Chapter VII

When he entered the room, Estelle looked up lazily from her cushions. ‘How much longer have we to stay here, _caro mio_?’ she asked with a yawn.

‘The carriage will be round in half an hour.’ He sat down a little wearily near the window, and turned his eyes on the pleasant scene outside. There was nothing more to be done till the carriage should arrive.

‘_Bien._ We shall just have time for a little _tête-à-tête_.’ She re-arranged the pillows of the couch to her liking, and smoothed down the skirts of her dress complacently. Suddenly her eye was caught by the glistening of the wedding-ring on her finger. She gave a little start, and glanced round with the air of one who has lost something. ‘Where can I have mislaid them?’ she asked herself under her breath. ‘I must have left them either in the dining-room or up-stairs. _Quelle bêtise!_’ Then after a moment: ‘Ah, bah! what does it matter? He suspects nothing.’ Addressing her husband, she said abruptly: ‘Listen to me, Oscar Boyd. A little while ago, I offered to relieve you of my presence for ever on condition that you paid me two thousand pounds. You foolishly refused. Well, I will not be hard on you. You tell me that you are a poor man, and I will not dispute the fact. I am willing to reduce my terms. Give me one thousand pounds, and you shall never see me again after to-day.’

‘I will give you nothing, and I will never see you after to-morrow.’

‘I am your wife, and you are compelled to keep me.’

‘But not to see you.’

‘It would be better for you to give me the thousand down and get rid of me for ever.’

‘You know my decision.’

‘Ah, you don’t know what you are rejecting. You will repent your folly to the last day of your life.’

His only answer was to look at his watch.

‘This, then, is your programme,’ she resumed. ‘We shall reach London to-night, and part at the terminus?’

‘That is so.’

‘And I shall meet you at noon to-morrow at a certain address, when you will be prepared to inform me what my future income will be?’

He inclined his head gravely.

‘To that meeting I shall bring with me a lawyer, in order to make sure that my interests are properly represented. As your wife, I am entitled to a certain definite proportion of your income. It will be my lawyer’s business to ascertain in the first place the amount of your income; and in the second, to what share of it I am entitled.’

‘As you please.’

There was silence for a few moments, then she said: ‘Oscar Boyd, have you asked yourself why I have come so many thousands of miles, and put myself to so much trouble and expense, in order to find you?’

‘You wanted money, and you had been told that I was a rich man.’

She clapped her hands, and laughed shrilly. ‘_Vous avez raison, Monsieur._ I compliment you on your penetration. You were not so simple-minded as to believe that it was love—love for yourself alone, _cher_ Oscar—that induced me to cross that horrible ocean?’

‘No; I was not so simple-minded as to believe that.’

‘But what a disappointment for poor me to find you changed from a rich man into a poor one! And yet, hard-hearted one that you are, I don’t believe you pity me a bit. Still, life may be endurable without pity; and when you grow to be a rich man again, which you will do in a few years, you will not forget that you have a wife who will want to share your good fortune.’

As before, his only answer was to look at his watch.

‘Oh, pray be careful that we do not lose our train,’ she said with a contemptuous laugh. Then her mood changed. She got up and began to pace the room with her hands behind her back. ‘O yes, I love you, Oscar Boyd,’ she exclaimed with passionate vehemence; ‘just as dearly as you love me—no more, and no less! It was well that you did not attempt to kiss me when we met, or even to put your arm round my waist. Had you done so, I should have struck you. I hate you, _voyez vous_, as you hate me; but I have one consolation which will never leave me: I have separated you from the woman you love—from the woman who loves you! Oh, it is sweet, sweet!—Is there no champagne to be had in this house?’

It was an odd climax to her passionate outburst. But before another word could be said, there came a tap at the door, and a servant entered with a note on a salver, which he presented to Mr Boyd.

‘Who is this from?’ asked the latter as he took the note.

‘Don’t know, sir. I was told to give it you at once;’ and with that, exit the servant.

Oscar tore open the note, and not knowing the writing, the first thing he did was to look for the signature. But there was none. Then he took the note to the window to read.

Estelle, who had not stirred since the servant came in, watched him with quick-glancing, suspicious eyes.

‘He is surprised,’ she muttered to herself. ‘He cannot believe what he reads. He reads it for the second time—for the third! What can it be about? Who can it be from?’

For full five minutes Oscar Boyd stood facing the window without stirring or speaking; then he crushed the note between his fingers, put it into his pocket, and turned and confronted his wife. She was standing with one hand resting on the table, as she had been standing since the servant came in. His eyes traversed her face with a cold, critical, scrutinising glance that made her tremble in spite of herself. There was a strange mysterious change in his expression. What could it portend? He came a few steps nearer to her.

‘You tell me that you were saved from the wreck of the _Ocean Bride_. Why have you allowed all these years to elapse before making me aware of that fact?’

‘Because I knew that you no longer cared for me. Because I knew that the news of my death would be good news to you. Because I found friends who would not let me want.’

‘You used not to study my happiness so much.’

