives which stimulated the
+earliest inquiries were frequently undefined,
+and, if curiously examined, would be found to
+be sometimes questionable, it has rarely happened
+that the world has not benefited by
+them in the end. Thus Astrology, which
+ascribed to the stars an influence over the
+actions and destinies of man; Magic, which
+attempted to reverse the laws of nature, and
+Alchemy, which aimed at securing unlimited
+powers of self-reward; all tended to the final
+establishment of useful science.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>Of none of the sciences whose laws are
+fully understood, is this description truer than
+of that now called Chemistry, which once was
+Alchemy. That ‘knowledge of the substance
+or composition of bodies,’ which the Arabic
+root of both words implies, establishes a fact
+in place of a chimera. Experimental philosophy
+has made Alchemy an impossible belief,
+but the faith in it was natural in an age when
+reason was seldom appealed to. The credulity
+which accepted witchcraft for a truth, was
+not likely to reject the theory of the transmutation
+of metals, nor strain at the dogma of
+perpetual youth and health;—the concomitants
+of the Philosopher’s Stone.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>The Alchemists claim for their science
+the remotest antiquity possible, but it was
+not until three or four centuries after the
+Christian era that the doctrine of transmutation
+began to spread. It was amongst
+the Arabian physicians that it took root.
+Those learned men, through whom was transmitted
+so much that was useful in astronomy,
+in mathematics, and in medicine, were deeply
+tinctured with the belief in an universal
+elixir, whose properties gave the power
+of multiplying gold, of prolonging life indefinitely,
+and of making youth perpetual. The
+discoveries which they made of the successful
+application of mercury in many diseases, led
+them to suppose that this agent contained
+within itself the germ of all curative influences,
+and was the basis of all other
+metals. An Eastern imagination, ever prone
+to heighten the effects of nature, was not
+slow to ascribe a preternatural force to this
+medicine, but not finding it in its simple state,
+the practitioners of the new science had recourse
+to combination, in the hope, by that
+means, of attaining their object. To fix
+mercury became their first endeavour, and
+this fixation they described as ‘catching the
+flying bird of Hermes.’ Once embarked in
+the illusory experiment, it is easy to perceive
+how far the Alchemists might be led; nor
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_136'>136</span>need it excite any wonder that in pursuit of
+the ideal, they accidentally hit upon a good
+deal that was real. The labours, therefore,
+of the Arabian physicians were not thrown
+away, though they entangled the feet of
+science in mazes, from which escape was only
+effected, after the lapse of centuries of misdirected
+efforts.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>From the period we have last spoken of,
+until the commencement of the eleventh
+century, the only Alchemist of note is the
+Arabian Geber, who, though he wrote on the
+perfections of metals, of the new found art of
+making gold, in a word, on the philosopher’s
+stone, has only descended to our times as the
+founder of that jargon, which passes under
+the name of ‘gibberish.’ He was, however, a
+great authority in the middle ages, and allusions
+to ‘Geber’s cooks,’ and ‘Geber’s kitchen,’
+are frequent amongst those who at length
+saw the error of their ways after wasting
+their substance in the vain search for the elixir.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>A longer interval might have elapsed but
+for the voice of Peter the Hermit, whose
+fanatical scheme for the recovery of the Holy
+Sepulchre was the cause of that gradual absorption,
+by the nations of the West, of the
+learning which had so long been buried in the
+East. The Crusaders, or those, rather, who
+visited the shores of Syria under their protection—the
+men whose skill in medicine and
+letters rendered them useful to the invading
+armies—acquired a knowledge of the Arabian
+languages, and of the sciences cultivated by
+Arabian philosophers, and this knowledge
+they disseminated through Europe. Some
+part of it, it is true, was derived from the
+Moors in Spain, but it was all conveyed in a
+common tongue which began now to be understood.
+To this era belong the names of
+Alfonso the Wise, King of Castile; of Isaac
+Beimiram, the son of Solomon the physician;
+of Hali Abbas, the scholar of Abimeher
+Moyses, the son of Sejar; of Aben Sina,
+better known as Avicenna, and sometimes
+called Abohali; of Averroes of Cordova, surnamed
+the Commentator; of Rasis, who is
+also called Almanzor and Albumasar; and of
+John of Damascus, whose name has been
+latinised into Johannes Damascenus. All
+these, physicians by profession, were more or
+less professors of alchemy; and besides these
+were such as Artephius, who wrote alchemical
+tracts about the year 1130, but who deserves
+rather to be remembered for the cool assertion
+which he makes in his ‘Wisdom of
+Secrets’ that, at the time he wrote he had
+reached the patriarchal—or fabulous—age of
+one thousand and twenty-five years!</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>The thirteenth century came, and with it
+came two men who stand first, as they then
+stood alone, in literary and scientific knowledge.
+One was a German, the other an Englishman;
+the first was Albertus Magnus,
+the last Roger Bacon.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>Of the former, many wonderful stories
+are told:—such, for instance, as his having
+given a banquet to the King of the Romans,
+in the gardens of his cloister at Cologne,
+when he converted the intensity of winter
+into a season of summer, full of flowers
+and fruits, which disappeared when the banquet
+was over; and his having constructed a
+marvellous automaton, called ‘Androïs,’ which,
+like the invention of his contemporary, Roger
+Bacon, was said to be capable of auguring all
+questions, past, present, and to come.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>To know more than the rest of the world
+in any respect, but particularly in natural
+philosophy, was a certain method by which to
+earn the name of necromancer in the middle
+ages, and there are few whose occult fame has
+stood higher than that of Roger Bacon. He
+was afraid, therefore, to speak plainly—indeed,
+it was the custom of the early philosophers to
+couch their knowledge in what Bacon himself
+calls the ‘tricks of obscurity;’ and in his celebrated
+‘<cite>Epistola de Secretis</cite>,’ he adverts to the
+possibility of his being obliged to do the same
+thing, through ‘<i>the greatness of the secrets</i> which
+he shall handle.’ With regard to the invention
+of his greatest secret, we shall give the words
+in which he speaks of the properties of gunpowder,
+and afterwards show in what terms
+he concealed his knowledge. ‘<i>Noyses</i>,’ he
+says, ‘<i>may be made in the aire like thunders</i>,
+yea, with greater horror than those that come
+of nature; <i>for a little matter fitted to the quantity
+of a thimble, maketh a horrible noise and
+wonderful lightning</i>. And this is done after
+sundry fashions, <i>whereby any citie or armie
+may be destroyed</i>.’ A more accurate description
+of the explosion of gunpowder could scarcely be
+given, and it is not to be supposed that Bacon
+simply confined himself to the theory of his
+art, when he knew so well the consequences
+arising from a practical application of it. On
+this head there is a legend extant, which has
+not, to our knowledge, been printed before,
+from which we may clearly see why he contented
+himself with the cabalistic form in
+which he conveyed his knowledge of what he
+deemed a fatal secret.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>Attached to Roger Bacon’s laboratory, and
+a zealous assistant in the manifold occupations
+with which the learned Franciscan occupied
+himself, was a youthful student, whose name
+is stated to have been Hubert de Dreux. He
+was a Norman, and many of the attributes of
+that people were conspicuous in his character.
