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diff --git a/78170-0.txt b/78170-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..118aa3d --- /dev/null +++ b/78170-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,2388 @@ +*** 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 *** |