Chapter II: Part 2

'Teffle a tune ye'll get from me this nicht; and it iss a obstinate mule ye are, Tonald MacTavish, and always wass; and as for Sandy MacIntyre, the Teuk's grieve, it iss all the parish that kens him for a foolish ignorant liar!'

The two men pushed their respective chairs a foot or so farther apart, and looked at each other in no amiable mood. John the piper was a tall thin Celt with fiery eyes, that flamed out from a mass of tangled hair as brown as heather, covering a low square brow; he was of a much more inflammable temperament than his friend, whose high cheek-bones, wide surly mouth, and cheeks that seemed to have gathered black forests of hair at the expense of his crown, which was of the shiny bald order, indicated a vein of Saxon blood in some progenitor, although his accent and fluency in Gaelic proved that he was a native of the west. Under the chair of the piper, Fingal the piper's collie, almost as excitable as his master, lay asleep; and in a corner by the game-keeper's gun, Jet, Donald's placid pointer, lay stretched at full length. Betty laid down her knitting in some trepidation when the argument reached this point, and came in to see if she could not pour oil on the troubled waters. She found the piper on his feet with his bagpipes under his arm, evidently much offended, looking about in the dark for his bonnet.

'It iss anither gless o' whusky ye'll pe taking now, Mr Cameron, pefore ye tak' the road this cauld nicht?'

'And it iss verra pad whusky ye hef peen giving us the nicht, Mrs MacTonald, eneuch to tak' the temper away from any man,' said the piper in his severest tones.

'And ye are quite richt there, Mr Cameron,' said Betty timidly, willing to appease her guest at the expense of her own reputation; 'and it iss myself that iss glad ye mentioned it, for I had to offer ye some o' the Cawm'lton-still the nicht, cass the gentry when they wass on the moor yesterday shooting took every drop o' the rale heather-watter away in their flasks, and left no a drop wi' me. But I'm sure, Mr Cameron, ye'll no pe so angry wi' me as that comes to as to go away angry like that.'

'The whusky iss cood eneuch, if taken wi' a thankful spirit, Mrs MacTonald,' said Mr MacTavish. 'But when a man iss prood and stuck-up cass he has travellet at the heels o' his betters--but the Teuk's dog has done as muckle--while his own neibors have bided at home, he thinks maype that naepody kens the tifference atween a reel and a hornpipe but himself! Gif me another gless, Mrs MacTonald.--Cood-nicht, John; I drink to your petter manners.'

John was at the door, having found his bonnet, but came back to say, shaking his fist in Donald's face: 'It iss an ignorant prute ye are, Tonald MacTavish, and I scorn to pit my fingers upon ye; but nae doot ye'll want me to bring my pipes to the clachan anither nicht; and nae doot your son Angus will pe wanting me to learn him to play the pipes too; and nae doot, when he comes for that purpose, he will look to have his crack wi' Maggie! Ye will live, Tonald, my man, to ken it wass an ill nicht when ye thocht fit to drink to _my_ petter manners!'

With which flourish, wound up by an emphatic and defiant snap of the piper's fore-finger and thumb in close proximity to the nose of the calmer game-keeper, the piper marched with what dignity he could muster, seeing that he carried half a pint of fierce whisky beneath his belt, from the clachan to the pathway across the moor, homewards; and so absorbed was he in cherishing his anger, that he would not indulge himself on his solitary way with one of his favourite Jacobite lilts, lest the sound of the pipes might charm away his wrath. And his collie Fingal followed sadly at his heels.

The game-keeper sat for only a short time after his friend was gone; he gave utterance to a low hard laugh as the piper disappeared, and then relapsed into sulky silence. Presently he said, rising to leave: 'I'd petter pay ye for my share o' the whusky, Mrs MacTonald.'

'Na; that can remain. Ye will pe here the day after to-morrow or so, I daresay, to make it up.'

'Take the money,' said Mr MacTavish firmly; 'he will peg my pardon pefore I drink another drop in his company.'

'A bad job!' said poor Betty, with tears in her eyes, as she slowly counted out to him the change.