+He was of a quick intelligence and hasty
+courage, fertile in invention, and prompt in
+action, eloquent of discourse, and ready of
+hand; all excellent qualities, to which was
+superadded an insatiable curiosity. Docile to
+receive instruction, and apt to profit by it,
+Hubert became a great favourite with the
+philosopher, and to him Bacon expounded
+many of the secrets—or supposed secrets—of
+the art which he strove to bring to perfection.
+He instructed him also in the composition of
+certain medicines, which Bacon himself believed
+might be the means of prolonging life,
+though not to the indefinite extent dreamt of
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_137'>137</span>by those who put their whole faith in the
+Great Elixir.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>But there never yet was an adept in any
+art or science who freely communicated to
+his pupil the full amount of his own knowledge;
+something for experience to gather, or
+for ingenuity to discover, is always kept in
+reserve, and the instructions of Roger Bacon
+stopped short at one point. He was himself
+engaged in the prosecution of that chemical
+secret which he rightly judged to be a dangerous
+one, and, while he experimented with
+the compound of sulphur, saltpetre and charcoal,
+he kept himself apart from his general
+laboratory and wrought in a separate cell,
+to which not even Hubert had access. To
+know that the Friar had a mysterious occupation,
+which, more than the making of gold
+or the universal medicine, engrossed him, was
+enough of itself to rouse the young man’s
+curiosity; but when to this was added the
+fact, that, from time to time, strange and
+mysterious noises were heard, accompanied
+by bright corruscations and a new and
+singular odour, penetrating through the
+chinks close to which his eyes were stealthily
+rivetted, Hubert’s eagerness to know all that
+his master concealed had no limit. He resolved
+to discover the secret, even though he should
+perish in the attempt; he feared that there
+was good reason for the accusation of dealing
+in the Black Art, which, more than all others
+the monks of Bacon’s own convent countenanced;
+but this apprehension only stimulated
+him the more. For some time Hubert
+waited without an opportunity occurring for
+gratifying the secret longing of his heart;
+at last it presented itself.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>To afford medical assistance to the sick,
+was, perhaps, the most useful practice of
+conventual life, and the monks had always
+amongst them practitioners of the healing
+art, more or less skilful. Of this number,
+Roger Bacon was the most eminent, not only
+in the monastery to which he belonged, but
+in all Oxford.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>It was about the hour of noon on a gloomy
+day towards the end of November, in the
+year 1282, while the Friar and his pupil were
+severally employed, the former in his secret
+cell, and the latter in the general laboratory,
+that there arrived at the gate of the Franciscan
+convent a messenger on horseback, the
+bearer of news from Abingdon that Walter
+de Losely, the sheriff of Berkshire, had that
+morning met with a serious accident by a
+hurt from a lance, and was then lying
+dangerously wounded at the hostelry of the
+Chequers in Abingdon, whither he had been
+hastily conveyed. The messenger added that
+the leech who had been called in was most
+anxious for the assistance of the skilful Friar
+Roger Bacon, and urgently prayed that he
+would lose no time in coming to the aid of
+the wounded knight.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>Great excitement prevailed amongst the
+monks on the receipt of this intelligence, for
+Walter de Losely was not only a man of
+power and influence, but moreover, a great
+benefactor to their order. Friar Bacon was
+immediately sought and speedily made his
+appearance, the urgency of the message admitting
+of no delay. He hastily enjoined
+Hubert to continue the preparation of an
+amalgam which he was desirous of getting
+into a forward state, and taking with him
+his case of instruments with the bandages
+and salves which he thought needful, was
+soon mounted on an easy, ambling palfrey on
+his way towards Abingdon, the impatient
+messenger riding before him to announce his
+approach.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>When he was gone, quiet again reigned in
+the convent, and Hubert de Dreux resumed
+his occupation. But it did not attract him
+long. Suddenly he raised his head from the
+work and his eyes were lit up with a gleam
+in which joy and fear seemed equally blended.
+For the first time, for months, he was quite
+alone. What if he could obtain access to his
+master’s cell and penetrate the mystery in
+which his labours had been so long enveloped!
+He cautiously stole to the door of the laboratory,
+and peeped out into a long passage, at
+the further extremity of which a door opened
+into a small court where, detached from the
+main edifice and screened from all observation,
+was a small building which the Friar
+had recently caused to be constructed. He
+looked about him timorously, fearing lest he
+might be observed; but there was no cause
+for apprehension, scarcely any inducement
+could have prevailed with the superstitious
+Franciscans to turn their steps willingly
+in the direction of Roger Bacon’s solitary
+cell.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>Reassured by the silence, Hubert stole
+noiselessly onward, and tremblingly approached
+the forbidden spot. His quick eye
+saw at a glance that the key was not in the
+door, and his countenance fell. The Friar’s
+treasure was locked up! He might see something,
+however, if he could not enter the
+chamber. He knelt down, therefore, at the
+door, and peered through the keyhole. As
+he pressed against the door, in doing so, it
+yielded to his touch. In the haste with
+which Friar Bacon had closed the entrance,
+the bolt had not been shot. Hubert rose
+hastily to his feet, and the next moment he
+was in the cell, looking eagerly round upon
+the crucibles and alembics, which bore witness
+to his master’s labours. But beyond a general
+impression of work in hand, there was nothing
+to be gleaned from this survey. An open
+parchment volume, in which the Friar had
+recently been writing, next caught his attention.
