Chapter II: Part 2

It is due to the captain’s pride of birth and ancestry to say that, at first, flirtation and not marriage was in his thoughts. But when he discovered that the girl’s father was a man of very great wealth, and that she was an only child, he began to think that the game might be worth keeping up in London, with a view to honourable matrimony, immediate comfort, and succession in the future to the old man’s money. For it would have been difficult for Captain Ferrard to have indicated with any precision his present means of existence. It was notorious that his family had long declined to hold any communication with him, further than that the earl allowed him the sum of two hundred and fifty pounds a year, which indeed was all that he could afford, being—for a peer—almost penniless, with a good many children to provide for. The sum named was about enough to keep the young gentleman in gloves and cigars. The balance of his expenditure had to be made up by means of credit, the turf, billiards, pigeon-shooting, and cards. But the first was nearly at an end; the second required capital; the next two are not improved by overmuch tobacco and brandy; and at the fifth the captain was becoming a little too skilful. He was in a desperate state. Why should he not betake himself to his last weapon? He was twenty-eight, with a manly and well-made figure, smooth-faced as a boy of eighteen, brilliant of complexion, with eyes of a peculiarly dark blue. It was more the face of a beautiful woman than that of a man; but there was something wrong about it. The forehead was too retreating, the mouth too hard, and too often expanded in a smile. His manner and bearing were extremely pleasant and ingratiatory. How should an ignorant little girl, fresh from a North London seminary, or her auctioneering papa, detect the festering vices and the cruel heart beneath that fair outside? So he asked permission to call on Miss Cross in London, and readily obtained it.

He called accordingly, saw her alone, and made most satisfactory progress. The second time, he was introduced to papa. Papa, in fact, having heard of the former visit, and knowing the visitor well by repute through certain bill-discounting acquaintances, had left instructions with a faithful retainer—the cook—that he was to be fetched from the City immediately on a repetition of the visit. The result was not quite what Captain Ferrard had expected. Papa sat glum and moody through the interview; when it was over, he attended the visitor to the door, and with some coarseness of manner and roughness of tone, requested him to take notice that his attentions were not desired. Not all Captain Ferrard’s smoothest explanations and assurances sufficed to appease the auctioneer, who simply replied that he didn’t believe a word of them; and that, supposing them to be true, his girl did not want any fine gentleman for a husband, least of all of the stamp of Captain Ferrard, as to whose character and pursuits he further expressed himself pretty roundly. The captain answered with aristocratic contempt and insolence, applied with an ease and absence of emotion which reduced the auctioneer to speechless fury; and so departed.

The only result of this was that the ill-regulated girl, whose lover was the first toy which had been denied to her, became mutinous. She entered, first upon a clandestine correspondence, then upon a series of secret meetings, and ultimately left home one fine day just after she had attained twenty-one, and was married at a suburban church by license. Ferrard calculated that when once the irrevocable step had been taken, a reconciliation with her father and a handsome dowry would be a matter of only a few weeks, and that the plebeian alliance, gilded with the auctioneer’s gold, would be condoned by his family, and would even cause him to be received by them with open arms. But everything went wrong. The bereaved parent, whatever may have been his sufferings in private, did not hasten to clasp his erring daughter to his bosom. When at last she wrote him a letter, carefully dictated by her husband, the only reply received was from a lawyer, stating that Mr Cross declined all communication with Mrs Ferrard or her husband; but that as he did not desire that his daughter should starve, he proposed to make to her exactly the same allowance as her husband received from the Earl of Englethorpe. That nobleman, who had been waiting to see what would happen before finally committing himself, thereupon wrapped himself with much dignity in his family grandeur, and refused to receive either his son or his son’s wife, or to add a farthing to the two hundred and fifty pounds a year.

All this was so far beneath the Honourable James’s just expectations, that he became not a little disgusted with his bargain, with the usual results. Indifference and neglect were speedily followed by quarrels, upbraiding, and taunts; at last by covert, yet none the less positive, unmanly cruelty on the part of the husband, and a return to his former mode of life. This, indeed, he had never really abandoned, though he had put some sort of restraint on the open indulgence of his vices so long as it appeared that anything might be got by doing so; and even now, having regard to what the day might bring forth, he was cunning and cautious to the last degree. At length, Amy fled in despair to her father, who received her coldly, but without anger, in the interview with which this tale commences.

Amy sat on the sofa, her wild sobs becoming less frequent, for she saw that her father was thinking. Weak and foolish as she was, she instinctively appreciated his strength of character enough to know that when Mr Cross took to thinking, something generally happened in consequence; and she hoped that he would find some means of extricating her from the trouble which she had brought upon herself.

Some time had gone by, and the auctioneer remained in the same vein of thought, seemingly forgetful of his daughter’s presence. At last she spoke to him, and he roused himself with a start.

‘Ten o’clock,’ he said, looking at his watch; ‘time you were home.’

‘Home, papa? I dare not. I don’t know what he won’t do, when he finds where I’ve been, and he’s sure to get it out of me. Oh, don’t send me back!’ and she burst into a fresh fit of hysterical weeping.