* * * * *

On the afternoon of the same day, Maggie Cameron the piper's daughter was in her father's dairy busily at work. The piper's cottage and small farm-steading stood white and solitary at the mouth of Glen Heath, barely half a mile from Inversnow. The score of sheep that strayed about the glen with the red mark J. C. branded on their woolly sides belonged to the piper; so also did the three or four cows that stood cooling their feet in the heat of the day, in the peat-brown burn that coursed through the heart of the glen past the piper's fields and garden, to the loch. He was in a moderate way a prosperous man, and after the manner of men conscious of a bigger balance than their neighbours at the local bank, he thought he had a right to dogmatise on occasions. Folks who knew the piper knew that whoever ultimately was lucky enough to win the hand of his only daughter Maggie, would not take her dowerless; and that the dower would be something by no means to be sneezed at, was evident when the Inversnow intellect began to reckon on its finger-ends the various sources of the piper's income. There was first and foremost the farm; the piper's crops were ever the earliest and the heaviest; his mutton was always prime, and the piper knew well when and to what market to send. Nor on the Duke's whole estate were better turnips grown. Then what milk was to be compared to that which came from the piper's byre; and as for the piper's butter--churned by Maggie's own pretty hands--why, better butter was not to be had in or out of the parish for love or money. Besides which, the piper's white cottage, built on the slope facing the loch on one side and looking towards the glen on the other, within a few minutes' walk of the best scenery, the best shooting, and the best fishing in South-western Scotland, fetched--well, Inversnow did not know how much per month. Let to the 'gentry' during spring, summer, and autumn of every year, it was in itself another tap of gold flowing into the piper's pockets.

For several months in each year the Duke entertained guests at Inversnow Castle; and it was the piper's duty, as it was his pleasure, to march daily (Sundays excepted, and he grudged Sundays) for two hours to and fro in the hall of the castle while the Duke and his guests dined, the sonorous bagpipes discoursing appetising and digestatory music; and he was indeed a mean or thoughtless guest who departed without remembering the piper in some shape tangible to the piper. Dearly he loved his money. Nor was he a man likely to let money readily slip from his grasp when he once fingered it, and no man in Inversnow was more fertile in resources for adding to his store. But dearly as he loved gold, dearly as he loved his sheep, his cattle, and horses, his dram and his bagpipes, his one primary treasure was his winsome daughter Maggie. Rough he might be, but beneath the hard shell was a true human heart that beat warmly and tenderly towards her.

Maggie stood, as has been said, busily at work on the clean paved floor of the dairy, her burnished milk-pans full of creamy richness, arranged on shelves along the walls. The dairy was cool and shady, and the sweet fragrance of the fresh milk mingled sweetly with odour of late honeysuckles and fuchsias clambering in at the window. Between the leaves of honeysuckle there was to be seen from the window, far off across the sloping fields, a peep of the loch, the blue sky, and the heather-clad hills in the distance. The door was open, and the afternoon light fell upon no more pleasant sight than the bright shapely Highland lassie, whose sleeves were tucked up to the elbow, her dress pinned behind, while her hands were deftly shaping butter with the aid of a pair of wooden 'clatters' into tempting rounded pats, each pat being dropped, by a quick graceful turn of her skilful hands, into a dish of clear spring-water beside her. Maggie hummed in a sweet low treble as she worked, an old Gaelic air that had a touch of melancholy in it, her sole audience the piper's monstrous bull-dog, that lay all her length in the sunshine asleep on the threshold. Presently the formidable-looking animal raised her head, pricked her ears and growled; then, at the sound of footsteps, rose and bounded down the path; and Maggie, as she paused in singing, heard a well-known voice cry: 'Down, Diana; down, I tell ye; keep down!' The Highland girl went on with her work, with perhaps a tinge of crimson shewing through the sun-browned face, while a man's voice rang out 'Maggie!' from the kitchen door, and then the steps turned to the open dairy door.

'Well, Angus,' Maggie said in a tone of surprise that was hardly meant to be taken as real; 'and iss it you again? I thought you said yesterday that the yacht was going to meet some of the castle-folks at Sheepfell?'

'The Teuk changed his mind, or had a telegram or something. But are ye not glad to see me, Maggie, that ye won't shake hands wi' a body?'

'Deed and I am fery glad to see yourself, Angus, and well ye ken that; but my hands are wet wi' the watter and the butter; and indeed ye must excuse me.'

'But it iss a cold greeting to gif a body, that iss what it iss, no to shake a hand, Maggie,' said Angus; 'or maybe,' plucking up courage from the laughter in Maggie's eyes and the pose of Maggie's cheek, 'maybe _that_ iss what you wanted!' And Angus boldly bestowed a kiss upon the girl's cheek.

'Oh, Angus MacTavish, and how could ye do the like o' that, when ye see I could not protect myself wi' my hands among the butter?'

'Then gif it to me back again, as the song says,' said Angus, taking his own again, before Maggie could make any show of resistance.

'But it iss a wild fellow ye are, and no deserving this drink o' new-drawn warm milk I am going to give ye!'

Maggie wiped her hands in the long white apron she wore, and turned to fill a tumbler full of milk from one of the pans.

'Well, Maggie Cameron, it iss maybe more than I deserve,' said Angus, as he took the tumbler from her hand and raised it to his mouth; 'but here iss to your ferry good-health, Maggie!'

'I believe ye would rather it had been a dram,' said the girl, as she watched the milk swiftly disappear down the young sailor's throat. But Angus declared that in saying so she libelled him.