She gave a little shrug. ‘You never understood me—you never read me aright from the first.’

‘It seemed to me that there was little left to understand after that night in the garden.’

‘That night in the garden!’

‘When’——

‘Yes—when’——

‘I overheard’——

‘Overheard what?’

‘Is it possible that you can have forgotten?’

She was gazing at him with bewildered eyes. She evidently knew nothing of what her questioner referred to.

‘The letter _must_ be true!’ he said to himself, with his eyes still fixed searchingly on her.

She recovered herself with an effort. ‘Why recall these painful recollections?’ she asked.

‘Why, indeed? It is folly to do so.’ On the occasional table at her elbow was a tiny gold-stoppered smelling-bottle, which she had placed there, together with her handkerchief, on entering the room. He went a step nearer and picked it up. ‘This is yours?’ he said interrogatively, as he opened the stopper and sniffed for a moment at the contents.

‘Yes, mine. Did you think it was _milady’s_?’ she asked, with a touch of her old bravado. She put out her hand, as if to take the bottle from Oscar; but next moment her hand itself was grasped by his sinewy fingers. She tried to draw it away, but could not.

‘And is this the hand, Estelle, that once on a time I used to vow was the prettiest hand in the world?’

A strangely frightened look had leapt all at once into her eyes. ‘And is it not a pretty hand still?’

‘It _is_ a pretty hand. And is this the same ring that I slipped on your finger one sunny morning—ah! so many years ago?’

‘Of course it is the same ring, Oscar. As if I should ever wear another!’ It was all her trembling lips could do to syllable the words.

‘Ah, well, I suppose there is a great sameness about such articles.’

‘You hurt me, Oscar. You are cruel.’ She was trying her utmost, in a quiet way, to withdraw her hand; but she was like a child in his grasp.

‘I have no wish to be cruel, Estelle; but why do you struggle to withdraw your hand? Why do you keep it so tightly shut? What have you hidden inside it?’

‘Hidden! Nothing. What should I have to hide?’

‘That is precisely what I am desirous of ascertaining for myself,’ he said drily.

With her right hand she was now trying with all her strength to loosen his grasp on the one that he still held. ‘Wretch!’ she half screamed, with a stamp of her foot. ‘Don’t I tell you that you are hurting me!’

There was a brief struggle, not lasting longer than a few moments. Oscar’s second hand was now engaged as well as his first. Slowly but irresistibly the clenched fingers were forced open till the palm of the hand was fully exposed to view. One glance at it sufficed for his purpose. He relaxed his hold.

Estelle started back with a cry; then, with a quick instinctive movement, she hid her hands behind her. ‘So!’ she said, drawing a long deep breath. ‘You know all.’ She was glaring at him like some wild creature brought to bay, her eyes flashing with mingled fury and defiance.

‘Yes, all. Give me your hand.’

‘Never!’

‘Give me your hand, or I will ring this bell, and expose your infamy before every soul in the house.’ Then, without giving her time for any further refusal, he strode forward, and grasping her by the left wrist, he drew forth her arm to its full length. ‘Here are the letters D. R. burnt indelibly into your palm,’ he said. ‘What is the meaning of them?—You do not answer. I will answer for you.’ He let her hand drop with a gesture of contempt.

‘You are not Estelle Duplessis, the woman I made my wife at New Orleans. You are her _twin-sister_, of whom I remember having heard her speak, but whom I never saw till to-day. You are Catarina Riaz, the wife, or widow, of Don Diego Riaz, a gentleman who bred cattle in Mexico. When angered, Don Diego was not a courteous man to the ladies; at such times he treated them much after the fashion in which he treated his cattle. As an instance, when you ran away from home on a certain occasion, and were found and brought back by his servants, he caused you to be branded on the palm of your hand with the initials of his name, so that, should you ever run away again, all the world might know you were his property. Here the letters are to this day, never to be effaced. Catarina Riaz, you are a vile impostor!—I hear the noise of wheels. The carriage is at the door. Go!’

* * * * *

It was morning—the morning of the day following that on which the events related took place. The weather was hot and sunny, and on such a forenoon the lawn at Rosemount was a very pleasant place. In the veranda, in an ample easy-chair, sat Captain Bowood, spectacles on nose, deep in the _Times_. On the lawn itself, under the pleasant shade of an ancient elm, sat Mrs Bowood and Sir Frederick, the former busy with her crewels, the latter lazily cutting the pages of a review and skimming a paragraph here and there. To the extreme left, some distance from the others, and hidden from them by a thick clump of evergreens, sat Lady Dimsdale, making-believe to be repairing sundry rents in the frock of a large doll, which she held on her knee, but far more occupied with her own thoughts than with the work she had in hand. Close to her, and seated on a swing, suspended from a stout limb of a tree, was Master Tommy, a bright boy of nine, profoundly immersed in a new book of fairy tales, which Lady Dimsdale had that morning made him a present of.

‘Just listen to this, Aunty Laura,’ he said. She was always ‘Aunty Laura’ to the children.

