Chapter II: Part 2

It was some time before she was sufficiently recovered to examine her place of refuge. When she did so, she found that she was on the very edge of one steep cliff, and at the foot of another as high, but not so inaccessible. She was well above the water, for, clinging to the sides of the cliff and springing up between the clefts of the rocks, were thick stunted bushes, and even here and there the tinted head of a hardy flower. But suddenly her attention was drawn from the geography of her surroundings to the mark of a boot on the patch of bright sand behind the rock. A tremor seized her at first, for she imagined that she must have chosen a smugglers’ haunt as her place of refuge; but her fear turned into joy when she noticed that there was but the impression of a left foot, and that the spot the right foot would have occupied was marked by a hole such as the ferrule of a thick stick would make, and she knew that the traces were those of her father. The marks came up from below, and stopped abruptly at a thick bush. Something prompted the girl to stir this bush with her foot, and, to her surprise, it came away in a mass, and displayed an orifice in the rock just large enough to admit of one man passing. Her curiosity was now aroused, and overruling all considerations concerning her personal safety, and the advisability of getting home as soon as possible, she entered the opening, and found herself in a tolerably large cavern, the sandy floor of which was covered with marks corresponding to those outside, but which were especially numerous about a large round stone which, from its dissimilarity to the material of the cavern, seemed to have been brought from the beach below. Exerting all her strength, she moved the stone, and staggered back with an expression of amazement. On a wooden shelf placed in a hollow she beheld a dozen canvas bags, which, when she lifted them, clinked with the unmistakable sound of coin. But what startled her even more than the discovery itself was that each bag bore upon it, in half-effaced letters, the words, ‘Faraday & Co., Saint Quinians.’

A terrible light now broke upon her. Faraday & Co. were the bankers in whose employ Harry Symonds had been when they were robbed four years previously of three thousand pounds in sovereigns; and she too well understood now what her father meant when he called himself a rogue, and what was the nature of the influence which Jasper Rodley had over him. She stood for some moments irresolute, sick at heart, her brain in a whirl, and every limb trembling. How should she act? Nothing that she could do would remove the fact that during the past four years her father had been making use of coin which belonged to other people, although, by taking the money away, she could screen him from the public shame of having it in his possession. Oh! she thought, if Harry could be with her but for five minutes to decide for her!

Daylight was fast fading away, so that every moment was of value. She decided that she would get home as soon as possible, tell her father of her discovery, persuade him to return the money to the bankers, making up the deficit which he had used, and informing them how and where he had found it. If this could be done without attracting the notice of Jasper Rodley, she might defy him to do his worst, and clear her father of all suspicion. So she replaced the stone, covered up the entrance to the cave with the bush, and followed the marks on the thin sand-path, which, to her joy led, over a ridge of rocks hitherto invisible to her, to the shore. Scarcely had she passed along, when the figure of Jasper Rodley rose from behind a rock close by the cavern entrance, his eyes bright with malignant satisfaction at having watched all her movements unseen.

Bertha found her father in a terrible state of anxiety, and she had to explain how she had been overtaken by the tide on her homeward journey, before she could broach the topic uppermost in her mind; and then, just as she was about to tell the captain of her discovery, Mr Jasper Rodley walked into the room, and announced his intention of staying the night, so that she would have no opportunity of speaking to her father in private until the next day.

WONDERS OF MEMORY.

If ‘all great people have great memories,’ as Sir Arthur Helps declares in his delightful book entitled _Social Pressure_, it by no means follows that all those who are possessed of great memories are ‘great people.’ Many an instance might be cited to show that men of very moderate intellectual capacity may be endowed with a power of memory which is truly prodigious. In addition to this, there are plenty of well-authenticated examples of the extraordinary power of memory displayed even by idiots. In the Memoirs of Mrs Somerville there is a curious account of a most extraordinary verbal memory. ‘There was an idiot in Edinburgh,’ she tells us, ‘of a respectable family who had a remarkable memory. He never failed to go to the kirk on Sunday; and on returning home, could repeat the sermon, saying: “Here the minister coughed; here he stopped to blow his nose.”—During the tour we made in the Highlands,’ she adds, ‘we met with another idiot who knew the Bible so perfectly, that if you asked him where such a verse was to be found, he could tell without hesitation and repeat the chapter.’ These examples are sufficiently remarkable; but what shall be said of the case cited by Archdeacon Fearon in his valuable pamphlet on _Mental Vigour_? ‘There was in my father’s parish,’ says the archdeacon, ‘a man who could remember the day when every person had been buried in the parish for thirty-five years, and could repeat with unvarying accuracy the name and age of the deceased, with the mourners at the funeral. But he was a complete fool. Out of the line of burials, he had but one idea, and could not give an intelligible reply to a single question, nor be trusted to feed himself.’