‘Hush, hush, my girl!’ he said soothingly. ‘Nonsense! A married woman oughtn’t to be away from her husband. I’m going to write him a letter for you to give him, and you’ll find he won’t be so angry as you think. I suppose you’ll see him to-night?’

‘Yes. He said he should be home to-night, and he generally is when he says so.’

‘That’s well,’ said the auctioneer; and sitting down, he wrote a few lines:

‘SIR—I should like a word with you on family matters, and will
call on you at eleven o’clock to-morrow.—Yours faithfully,

R. CROSS.’

‘There!’ he said; ‘you give him that, and it will quiet him down. Now, get on your bonnet, and I’ll send for a cab.’

Captain Ferrard did come home, and in a very queer temper. Before he could proceed to vent it, his trembling wife put the note into his hand; and with a sharp glance at her, he opened and read it. ‘O ho!’ cried he. ‘So,’ he said, after musing a little, ‘you have been to see papa, eh? Singing your husband’s praises so well, that our good papa is anxious to make his acquaintance.—Is that it, Mrs Ferrard?’

She did not answer, but cast down her eyes.

He reflected again. ‘Well,’ he said at last, ‘I don’t much care what you have been saying, or what you have not. Perhaps it may turn out to be the best thing you could have done. Anyway, I’ll see him to-morrow—“comes he in peace, or comes he in war”—and on his behaviour, my pet, will depend our future happiness.—Now, get to bed!’

Meanwhile, Mr Cross had returned to his old position at the table and remained deep in thought far into the night. He was a man strong in his likes and dislikes, but his feelings towards this Ferrard surprised himself. In the first place, the man belonged to a class which the auctioneer, with or without reason, had come to despise or dislike. Secondly, he possessed the three vices which are most hateful to a steady and prosperous man of business—he was an idler, a gambler, and a spendthrift. On the above grounds alone, the very name of Ferrard was obnoxious to Mr Cross. But this worthless fellow, after coolly insulting him on his own doorstep, had succeeded in robbing him of his daughter—his daughter, as to whom the dream of his life had been, that she would repay his tenderness and care by becoming the solace of his age, until she should be honourably and happily married to some prosperous young votary of commerce, and should surround him with a troop of grandchildren, who would recall to him their mother’s childhood. To realise such hopes, he had worked like a slave, and had accumulated money until his name was a proverb for wealth. All over now—he was childless and alone with his riches—a gloomy and cheerless old age was coming fast upon him, and he owed it all to this gentleman of long descent, at whose patrician hands ill-usage and shame were his child’s portion.

How should he answer her cry for aid? How rescue her? Was it in any way—by any sacrifice—possible to undo the miserable past; to wipe the slate clean, and to start afresh, with the hope of realising the old dreams? This was the problem the auctioneer set himself to work out, sitting there in the silence. And his heart sank, as he bitterly acknowledged to himself that the chances were but of the slenderest. Money would no doubt buy the man off, so that the father might have his girl safe in his home once more—but not to send her from it again as the happy wife of a husband after his own heart. Of course, legal proceedings might be instituted; but their success might be doubtful. The whole of Amy’s conversation with her father has not been detailed; but it was clear from what she had said that the ill-treatment inflicted upon her had been carefully confined to those petty and spiteful persecutions which a cruel and cunning man is so skilful in inflicting, which cause neither wound nor bruise, elicit no cries of anguish, yet in their power of breaking, by constant repetition, the proudest spirit, are like the continual dropping which wears away the rock.

As he thought of these things, the heart of the auctioneer swelled within him with perplexity and rage. He was not a cruel or revengeful man; he was a church-goer, and would have taken it extremely ill if any one had told him that he was not a Christian. Yet he did most heartily and fervently desire that the worthless and disreputable destroyer of his happiness would take himself with all convenient speed out of the world, so that the distress and difficulty which he had originated might perish with him. ‘I wish he were dead!’ he muttered to himself—‘I wish he were dead!’ And the wish, once formed, refused to quit his mind, but presented itself again and again as an eminently desirable solution of the whole question.

But Ferrard was young and strong, and not at all likely to oblige Mr Cross by dying for some time to come; so the auctioneer rose and paced the room, forcing himself to regard the matter in another and more wholesome light. He had formed no particular plan of action for the morrow, having had in making the appointment merely a vague idea that he would endeavour in some way to arrange matters for his daughter’s happiness, if money could do it. He now told himself that, after all, Ferrard might not be so black as he was painted. He had not, perhaps, had a fair chance; he had been exposed, still young, to great temptations, and had succumbed to them. He was without a friend—a true friend—in the world, and might well be reckless and desperate. He, the auctioneer, would endeavour to make his acquaintance; he would invite him to his house; he would inquire into his affairs; he would see whether it would be possible to take him by the hand and—as he phrased it—‘make a man of him.’ There would be no harm, at anyrate, in trying to make the best of a bad job—indeed, it was the one sorry resource left. He could but fail; should he do so, then it would be time to think of other measures. What a miserable, wearing business it all was! If that wish would but come true, what a cutting of the knot it would be!

