Chapter I: Part 1

CHAMBERS’S JOURNAL

OF

POPULAR

LITERATURE, SCIENCE, AND ART

Fifth Series

ESTABLISHED BY WILLIAM AND ROBERT CHAMBERS, 1832

CONDUCTED BY R. CHAMBERS (SECUNDUS)

NO. 24.—VOL. I. SATURDAY, JUNE 14, 1884. PRICE 1½_d._]

ST MARGUERITE AND ST HONORÂT.

THE HOLY ISLES OF THE MEDITERRANEAN.

A melancholy interest is lent just now to the name of St Marguerite by the fact that the last public act of the lamented Duke of Albany was to sign a petition protesting against the sale of that island. The thrilling tale of ‘the man with the iron mask,’ which used to be a favourite in school-books, has since our childish days enveloped the little island for us in a halo of mystery and awe. St Marguerite and its companion island of St Honorât lie, like twin gems of ocean, in the Golfe de Frejus, and form a romantic point in the seaward view from Cannes; and among all the excursions which can be made from that delightful centre, none is more charming than a sail to the islands. Tradition tells us that they were first colonised by a noble young knight from the land of the Gauls, who in the early ages of Christianity embraced its tenets, and with a chosen band of friends, sought a retreat from the sinful world in this distant islet. He had one sister, the fair Marguerite, who loved him as her very life, and who was so inconsolable for his loss, that she followed him to his retreat in the southern sea. As Honorât and his brother-ascetics had vowed themselves to solitude, he could not allow his sister to take up her abode with him; but in compliance with her urgent desires, found a home for her in the neighbouring island, now known by her name of Marguerite. Yet this was only granted on the condition that he should never see her but when the almond tree should blossom. The time of waiting was very dreary to the lonely Marguerite, and with sighings and tears she assailed all the saints, till the almond tree miraculously blossomed once a month, and her poor heart was made glad by the sight of her beloved brother!

A little coasting-steamer plies daily between Cannes and the islands; and passengers land at a little pier near the fortress, which is built on steep cliffs at the eastern extremity of the island. Like the old castles of Edinburgh and Stirling, it is in itself no very imposing building, and owes its strength and its romantic air solely to the rocky cliffs on which it is perched, and to the interesting associations which cluster around it.

It was a lovely day in April, like one of our most delicious midsummer days, that we went with some French friends to visit the islands. The water of the Mediterranean is so limpid that we could look down through fathoms of it to the sand and see the shells and seaweed. It is of such a true sapphire blue, that surely Tennyson must have had memories of it and not of the gray North Sea when he spoke of the

Shining, sapphire spangled marriage ring of the land.

The view of the coast, looking backwards, as the boat nears St Marguerite, is splendid: Cannes basking in the sweet sunshine, lying in a white semicircle around the bay, and climbing up the hills behind, with the gray olive groves making a silvery haze to tone down the brilliant colours. In the distance, the dazzling white peaks of the Maritime Alps form a noble background; while the picture is bounded on the west by the sierra-like range of the Esterel Hills, painted against the skyline in vivid blues and purples. Landing at the little stone pier, we went up the causewayed road to the fort, which, with its whitewashed walls and red-tiled roof, is built around a wide stone court. Here we found the guide waiting, an old _cantinière_, very ugly, but proportionately loud and eloquent—a very different being from the pretty _vivandière_ of comic operas. She carried us along a narrow passage to the dungeon where the unhappy ‘Masque de fer’ spent fourteen long years of hopeless confinement. It is closed by double doors of iron; the walls are of great thickness; and four rows of grating protect the little window. From this cell the prisoner was sometimes permitted egress to walk along the narrow corridor, at the end of which is a niche in the wall, which in his time held a sacred image. The ‘Masque de fer’ was never seen without his iron veil, even by the governor of the prison; it was so curiously fitted as to permit of his eating with ease. He was treated with all the deference due to a royal personage; all the dishes and appurtenances of his table were of silver; the governor waited on him personally; but one day the prisoner succeeded in eluding his vigilance so far as to write an appeal for help on a silver plate and throw it over the precipice on which this part of the fortress stands. As the well-known story tells, a fisherman found it, and brought it at once to the governor, who turned pale and trembled on reading what was scratched thereon. ‘Can you read, my friend?’ he said. ‘No,’ answered the fisherman. ‘Thank God for that, for you should have paid for your knowledge with your life!’ He dismissed him with the gift of a gold-piece, and the caution to preserve a prudent silence as to what had passed.

When the governor communicated the attempt to headquarters in Paris, orders came for the prisoner to be removed to the Bastile. After some years of close confinement, he died there, and was buried in his mask; and the governor of the Bastile, who knew the secret of his august prisoner’s name, died without divulging it. And thus ended the tale in the old school-books: ‘The identity of the “Masque de fer” must remain for ever a mystery.’ But it was no mystery to our old _vivandière_, or indeed to any of the French people who were listening to the story of his woes; for, in surprise at our ignorance, they all exclaimed: ‘Don’t you know that he was the _frère aîné_ [elder brother] of Louis XIV.?’ He was considered too weak in mind to govern France, and was therefore always kept in seclusion, till an attempt which was made to bring him forward was the cause of his being condemned to the life-long prison and the iron mask.