These phenomenal instances may be matched by the Sussex farm-labourer George Watson, as we find recorded in Hone’s _Table Book_. Watson could neither read nor write, yet he was wont to perform wondrous feats of mental calculation, and his memory for events seemed to be almost faultless. ‘But the most extraordinary circumstance,’ says Hone, ‘is the power he possesses of recollecting the events of every day from an early period of his life. Upon being asked what day of the week a given day of the month occurred, he immediately names it, and also mentions where he was and what was the state of the weather. A gentleman who had kept a diary put many questions to him, and his answers were invariably correct.’

Of a similar kind is the memory for which Daniel M‘Cartney has become famous in the United States. The strange story of this man’s achievements is told by Mr Henkle in the _Journal of Speculative Philosophy_. M‘Cartney, in 1869, declared that he could remember the day of the week for any date from January 1827, that is, from the time when he was nine years and four months old—forty-two and a half years. He has often been tested, and, so far as Mr Henkle’s account goes, had not failed to tell his questioner ‘what day it was,’ and to give some information about the weather, and about his own whereabouts and doings on any one of the fifteen thousand or more dates that might be named. When Mr Henkle first met this man of marvellous memory, he was employed in the office of the Honourable T. K. Rukenbrod, editor of the _Salem Republican_, where nothing better could be found for M‘Cartney to do than ‘turn the wheel of the printing-press on two days of each week.’ On the first formal examination this man underwent, his answers were tested by reference to the file of a newspaper which gave the day of the week along with the date. In one case his statement was disputed, for the day he named was not the same as that given by the paper; but on further inquiry, it was found that the newspaper was wrong, for the printer had made a mistake. Short-hand notes of the conversation were taken at subsequent interviews. The report of these is very curious reading. Take the following as a sample. ‘_Question._ October 8, 1828? _Answer_ (in two seconds), Wednesday. It was cloudy and drizzled rain. I carried dinner to my father where he was getting out coal.—_Question._ February 21, 1829? _Answer_ (in two seconds), Saturday. It was cloudy in the morning, and clear in the afternoon; there was a little snow on the ground. An uncle who lived near sold a horse-beast that day for thirty-five dollars.’ And so the conversation ran on for hours, ranging over forty years of M‘Cartney’s personal history. Mr Henkle tells us that if he went over some of the dates again, after a few days’ interval, the answers, although given in different terms, were essentially the same, ‘showing distinctly that he remembered the facts, and not the words previously used.’ M‘Cartney’s memory is not confined to dates and events; he is a rare calculator, can give the cube root of such numbers as 59, 319; or 571, 787, &c.; can repeat some two hundred and fifty hymns, and start about two hundred tunes; has a singularly extensive and accurate knowledge of geography, and never forgets the name of a person he has once seen or read of. With all this singular power of memory, however, he is not a man whose general grasp of mind is at all noteworthy.

The same may be said of scores of men whose one rich gift of memory has brought them into prominence. No one has claimed any high intellectual rank for the renowned ‘Memory Corner Thompson,’ who drew from actual memory, in twenty-two hours, at two sittings, in the presence of two well-known gentlemen, a correct plan of the parish of St James, Westminster, with parts of the parishes of St Marylebone, St Ann, and St Martin; which plan contained every square, street, lane, court, alley, market, church, chapel, and all public buildings, with all stable and other yards, also every public-house in the parish, and the corners of all streets, with all minutiæ, as pumps, posts, trees, houses that project and inject, bow-windows, Carlton House, St James’s Palace, and the interior of the markets, without scale or reference to any plan, book, or paper whatever; who undertook to do the same for the parishes of St Andrew, Holborn, St Giles-in-the-Fields, St Paul’s, Covent Garden, St Mary-le-Strand, St Clement’s, and St George’s; who could tell the corner of any great leading thoroughfare from Hyde Park corner or Oxford Street to St Paul’s; who could ‘take an inventory of a gentleman’s house from attic to ground-floor and write it out afterwards. He did this at Lord Nelson’s at Merton, and at the Duke of Kent’s, in the presence of two noblemen.’

Turning, now, from examples like the foregoing, which have been given to show that a great memory does not argue in all cases any unusual mental power in other directions, let us look at some of the ‘great people’ whose ‘great memories’ illustrate the correctness of Sir Arthur Helps’s dictum. Running over a long list of examples, which the writer has prepared for his own use in the study of this subject, he has been struck with the fact, that the last three or four centuries appear to much greater advantage in this review than any similar period which preceded them. This, after all, is not surprising, when the circumstances of modern life are carefully considered; but it is not in accordance with common opinion. There is a notion abroad that the power of memory has declined since the invention of writing, and especially since the invention of printing and the universal spread of cheap books and newspapers. Nothing could be more mistaken than such a supposition. If we do not nowadays use the memory as the only registry of facts within our reach, we _do_ use the memory even more than the ancients, for the simple reason that our knowledge travels over an immeasurably wider area, we have more to remember, and, as civilisation and culture advance, a good memory becomes more and more needful for the work of life; the general level of intelligence is being raised, and mental power is developed from age to age. In this general advancement and growth, memory has its share.

