Chapter II: Part 2

‘I’d been working all that season at a Claim—a new un then, but worked out and forgotten now—which we used to call Cherokee Dick’s, because a Cherokee Injun first showed us the place. There was perhaps a dozen of us all told; but I chummed and worked from the first along with a chap they called the “Flying Dutchman.” When we had been together a goodish bit, he told me his real name was Cornelius Vermudyn; and I acquainted him with mine and where I hailed from. He was a Dutchman, sure enough, but had travelled half over the world, I used to think from his talk; and he could speak as good English as you or me—or any here.’

A dubious smile hovered for an instant on Gentleman Jack’s lips at this naïve statement, but nobody observed him; they were all intent on Old Grizzly and his yarn, and that worthy continued: ‘We began to find our Claim about cleaned out, and we—that’s me and Vermudyn—reckoned to make tracks before the winter, and get down ’Frisco-way. Well, we each had a good horse and a nice bit of gold, and we was sworn mates—come what might—so we started, riding as far as we could by day and camping out at night, if we weren’t able to reach a settlement or diggings by nightfall.

‘On this night, it seemed as if we’d no luck from the beginning. We lost our way for a goodish bit, and were some time finding the track again; after that, night seemed to come on us suddenly like. We’d rode and rode that day without ever a sign of man or beast, and when we came to this place, Vermudyn says: “This must be the famous Devil’s Panniken, old boy.” I had been almost falling asleep on my horse’s neck; but I woke with a start, and answered all in a hurry: “Of course it is.” It seemed somehow as if I knew that place well, and I began to ride on quickly.

“Stop!” hollered Vermudyn, “unless you want to lame your horse or break his knees among those rocks.” As he came up with me, he put his hand on my arm, and I drew rein.

“Anyhow,” I said, “let’s get out of this, and then we’ll camp for the night. I’m as tired as a dog, and can hardly stick in my saddle.”

“Why not camp here?” says Vermudyn with a laugh. “Who’s afraid?”

“I’m not—if that’s what you mean,” I answered; “but I’d rather camp outside.”

“A good two miles of bad riding,” said he quietly. “Why shouldn’t we content ourselves with a snug corner of the rocks, where we can shelter from the wind? As far as I can make out, there’s brush and litter enough for a fire, and we’ve got a bait for our horses.”

‘While he talked and argued, I grew more and more tired, exactly as if I had ridden a hundred miles without drawing rein. It seemed then as if I didn’t care what came next, so long as I could roll myself up in my blanket and snooze, so I answered short enough: “Have your own way. The place is ours, I reckon, as much as it is other folk’s.”

“The pixies and demons, you mean,” laughed Vermudyn. “I know all the miners’ tales! Never fear. I dare wager we shall see nothing worse than ourselves, if we stop for a month of Sundays.—Did you ever hear,” he went on, “of the White Witch of the Panniken? She should meet us hereabouts, if all tales be true. She waits for lonely travellers, and shows them gold in the rock where gold never was in daylight; and if a man is tempted, for the gold’s sake or hers, to spend the night with her, he’s never seen or heard of in this world again. She feasts him with the sight of big nuggets and her own beauty, while she sucks his heart’s blood like the vampyre; and when his body is drained to the last drop, he is flung aside among the rocks or dropped in some dark gully; and she comes back to watch the road for a fresh prey.”

“I’ve heard of the White Witch many a time; but I never knew the rights of the story until to-night,” said I. “But witch or no witch, we’ll have to stop; the road grows harder, and my horse seems to stumble at every step. It’s so dark, too, I can hardly see my hand before my face; yet it seemed almost daylight when we rode into the gorge.”

“The pair of us will be too many for the White Witch, anyhow,” said Vermudyn. “Too much human society don’t agree with her ghostly constitution.”

‘We had stopped together, and I was just going to get off my horse, when Vermudyn sang out in a hurry: “I see a light!—there to the left. Let’s ride up. We may find a party forced to camp out like ourselves; or they may be Injuns; and any company is better than none to-night.”

“Right enough,” says I, rubbing my eyes. “There is a light, and a pretty strong one too; a steady light, mate, and not a Will-o’-the-wisp. I never heard before of white man or Injun daring to camp in the Devil’s Panniken.”

“Well, we must go up quietly till we can see our company,” said my mate. “We don’t want to drop on a gang of freebooters, who’ll ease us of the dust, and then leave us with a bullet through our heads, as a parting gift.”

‘After this, we rode forward in silence for what seemed a quarter of a mile; but we went at a foot’s pace, on account of picking our way among the rocks that lay thick in the road. Then, as we turned a sharp corner, we saw all at once that the light came not from a camp-fire, but from a house!

“Well,” says I, “in all the years I’ve worked in these parts, man and boy, and tramped from claim to claim, I’ve never heard that there was hut or shanty in this place.”