A very queer old gilded seat like an old Roman curule chair is shown in the chapel as that used by the ‘Masque de fer.’

To this fortress, also, Marshal Bazaine was sent as a prisoner, after what the French call his ‘betrayal of Metz.’ The places where he and his family—who were permitted to follow him to the island—used to sit in the tiny chapel were pointed out to us; also the terrace-walk where he was allowed to promenade, unguarded, in the evenings; and the rock down which he escaped, by means of a rope-ladder, to the little boat which his wife had arranged to be in waiting below. Of course, it is said that Macmahon connived at his escape, not wishing his old comrade to be tried by a court-martial, which he knew would inevitably condemn him. He sent him to a sham imprisonment in this pleasant island, till the first wild wrath of the people of France against him had cooled down. A Frenchman told us that he now lives at ease in Spain, having saved his fortune from the wreck, but _tout déshonoré_ in the eyes of France!

From St Marguerite we crossed in less than half an hour to the smaller island of St Honorât, now the property of the Cistercian order of monks. The shore is fringed with the beautiful stone-pines which are so conspicuous on the Riviera and in some parts of Italy. The first object which strikes one on landing is a large new archway, made probably as the gateway for a future avenue; behind it, at some distance, lie the church and monastery. On a promontory at the western end of the island stands an old ruined monastery of the thirteenth century. It is very like the style of architecture of some of the old castles in Scotland. There is a fine triforium in it with Gothic arches. In the refectory we saw on a raised platform at the side the arch for the lectern, from which it was the duty of a monk to read to his brethren while at their meals. The view from the tower is magnificent: the deep blue sea stretches to the southern horizon; the snowy line of the Alpes Maritimes bounds the northern; on the right, the white waves break in feathery foam on the Cap d’Antibes; while the purple Esterels, with the jagged summit of Mont Vinaigrier, lie to the left; and Cannes, with its picturesque old town on the hill of Mont Chevalier, and its modern wings spreading far and wide, fills up the middle distance. Since the young St Honorât sought a retreat here from the world in the fifth century, this island has been usually held by monks, although it was often ravaged by the Saracens. The ruins of the oldest monastery are within the present cloisters. At a little booth outside the monastic walls we found an English monk, who was deputed to sell photographs of the island and the ruins, and to make himself agreeable to the visitors. He told us that he had been in the Grande Chartreuse, near Grenoble; but as his health was not strong enough to bear the keen air on those rocky heights, he had been sent to spend the winter in this convent of the sunny south. In his youth he had been stationed in Edinburgh, and was much interested in speaking of it and hearing of the changes which had taken place there.

During the past century, St Honorât’s isle has passed through strange phases. First of all, a Parisian _comédienne_ bought it, meaning to build a summer villa there; then tiring of it, she sold it to a Protestant clergyman. When it came again into the market, the Cistercians bought it, built the new monastery, and settled a congregation of their order in it. The Cistercian rule is not so severe as that of the Trappists, but still, they are not allowed to speak except during the hours of recreation and on Sunday. The lay brother who showed us round told us he had a dispensation to speak, as he was told off to the post of cicerone for that day. He said it was a very happy life, as tranquil and blessed as in Paradise; and truly his face beamed with heavenly light and peace. One of our company was a gentleman from Grenoble, who came in the hope of seeing a young friend who had lately joined the order. He hoped even to get some of us invited to the ‘parloir’ to speak with him. Alas! the young monk would not even see his old friend, but sent him a tender greeting, and thanks for his kindness in coming. The English ‘father’ said he did this of his own accord, fearing to be disturbed by old associations from his hardly won tranquillity. However that might be, we had to bid adieu to St Honorât without seeing the young recluse.

BY MEAD AND STREAM.

CHAPTER XXXIII.—HER PROBLEM.

Madge in her own room; but it was evening and almost quite dark, so that it was not at all like the pretty chamber which it appeared to be in the bright sunshine of an autumn morning. Can there be any sympathy between the atmosphere and our feelings? There must be. A bright day helps us to meet sorrow bravely; a dull, dark day makes sorrow our master: we bow our heads and groan because nature seems to have entered into a conspiracy against us. The strong will may fling aside this atmospherical depression, but the effort is needed: whereas when the sun shines, even the weak can lift their heads and say without faltering: ‘Let me know the worst.’

Madge held in her hand a letter—the same which Wrentham had seen on Beecham’s desk, and of which he made due report to Mr Hadleigh. She knew well where to find the matches and candle, and yet she stood in that deep gloom looking at the window, as if she were interested in the invisible prospect on which it opened.

It is not instinct, but a telegraphic association of ideas which makes us hesitate to open particular letters. That was her case. And yet, if her face could have been seen in that gloom, no sign of fear would have been found upon it; only a wistful sadness—the expression of one who feels that some revelation of the inevitable is near.

After the pause, she quietly lit the candle, and, without drawing down the blind, seated herself by the window. Then, as methodically as if it had been only one of Uncle Dick’s business letters, she cut the envelope and spread the paper on her lap. She was very pale just then, for there was no message from Beecham; only this inclosure of an old letter, which seemed to have been much handled, and of which the writing had become indistinct.

There were only a few lines on the paper. She looked at the name at the foot of them, and raised it to her lips, reverently.