'And now, Maggie, ye must put on your hat and come with me,' said Angus seriously, when he had emptied the tumbler.

'Go with you, Angus! You're joking. Wass it not for your lesson on the pipes ye came? But dad iss not at home this afternoon--he went the clachan-way with your father--but he will be disappointed to hef missed you.'

'I want you to come to the shore with me, Maggie; I have something to shew you, and I will take no denial for this once.'

'To shew me, Angus? But dad might not be pleased, if he came home when I wass out, to find I wass away trifling with you on the shore.'

'I will answer for that, Maggie Cameron.'

'Well, it iss true my churning is over, and the baking o' the scones can be done when I get back, but'---- The maiden hesitated.

'But there'--and Angus lifted the dish of butter-pats and marched off with them, followed by Maggie, to the kitchen. 'Now put on your hat and come with me.'

While Maggie went to her room, Angus turned the key in the dairy-door, and hung it on a nail in the kitchen; and leaving Janet the maid to bring in the cattle and milk them, the couple started on their expedition with light hearts.

They were a winsome couple, and Janet--a goodly lass herself--stood admiring them from the door-step, not without certain longings on her own account, as they walked along the pathway that skirted the meadow, to the bridge at the gate; and from thence over the stile and across a field, towards the loch. Margaret Cameron was a tall well-built girl, yet her head was just on a level with her companion's shoulder. Her face was fresh and sunny, light and shadow playing on it in quick responsive movement to the mental mood that happened to rule her. She was young, not yet out of her teens, full of youthful impulse, that expressed itself in frequent peals of merry laughter easily roused; with a tender heart too, as the sweet blue eyes told, by the quick rush of tears when she was moved by any tale of woe, or touched by the chill finger of disappointment. Angus was a broad-shouldered six-foot sailor, stooping slightly as he walked, with a bronzed cheery face, and the kindest of honest eyes, that looked you straight in the face fearlessly. He had been for many years one of the most trustworthy 'hands' on board the Duke's yacht, _The Curlew_, and was looked up to by the fishing-folks of Inversnow with all the respect due to a favourite of the Chief's, and to one whose ideas had been expanded by frequent visits to the Mediterranean.

'Where are we going?' asked the girl by-and-by, as Angus struck into a road leading to the town. 'It iss nefer into Inversnow we are going like this together!'

'And are ye ashamed to be seen walking with me, Maggie Cameron?'

'Ashamed? No! But it iss not well to be having folk talking idle gossip apoot us in the daytime, when maybe I ought to be at home working.' Maggie was made the more jealous of her reputation as a good housekeeper by receiving a surprised nod at that moment from Mr M'Alister the grocer, who stood lazily on the door-step of his shop.

'Nefer mind what folk say, Maggie. This iss the way;' and Angus turned off the main street to the pier.

'Eh, Angus, what a pretty little poat--what a fery pretty poat!' said Maggie as they reached the end of the pier and looked down on a tiny boat resting placidly on the loch.

'And ye think her a pretty poat now, do ye, Maggie?' looking proudly from his achievement to his companion's interested face.

'I nefer saw anything prettier. She sits on the water like a sea-gull,' replied the girl warmly.

'And you can read her name on the stern now, can't you, Maggie--eh?'

The maid looked down fixedly and, as she looked, changed colour. Angus was watching her with beaming eyes. Painted in distinct blue letters on an oak ground were the words, 'MAGGIE CAMERON--INVERSNOW.'

RAILWAY ACCIDENTS.

The fact that during last year (1876) no fewer than 1245 persons were killed and 4724 injured upon the various railways of Great Britain, is sufficiently startling; for these numbers, we need hardly remind our readers, exceed those of the killed and wounded in many a great battle. The average number killed per annum during the last five years has been 1295, and of those injured 4333.

Fortunately, however, for the peace of mind of the average British passenger, these numbers are not quite so alarming as they at first sight appear. That this is so, we shall shew by an analysis of the causes which led last year to the above-mentioned losses. Of those killed, no fewer than 305 were trespassers upon railway lines; and between thirty and forty of these were trespassers with the deliberate intention of committing suicide. Again, more than one half of the total number of persons killed were railway servants; and the same class furnished no fewer than 2600 of the 4724 cases of injury recorded in the returns. From their own misconduct or want of caution, 101 passengers lost their lives, and 604 sustained injuries. Level crossings are each year a very fertile cause of accidents, and to them no fewer than fifty-nine of the deaths of 1876 must be apportioned. We come now, however, to that which is undoubtedly a fact of the utmost gravity, namely, that thirty-eight passengers were killed and 1279 injured from causes over which they had _no_ control, upon the railways of Great Britain.

