Chapter II: Worse and Worse

The Major fervently wished that the ground would open and swallow him. Here was a third lady to pacify and to convince that a mistake had been made. He could see that she was in a more exasperated state even than Mrs Joseph, and likely to be as blind as Mrs John. The complication was becoming utterly bewildering, and he felt that his brain would not endure much more of it. How could such simple letters as his—made studiously cautious in their statements—evoke such wildly erroneous interpretations? He would rather have faced a whole battalion of mutinous Sikhs or infuriated Afghans than have had to go through the inevitable interview with this beautiful girl.

As soon as she reached the Major’s side, she clutched his arm as if it were that of her natural protector, and turned sharply upon Maynard: ‘Now, sir, will you leave me alone? Major Dawkins will conduct me to my aunt, and will, if necessary, protect me from your importunities.’

‘But Nelly, I only want to know what is my fault? How have I given you cause for treating me in this way?’ pleaded Maynard. ‘I am positive that none can exist except in your own imagination. I am sure the Major will tell you that it is not fair to condemn a man without hearing his defence—without even telling him what he is accused of.’

‘If you are a gentleman, you will defer further discussion of the subject until you see my aunt, Mrs Joseph Elliott.’

Had they been alone, the lover would doubtless have acted differently; but to have such words addressed to him in the presence of another man left no alternative. He bowed and retired, hurt and angered by this injustice of his betrothed. Whatever her reason for this outburst might be, he was resolved that it should be promptly explained. He was a straightforward young fellow, and not one to rest for a moment in doubt as to the meaning of her conduct.

The brief scene had closed before the Major could find his voice. ‘Call him back,’ he said agitatedly—‘call him back before it is too late.’

‘I certainly will not,’ replied the lady with a movement of the head as if about to look behind, suggesting that she half-hoped to see him still following. But he was not.

‘Then I must. I cannot allow you to distress yourself and a fine fellow like that in consequence of my blunder.’

She stopped and faced him with an expression of supercilious wonder. By this little movement she could look without appearing to turn for the purpose of looking whether or not Maynard had really obeyed her. ‘I do not understand you, Major Dawkins,’ she said with a faint note of chagrin in her musical voice—for Maynard really was not in sight.

‘Of course you cannot. How could you? The letter you have got was not meant for you. I wrote it to another lady, and I beg you to give it back to me, so that no further mischief may come of it.’

‘Another lady! Then I am _not_ the _only_ one he thinks of?’ (She was quoting from the letter.)—‘Oh, Major Dawkins, this is too much. Please, let me go to the house, and do not say another word about it until I have had time to recover and to think.’

The Major stood aghast; he had put his foot in it again. ‘But you are taking me up in quite a wrong way. Certainly you are the only one Maynard thinks of; but he is not the man referred to in the letter. Do give it back to me; and when you are calmer, everything will be explained.’

He pleaded very earnestly; but his object was defeated by the ingenuity on which he had congratulated himself. He had mentioned no names in any of the epistles. The mind of each lady on reading the one she received naturally fastened upon the man in whom she was most interested, and the Major’s excited attempts at explanation failed to make the error clear to them. Their unreasonableness was painful to him; and if he had been less anxious about remedying his error, he would have laughed at it.

‘For whom, then, was the letter written?’ asked Nellie, her indignation now turning against the Major, as she reflected how cruel and how foolish Stanley Maynard would think her if she had accused him of falsehood on no other ground than that she had received a misdirected letter from a friend. ‘I must insist upon an answer.’

‘You really must not insist upon my telling you. I accept all the blame; and it would be another wicked blunder on my part to give you my friend’s name.’

‘In that case, I must decline to return the letter until we are in the presence of my aunt and Mr Maynard.—Meanwhile, I need not trouble you to escort me to the house.’ Nellie walked proudly away; but the poor girl was ready to cry with vexation and with regret for the hastiness of temper which had characterised her conduct towards Stanley Maynard. In the moment of repentance, however, came the remembrance of the words which had distracted her. ‘I want to save you’ (wrote the Major) ‘from a grave misunderstanding.’ (‘Very kind indeed,’ she interjected.) ‘He who is, I know, dearest to you, thinks _only_ of you. Consider his impulsive nature, and pardon his temporary aberration.’ (‘What could that mean, if not that he had been making love to somebody else?’ she asked bitterly. Had she not herself seen how barefacedly he flirted with Mrs John, until she had a tiff with him on the subject? If he could dare so much before her eyes, what might he not do when unchecked by her presence?) ‘Be merciful to him,’ the note proceeded, ‘as hitherto, and you will have your reward. I mean to take the first available opportunity of talking to him after my arrival at Todhurst, and am confident that he will be promptly brought to reason.’