+If the secret should be there in any
+known language. Hubert knew something of
+the Hebrew, but nothing yet of Arabic. He
+was reassured; the characters were familiar
+to him; the language Latin. He seized the
+volume, and read the few lines which the
+Friar had just traced on the last page.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'><span class='pageno' id='Page_138'>138</span>They ran thus:—</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>‘Videas tamen utrum loquar in ænigmate
+vel secundum veritatem.’ And, further (which
+we translate): ‘He that would see these
+things shall have the key that openeth and no
+man shutteth, and when he shall shut no man
+is able to open again.’</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>‘But the secret—the secret!’ cried Hubert,
+impatiently, ‘let me know what “these
+things” are!’</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>He hastily turned the leaf back and read
+again. The passage was that one in the
+‘<cite>Epistola de Secretis</cite>’ which spoke of the
+artificial thunder and lightning, and beneath
+it was the full and precise recipe for its composition.
+This at once explained the strange
+noises and the flashes of light which he had
+so anxiously noticed. Surprising and gratifying
+as this discovery might be, there was,
+Hubert thought, something beyond. Roger
+Bacon, he reasoned, was not one to practise
+an experiment like this for mere amusement.
+It was, he felt certain, a new form of invocation,
+more potent, doubtless, over the beings
+of another world, than any charm yet recorded.
+Be it as it might, he would try
+whether, from the materials around him, it
+were not in his power to produce the same
+result.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>‘Here are all the necessary ingredients,’
+he exclaimed; ‘this yellowish powder is the
+well known sulphur, in which I daily bathe
+the argent-vive; this bitter, glistening substance
+is the salt of the rock, the <i><span lang="la">salis petræ</span></i>;
+and this black calcination, the third agent—But
+the proportions are given, and here stands
+a glass cucurbit in which they should be
+mingled. It is of the form my master mostly
+uses—round, with a small neck and a narrow
+mouth, to be luted closely, without doubt. He
+has often told me that the sole regenerating
+power of the universe is heat; yonder furnace
+shall supply it, and then Hubert de Dreux is
+his master’s equal!’</p>
+
+<hr class='c011'>
+
+<p class='c006'>The short November day was drawing to
+a close, when, after carefully tending the
+wounded sheriff, and leaving such instructions
+with the Abingdon leech as he judged
+sufficient for his patient’s well-doing, Roger
+Bacon again mounted his palfrey, and turned
+its head in the direction of Oxford. He was
+unwilling to be a loiterer after dark, and his
+beast was equally desirous to be once more
+comfortably housed, so that his homeward
+journey was accomplished even more rapidly
+than his morning excursion; and barely an
+hour had elapsed when the Friar drew the
+rein at the foot of the last gentle eminence,
+close to which lay the walls of the cloistered
+city. To give the animal breathing-space, he
+rode quietly up the ascent, and then paused
+for a few moments before he proceeded, his
+mind intent on subjects foreign to the
+speculations of all his daily associations.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>Suddenly, as he mused on his latest discovery,
+and calculated to what principal object
+it might be devoted, a stream of fiery light
+shot rapidly athwart the dark, drear sky, and
+before he had space to think what the meteor
+might portend, a roar as of thunder shook the
+air, and simultaneous with it, a shrill, piercing
+scream, mingled with the fearful sound; then
+burst forth a volume of flame, and on the
+wind came floating a sulphurous vapour which,
+to him alone, revealed the nature of the explosion
+he had just witnessed.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>‘Gracious God!’ he exclaimed, while the
+cold sweat poured like rain-drops down his
+forehead, ‘the fire has caught the fulminating
+powder! But what meant that dreadful cry?
+Surely nothing of human life has suffered!
+The boy Hubert,—but, no,—he was at work
+at the further extremity of the building. But
+this is no time for vain conjecture,—let me
+learn the worst at once!’</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>And with these words he urged his affrighted
+steed to its best pace, and rode rapidly
+into the city.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>All was consternation there: the tremendous
+noise had roused every inhabitant, and
+people were hurrying to and fro, some hastening
+towards the place from whence the sound
+had proceeded, others rushing wildly from it.
+It was but too evident that a dreadful catastrophe,
+worse even than Bacon dreaded, had
+happened. It was with difficulty he made his
+way through the crowd, and came upon the
+ruin which still blazed fiercely, appalling the
+stoutest of heart. There was a tumult of
+voices, but above the outcries of the affrighted
+monks, and of the scared multitude, rose the
+loud voice of the Friar, calling upon them to
+extinguish the flames. This appeal turned
+all eyes towards him, and then associating him
+with an evil, the cause of which they were
+unable to comprehend, the maledictions of the
+monks broke forth.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>‘Seize the accursed magician,’ they shouted;
+‘he has made a fiery compact with the demon!
+Already one victim is sacrificed,—our turn
+will come next! See, here are the mangled
+limbs of his pupil, Hubert de Dreux! The
+fiend has claimed his reward, and borne away
+his soul. Seize on the wicked sorcerer, and
+take him to a dungeon!’</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>Roger Bacon sate stupified by the unexpected
+blow; he had no power, if he had
+possessed the will, to offer the slightest resistance
+to the fury of the enraged Franciscans,
+who, in the true spirit of ignorance, had ever
+hated him for his acquirements. With a deep
+sigh for the fate of the young man, whose imprudence
+he now saw had been the cause of
+this dreadful event, he yielded himself up to
+his enemies; they tore him from his palfrey,
+and with many a curse, and many a buffet,
+dragged him to the castle, and lodged him in
+one of its deepest dungeons.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>The flames from the ruined cell died out of
+themselves; but those which the envy and
+dread of Bacon’s genius had kindled, were
+never extinguished, but with his life.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>In the long years of imprisonment which
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_139'>139</span>followed—the doom of the stake being averted
+only by powerful intercession with the Pope—Bacon
+had leisure to meditate on the value
+of all he had done to enlarge the understanding
+and extend the knowledge of his species.
+‘The prelates and friars,’ he wrote in a letter
+which still remains, ‘have kept me starving
+in close prison, nor will they suffer anyone to
+come to me, fearing lest my writings should
+come to any other than the Pope and themselves.’</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>He reflected that of all living men he stood
+well nigh alone in the consciousness that in
+the greatest of his inventions he had produced
+a discovery of incalculable value, but one for
+which on every account the time was not
+ripe.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>‘I will not die,’ he said, ‘without leaving to
+the world the evidence that the secret was
+known to me whose marvellous power future
+ages shall acknowledge. But not yet shall it
+be revealed. Generations must pass away and
+the minds of men become better able to endure
+the light of science, before they can profit by
+my discovery. Let him who already possesses
+knowledge, guess the truth these words
+convey.’</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>And in place of the directions by which
+Hubert de Dreux had been guided, he altered
+the sentence as follows:—</p>
+
+<div class='lg-container-b c007'>
+  <div class='linegroup'>
+    <div class='group'>
+      <div class='line in2'>‘<span lang="la">Sed tamen salis petræ,</span></div>
+      <div class='line in10'><span lang="la"><span class='sc'>Luru Mone Cap Ubre</span></span></div>
+      <div class='line'><span lang="la">et sulphuris.</span>’</div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c006'>The learned have found that these mystical
+words conceal the anagram of <i>Carbonum
+pulvere</i>, the third ingredient in the composition
+of Gunpowder.</p>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <h2 class='c005'>“A GOOD PLAIN COOK.”</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c001'>‘WANTED, a good plain Cook,’ is hungrily
+echoed from the columns of the <cite>Times</cite>, by half
+the husbands and bachelors of Great Britain.