‘“When the brave knight, Sir Tristram, entered the dungeon in which the unhappy Princess had been shut up for so long a time, he was about to spring forward and embrace her, when all at once the wicked magician stood before them, and with his wand drew a magic line across the floor. Then, although Sir Tristram and the Princess could see each other, neither of them could step over the magic line, which was like an invisible wall between them.”’ Here Tommy looked up from his book. ‘Have you ever seen a wicked magician, Aunty Laura?’

‘One or two, dear,’ she replied with a faint smile. ‘Only, nowadays, one doesn’t always know them when one sees them.’

‘Don’t you think, aunty’—this in a whisper full of mystery—‘that if Sir Frederick had a long robe and a wand, he would look something like a magician?’

Lady Dimsdale shook her head and held up a warning finger; and Tommy went on with his book.

‘It was really very kind of you, Sir Frederick, to agree to stay with us for the rest of the week,’ remarked Mrs Bowood.

‘Madam, the pleasure is all on my side,’ replied the Baronet with his most courtly air.

It would appear that in the course of conversation the previous evening the Baronet had let out the fact that his own house was in the hands of the painters and whitewashers, and that he was rendered miserable thereby. Accordingly, very little persuasion had been needed to induce him to take up his quarters at Rosemount for the next few days. There may possibly have been other reasons also which made him not displeased to be on the spot.

‘We have very few visitors just now, as you are aware,’ resumed Mrs Bowood, ‘so that you must not expect to find us very lively.’

‘My dear madam, I abhor liveliness. Had your house been full of company, nothing would have induced me to stay. When in Arcady, I like to feel that I am an Arcadian. I like to feel that I am among cows, and buttercups, and spring chickens—and—and home-cured bacon, and not among a mob of fine people from town. Hum, hum.’

Mrs Bowood smiled down at her work. Never was there a greater piece of artificiality in human form than the Baronet.

‘Confound the flies!’ exclaimed Captain Bowood irascibly to no one in particular, as he gave his bald head a sounding smack. ‘Eh now?’ he quoth inquiringly as he looked at the palm of his hand. ‘No.’

‘I wonder what can have become of Mr Boyd?’ went on Mrs Bowood. ‘He left the house early this morning, and has not been seen since.’

The movements of Mr Boyd in nowise interested Sir Frederick, but politeness demanded that he should say something. ‘Gone for an early ramble, probably, before the day gets too warm.’

‘I am dying to find out the writer of that anonymous letter.’

The Baronet coughed, and cut another page of his review.

‘Aunty Laura, what is the matter with you?’

The question came so suddenly that Lady Dimsdale could not repress a slight start. ‘The matter, dear?’ she asked inconsequentially.

‘You stop in the middle of a stitch, and then you put a finger to your lips, and then for a minute you seem as if you saw nothing. And you look _so_ sad. Have you got the toothache, aunty?’

‘Yes, dear, as you say—the toothache.’

‘I am so sorry!’

‘Or the heartache,’ said Lady Dimsdale under her breath. ‘Does it matter which?’

The Baronet deliberately shut up his review, and looking steadily at his hostess, said in a low voice: ‘It was I who wrote the anonymous letter, Mrs Bowood.’

For once in a way, Mrs Bowood nearly pricked her finger. ‘You, Sir Frederick!’

The Baronet inclined his head gravely. ‘Only, I don’t want the circumstance to be generally known.’

‘I won’t mention it for the world. But you do surprise me.’

‘The facts are very simple. I met the real Mrs Boyd in New Orleans soon after her marriage. Later on, I found myself in Mexico. At a ball one evening, I saw among the crowd a lady whom I should certainly have addressed as Mrs Boyd, had not the friend with whom I was told me that she was that lady’s twin-sister. The likeness between them was certainly a very remarkable one. The lady in question was married to a certain Don Diego Riaz, the owner of a large cattle-ranche a few miles away. The matter probably would have escaped my memory, but for a letter received by me a few months later, in which my friend made mention of a recent scandal in the household of Don Riaz. It seems that the señora suddenly disappeared. When found at the end of two days, and taken back home, her husband caused her to be branded on the palm of the left hand with the initials of his name.’

Mrs Bowood shuddered. ‘How thankful I am that I don’t live in Mexico!’

‘Horray!’ shouted Master Tommy. ‘Brave Sir Tristram has chopped off the wizard’s head.’

The flies were still pestering Captain Bowood. ‘Another of ’em!’ he exclaimed as he slapped his forehead for the second time. Then he looked at his hand. ‘What—what? No,’ he said in a tone of disappointment.

Sir Frederick resumed the equable flow of his narrative. ‘A few months later, Don Diego was found dead under somewhat mysterious circumstances. Such things do happen in Mexico now and then. There was a dim suspicion in my mind, I hardly know why, that one sister might be trying to pass herself off as the other, when I sought an interview with the supposed Mrs Boyd yesterday. That suspicion was strengthened by her answers to some of my questions, and was reduced to a certainty when I got sufficiently near to her to perceive the tiny brown mole under her chin, which I remembered having been told was the one distinctive mark between the two sisters; and further, when I noticed how—although she had her gloves on at the time I spoke to her—she had got into the way of keeping her left hand tightly shut, as though she held something inside it which she was unwilling that any one should see. It was the certainty thus arrived at which induced me to write as I did to Mr Boyd.’