Was not that enough to rouse the spirit of any girl who had proper pride, which means self-respect? Nellie thought in her anger that it was more than enough. No doubt the Major had talked to him, and having brought him to reason, was now anxious to screen him by telling her that it was all a mistake—that the letter had been intended for somebody else! But she was frightened by this conclusion. Surely the Major could not tell a deliberate falsehood! He might not have meant to do so, and yet do it in the excitement of the moment, in order to soothe her. That must be the way of it; and what an indignity that it should be necessary for a friend to plead for her with the man to whom she had promised her hand!

Her thoughts alternated between the hope that it was all a mistake and the fear that it was not. So she went to her room, cried, had a headache, and excused herself from joining the family at luncheon.

The Major was out of breath and out of patience as he gazed helplessly after the retreating form of Nellie Carroll. Nobody would listen to him; everybody seemed determined to believe that he had entered into a diabolic conspiracy to wreck the happiness of the house of Elliott. What on earth could there be in any of his letters to cause such a commotion, even when they had got into the wrong hands? He had assured every one that there was only a misunderstanding, and he had promised all round to set it right. But they would not give him a chance. He had a good mind to order Hollis to pack up for the next train to London. That, however, would be cowardly, and he was not a coward. He would see the thing out to the bitter end. He lifted his head with an air of resolution, and the bitter end he saw at that moment was represented by the wealthy spinster, Miss Euphemia Panton. She was standing at a little distance, glaring at him severely through her gold-rimmed _pince-nez_. The Major had reason to believe that he had found favour in her eyes, and he thought with intense relief: ‘Well, here is somebody at last who will give me a word of sympathy, and talk sensibly with me.’

She, too, had reason to believe that she had found favour in the Major’s eyes, and was pleased accordingly. But on the present occasion, as he tripped hopefully towards her (he tripped somewhat less gracefully than usual, on account of his recent excessive exercise), she made no responsive movement; the _pince-nez_ was not lowered, and the severe expression remained. She had been observing him pleading with all the ardour of a lover to Miss Carroll; and she had no doubt whatever of the meaning of his evidently eager speech: he was in love with the minx, and he had been only pretending to care for Miss Euphemia! No lady can submit to be trifled with in matters of affection, and least of all ladies who have arrived at what may be called the ‘undiscovered decade’ in feminine history. She had passed into that realm of mystery, and was indeed one of its oldest inhabitants; and when nature would have lifted her out of it into the peaceful land of resigned old-maidenism, she sought the aid of art in order to keep her place in the still hopeful region. She availed herself of the modern elixirs of youth, and flattered herself that she did so with complete success. She, at their first meeting, noted that the Major trafficked with the same beneficent powers. He on his side made a similar observation regarding her. Strange to say, this fact constituted a bond of sympathy between them; but Miss Euphemia believed that the Major was unaware of her secret, and he was satisfied that she had no suspicion of his; whilst each pitied the other for not being more expert in the use of dyes and cosmetics. Thus they became special friends, and found so much pleasure in each other’s society, that a matrimonial climax seemed not improbable, the lady having a sufficient dowry to dispose satisfactorily of the important problem of ways and means.

‘Thank goodness, you are here, Miss Panton,’ exclaimed the Major in the full confidence of her sympathy in his miserable position. ‘I have got myself into a most abominable mess by an act of stupidity which, although reprehensible, is excusable.’

The lady answered not a word. She was nearly a head taller than he, and she continued to survey him through her glasses as if he had been some zoological specimen.

He had been hot enough before; he was chilled to the marrow now. He could scarcely believe his senses. Would she, too, desert him in this crisis?

‘Miss Panton,’ he stammered, ‘I hoped—that is, I believed that you would show me some consideration. I suppose Mrs Joseph has been speaking to you; but if you will only listen to a few words of explanation, you will understand me.’