PROLONGING LIFE.

The possibility of prolonging human life has undoubtedly, from the most ancient times, afforded a fascinating and extensive field alike for the visionary and the deepest thinkers. Plans for prolonging existence have ever been amongst the principal allurements held forth by empirics and impostors; and by thus imposing upon the credulity of the public, many notorious charlatans have acquired rich harvests of ill-gotten gold. Men of science have throughout all ages devoted their attention to the subject, as one deserving of the most profound investigation. And their researches have been attended with more or less benefit to posterity. We find that Bacon himself attached so much importance to the matter that he prosecuted inquiry in that direction with the utmost assiduity. Although it would be almost impossible to review all the schemes advanced, yet a review of the most notable theories advocated for prolongation of life is certainly deserving of attention. At the same time, an elucidation of their fallacies, as occasion may arise, is of no small moment, in order to ascertain with greater certainty their true value. It is indeed interesting to observe the various and often opposite means advocated by enthusiasts for attaining the same end.

Even as far back as the Egyptian, Greek, and Roman periods, we find the idea of prolonging life prevalent. The Egyptians bestowed considerable attention to the attainment of longevity, and they believed that life could be prolonged through the efficacy of sudorifics and emetics continually used. Instead of saying, ‘How do you do?’ as an ordinary salutation, they inquired of each other, ‘How do you perspire?’ In those days, it was a general custom to take at least two emetics during each month. Hippocrates and his disciples recommended moderation in diet, friction, and well-timed exercise, which was certainly a step in the right direction.

It was during the darkness of the middle ages, ripe with fanaticism and superstition, that the most absurd ideas of witchcraft, horoscopes, chiromancy, and empirical panaceas for the prolongation of life first became disseminated. The philosopher’s stone and elixir of life were then vaunted by the alchemists. Foremost among the prolongers of life we find Paracelsus, an alchemist of great renown, and a man of considerable attainments. He claimed to have discovered the elixir of life. So great was his influence, that even the learned Erasmus did not disdain to consult him. Patients and pupils flocked around him from every quarter of Europe. Notwithstanding his famous ‘stone of immortality,’ he died at the age of fifty. His vaunted elixir was a kind of sulphur similar to compound sulphuric ether. Nevertheless, to the researches of Paracelsus we are indebted for our primary knowledge of mercury, which he was the first to use as a medicine.

About this epoch, one Leonard Thurneysser attained world-wide celebrity as an astrologer and nativity-caster. He was a physician, printer, bookseller, and horoscopist all in one. He professed that, by the aid of astrology, he could not only predict future events, but likewise prolong life. He published yearly an astrological calendar, describing the nature of the forthcoming year and its chief events. His calendar and other quackeries enabled him to amass the sum of one thousand florins. He declared that every man lay under the influence of a certain star, by which his destiny was ruled. On ascertaining from what planet a person’s misfortunes or sickness proceeded, he advised his patient to remove his residence within the control of a more propitious luminary. In short, to escape from the influence of a malignant to a more friendly satellite was the basis of his theory.

Marsilius Ficinus, in his _Treatise on the Prolongation of Life_, recommended all prudent persons to consult an astrologer every seven years, thereby to avoid any danger which might threaten them. During the year 1470, an individual named Pansa dedicated to the Council of Leipsic a book entitled _The Prolongation of Life_, in which he most strongly urges all persons desirous of longevity to be on their guard every seven years, because Saturn, a hostile planet, ruled at these periods. According to the teachings of astrology, metals were believed to be in intimate connection with the planets. Thus no doubt it was that amulets and talismans originated, as reputed agents for prolonging life. The disciples of this creed had amulets and talismans cast of the proper metal, and under the influence of certain constellations, in order to protect themselves from the evil influence of adverse planets. These absurd conceits were at a later period revived by Cagliostro, of whom we shall have more to say presently. It would indeed appear that the more mysterious and ridiculous the conceptions of fanatics and impostors were, the greater was their success.

The example of the renowned Cornaro affords a brilliant instance of the superiority of an abstemious life to the foolish doctrines put forth at that period. Up to forty years of age he was excessively intemperate both in eating and drinking, so that his health suffered considerably. He then resolved to submit himself to a strictly temperate regimen, and for the remaining sixty years of his life, which almost reached one hundred years, he continued the observance of his rules, with the result given. Although life might be prolonged by exercising greater moderation in eating and drinking than is generally adopted, yet, nevertheless, few persons could safely follow so strict a dietary.

Shortly after the death of Louis XIII. of France, who was bled forty-seven times during the last ten months of existence, a contrary method came into fashion. Transfusion was for a time relied upon as a means for invigorating and prolonging life. The operation was performed by aid of a small pipe conveying blood from the artery of one person to another. In Paris, Drs Dennis and Riva were enabled to cure a young man who had previously been treated in vain for lethargy. Further experiments not being so satisfactory, this device as a prolonger of life became discarded.

