Chapter II

Without the city walls, hidden by the umbrella pines, and back from those secluded walks where young Rome takes its pleasure, stood the Villa Salvarino, almost under the shade of the walls, and hard by the gate of San Pancrazio. In the more prosperous days of the Eternal City, it might have been, and indeed was, the residence of some great Roman family; but aristocracies decline and families pass away; and the haughty owners were by no means averse from making a few English pounds by letting it to any traveller who had the inclination or the means to spend a few months there. The present tenant at this bright Easter-time, Sir Geoffrey Charteris, of Grosvenor Square, London, W., and Haversham Park, in the county of Dorset, Baronet, Deputy-lieutenant, and Justice of the Peace, was a man of long descent. The pale azure fluid in his veins was not the blood of us poor mortals; his life-giving stream had been transmitted through succeeding generations from a long line of gallant warriors and gentle dames; from fearless ancestors who followed their sovereign at the call to arms, marched with Richard of the Lion-heart to the Holy Sepulchre, and maybe crossed swords with the doughty Saladin himself. The title, conferred upon a Charteris by the Black Prince in person after the glorious field of Creçy, had known no tarnish as it passed down the long line of great and good men, soldiers, statesmen, and divines, to the present worthy representative of all these honours. Not that he had greatly distinguished himself in any field, save as an Under-secretary in a short-lived inglorious Ministry, where he had made a lasting name as the most incompetent individual ever appointed to office, though he dated every subsequent event and prefixed every after-dinner story by an allusion to the time when he was in the Earl of Muddleton’s Ministry.

The reception rooms of the villa were crowded when our friends arrived. It was a kind of informal after-dinner reception, attended by most of the English visitors lingering after the Carnival, with some sprinkling of the resident aristocracy; for Sir Geoffrey liked to gather people round him, birth and genius being equally welcome. Sir Geoffrey looked every inch an English gentleman, standing there among his guests. He was apparently about fifty years of age, tall and straight, thoroughbred from his stiff gray hair to the small shapely feet, as yet untroubled by the family gout. His eyes were pale blue, and somewhat weak; his face, clear-cut and refined, with an aquiline nose and a high white forehead, but the whole marred by a mouth weak and nervous to the last degree. A connoisseur of art, a dabbler in literature, and last, but not least, a firm believer in spiritualism.

Enid Charteris, his only daughter and heiress, a girl about eighteen, must be taken for granted. Imagine in all your dreams of fair women what a golden-bronzed-haired girl should be, and you have Enid, with all her charms of manner and person, with that perfect expression without which the most classic features are cold. She smiled brightly as the new-comers entered. It is not given to every one to be able to disguise their likings and antipathies, and it did not need a practised eye to see her cold greeting for Le Gautier, and the instantaneous glance for Maxwell.

‘I really began to think you were going to fail me,’ she said; ‘and this is the last of our receptions too. I shall always have pleasant recollections of my visit to Rome.’

‘We have been dining with Maxwell, Miss Charteris,’ Visci explained. ‘Could we forget you, if we tried! And now, before you are so engaged that you can have no word for poor me, I want to ask you a favour. We are going to my country retreat on Friday, and my sister Genevieve is dying to see you. Do persuade Sir Geoffrey to come.’

‘Here he is to answer for himself,’ she replied, as the baronet sauntered up to the group.—‘Papa, you must promise to take me to see Signor Visci’s country-house on Friday.—Do you hear?’

‘Anything you say is law, my dear,’ Sir Geoffrey answered with comic resignation. ‘Anything you desire.—Le Gautier, I wish to speak to you,’ he whispered quietly; ‘come to me presently.—Salvarini, you here? I thought you had forsworn gaieties of all descriptions. Glad to see you are thinking better of your misanthropy.’

Le Gautier turned off with the baronet somewhat impatiently, leaving the rest together. Salvarini, looking on somewhat thoughtfully, almost fancied there was a look of relief in Enid’s face as the Frenchman left; certainly, she was less constrained.

‘We shall look forward to Friday with great pleasure, then, Signor Visci,’ she said. ‘I have heard you speak so much of the Villa Mattio, that I am expecting to see a perfect paradise.’

‘With two Eves,’ Maxwell whispered in English. Visci was not a man to misunderstand the meaning of true company, so, with a bow and a little complimentary speech, he turned aside, taking Salvarini by the arm, and plunged into the glittering crowd.