“Nor I neither,” returns Vermudyn; “but perhaps it’s a new spec; though what folks could want with a house where there’s neither gold to find nor land to farm is more than I can tell. We may thank our luck we’ve tumbled across it.”

‘He jumped off his horse as we drew rein at the door of the queerest old house I ever saw. It was a tumble-down sort of a place, half-stone, half-wood; and the woodwork was fast going to decay, though we could see plainly enough that time and money had once been spent over it. The stone was pretty rough; but the house was all pointed gable-ends and queer-shaped long windows. The high-peaked overhanging roof and the diamond panes reminded me of houses I’d seen in England when I was a young un. The pointed gables were faced with carved oak; and heavy oaken beams, black with age, formed the framework of the upper stories; while the spaces between were roughcast with shingle and plaster. The wickedest old faces were grinning and leering at us from the carvings above the windows; and we could see the whole place, every stick and stone about it, as plain as daylight. We had been riding in darkness through the Devil’s Panniken, a darkness that grew blacker as we went on; and the light from this house fairly dazed us at first. Every window flamed as though there were jolly fires in each room, and hundreds of candles. The place seemed all aflame inside and out; the walls were as bright as if the moon was shining her clearest and strongest full on the house; yet,’ said Old Grizzly, dropping his voice impressively, ‘there was no moon at all that night! We stopped and looked at one another in wonder, and then stared at the house again. We could hear sounds inside now quite plain, men’s voices, and women’s too. Ugly sounds besides, that I couldn’t understand; such howling and shrieking as though all Bedlam were let loose inside—wailing like some creature in pain, and roars of mocking laughter. I turned deadly cold, and shivered as if it were midwinter.

“For mercy’s sake, let’s get away from this madhouse—if it’s not something worse!” said I. “All’s not right here; and I’d go afoot all night before I’d rest in that place.”

“Nonsense!” returned Vermudyn in his impetuous way. “I’m going in, anyhow; and you’ll stop to see fair-play, I know.”

‘The upshot of it was he seized my arm and led me into the house; while a gipsy-looking fellow came out for our horses, after we’d unloaded our knapsacks and blankets. My gold was sewed in a belt round my body, and I determined to fight hard for dear life, if need be; whilst I was equally determined to see Vermudyn through the night’s adventure, as far as it lay in my power.

‘If the outside of the house was strange to us, the inside was still stranger. The furniture appeared to be hundreds of years old. The presses, chairs, and tables were all of polished black oak, which reflected the light of many candles; while a big fire roared in the open fireplace, near which a table was laid for supper, and everything on it matched all we’d already seen. There were drinking-horns mounted in silver; cups of the same; such a load of plate as I’d never seen in my life, and such as, I was pretty certain, belonged to no country inn in a wild district where the only travellers were miners, and the only natives Injuns. On the top of a carved press in one corner there was a fine show of bottles—long-necked, slender flasks, crusted over with age and cobwebs; and short squat bottles, that held hollands and Kirschwasser, Vermudyn told me.

‘Well, while we took stock of the room and its contents, there wasn’t a soul to be seen, yet the noise and hubbub continued still all around us; the clatter of a hundred voices rising and falling far and near like the wind. Laughter, screams, and low moans all together, or following each other quickly. The longer I listened, the less I liked it; yet, as I sat in a corner of the big chimney, I seemed to grow drowsy and stupid-like, as if I had no power of my limbs or my voice. I think I couldn’t have walked a dozen steps for a thousand pounds; yet I could still hear and see all, through a light mist that fell betwixt me and everything I looked at.

‘Vermudyn didn’t appear afraid or surprised in the least; and the spell—I can call it nothing else—that was over me had no effect on him. He stood in front of the fire, warming his hands, and looking round him quite gaily, and pleased with all he saw.

“Wake up, mate!” he called to me; “we’ve fallen in luck’s way this time, surely. You’ve no cause to fear. It seems to me that I must have been here a score of times before, I know the place so well; and yet”—he stopped for a minute and put his hand over his eyes—“and yet—it can’t be!—I know it. That press,” he went on, “should hold the green suit.” And stepping across the room, he opened a worm-eaten cupboard in the far corner, and took out a suit of faded green velvet, the cut of which reminded me of old pictures I’d seen at home; and when Vermudyn took them out and looked them over carefully, the whole thing struck me so absurdly, that I began to laugh like a maniac, though still I had no power to speak. I wanted to tell him he would look like a tumbling mountebank at a fair, if he rigged himself out in the velvet suit; but I only laughed and nodded at him silently from the chimney corner, like some drivelling old dotard.