The verbal memory displayed by the old Greek rhapsodists and bards, or the Icelandic scalds, was undoubtedly remarkable, and is often held up to the envy of these degenerate days. Yet the modern Shah-nama-Khans, Koran Khans, and other singers and reciters of Persia, who ‘will recite for hours together without stammering,’ and the Calmuck national bards, whose songs and recitations ‘sometimes last a whole day,’ cannot surely be a whit behind, if indeed they do not far surpass the prodigies of early ages. We are often reminded of Greek gentlemen who knew their Homer by heart, in the days when Homer occupied the field almost alone and there was little else to learn. But what are their exploits by the side of men like Joseph Justus Scaliger, who ‘committed Homer to memory in twenty-one days, and the whole Greek poets in three months?’ Casaubon says of Scaliger: ‘There was no subject on which any one could desire instruction which he was not capable of giving. He had read nothing which he did not forthwith remember. So extensive and accurate was his acquaintance with languages, that if during his lifetime he had made but this single acquisition, it would have appeared miraculous.’

Since the revival of learning in Europe, there have been scores, yea, hundreds of scholars who have known ‘their Homer’ by heart and a thousand other things besides. Bishop Saunderson, old Isaac Walton tells us, could repeat all the odes of Horace, all Tully’s _Offices_, and the best part of Juvenal and Persius. Euler the mathematician and Leibnitz the philosopher could recite the _Æneid_ from beginning to end. In their day, Porson, Elmsley, Parr, and Wakefield, held the foremost place as scholars, and all, of course, had rare memories; but the palm must be given to Porson, of whom endless stories are told. Before he went to Eton, he was able to repeat almost the whole of Horace, Virgil, Homer, Cicero, and Livy. When, as a practical joke, a school-fellow slipped the wrong book into Porson’s hand, just as he was about to read and translate, the boy was not disconcerted, but went on to read from his memory, as if nothing had occurred. In later life, his performances approached the miraculous. It would require all our space to give any fair idea of them; for he not only knew all the great Greek poets and prose writers pretty well by heart, but could recite whole plays of Shakspeare, or complete books from _Paradise Lost_, Pope’s _Rape of the Lock_, Barrow’s sermons, scenes from Foote, Edgeworth’s _Essay on Irish Bulls_, scores of pages from Gibbon or Rapin. He is also said to have been able to repeat the whole of the _Moral Tale of the Dean of Badajoz_, and Smollett’s _Roderick Random_ from the first page to the last.

Gilbert Wakefield’s memory was also of the gigantic order, but it will not bear comparison with Porson’s. There were few passages in Homer or Pindar which he could not recite at a moment’s notice; Virgil and Horace he knew perfectly; and he could recite entire books from the Old and New Testaments without halting or failing in a single verse. There was also John Wyndham Bruce, whose leisure time was devoted to classical studies. His chief favourite was Æschylus, the whole of whose plays he had learnt by heart, including the twelve hundred lines of the _Agamemnon_ collated by Robertellus. He knew his Horace in the same way, and was quite content, until one day he met with an old fellow-student at Bonn, who, when he made a quotation, would mention book, ode, and verse, remarking, that he did not regard any one as knowing Horace properly unless he could do that. Mr Bruce accordingly set to work at Horace again, and was not long before he could name the exact place occupied by a line in any of the famous odes. It would be hard to believe that Athenian lads could beat the English lads of fourteen years and under, of whom Archdeacon Fearon tells us in the pamphlet referred to above. It was the custom in the school to which he went for the boys to repeat at the end of one of the terms all the Latin and Greek poetry they had learnt during the year. The usual quantity for a boy to go in with was from eight to ten thousand lines, and it took about a week to hear them. ‘One boy in my year,’ he says, ‘repeated the enormous quantity of fourteen thousand lines of Homer, Horace, and Virgil. I heard him say it.’

Ease in learning foreign languages is sometimes regarded as a mere matter of memory; while, however, this is not exactly true, it must be allowed, of course, that skilful linguists are endowed with powers of memory beyond the average. Here, also, we find that there are no examples in ancient times that will stand comparison with our great modern linguists. Our modern facilities for travel and study place us at an immense advantage. Crassus, when prætor in Asia, was so familiar with the dialects of Greek, that he was able to try cases and pronounce judgment in any dialect that might chance to be spoken in his presence. ‘Mithridates, king of twenty-two nations, administered their laws in as many languages,’ and could harangue each division of his motley array of soldiers in its own language or dialect.