‘A romance in real life! I presume that Mr Boyd had never seen the twin-sister before?’

‘Never, so far as I am aware.’

‘She was certainly a very strange person, Sir Frederick, and I am not sorry that she is gone. I trust there is no likelihood of her coming back?’

‘I don’t think you have much to fear on that score,’ responded the Baronet drily.

Master Tommy shut up his book with a bang. ‘And now Sir Tristram and the Princess are married, and are going to live happy ever after. The brave knight and the forlorn Princess always do get married; don’t they, aunty?’

‘Not always, dear. Sometimes the spells of the wicked wizard are too strong for them.’

‘Oh, I say! that is a shame.—What a pretty butterfly!’ His perch on the swing was vacated next moment, and, cap in hand, he was off in pursuit.

‘A boy all over,’ murmured Lady Dimsdale. ‘Something to chase, something to crush!’

‘Laura, whatever are you about?’ said Mrs Bowood with a little elevation of her ordinary tones. ‘You might favour us with your company during the short time longer you have to stay.’

‘I’ve got the shadiest seat in the garden,’ was the answer that came back from behind the evergreens; ‘and just now I’m engaged on an intricate detail of millinery, and must on no account be disturbed.’

Sir Frederick had pricked up his ears. ‘Is Lady Dimsdale going away?’ he asked.

‘Did you not know? She had letters this morning—so she says—which necessitate her immediate return home. I am quite angry with her.’

‘Ah, ah! nearly had you that time,’ exclaimed the Captain, after another abortive attempt to slaughter one of his tormentors.

Sir Frederick rose and crossed to where Lady Dimsdale was sitting. ‘You are busy this morning, Lady Dimsdale,’ he said.

‘Extremely so. This young person was no longer fit for decent society, so I have taken her in hand, and am trying to make her presentable. But you don’t understand millinery, Sir Frederick.’

‘My misfortune.’

‘It is a pity. But, as a rule, your sex are very ignorant.’

‘You are about to leave us, Mrs Bowood tells me.’

‘Yes; the three o’clock express will carry me away to “fresh woods and pastures new.”’

‘I am grieved to hear that.’

‘Is Sir Frederick Pinkerton ever really grieved about anything?’ There was a certain scornful ring in her voice as she asked this question.

Sir Frederick bit his lip. His sallow cheeks flushed a little.

At this moment, there came an interruption. Miss Lucy ran up with red face and dishevelled hair, swinging her straw hat by its ribbons. ‘I’ve been such a long way, aunty, and I’m so tired!’

Lady Dimsdale was examining her fingers and pinafore with serious face. ‘O Lucy!’ was all she said.

‘I couldn’t help it—really, I couldn’t. Strawberries and cream—such a lot!—with Mr Boyd at the Meadow Farm.’

‘With Mr Boyd!’ said Lady Dimsdale in a low voice.

‘Yes. I met him in the garden ever so early, and he said he was going for a walk, and would I go with him. So I went, and it was ever so jolly. But’—with a yawn—‘I’m so hot and tired!’

Lady Dimsdale gave her the doll.

‘O you beauty! How smart Aunt Laura has made you!’ she cried in an ecstasy of admiration. Then she sat down on a low stool close to Lady Dimsdale, and forgot for a little while that she was either hot or tired.

‘I have fulfilled my promise, Lady Dimsdale,’ said the Baronet in a low voice. ‘That woman will never trouble Mr Boyd again.’ He looked meaningly at her as he spoke.

It was a look which she understood. ‘Sir Frederick Pinkerton need be under no apprehension,’ she replied, gazing steadily into his eyes. ‘I have not forgotten my part of the bargain. That which I have promised I will perform.’

The Baronet bowed a little stiffly, and strolled slowly back towards Mrs Bowood.

‘Don’t you think, Aunt Laura,’ said Lucy, ‘now that Dolly is so smart, I might take her to church with me? If it’s good for me to go to church, it must be good for Dolly.’

But Lady Dimsdale heard her not. ‘My promise! Yes, whatever it may cost me, I must not forget that.’ She kept repeating the words to herself again and again.

Lucy, for once, finding her chatter unheeded, made a pillow of one arm for her doll, laid her head against Lady Dimsdale’s knee, and two minutes later was fast asleep.

Along one of the winding pathways came Oscar Boyd, dusty with the dust of country roads, but bright and happy-looking as the day. ‘Good-morning, Mrs Bowood.—Good-morning, Sir Frederick.—Any news, Captain?’

‘We thought that some one had run away with you,’ said his hostess, as she extended her hand. ‘What have you been doing with yourself all this time?’