‘However, he didn’t put it on, but, as if struck suddenly by another thought, threw it aside, and opened a cupboard near the fireplace. He smiled again. “I knew it was here,” he said softly, as he returned to the fire, and stooping down, held something to the light. It was a little box of carved ivory, yellow with age, and strangely shaped; but Vermudyn seemed as familiar with it as he was with the rest of the wonders in that house, for he pressed a spring, and the lid flew up, disclosing a sparkling chain made like a snake, with shining scales of beaten gold that glittered in the flickering firelight.

‘While Vermudyn was still looking at its twisted coils and muttering to himself, the door opened, and a troop of figures crowded into the room.’

IS THE SEASHORE FREE TO ALL?

To the ordinary visitor to the seacoast this question may seem unnecessary. To him it probably appears, if he ever gives the matter a thought, that the shore is free and open to everybody; and that no one person really has any more rights over it than another. If he were told that he was no more entitled to walk or be driven across the beach for the purpose of obtaining his morning dip in the sea than he was to cross the park of a private gentleman and bathe in his lake without permission, he would probably refuse all credence to the statement. If he were further told that when he picked up a shell off the sands and walked away with it, he was guilty of an unlawful act, his mental attitude would most likely be one of indignation, and in most cases his belief in his own indisputable right to be where he was, and to enjoy himself as seemed best to him, provided that he did not interfere with the comfort of his neighbours, would be in no way shaken.

It is the object of what follows to show how little ground there is for this belief. To begin with, a brief definition of the shore will be useful. Strictly speaking, it is that portion of the land adjacent to the sea which is alternately covered and uncovered by the ordinary flow and ebb of the tides. The fringe of rock, sand, or shingle, which is to be found on most parts of the English coast, and which is never under water except at the highest spring-tides, does not form a part of the ‘shore,’ though it is commonly spoken of as such; and the law only recognises as shore that portion of the coast which lies between the ordinary high and low water marks. All that portion of it which lies nearer to the land than the ordinary high-water mark is part of the _terra firma_, and, as such, is subject to the usual rights of ownership. This technical ‘shore’ throughout the coasts of England belongs, except as is mentioned afterwards, to the Crown. As is well known, the theory of the law is that the whole soil of England belonged originally to the sovereign, by whom it has, in process of time, been almost entirely granted to subjects. Some of our sovereigns have also occasionally exercised their rights of ownership in the seashore by making grants of it, in company with the adjoining _terra firma_; so that there are cases in which the shore, as well as the adjacent _terra firma_, is subject to private ownership.

So much by way of definition and explanation. Let us now briefly consider what rights the ordinary subject has to the use and enjoyment of the seashore. We will begin by considering his right to use it as a means of access to the sea for the purpose of bathing. The first time this question was raised in a court of justice in England was in the case of Blundell against Caterall, which was tried in the year 1821. If the reader will look at a map of England, he will find marked on the coast of Lancashire, a few miles north of Liverpool, the town of Great Crosby. In the year 1815 an hotel was built there. Before that time, people who lived at Great Crosby had bathed on the beach, but they had done so in a simple and primitive manner; they undressed themselves in some convenient spot, and then walked over the sands into the sea. When the hotel was built, the proprietor thought that it would be for the comfort of his guests and his own profit if a more convenient means of bathing were provided; and so he had built a number of ‘machines’ of the well-known type. Caterall was one of the hotel proprietor’s servants, and was employed by him to drive these machines into the sea. The plaintiff, Mr Blundell, was lord of the manor of Great Crosby, and he claimed that the shore there had been specially granted to him, and formed part of his manor. This grant of the shore was not proved, but it was not questioned by the counsel who appeared for Caterall, and so was taken for granted. The contention of Caterall’s counsel was what would probably be in accordance with the views of most people on the subject. He argued that there was a common-law right for all the king’s subjects to bathe on the seashore, and to pass over it for that purpose on foot or with horses and carriages.

The case was fully discussed and long judgments were delivered by the four judges before whom it was tried. The result was that it was decided by three judges against one that no such general right in the subject to frequent the shore for the purpose of bathing existed, whether on foot or in carriages. The dissenting judge, who seems to have taken a broad and common-sense view of the matter, based his judgment on the general grounds of the sea being the great highway of the world; of the importance of a free access to it; and of the necessity of a right to bathe in it, as essential to the health of so many persons. ‘It was clear,’ he said, ‘that persons had bathed in the sea from the earliest times, and that they had been accustomed to walk or ride on the sands.... The shore of the sea is admitted to have been at one time the property of the king, and from the general nature of the property, it could never be used for exclusive occupation. It was holden by the king, like the sea and highways, for all his subjects.’ Unfortunately for the subjects, however, the other three judges, and consequently the majority of the court, were convinced by the arguments of the counsel who opposed the claim to the right of bathing. This opposition was based on three grounds. ‘First,’ said Mr Blundell’s counsel, ‘there is no evidence to be found in any of the legal authorities for the existence of any such right; they are completely silent upon the matter. Secondly, such a right is contrary to analogies. Thirdly, such a right is contrary to acknowledged and established rights.’