But what are such linguists as these by the side of the best examples of recent times? Keeping within the limits of the last hundred years, we have examples that have never been surpassed or even approached in former times. Sir William Jones knew thirteen languages well, and could read with comparative ease in thirty others. John Leyden, a very inferior man to his great contemporary, had a good acquaintance with fifteen of the leading European and Asiatic languages. Within the last few years we have lost two men who could have travelled from the hills of Connemara or the mountains of Wales to the Ural Mountains, or from Lisbon or Algiers to Ispahan or Delhi, and hardly met with a language in which they could not converse or write with ease. The reader will most likely have anticipated the names of two of the most remarkable linguists this country has produced—George Borrow and Edward Henry Palmer. When Borrow was at St Petersburg, he published a little book called _Targum_, in which he gave translations in prose and poetry from thirty different languages. Besides speaking the native tongue of every European nation, Palmer was so perfect a master of Arabic, Persian, Hindustani, Turkish, and the language of the gipsies, that even natives were sometimes deceived as to his nationality. Mr Leland says that, one day in Paris, Palmer ‘entered into conversation with a Zouave or Turco, a native Arab. After a while the man said: “Why do you wear these clothes?”—“Why, how should I dress?” exclaimed Palmer.—“Dress like what you are!” was the indignant reply—“like a _Muslim_!”’

Viscount Strangford may be placed in the same category with these; and the ‘learned blacksmith’ Elihu Burritt, whose friends claim for him that he knew all the languages of Europe and most of those of Asia, must not be left out of sight. But even these do not touch the highest limit of linguistic skill and power of memory. The most scientific linguist we have to name, and one of the most remarkable for the extent of his acquisitions, is Von der Gabelentz, who seems to have been equally at home with the Suahilis, the Samoyeds, the Hazaras, the Aimaks, the Dyaks, the Dakotas, and the Kiriris; who could translate from Chinese into Manchu, compile a grammar or correct the speech of the inhabitants of the Fiji Islands, New Hebrides, Loyalty Islands, or New Caledonia. When we come to Cardinal Mezzofanti and Sir John Bowring, we find the ‘highest record’ as regards the mere number and variety of tongues that men have been known to acquire. No one can speak with absolute certainty as to the number of languages Mezzofanti could converse in with ease. Mrs Somerville says that he professed only fifty-two.

This brief review of the subject necessarily leaves out of account a vast number of the most extraordinary and interesting examples. Artists like Horace Vernet; mathematicians and calculators like Dr Wallis and Leonard Euler, or G. P. Bidder and young Colburn; musicians like Mozart; newspaper reporters like the unequalled ‘Memory Woodfall;’ literary men like Lord Macaulay and T. H. Buckle; chess-players like Paul Morphy and J. H. Blackbourne, have accomplished feats of memory as marvellous as any of those which have been mentioned.

A TRICK AT THE HELM.

DEAR BOB,—Come and lend me a hand, like a good fellow. The regatta
here takes place the day after to-morrow, and the _Redbreast_ is
entered for it. There will be a very fair show of other crack
‘Fives’ for her to try her speed against, and I am more eager than
usual to carry off the first prize. I think I ought to do it, if
I can get a first-rate hand like yourself to come and help. You
recollect my telling you how that crack-brained Irishman O’Gorman
offered to bet me a hundred pounds that he would carry off as
many first prizes as I would this season, and how, in a moment
of irritation, I took the bet? Well, it has come to this—that we
have each won nine prizes, and that Dartmouth Regatta is the last
of the season. He can’t possibly be here in the _Cruiskeen Lawn_,
and consequently, the regatta represents considerably more to me
than the twenty pounds which they offer for the winning boat. The
_Redbreast_ is out and away the best five-tonner here at present;
and unless some wonderful crack arrives between this and then, my
first prize and my bet ought to be a certainty, bar accidents. But
I want you. Your experience of this part of the coast is greater
than mine, and will be invaluable to me; and though Phipps is with
me, and is a right good fellow in a race, still, he has not your
skill and knowledge. Besides these weighty reasons, I want very
much to show you my new little craft, and to enjoy a good dusting
down together once more. So, just pack your bag, and come for three
days at least, if you can’t spare more, to your old chum,

JACK HETHERINGTON.

Such was the letter—dated ‘YACHT _Redbreast_, DARTMOUTH’—which the Honourable Robert Mervyne took from his pocket more than once to peruse, as the train rolled him along the lovely Great Western coast-line, in answer to his friend’s appeal. He was a fine broad-shouldered fellow, had pulled in his College Eight at Oxford, and, since that semi-boyish period, had done a great deal of genuine yachting-work, especially in Corinthian matches in the lower reaches of the Thames, where he had acquired a skill and experience in the handling of small craft under racing canvas which fully justified the confidence which Hetherington reposed in him. Moreover, the coasts of Devon were well known to him; and to the local knowledge of the pilot and the technical skill of the yacht-sailor, he added that quickness of resource which so often makes the gentleman the superior of the professional. He was delighted at the opportunity afforded him by his friend’s letter, and had not hesitated a moment in complying with the request conveyed therein. They were, in fact, far too old chums for either to fail the other at a pinch; and though it was near the end of August, he would still have time to get back for the First. So he smoked his cigar and gazed out at the glancing waters of the sparkling sea, as he whirled by Dawlish and Teignmouth towards the little old-fashioned town of Dartmouth, and allowed his thoughts to roam far ahead in pleasing anticipation of the delights of the coming struggle for the prize.