‘We have been over the hills and far away, Miss Lucy and I. Our object was strawberries and cream at the Meadow Farm.’ He gave a quiet glance round. ‘Laura not here?’ he said to himself.

‘Strawberries and cream. Humph!’ remarked the Captain. ‘S. and B. far better on a morning like this. Come now.’

Oscar had discovered Lady Dimsdale’s whereabouts by this time, and crossed towards her.

‘Now for the scene!’ said Sir Frederick to himself as he watched him go. Then turning to Mrs Bowood, he said: ‘With your permission, I will go and smoke a cigarette on the terrace.’

‘You will find it very hot on that side of the house.’

‘The heat suits me, madam. If I may be allowed such an expression—I revel in it.’ Then as he walked away, he said to himself: ‘How will she break the news?’

Mrs Bowood had not failed to note in what direction Mr Boyd had vanished. ‘After all, they may perhaps make a match of it,’ was the thought in her mind. ‘I do hope he will propose before Laura goes.’

‘Here you are! I was just wondering what had become of you,’ said Oscar, as he drew up a garden-chair and sat down near Lady Dimsdale.—‘My little sweetheart and asleep?’ he added with a smiling glance at the unconscious Lucy.

‘She was tired with the long walk.’

Something in Lady Dimsdale’s voice struck him. He looked fixedly at her. Probably he expected to see in her some traces of the same change that he felt in himself—the change from despair to gladness, from a midnight of blackest gloom to a dawn of radiant hopes, rich with the sweet promise of happy years to come. But no such traces were visible in the woman who sat before him with pallid, long-drawn face, with downcast eyes, round which the dark circles left by sleeplessness or tears—perhaps by both—were plainly to be seen, and with thin white hands that visibly trembled as, clasped in each other, they lay idly on her lap. It was unaccountable.

‘You have heard of all that happened yesterday?’ he presently remarked. ‘You know that that woman was an impostor?’

‘Yes; I have heard.’

‘Her likeness to her sister was extraordinary. I was completely deceived.’

‘She will not trouble you again?’

‘Hardly so, I think. I have arranged for a friend of mine to see her on board ship to-morrow, and to pay her passage back to the port from which she sailed. I have an idea that I ought to thank Sir Frederick Pinkerton for the anonymous letter which served to unmask her.’ He drew his chair a little closer. ‘Laura! you have not forgotten yesterday morning?’ he said as he bent forward and tried to gaze into her eyes.

‘No; I have not forgotten.’ The reply was so low that he could scarcely hear it, and the eyes were kept persistently cast down.

‘You know how we were interrupted,’ went on Oscar. ‘A black cloud came between us, and we thought our happiness was wrecked for ever. But the cloud has vanished, and the sun shines out as brightly as before, and’——

‘Oscar, we must—both of us—try to think of yesterday morning as if it had never been.’

He drew himself upright in his chair with a great gasp; for a moment or two he was too stupefied to speak. ‘Try to think of yesterday morning as if it had never been! Impossible! But why try to do so?’

‘Because something has happened since then which makes it imperative that we should do so.’

‘Something happened! I don’t understand. I only know that you agreed to become my wife. What can have happened to alter that?’

‘You must not ask me, and I cannot tell you.’

‘And you ask me to agree to this without a word of explanation?’

‘Yes, without a word of explanation.’ There was a quaver in her voice as she said these words which he did not fail to detect.

He sat like a man stunned—like one who has heard some tidings of import greater than his mind is able to grasp. ‘Laura! you torture me,’ he said at length.

At this she raised her dark, grief-laden eyes, and gazed at him for a moment or two with a sort of dumb, pathetic tenderness, while at the same time the fingers of one hand wandered caressingly over his sleeve.

He was profoundly moved. He rose from his chair, and took a turn or two in silence, and then resumed his seat. ‘Send for the nurse to take away that child,’ he said, ‘and then come with me for a walk in the shrubbery.’

‘Oscar, I dare not.’

‘You dare not! Why?’

‘I dare not. We had better say farewell here and now, than later on and before others.’

‘Farewell!’

‘I leave here by the afternoon express. Oscar, after to-day, you and I must never meet again.’

He started to his feet. ‘Never meet again! But—— Why—— Can you who say this to me be the same woman whom I kissed but yesterday?’

‘I am that woman; how happy then, how unhappy now, no one but myself can ever know!’

‘Then why this change? What strange mystery is here?’

‘I cannot tell you. My lips are sealed. Believe me, Oscar, we had better say farewell here and now.’

‘I cannot and I will not say farewell!’ he passionately exclaimed. ‘You belong to me, and I belong to you; that kiss was the seal and consecration of our union. No earthly power shall keep us asunder. There is some strange mystery at work here. If you will not give me the key to it, I must try to find it for myself.’ He lifted his hat, stooped and pressed his lips to her hair, and then, without another word, he plunged into the shrubbery.

Laura gazed after his retreating figure through a mist of tears. ‘The key to the mystery!’ she murmured. ‘You may try your best to find it, my poor Oscar, but Merlin’s enchantments will prove too strong for you to overcome.’