‘Poor mother!’ was her sigh, and she laid the letter gently on her lap again, whilst she looked dreamily into the gloom outside.

Should she read it? He had left her to answer that question for herself. Yes; she would read, for there were so few words, that there could be no breach of faith in scanning them. Moreover, the letter had been sent to her for that purpose by the man who had received it, and who, therefore, had the right to submit it to her.

There was no need to raise any great question of conscience in the matter; the words were so simple that they might have been written by a mother to a child. No passion, no forced sentiment, no ‘make-believe’ of any kind. Only this pathetic cry:

‘Dear Austin, do not go away. I am filled with fear by what thou hast said to me about the vessel. I know it is wrong, since God is with us everywhere, and I am ashamed of this weakness. But thou art so dear, and—— I pray thee, Austin, do not go away.’

Then followed in the middle of the page the simple name:

‘LUCY.’

This was what she might have written to Philip, and had not. It was all so simple and so like her own experience, with the difference that the lover had not gone away. Few daughters are allowed to know the history of their mothers’ love affairs, and there are fewer still who, when they hear them, can regard them as anything more than commonplace sketches of life, which they pass aside as they turn over the leaves of a portfolio.

But to Madge!——

What did all this mean? That, with the best intentions, she was entering into a conspiracy against the man she loved, and her mother was invoked as the inspiration of the conspiracy!

Sitting there, the candle flickering in the strange draughts which came from nowhere, the gloom outside growing quite black, and the shadows in the little room growing huge and threatening, Madge was trying to read the riddle of her very awkward position.

A sharp knock at the door, one of those knocks which impudent and inconsiderate females give when they have no particular message to convey, and resent the necessity of carrying it.

‘A man in the oak parlour wants to see you, if you ben’t too busy.’

Madge passed her fingers over the aching head. She could not guess who the man might be, but presumed that he was one of Uncle Dick’s customers.

She found Mr Beecham in the oak parlour. This was the first time he had been under the roof of Willowmere. He and Madge were conscious of the singularity of the meeting-place.

‘I trust, Miss Heathcote, you are not annoyed with me for coming here,’ he said softly. ‘I did not mean to do so; but it occurred to me, after despatching that letter, you might require a few words of explanation. At first, my intention was to say nothing; but on consideration, it seemed to me unfair to leave you without help in answering the disagreeable questions which the situation suggests.’

Madge still had the letter in her hand; the tears were still in her eyes. She tried to wipe them away, but still they would force their presence on the lids. That was the real Madge—tender, considerate to others beyond measure.

‘Oh, if’——

Here the superficial Madge claimed supremacy, and took the management of the whole interview in hand. Calm almost to coldness, clear in speech and vision almost to the degree of severity, she spoke:

‘I have considered all that you have said to me, and I do not like the position in which you have placed me. I gave you my word that I should be silent, believing that no harm could follow, and believing that my mother would have wished me to obey you. You have satisfied me by this letter that I have not done wrong so far. Take it back.’

She folded the letter, carefully replaced it in the envelope, and gave it to him.

‘Thank you,’ he said, with the shadow of that sad smile which had so often crossed his face.

‘You cannot tell how much that letter has affected me. You cannot know what thoughts and impulses it has aroused. But you can believe that in my mother’s blunder I read my own fate.... I know you are my friend: be the friend of those I love. Help _him_, for he needs help very much.’

Mr Beecham had quietly taken the letter and placed it in a small pocket-case, to which it seemed to belong.

‘I feared you would not understand me, and the desire to save you from uneasiness has brought me here. You have promised to be silent: I again beg you to keep that promise for a little while.’

She bowed her head, but did not speak.

‘In doing so,’ he added, anxious to reassure her, ‘you have my pledge that no harm will come to any one who does not seek it.’

‘You cannot think,’ she said coldly, and yet with a touch of bitterness that she seemed unable to repress—‘you cannot think any one purposely seeks harm! It came to you and to my mother.’

For an instant he was silent. He was thinking that no harm would have come to them if both had been faithful.

‘That is a hard hit, and not easily answered,’ he said quietly. ‘Let me say, then, that even if there had been no other motive to influence me, I should be his friend on your account. But I am your friend above and before all. For your sake alone I came back to England. For your sake I am acting as I am doing, strange as it may seem. If he is honest and faithful to you’——

‘There is no doubt of that,’ she interrupted, her face brightening with confidence.

Beecham inclined his head, as if in worship. He smiled at her unhesitating assertion of faith, but the smile was one of respect and admiration touched with a shade of regret. What might his life have been if he had found a mate like her! The man she loved might prove false, and all the world might call him false: she would still believe him to be true.

‘A man finds such faith rarely,’ he said in his gentlest tone; ‘I hope he will prove worthy of it. But let him take his own way for the present; and should trouble come to him, I shall do my best to help him out of it.’

She made a quick movement, as if she would have clasped his hands in thankfulness, but checked herself.

‘Then I am content.’

‘I am glad you can say so, for it shows you have some confidence in me, and every proof of kindly thought towards me helps me.’

He stopped, and seemed to be smiling at the weakness which had made his voice a little husky. Looking back, and realising in this girl an old dream, she had grown so dear to him, that he knew if she had persisted, his wisest judgment would have yielded to her wish.