+According to the true meaning of the words
+‘A good plain Cook’—to judge from the
+unskilful manner in which domestic cookery
+is carried on throughout the length and
+breadth of the land—is a very great rarity.
+But the conventional and the true meaning of
+the expression widely differ.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>‘What is commonly self-called a plain
+cook,’ says a writer in the <cite>Examiner</cite>, ‘is a
+cook who spoils food for low wages. She is
+a cook, not because she knows anything about
+cookery, but because she prefers the kitchen-fire
+to scrubbing floors, polishing grates,
+or making beds. A cook who can boil a potato
+and dress a mutton-chop is one in a
+thousand.’</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>Such very plain cooks will always exist for
+dyspeptic purposes, while those who are in
+authority over them remain ignorant of an
+art which, however much it may be slighted,
+exercises a crowning influence over health and
+happiness. Eat we must; and it is literally
+a subject of vital importance whether what
+we eat be properly adapted for healthful
+digestion or not.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>Medical statistics tell us that of all diseases
+with which the English are afflicted, those
+arising directly or indirectly from impaired digestive
+organs are the most prevalent. We are
+falsely accused in consequence of over-eating;
+but the true cause of our ailments is bad cooking.
+A Frenchman or a German devours much
+more at one of his own inexhaustible <i>tables-d’hôte</i>
+than an Englishman consumes at his
+dining-table—and with impunity; for the
+foreigner’s food being properly prepared is
+easily digested. ‘The true difference,’ says a
+pleasant military writer in Blackwood’s Magazine,
+‘between English and foreign cookery
+is just this: in preparing butcher’s meat for
+the table, the aim of foreign cookery is to
+make it tender, of English to make it hard.
+And both systems equally effect their object,
+in spite of difficulties on each side. The
+butcher’s meat, which you buy abroad, is
+tough, coarse-grained, and stringy; yet foreign
+cookery sends this meat to table tender. The
+butcher’s meat which you buy in England is
+tender enough when it comes home; but
+domestic cookery sends it up hard. Don’t
+tell me the hardness is in the meat itself.
+Nothing of the kind; it’s altogether an
+achievement of the English cuisine. I appeal
+to a leg of mutton, I appeal to a beef-steak,
+as they usually come to table; the beef half-broiled,
+the mutton half-roasted. Judge for
+yourself. The underdone portion of each is
+tender; the portion that’s dressed is hard.
+Argal, the hardness is due to the dressing,
+not to the meat: it is a triumph of domestic
+cookery. Engage a “good plain cook”—tell
+her to boil a neck of mutton, that will show
+you what I mean. All London necks of
+mutton come to table crescents, regularly
+curled.’</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>This is but too true: the real art of stewing
+is almost unknown in Great Britain, and even
+in Ireland, despite the fame of an ‘Irish
+stew.’</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>Everything that is not roasted or fried, is
+boiled, ‘a gallop,’ till the quality of tenderness
+is consolidated to the consistency of
+caoutchouc. Such a thing as a stewpan is
+almost unknown in houses supported by less
+than from three to five hundred a year.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>These gastronomic grievances are solely due
+to neglected education. M. Alexis Soyer, with
+a touch of that quiet irony which imparts to
+satire its sharpest sting, dedicated his last
+Cookery-book ‘to the daughters of Albion.’
+Having some acquaintance with their deficiencies,
+he laid his book slyly at their feet
+to drop such a hint as is conveyed when a
+dictionary is handed to damsels who blunder
+in orthography, or when watches are
+presented to correct unpunctuality. It is to
+be feared, however, that ‘the daughters of
+Albion’ were too busy with less useful—though
+to them scarcely less essential—accomplishments,
+to profit by his hint. Cookery is
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_140'>140</span>a subject they have never been taught to
+regard as worthy of their attention: rather,
+indeed, as one to be avoided; for it is never
+discussed otherwise than apologetically, with
+a simpering sort of jocularity, or as something
+which it is ‘low’ to know anything about.
+When a certain diplomatist was reminded
+that his mother had been a cook, he did not
+deny the fact; but assured the company,
+‘upon his honour, that she was a very bad one.’
+People in the best society do not hesitate to
+bore others with their ailments, and talk
+about cures and physic; but conversation respecting
+prevention—which is better than
+cure—and wholesomely prepared food is
+tabooed.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>Young ladies of the leisure classes are educated
+to become uncommonly acute critics of
+all that pertains to personal blandishment.
+They keep an uncompromisingly tight hand
+over their milliners and ladies’ maids. They
+can tell to a thread when a flounce is too
+narrow or a tuck too deep. They are taught
+to a shade what colours suit their respective
+complexions, and to a hair how their <i>coiffure</i>
+ought to be arranged. Woe unto the seamstress
+or handmaiden who sins in these
+matters! But her ‘good plain cook’—when
+a damsel is promoted to wedlock, and owns one—passes
+unreproached for the most heinous
+offences. Badly seasoned and ill assimilated
+soup; fish, without any fault of the fishmonger,
+soft and flabby; meat rapidly roasted before
+fierce fires—burnt outside and raw within;
+poultry rendered by the same process tempting
+to the eye, till dissection reveals red and
+uncooked joints! These crimes, from their
+frequency and the ignorance of ‘the lady of the
+house,’ remain unpunished. Whereupon, husbands,
+tired of their Barmecide feasts—which
+disappoint the taste more because they have
+often a promising look to the eye—prefer
+better fare at their clubs; and escape the Scylla
+of bad digestion, to be wrecked on the Charybdis
+of domestic discord. All this is owing
+to the wife’s culinary ignorance, and to your
+‘Good Plain Cooks.’</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>We do not say that the daughters of the
+wealthy and well to do should be submitted
+to regular kitchen apprenticeships, and taught
+the details of cookery, any more than that
+they should learn to make shoes or to fit and
+sew dresses. But it is desirable that they
+should acquire <i>principles</i>—such principles as
+would enable them to apply prompt correction
+to the errors of their hired cooks. It
+is no very bold assertion that were such a
+knowing and judicious supervision generally
+exercised, the stomach diseases, under which
+half our nation is said to groan, would be
+materially abated.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>Let us take a step or two lower in the
+ladder of English life, where circumstances
+oblige the Good Plain Cook and the wife to be
+one and the same person. Many a respectable
+clerk, and many a small farmer, is doomed
+from one year’s end to another to a wearying
+disproportion of cold, dry, uncomfortable
+dinners, because his wife’s knowledge of
+cookery takes no wider range than that
+which pertains to the roasted, boiled, and fried.