Francis Bacon held somewhat unique ideas regarding the possible prolongation of existence. He regarded life as a flame continually being consumed by the surrounding atmosphere, and he thence concluded that by retarding vital waste and renewing the bodily powers from time to time, life might be lengthened. With the object of preventing undue external vital waste, he advised cold bathing, followed by friction. Tranquillity of mind, cooling food, with the use of opiates, he advocated as the most suitable measures for lessening internal consumption. Furthermore, he proposed to renovate life periodically, first by a spare diet combined with cathartics; subsequently, through choice of a refreshing and succulent diet. With some degree of modification, there seems to be much wisdom in his views, excepting as regards the use of opiates, which are decidedly of a prejudicial nature.

Numerous charlatans have appeared, and still appear at intervals, loud in their asseverations of having discovered the veritable elixir of life—gold, tinctures, and many other nostrums with which they mendaciously promise to prolong life. The most notorious of these empirics was the Count de St Germain, who with barefaced effrontery protested that he had already existed for centuries by aid of his ‘Tea of Long Life,’ which he declared would rejuvenate mankind. On close examination, his miraculous philter was ascertained to consist of a simple infusion of sandal-wood, fennel, and senna leaves.

A great stir was created in 1785 by the occult pretensions of a fanatical physician in France named Mesmer. He vaunted the possession of extraordinary magnetic power, which enabled him forthwith, by its agency, to remove every disease and prolong life. At the king’s desire, a commission was instituted to report upon this phenomenon, in which Dr Franklin took a leading part. The only practical result of this inquiry was the discovery of animal electricity. At one time, Mesmer refused three hundred and forty thousand livres for his secret. After Dr Franklin’s investigations, Mesmer lapsed into obscurity.

Last, but not least in the foremost rank of impostors was Joseph Balsamo, alias Count de Cagliostro. This charlatan appeared just before the first French Revolution. During his remarkable career, Cagliostro made more than one fortune, which he subsequently lost, and died in prison in 1795. The distinguished Cardinal de Rohan was one of his chief dupes. Like St Germain, Balsamo boasted that he had discovered the elixir of life, and throughout Europe, found persons of all degrees eager to possess his panacea. This elixir was a very powerful stomachic, possessed of great stimulating properties, tending to augment vital sensations. It is a fixed law of nature that everything which increases the vital forces tends to abridge their duration. Concentrated and potent stimulants, which are usually the active principle of most elixirs, although for the time increasing physical strength, are in truth very prejudicial to longevity.

We will now pass on to examine other theories more worthy of attention, before we proceed to establish what at present appears to be the most certain means for promoting longevity. The plan of ‘hardening’—based upon a false supposition that by toughening the physical organs they would wear longer—obtained at one time numerous followers. When we reflect that the main principle of life depends upon the pliability of every organ, combined with free circulation, it naturally follows that rigidity must be unfriendly to longevity. Perpetual cold baths, exposure to keen air, and exhausting exercise, were advocated by the ‘hardening school.’ Like most enthusiasts, they carried their ideas to excess, a limited use of which would have been beneficial. Later on, a theory well suited to the idle and luxurious gained many adherents, namely, to retard bodily waste by a trance-like sleep. One enthusiast, Maupertuis, went so far as to propound the possibility of completely suspending vital activity. Even Dr Franklin, having observed the restoration of apparently dead flies by exposure to warmth, was struck with the feasibility of promoting long life by the agency of immobility. The misconception of this theory, from a physiological point of view, is at once self-evident, as want of exercise is simply poisonous to health. Upon a constant metamorphosis of the tissues, physical well-being must depend to a great extent. A destructive plethora would most certainly be induced by attempting ‘vital suspension.’

That celebrated sect of mystical philosophers, the Rosicrucians—famous for their profound acquaintance with natural phenomena, and the higher branches of physical, chemical, and medical science—considered that human existence might be protracted far beyond its supposed limits. They professed to retard old age by means of certain medicaments, whose action upon the system should curb the progress of natural decay. The means by which they professed to check senile decrepitude, were, like other mysteries of their fraternity, never revealed. The celebrated English Rosicrucian Dr Fludd, whose writings became famous, is said to have lived a century.

The principal disadvantage of the various plans which have been set forth for promoting longevity appears to be that they are all deficient in this important respect—that they only regard _one object, and neglect the rest_. However beneficial any theory may prove, it must be materially inadequate in fulfilling its purpose, should numerous other matters of the greatest importance bearing upon the human economy be ignored. Hufeland, in his luminous work _The Art of Prolonging Life_, is of opinion that the real art of longevity consists in cultivating those agents which protract existence, and by avoiding all circumstances tending to shorten its duration. This is undoubtedly the most reasonable method for obtaining the end in view. Moderation in all things (avoiding as far as possible every morbific condition), and open air exercise, are far more reliable means of prolonging life than any of the elixirs and panaceas ever advocated. Finally, health and longevity can only be attained by an intimate acquaintance with and obedience to those natural laws which govern our physical economy.

A GENTLEMAN OF THE ROAD.