‘I think, Major Dawkins, I have to-day observed enough on the tennis-lawn and here, to enable me to understand you perfectly without Mrs Joseph Elliott’s assistance or yours.’ The words were icicles. She dropped her _pince-nez_ and walked away.

The Major was speechless. He trembled or shivered with dismay. Lifting a hand to his brow, he felt the heads of cold perspiration on it, and at the same moment the gong sounded for luncheon. Good heavens! Horrible idea!—the effect of all this excitement and perspiration must be to change the colour of his hair! And true enough it was beginning to show a marked shade of gray-green at the roots. He _must_ get to his room to repair the damage before he appeared at the luncheon table. ‘Desperate ills need desperate remedies.’

Luncheon at Todhurst was, except in the hunting season, like the family gathering of other days, when the mid-day meal was the chief one. There were blithe interchanges of the morning’s experiences, pleasant intercourse with some of the elder members of the nursery, and a homely ease which was not always found at the late dinner, when formal company-manners had to be assumed, so far as they could be in the genial presence of Squire Elliott. All this was changed on the fatal day on which the Major’s misdirected letters had been delivered. The Squire sat at one end of the table, evidently in an ill-humour; his spouse, Mrs Joseph, at the other end, doing her best not to show the wrath which was in her bosom. Mrs John was suppressing her natural gaiety and desire to make fun of the whole party, whilst she was pathetically earnest in her endeavours to soothe the perturbed spirit of her lord. The latter was irritable and gloomy, accepting her attentions most ungraciously. Stanley Maynard ate and looked as if he were savagely devouring an enemy. Miss Euphemia sat like a post, playing with her knife and fork rather than eating. Nellie was not present.

The Major was late in taking his place, and was flustered in consequence, even more than he might have been under the circumstances. He felt the gloom which pervaded the place, and he was made painfully conscious of the fact that he was the cause of it. He was generally regarded as an acquisition to any party, for he had a special knack of setting conversations ‘going,’ a more useful quality than that which constitutes a ‘good talker.’ The latter demands everybody’s attention, and bores the greater part of his audience; the former enables everybody to speak, and thus produces the agreeable feeling of self-satisfaction in having personally contributed to the enjoyment of the hour.

With desperate heroism, he endeavoured to break the spell which tied the tongues of his companions. He told one of his best stories, the point of which had never failed to set the table in a roar of laughter. Lugubrious grimaces were the only response. He tried another anecdote, with the same result. He descended to the lowest depths of convivial intercourse; he propounded a conundrum, and the eldest of the girls immediately answered it with the addition of the galling commentary: ‘I knew that long ago.’ In his present condition of absolute helplessness, he wished to goodness the child would remember another conundrum, and give it for his benefit, if not for that of the company. Probably, she would have done so, had not the mother’s eye been upon her, suggesting the austere maxim, ‘Children should be seen, not heard.’

The Major took another tack. He put questions to his host about the moors, about the horses, about the hounds, and about the cause of _Tally-ho’s_ illness—any one of which topics would at another time have started the Squire into a gallop of chat. He would have compared the seasons as affecting the moors for twenty years past; he would have detailed the pedigree and merits of every horse in his stables; he would have repeated endless anecdotes about the hounds; and as to the illness of _Tally-ho_, he would have gone into the most minute particulars as to its cause, his treatment, and the probable result.

But on this day all was in vain. The Major’s suggestive queries were responded to by: ‘Don’t know,’ ‘Much the same as usual,’ ‘Hope for the best,’ and, ‘I daresay the brute will come round.’

When they rose from the table, the Major thanked heaven that this trial was over. The Squire, with a curious mingling of awkwardness and suppressed ill-temper, utterly opposed to his habitually jovial manner, advanced to his unhappy guest: ‘I want to see you in the library in about half an hour,’ he said, and walked out of the room.

‘That’s a comfort,’ thought the Major. ‘I shall have a man with some common-sense to hear me.’

Meanwhile, he would have liked to speak a few words of consolation to Maynard; but that gentleman met his advances with somewhat repellent politeness.

‘If you want to speak to me about the trouble you have made between Miss Carroll and me, you will have ample opportunity to do so when we meet in the library,’ he said, and strolled out to the lawn to seek the soothing influence of a cigar.