A PEEP AT THE FALKLAND ISLANDS.

Except to mariners who have rounded Cape Horn, this solitary group of islands is a veritable _terra incognita_. Seldom visited, however, as the Falkland Islands have been in the past, their isolation promises to be yet more complete in the future, as soon as an inter-oceanic canal diverts commerce from the old to a new route. Up to the present time, they have served as a half-way house for sailing-vessels on their voyage round Cape Horn in need of provisioning, or for refitting such as have been disabled by the tempestuous weather which for a great part of the year prevails in those latitudes. It appears probable, however, that their usefulness for even these purposes is nearly at an end, and that their lonely inhabitants are doomed, like the surviving innkeepers of coaching-days, to pass the remainder of their lives in mourning over the memories of the past.

These islands have at various times belonged to France and to Spain; but since 1833, when they were annexed by the English government for the protection of the whale-fishery, they have formed part of the British possessions. The group consists of the islands of East and West Falkland, and upwards of a hundred others—mostly mere islets or sandbanks—which have a united area of nearly five million acres. The only settlement or town—if it may be dignified with that name—is Stanley, which is situated on a gentle slope of moorland bordering upon a narrow and nearly land-locked harbour in the island of East Falkland; but few of the houses in Stanley are well constructed, and these are occupied by the governor and colonial officers and a few successful traders. The remainder are rough-and-ready specimens of architecture, in the construction of which the timber of many an old shipwrecked hulk has been utilised. The climate, though generally damp, is extremely healthy, but very changeable. To-day, perhaps the sun may be shining, the air clear and exhilarating; but to-morrow you rise at daybreak, look out at the same landscape, and behold what a change is there! A thick driving mist has rolled in from the ocean, and enveloped all nature in its moist and chilly embrace. The soil is more adapted to pasturage than to cultivation, being similar in its character to the unreclaimed wild lands of northern Scotland and the Orkney and Shetland Islands. Large herds of wild cattle roam at will over the country, but are worth little except for their hides, there being no market for the beef. The greater portion of these cattle belong to the Falkland Islands’ Company, who own a marine store and general outfitting establishment at Stanley. This Company, a few years ago, embarked in sheep-raising, by way of an experiment, importing some common stock from Patagonia, and crossing them with cheviots. The experiment has proved a great success, and sheep-raising now forms the principal industry of the later settlers; several young Englishmen, with a few hundred pounds capital, having within the last few years settled on the islands for this purpose, their ‘stations’ ranging from twenty to one hundred and fifty thousand acres, the aggregate value of the wool annually exported to England amounting to nearly fifty thousand pounds sterling.

There being no roads or vehicles for internal traffic, as most of the country round Stanley is a huge morass, the owners of these sheep-stations are obliged to keep small sailing-vessels in which to visit Stanley for provisions, or send their wool there for shipment to England.

In respect of scenery, it cannot be said that nature has bestowed gifts on the Falklands with a too lavish hand. There is but one tree in the entire islands, and that solitary exception attempts to grow in the governor’s garden at Stanley, where it is protected by a wall from the cutting south wind, which ruthlessly nips off any ambitious shoot which presumes to peep over its restricted limits.

The population of the Falklands in 1877 was a little over thirteen hundred, nearly three-fourths of that number being males. Most of the inhabitants are English; but there are also a few Americans and Spaniards, the latter being the surviving descendants of the former masters of the islands. The government is vested in a Governor, aided by an Executive Council and a Legislative Council, both appointed by the Crown. The majority of the working inhabitants are fishermen, whose chief sources of profit are derived from annual visits to the New Shetland Islands, about six hundred miles south from Cape Horn, and to other breeding-grounds in the Falkland Islands, to hunt for seals and penguins, which are slaughtered in large numbers for their skins and oil.

The breeding-grounds or ‘rookeries’ of the penguins are generally situated in the shelter of some land-locked bay or break in the line of steep and rugged cliffs; and often occupy several acres, which are laid out, levelled, and divided into squares, with intervening streets, the whole as if done at the dictation of a surveyor. Along these streets, the penguins gravely waddle on their way to and from the water, presenting the appearance of squads of awkward recruits, or a still more striking likeness, as has been often remarked, to troops of little children toddling along in their white pinafores. They build no nests; but lay a single egg in some selected spot, the incubation being equally shared by male and female. Although so closely allied to the feathered kind, they are unable to fly, nature having only furnished them with short stumpy apologies for wings, resembling the flippers of a turtle, by means of which they are enabled to attain prodigious speed, when diving under water in pursuit of fish for food. Penguins, as well as seals, are doubly provided against the cold of the high latitudes which they frequent, by a layer of fat immediately inside the skin, which is also the depository of the oil extracted by the fishermen. In landing to attack and slaughter them in their rookeries with clubs and boat-stretchers, stealthy precautions are quite unnecessary, the poor dumb creatures looking on in a state of indifferent stupidity, without making any attempt to escape, whilst their companions are being knocked on the head all around them. Seal-hunting, or ‘fishing’ as it is usually termed, on the contrary, requires great skill and patience. Seals are gregarious as well as polygamous, and when they forsake the open seas for their breeding-places on shore, are very shy of intrusion, and take great care to insure the safety of their retirement, particularly in localities which have been previously visited by human beings. They invariably post sentinels on every commanding point, so that it is only by patient waiting and under cover of night the hunters are enabled to elude their vigilance and surprise them.