She wondered: why was this man so gentle and yet so cruel, as it seemed, in his doubts of Philip?

‘Let me take your hand,’ he resumed. ‘Thanks. Have you any notion how much it cost me to allow this piece of paper’ (he touched the pocket in which her mother’s letter lay) ‘to be out of my possession even for a few hours? Only you could have won that from me. It was the last token of ... well, we shall say, of her caring about me that came direct from her own hand. She was deceived. We cannot help that, you know—accidents will happen, and so on’ (like a brave man, he was smiling at his own pain). ‘The message came to me too late. I think—no, I am sure, that if she had said this to me with her own lips, there would have been no parting ... and everything would have been so different to us!’

Madge withdrew one hand from his and timidly placed it on his shoulder.

‘I am sorry for your past, and should be glad if it were in my power to help you to a happy future.’

His disengaged hand was placed upon her head lightly, as if he were giving her a paternal blessing.

‘The only way in which you can help me, my child, is by finding a happy future for yourself. I am anxious about that—selfishly anxious, for it seems that my life can gain its real goal only by making you happy, since I missed the chance of making your mother so. I know that she was not happy; and my career, which has been one of strange good fortune, as men reckon fortune by the money you make, has been one of misery. Do you not think that droll?’

‘You are not like other men, I think; others would have forgotten the past, and forgiven.’

She was thinking of Philip’s wish that his father should be reconciled to Austin Shield.

‘I can forgive,’ he said softly; ‘I cannot forget.—Now, let us look at the position quietly as it is. The only thing which has given me an interest in life is the hope that I may be useful to you. When my sorrow came upon me, it seemed as if the whole world had gone wrong.’ (That was spoken with a kind of bitter sense of the humorous side of his sorrow.) ‘Doctors would have called it indigestion. You see, however, it does not matter much to the patient whether it is merely indigestion or organic disease, so long as he suffers from the pangs of whatever it may be. Well, I did not die, and the doctor is entitled to his credit. I live, eat my dinner, and am in fair health. But there is a difference: life lost its flavour when the blunder was made. When your mother believed the false report which reached her, the man who loved her was murdered.’

‘She could not act otherwise than she did,’ said Madge bravely in defence.

‘She should have trusted to me,’ he retorted, shaking his head sadly. ‘But that is unkind, and I do not mean to say one word of her that could be called unkind. She would forgive it.’

‘How she must have suffered!’ murmured Madge, her hand passing absently over the aching brow.

‘Ay, she must have suffered as I did—poor lass, poor lass!’

He turned abruptly to the hearth, as if he had become suddenly conscious of the ordinary duties of life, and aware that the fire required attention.

‘I want you to try to understand me,’ he said as he stirred the embers, and the oak-log on the top of the coal started a bright flame.

‘I wish to understand you—but that is not easy,’ she replied.

He did not look round; he answered as if the subject were one of the most commonplace kind; but there was a certain emphasis in his tone as he seemed to take up her sentence and continue it.

‘Because you stand on the sunny side of life, and know nothing of its shadows. Pity that they will force themselves upon you soon enough.’

‘If you see them coming, why not give me warning?’

He turned round suddenly, his hands clasped behind him so tightly that he seemed to be striving to subdue the outcry of some physical pain.

‘It is not warning that I wish to give you, but protection,’ he said, and there was a harshness in his voice quite unusual to him.

The change of tone was so remarkable, that she drew back. There were in it bitterness, hatred, and almost something that was like malignity.

‘You must know it all—then judge for yourself,’ he said at length.

CURIOSITIES OF THE MICROPHONE.

It would be interesting to learn all the particulars relating to the birth of some great invention; to know the inventor’s frame of mind at the time the pregnant idea occurred to him, and the influences under which he lived and laboured. This is usually an unwritten chapter of biography; but sometimes we can learn a little about these things. It is not always necessity, or the need of help, that is the mother of invention. In the case of the microphone, it was the need of occupation. Professor Hughes was confined to his chamber by an attack of cold, and to beguile the tedium of the time, he began to experiment with the telephone. This was in the early winter of 1877; and at that time the transmitting and receiving parts of the Bell telephone system were identical. The result was that the received speech was very feeble; and Professor Hughes began to try whether he could not dispense with the transmitting telephone, and make the wire of the circuit speak of itself. Some experiments of Sir William Thomson had shown that the electric resistance of a wire varied when the wire was strained; and Professor Hughes thought that if he could get the vibrations of the voice to strain a wire, so as to vary its resistance in proportion to the vibrations, he might be able to make the wire itself act as a transmitter. He therefore connected a battery and telephone together by means of a fine wire, and pulled on a part of the wire in order to strain it, at the same time listening in the telephone. But he heard no sound at all until he strained the wire so much that it gave way. At the instant of rupture he heard a peculiar grating sound in the telephone; and on placing the broken ends of the wire in delicate contact, he found that the slightest agitation of the ends in contact produced a distinct noise in the instrument.