In 1874, a Royal Commission was issued at the request of parliament to inquire into the causes and cure of railway accidents in Great Britain. For two years and a half the Commissioners pursued their labours; and their Report now lies before us. From it we gather that the Commissioners examined several hundreds of witnesses, including officers of the Board of Trade, general managers of railway companies, traffic managers, superintendents and assistant-superintendents of railways, inspectors and sub-inspectors of various classes, foremen of shunters, station-masters, engine-drivers, guards, brakemen, shunters, plate-layers, signalmen, pointsmen, boilersmiths, porters, and clerks. The Commissioners likewise arranged for a most valuable series of practical experiments upon the merits of the various systems of applying brake-power to trains, to be performed before them upon a portion of the Midland Company's railway near Newark. Of the important results disclosed by the elaborate system of experiments thus performed we shall have something to say presently. In addition to all this, the Commissioners personally inspected railway premises and works in various places throughout the kingdom, and investigated upon their own behalf certain 'typical cases' of railway accidents. Whatever conclusions, therefore, they may have arrived at claim at least the respectful consideration of all interested--and who is not?--in the prevention of railway accidents.

Regret has, we observe, been freely expressed in certain quarters that the Commissioners have not seen fit to advise the establishment of a government department which should exercise a general control over the practical administration of British railways. To have done so would, however, the Commissioners say, not have been in their opinion 'either prudent or desirable.' A government authority placed in such a position would, they remark, 'be exposed to the danger either of appearing indirectly to guarantee work, appliances, and arrangements which might practically prove faulty or insufficient, or else of interfering with railway management to an extent which would soon alienate from it public sympathy and confidence, and thus destroy its moral influence, and with it its capacity for usefulness.' Whilst, however, the Commissioners are thus strongly of opinion that any change which would relieve the railway companies from the responsibility which now rests upon them to provide for the safety of their traffic would be undesirable, they are nevertheless disposed to believe that legislation--by which the adoption of certain recognised improvements, and the construction of certain necessary works for the greater safety of the traffic, should be made compulsory upon the railway companies--would be a public gain. Amongst these improvements and necessary works are included by the Commissioners the compulsory adoption of the block and interlocking systems. The object of the block-system, we may here remark, is to preserve an arbitrary interval of space between all trains which are moving in the same direction upon the same line of rails. This is accomplished by dividing the line into sections; and not until a telegraphic message has been received announcing that a train has passed out of one section, is another permitted to enter that section. If properly carried out, this would prevent the possibility of one train running into another from behind, which as we all know has been a frequent cause of accidents.

We are not quite certain whether the Commissioners have done well in advising that 'increased facilities be afforded to the public to obtain redress by cheap and summary process when trains are late.' In the first place the Commissioners have not attempted to define when a train shall be held to be unpunctual; that is, whether one or five or fifteen or fifty minutes is to be held to constitute unpunctuality; and also whether the distance which the train has run is, or is not, to be taken into account. If every passenger by the Flying Scotchman from Edinburgh to London is to have a right to an action against the railway companies, in the event of that train being, say five minutes late upon its long journey of four hundred miles, the prospect of litigation thereby opened is sufficient to appal the hearts of shareholders in the North British, North-Eastern, and Great Northern Railways, and to make glad those of lawyers. Moreover, the Commissioners do not attempt to define what they mean by 'a cheap and summary process' being afforded to passengers of bringing actions against railway companies. At present such actions are occasionally brought in the County Courts, and it would be difficult, we think, to imagine 'a cheaper or more summary process' than they already afford.

At present, as most of our readers are aware, every passenger train which runs a distance of twenty miles without stopping is bound to carry with it some means whereby passengers can communicate with the guard or engine-driver of the train. The Royal Commissioners, however, have resolved to recommend that every train which runs for even eight miles without stopping is to be provided with a means of communication between the passengers and the servants of the company. Why this limit of eight miles has been arbitrarily fixed upon can only be left to conjecture. If some simple method could be devised whereby a passenger could instantaneously communicate with the servants of the train, an important benefit would be secured; but so long as the railway companies continue to call a small cord hidden away somewhere or other _outside_ of the carriages, 'a means of communication between passengers and the servants of the company,' we confess that we do not attach much practical importance to this last recommendation of the Royal Commissioners.

We have already mentioned that the Royal Commissioners caused an extensive series of experiments to be performed in their presence upon a portion of the Midland Company's system near Newark, in order to test the various methods which have been invented for applying continuous brake-power to trains. Before, however, the trials of the various continuous 'brakes' were made, trials of the amount of brake-power _usually_ supplied to the trains of some of the chief railway companies in Great Britain were made. From these experiments it appeared that with the amount of hand brake-power usually supplied, a train going at between forty-five and fifty miles an hour could not as a rule be brought to a full stop in much less than half a mile. During the trials at Newark, the merits of eight different kinds of 'continuous brakes' were tried; and 'amply proved the necessity for some greater control over fast passenger-trains than that hitherto provided in this country.' Speaking approximately indeed, it was shewn conclusively at these trials that a good continuous brake will reduce the stopping distances of fast trains to one-third of the distance within which they can be stopped by the present ordinary means. With regard to the effect upon passengers of any sudden stoppages by means of these continuous brakes, it is satisfactory to know that 'by none of the systems used in the trials could the brakes be applied too powerfully or too suddenly for the safety of the passengers.'