Then the Major wished to discharge the duty he had so rashly undertaken, which was to bring the morbidly suspicious John Elliott to reason. He was only now realising the difficulty of the task; and he presently had a decisive indication that it was likely to be one he could not accomplish. He had barely uttered half-a-dozen words of his well-intentioned admonition which was to precede his explanation of ‘the incident,’ when John Elliott peevishly interrupted him: ‘I have promised not to discuss this subject until we are in the library.’

So, he was to meet the three of them. So much the better; they were men, and they would give him a patient hearing. Still, he would have liked a little private talk with John Elliott before the meeting in the library, which was assuming the character of a sort of court-martial. There were things to say to him which could only be uttered when they were conversing confidentially. For instance, he could not say to him before others: ‘You have been accusing Mrs John of behaviour unbecoming your wife; you have magnified the circumstance of her allowing young Maynard to kiss her under the mistletoe last Christmas, until you have come to believe that every time she says a friendly word to him or smiles on him, she is false to you. You have even gone so far as to think of employing a private detective to watch them. Now, my dear friend, do get all that confounded nonsense out of your head. Remember that she has known Maynard from his boyhood; and although she is not old enough to be his mother, she still looks on him as a boy, and he regards her as an elder sister. She is naturally frank, and naturally treats him with more frankness than she does other men. You know that she long ago set her heart upon making a match between him and Nellie Carroll, both being suitable in every respect; and she has succeeded. What do you think will happen if your absurd fancies get wind? Why, there will be a general rupture—a split in the camp which may separate the young folk, and, possibly, you and Mrs John, who has been and is devoted to you.’

There, that would have brought him to reason, if he had a scrap of sense left. But it could not be spoken in the presence of others. Very likely, suspicious John would ask him how he came to know all this, and the question would be troublesome—a thousand times more troublesome since all the letters had got into the wrong hands. The one for John Elliott had reached Mrs Joseph, instead of the simple intimation of the date of the Major’s arrival; that for Nellie had been delivered to Mrs John, and Mrs John’s to Nellie. It was awkward.

‘As to the question,’ the Major reflected: ‘I got the information from Matt Willis, the brother of Mrs John; and he made me promise not to mix him up in the affair. He got the information from John Elliott himself, who complained to his brother-in-law about the way his wife was carrying on with Maynard. Matt had an unconquerable antipathy to family squabbles, and would not interfere; but thinking that something should be done to shut John up before serious harm came of his insane suspicions, he asked me, as the friend of the family, to put things right. Like a fool, I consented; and the blame of all the trouble falls on me! Am I to blame?—Stop a minute. By Jove!—it is John Elliott who is the author of the whole mischief, and I’ll tell him so.’

Greatly consoled by the discovery that he was not the original culprit in causing what promised to be a serious breach in the relationships of valued friends, the Major was prepared to face the court-martial before which he was presently to stand. Ay, and he would have no nonsense about the affair. He would tell Squire Joseph bluntly that Mrs Joseph had taken possession of a letter which did not belong to her. He would tell Maynard to go and speak to Nellie, and assure her, as he had done, that she had misinterpreted the letter she had received, even if it had been intended for her; and he would tell John Elliott that he must either speak to him in private, or take the consequence of his speaking in the presence of the Squire and Stanley Maynard.

AN OLD TULIP GARDEN.

A quiet, sunny nook in the hollow it is, this square old garden, with its gravelled walks and high stone walls; a sheltered retreat left peaceful here, under the overhanging woods, when the stream of the world’s traffic turned off into another channel. The gray stone house, separated from the garden by a thick privet hedge and moss-grown court, is the last dwelling at this end of the quiet market-town, and, with its slate roof and substantial double story, is of a class greatly superior to its neighbours, whose warm red tiles are just visible over the walls. It stands where the old road to Edinburgh dipped to cross a little stream, and, in the bygone driving days, the stagecoach, after rattling out of the town and down the steep road there, between the white, tile-roofed houses, when it crossed the bridge opposite the door, began to ascend through deep, embowering woods. But a more direct highway to the Scottish metropolis was opened many a year ago: just beyond the bridge, a wall was built across the road; and the gray house with its garden was left secluded in the sunny hollow. The rapid crescendo of the coach-guard’s horn no longer wakens the echoes of the place, and the striking of the clock every hour in the town steeple is the only sound that reaches the spot from the outside world.