+Thousands of artisans and labourers are deprived
+of half the actual nutriment of food, and
+of all the legitimate pleasures of the table, because
+their better halves—though good plain
+cooks, in the ordinary acceptation of the term—are
+in utter darkness as to economising, and
+rendering palatable the daily sustenance of
+their families. ‘If we could see,’ says a writer
+before quoted, ‘by the help of an Asmodeus
+what is going on at the dinner-hour of the
+humbler of the middle class, what a spectacle
+of discomfort, waste, ill-temper, and consequent
+ill-conduct, it would be! The man
+quarrels with his wife because there is nothing
+he can eat, and he generally makes up in drink
+for the deficiencies in the article of food. Gin
+is the consolation to the spirits and the resource
+to the baulked appetite. There is thus
+not only the direct waste of food and detriment
+to health, but the farther consequent waste of
+the use of spirits, with its injury to the habits
+and the health. On the other hand, people
+who eat well drink moderately; the satisfaction
+of appetite with relish dispensing with
+recourse to stimulants. Good-humour, too,
+and good health follow a good meal, and by a
+good meal we mean anything, however simple,
+well dressed in its way. A rich man may live
+very expensively and very ill, and a poor one
+very frugally but very well, if it be his good
+fortune to have a good cook in his wife or his
+servant; and a ministering angel a good cook
+is, either in the one capacity or the other, not
+only to those in humble circumstances, but to
+many above them of the class served by what
+are self-termed professed cooks, which is too
+frequently an affair of profession purely, and
+who are to be distinguished from plain cooks
+only in this, that they require larger wages for
+spoiling food, and spoil much more in quantity,
+and many other articles to boot.’</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>Great would be the advantage to the community,
+if cookery were made a branch of
+female education. To the poor, the gain
+would be incalculable. ‘Amongst the prizes
+which the Bountifuls of both sexes are fond
+of bestowing in the country,’ we again quote
+the <cite>Examiner</cite>, ‘we should like to see some
+offered for the best-boiled potato, the best-grilled
+mutton-chop, and the best-seasoned
+hotch-potch soup or broth. In writing of a
+well-boiled potato, we are aware that we
+shall incur the contempt of many for attaching
+importance to a thing they suppose to be
+so common; but the fact is, that their contempt
+arises, as is often the origin of contempt,
+from their ignorance, there not being one person
+in ten thousand who has ever seen and
+tasted that great rarity—a well-boiled potato.’</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>This is scarcely an exaggeration. The importance
+attached to the point by the highest
+gastronomic authorities, is shown by what
+took place, some years since, at the meeting
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_141'>141</span>of a Pall Mall Club Committee specially
+called for the selection of a cook. The candidates
+were an Englishman, from the Albion
+Tavern, and a Frenchman recommended by
+Ude. The eminent divine who presided in
+right of distinguished connoisseurship put the
+first question to the candidates. It was this:—‘Can
+you boil a potato?’</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>Let us hope that these hints will fructify
+and be improved upon, and that the first principles
+of cooking will become, in some way, a
+part of female education. In schools, however,
+this will be difficult. It can only be a branch
+of household education; and until it does so
+become, we shall continue to be afflicted with
+‘Good Plain Cooks.’</p>
+
+<div class='chapter'>
+  <h2 class='c005'>TWO-HANDED DICK THE STOCKMAN.<br> <span class='c012'>AN ADVENTURE IN THE BUSH.</span></h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class='c001'>Travelling in the Bush one rainy season,
+I put up for the night at a small weatherbound
+inn, perched half way up a mountain
+range, where several Bush servants on the
+tramp had also taken refuge from the downpouring
+torrents. I had had a long and
+fatiguing ride over a very bad country, so,
+after supper, retired into the furthest corner
+of the one room that served for ‘kitchen, and
+parlour, and all,’ and there, curled up in my
+blanket, in preference to the bed offered by
+our host, which was none of the cleanest; with
+half-shut eyes, I glumly puffed at my pipe in
+silence, allowing the hubble-bubble of the
+Bushmen’s gossip to flow through my unnoting
+ears.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>Fortunately for my peace, the publican’s
+stock of rum had been some time exhausted,
+and as I was the latest comer, all the broiling
+and frying had ceased, but a party sat round
+the fire, evidently set in for a spell at ‘yarning.’
+At first the conversation ran in ordinary
+channels, such as short reminiscences of old
+world rascality, perils in the Bush. Till at
+length a topic arose which seemed to have a
+paramount interest for all. This was the
+prowess of a certain Two-Handed Dick the
+Stockman.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>‘Yes, yes; I’ll tell you what it is, mates,’
+said one; ‘this confounded reading and writing,
+that don’t give plain fellows like you and me a
+chance;—now, if it were to come to fighting for
+a living, I don’t care whether it was half-minute
+time and London rules, rough and tumble,
+or single stick, or swords and bayonets, or
+tomahawks,—I’m dashed if you and me, and
+Two-Handed Dick, wouldn’t take the whole
+Legislative Council, the Governor and Judges—one
+down ’tother come on. Though, to be
+sure, Dick could thrash any two of us.’</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>I was too tired to keep awake, and dozed
+off, to be again and again disturbed with
+cries of ‘Bravo, Dick!’ ‘That’s your sort!’
+‘Houray, Dick!’ all signifying approval of
+that individual’s conduct in some desperate
+encounter, which formed the subject of a stirring
+narrative.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>For months after that night this idea of
+Two-Handed Dick haunted me, but the bustle
+of establishing a new station at length drove
+it out of my head.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>I suppose a year had elapsed from the night
+when the fame of the double-fisted stockman
+first reached me. I had to take a three days’
+journey to buy a score of fine-woolled rams,
+through a country quite new to me, which I
+chose because it was a short cut recently discovered.