‘I do not understand the meaning there,’ Salvarini remarked as they walked through the rooms. ‘If Maxwell means’——

‘Orange blossoms,’ Visci interrupted laconically; ‘and right, too.—Let us get into the music-room. Le Fanu is going to play.’

Maxwell remained by Enid’s side, toying with her fan and discoursing in their native language in a low voice. From the expression in his face and the earnest ring in his voice, there was no doubting the power of the attraction that chained him there.

‘When do you leave Rome, Miss Charteris?’ he asked, abruptly changing the conversation. ‘This is your last reception, I know.’

‘We shall leave in the middle of next week for certain. I shall be very sorry for some reasons, for I have been happy here.’

‘I shall probably return with you,’ Maxwell observed. ‘I have deferred my departure too long already. It would be pleasant to leave together.’

‘After learning everything that Rome could teach you,’ Enid put in archly. ‘Then the Eternal City has no more artistic knowledge to impart?’

‘Yes; I have learned some lessons here,’ Maxwell replied with a tender inflection, ‘besides artistic ones. I have been learning one lately that I am never likely to forget. Am I presumptuous, Miss Enid?’

‘Really, Mr Maxwell, you are too mysterious. If I could understand you’——

‘I think you do understand me; I fervently hope you do.’

For a moment, a little wild-rose bloom trembled and flushed on the girl’s cheek, then she looked down, playing with her fan nervously. No reason to say she did not understand now. Maxwell did not follow up his advantage; some instinct warned him not; and adroitly changing the conversation, he told her of his life in Rome, each passing moment linking his chains the firmer. Gradually, as they sat talking, a group of men gathered round, breaking in upon their tête-à-tête, laughing and talking after the most approved drawing-room fashion.

In a distant corner, Sir Geoffrey had button-holed Le Gautier, and was apparently deep in conversation on some all-absorbing subject. The Frenchman was a good listener, with that rare faculty of hearing all that was worthy of note and entirely ignoring the superfluous. He was not a man to talk much of himself, and consequently heard a great deal of family history; details and information that astute young man had found valuable on occasions. He was interested now, Maxwell thought, as he idly speculated upon his face.

‘Yes,’ Sir Geoffrey was saying, ‘I am firmly impressed with that belief.’ He had got upon his favourite topic, and was talking with great volubility. ‘There are certain gifted beings who can call spirits from the vasty deep, and, what is more, the spirits will come. My dear sir, they have been manifested to me.’

‘I should not wonder,’ Le Gautier replied, stifling a yawn in its birth. ‘I think you are quite right. I am what people call a medium myself, and have assisted at many a séance.’

‘Of course you believe the same as I. Let unbelievers scoff if they will, I shall always believe the evidence of my eyes.’

‘Of course,’ Le Gautier returned politely, his thoughts wandering feebly in the direction of nightmare, and looking round for some means of escape. ‘I have seen ghosts myself, or thought I have.’

‘It is no imagination, Le Gautier,’ Sir Geoffrey continued, with all the prosy earnestness of a man with a hobby. ‘The strangest coincidence happened to me. My late brother, Sir Ughtred, who has been dead nearly twenty years, manifested himself to me the other night. Surely that implies some coming evil, or some duty I have neglected?’

‘Perhaps he charged you with some commission,’ Le Gautier observed, and pricking up his ears for any scrap of useful information.

‘Not that I remember; indeed, I did not see him for years before he died. He was an eccentric man, and an extreme politician—in fact, he got into serious trouble with the authorities, and might even have been arrested, had he not removed himself to New York.’

‘New York?’ queried Le Gautier, wondering vaguely where he had heard of this Ughtred Charteris before. ‘Was he connected with any secret society—any Socialist conspiracy?’

‘Do you know, I really fancy he was,’ Sir Geoffrey whispered mysteriously. ‘There were certainly some curious things in his effects which were sent to me. I can show you some now, if you would like to see them.’

Le Gautier expressed his willingness; and the baronet led the way into a small room at the back of the house, half library, half studio. In one corner was an old ebony cabinet; and opening the front, he displayed a multitude of curiosities such as a man will gather together in the course of years. In one little drawer was a case of coins. Le Gautier turned them over carelessly one by one, till, suddenly starting, he eagerly lifted one and held it to the light. ‘Where did you get this?’ he asked abruptly.

Sir Geoffrey took it in his hand. It was a gold coin, a little larger than an ordinary sovereign, and bearing on the reverse side a curious device. ‘That came with the rest of my brother’s curiosities.—But why do you ask? You look as if the coin had burnt you.’

