Chapter V: Part II: Inchgarry’s Narrative Continued

Three weeks elapsed, during which no one in Inchgarry had set eyes on Ian Dhu. The story of his love for the _sheach_ was commonly known, and speculation was rife as to his proceedings since the night of his disappearance. This was set at rest one evening by his sudden appearance in the kitchen of the sub-factor’s house, lean and gaunt as a famished hound. His face was haggard and hunger-pinched, and a gleam very like insanity lit up the dark scowling eyes. His hair and beard were matted and tangled, and his clothes were soiled and rent. It was conjectured that he had spent the interval since his flight, in the fastnesses of the mountains—a prey to the throes of that passion which his powerful nature had conceived. What a picture might not imagination draw of the terrible human struggle enacted in those solitudes! Perhaps some such thought occurred to the frightened women-servants as Ian stood before them. At anyrate, they received him with silent sympathy, and invited him to take refreshment. It does seem strange that the revenge which succeeded his paroxysm of disappointed love should not first have been directed against the young gardener and his sweetheart. Various theories exist to account for this; one being that it really was his purpose to include them among his victims. My informant, however, held the very plausible opinion that Ian Dhu’s reason had given way under the great strain on his feelings, that his love was thereafter mercifully a blank to him, while the old grudge against Stewart had assumed unnatural proportions.

Forbes had an interview that night in his own parlour with his quondam henchman as the investigation which afterwards took place proved; and it was late when Ian Dhu slunk from the house by the private door, carrying with him a gun, and was seen to disappear in the belt of firs that skirts the loch. It is mentioned, with that morbid zest for details which a tragedy never fails to excite, that only a few minutes previous to Ian’s plunging into the wood, Archie Guthrie and Effie Stewart (now formally betrothed) had passed the sub-factor’s house arm-in-arm. What would have been the consequences of a _rencontre_ between the lovers and Black Sutherland is a favourite topic for surmise amongst the people of Inchgarry to this day.

On the following morning, Grantoch, who had returned from his rounds, took his spy-glass from its case and directed it towards Bhein à B’huachaill. A fire in the heather on this hill had been reported earlier, and Stewart had gone to investigate the cause, telling Grantoch to follow him when his other duties should leave him at liberty. The burning of the heather in the month of July, and in the centre of the ‘forest’ ground, was a serious matter in the eyes of the keepers, driving the deer as it would, from a favourite haunt. Grantoch now desired to make out, if possible, in what direction Stewart had gone, that he might be able to join him by the shortest route. He brought the glass to bear on every part of the mountain, its wood-clad base, purple sides, gray scaurs, and shimmering water-courses—but without result; and was just about to close it, when his glance rested upon a human figure shewing on the near shoulder of Bhein à B’huachaill. His practised eye told him at once it was not Donald Stewart. He carefully scrutinised it for some minutes, until with startled surprise he recognised Ian Dhu creeping over the watershed, bearing a gun on his shoulder.

Grantoch quietly shut his glass, returned it to its case, examined with professional caution the lock of his double-barrel to see that it was at half-cock, and started at a swinging trot for the foot of the hill. Its nearest point was only a mile and a half distant; but, convinced that Ian was on another poaching expedition, he resolved to get the assistance of a keeper whose cottage stood about a mile farther up the loch. Here he was agreeably surprised to find Stewart engaged in issuing some orders. The latter explained that he had come direct to the cottage to learn whether the under-keeper knew anything of the fire; and that he found he had visited the spot. It was merely a patch which had soon burned out of itself, and Stewart had therefore waited leisurely for his comrade’s appearance. He pricked up his ears, however, when Grantoch told him of Ian Dhu’s movements, at once suspecting him of having intentionally fired the heather. The thought brought his hasty temper to such a heat that he resolved at once to clear up the matter by giving chase to Ian Dhu.