Many years ago, or, as children’s stories say, ‘once upon a time,’ when Bath was in all its glory, and Beau Nash reigned as its king, two ladies were journeying towards that fashionable town in a postchaise. Why two middle-aged ladies should in those unsafe times have undertaken a journey without any male escort, I cannot say; the result proved that they were very ill advised in doing so. It was broad daylight, and not very far from Bath, when the postboy suddenly pulled up the horses, and the chaise-door was thrown open from without with the usual stern command: ‘Your money, or your life!’

I need hardly say anything as to the state of terror into which the ladies immediately fell; no doubt they screamed, in spite of the uselessness of such a proceeding; but it is not upon record that they fainted. On the contrary, the one nearest to the door submissively handed her watch, purse, trinkets, &c., to the masked highwayman; and the other, a Mrs C., was hastily preparing to get rid of her valuables in the same way, when the robber turned to remount his horse, as though he had overlooked the second occupant of the carriage.

Such an unbusiness-like proceeding certainly did not bespeak him an accomplished ‘gentleman of the road;’ for in those days the search for valuables was usually conducted in a thorough and energetic manner, often accompanied with more or less violence, especially if the searcher had reason to suspect that the notes were ‘sham Abrams,’ or the watches from the manufactory of Mr Pinchbeck.

By the way, do any of the present generation know the term of ‘Pinchbeck’ for sham-gold? and if any of them do, are they aware how the term arose? To meet violence with craft, the travellers of those days provided themselves very frequently with false bank-notes and imitation gold watches, to be given up as booty, while the genuine articles were carefully hidden; and a Mr Pinchbeck started a manufactory of these watches. But the ‘gentlemen of the road’ soon got up to this trick, and to prevent such mistakes, they insisted on their victims taking solemn oaths as to the notes being those genuinely signed by ‘Abraham Newland,’ the cashier of the Bank of England; and also that the watches had not been supplied by Mr Pinchbeck.

What passed through Mrs C.’s mind as the highwayman turned away with only half his spoil, it is impossible to say. Perhaps it occurred to her that he might find out his mistake, come back, and take vengeance on them for their involuntary deception. Or perhaps she never thought at all, but acted on a terror-struck impulse. I do not suppose that she herself ever knew _why_ she acted as she did, but she actually called to the highwayman to come back!

‘Stop, stop!’ she cried; ‘you have not got my watch and purse!’

The ‘gentleman of the road’ came back again to the chaise-door, and held out his hand for the watch and purse which Mrs C. seemed so anxious to get rid of. But that watch and purse had unknowingly been the bait of something very like a trap; at anyrate, the turning back was a fatal move, for as the robber turned quickly to relieve Mrs C. of her valuables, the quick movement of his head, or a passing puff of wind, blew aside his crape-mask for a moment, and Mrs C. saw his face distinctly.

When the ladies arrived at Bath, they were condoled with by their friends on their fright and their loss; and no doubt Mrs C. had to stand a good deal of joking about her kindly calling the highwayman back to take her own watch and purse. But such occurrences were too common for the condolences to be deep or long continued, or to cause interference on the part of any one whose duty it might have been to attend to the peace and safety of the public; and the ‘nine days’ wonder’—if it continued so long—certainly did not last any longer.

I am inclined to think, however, that Mrs C. kept her own counsel as to one result of that calling back, and told no one of her having seen the robber’s face unmasked.

Some weeks had passed away, when one evening Mrs C. was at the Assembly Rooms, together with all ‘the rank and fashion’ of Bath. She was talking to a friend, a gentleman named Mr M., and at the same time surveying the ladies and gentlemen who frequented the Assembly, when she suddenly exclaimed: ‘There’s the man who robbed me!’

‘Where?’ asked Mr M., in great astonishment.

Mrs C. pointed to a fashionably dressed young man who was talking to some of the company.

‘My dear Mrs C.,’ said Mr M., ‘pray, be more careful. You really must not bring such an accusation as this against that gentleman. Why, he is young H., son of Mr H. of ——, a very wealthy and well-known man; and young H. is in all the best company. I know him well as a friend.’ This was said in a joking manner, as Mr M. thought that Mrs C. was making an absurd mistake, deceived perhaps by some slight, or even fancied, resemblance.

But Mrs C. said seriously: ‘I do not care who he is, or what his father is, or even as to his being a friend of yours. That is the man who robbed me! I am quite certain about him, for when he turned back to take my purse and watch, his crape-mask blew aside, and I distinctly saw his face. I remember it perfectly.’

Mr M. again tried to persuade her that she was mistaken; but to no purpose. Still trying to make a joke of her supposed extraordinary delusion, he said to Mrs C.: ‘I will bring him here, and introduce him to you, and then see if you will still assert he is a highwayman!’ Before she could decline the introduction, Mr M. crossed the room to where the young man was standing, and said with a smile: ‘Here’s a joke, H. That lady over there declares you are a highwayman, and that you are the man who robbed her a few weeks since! Come and be introduced to her.’

But young H. did not take the joke as his friend meant it; on the contrary, he answered in rather an ill-tempered manner: ‘I do not want to be introduced to the old fool!’