For a moment, Le Gautier had started back, his pale face aglow with suppressed excitement; but as he noticed the baronet’s wondering eyes upon him, he recovered himself by a violent effort. ‘It is nothing’—with a smile. ‘It is only the coincidence which startled me for a moment. If you will look here, you will see that I wear a similar coin upon my watch-chain.’

Sir Geoffrey looked down, and, surely enough, on the end of Le Gautier’s pendant was the fac-simile of the medal he held in his hand.

‘Bless me, what an extraordinary thing!’ the startled baronet exclaimed. ‘So it is! Perhaps you do not mind telling me where you procured yours?’

‘It was given to me,’ Le Gautier replied, with an enigmatic smile. ‘It could not help you, if I told you.—Sir Geoffrey, may I ask you to lend me this coin for a short while? I will tell you some time what I want it for.’

‘Some other time, perhaps.’—Le Gautier threw the coin into its place.—‘You see, I regard it as a valuable curiosity and relic, or perhaps I might part with it. You will pardon me.—But I forgot all about our spiritualistic discourse. As you are a medium, I will ask you’——

‘At some future time, with all the pleasure in life,’ Le Gautier interrupted hastily. ‘Meanwhile, it is getting late—past eleven now.’

As they walked back to the salon, the Frenchman was busy with his thoughts. ‘What a lucky find!’ he muttered. ‘It is the missing insignia, sure enough, and the ill-fated Ughtred Charteris is mine host’s brother. I wonder what I can make out of this? There ought to be something in it, with a feeble-minded man who believes in spiritualism, if my hand has not lost its cunning. _Nous verrons._’

He showed nothing of his thoughts, however, as he parted from Enid with a smile and neatly turned compliment. It was getting late now; the streets were empty as the friends turned homeward, Salvarini bidding the others good-night and turning off in the direction of his apartments.

‘You had better change your mind, and come with us on Friday, Hector,’ Visci urged Le Gautier. ‘The baronet and his daughter are to be of the party. Throw work to the dogs for the day, and come.’

‘My dear Carlo, the thing is impossible. Do you think I should be chained here this lovely weather, if stern necessity did not compel? If possibly I can get over later in the day, I will not fail you.’

‘I am very sorry,’ Visci replied regretfully, ‘because this is the last time, in all probability, our friends will meet together for some time.’

‘I am sorry too, Carlo, but I cannot help it. Good-night.’

Le Gautier watched his friend along the moonlit street, a smile upon his face not pleasant to see. ‘Ah, yes,’ he murmured, ‘it is quite impossible. Genevieve is a good little girl, but good little girls are apt to cloy. It is getting dangerous. If Visci should find out, it would be a case of twelve paces and hair-triggers; and I cannot sacrifice myself yet—not even for Genevieve.’

ULSTER PROVINCIALISMS.

The people of Ulster may fairly claim a larger share of public attention than has usually been accorded to them: they have rendered their province prosperous in a country which is a stranger to prosperity; they have established and maintained great industries in a country of decayed trade and ruined commerce. In the colonies, they have risen in a remarkable degree to positions of affluence and authority; and in all the British dominions, Ulstermen are found in the van of commercial and professional life.

The Ulsterman comes of a very mixed descent. Just as the Englishman was originally a compound of Saxon, Norman, and Dane, so in the Ulsterman’s veins flows the blood of Irish, Scotch, and English progenitors. The relative proportion of each element varies much according to locality and religion. On the shores of Antrim and Down, the population is in many places almost as purely Scotch as in Ayrshire or Lanark. In Belfast, Scotch blood predominates; but there was originally a large English element. In Donegal and Fermanagh, the Celtic element is in excess. Everywhere, the Protestant derives more from Scotch and English sources; the Roman Catholic, from Irish.

From the earliest times, there has been a large emigration from Scotland to the opposite Irish shore. During the reigns of Elizabeth and James I. the chief settlements from England took place; and the settlers from both countries gradually pushed back the original Irish inhabitants to the mountains and into the interior. To this day, there is a secluded district in County Antrim, known as the Glens of Antrim, where the Irish language may still be heard, although it has long departed from other portions of the same county. As we travel westward, Irish more frequently meets the ear, and in many parts of Donegal it is the prevailing tongue.