As the result of these Newark trials, the Royal Commissioners recommend that it should be made obligatory upon railway companies to provide every train with sufficient brake-power to bring it, at the highest speed at which it may be travelling and upon any gradients, to an absolute stop within five hundred yards. They also advise that a large proportion of the brake-power should be in the hands of the engine-driver. He is usually the man who first espies danger; and as when a train is travelling at the rate of sixty miles an hour, it passes over eighty-eight feet per second, it will easily be seen, that however slight may be the interval necessary for the driver to attract the attention of the guard, and for that official to apply his brakes, it may be sufficiently long to cause a serious accident.

Every newspaper reader must have remarked the frequent accidents which occur through passengers (whilst entering or leaving railway carriages) falling between the steps and the platform. This being so, it is satisfactory to remark that the Royal Commissioners have resolved to recommend that the adoption by railway companies of continuous foot-boards of sufficient width should be made compulsory wherever, in the opinion of the officials of the Board of Trade, 'the circumstances of the traffic are such as to render them necessary for the safety of passengers.'

As regards the important subject of the compensation which the railway companies are at present obliged to make whenever a passenger is--through no fault of his own--killed or injured whilst travelling upon their lines, the Royal Commissioners have not thought it necessary to make any special recommendations. They appear indeed to think that the principle of self-interest will be sufficient to make the companies introduce all reasonable improvements and take all possible means to secure the safety of their passengers. Mr Galt, however, one of the Royal Commissioners, dissents from this view of his colleagues, and we think with reason. He asks in connection with this subject the following very pertinent question: 'Does the sum paid in compensation by the companies exceed the expenditure that would necessarily be incurred for the avoidance of preventable accidents?' This question Mr Galt proceeds to regard from two points of view. First, the effect of accidents on the market value of railway shares; and second, the cost which the companies would have to incur in order to introduce various well-known means for the prevention of accidents, which have often been pressed upon their attention by Captain Tyler and other officials of the Board of Trade. The effect of an accident upon the market value of railway shares, even when it is one of exceptional severity, Mr Galt shews is only temporarily and never permanently to lower the value of the shares in the particular railway company upon whose system it occurred. The first cost, moreover, of introducing improvements upon their lines, Mr Galt points out, is felt very severely by railway companies; whereas the compensation which they pay for personal injuries does not at present amount to one per cent. of their total expenditure. Mr Galt indeed asserts that the saving which the companies would effect by the use of every available means for the prevention of accidents would 'scarcely amount to a shilling in the hundred pounds.' Hence he arrives at the very disagreeable conclusion, that so far as the _pecuniary_ principle--apart from all higher considerations--is concerned, the railway companies' interests and those of the general public are diametrically opposed to each other!

We shall conclude this article by giving a brief epitome of the principal points upon which the Royal Commissioners have made formal 'recommendations' either for the consideration of parliament or of the railway companies. 1. They have recommended that discretionary powers should be conferred upon the Board of Trade to enforce the extension of stations and sidings wherever the accommodation provided for the traffic is so inadequate as to endanger safety. 2. To enforce the adoption of the block and interlocking systems on all lines or portions of lines where the introduction of these improvements is necessary for the safety of the traffic. 3. To restrict the speed of trains upon any line or section of a line which is in a condition to render a high rate of speed unsafe. 4. To require companies to provide their passenger carriages with continuous foot-boards. 5. To impose conditions upon companies in certain cases in sanctioning the opening of new lines. 6. To require companies to provide foot-bridges or subways at stations where the absence of such accommodation is proved to be a source of danger. 7. To require a lodge to be maintained at public crossings for foot-passengers wherever circumstances render it necessary for safety. 8. That railway companies shall be required by law, under adequate penalties, to supply all trains with sufficient brake-power to stop them within five hundred yards under all circumstances. 9. That in order to produce greater punctuality in the conduct of the traffic on railways, additional facilities be afforded to the public for obtaining compensation when trains are late. 10. That the 31st and 32d Vict. c. 119, s. 22, relating to intercommunication in trains, be amended in the manner which we have indicated above. 11. That the civil liability of railway companies for accidents to their servants, and of the criminal liability of persons in railway employment for acts of negligence endangering life, be extended.