The first and third of these arguments seem to have chiefly influenced the judges in coming to their decision. This decision, which must be taken as ruling the matter, up to the present time at anyrate, declares, as has been stated, that the subject has no right to pass over the shore for the purpose of bathing. The actual right to bathe in the sea does not seem to have been disputed; what was settled was, that a man has no right to pass over the shore in order to reach the sea. If any one chooses to take ship from Ireland to within a few yards of the Lancashire coast, and then bathe from the deck, there is nothing in the decision in the case of Blundell against Caterall to show that he would in any way be going beyond his strict legal rights. Such a course would, however, be inconvenient—and decidedly expensive.

Of course, when the shore remains undisputedly in the possession of the Crown, no interference with the subject’s privilege of bathing, under fitting conditions, is to be apprehended. The decision in Blundell _v._ Caterall, however, shows that where a portion of the shore has been made the subject of a grant, there is nothing to hinder the person in whose favour the grant has been made from entirely preventing it from being used for the purpose of bathing, or from allowing it to be so used only on payment of any tax he may choose to demand. It is scarcely necessary to say that no such claim on the part of a private subject to such property in the shore, carrying with it, as it does, the right to tax, or even prevent altogether, sea-bathing, should be allowed without the strictest possible examination of it. Whether a man is possessed of the shore will entirely depend upon the exact words used to describe the boundaries of the land granted to him. If the deed of grant describes the land to be granted ‘down to the sea,’ or if any similar words be used, such grant would not include the shore; for it, as we have said, is what lies between high-water and low-water marks; and ‘down to the sea’ would be taken to mean down to the ordinary high-water mark, and so would just fall short of the ‘shore.’ If, on the other hand, it should be distinctly stated that the land is granted down to low-water mark, or to any definite distance out to sea, which would include the low-water mark, then undoubtedly the shore, with its attached rights, has been granted. Because it has been held judicially that the subject has no right to use the shore as a means of access to the sea for the purpose of bathing, it must not, however, be inferred that he has no right to be there at all. From time immemorial it has been recognised that the ownership by the Crown of the sea-shore is limited by a common-law right on the part of the subject to pass over it to reach the sea, for the purposes of fishing and navigation; and as the Crown cannot transfer to other persons more than it possesses itself, these rights of the general public still exist when the shore has passed into private hands.

The right of bathing is not the only right which most people are apt to take for granted which has been disputed, and disputed successfully, in the courts. How many people know that when they pick up a shell or a piece of seaweed and take it home with them, they are rendering themselves liable to an action? Yet it is so, as what follows will show. In the year 1801, one Bagott was the owner of a certain manor in the parish of Keysham, and this manor included—or at anyrate, Bagott claimed that it did, and his claim was not disputed—a portion of the seashore. In cases such as those here cited, there seems to have been far too great readiness to admit claims to the shore. It appears that on this part of the coast shellfish were found in great numbers, and it was the custom of the people in the neighbourhood to take them for the purpose of selling them, or using them as food. Amongst those who did so was a man called Orr. He employed other men to help him, and took away great quantities of the shellfish in carts, and seems, by the magnitude of his operations, to have exhausted Bagott’s patience. At anyrate, Bagott commenced an action against him, alleging that he (Orr) had entered certain closes of his (Bagott’s) ‘lying between the flux and reflux of the tides of the sea, in the plaintiff’s manor of Keysham, and the said shellfish and fish-shells there found, caught, took, and carried away, and converted, and disposed thereof, when the said closes were left dry and were not covered with water.’ To this Orr urged in defence, that what the plaintiff called his closes were, as a matter of fact, rocks and sand of the sea, lying within the flux and reflux of the tides of the sea, and that the shellfish and fish-shells which he had taken away were ‘certain shellfish and fish-shells which were in and upon the said rocks and sands of the sea, and which were, by the ebbing of the tides of the sea, left there in and upon the said closes; and that every subject of this realm of right had the liberty and privilege of getting, taking, and carrying away the shellfish and fish-shells left by the said ebbing of the sea.’ The judgment of the court, as it appears in the Report of the trial, gives none of the reasons upon which it was founded, but merely declares in the baldest manner possible that the defendant had a right to take the _shellfish_; but that, as no authority had been brought forward to support his claim to take _shells_, the court would pause before establishing a general right of that kind!