It is not surprising that in a province of such varied lineage, provincialisms should be numerous and curious. To guard against misconception, let it be understood that the educated Ulsterman speaks like educated people elsewhere—namely, with perfect correctness and scarcely appreciable accent. The peculiar words and phrases about to be enumerated are heard almost exclusively among the poorer ranks, or, if employed at all by the educated classes, it is only in jest and with a recognition of their provincial character. The majority of them are of Scotch origin; some are found in colloquial and provincial English; while others are of Hibernian extraction.[1]

[1] We are indebted for much of the information contained in this article to an excellent glossary compiled by Mr W. H. Patterson, M.R.I.A., of Belfast.

As might have been expected, proverbs and proverbial expressions form a large class of these provincialisms. ‘All to the one side, like Clogher,’ is an allusion to a town in County Tyrone where all the houses and shops are on one side of the thoroughfare, the opposite side being a private demesne. ‘That bangs (surpasses) Banagher’ is an allusion to the great fair held at that spot. When the Ulsterman wishes to imply that a certain event is extremely improbable, he says that it will happen at ‘Tibb’s Eve,’ adding the mysterious information that this is ‘neither before nor after Christmas.’ This expression is a curiously exact counterpart of the Latin phrase about the Greek kalends. ‘As blunt as a beetle’ refers to a species of heavy wooden mallet to which Shakspeare alludes. ‘As busy as a nailer,’ ‘As clean as a new pin,’ ‘As crooked as a ram’s horn,’ are common Ulster expressions, which do not call for any explanation. A more mysterious expression is the curious phrase, ‘As grave as a mustard-pot’—used to express preternatural solemnity. People of bilious complexion are often described with more force than elegance as being ‘As yellow as a duck’s foot.’

The Ulsterman has no special repute for gallantry, yet his simile for anything exceptionally simple is, ‘As easy as kiss.’ His favourite phrase when about to impart some very confidential information is, ‘Between you and me and the post.’ A person whose sanity is open to question is often described as ‘Wanting a square of being round’—a curiously inexact expression. A person who gapes with wide-mouthed wonder is said to look ‘like a duck in thunder.’ Similarity of political or religious opinion is expressed in Ulster by saying that two people ‘Dig with the same foot.’ ‘A dead man’s plunge’ is a peculiar Ulster expression; it is applied to the short, sudden, and rather hollow sound made by a smooth flat pebble when it is tossed into the air and falls into water upon its edge.

A large class of provincialisms are made up of asseverative expressions. The Ulsterman often prefaces his remarks by ‘Assay’ (I say) or ‘A’m sayin’’ (I’m saying). ‘May I never stir’ introduces some peculiarly solemn assertion. ‘A month of Sundays,’ and still more strongly, ‘All my born days,’ are emphatic expressions for long periods of time. ‘Dear help your wit’ expresses commiseration for the innocence and simplicity of the person addressed.

Ulster adjurations are a curious medley, ‘Heth’ and ‘Feth’ being frequently used. ‘By Jaiminie King’ is a curious expression often heard in County Fermanagh. ‘Holy Farmer’ is another obscure form of oath. ‘Hokey oh’ is a phrase implying astonishment and alarm. ‘Hoker’ is used by Chaucer to express frowardness, and ‘Hocer’ in Anglo-Saxon meant a reproach. These words probably contain the clue to the origin of this obscure Ulster provincialism.

Expressions conveying contempt or endearment are common. ‘Bad scran to you’ is a phrase of angry contempt. ‘Skran’ in Icelandic means ‘refuse.’ Milton used the word ‘scrannel’ (‘scrannel pipes’) to express poor or mean; and ‘scranny’ still survives in provincial English in this sense. ‘Bad cess to you’ is another Ulsterism of similar meaning, of which the origin is more doubtful; possibly ‘cess’ is a contraction for success. ‘Give me none of your back-talk’ is said by a superior to an inferior, meaning, ‘Don’t presume to argue the question with me.’ A ‘Tory rogue’ is still commonly used in Ulster in the sense of a scamp; but it is often applied to children in a playful sense. It is an interesting relic of the original meaning of the word Tory—an Irish outlaw or freebooter. A ‘tongue-thrashing’ is a vigorous phrase for a severe rebuke. ‘Carnaptious’ means quarrelsome and fault-finding.

Some salutations are characteristic of the northern province. ‘How do you get your health?’ often takes the place of the more vague, ‘How do you do?’ ‘The top of the morning to you’ is a cheery way of saying ‘Good-morrow.’