+I got over, the first day, forty-five
+miles comfortably. The second day, in the
+evening, I met an ill-looking fellow walking
+with a broken musket, and his arm in a sling.
+He seemed sulky, and I kept my hand on my
+double-barrelled pistol all the time I was
+talking to him; he begged a little tea and
+sugar, which I could not spare, but I threw
+him a fig of tobacco. In answer to my
+questions about his arm, he told me, with a
+string of oaths, that a bull, down in some
+mimosa flats, a day’s journey a-head, had
+charged him, flung him into a water-hole,
+broken his arm, and made him lose his sugar
+and tea bag. Bulls in Australia are generally
+quiet, but this reminded me that some of the
+Highland black cattle imported by the Australian
+Company, after being driven off by a
+party of Gully Rakees (cattle stealers), had
+escaped into the mountains and turned quite
+wild. Out of this herd, which was of a breed
+quite unsuited to the country, a bull sometimes,
+when driven off by a stronger rival,
+would descend to the mimosa flats, and
+wander about, solitary and dangerously fierce.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>It struck me as I rode off, that it was quite
+as well my friend’s arm and musket had been
+disabled, for he did not look the sort of man
+it would be pleasant to meet in a thicket of
+scrub, if he fancied the horse you rode. So,
+keeping one eye over my shoulder, and a
+sharp look-out for any other traveller of the
+same breed, I rode off at a brisk pace. I made
+out afterwards that my foot friend was Jerry
+Jonson, hung for shooting a bullock-driver,
+the following year.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>At sun-down, when I reached the hut where
+I had intended to sleep, I found it deserted,
+and so full of fleas, I thought it better to
+camp out; so I hobbled out old Grey-tail on
+the best piece of grass I could find which was
+very poor indeed.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>The next morning when I went to look for
+my horse he was nowhere to be found. I put
+the saddle on my head and tracked him for
+hours, it was evident the poor beast had
+been travelling away in search of grass. I
+walked until my feet were one mass of
+blisters; at length, when about to give up
+the search in despair, having quite lost the
+track on stony ground, I came upon the
+marks quite fresh in a bit of swampy ground,
+and a few hundred yards further found
+Master Grey-tail rolling in the mud of a
+nearly dry water-hole as comfortably as
+possible. I put down the saddle and called
+him; at that moment I heard a loud roar and
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_142'>142</span>crash in a scrub behind me, and out rushed
+at a terrific pace a black Highland bull
+charging straight at me. I had only just
+time to throw myself on one side flat on the
+ground as he thundered by me. My next
+move was to scramble among a small clump
+of trees, one of great size, the rest were mere
+saplings.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>The bull having missed his mark, turned
+again, and first revenged himself by tossing
+my saddle up in the air, until fortunately it
+lodged in some bushes; then, having smelt
+me out, he commenced a circuit round the
+trees, stamping, pawing, and bellowing frightfully.
+With his red eyes and long sharp
+horns he looked like a demon; I was quite
+unarmed, having broken my knife the day
+before; my pistols were in my holsters, and I was
+wearied to death. My only chance consisted
+in dodging him round the trees until he should
+be tired out. Deeply did I regret having left
+my faithful dogs Boomer and Bounder behind.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>The bull charged again and again, sometimes
+coming with such force against the
+tree that he fell on his knees, sometimes
+bending the saplings behind which I stood
+until his horns almost touched me. There was
+not a branch I could lay hold of to climb up.
+How long this awful game of ‘<i>touchwood</i>’
+lasted, I know not; it seemed hours; after
+the first excitement of self-preservation
+passed off, weariness again took possession
+of me, and it required all the instinct of
+self-preservation to keep me on my feet;
+several times the bull left me for a few
+seconds, pacing suddenly away, bellowing
+his malignant discontent; but before I could
+cross over to a better position he always
+came back at full speed. My tongue clave
+to the roof of my mouth, my eyes grew hot
+and misty, my knees trembled under me, I
+felt it impossible to hold out until dark. At
+length I grew desperate, and determined to
+make a run for the opposite covert the
+moment the bull turned towards the water-hole
+again. I felt sure I was doomed, and
+thought of it until I grew indifferent. The
+bull seemed to know I was worn out, and
+grew more fierce and rapid in his charges,
+but just when I was going to sit down under
+the great tree and let him do his worst, I
+heard the rattle of a horse among the rocks
+above, and a shout that sounded like the
+voice of an angel. Then came the barking
+of a dog, and the loud reports of a stockwhip,
+but the bull with his devilish eyes fixed on
+me, never moved.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>Up came a horseman at full speed; crack fell
+the lash on the black bull’s hide; out spirted
+the blood in a long streak. The bull turned
+savagely—charged the horseman. The horse
+wheeled round just enough to baffle him—no
+more—again the lash descended, cutting like a
+long flexible razor, but the mad bull was not
+to be beaten off by a whip: he charged again
+and again; but he had met his match; right
+and left, as needed, the horse turned, sometimes
+pivotting on his hind, sometimes on his
+fore-legs.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>The stockman shouted something, leapt
+from his horse, and strode forward to meet
+the bull with an open knife between his teeth.