Of course, this judgment cannot be taken quite literally, for the shellfish cannot be taken unless their shells are taken also. What it must be understood to lay down is this, that we may take the shells so long as they are attached to, and form, as it were, part of the living fish; but that we must not take a shell when it has become detached from its inmate, and is nothing more than a shell. This prohibition to take empty shells is really equivalent to a prohibition to take not shells only, but also sand or pebbles, or indeed any other part of the soil of the shore. It may be added here, by way of parenthesis, that, by an Act of Parliament passed in 1620, a special privilege is granted to all persons living in the counties of Devon and Cornwall ‘to fetch and take sea-sand at all places under the full sea-mark.’ Why this privilege was specially granted to the inhabitants of these two counties is not at all clear. At anyrate, the passing of the Act shows that the right did not previously exist.

The last case to which we shall refer is that of Howe against Stowell. It was tried in the year 1833. Here, as in the case of Bagott against Orr, the plaintiff was the owner of a portion of the shore, upon which, at different times, the sea cast up great quantities of seaweed. The farmers in the neighbourhood were in the habit of carting this seaweed away, using it for the purpose of manuring their land. Stowell had taken some, and Howe brought an action against him. Stowell urged that, as a subject of the king, he had full and perfect liberty to go upon the shore and take the seaweed, which had been left there by the reflux of the tide. The court, however, found that no such right as Stowell claimed existed. Their judgment to some extent supplements and explains the one delivered in the case of Bagott _v._ Orr. The court referred to that case, and said that the taking of fish was for the immediate sustentation of man—a reason which did not apply to the taking of seaweed. Whatever the reasons may have been which caused the court to make a distinction between the fish and their shells, the distinction certainly now exists; and while it is unlawful to take away from the shore any shells, sand, pebbles, or seaweed, it is perfectly lawful to carry away any shellfish that may be found there.

Here we may leave the subject. Sufficient has been said to show the reader how much of the liberty of doing what he likes on the seashore is entirely due to the goodwill of such as have the power, if they choose to use it, of very seriously curtailing that liberty. Happily, by far the greater portion of our shore is still the property of the Crown, which is never likely to enforce its strict rights to the curtailing of the reasonable liberty of the subject. These rights might, however, with general advantage, be much more strictly enforced than they are on some parts of our coasts, where sand, pebbles, and stones are being constantly carted away in large quantities, to the detriment of the beach and adjacent land.

A NAMELESS ROMANCE.

I have a leisure hour to spend now and then, and I spend it in rambling round the city where I dwell. Perhaps some of you may think this is poor enjoyment, but it does not seem so to me. True, were I young and rich, I might seek my pleasures farther afield—on the sunny shores of the Mediterranean, or in the gay gardens of France. I might bask more in the smile of gentle dames, forgetting my loneliness, as one forgets in the sunshine that only a moment before the sky hung black with clouds. But I am neither young nor rich; and even if I were, it seems to me that no place in the world could ever be so dear as those lanes and meadows I love so well.

Yes; I am old now, and chilly sometimes at night when the fire gets low, wearing a greatcoat even on the summer days, and shivering often when the zephyrs fan my face. But I am kept young by my love for nature; I woo her as amorously as ever maid was wooed by swain, and she is not afraid to press her rosy lips to mine, yellow and withered as they are, and to twine her lovely arms round my neck. I love her for her hopefulness, for her inexhaustible store of youth. Everywhere with love she rebukes poor mortals for sitting down sad with folded hands, and with a glad voice bids them be up and doing. She is irrepressible. You may crush her down with stony hand and plaster over every vestige of her beauty, and then say to yourself, in pride of heart, ‘I have made a city, a place for commerce and traffic, and pleasure and sorrow;’ and yet, turn your back for an instant, lo! a little blade of grass comes up between the stones of the causeway and laughs in your very face. We may build our houses up story upon story, with the dingy attic at the top, for women’s hearts to break in, and the squalid court beneath in which little children may get their first taint of sin; but a gleam of sunshine will day after day work its way down to the very centre of the filth and squalidness, and a rose will bud and bloom in some poor man’s window, blushing back with pleasure into the face of its kindly keeper.

Then think how charitable she is, how slow to return an insult, how cheerfully she bears an affront. I often think—though, of course, it is but the vagary of an old dreamer—that those who build up masses of brick and mortar would be well repaid if nature left a sterile belt round their work, a belt gray and cold as their own walls. But no! She takes no such revenge as this. Long before the city-smoke has mingled with the clouds, or the hum of city-life died away, we come on patches of green, smiling us a welcome; on trees, too, sprouting forth in beauty, or draped with leaves and flowers, nodding to us in a grave and stately way, as if to show that they at least bear no grudge, and are prepared to be friendly in spite of all rebuffs. Ruminating thus, many a lesson have I learned on charity and forgiveness.