The hunting or fishing season being over, the fishermen return to Stanley with their harvest of skins and oil, which they sell to the traders, who, as may be imagined, buy at their own price, and eventually get the lion’s share of the profits. Not that this appears to bother the minds of the fishermen, who are a happy-go-lucky set of men, and by no means provident in their habits. When I was serving in the English squadron on the south-east coast of America, we visited the Falkland Islands as a rule once a year, and the admiral usually timed our departure from Monte Video so as to arrive there somewhere about Christmas. As soon as we were sighted by the lookouts, all was flutter and excitement in the settlement. The married ladies were soon elbow-deep in pie-crust and confectionery; while the only single lady in the colony commenced practising her most sentimental songs, and hunting up old bits of finery to set off her mature charms, with a grim determination to capture the maiden affections of some susceptible young naval officer.

For those of our number to whom shooting and fishing offered more attractions than did the allurements of female society, the Falkland Islands afforded a fine field. The tyro whose sole ambition is a pot-shot at a standing object, may revel there in unequalled opportunities of distinguishing himself, for, except in the vicinity of the settlement, the upland geese are so little, if at all, accustomed to the sight of man, that they show no signs of fear or flight at his approach, and consequently fall an easy prey to the young sportsman. But there are other kinds of game which give excellent sport to older hands. Several species of duck and teal, abundance of snipe, and an occasional swan, will give the hunter who can hold his gun straight a satisfactory bag—and a weighty one too, if he has to carry it. Moreover, if he be ambitious, and has at times indulged in wild dreams of slaying the king of beasts in his forest lair, he may console himself for not having done so, by killing that animal’s degenerate marine cousin, the sea-lion. I myself once very nearly did; that is to say, I came as near to doing so, as a sea-lion did to making an end of me. It happened in this way. A party of us had pulled in a boat up a small river in West Falkland, which, at some distance from its mouth, opened into a lake with an islet in the centre, upon the shelving shore of which we beached our boat, for lunch. This islet was covered with patches of tall tussac grass—a favourite haunt of sea-lions—but appeared to be perfectly desolate and devoid of animal life. While sauntering idly along, smoking my pipe, I was suddenly roused from a reverie by the most horrible roar, proceeding as it seemed to me from the very ground under my feet; and lo! from a bunch of tussac grass through which I was forcing my way, there arose an immense, savage-looking animal, with a row of most formidable tusks, and confronted me. I was so taken aback at my close and unexpected proximity to such a monster, that I confess my first thoughts were in favour of an ignominious flight, had not my enemy anticipated me by turning tail himself. Gnashing his teeth with a parting roar, he half-waddled and half-rolled down the bank and into the water, while I was desperately pulling at the trigger of my gun, forgetting in my agitation that it was only at half-cock.

Having nearly exhausted all that the Falklands present in the way of interest or pleasure, we now say our adieus, weigh anchor and put to sea.

MISCHIEF DONE BY GOOD-NATURED PEOPLE.

No doubt there is a vast amount of misery in the world occasioned by deliberate unkindness; revenge for real or fancied injuries, or the terrible pleasure some evil natures feel in the exercise of arbitrary power. Still more suffering is probably occasioned by that callous indifferentism to the feelings of others which we call thoughtlessness, but which is really very nearly allied to selfishness. Yet possibly we should find, were we able to make the reckoning, that as much harm is done by the unwise concessions of what are called ‘good-natured people,’ as by either of the other classes.

It is often said of a good-natured man that he is no one’s enemy but his own; but families and friends are so linked together in this world, that it is exceedingly difficult for any one to injure himself without hurt to another. Far be it from us to limit philanthropy or any sort of generosity. He who goes through life conferring benefits is the noblest of mortals; but unless on occasion he is able to say ‘No’ to eager entreaties, he will never be able to carry out his best intentions.

One of the most mischievous forms of what is called good-nature is recommending an incompetent person to some responsible situation. Not that patronage, properly considered, is anything but a good and lawful thing; only we may be very sure that the just, enlightened, and really powerful patron is by no means what is understood by ‘a good-natured man.’ We imagine him to have legitimate influence, which he would very soon lose were he to abuse it.