The hot sun beats on the garden here all day, from the hour in the morning when it gets above the grand old beeches of the wood, till it sets, away beyond the steeple of the town. But in the hottest hours it is always refreshing to look, over the weather-stained tiles of the long low toolhouse, at the mossy green of the hill that rises there, cool and shaded, under the trees. Now and then a bull, of the herd that feeds in the glades of the wood, comes down that shaded bank, whisking his tawny sides with an angry tail to keep off the pestering flies, and his deep bellow reverberates in the hollow. In the early morning, too, before the dewy freshness has left the air, the sweet mellow pipe of the mavis and the fuller notes of the blackbird float across from these green depths, and ever and again throughout the day the clear whistle of some chaffinch comes from behind the leaves.

Standing here, among the deep box edgings and gravel paths, it is not difficult to recall the place’s glory of twenty years ago—the glory upon which these ancient plum-trees, blossoming yet against the sunny walls, looked down. To the eye of Thought, time and space obstruct no clouds, and in the atmosphere of Memory, the gardens of the Past bloom for us always. Years and years agone! It is the day of the fashion for Dutch bulbs, when fabulous prices were paid for an unusually ‘fancy’ bulb, and in this garden some of the finest of them are grown. The tulips are in flower, and the long narrow beds which, with scant space between, fill the entire middle of the garden, are ablaze with the glory of their bloom. Queenly flowers they are, and tall, each one with a gentle pedigree—for nothing common or unknown has entrance here—and crimson, white, and yellow, the velvet petals of some almost black, striped with rare and exquisite markings, they raise to the sun their large chaste chalices. The perfection of shape is there, as they rise from the midst of their green, lance-like leaves; no amorous breeze ever invades the spot to dishevel their array or filch their treasures; and the precious golden dust lies in the deep heart of each, untouched as yet save by the sunshine and the bee. When the noonday heat becomes too strong, awnings will be spread above the beds; for with the fierce glare, the petals would open out and the pollen fall before the delicate task of crossing had been done.

But see! Through the gate in the privet hedge there enters as fair a sight. Ladies in creamy flowered muslins and soft Indian silks, shading their eyes from the sun with tiny parasols, pink and white and green—grand dames of the county, and grander from a distance; gentlemen in blue swallow-tailed coats and white pantaloons—gallants escorting their ladies, and connoisseurs to examine the flowers—all, conducted by the owner, book in hand, advance into the garden and move along the beds. For that owner, an old man with white hair, clear gray eyes, and the memory of their youthful red remaining in his cheeks, this is the gala time of the year. Next month, the beds of ranunculus will bloom, and pinks and carnations will follow; but the tulips are his most famous flowers, and, for the few days while they are in perfection, he leads about, with his old-world courtesy, replying to a question here, giving a name or a pedigree there, a constant succession of visitors. These are his hours of triumph. For eleven months he has gone about his beloved pursuit, mixing loams and leaf-moulds and earths, sorting, drying, and planting the bulbs, and tending their growth with his own hand—for to whose, else, could he trust the work?—and now his toil has blossomed, and its worth is acknowledged. Plants envied by peers, plants not to be bought, are there, and he looks into the heart of each tenderly, for he knows it a child of his own.

Presently he leads his visitors back into the house, across the mossy stones of the court, where, under glass frames, thousands of auricula have just passed their bloom, and up the outside stair to the sunny door in the house-side. He leads them into the shady dining-room, with its furniture of dark old bees-waxed mahogany, where there is a slight refreshment of wine and cake, rare old Madeira, and cake, rich with eggs and Indian spice, made by his daughter’s own hand. Jars and glasses are filled with sweet-smelling flowers, and the breath of the new-blown summer comes in through the open doors.