Nor are my rambles unromantic, though the scenes are no longer strange. Every house and farm has become familiar to me. I have seen a generation or two of cowboys develop into ploughmen, wed themselves to rosy dairymaids, and go their ways. I have beguiled idle hours in weaving webs of fancy round their married lives, listening for the merry laughter of children in their cottages, and watching for the glad light of love on many a mother’s face. And as with men and women, so with things. The old castle with its turreted walls and secret passages has furnished me much food for thought. I have recalled in fancy the noble men and fair women who used to tread its halls, their courtly, gallant ways, their feasts and tournaments; and, as I stand in the chambers, girt with gray stone and canopied by heaven, I can see the coats of mail still on the walls, and hear through the mist of years the voice of some gay warrior recounting his triumphs in the field. And many a story, too, have I heard from the rustic people about the old gray house which stands in the hollow among the trees. You see, I am old enough to pat the comely maidens on the shoulder without exciting the ire of their brawny lovers, and to chat, too, with impunity to the buxom matrons in the cottages while their husbands sit smoking by the fireside. And thus it was I heard the story of the Old House in the Hollow. I had often wondered if it did contain a secret, so silent was it, so forbidding in aspect, with its old porch black with age, and its windows stained and weather-beaten. It looked so grim, that I used to think it, too, must have witnessed deeds of blood, and taken the best way to avoid detection by standing for evermore in gloomy silence. It stood among thick foliage, so thick, that even on a summer day but a stray sunbeam or two rested on its blackened walls, wavering and timorous, as if scared at their bravery in venturing so far. The carriage-road from the gate to the door had faded out of sight, and there was nothing around but grass, heavy and dark-coloured, with the weeds that grew among it. The woman in the cottage not far off was glad enough to give me the key of the rusty iron gate which admitted to the grounds, and there I used to wander, more from curiosity than pleasure. But I always felt morbid under the old trees; and the grass, too, was so thick and rank, that it was like walking over deserted graves.

In that old garden, said the villagers, a lady in a white mantle used to walk among the trees, and look with yearning glance towards the windows of the old house. There I have waited for her, but she never came; for, through habit, I have fallen into believing the stories I hear. Perhaps the sunshine frightened her away; perhaps, from long living in the shades, her eyes had grown too weak to bear the light; perhaps she cared not that strangers should share her grief, and wished to mourn there alone, with the darkness for her friend, and the winds sighing comfort to her among the trees. Whatever the reason was, I never met her face to face in that gloomy hollow. Yet, although she was so fair and young, the older villagers could not tell her tale without a shudder; and though the lads and lasses laughed aloud, yet it was a wavering, uncertain laugh, which died on their lips, and left a silence all the more profound.

Forty years had passed since the oaken door creaked on its hinges to admit the master and his fair young bride; and a year later, it had closed on her as they bore her away to sleep in the churchyard, to the grave that had proved too small for her wandering, restless spirit. On that day, cold, and with a drizzling, chilling rain, the small cortège passed through the gate, a man walking behind, with head bent and eyes cast on the ground, his face calm, but chill and gray as the sky. And if the curious one had turned his eyes on the house, he would have seen, at an upper window, a woman’s figure, clad in mourning, with head bent, intently watching the pallbearers as they wound along the muddy road. Had the curious one cared to look closer, he might have seen the gleam of triumph in her eyes—dark, flashing, coal-black eyes—as she watched the tall bent figure walk behind with such a weary, listless step. But soon a turn in the road hid the company from view, and the window was empty again.

One year had sufficed to darken the brightness of that fair young life. Did it ever strike you, reader, that some men and women seem to have had a sunlight bath before entering this world, so destined are they to make everything around them pure and good; while others, wafted from the regions of gloom, cast all around them the shadow of death? Into this baleful darkness had the young bride fallen, and in it her spirit had been quenched. She loved her husband truly, that tall, bronzed man, who had come from the Indies to woo her in the sunny lanes of her own England. Right glad, too, had she been to become mistress of his old home. For months, no spot had come on their home-picture. He was happy in his treasure; she, too, in her simple life in the village, where, from her kindness, she already was receiving the homage due to a queen. But one day, when the snow was on the ground and the flowers were dead, a woman came to the Old House in the Hollow. She was dark, and radiantly beautiful, with the beauty that blossoms under western skies. She neither asked nor received leave to stay as a member of the family circle in the old house, but there was no one to oppose her action. The master was her cousin, she said; and even as she spoke, the gleam in her eyes gave her words the lie. Yet he said nothing, for suddenly he had grown silent and cold, avoiding even the wistful, questioning glances of his wife.