Some at least of these proposals of the Royal Commissioners will doubtless be adopted by Her Majesty's government, and will be proposed to parliament, with all the weight of their authority, during the next (1878) session of parliament. That the government measure which will embody these 'selected' recommendations of the Royal Commissioners will satisfy all parties--directors of railways, railway servants, and the general public alike--would of course be too much to hope. But this may at least be confidently predicted--that if the chief recommendations of the Royal Commissioners be adopted by parliament, and be loyally carried out in practice by the railway companies, they will tend in no inconsiderable degree to render railway travelling in Great Britain in the future both much safer and much pleasanter than it has been in the past.

DROLLERIES OF THE AMERICAN BENCH.

Droll things are reported of the bench and bar in the United States. Perhaps all that is said of them in the newspapers may have a tinge of exaggeration; but we do not doubt that there is a considerable substructure of truth. What, indeed, but odd sayings and doings can be expected from judges who are appointed by universal suffrage, and may in many cases be little better than the boon-companions of the culprits who are apt to come judicially before them. We cull a few drolleries of the American bench for the amusement of our readers.

Wearied beyond endurance by the tediousness of a long-winded pleader, a Kentuckian judge put himself out of his misery and his tormentor out of countenance by suddenly exclaiming: 'If the court is right, and she thinks she air, why then you are wrong, and she knows you is. Shut up!' Almost as rude in speech was Judge Dowling, who after serving as fireman and police-officer, became by election one of the magistrates of the Empire City. 'What are you reading from, sir?' asked he of a counsel.

'From the statute of 1876, your Honour,' was the reply.

'Well,' said Dowling, 'you needn't read any more; I'm judge in this court, and my statutes are good enough law for anybody!'

This worshipful gentleman plumed himself upon deciding 'according to the equities of the case,' law and precedent to the contrary notwithstanding; they went for nothing with him.

They did not go for much more with the western administrator of the law, Judge Alec Smith. A divorce case being called on, he, addressing the plaintiff's representative, said: 'I don't think people ought to be compelled to live together when they don't want to do so. I will decree a divorce in this case;' and the parties concerned were thereupon declared to be no longer man and wife. Presently the defendant's lawyer appeared, and was not a little surprised to find all was settled, that the judge had decided without hearing one side, much less both. He protested against such over-hasty proceedings, and appealed to the court to redress the wrong it had committed. The court not being inclined to own itself in fault, he was informed it was too late to raise objections; the decree had been pronounced; but if he wanted to argue the case 'right bad,' the court would marry the parties again, and let him have a crack for it.

When Miss Amelia Donnerschley claimed two hundred dollars from faithless Augustus Berker for breach of promise, the gentleman justified his conduct on the plea that after dwelling under the same roof with the young lady and her mamma for eight months, he found it so impossible to live comfortably with the one, that he was compelled to cry off with the other. The judge inquired if the mother purposed living with her daughter after marriage, and receiving an affirmative answer, asked the defendant whether he would rather live with his mother-in-law or pay two hundred dollars.

'Pay two hundred dollars,' was the prompt reply.

Said the judge: 'Young man, let me shake hands with you. There was a time in my life when I was in the same situation as you are in now. Had I possessed your firmness, I should have been spared twenty-five years of trouble. I had the alternative of marrying or paying a hundred and twenty-five dollars. Being poor, I married; and for twenty-five years have I regretted it. I am happy to meet with a man of your stamp. The plaintiff must pay ten dollars and costs for having thought of putting a gentleman under the dominion of a mother-in-law.'

The much-married dignitary was not so susceptible to the charms of the sex as his brother of Iowa, who refused to fine a man for kissing a girl against her will, because the complainant was so temptingly pretty that nothing but an overwhelming sense of its dignity prevented the court kissing her itself.

It is lucky for an offender when his judge puts himself in his place; justice is sure then to be tempered with mercy, as in the case of the snatcher of spoons brought before a Georgian court many years ago. Bela Brown, who then went the circuit as judge, was an able man, in equal repute as a lawyer and as a boon-companion. The night before the court was to open at Dayton, his Honour went to a tavern kept by Sterrit, and had such a good time of it with his legal friends that by midnight he was not quite so sober as a judge should be. Somebody cleared the table of all its spoons, and put them into the unconscious gentleman's pocket. He was greatly perturbed at finding them there next morning. They were Sterrit's spoons without doubt, for they bore the landlord's initials.

'Polly,' said the judge to his wife, 'was I tipsy when I came home?'

'Yes,' said she. 'You know your habits when you get among those lawyers.'

Much relieved in his mind, the judge declared he could understand how the spoons came into his possession. 'That fellow keeps the meanest liquor in the States; but I never supposed it would make a man steal.'

A day or two afterwards, a man was arraigned for larceny; he pleaded guilty, but urged he was intoxicated when he committed the offence.

'What's the nature of the charge?' inquired Judge Brown.

'Stealing money from the till at Sterrit's tavern,' replied the clerk.

'Young man,' said the judge solemnly, 'are you sure you were tipsy when you took this money?'