As the shades of evening drew on, the train ran into the neglected little station at Kingswear, and Mervyne found Hetherington waiting for him on the platform; but, to his surprise, there was a decided lack of cheerfulness on his countenance, which seemed to betoken some unpleasant news in the background. It was not long in coming forward. Hardly had his friend’s modest bag been carried into the hotel—for the little _Redbreast_ afforded poor accommodation for any but her owner—than the cause of his gloom came out.

‘It is awfully good of you to come down, old chap,’ he said; ‘but I’m afraid it’s a wild-goose chase after all, for I’m sorry to say that I can’t possibly sail to-morrow. It’s a dreadful nuisance,’ he added, ‘and a disgusting piece of roguery to boot.’

‘Why, what’s the matter?’ asked Mervyne in surprise. ‘Have they disqualified the _Redbreast_, or knocked a hole in her, or what has happened?’

‘No,’ said his friend; ‘nothing of that sort. It’s a bit of dirty underhand scheming on the part of that fellow O’Gorman, confound him! Knowing that he could not get over from Ireland himself to try conclusions with me, he has got that cad Brewster, the fellow who owns the _Cockyollybird_, and made himself so notorious at Southampton—to come round and sail against me; and I hear from the Wight that he left there three or four days ago with one or two of his own set, vowing that he will show me the way round the course, and knock one hundred pounds out of me into the bargain.’

‘Well, but,’ said Mervyne, ‘we ain’t going to be frightened by Brewster’s brag. Being abroad all this summer, I have not seen the _Cockyollybird_; but from her record, the _Redbreast_ ought to have a very fair chance against her.’

‘Yes, yes! It isn’t that; though, I fancy, she’s a trifle better than we are in running,’ replied Hetherington. ‘But after that disgraceful affair at Southampton, a lot of small yacht-owners, myself among the number, put their heads together, and signed an agreement never to race against him again. One or two of those men are in the harbour now, and they won’t sail if he does, neither of course can I. I’m pretty sure that O’Gorman knew that when he got him to come round; and of course he knows it too.’

‘Then why should he boast so loudly about beating you?’

‘Oh, that’s just to carry it off with a high hand, and appear to be ignorant of the fact.’

‘And the _Cockyollybird_ is in?’

‘Well, no; she isn’t; but she’s entered for the race, and she is sure to be here, bar accidents.’

‘She must look pretty sharp, then,’ said Mervyne, ‘or she may be too late. Keep your courage up, old chap! Perhaps she won’t get in, after all. Lots of things may happen between this and to-morrow morning.—But look here! Suppose she _does_ come in, what shall you do? You can’t race—of course, I see that, and I’m sorry for it; but I should like a bit of a sail, after coming all this way, and I want to see how the little craft behaves.’

‘Oh, by all means,’ replied Hetherington eagerly. ‘I had thought of that. I can’t lie in harbour and see all the craft going out to race; and I don’t think I could bear to see the racing going on without being able to join in it. I vote for getting under way early in the morning, and making tracks to the eastwards. I mean to lay her up with Camper and Nicholson, and there is nothing more to keep me out now, confound it!’

‘Capital! that will suit me first-rate. What time do you start?’

‘Oh, any time in the early morning will do. The tide will be flowing about four A.M. But I daresay you won’t like to turn out as early as that.—Tell you what—you’d better choose your own time to come on board, and then you can rouse me out, if I’m not already up.’

‘All right! But what about Phipps?’

‘Oh, he won’t come with us. I’ve told him about Brewster, and, of course, he’s very sorry; but the Carmichael girls are here in a big family schooner with an uncle of theirs; and you may be sure Phipps wouldn’t let that chance slip. So it will be just you and I, that’s all. And now, let’s jump into the punt, and go on board for ten minutes, just to show you the little craft.’

So the two friends paddled off to the _Redbreast_, which was lying snugly under the land by the railway with other small craft of similar size and draught; and after the peculiar excellences of her interior fittings had been inspected by the aid of the little swing-lamp—for it was now nearly dark—and dilated upon enthusiastically by her owner, they went once more ashore together to dine at the hotel, and pass the evening over a game of billiards at the neighbouring Yacht Club. But as they landed, their attention was attracted by a smart little craft making the best of her way up the calm waters of the land-locked harbour in tow of a steam-launch. Hetherington looked at her long and earnestly; at last he said: ‘Ah, there she is! That’s the _Cockyollybird_, and that’s Brewster steering, confound him! It’s all up now. We’ll get out of this to-morrow morning.’

They dined; but their quiet game of billiards at the club was rudely broken in upon by the appearance of the objectionable Brewster himself, with a couple of friends of similar kidney, who had also most unmistakably been dining, and who, in addition to their natural bluster and vulgarity, made themselves more than usually disagreeable by half-facetious and wholly offensive observations as to the victory which they intended to score on the morrow, and the humiliation which they would inflict on those who imagined that they could sail against them; while ‘my friend O’Gorman’ was frequently referred to by Brewster himself, evidently for Hetherington’s benefit; and whispered personalities were greeted by the precious trio with loud bursts of drunken laughter.