‘Well,’ said Mr M., ‘you need not have taken it in that way, and lost your temper about such a trifle. Of course I was only in fun. I thought you would have enjoyed the joke, and tried to persuade her that you were an honest man, and not a gentleman of the road. Pray, do not be offended.’ So saying, Mr M. returned to Mrs C., and reported that the young gentleman had taken the joke in ill part, and refused to be introduced to her.

Once more Mrs C. declared it was neither a joke nor a mistake, but that in serious fact young H. was the highwayman whom she had called back to take her watch and purse. The subject was then allowed to drop; and after a little conversation on other matters, Mr M. took his leave of Mrs C., with the intention of smoothing the matter over with his friend H., as he did not want their friendship to be interrupted, and he had clearly seen that Mr H. was much annoyed. With this friendly intention he looked about in the Assembly Rooms for young Mr H., but without success. He then inquired of some mutual friends, and was told that young Mr H. had left the Rooms almost directly after he, Mr M., had last spoken to him, and had seemed much annoyed and disturbed.

This account made Mr M. all the more anxious to find his friend and put the matter right with him. Leaving the Rooms, Mr M. looked in at their club, and at two or three other places where he thought it likely he might find Mr H. But his search was unsuccessful; and he had to go home without seeing his friend, comforting himself with the thought that he would next day call on Mr H. at his father’s house, where he lived.

But next day young H. was not at his father’s; nor indeed did he ever again appear in Bath. When he left the Assembly Rooms, he returned home, changed his dress, and at once left Bath, and—it was supposed—left England also at the earliest opportunity.

Of the grief and agony of his father and of his family, I will not speak; it can easily be imagined what distress and shame they suffered.

Mr H., the father, was a wealthy man, of good position and family; but the young man, an only son, brought up to no profession, but only to inherit his father’s riches, had fallen, probably from sheer want of employment, into bad company, had played for very high stakes—lost—played again—exhausted his father’s patience in paying his debts, and at last had ‘taken to the road’ to replenish his purse—a not very uncommon proceeding in those days—while at the same time keeping his place in society.

From his unbusiness-like haste and want of looking after the whole of the booty, in the case of Mrs C. and her friend, it is to be presumed that he had only lately adopted the practice of—as it was politely called—‘collecting his rents on the road,’ even if it was not his first attempt. How long, however, he might have continued the ‘collection,’ but for the accident of the mask having been blown aside, is another question.

If this were fiction, I might enlarge on young H.’s future career in another land. I might, on the one hand, make him go from bad to worse, and end his career by murder and a murderer’s death. Or, on the other hand, I might depict him as leading a new life in a new country, and eventually returning to England, to the joy and comfort of his family, and worthily inheriting his father’s wealth and position. I might even describe his penitent introduction to Mrs C., and his deep gratitude to her for checking him in his downward career; and still further might end the romance by his falling in love with, and marrying Mrs C.’s daughter. But romance is denied to me, for the story is not fiction, but fact in all its details. Mrs C. was an ancestress of the writer’s, and the story has been handed down in the family.

Being, therefore, obliged to keep to facts, I am compelled to admit that I know nothing as to young H.’s after-life; so I must close my true history by supposing that he was never again heard of in his native country for good or evil, after his detection by Mrs C. as ‘a gentleman of the road.’

AN ANCIENT PEOPLE.

There is no lack of literature about Cornwall. Hardly any other county in England finds so many to write about it. It is a favourite with novelists as a place in which to give their imaginary characters ‘a local habitation and a name;’ and Tre, Pol, and Pen abound in their pages. Every year there is a crop of articles about it in the newspapers and magazines for the benefit of those who choose it for the scene of their autumn rambles, or who wish to renew their recollection of its rocky headlands, washed by the deep-blue Atlantic waves, its sheltered coves, its glorious sunsets, and its wealth of ferns and rare birds and flowers. In nine cases out of ten, it is of the Land’s End and its neighbourhood that people thus write; indeed, in the minds of many at a distance, the Land’s End _is_ Cornwall, much as the Fens are popularly supposed to be Lincolnshire. But there is much that is interesting about the county and its people which only those who live in Cornwall are likely to observe. It is not as other counties, and the Cornish are not as other folk who live ‘up the country’—the local name for all beyond the Tamar. They have peculiarities of custom and of speech, not to be accounted for merely by the fact that they are far away from the great centres of national life, and are, as it were, living in the day before yesterday. They are of a distinct race, the kindred of the Welsh, the Irish, and the Bretons, but a race whose language has perished, save in the names of places and people; and the tongue they speak is not the English of to-day, but, with a mixture of Celtic idiom, the English of two centuries ago, the English of our translation of the Bible. Cornwall is emphatically an ancient county, and there is an unmistakably old-world flavour about everything that belongs to it.