This experiment, then, was the germ of the microphone. For the metal ends of the wire in contact, he substituted carbon points, and obtained a much more sensitive arrangement. When one of the carbon pencils was lightly _pressed_ against the other in a stable position, he found that the joint was sensitive to the slightest jar, and could transmit the voice when spoken to direct. Pursuing his researches further, he found that a loose and somewhat crazy metal structure, such as a pile of gold-chain or a framework of French nails, acted in a similar way, though not so powerfully as carbon. This material was found so sensitive, that a fly walking on the board supporting the microphone could be distinctly heard in the telephone, and each tap of its trunk upon the wood was said by one observer to resemble the ‘tramp of an elephant.’

The marvels of the microphone were published to the world in the early summer of the next year; and many useful applications followed. The most obvious was its use as a telephone transmitter; and as Professor Hughes had made a public gift of his invention, a great many telephone transmitters were based upon it. Edison, who had invented a carbon transmitter which bore some resemblance to the microphone, laid claim to having anticipated the invention; but the merit of the discovery remains with Professor Hughes.

It is through the help of the microphone that telephony has become so practical and so extensively adopted. The Blake transmitter, the Ader, and many others by which music and speech are now conveyed so many miles, are all varieties of the carbon microphone. In some churches, microphone transmitters are now applied to the pulpit, so that the sermon can be transmitted by telephone to invalid members who cannot leave home. At the Electrical Exhibitions of Paris, Vienna, and the Crystal Palace, the music of an entire opera was transmitted from the stage by wire to other buildings where great numbers of persons sat and listened to it. The transport of music and other sounds in no way directly connected with the wire, is frequently effected by what is termed induction or leading-in. Over and over again, persons listening into telephones for the purpose of hearing what a friend is saying, have heard the strains of this music—aside, communicated by induction from some neighbouring line to theirs. Not long ago, a telegraph clerk in Chicago was listening in a telephone early one morning, and to his surprise heard the croaking of frogs and the whistling of birds. The explanation of the phenomenon is, that a loose joint in the telephone wire where it passed through a wood, acted as a microphone, and transmitted the woodland chorus to his ears. Messages in process of transmission are sometimes drowned by the rumbling noise of street-traffic induced by the wire.

The microphone is not only useful as a transmitter of sounds, but also as a relay of sounds received on a telephone. Professors Houston and Thomson of America were perhaps the first to construct a telephonic relay. They mounted a carbon microphone on the vibrating plate of a telephone in such a way that the vibrations of the plate due to the received speech would react on the microphone, and be transmitted in this way over another line to another receiving telephone at a distance. Thus the speech would be relayed, just as a telegraph message is relayed, when it is weak, and sent further on its way. Curiously enough, the microphone acts as a relay to itself, if placed on the same table with the telephone with which it is in circuit. The jar of placing the microphone on the table causes the telephone to emit a sound; this sound in turn is transmitted by the microphone to the telephone, which again repeats it. The microphone re-transmits it as before, the telephone utters it, and so the process of repetition goes on _ad infinitum_.

Since the microphone can, as it were, magnify small sounds, and in this respect has some resemblance to the microscope, which magnifies minute objects, it might be thought that it would prove useful for deaf persons. But though the microphone enables a person with good ears to hear mechanical vibrations which otherwise would be inaudible, the sounds that are heard are not in themselves very loud, and hence a dull aural nerve might fail to appreciate them. M. Bert, the well-known French physicist, constructed a microphone for deaf persons; but its success was doubtful. Professor Hughes, however, has succeeded in making deaf persons hear the ticking of a watch by means of the microphone. In this case the telephone was placed against the bones in the head, and the vibrations communicated in this way to the aural nerve. The ‘audiphone,’ a curved plate held between the teeth, and vibrated by the sound-waves, also acts in this way; and it is probable that we hear ourselves speak not through our ears, but through the bones of the head as set in vibration by the voice.

Its power of interpreting small sounds has caused the microphone to be applied to many other purposes. Professor Rossi, for example, uses it to detect the earth-tremors preceding earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. It has been employed in Austria to detect the trickling of underground water; and its use has also been suggested for hearing the signal-taps of entombed miners and the noise of approaching torpedo boats. It is not, however, quite possible to realise all that has been claimed for it. Thus the _Danbury News_ jestingly remarks that ‘with a microphone a farmer can hear a potato-bug coming down the road a quarter of a mile away, and can go out with an axe and head it off.’

In 1876, a year before the microphone was invented, a writer named Antoinette Brown Blackwell foretold the use of such an apparatus. ‘It remains,’ she said, ‘to invent some instrument which can so retard the too rapid vibrations of molecules as to bring them within the time adapted to human ears; then we might comfortably hear plant movements carrying on the many processes of growth, _and possibly we might catch the crystal music of atoms_ vibrating in unison with the sunbeam.’ Without calling in question the writer’s theory, which does not apply to the microphone, we may mention that Professor Chandler Roberts attached a microphone to a thin porous septum, and on allowing hydrogen gas to diffuse through the latter, he heard a rushing sound, as of a wind, which became silent when the rapid diffusion ceased. The jar of the atoms on the pores of the septum was probably the source of this molecular sound. Again, Professor Graham Bell has found a metal microphone joint sensitive to the impact of a beam of intermittent light; and it is highly probable that a microphone with selenium contacts would be still more sensitive to the sound of light falling upon it.

In medicine, the microphone has been usefully applied to enable a physician to read the pulse better and auscultate the heart.