The warm sunlight through the brown linen blind finds its way across the room, and falls with subdued radiance on the middle picture of the opposite wall. The dark eyes, bright cheeks, and cherry mouth were those of the old man’s wife—the wife of his youth. She died while the smile was yet on her lip and the tear of sympathy in her eye; for she was the friend of all, and remains yet a tender memory among the neighbouring poor. The old man is never seen to look upon that picture; but on Sundays for hours he sits in reverie by his open Bible here in the room alone. In a velvet case in the corner press there, lies a silver medal. It was pinned to his breast by the Third George on a great day at Windsor long ago. For the old man peacefully ending his years here among the flowers, in his youth served the king, and fought, as a naval officer, through the French and Spanish wars. As he goes quietly about, alone, among his garden beds, perchance he hears again sometimes the hoarse word of command, the quick tread of the men, and the deep roar of the heavy guns, as his ship goes into action. The smoke of these battles rolled leeward long ago, and their glory and their wounds are alike forgotten. In that press, too, lies the wonderful ebony flute, with its marvellous confusion of silver keys, upon which he used to take pleasure in recalling the stirring airs of the fleet. It has played its last tune; the keys are untouched now, and it is laid past, warped by age, to be fingered by its old master no more.

But his guests rise to leave, and, receiving with antique grace their courtly acknowledgments, he attends the ladies across the stone-paved hall to their carriages.

Many years ago! The old man since then has himself been carried across that hall to his long home, and no more do grand dames visit the high-walled garden. But the trees whisper yet above it; the warmth of summer beats on the gravelled walks; and the flowers, lovely as of old in their immortal youth, still open their stainless petals to the sun.

ABOUT COBRAS.

BY AN OFFICER.

While at home on furlough from India a short time ago, I was much amused at finding a very general impression among my friends that to come across a cobra is an every-day kind of occurrence in India. How erroneous this idea is may be gathered from the fact that not many days ago a brother-officer told me that although he had been about ten years in India, he had never yet seen a cobra in a wild state. His is, it is true, probably an exceptional case; but still it shows that an Englishman may pass a considerable time in India without coming across one of these venomous reptiles. Cobras, however, are met with quite often enough, and sometimes in very curious and uncomfortable places. For instance, a young lady who had just returned from a ball in a small station in Southern India, noticed, as she was on the point of getting into bed, that the pillow looked disarranged; and on taking it up to smooth it out, she discovered a cobra coiled up underneath it. She called out for assistance; and her father coming to the rescue, speedily despatched the obnoxious intruder with a stick. I happened to mention this circumstance to an officer one day, and he informed me that the very same thing had happened to himself soon after his first arrival in the country, and that, in consequence, he never got into bed until he had examined the pillows.

In the year 1873, while quartered at Bellary, on going into the drawing-room of the bungalow, which at that time I shared with a friend, I discovered a cobra curled up on the sofa cushion. I hastened out of the room to fetch a stick; but in doing so, I must, I suppose, have made some noise, as on returning the snake had disappeared. A few evenings later, however, just as my ‘chum’ was leaving the house to go out to dinner, he called out to me that there was a snake crawling up the steps of the veranda in front of the drawing-room. I ran out with a stick, and succeeded in killing the unwelcome visitor. It turned out to be a fairly large cobra, and was in all probability the one which I had seen a few days previously on the sofa. It is, however, in the bathrooms of an Indian bungalow that cobras, when met with within doors, are most frequently encountered, as they come there in pursuit of the frogs which delight to take up their quarters there; for froggy is an article of diet to which the cobra is very partial. An officer of the Madras cavalry, since deceased, told me that when quartered at Arcot, he one day observed in his bathroom, emerging from the waste-water pipe, the head of a cobra, which was holding in his mouth a frog. The pipe was too narrow to admit of the snake’s withdrawing his head unless he released his victim; this, however, from unwillingness to forego his meal, he would not do, and in consequence, paid the penalty for his gluttony with his life.

One day, my wife’s ayah came running into our bedroom saying there was a large snake in the bathroom. Arming myself as usual with a stick, I went into the bathroom just in time to see the snake disappear into the waste-water pipe, which ran under another small room to the back of the house, where the water found its outlet. The servants stationed themselves at the outlet, while I endeavoured to drive the reptile out from the rear, first with my stick, and afterwards by pouring the contents of a kettle of boiling water down the pipe. Both attempts to dislodge the intruder from his position proving ineffectual, I commenced a vigorous assault on him by thrusting a bamboo about five feet long down the pipe, and this time success rewarded my efforts, and the snake, driven from his refuge, was killed by the servants outside. This cobra measured about five feet six inches in length, and was the largest that I have ever seen killed. I may here mention that the ordinary ideas about the size attained by this species of snake are greatly exaggerated. Some years ago, a surgeon-major serving in the Madras presidency, with whom I was acquainted, took a great interest in this matter, and offered a considerable reward to any one who would bring him a cobra six feet in length; but, if my memory serves me right, the reward was never gained, although a very large number of cobras were produced for his inspection.