One thing which particularly strikes any one who converses much with the labouring classes is, that they speak much more grammatically than their compeers usually do. There are the peculiar idioms which we have just mentioned; but apart from these, the language is rather that of educated people than what one usually hears in other counties. This arises from the fact that English was scarcely introduced into Cornwall until the Elizabethan age, and that when it was introduced it was by the upper classes. The rest, who used Cornish for their intercourse with each other, learned English as a foreign tongue, and learned the refined form of it. That form it still retains; and hence, quaint and odd as it is when used in the Cornish way, from the lips of these western folk it is never vulgar. We are not well enough read in the mysteries of the ancient tongue to know the reason for the singular use of the personal pronouns, but certain it is that they seem to have a rooted antipathy to the objective case. ‘Tell it to she,’ ‘Bring he to I,’ and ‘This is for we,’ are the universal forms. Then the preposition ‘to’ is always used instead of ‘at,’ as, ‘I live to Bodmin.’ In Cornwall, too, people are never surprised, but ‘frightened’ or ‘hurried;’ never in a bad temper, but in a ‘poor’ one; and the very eggs and milk, if kept too long, go ‘poor.’ When they live beyond their means, they ‘go scat;’ and if they are not too particular as to honourable dealing, they ‘furneague.’

But in spite of these peculiarities, one hears the ring of good old English speech, such as nowadays we may look for vainly elsewhere, save in the pages of the Bible. Girls are spoken of as the maids or the maidens, and when they leave the house, they ‘go forth.’ ‘Come forth, my son,’ is an invitation one often hears, occasionally even when ‘my son’ turns out to be a horse or a dog. And if we wish to know the name of any little boy whom we may meet, the best chance of getting an intelligible answer is to put the question in the form of, ‘How are you called, my son?’

In things that meet the eye, too, we seem to have come into an older world in Cornwall. There are the old-fashioned earthen or ‘clomb’ pitchers, of exactly the pattern we see in the pictures of old Bibles in the hands of Rebekah or Zipporah; though we cannot say we ever saw one balanced upon the top of a woman’s head. Till very lately, oxen were still used to draw the plough; and to this day, in the country districts, kitchen stoves, and indeed coal-fires of any sort, are hardly known. The fuel is commonly dried furze, which is burned either in an earthen oven or on a wide open hearth. It is thrown on piece by piece with a pitchfork, till the iron plate on which the baking is to be done is considered hot enough; then the plate is swept clean, and the cakes—biscuits, as they are termed—or pasties having been ranged in order upon it, an iron vessel shaped somewhat like a flower-pot is turned over them, the furze is again piled on, and a large heap of glowing embers raked over all. No further attention is paid to the cooking; but when the embers are cold, the things are done. And those pasties, what wonderful productions they are to the uninitiated; there appears to be scarcely any article of food that does not find its way into them. Parsley pasties, turnip pasties (very good these are, too), ‘licky,’ that is, _leek_ pasties, pasties of conger-eel, of potatoes and bacon, of all kinds of meat and of all kinds of fruit, the variety is endless.

In the old days, the Cornish were great smugglers. Indeed, the natural features of the coast are such, that they would have been almost more than human if they were not. Even when it did not pay very well, the love of adventure enlisted the whole population in its favour. The farmers who did not themselves help to run a cargo on a moonless night, would, when the riders—the coastguard—were out of the way, lend their horses to those who did, so that long before daylight the kegs were all carried off far inland, or stowed away in the hiding-holes which nearly every house possessed. A darker page of Cornish history is that of the days of wrecking. Terrible sights have some of those pitiless beaches witnessed, when the doomed vessel was lured on by false lights to be the prey of men more pitiless still. At St Eval, between Padstow and Newquay, a lame horse used to be led on stormy nights along the cliffs with a lantern fixed on its head; and many a craft, supposing it to be the light of a ship riding at anchor, was then steered by her luckless crew straight into the very jaws of death. Wrecks were looked upon as a legitimate harvest of the sea, even as things to be prayed for, like a shoal of pilchards or a lode of tin. The remains of that feeling are not extinct even yet. A few years ago, a vessel laden with Manchester goods was wrecked on the north coast. Her name was the _Good Samaritan_. Of course such of her cargo as was saved was supposed to be handed over to the coastguard, according to law; but a good deal of flotsam and jetsam was quietly appropriated notwithstanding, the fortunate finders never dreaming that there could be anything morally wrong in such acquisitions, though they might not be strictly legal. Some months afterwards, a lady of the neighbourhood was visiting the cottagers and asking them how they had got through the hard winter that was just over; and she was told by one of the simple folk that times had been bad indeed, that work had been slack and wages low, and that it had been a severe struggle to keep a home together. ‘And indeed I don’t know what we should have done, if the Lord hadn’t sent us the _Good Samaritan_!’