Numerous experiments have been made recently with the microphone by Messrs Stroh, Bidwell, and others. Not long after the original invention of the apparatus, Professor Blyth found that the microphone would act as a receiver as well as a transmitter of sounds in an electric circuit. Thus, with two boxes of coke cinders (hard carbon) connected together through a wire and battery, Professor Blyth found that if words were spoken into one of the boxes, he could faintly hear them by listening in the other. Mr Bidwell has constructed a receiving microphone, composed of a pile of carbon cylinders resting on a mica diaphragm, and this gives out distinct effects when a strong battery is employed. On speaking to the transmitting microphone in circuit, the words can be distinctly heard in the receiving one.

By the use of the microscope, Mr Stroh has observed that the carbon points of the microphone which were supposed to be in contact, are not really so during the action of the instrument, but are separated by a minute distance. It would appear, then, that there is a repulsion between the points, and this repulsion accounts for the action of the microphone as a receiver. Metal microphones are also reversible in their action, and give out feeble sounds when used as receivers. The probability is that the contacts vibrate rapidly on each other, either in direct or very close contact, against a certain repulsive action of the current, which operates like a cushion or re-acting spring.

Metal microphones are in some respects more interesting theoretically than those of carbon. For example, one has been constructed of two different metals, zinc and iron, which when heated by the flame of a spirit-lamp generates its own current by thermo-electric action. Iron is one of the most useful metals for forming microphones; and one of iron-wire gauze has been found to act with singular clearness when inclosed in a high vacuum, such as that given by an incandescent electric lamp.

SILAS MONK.

A TALE OF LONDON OLD CITY.

IN FOUR CHAPTERS.—CHAPTER II.

That day in the city seemed to Walter as if it would never end. This mystery about Silas Monk was now a matter to him of real interest. Hitherto, the eccentricities of the old man had given him little or no concern; for it had been so long the custom among the clerks to crack their jokes about ‘Silas,’ that nothing which he might do, however queer, could appear otherwise than perfectly consistent with his character. For so many years had Silas Monk been a clerk in the House, that his columns of pounds, shillings, and pence could be traced in the oldest ledgers, it was said, even when books more than a hundred years old were examined. There was no record extant which satisfactorily settled the date of his engagement as a clerk by Armytage and Company. The oldest partners and the oldest clerks, with this one exception of Silas, were dead and buried many years ago.

It was a very old-looking place, this ancient counting-house; it seemed older even than the firm of Armytage, which had seen two centuries. There were railings in front, broken in places, but still presenting some iron spikes among them, standing up with an air of protection before the windows, like sentinels on guard. The stone steps leading up to the entrance were worn by the tread of busy men who had in their time hurried in and out in their race for wealth, and who were now doubtless lying in some old city churchyard hard by.

Walter Tiltcroft having at last finished his ‘rounds,’ as he called his various errands, came back to the old counting-house. The clerks’ office was on the ground-floor. It was a dark and dusty room, with men of various ages seated at long desks, all deeply engaged, with pens in hand and heads bent low, over the business of the firm. No one looked up when Walter entered; every one went on working, as though each individual clerk was a wheel in the great machine which had been going for nearly two hundred years.

Within an inner room, smaller, darker, and more dusty, was seated alone at his desk Silas Monk. The old clerk had several large ledgers before him; he was turning over the leaves with energy, and making entries in these books with a rapidity which seemed surprising in one who had an appearance of such great age. With his white hair falling on his shoulders, his long lean trembling fingers playing among the fluttering pages, and his keen eyes darting among the columns of pounds, shillings, and pence, he seemed, even by daylight, like an embodied spirit appointed by the dead partners and clerks of Armytage and Company to audit the accounts of that old mercantile House in Crutched Friars. So at least thought Walter Tiltcroft as he sat at his own desk watching Silas Monk, and revolving in his mind how he could best solve the mystery which surrounded Rachel’s grandfather.

* * * * *

It was growing dusk when the old city clocks in the church towers began to strike six, and the clerks in the office of Armytage and Company began to show signs of dispersing. Silas Monk alone remained at his post. Wishing to say a few words to the old man before taking his leave, Walter Tiltcroft lingered behind; and when the last clerk had gone, he went to the door of the ‘strong-room,’ as Silas Monk’s office was called, and said in his usual cheerful tone: ‘Good-night, Mr Monk. You’ll see, I suppose, that everything is safe and sound, as usual? Won’t you?’

‘Ay, ay! safe and sound, Walter.—Good-night.’

But the young man lingered with his eyes curiously fixed on Silas. ‘The evenings are getting short,’ continued he. ‘Can you see to work by this light?’

‘Why, no—not well,’ Silas owned, with his eyes raised towards the window; ‘and what makes it still more difficult is that scaffolding the workmen have put up outside—that’s what makes it so dark. Ay, ay!’ he added, ‘they’re repairing the old walls. Dear me, dear me!’

The old walls outside, which surrounded a courtyard, were black with dust and age, and they had also in many parts a tumble-down aspect, which appeared to plainly indicate that repairs were needed badly. Upon the scaffolding, some half-dozen labourers were gathering together their tools and preparing to go home, as the clerks had done already. Silas was lighting an oil-lamp. ‘Give me a hand, Walter,’ said he, ‘to close these shutters and put up the iron bar.’