Once I witnessed a wonderful escape from the almost invariably fatal effects of a cobra bite. I was marching with some native troops in the cold weather, and halted for the night at a place called Maikur, where, instead of having our tents pitched, my wife and I preferred occupying a small bungalow belonging to the department of Public Works, which was situated opposite the encamping-ground. Sitting outside the bungalow after dinner, I had occasion to call my head-servant to give him some orders for the next morning. As he ran up, I saw him kick something off his left foot, and at the same time he called out: ‘Sāmp, sahib, sāmp!’ (‘A snake, sir, a snake.’) There was a bright wood-fire burning close by, and I saw by its light the snake with its hood up. It was immediately killed by some of the camp-followers, and was brought to me, and proved to be a small cobra. On examining my servant’s foot, I found one tiny puncture on the ankle, on which was a single drop of blood. The man was at once taken to the hospital tent, and attended to by the hospital assistant in medical charge of the troops, who applied ammonia and did all that was in his power. I was very anxious about the man; but he awoke me at the hour for marching next morning as if nothing had happened, and for some time apparently experienced no inconvenience. Some weeks later, however, after we had reached our destination, his left leg swelled very much, and he suffered great pain for a considerable time; but he eventually recovered. The snake was seen by eight or ten persons besides myself, and was beyond doubt a cobra; and the only possible explanation of the man’s escape seems to be that the reptile must have bitten something else very shortly before, and so to a great extent exhausted the deadly poison in its fangs.

One of our children had a narrow escape, though of a different kind, when quite a baby. My wife picked him up one day from the floor, where he was lying enjoying himself in baby fashion. She had hardly done so, when a cobra fell from the roof on the very spot on which the little one had been disporting himself the moment before.

On one occasion, a curious native superstition with regard to the subject of these notes came to my notice. A cobra which had been killed in the hut of one of the men was brought up to be shown to me, when a havildar (native sergeant) called my attention to the fact that the end of his tail was blunt, saying in Hindustani: ‘Look, sahib; this is a downright villain; he has bitten some man, and so lost the tip of his tail.’ On my making further inquiries, I was confidently assured that whenever a cobra bites a man, the tip of his tail invariably becomes blunted!

MITIS METAL.

The introduction of wrought-iron castings by the ‘Mitis process,’ to which attention has lately been directed, forms a new and an important departure in the employment of this class of iron. Up to the present time, wrought-iron has been worked into the requisite forms by means of hammering; whilst a system of stamping in moulds was deemed a considerable advance in economical working. It is now, however, proposed to treat wrought-iron in the same manner as cast-iron—namely, by melting and pouring it into moulds made in sand, and corresponding in shape with the object desired. By such a process a considerable saving in the cost of production is obtained. Annealing is found to be unnecessary.

The difficulty which has hitherto barred the adoption of this method has been the high temperature to which it has been necessary to heat the iron before it became sufficiently fluid to flow into the moulds. Wrought-iron fuses at about four thousand degrees Fahrenheit, but a considerably higher temperature had to be obtained before the metal passed out of the viscid state; and on reaching this increased heat, it was found to absorb gases which caused cavities and flaws in the castings, rendering them worthless, and what are technically known in the foundry as ‘wasters.’ To obviate this difficulty, Peter Ostberg, a Swedish engineer, has taken advantage of the fact that the melting-point in alloys is considerably below that of their components; and by combining with the iron a small percentage of aluminium, he has succeeded in lowering the temperature of fusion of the mixture to such an extent that excellent castings can be obtained, the temperature reached not being high enough to cause the absorption of gases. The castings are clean and sharp in form, and remarkably strong and fine in texture, being in some cases, it is said, half as tough again as the metal from which they were made. The great reduction in price cannot fail to procure for the new process an opening commensurate with its intrinsic merits.

In the United States and Sweden, Mitis Metal has already established itself as an article of commerce at once reliable and economical; and there can be little doubt that the engineers of this country will avail themselves of this new form of iron, placed at their disposal by an invention which promises to rival in importance any introduced into this branch of industry for many years past.

MISSION TO DEEP-SEA FISHERMEN.