It is reported of a worthy old parson on the west coast at the end of the last century, when wrecks were considered as godsends, and it was an article of faith that the owners of a ship lost all title to their property the moment her keel touched ground, that in the long extempore prayer which, in defiance of the rubrics, was then generally indulged in before the sermon, he was accustomed, as the winter drew on, to introduce a reference to this grim ocean harvest, in some such style as this: ‘Lord, we do not pray for wrecks; but since there _must_ be some, grant, we beseech Thee, that they may be on our beach.’ Perhaps this was the divine who was in the middle of his sermon when the news reached the church that a vessel had just struck and was going to pieces in the bay, and who instantly concluded with the benediction, and left his surplice in the pulpit, so that he and his congregation might start fair upon the shore. Yet eager as was the rivalry for what could be snatched from the sea, there was no pilfering from any man’s heap. To this day, you have but to put a stone upon anything you find upon the beach, in token that it has been ‘saved,’ and you may leave it in perfect safety, for no Cornishman will take it then. If, on your return, you find it gone, you may be sure that some less scrupulous ‘up-country people’ have been by that way.

As to the ferns, every botanist knows the green treasures of this western land. Indeed, we wish he did not know quite so well; for though men of science may be trusted to pursue their researches without wanton destruction of the beauties of nature, it is too often far otherwise with the tourist. It is not only ’Arry who is to blame in this matter; those from whom one might expect more consideration for the feelings and the rights of others are not seldom the greatest sinners of all. Only last summer, a young man actually stripped two large hamperfuls of the beautiful sea-fern (_Asplenium marinum_) from the roof of a cave, utterly ruining its beauty for several years to come. There were plenty of specimens to be had elsewhere upon the cliffs for the climbing; but he must needs get a ladder and take fifty times as many as he could possibly want, just where it most grieved the inhabitants of the neighbourhood to lose them. But we fear our righteous indignation at the iniquities of the tourist will run away with us—how he ruthlessly exterminates rare ferns; how he comes into churches where service is going on, and walks about and stares around him; how he strews scenes of natural loveliness with his sandwich papers and his broken bottles; how he thinks to add interest to the rocks and cliffs by inscribing his name and the date of his visit upon their face. It is his mission, we suppose, to ‘vulgarise creation.’ But Cornwall will take a great deal of spoiling yet, and so will its people and its language, menaced as this last is by the penny paper and the Board School. And those who like a peep into a world which, in spite of railways and telegraphs and newspapers and nineteenth-century ideas, is still an old world, and full of old and quaint and beautiful things, will find enough in Cornwall to occupy them, as a Cornishman would say, for a ‘brave little bit of time.’

THE NET OF MARRIAGE.

The Rev. Harry Jones, writing in the _Sunday at Home_, says: ‘Some people, especially if they marry young and on the impulse of some taking fancy, without a due consideration of the very grave nature of the state they are entering, discover afterwards that his or her mate does not come up to the expectations which had been formed. The light and laughing love of the marriage and the early periods of married life are succeeded by a sense of disappointment. Then comes domestic indifference, perhaps recrimination. Both man and wife are deceived, and undeceived. Unintentionally perhaps, but really. Both feel, as it were, entangled. They have married in haste, and repent too often, not at leisure, but with mutual bitterness and ill-concealed unconcern for one another. Each generally thinks the other most to blame. And I do not believe that I am overstepping the limits of appropriate language when I say that the idea of being caught in a net represents their secret convictions. Here is a disastrous state of affairs. In this country, such a net cannot be easily broken. The pair have married for worse, in a more serious sense than these words are intended to bear in the marriage vows. What is to be done? I should very imperfectly express my advice if I simply said, “Make the best of it.” For though this is a rude rendering of the advice needed, much might be said to show how this can be done after a Christian way.... It is a great Christian rule that, to be loved, we must show kindness and consideration, and not expect to receive what we do not grant ourselves. “Give,” says Christ, “and it shall be given unto you. Judge not, and you shall not be judged. Condemn not, and you shall not be condemned.” And if this applies anywhere, it applies most in the case of those who are in the close relationship of husband and wife. Clouds sometimes come over the married life because too much consideration is expected. Show it, I would say, rather than demand it, if it has seemed to come short. Do not think to mend matters by a half-grudging endurance, but ask God to give His sacred help to the keeping of the rule “bear and forbear.” So may a hasty marriage, the beauty of which has been spoilt by some misunderstandings, ripen into the true affection which should mark this holy estate, and the cloud of disappointment give place to a love which rests upon no passing fancy, but upon an honest Christian observance between man and wife of the vow betwixt them made. So may the miserable afterthought of having been entangled in a relationship be blotted out, and succeeded, as years go on, by a love cemented with the desire to do right before God, in whose presence, and with prayer for whose blessing, the relationship was begun.’

TRIFLES.

An August day
Now passed away
For ever;
A sunny smile,
A little while
Together.

Two eyes so bright,
Still by their light
I’m haunted;
A small soft hand,
A fairy wand
Enchanted.

A mossy seat,
So cool, and sweet,
And pleasant;
Who could despond,
Or look beyond
That present?

A river cool,
A deep, dark pool,
Still waters;
A word of love
To fairest of
Eve’s daughters.

A shady walk,
A little talk,
And laughter;
So days may go,
But grief and woe
Come after.

Sweet August day,
So far away
Departed;
You left me gay,
I’m now for aye
Sad-hearted.

NORA C. USHER.

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