‘All right, Mr Monk,’ said the young man, unfolding the old-fashioned shutters in the walls and clasping the iron bar across them with a loud clink. ‘All right and tight!—Shall you remain long at the office?’ he added, moving towards the door.

‘Not long; half an hour, perhaps—not more.’

Still the young man lingered. ‘Mr Monk,’ said he, walking a step back into the strong-room, ‘I saw your grand-daughter Miss Rachel this morning.’

Silas, who had reseated himself at his desk before the large ledgers, looked round keenly at Walter, with the light from the shaded lamp thrown upon his wrinkled face. ‘You see my grand-daughter Rachel pretty often; don’t you, Walter?’

‘Pretty often, Mr Monk, I confess.’

Silas shook his long thin forefinger at the young man. ‘Walter,’ cried he, ‘that’s not business!’

‘No; that’s true. But you see, Mr Monk, it’s not much out of my way. And,’ he added, ‘besides, I thought you would like to know that she’s well. You’re so busy here, that perhaps you don’t see so much of her as you would like, and so I thought that news of her at any time would be welcome.’

‘So it is, Walter!’ said the old man, his voice trembling slightly as he spoke—‘so it is. She’s a good girl, and I love her dearly. But you don’t pass that way, Walter, simply to bring me a word about my grand-daughter. You’re not going to try and make me believe that, surely?’

‘Not entirely, Mr Monk,’ said the young man, smiling. ‘I won’t deny that it’s a very great pleasure to me to see Rachel at any time; indeed, no one could admire her more than I do.’

The old man held out his hand. ‘Come, come! That’s more candid, my boy,’ said he, as Walter took the hand in his and pressed it affectionately. ‘So you admire Rachel, do you?’

‘Mr Monk,’ said the young clerk, ‘I more than admire her—I love her!’

The deep lines in Silas Monk’s face grew deeper at these words. ‘Well, well,’ said the old man presently, with a heavy sigh; ‘it was to be. Better now, perhaps, than later—better now. But you won’t take her from me yet, Walter—not yet?’

‘Why, no, Mr Monk; I’d no thought of taking her away from you.’

‘That’s right!’ cried Silas—‘that’s right! You’re a good lad. Take care of her, Walter; take care of her when I am dead.’ As Silas pronounced the last word, the sound of footsteps, which seemed strangely near, changed the expression on his face. ‘What’s that?’ asked he in a tone of alarm.

Walter listened. ‘Some one on the scaffolding above your window.’

‘If it’s a workman,’ said the old man, ‘he’s rather late. Will you see that every one has left the premises; and then shut the front-door as you go out?’

‘I’ll not forget.—Good-night!’

It was just sufficiently light in the passage for Walter to find his way about the old house. Having promised Silas Monk to make sure that every one had left the premises, he ran up the dark oaken staircase to ascertain whether the partners, who occupied the floor above the office, had gone. He found the doors to their rooms locked. The young man threw a glance around him, and then descended the way he had come, walking out into the court, behind the clerks’ offices, where the scaffolding was erected. It was not a large court, and on every side were high brick walls. The scaffolding reached from the ground almost to the eaves.

‘Any one there?’ Walter shouted.

Not a sound came back except a muttering echo of his own voice.

Walter Tiltcroft then turned to leave the house. But at this moment his conversation with Rachel occurred to him, and he thought that he might do something to clear up the mystery of her grandfather’s frequent absence from home at all hours of the night. ‘Why not,’ thought Walter, ‘watch the old man’s movements? Some clue might be found to the strange affair.’ He formed his plan of action without further delay. No moment could have been more opportune. He closed the front-door with a slam which shook the old house; then he crept back along the passage softly, and, seating himself in a dark corner on the staircase, watched for the figure of Silas Monk.

The first thing he heard, very shortly after he had taken up his position, was a step in the passage leading from the courtyard. He sprang up with a quick beating heart, and reached the foot of the stairs just in time to confront a tall, powerful man dressed like a mason, and carrying in his hand a large basket of tools.

‘Why, Joe Grimrood,’ said Walter, ‘is that you?’

The man, who had a hangdog, defiant air, answered gruffly, as he scratched a mangy-looking skin-cap, pulled down to his eyebrows: ‘That’s me, sir; asking your pardon.’

‘Are you the last, Joe?’

‘There ain’t no more men on the scaffold, if that’s what you mean.’

Walter nodded. ‘Didn’t you hear me call?’ he asked.

‘Not me. When?’

‘Not five minutes ago.’

‘How could I? I was among the chimneys.’

‘Repairing the roof, Joe?’

‘Fixing the tiles,’ was the reply.

Having thus accounted for his tardiness, Joe Grimrood again scratched his cap, in his manner of saluting, and moved along the hall, in the semi-darkness, towards the front-door. ‘I wish you a very good-night,’ said the man, as Walter accompanied him to the entrance—‘a very good-night, sir; asking your pardon.’

Walter Tiltcroft closed the door, when the workman had gone out, with as little noise as possible; for he feared that if any sound reached Silas Monk in the strong-room, his suspicions might be aroused, and the chance of solving this mystery might be lost.