The trio took the route which Grantoch had seen Sutherland take, and their keen eyes kept them close on his track after it quitted the watershed. At length they came in full view of him as he now strode rapidly along the side of the hill. Their object was to detect him in the act of poaching, confident that Inchgarry would this time prosecute, and hopeful that the incendiarism would also be brought home to him. To avoid being observed in their turn, they now crouched along amongst the tall heather, till within a few hundred yards of where they had seen Ian Dhu last halt. Stewart then proposed to advance alone on all-fours to reconnoitre. As he thus cautiously approached the poacher, he observed that he had leapt into the dry channel of what is termed a winter stream, and was looking along the barrel of his weapon—a rifle—which he held resting on the bank at the opposite side of the channel to that on which Stewart now lay. Ian Dhu’s face was if possible more haggard and wild than ever, while the hand which grasped the rifle shook as if with ague or palsy. His glance was directed towards a spot some hundred yards distant, where the heather shewed blackened as if by recent fire. Now and again the maniac—for he had every appearance of being bereft of reason—would start up with an impatient cry and gesture, as though disappointed by the non-appearance of some object for which he waited. At last, in view of the puzzled and somewhat terrified keeper, he brought the rifle to his shoulder, and with steady deliberate aim, fired at an object unseen by the keeper. The echoes which the sharp report awakened were mingled with a piercing cry!

Ian Dhu had not time to complete his attempted spring from the channel of the stream before his shoulder was seized in the strong grasp of Donald Stewart. He turned to face his captor; then with a scream of terror, which for the moment paralysed the stout-hearted keeper, tore himself free and dashed down the mountain like a hunted stag. Donald, with the two under-keepers, who had rapidly approached, watched him in silence as he sped from rock to rock. Pursuit was useless. Following him with their eyes as he disappeared and reappeared among the inequalities of the ground, they at last observed, with a thrill of horror, that he did not turn aside in his descent from a well-known point at which the hill sloped almost precipitously for several hundred feet. With blanched faces and upraised hands they saw Ian Dhu pause for a moment on the dangerous verge, and take the awful leap.

The three keepers resolved at once to make a detour to the spot where he must have fallen, and for this purpose hastened down the shoulder of the hill. They had not proceeded far when Grantoch called the attention of the others to a groaning sound proceeding from some spot near them. Stewart believing it to be the dying moans of a wounded stag, answered his faithful comrade rather rudely and hurried on. His course happily took him to the very spot where the man, whom Ian Dhu’s last bullet had reached, lay bleeding and apparently dying. To the horror and amazement of all, it proved to be Forbes the sub-factor. Stewart, with a sensitiveness that did him credit, left the wounded man in the charge of Grantoch and their companion, and hurried off himself to procure assistance. With as much speed as the task would admit, he returned to the spot, leading a sure-footed pony, and on this, supported alternately by the keepers, Forbes was conveyed by easy stages to his own house.

The wound proved mortal; but before his death he made a statement which threw light upon the mysterious events of that fatal morning. Along with Ian Dhu he had concocted a scheme for Stewart’s destruction. He it was who had instructed Sutherland to fire the heather, calculating shrewdly that the circumstance would unfailingly call the keeper to the spot, in all likelihood alone, his trusty assistant being fully employed at that early hour. Ian, lying in wait with Forbes’s rifle, was to have shot the head-keeper whenever he appeared on the scene. The explanation of his own unfortunate presence was extremely simple. When he believed the dark deed accomplished, he had become anxious to recover the rifle from Ian Dhu, seeing that, in the event of capture, its possession would open up a suspicious inquiry respecting his own share in the dastardly business. This motive sealed his own fate. The impatient and vengeful Ian had not paused to reckon the chances of a mistake, but had pressed the trigger the moment he saw a human figure moving through the high heather towards the scene of the fire. Stewart, so happily deterred from his first purpose of visiting the burning hill, thus escaped the doom intended for him.

‘And what were the fortunes of the other characters in your sad story?’ I asked of the chief.

‘Oh! You see that cottage over there with the sweet bit of garden in front, ornamented with rockeries and ferns? That is the home of Archie Guthrie and his wife, _née_ Effie Stewart. The fairy scarcely deserves the name now, having lost much of her elfish slenderness and activity, but is after all, perhaps, a prettier heroine as the gardener’s wife, and less dangerous to my young male subjects. A coquette she certainly never was; but discreet and prudent to a rare degree. I am at a loss to divine _what_ the source of her strange power was, but am thankful she is now Mrs Guthrie.’

I laughed at the naïve remark.

‘As for Stewart,’ continued Inchgarry, ‘he has married well—the daughter of one of my wealthiest tenants. Grantoch has got a chief charge on an estate in the West Highlands, taking with him the buxom servant whom Stewart brought from Badenoch. So you see they are all doing well. And for my own part, the revelations which were made at the time of the tragedy fully awakened me to the duty of weighing carefully the complaints of my “people,” and of charily guarding against too free an investiture of power over them to an ignorant, malicious, or interested servant. I spend more time here than formerly, and am gratified by the increased contentment and prosperity of those under my care. The story, you will now perceive, though sad, is not without its moral.’