The shadow spread slowly over the house, up the staircases, into the nooks and corners of the rooms, laying its black hand now on this and now on that, but nowhere so strongly as on the heart of the young mistress. Her rippling laughter changed to sighs, her bright smiles were replaced by downcast looks; she passed from summer to winter with no mellowing autumn days to make the change less sad. It was not that the woman, who had come so strangely, sought the love of her husband, or in any other way attempted to dispel the sunshine of her life; she simply dwelt with them, nay, was friendly enough at times; but the dark dress which she wore, and the masses of dark hair which at times she would let fall about her shoulders, seemed indicative of the moral cloud which was slowly gathering over their lives. The lily drooped day by day for want of sunlight. She became morbid, nervous, full of strange and wayward fancies. She thought the love of her husband was dead; and she took to dressing herself in her wedding garb, to try if by that strange way she might make it live again. Clad in the soft, lustrous satins—in which as a happy bride she had blushed and smiled in the little English church but a few months before—she would pace her room for hours, and stand, too, longingly before the glass, peering wistfully to see if aught of her charm were gone. In this garb, too, she would walk among the old trees, and deck her bosom with the snowdrops of spring; but they seemed to wither away at her touch and hang listless and dead. Thus it was, one day she was found sitting among the trees on the fresh spring grass, some faded snowdrops in her lifeless hand, her golden hair surmounting a face darkened with some mysterious presence. A pale gleam of spring sunlight had crept down and settled on her brow; but it was out of place, and timid as the sunbeams which I have seen playing on the old house itself.

Thus quietly as the gliding of a river did her spirit depart, or rather was effaced, as a cloud can hide the silver moon from us for a time. And so, they tell me, she can be seen at times in the old garden, just as, when the clouds grow faint, the welcome shafts of light come down to assure us that their mother orb still lives.

QUARANTINE.

BY AN EXAMINING OFFICER.

At a time when every one has been anxiously perusing the daily accounts of the increase or abatement of cholera in European towns, and when there exists a lurking fear lest the dreaded scourge should obtain a footing on our shores, a brief description of the precautions taken against such a visitation may possibly prove interesting to your readers. The majority of people have, of course, a hazy idea that vessels from Southern France are not allowed to slip in and out of the United Kingdom without strict examination as to the possibility of cholera or other disease existing on board. They know that there is some action taken bearing the old-fashioned title of ‘Quarantine,’ and that it relates to the isolation of vessels on board which disease may exist; but with this knowledge, in a majority of instances their information ends. This very haziness thus induces unfounded fear—and fear supplies one of the chief ingredients on which cholera may be most bountifully fed. If I can in any way lessen this apprehension by detailing, as briefly as possible, the close supervision to which vessels from foreign ports—just now from the south of France especially—are subjected, the purpose of this article will be fully realised.

‘Quarantine,’ according to the lexicographers, ‘is the term during which a ship arriving in port, and suspected of being infected with a malignant, contagious disease, is obliged to forbear all intercourse with the shore.’ Thus a ship arriving in the United Kingdom at the present time, and having on board, or suspected of having on board, a case of cholera, would be at once cut off from all intercourse with the shore or with any neighbouring vessel. This ‘cutting-off’ process was in olden times much more cumbrously managed than at present. Then, the quarantine stations round the shores of Great Britain were not only numerous, but were themselves a source of danger to all concerned. Now, the only one of the old quarantine stations of the United Kingdom is that of the Mother-bank, in the Isle of Wight, where are located three unemployed men-of-war, having on board a staff of officers and men with all appliances necessary for dealing with vessels placed in quarantine. These vessels, I understand, have only been called into requisition on twelve occasions during the last twenty years. The place for the performance of quarantine at any port is now generally decided by the Local Authority of that port in conjunction with the officers of Customs who may be stationed there. Her Majesty’s Privy Council are, of course, primarily responsible for the due carrying out of the quarantine regulations; but on the officers of Customs depends the detention of any vessel, pending the decision of the higher authorities regarding such detention. To enable the officer of Customs to act with authority in the matter, he is provided with a ‘Quarantine Commission,’ on the faith of which he can detain any vessel arriving from abroad on board of which he may suspect the existence of cholera or other infectious disease.

I will suppose, now, a vessel arriving in the Mersey, the Thames, the Tyne, or other busy shipping centre. The vessel, with her national ensign flying aft, to denote that she is from a foreign port—let us suppose a port infected with cholera—sails or steams up to a position some distance from the shore, termed the ‘boarding station.’ Here the master must ‘bring to’ under a penalty of one hundred pounds. The Customs officers come alongside in their boat; and before any one goes on board, the following questions are put to the master: ‘What is the name of the vessel and of the master? From what port have you come? Was there any sickness at the port while you were lying there or at the time you left it? Have you any Bill of Health?—if so, produce it. What number of officers, crew, and passengers have you on board? Have any of them suffered from any kind of illness during the voyage?—if so, state it, however trifling it may have been. Is every person on board in good health at this moment?’ Should the master refuse to answer any of these questions, or give a false answer to any of them, the refusal or falsehood subjects him to a penalty of one hundred pounds; and if the questions have been put upon oath and he returns a false answer, he is liable to punishment for wilful and corrupt perjury.