As might have been expected, there is a long array of peculiar botanical and zoological expressions characteristic of Ulster. Every district has its local names for flowers, plants, birds, and animals, and in these Ulster is peculiarly rich. Potatoes are known as ‘spuds;’ ‘biller’ means water-cress; ‘daffydowndillies’ is a lengthened form of daffodils; ‘mayflower’ is the marsh marigold or _Caltha palustris_. The heads of the common plantain are called ‘cocks’ or ‘fighting-cocks,’ because children make a game of striking them off in mimic warfare. The dock-plant is called the ‘dockan’ (Scotch), and its leaf is a popular remedy for nettle-sting; the wood-sorrel is known as ‘cuckoo-sorrel.’

A still longer list of zoological terms might be made out. The bottle-nosed whale is known as the ‘herring-hog;’ the pollack is called ‘lythe;’ the lobworm used by fishermen for bait is called the ‘lug;’ the stickleback has its name corrupted into ‘spricklybeg;’ the gadfly is known as the ‘cleg’ (which is also its Scotch name); ‘yilly-yorlin’ (also Scotch) is the yellow-hammer; the ‘felt’ is the redwing; the ‘peeweet’ (Scotch again) means the lapwing; the ‘mosscheeper’ is the titlark; the cormorant is known as the ‘scart.’

We now turn to some provincialisms which do not admit of a ready classification. ‘Bis’ is often said for ‘is,’ and ‘bissent’ for ‘is not.’ Here we have an instance of a very common phenomenon—an archaic form surviving as a colloquialism or provincialism. A vast number of our common vulgarisms which we are inclined to regard as breaches of grammar are simply good grammar out of date; in this case, the provincialism almost exactly preserves a very ancient form of the verb. The Anglo-Saxon verb ‘to be’ present tense indicative mood was ‘beom, bist, bith,’ whence no doubt come ‘bis’ and ‘bissent.’ ‘Braird,’ often used in Ulster, as in Scotland, of the young springing grain, is the Anglo-Saxon ‘brord,’ meaning the first blade. ‘Buffer’ in the sense of ‘boxer’ is from the old French word ‘buffe,’ meaning a blow.

‘Chew, sir,’ is a form of rebuke applied to a snarling dog. ‘Dwamish’ means faint and sick, from ‘dwam,’ a Scotch word signifying a swoon or a sudden attack of illness. ‘Dunt’ means a blow, and is old English and Scotch; Burns says, ‘I’ll tak dunts frae naebody.’ A ‘founder,’ according to our dictionaries, is a term in farriery to indicate lameness caused by inflammation within the hoof of a horse. In Ulster, the word is often used to express a chill or wetting followed by illness. A man after being exposed to the vicissitudes of weather becomes seriously ill without knowing what is the matter, and he expresses his condition by saying that he has got ‘a regular founder.’ ‘Head-beetler’ is used in the same vulgar sense as ‘Head-cook and bottle-washer’ in some localities. The beetle was a machine for producing figured fabrics by the pressure of a roller, and ‘head-beetler’ probably means the chief director of this class of work. A ‘heeler’ is a cock which strikes out well with his heels. In Ulster, the word is sometimes used for a bold forward woman.

When a child begins to nod and look sleepy, he is told that ‘Johnny Nod is coming up his back,’ which is understood as a signal for going to bed. ‘Potatoes and point’ is a curious phrase in which the poverty of the lower classes in Ireland finds unconscious expression. The idea is, that the potatoes before being eaten are ‘pointed’ at a herring, which is hung up to serve as an imaginary relish to the simple fare, but too precious to be freely consumed. ‘Dab at the stool’ is another expression referring to eating customs: salt is placed upon a stool, and each individual, as the potatoes are taken out of the pot, takes one and ‘dabs’ it at the stool, to get a portion of the salt. ‘Pouce’ and ‘poucey’ mean dust and dusty, but by a common perversion of language, ‘poucey’ comes to mean a person in a flax-mill who is exposed to the irritation of dusty particles, and becomes in consequence short-winded and bronchitic. ‘Roughness,’ as in Scotland, means plenty. ‘Ruction’ signifies a row, a disturbance; possibly it is a contraction of ructation, from the Latin verb _ructare_. ‘Skelly,’ to squint, is from the Scotch, and is found in Scott. The Danish is ‘skele.’ ‘Smittle,’ also used in Scotland, means infectious, and is connected with the verb to smite. ‘Think long’ means to be homesick.

We thus see how much curious information and how many relics of the past are found in the despised vulgarisms of a provincial patois. They are the fossils of language, and speak to us of vanished peoples and of ages long gone by.

IN ALL SHADES.