+As the beast lowered his head to charge, he
+seemed to catch him by the horns. There
+was a struggle, a cloud of dust, a stamping
+like two strong men wrestling—I could not
+see clearly; but the next moment the bull
+was on his back, the blood welling from his
+throat, his limbs quivering in death.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>The stranger, covered with mud and dust,
+came to me, saying as unconcernedly as if he
+had been killing a calf in a slaughter-house,
+‘He’s dead enough, young man; he won’t
+trouble anybody any more.’</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>I walked two or three paces toward the
+dead beast; my senses left me—I fainted.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>When I came to myself, my horse was
+saddled, bridled, and tied up to a bush. My
+stranger friend was busy flaying the bull.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>‘I should like to have a pair of boots out
+of the old devil,’ he observed, in answer to
+my enquiring look, ‘before the dingoes and the
+eagle hawks dig into his carcase.’</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>We rode out of the flats up a gentle ascent,
+as night was closing in. I was not in talking
+humour; but I said, ‘You have saved my
+life.’</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>‘Well, I rather think I have’ but this was
+muttered in an under tone; ‘it’s not the first
+I have saved, or taken either, for that matter.’</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>I was too much worn out for thanking much,
+but I pulled out a silver hunting-watch and
+put it into his hand. He pushed it back, almost
+roughly, saying, ‘No, Sir, not now; I shalln’t
+take money or money’s worth for that, though
+I may ask something some time. It’s nothing,
+after all. I owed the old black devil a grudge
+for spoiling a blood filly of mine; beside,
+though I didn’t know it when I rode up first,
+and went at the beast to take the devil out
+of myself as much as anything,—I rather
+think that you are the young gentleman that
+ran through the Bush at night to Manchester
+Dan’s hut, when his wife was bailed up by the
+Blacks, and shot one-eyed Jackey, in spite of
+the Governor’s proclamation.’</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>‘You seem to know me,’ I answered; ‘pray
+may I ask who you are, if it is a fair question,
+for I cannot remember ever having seen you
+before.’</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>‘Oh, they call me “Two-handed Dick,” in
+this country.’</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>The scene in the roadside inn flashed on
+my recollection. Before I could say another
+word, a sharp turn round the shoulder of the
+range we were traversing, brought us in sight
+of the fire of a shepherd’s hut. The dogs ran
+out barking; we hallooed and cracked our
+whips, and the hut-keeper came to meet us
+with a fire-stick in his hand.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>‘Lord bless my heart and soul! Dick, is
+that thee at last? Well, I thought thee were’t
+never coming;’ cried the hut-keeper, a little
+man, who came limping forward very fast
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_143'>143</span>with the help of a crutch-handled stick. ‘I
+say, Missis, Missis, here’s Dick, here’s Two-handed
+Dick.’</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>This was uttered in a shrill, hysterical sort
+of scream. Out came ‘Missis’ at the top of
+her speed, and began hugging Dick as he was
+getting off his horse, her arms reached a little
+above his waist, laughing and crying, both at
+the same time, while her husband kept
+fast hold of the Stockman’s hand, muttering,
+‘Lord, Dick, I’m so glad to see thee.’
+Meanwhile the dogs barking, and a flock of
+weaned lambs just penned, ba’aing, made such
+a riot, that I was fairly bewildered. So,
+feeling myself one too many, I slipped away,
+leading off both the horses to the other side
+the hut, where I found a shepherd, who
+showed me a grass paddock to feed the nags
+a bit before turning them out for the night.
+I said to him, ‘What <i>is</i> the meaning of all
+this going on between your mate and his
+wife, and the big Stockman?’</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>‘The meaning, Stranger; why, that’s Two-handed
+Dick, and my mate is little Jemmy
+that he saved, and Charley Anvils at the
+same time, when the Blacks slaughtered the
+rest of the party, near on a dozen of them.’</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>On returning, I found supper smoking on
+the table, and we had made a regular ‘Bush’
+meal. The Stockman then told my adventure,
+and, when they had exchanged all the news,
+I had little difficulty in getting the hut-keeper
+to the point I wanted; the great
+difficulty lay in preventing man and wife
+from telling the same story at the same time.
+However, by judicious management, I was
+able to gather the following account of <cite>Two-handed
+Dick’s Fight and Ride</cite>.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>‘When first I met Dick he was second
+Stockman to Mr. Ronalds, and I took a shepherd’s
+place there; it was my second place in
+this country, for you see I left the Old Country
+in a bad year for the weaving trade, and was
+one of the first batch of free emigrants that
+came out, the rest were chiefly Irish. I found
+shepherding suit me very well, and my Missis
+was hut-keeper. Well, Dick and I got very
+thick; I used to write his letters for him,
+and read in an evening and so on. Well,
+though I undertook a shepherd’s place I soon
+found I could handle an axe pretty well.
+Throwing the shuttle gives the use of
+the arms, you see, and Dick put into my
+head that I could make more money if I
+took to making fences; I sharpening the
+rails and making the mortice-holes, and
+a stranger man setting them. I did several
+jobs at odd times, and was thought very
+handy. Well, Mr. Ronalds, during the time
+of the great drought five years ago, determined
+to send up a lot of cattle to the
+North, where he had heard there was plenty
+of water and grass, and form a Station there.
+Dick was picked out as Stockman; a
+young gentleman, a relation of Mr. Ronalds,
+went as head of the party, a very foolish, conceited
+young man, who knew very little of
+Bush life, and would not be taught. There
+were eight splitters and fencers, besides
+Charley Anvils, the blacksmith, and two
+bullock drivers.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>‘I got leave to go because I wanted to see
+the country and Dick asked. My missis
+was sorely against my going. I was to be
+storekeeper, as well as do any farming; and
+work if wanted.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>‘We had two drays, and were well armed.
+We were fifteen days going up before we got
+into the new country, and then we travelled
+five days; sometimes twenty-four hours without
+water; and sometimes had to unload the
+drays two or three times a day, to get over
+creeks. The fifth day we came to very fine
+land; the grass met over our horses’ necks,
+and the river was a chain of water-holes, all
+full, and as clear as crystal. The kangaroos
+were hopping about as plentiful as rabbits in
+a warren; and the grass by the river side
+had regular tracks of the emus, where they
+went down to drink.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>‘We had been among signs of the Blacks
+too, for five days, but had not seen anything
+of them, although we could hear the devils
+cooing at nightfall, calling to each other. We
+kept regular watch and watch at first—four
+sentinels, and every man sleeping with his gun
+at hand.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>‘Now, as it was Dick’s business to tail (follow)
+the cattle, five-hundred head, I advised him
+to have his musket sawed off in the barrel, so
+as to be a more handy size for using on horseback.
+He took my advice; and Charley
+Anvils made a very good job of it, so that he
+could bring it under his arm when hanging
+at his back from a rope sling, and fire with
+one hand. It was lucky I thought of it, as it
+turned out.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>‘At length the overseer fixed on a spot for
+the Station. It was very well for water and
+grass, and a very pretty view, as he said, but
+it was too near a thicket where the Blacks
+would lie in ambush, for safety. The old
+Bushmen wanted it planted on a neck of land,
+where the waters protected it all but one
+side, and there a row of fence would have
+made it secure.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>‘Well, we set to work, and soon had a lot
+of tall trees down. Charley put up his forge
+and his grindstone, to keep the axe sharp,
+and I staid with him. Dick went tailing the
+cattle, and the overseer sat on a log and
+looked on. The second day a mob of Blacks
+came down on the opposite side of the river.
+They were quite wild, regular <i>myals</i>, but
+some of our men with green branches, went
+and made peace with them. They liked our
+bread and sugar; and after a short time we
+had a lot of them helping to draw rails, fishing
+for us, bringing wild honey, kangaroos,
+rats, and firewood, in return for butter and
+food, so we began to be less careful about our
+arms. We gave them iron tomahawks, and
+they soon found out that they could cut out
+an opossum from a hollow in half-an-hour
+<span class='pageno' id='Page_144'>144</span>with one of our tomahawks, while it took a
+day with one of their own stone ones.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>‘And so the time passed very pleasantly.