We once knew an authoress, now no more, who, besides having a great deal of talent as well as good-nature, had one of the kindest hearts in the world. Her successful books had secured her a certain literary position; and had she used sparingly and discreetly the influence which naturally resulted from it, she might have been of immense use to young aspirants of genius. Perhaps her own vivid imagination lent a charm to the manuscripts she was asked to forward for unknown authors to eminent publishers, for it is a fact that men and women of real genius are often the most lenient of critics to inferior writers. But however this may have been, her good-nature was so often imposed on, she so often sent poor compositions with words of recommendation to her friendly publishers, that at last they smiled, or sighed, at her importunities, and though willing enough to take anything from her own practised pen, ceased to regard her good word as of any weight, when applied to the productions of another. In fact, it came to pass that it was rather an injury than otherwise to be introduced by Mrs E——. She sacrificed what might have been a very useful and powerful influence to her good-nature. If Dr Johnson had thus sacrificed his great influence by offering poor novels to the booksellers, he would have been little likely to have been able to promptly dispose of the immortal _Vicar of Wakefield_, and so aid poor Oliver Goldsmith in the hour of his sorest need.

Critics who, from a spurious good-nature, unduly praise a work of art or literature, really do a cruel injury to deserving authors and artists, by bringing their merits into an unworthy comparison with inferior powers. Evil of this sort, however, is apt to bring about its own penalty. Directly a professional writer is even suspected of unfairness, the spell of his influence is broken; and often enough, to be a warning to the ready writer, has it happened that one of the staff of a popular journal has lost his situation on account of his too ‘good-natured’ reviews.

It is rather remarkable that what are called good-natured people rarely undertake unpleasant duties, if they can possibly avoid them. They do not like telling disagreeable truths, however urgent the necessity for so doing, but transfer the mission to a sterner friend with some such phrase as, ‘I should not like to say it,’ or, ‘I should not like to do it,’ just as if the habit of their lives was only to do what they ‘liked.’ Indeed, the good-natured people we are describing are rarely generous in a grand way; they are seldom capable of self-sacrifice. If they are rich, they give money rather than take trouble. If they are people of leisure, they probably give time, which perhaps is not very precious to them; but doing something they greatly dislike, in order to benefit another, is a virtue too rare to be found among them.

There is a form of deception, too often considered very venial, with which so-called good-natured people, if they are good letter-writers, are not seldom associated. This is ‘drawing up’ letters for their less gifted acquaintances to copy and send out as their own. A really good letter often makes a very favourable impression; but it is something like a false coin if it be not the composition of the signer. No doubt, there are cases when it is necessary some statement should be made in language more clear and precise than the person concerned can command; but in these instances, the ready penman should write in his own person for his friend. We are afraid many situations of trust and responsibility have been obtained on the strength of admirable letters dictated by another. But incompetence is sure to be discovered sooner or later, as is a deception which is less forgivable than want of ability. Long, long ago, we knew of a case far more sad than the engaging of an incompetent clerk or governess. A girl of good family and large fortune was won over to accept for a husband a young gentleman of small means and not much principle, mainly by the eloquent, poetical, very charming letters he addressed to her; nearly if not quite all of which were composed by a clever brilliant friend who had never even seen her. When the marriage proved very far from a happy one—and the real scribe had a wife and children of his own—we have reason to believe that he deeply regretted the part he had played in deluding a confiding girl.

Very much on a par with the laxity of principle which permits false letter-writing is the wearing of borrowed finery, especially jewellery, things which we have known good-natured women very willing to lend. Valuable jewellery is a sign of a certain amount of wealth, which is generally on fit occasions displayed; but to exhibit the sign where the reality does not exist is a mean sort of deception, which must often be followed by humiliation.

A person out of what is called good-nature becoming security for another, and suffering, or causing others to suffer in consequence, is so sad and frequent an event in real life, that it has become quite a common incident in novels, and need not be treated of here. Kindness of heart is a deeper and finer quality than the surface readiness to oblige which we have endeavoured to depict. Kindness of heart has always the capacity for real sympathy, and this great alleviator of suffering is generally too clear-seeing to always approve of ‘Yes’ when ‘No’ should be said. Real sympathy feels with, and assists, the friend in trouble. When actions prompted by thoughtless good-nature are most mischievous, they proceed from one who probably neither feels deeply nor sees clearly the relations of cause and effect. That Justice—to a stranger no less than to our associates—is a rarer and more sublime virtue than generosity, is a truth that good-natured people are somewhat apt to forget.

SIX LITTLE WORDS.

Six little words arrest me every day:
I _ought_, _must_, _can_—I _will_, I _dare_, I _may_.
I OUGHT—’tis conscience’ law, divinely writ
Within my heart—the goal I strive to hit.
I MUST—this warns me that my way is barred,
Either by Nature’s law or custom hard.
I CAN—in this is summed up all my might,
Whether to do, or know, or judge aright.
I WILL—my diadem, by the soul imprest
With freedom’s seal—the ruler in my breast.
I DARE—at once a motto for the seal,
And, dare I? barrier ’gainst unlicensed zeal.
I MAY—is final, and at once makes clear
The way which else might vague and dim appear.
I _ought_, _must_, _can_—I _will_, I _dare_, I _may_:
These six words claim attention every day.
Only, through Thee, know I what, every day,
I ought, I must, I can, I will, I dare, I may.

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

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_All Rights Reserved._