‘I’d like to punch the fellow’s head,’ growled Hetherington to his friend, chafing angrily at the covert insults.

‘Better let him alone,’ said the other. ‘There’s no glory to be got out of a row with a drunken sweep like that. He knows he’s an arrant cad, and it is that very knowledge which makes him carry on like this. Let’s leave them to enjoy themselves in their own way; and we’ll go and turn in, as we shall be up early to-morrow.’

So each went his way: Hetherington to his tiny yacht, the other to the hotel close by.

Mervyne was an ardent yachtsman, as has been said; and perhaps it was the anticipations of the morrow which made it impossible for him to take the rest which he had himself advised. Whatever the reason was, after tossing about for some hours in troubled and unrestful sleep, he finally found himself wide awake, and likely to remain so; and at last, jumping out of bed, he threw open his window and keenly inspected the weather. There was every prospect of a glorious day. He looked at his watch—it was about four o’clock. The sun had not yet risen; but the sky was clear and luminous with stars, and, as far as he could tell, there was a light breeze from the westward. He looked over the water. The riding lights of the crowded yachts were twinkling away, as if a town had sprung up in the night on the calm silent waters of the river. The hoarse hoot of a steamer caught his ear, and he could see her green eye winking at him as she made her cautious way in mid-stream to the expectant coal-hulk beyond. He could hear even the tinkle of her engine-room bell and the husky cry of ‘Starboard!’ from the pilot who was bringing her in; and as he leaned out of the window to follow her track, a man-of-war brig struck ‘eight bells’ with a clear musical ring, an example which was followed a second or two after by her consorts in the harbour, and by some few large yachts who conformed to naval fashion in this matter. He turned from the window and glanced into the dim room. At the other end was his bed, looking tumbled and unpromising, even in the gloom. He was too wide awake to turn in again. His mind was made up. The tide would be flowing; the wind seemed fair; he would dress and rouse up Hetherington, and they would get under way at once.

His determination was quickly carried out; and he soon found himself outside the hotel in search of a waterman to take him on board. This was by no means an easy task; but by the aid of a railway porter, he managed at last to knock up an individual, who consented, with many sleepy growls at the unusual hour, to convey him on board. Arrived alongside, he stepped lightly on the dainty deck, dismissing his surly friend with a tip so largely in excess of that worthy’s expectations, as to make him instantly regret not having named a sum double at least of that which he had demanded. It was getting lighter now; and he took in at a glance the delicate lines, the admirable workmanship, and the business-like spars of the little craft, and then turned towards the hatch to rouse up his chum. But as he did so, he hesitated for the first time since leaving his bed. Hetherington was probably sleeping soundly. It would be a shame to spoil his sleep simply because he himself had failed to rest. He listened for a moment: he could hear Hetherington snoring away in the little cabin. Then another idea struck him. Why not get under way himself, without bothering Hetherington at all? Capital! it would be first-rate fun! He took a look round. The yacht was made fast to some private moorings, so he would not have to get her anchor up. He could easily make sail himself. Hetherington would be delighted to wake up and find himself at sea—that he was sure of. It was an admirable idea.

No sooner was the notion entertained, than it was put into execution. His rubber-soled shoes enabled him to walk over the deck with an entire absence of noise. He took off the sail-covers, and with his broad shoulders and muscular arms, he found no difficulty in hoisting her mainsail, though perhaps there was a wrinkle or two which he would have preferred to get rid of. Her head-sails were mere child’s-play; and presently, he cast off her moorings, lowered them quietly overboard, and hurried aft to the tiller. With a gentle breeze from the north-west, the pretty boat yielded to the pressure of her snow-white canvas, and with an almost imperceptible incline to her mast, moved quietly out from the crowd of others among which she had been lying. Silently she slid through the placid and unruffled waters of the river, splashed with the white light of many a bright star, and with the redder gleams of the many riding-lamps, obeying every touch of her helm so readily as to send a thrill of pleasure through Mervyne’s veins as he cleverly worked her into the open and pointed her head seawards. And indeed, with a lovely yacht beneath one’s feet, with a fair wind, a calm sea, and a brilliant promise of dawn, the man must be sluggish indeed who does not experience a keen sense of enjoyment.

Once clear of the river and with a good offing, he turned her head eastwards, making a course for Portland Bill. The wind was, as he had imagined, in the north-west, and it being off the land, and by no means strong, the sea was extremely smooth and in places even glassy. The little beauty sped along on her course, making no fuss whatever, peeling the bright water evenly away from the polished surface of her sharp bow, and running it aft with a gentle little hiss, and only the faintest, dimmest suggestion of a shadowy wake astern. Mervyne would have liked to get her topsail up, but this he could not well attempt alone, and he feared to wake Hetherington, for, having got out of the harbour, he was now possessed with a boyish desire to see how far on his course he could reach before his chum awoke: however, the tide was in his favour, and he was making splendid way as it was, so, lighting his pipe, he gave himself up to all the exquisite enjoyment of the situation. The beautiful coast, with its brilliant colouring of vivid green and warm red, familiar to him as an oft studied book, was itself a constantly changing object of interest and admiration; each trawler, with the early sun gleaming through the shining mists of morning upon her tanned canvas, was transfigured into a fairy barque, with sails of red and burnished gold. Even the long ugly steamers, with their graduated train of smoke fading away into the limitless haze astern of them, betrayed no vestige of their commonplace origin, but seemed to float in mid-air, shadowy and impalpable, throwing ever and anon a gleam of light from off their bows, more like a flash of summer lightning than the foam of churning water; while the buoyant motion of the little craft beneath him, the noiseless speed with which she sliced her way through the dimpling wavelets, the instant and intelligent response which she gave to the faintest movement of the helm, left him absolutely without a shadow to dim his sense of placid contentment.