In the year 1844, the Thames Church Mission was instituted. A few years ago, an accidental development of the organisation led to the establishment of a missionary enterprise among the fishermen engaged in the North Sea. But the possibilities of the new field of labour soon justified the formation of a separate body to cope with them; and on the 30th of November 1884, the Mission to Deep-sea Fishermen was started. Its primary object is to give religious teaching to the twelve thousand men and lads who labour on the twelve fishing-fleets cruising in the North Sea. It has six smacks in its service, a seventh being, at the time of writing, on the stocks. These smacks supplement their philanthropic labours by fishing with the fleets with which they sail. Each vessel carries a missionary skipper, who, as often as the weather will permit, gathers together in his spacious hold a congregation of fellow-fishermen for worship. The earnestness of a devout mariner has often been noted; and from a short cruise the writer recently took on one of the Mission vessels, he can testify not only to the exceptional enthusiasm and fervour which characterised the services held on board, but also to the sound moral tone which, as a result of such services, prevails generally in the fleets—a condition of things in happy contrast to the riots and crimes which were rife there in former years.

But not only are the Mission vessels centres of religious instruction; each carries a quantity of healthy literature, which, circulating through the fleets, beguiles many a fisherman’s leisure hour of its tedium. Then, too, medicine-chests and surgical appliances are always kept on board; and with these at hand, the skipper and mate, qualified by their certificates from the St John’s Ambulance Association and the National Health Society, treat the sick and injured fishermen of the fleet, who would otherwise suffer until reaching land the pangs of untreated disorders and undressed wounds. Besides this, each missionary skipper labours to promulgate temperance principles among the fleets both by personal example and gentle persuasion. Another feature of the Mission’s work is the collecting and forwarding of knitted cuffs and comforters—made by friends on shore—to the North Sea fishermen, as preventives against the terrible ‘sea-blisters’ which oil-skins produce on unprotected wrists and necks. Lastly, we should mention that the fishermen of the fleets are encouraged to come frequently aboard the Mission vessels to join in social gossip over a mug of cocoa. Thus each of these vessels exists in the various capacities of church, library, temperance hall, dispensary, and social lounge. The methods by which the Mission has fought the ‘coper’ or ‘floating grog-shop’ are tolerably well known, and so need not be dwelt upon here.

Glancing at statistics, we note that, during last year, there were 1856 visits paid to vessels; 10,375 attendants at the seven hundred services held; 515 temperance pledges were taken; 74,127 tracts and 45,258 magazines distributed; 2725 cases medically and surgically treated; 6665 comforters, 16,210 pairs of cuffs, and 668 helmets, given away; and 626 copies of the Scriptures sold. Thus the Mission shows a most healthy growth. It has recently been established in new offices at 181 Queen Victoria Street, London, E.C.; and a new phase of its enterprise is the circulation of a twopenny monthly journal entitled _Toilers of the Deep_, being a ‘record of Mission-work among them.’ The magazine is an excellent one, and we commend it to all who feel an interest in the twelve thousand men and boys ‘who toil through furious blast and sleety storm—who hazard their lives, and fall victims, hundreds of them, to the pitiless waves, that markets at home may be well supplied.’

LOST AT SEA.

Good-night, beloved; the light is slowly dying
From wood and field; and far away the sea
Moans deep within its bosom. Is it sighing
For those whose rest can never broken be;
For those who found their way to God; yet never
Beneath green sod may rest, the sea holds them for ever?

Yes, deep and still your grave; the ocean keeping
Whate’er it gains for ever in its hold.
I know that in its depths you now are sleeping,
Quiet and dreamless as in churchyard mould;
But I have no still mound, as others, only
The memory of times past, ’mid days that now are lonely.

Buried deep with you in the sea for ever
Is all the brightness earth had once for me.
The spring returns; flowers bloom again; but never
I feel the joy in bird, and flower, and tree;
I see, but feel not as in days of yore,
Those days that can come back to me, ah, nevermore!

But yet I know that I am not forsaken.
‘Lead Thou me on,’ I now can calmly say.
None know the bitterness of sorrow taken
From out my heart; when I that prayer could pray,
In His own time God took you in His keeping,
All earthly sorrows past; where there is no more weeping.

FLORENCE PEACOCK.

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

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_All Rights Reserved._