'Yes, your Honour; when I went outdoors the ground kept coming up and hitting me on the head.'

'That will do. Did you get all your liquor at Sterrit's?'

'Every drop, sir.'

Turning to the prosecuting attorney, the judge said: 'You will do me the favour of entering a _nolle prosequi_; that liquor of Sterrit's I have reason to know is enough to make a man do anything dirty. I got tipsy on it myself the other night, and stole all his spoons. If Sterrit will sell such abominable stuff he ought not to have the protection of this court.--Mr Sheriff, you may release the prisoner.'

Like the sailor who objected to his captain preaching and flogging too, offenders generally do not appreciate being suitably admonished as well as punished; and no doubt the Californian felt annoyed when, through incautiously demurring to the magistrate reproaching him with having no ambition, he found himself put to the question with: 'Where is it, sir? Where is it? Did you ever hear of Cicero taking free lunches? Did you ever hear that Plato gamboled through the alleys of Athens? Did you ever hear Demosthenes accused of sleeping under a coal-shed? If you would be a Plato, there would be a fire in your eye; your hair would have an intellectual cut; you'd step into a clean shirt; and you'd hire a mowing-machine to pare those finger-nails. You have got to go up for four months!'

The Honourable Kiah Rodgers, commonly called Old Kye, presiding in a Louisiana court, thus spoke his mind to a delinquent named Kettles: 'Prisoner, stand up! Mr Kettles, this court is under the painful necessity of passing sentence of the law upon you. This court has no doubt, Mr Kettles, but what you were brought into this scrape by the use of intoxicating liquors. The friends of this court all know that if there is any vice this court abhors it is intoxication. When this court was a young man, Mr Kettles, it was considerably inclined to drink, and the friends of this court know that this court has naterally a very high temper; and if this court had not stopped short off, I have no doubt, sir, but what this court, sir, would have been in the Penitentiary or in its grave.'

Still more communicative was Judge Kye respecting his young days when summing up in an action brought by an overseer for wrongful dismissal from his situation.

'The jury,' said his Honour, 'will take notice that this court is well acquainted with the nature of the case. When this court first started in the world it followed the business of overseering, and if there is any business which this court understands, it's hosses, mules, and niggers; though this court never overseed in its life for less than eight hundred dollars. And this court in hoss-racing was always naterally gifted; and this court in running a quarter race whar the hosses was turned, could allers turn a hoss so as to gain fifteen feet in a race; and on a certain occasion it was one of the conditions of the race that Kye Rodgers shouldn't turn narry of the hosses.' Surely it must have been Old Kye who upon taking his official seat for the first time, said: 'If this court know her duty, and she thinks she do, Justice will walk over this track with her head and tail up.'

Prone as he might be to discursiveness, we fancy the Louisiana judge would have laid down the law a little more lucidly than the worthy to whom a Minnesota juryman appealed for aid, when his ideas as to what constituted murder had been confused by the arguments of counsel.

'Gentlemen of the jury,' said this legal luminary, 'murder is where a man is murderously killed. The killer in such a case is a murderer. Now murder by poison is just as much murder as murder with a gun, pistol, or knife. It is the simple act of murdering that constitutes murder in the eye of the law. Don't let the ideas of murder and manslaughter confound you. Murder is one thing, manslaughter is quite another. Consequently, if there has been a murder, and it is not manslaughter, then it must be murder. Don't let this point escape you. Self-murder has nothing to do with this case. According to Blackstone and all the best living writers, one man cannot commit _felo de se_ upon another; and that is clearly my view. Gentlemen, murder is murder. The murder of a brother is called fratricide; the murder of a father is called parricide, but that don't enter into this case. This case is murder, and as I said before, murder is most emphatically murder. You will take the case, gentlemen, and make up your minds according to the law and the evidence, not forgetting the explanation I have given you.'

When an English judge has passed sentence upon a criminal, he has done with him. It would never enter his head to visit a man he had condemned to death. Judge Smith of Cincinnati had different notions of judicial etiquette. One Samuel Covert, about to be executed at Lebanon, had just taken his last meal, when the judge looked in, inquired how he felt, and asked for his autograph. Having obtained the autograph, and learned that Covert was pretty well, considering circumstances, the judge shook his hand warmly, saying: 'Good-bye, Mr Covert; I shall not see you again.'

'Good-bye, Mr Smith,' was the reply. 'Remember my last words to you: you have passed sentence of death upon an innocent man.'

'That is so, is it, Sam?' queried the visitor.

'Yes, sir.'

'If that be true, you've nothing against me; have you, Sam?'

'No, sir; you did your duty under the evidence.'

'Well, Sam, if you are an innocent man, it is a great calamity.'

'I am innocent,' repeated Covert.

The judge then departed, and Covert was marched to the scaffold.