+We worked away. The young men and gins
+worked for us. The chiefs adorned themselves
+with the trinkets and clothes we gave
+them, and fished and hunted, and admired
+themselves in the river.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>‘Dick never trusted them; he stuck to his
+cattle; he warned us not to trust them, and
+the overseer called him a bloodthirsty murdering
+blackguard for his pains.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>‘One day, the whole party were at work,
+chopping and trimming weather-boards for
+the hut; the Blacks helping as usual. I was
+turning the grindstone for Charley Anvils,
+and Dick was coming up to the dray to get
+some tea, but there was a brow of a hill between
+him and us; the muskets were all piled
+in one corner. I heard a howl, and then a
+scream—our camp was full of armed Blacks.
+When I raised my head, I saw the chief,
+Captain Jack we called him, with a broad
+axe in his hand, and the next minute he had
+chopped the overseer’s head clean off; in two
+minutes all my mates were on the ground.
+Three or four came running up to us; one
+threw a spear at me, which I half parried
+with a pannikin I was using to wet the grindstone,
+but it fixed deep in my hip, and part of
+it I believe is there still. Charley Anvils had
+an axe in his hand, and cut down the first
+two fellows that came up to him, but he was
+floored in a minute with twenty wounds.
+They were so eager to kill me, that one of
+them, luckily, or I should not have been alive
+now, cut the spear in my hip short off. Another,
+a young lad I had sharpened a tomahawk for
+a few days before, chopped me across the
+head; you can see the white hair. Down I
+fell, and nothing could have saved us, but the
+other savages had got the tarpaulin off, and
+were screaming with delight, plundering the
+drays, which called my enemies off. Just
+then, Dick came in sight. He saw what was
+the matter; but although there were more
+than a hundred black devils, all armed,
+painted, bloody, and yelling, he never stopped
+or hesitated, but rode slap through the camp,
+fired bang among them, killing two, and
+knocking out the brains of another. As he
+passed by a top rail, where an axe was sticking,
+he caught it up. The men in the camp
+were dead enough; the chief warriors had
+made the rush there, and every one was
+pierced with several spears, or cut down from
+close behind by axes in the hands of the
+chiefs. We, being further off, had been
+attacked by the boys only. Dick turned towards
+us, and shouted my name; I could
+not answer, but I managed to sit up an
+instant; he turned towards me, leaned down,
+caught me by the jacket, and dragged me
+on before him like a log. Just then Charley,
+who had crept under the grindstone, cried
+“Oh, Dick, don’t leave me!” As he said
+that, a lot of them came running down,
+for they had seen enough to know that, unless
+they killed us all, their job would not be
+half-done. As Dick turned to face them,
+they gave way and flung spears, but they could
+not hurt him; they managed to get between
+us and poor Charley. Dick rode back a
+circuit, and dropped me among some bushes
+on a hill, where I could see all. Four times
+he charged through and through a whole
+mob, with an axe in one hand and his short
+musket in the other. He cut them down
+right and left, as if he had been mowing; he
+scared the wretches, although the old women
+kept screeching and urging them on, as they
+always do. At length, by help of his stirrup
+leather, he managed to get Charley up behind
+him. He never could have done it, but his
+mare fought, and bit, and turned when he bid
+her, so he threw the bridle on her neck, and
+could use that terrible left arm of his. Well,
+he came up to the hill and lifted me on, and
+away we went for three or four miles, but we
+knew the mare could not stand it long, so
+Dick got off and walked. When the Blacks
+had pulled the drays’ loads to pieces, they
+began to follow us, but Dick never lost heart’—</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>‘Nay, mate,’ interrupted Dick, ‘once I did;
+I shall never forget it, when I came to put my
+last bullet in, it was too big.’</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>‘Good heavens,’ I exclaimed, ‘what did
+you do?’</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>‘Why, I put the bullet in my mouth, and
+kept chawing and chawing it, and threatening
+the black devils all the while until at last
+it was small enough, and then I rammed it
+down, and dropped on my knee and waited
+until they came within twenty yards, and then
+I picked off Captain Jack, the biggest villain
+of them all.’</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>Here Dick, being warmed, continued the
+story:—‘We could not stop; we marched all
+evening and all night, and when the two poor
+creturs cried for water, as they did most of
+the night, as often as I could I filled my boots,
+and gave them to drink. I led the horse, and
+travelled seventy miles without halting for
+more than a minute or two. Toward the last
+they were as helpless as worn-out sheep. I
+tied them on. We had the luck to fall in
+with a party travelling just when the old mare
+was about giving in, and then we must all
+have died for want of water. Charley Anvils
+had eighteen wounds, but, except losing two
+fingers, is none the worse. Poor Jemmy, there,
+will never be fit for anything but a hut-keeper;
+as for me, I had some scratches—nothing to
+hurt; and the old mare lost an ear. I went
+back afterwards with the police, and squared
+accounts with the Blacks.</p>
+
+<p class='c006'>‘And so you see, Stranger, the old woman
+thinks I saved her old man’s life, although I
+would have done as much for any one; but I
+believe there are some gentlemen in Sydney
+think I ought to have been hung for what I
+did. Anyhow, since that scrimmage in the
+Bush, they always call me “<span class='sc'>Two-handed
+Dick</span>.”’</p>
+
+<div class='nf-center-c0'>
+<div class='nf-center c004'>
+    <div><span class='small'>Published at the Office, No. 16, Wellington Street North, Strand. Printed by <span class='sc'>Bradbury &#38; Evans</span>, Whitefriars, London.</span></div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<div class='pbb'>
+ <hr class='pb c003'>
+</div>
+<div class='tnotes x-ebookmaker'>
+
+<div class='chapter ph2'>
+
+<div class='nf-center-c0'>
+<div class='nf-center c013'>
+    <div>TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+</div>
+
+ <ul class='ul_1 c004'>
+    <li>Fixed typos; non-standard spelling and dialect retained.
+<!--
+    </li>
+    <li>Renumbered footnotes.
+    </li>
+  </ul>-->
+
+</div>
+
+<div style='text-align:center'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78170 ***</div>
+  </body>
+  <!-- created with ppgen.py 3.57i (with regex) on 2026-03-10 23:58:40 GMT -->
+</html>
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+Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for eBook #78170
+(https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/78170)