He began to hope that Hetherington would sleep on for ever. So he smoked on, and noted with satisfaction that with the rising sun the breeze was freshening fast: little waves now lifted up their smiling heads and plashed playfully at the pretty craft as she cut through them; the tall mast inclined more decidedly before the eager wind; and the foot of the mainsail began its welcome chorus of flip-flip, flip-flip-flip as the breeze poured out of it. Berry Head was long past; Torbay was crossed; the Thatcher and the Oarstone were left faint and filmy in the far distance on the port quarter, and now the little vessel was getting a trifle more lively as the water deepened and the wind increased and the shore receded further and further; and still Hetherington slept. Mervyne could still hear him snoring at times. It was rather odd, he thought. Lazy fellow! He need not have been so careful not to wake him. He wondered what time it was. He took out his watch. Eight o’clock! And he was getting hungry too. He had better wake him; so, without leaving the helm, he began thumping over his chum’s head on the deck with a stick. ‘Hi! Hetherington! Jack! Wake up! Turn out! Get up, you lazy dog! Eight bells, do you hear?’

But not a sound did he evoke in response; only, as he stopped and listened, the same loud snoring broke upon his ear. Very odd! Hetherington was not usually so late or so heavy a sleeper. Next he slid back the hatch and shouted loudly to his chum to rouse up. Still no answer—still the same stertorous breathing.

‘Why on earth don’t he wake?’ said Mervyne to himself, and, trusting the yacht to steer herself for a moment or two, he dived down the little hatchway and entered the tiny cabin. It was empty! He stared around in blank astonishment, nearly amounting to dismay, and as he did so, a snore of almost gigantic volume assailed his ears. It came from the forecastle. This was more surprising than ever, for Hetherington, he knew, had no crew on board. An enthusiastic yachtsman, he, in true Corinthian spirit, worked his little craft himself, with the assistance of one or two good friends and fellow-spirits like Phipps—no paid hands being permitted on board during a Corinthian race—and even when cruising, scrubbed decks and polished brasswork with his own hands, sleeping also on board in harbour, unlike men of more luxurious habits, who generally preferred the comforts of a hotel to the straitened accommodation of a five-tonner, even when it was their own.

Where, then, was Hetherington? and who was the occupant of the forecastle? He slid aside the little door which separated the cabin from the quarter assigned to the crew, when such an individual existed, and looked in. It was very dark in the little close den, but he could just discern a hammock stretched fore and aft under the deck, and in that hammock a bearded being sleeping a riotous sleep. He went up to the hammock and shook it. ‘Here! rouse up, here! Where’s your master?’ he cried.

The figure grunted, shifted its position slowly and uneasily, and seemed inclined to settle once more into repose, but the shaking being repeated and continued with increasing violence, a weather-stained, lurid, and sodden countenance, set in a wild tangle of hair and beard, appeared over the edge of the hammock, and after staring stupidly with vacant eyes a moment or two into the gloom, inquired thickly and with gin-saturated utterance, ‘Wash up?’ and then falling heavily back on its pillow, instantly resumed its state of stertorous insensibility. The man was hopelessly and helplessly drunk. But who could he be?

At that moment, a terrible suspicion flashed through Mervyne’s mind like an electric shock. He turned, and bolted through the little cabin and up on deck like a shot. The first thing that caught his eye as he faced aft was the brass rudder-head, and on it, in necessarily small letters, unperceived by him before, was the one word, _Cockyollybird_. It was the wrong yacht!

* * * * *

Hetherington and Phipps both agree in asserting that they never had such a race as that in which they won the first prize at Dartmouth; but the former also adds that that fellow O’Gorman gave a lot of trouble before paying up the hundred pounds.

CHINA GRASS-CLOTH.

The well-known and popular China, or Chinese, grass-cloth, specimens of which, generally in the shape of handkerchiefs, are brought home by most travellers in the East, is now likely to become yet more popular and have a far more extensive market in Europe than was formerly the case. This China grass—_soie végétal_, the French call it—is the fibre, not of a grass, but of a species of nettle, the _Bœhmeria nivea_ and other specimens of the _urtica_. These nettles are carefully cultivated in China, where they grow in great quantities, as they do in India and Ceylon. In India, hitherto, unfortunately, no marked or diligent attempt at cultivation has been made. These _urticas_ are perennial herbaceous plants, having broad oval leaves, with a white down beneath. They are also free from the stinging character of ordinary nettles. In Ceylon and India, where the plants grow wild, these nettles are cut just about the time of seeding, bleached by the assistance of the heavy night-dews and hot mid-day suns, and the fibres gathered together and spun into ropes or thin twine, from which coarse matting is made. This primitive way of treating the nettles is not followed in China, and indeed the employment of the fibre-silk for commercial purposes seems to be a Chinese secret.