Judge Smith hardly felt so easy in his mind as a Californian sheriff did after being interviewed by a self-confessed murderer, who desired to be sent to New York to answer for the crime he had committed in that city.

'So your conscience ain't easy, and you want to be hanged?' said the sheriff. 'Well, my friend, the county treasury ain't well fixed at present, and I don't want to take any risks, in case you're not the man, and are just fishing for a free ride. Besides, those New York courts can't be trusted to hang a man. As you say, you deserve to be killed, and your conscience won't be easy till you are killed, and as it can't make any difference to you or to society _how_ you are killed, I guess I'll do the job myself!' and his hand moved to his pocket; but before he could pull out the revolver and level it at the murderer, that conscience-stricken individual was down the road and out of killing distance.

When lawyers behave in such a free-and-easy way, it is not surprising that a prisoner presumes to enter into familiar conversation with the bench. 'An old tippler,' asked by a Nevadan court whether he was rightly or wrongly charged with being intoxicated, pleaded, 'Not guilty, your Honour. Sunstroke!'

'Sunstroke?' queried Judge Cox.

'Yes, sir; the regular New York variety.'

'You've had sunstroke a good deal in your time, I believe?'

'Yes, your Honour; but this last attack was most severe.'

'Does sunstroke make you rush through the streets offering to fight the town?'

'That's the effect precisely.'

'And makes you throw brickbats at people?'

'That's it, judge. I see you understand the symptoms; and agree with the best recognised authorities, who hold it inflames the organs of combativeness and destructiveness. When a man of my temperament gets a good square sunstroke he's liable to do almost anything.'

'Yes; you are quite right--liable to go to jail for fifteen days. You'll go down with the policeman at once.' With that observation the conversation naturally closed, and the victim of so-called sunstroke 'went down.'

The bench does not always come off so victoriously. A prisoner before the court of Keatingville, Montana, neglecting to remove his hat, the sheriff was directed to do it for him, and obeyed instructions by knocking the offending head-gear off with his rifle. The owner picked it up, and as he clapped it on his head again shouted: 'I am bald, judge!' A repetition of the performance followed; at which, waxing indignant, his Honour rose and said: 'I fine you five dollars for contempt of court--to be committed until the fine is paid!'

The offender walked up to the judge, and laying down half a dollar, remarked: 'Your sentence, judge, is most ungentlemanly; but the law is imperative, and I will have to stand it; so here is half a dollar; and the four dollars and a half you owed me when we stopped playing poker this morning, makes us square!'

The card-playing administrator of justice must have felt as small as his brother-judge when he priced the cow. Being at Little Rock, Arkansas, on business, that judge strolled into the market, and seeing a farmer with a cow, stepped up to him and asked what he wanted for her. 'Thirty dollars,' said the farmer. 'She'll give you five quarts of milk if you feed her well.'

'Why,' quoth the judge, 'I have cows on my farm, not much more than half as big as yours, which give twenty quarts a day.'

The cow-owner eyed his new acquaintance very hard, as if trying to remember if he had seen him before, and then inquired where he lived. 'My home is in Iowa,' was the reply.

'Yes, stranger,' said the farmer, 'I don't dispute it. There were heaps of soldiers from Iowa down here during the war, and they were the worst liars in the whole Yankee army. Maybe you may have been an officer in some of them regiments?'

Without satisfying his interlocutor's curiosity on that point, the judge, we are told, 'slid for the court-house.'

THE FAIRIES.

Where are the wonderful elves, and the fairy creatures bright?
Where are the tiny things that danced in the pale moonlight?
Danced in a magic ring, and fluttered in robes of white,
Like motes in the sunbeam whirled, like leaves in the forest hoar.
_Hark to the sound of the sea, and the cry of the waves on the shore._

Where are the dusky gnomes who toiled in the golden ground?
So that the miners trembled hearing their hammers' sound,
Hearing them tapping, tapping, delving in darkness bound,
A thousand tapping hammers, beneath them hammering.
_Hark to the muttered thunder, the voice of the hidden spring._

Where are the forest fairies, the elves in Lincoln green,
Deep in the forest hidden, and never in cities seen,
Sought for by timid maidens, on sainted Hallowe'en,
The joy of all true lovers, a merry band were they!
_Hark to the hum of the bee, in the scented blooms of May._

Where are the household fairies, who loved the embers' glow,
Who played at games with the shadows flickering to and fro,
But left no track on the sanded floor, no trace on the fallen snow,
And filled up the little slippers the children left behind,
_Hark to the howl of the tempest, the moan of the stormy wind._

The elves are waiting, waiting, for the golden days to come,
When grief shall be known no longer, nor faithful love be dumb;
Till the figures all are added up, and finished the mighty sum.
Ah yes, they are waiting, waiting, till grief shall be no more.
_Hark to the rustle of raindrops, that kiss the deserted shore._

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