Again retiring to his retreat upon the staircase, Walter waited and watched; but nothing happened. The twilight faded; the night became so dark that the lad could not see his hand before him. The hours appeared long; at endless intervals he heard the city clocks striking in the dead silence. He filled up the time with thoughts containing a hundred conjectures. What could Silas Monk be doing all this while? A dozen times Walter descended to the door of the office to listen; but never a sound! A dozen times his fingers touched the handle to turn it; yet each time he drew back, fearing to destroy the object he had seriously in view—the solution of this strange affair.

Ten o’clock had struck, and the young clerk was growing weary of waiting for the clocks to strike eleven. He began to imagine that something must have happened to Silas Monk. Had he fallen asleep? Was he dead, or—what?

Presently, the notion entered his brain that perhaps a grain of reassurance might be had by regarding the window of the strong-room from the courtyard. Possibly, thought he, a ray of light might find its way there through the shutters. He stepped out silently, but with eagerness. When he reached the yard, there, sure enough, was a streak of light piercing through a small aperture. Walter was drawn towards it irresistibly. He mounted the scaffolding by the ladder at his feet, and crept along the boarding on his hands; for the darkness, except within the limits of this ray of light, was intense. He reached at length the spot immediately above the window. The ray of light fell below the scaffold, slanting to the ground. Grasping the board, upon which he lay full length, he bent his head until his eye was almost on a level with the hole in the shutter. To his surprise, the interior of the strong-room was distinctly revealed. But what he saw surprised him still more. Silas Monk was seated there at his desk, under the shaded lamp. But he was no longer examining the ledgers; these books were thrown aside; and, in their place, before his greedy eyes, was to be seen a heap of bright sovereigns.

The change which had taken place in the face of Silas Monk since the young man had left him, was startling; and the manner in which he appeared to be feasting his eyes upon the coins was repulsive. He handled the sovereigns with his lean fingers caressingly; he counted them over and over again; then he arranged them in piles on one side, and began to empty other bags in their place. His look suggested a ravenous madman; his attitude resembled that of a beast of prey.

Walter was so fascinated by this unexpected scene in the strong-room, that he found it impossible, for some minutes, to remove his gaze. The mystery about Silas Monk had been solved. Rachel’s grandfather was a wretched miser!

Walter descended from the scaffolding, and went out quietly into Crutched Friars. His lodgings were in the Minories, hard by. But he could not have slept had he gone home without passing under Rachel’s window. He hurried along through the dark and silent streets. What he had witnessed, haunted him; he could not banish the scene of the old man and his bright sovereigns. When he entered the street, and was approaching Silas Monk’s house, he was astonished, though not displeased, to see Rachel standing on the door-step.

‘Why, Walter,’ cried she, ‘is that you? I thought it was grandfather.’

‘I wish, Rachel, for your sake that it was. But I’m afraid, late as it is, that he won’t be back quite yet.’

The girl placed her hand quickly on Walter’s hand and looked up appealingly. ‘Has anything happened? You have a troubled face. Don’t hide it from me, if anything has happened to grandfather.’

The young man hastened to reassure her. ‘Nothing has happened. Silas Monk is at the office still. I have just come away, Rachel. I left him there deeply occupied.’

The girl threw a quick glance into Walter’s face. ‘Then grandfather does work for Armytage and Company after six o’clock?’

‘I doubt that, Rachel, very much.’

‘Then why does he stay so late at Crutched Friars?’

‘To dabble in a little business of his own.’

‘What business is that, Walter?’

‘Well, something in the bullion line of business, to judge from appearances.’

‘Explain yourself, Walter! I am puzzled.’

‘I’m afraid I can’t; I’m puzzled too,’ said the young man. ‘This bullion business,’ he added thoughtfully, ‘is a strange affair.’

Rachel clasped her hands with an impatient gesture. ‘Walter, tell me what you have seen!’

‘I’ve seen,’ said the young man reluctantly—‘I’ve seen, through a hole in the shutter, an old man at a desk, under the light of a shaded lamp, seated over handfuls of gold. The desk was Silas Monk’s, in the counting-house of Armytage and Company. But the face of the man was not the face of your grandfather; or if it was his, it was greatly changed.’

‘In what way changed, Walter?’

‘It was a face expressing dreadful greed. It was the face of a miser, Rachel—nothing less!’

The girl, standing under the dim street-lamp above the doorway, looked with wondering eyes into Walter’s face. ‘Does not all the money at the counting-house belong to the firm?’

‘So I have always thought, Rachel.’

‘Then grandfather was balancing the cash?’

‘Not the hard cash of Armytage and Company. That is taken every day, before the closing hour, to the bank.’

Looking still into the young man’s face, the girl said: ‘Then the money must be his own.’

‘He certainly seemed to eye it, Rachel, as if every sovereign belonged to him.’

The girl became pensive. ‘He must be rich,’ said she.

‘Very rich, if all those sovereigns are his.’

‘And he loves gold more than he loves his grand-daughter!’ Rachel complained, in a tone of deep disappointment, while tears started into her eyes.

Not being able to deny that there appeared some truth in the girl’s words, Walter could answer nothing. He remained silent and thoughtful. Suddenly the clocks of the old city began striking midnight.

‘Your grandfather will soon be coming now, Rachel,’ said the young man, ‘so I had better be off. It would never do to let him find me here at this late hour.’ Taking leave of the girl tenderly, he quickly disappeared into the darkness.