The government of India, seeing what a great benefit might be expected to arise could a practical and inexpensive method of gathering the ‘vegetable silk’ be found, offered some time back a reward to stimulate inventors in discovering an economical method for preparing the fibre of the China grass. Such discovery has at last been made; three French gentlemen have been successful in perfecting two different inventions which would seem to completely meet the existing difficulty. Messieurs Frémy and Urbain of Paris have invented a method for converting the fibres of the plants into _filasse_ ready for spinning. This method, however, would not have been of much use had not a M. Favier constructed a machine for gathering these fibres by decorticating the stems of the nettles by means of steam. Thus, the fibre is not only collected cheaply and easily, but the glutinous matter adhering to it, and which proved such a stumbling-block to our manufacturers, is removed at the same time. It is difficult to exaggerate the importance of these inventions. The _urtica_ grows in immense quantities all over India; and now that the plant and its fibres can be utilised economically, doubtless much careful attention will be given to the question of cultivation and the harvesting of these nettles.

Not only is the texture of the cloth manufactured from this fibre very beautiful—it is principally remarkable for its splendid gloss and peculiar transparency—but it is extremely strong and durable. ‘Belting’ for machinery has already been made with China grass-fibre, and on being tested, it was found that it could bear a strain of eight thousand three hundred and twenty-six pounds to the square inch; whereas leather could only sustain a pressure of four thousand two hundred and thirty-nine pounds to the square inch. A piece of water-hose made of the same fibre was subjected to the high pressure of six hundred pounds to the square inch, and it was proved that it only ‘sweated’ as much as a good ordinary hose does under a pressure of one hundred pounds. So much for its strength and durability, two great advantages. And, moreover, it is probable, having regard to these proved facts, that, although the texture of grass-cloth is so light and transparent, it would offer a considerable and prolonged resistance to heat and flames.

As to its beauty, most of our readers have had many opportunities already of forming an opinion on this head. So soon as manufacturers and _costumiers_ have had a sufficient time for experimenting, we may expect to see grass-cloth very generally used for dress fabrics, hangings, curtains, and in many other ways.

Should these inventions, when put to the test and tried on a large scale, be found to answer as well as the trial experiments, a little time is only wanted, when a most important and valuable industry will arise in India, and, more than probably, give work to many thousands of hands at home. At all events, if all goes right, India will be the richer in the near future by many millions of pounds sterling. And it is even likely that serious attempts at acclimatisation and careful cultivation of these useful nettles will be made in other of our semi-tropical colonies and possessions.

THE POET’S TREASURES.

The laughing streams all crystal bright,
How sweet their murmuring song,
As, strewn with blossoms and flecked with light,
They joyously dance along!
They glance through the valleys like silver wings;
They twinkle, they gleam, they shine;
And while my heart in rapture sings,
They whisper they are mine!

Like a maiden’s tresses so sleek, so fine,
They ripple, and wave, and curl;
They blush ’neath the sunset like rosy wine,
And sing like a happy girl.
When, weary, I sink on the emerald sod,
They dimple, and seem to say:
‘We are balm fresh flung from the hand of God;
Come, bathe in our fairy spray.’

The warbling birds are my minstrels all;
Ah! they know that I love them well,
For I hasten forth, when their voices call,
To forest or leafy dell;
On buoyant pinions they come and go,
Capricious, and wild, and free,
And I sing to the children of toil and woe
The songs they sing to me.

The trees are mine, and the humble flowers
That sigh ’mid the rustling grass,
When steeped in the fragrance of summer showers,
The amorous zephyrs pass.
When the world grows cold, and I turn away
From its fickle and loveless throng,
They nestle around me, and seem to say:
‘We love you, poor child of song!’

They kiss the dust from my weary feet;
They tremble, and blush, and sigh;
And the bonny daisy, so fresh, so sweet,
A tear in her golden eye,
Seemeth to me, in her gown of white,
More lovely than all the rest,
With the beauty of summer in her sight,
And its sunshine in her breast.

I own not one inch of the land, not I,
Nor jewels nor silks I wear,
Yet, free to roam ’neath the azure sky,
I am wealthy beyond compare.
To the plodding worldling, let pomp and pride
And the treasures of earth be given,
While I rest content on the fair hillside,
Rich, rich in the gifts of heaven!

FANNY FORRESTER.

* * * * *

Printed and Published by W. & R. CHAMBERS, 47 Paternoster Row, LONDON, and 339 High Street, EDINBURGH.

* * * * *

_All Rights Reserved._