Should the answers of the master be deemed unsatisfactory, and should the officer of Customs suspect the existence of cholera on board, he at once detains the vessel and apprises the Local Authority, in order that its medical officer may inspect the vessel, and decide whether or not the suspicions of the officer of Customs are well founded. If, however, the Local Authority _fails to have such inspection carried out within twelve hours_—and local Sanitary Boards would do well to bear this fact in mind—the officer of Customs _does not possess the power to detain the vessel longer_, but must, on the expiration of the said twelve hours, release the vessel from detention. Thus it becomes of the utmost importance that, for the safety of the community, local sanitary authorities should see that the medical inspection is carried out with all despatch.

The inspection being completed, and cholera, we will suppose, being found to exist, the vessel is obliged to proceed at once to the quarantine station selected. Every person on board must remain there until the vessel is released. Should any one choose to disobey the law and endeavour to escape, he or she incurs a heavy money penalty, with the alternative of six months’ imprisonment. This is mild punishment, indeed, to that inflicted in the days of our forefathers, when disobedience to quarantine laws subjected the offender ‘to suffer death without benefit of clergy.’ Still, it is heavy enough to discourage any attempt at disobedience, when such disobedience would bring upon the transgressor the full rigour of the law. Compared with quarantine punishments in other countries, our penalty is, nevertheless, in my opinion, far too lenient. I have known of sailors in the Mediterranean who had left their vessel after she had been placed in quarantine, narrowly escaping being shot dead on the spot. This ‘speedy despatch’ would not, of course, be altogether in accord with our British system of punishment; yet I can conceive no greater crime than that of risking the propagation of disease in a locality which till then had been free from it. Nothing short of a lengthened period of imprisonment is adequate punishment for a crime so heinous.

To leave the particular case of cholera-infected vessels, it may be advisable to have a last word on foreign arrivals generally. In the questions noted above which are put to the master of a vessel on arrival in the United Kingdom, there occurs the query, ‘Have you any Bill of Health?’ Most people will probably be inclined to inquire what a Bill of Health consists of. Bills of Health are of two classes—namely, clean bills of health and foul bills of health. The former is a document signed by a British consul abroad testifying that there was no disease on board the vessel, or at the port at which the vessel loaded her cargo for the homeward voyage. The latter is a similar document testifying that there has been disease on board, or at the port of lading, or at any of the ports at which the vessel may have touched on her way home. A clean Bill of Health, issued at Gibraltar a fortnight ago, lies before me as I write, and thereon it is certified in unmistakable English that ‘good health is enjoyed in the city and garrison of Gibraltar, and that there does not exist therein plague, Asiatic cholera, or yellow fever; as witness the seal of the said city and garrison hereupon engraved.’ A vessel possessing a testimony similar to this is, generally speaking, free from the trouble and annoyance of quarantine; but were the Bill of Health a foul one, the case would be widely different. With the latter on board, the display of the dreaded yellow flag with the black ball in the centre at the main topmast head makes quarantine almost a foregone conclusion.

To narrate the numerous other duties of shipmasters, of pilots, and of passengers in connection with vessels liable to quarantine, is scarcely possible within the limits of the present paper. Their duties, indeed, would be understood only by the initiated; and an attempt at a popular translation of very dry and wordy regulations would be utterly frustrated by the introduction of uninteresting technicalities. In conclusion, let me ask readers to reflect that not a single vessel comes near our shores that is not thoroughly investigated with regard to the existence of infectious disease, and, by such reflection, to banish those unwholesome fears which do more than anything else to foster cholera or any similar scourge.

ON THE COAST.

A lonely strip of coast where golden sands
Stretch dreamily into the far-off blue;
A drowsy wind, the breath of southern lands,
And seas of opal hue.

A glorious, wide expanse of heaven o’erhead,
Whose tender blue is flecked with clouds of light;
A fleet of boats, with dusky sails outspread,
Fast dropping out of sight.

Tall, beetling cliffs that purple shadows throw
Athwart still pools where ocean treasures hide;
Low undertones—which ever clearer grow—
From the in-coming tide.

A perfect peace! Here never comes the strife
That ever waits upon the race for gold;
Here in still grooves goes on the march of life,
With simple joys untold.

Here sweet desire would have me always stay—
Far from the city’s toil, its passions strong—
And in contentment live through life’s brief day,
Unto its evensong.

But Duty, ever jealous, cries ‘Not yet!
Thy place is still upon the busy mart;
Thou must go forth, and earn with labour’s sweat,
The wishes of thy heart.’

And so, at Duty’s call, do I depart,
And leave these joys regretfully behind;
But as a vision bright, within my heart,
Their beauty is enshrined.

CHARLES H. BARSTOW.

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