BALLOON-TRAVELLING.

Aërial navigation, the faculty of locomotion through the air, the power of soaring bird-like into the azure fields of space, has always been tantalisingly seductive to the human imagination. So engrossing is the theme, that although the subject has already been discussed from a scientific point of view in these pages, a few additional words about its more popular aspects may not be found uninteresting to our readers.

Great, and, as it has proved, baseless anticipations were evoked by the advent of the first balloon. Aërostation was to disclose the secrets of the atmospheric world, and by enabling men to predict rains and droughts, secure by the proper cultivation of the soil abundant and excellent harvests. The unmanageable nature of the new invention was not taken into account at all, nor the fact, that although you might ascend into the air from any point you chose, no one could predict where or how you would descend. This charming uncertainty still attends aërial voyages; no means have yet been discovered of guiding the balloon in a horizontal direction; and it is always so much at the mercy of currents of air, that the course it will follow is a matter of chance, and not an affair of the aëronaut’s will or choice.

Attempts have been made to press this unmanageable machine into the service of science, and with some success, although what has yet been done is little more than a suggestion of discoveries which may at some future time be practicable by its aid.

In 1862 Mr Glaisher, author of a history of _Travels in the Air_, made a series of ascents from Wolverhampton, in order to verify a number of scientific observations; the results of which are contained in the annals of the British Association. A new balloon was provided for him, which was not made of silk, but of American cloth, a stronger and more serviceable material, and in this aërial machine he encountered sundry mishaps and misadventures, on two occasions narrowly escaping with his life.

Its very danger lends to balloon-travelling a sense of conscious adventure, of thrilling excitement, peculiarly its own. Added to this, the cloud-scenery through which the aëronaut glides is not only novel, but is often, especially at sunrise and sunset, most gorgeously beautiful; while the earth beneath, which seems to have motion transferred to it, presents as it hurries past, a charming and varied panorama. Woods and rivers, hamlets and towns, hills and valleys, and wide-spreading downs, succeed each other in rapid succession. From the immense height, all idea of the comparative altitude of objects is lost; great cities appear like small models of towns, and the biggest man-of-war looks like a boy’s toy ship. Morning up in cloudland is a gloriously radiant spectacle. The balloon floats out of darkness into a world of shadowy mountain ranges, colourless and unsubstantial at first, but borrowing from the rising sun the softest, tenderest hues of roseate pink and warmest crimson, glowing and blending and fading away at last into a mellow flood of amber gold.

In France, for some time after their invention, balloons were quite the rage, the first made for scientific purposes being that of July 1803, and which was followed by several others having for their object the solution of many physical problems, not a few of which remain problems still. In 1850 two ascents were made for the purpose of investigating certain atmospheric phenomena. One especially of these aërial voyages was in the last degree unfortunate. Scarcely had the two philosophers MM. Barral and Bixio taken their seats, than they made the unpleasant discovery that their balloon was not in good working order; and while they were hesitating about what should be done in the circumstances, a violent gust of wind settled the question for them, and the balloon, blown from the earth, shot into the air with the velocity of an arrow. Becoming rapidly inflated, the machine then bulged out at top and bottom, covering the car like a hood, and enveloping the unfortunate aëronauts in total darkness. ‘Their position was most critical; and when one of them endeavoured to secure the valve-rope, a rent was made in the lower part of the balloon, and the hydrogen gas with which it was inflated escaping close to their faces suffocated both of them, causing a momentary exhaustion, followed by nausea and violent vomiting.’

In this helpless condition they discovered that they were descending rapidly; and on groping about for the cause they found that the balloon was split open in the middle, and that there was a rent in it two yards long. This was a cruel predicament in which to find themselves thirty thousand feet up in the air, and very naturally they abandoned all hope of life, although, like wise men, they did all in their power to preserve it. To lessen the downward velocity of the balloon they threw overboard all their ballast, then article after article of their raiment even to their fur coats, preserving only their instruments, with which they at last descended in safety in a vineyard near Lagny.

The motion in a balloon is scarcely perceptible. You are not conscious of rising; but the earth appears to recede from you, and to advance to meet you during a descent. In the higher regions of the air, the intense solitude of the cloud-scape has something in it awful and oppressive, as if the world were left behind for ever, and the aëronaut were about to launch chance-driven into the vast infinitude of shadowland. Amid these altitudes, if any sound is made by the aëronaut, it is echoed back in ghostly tones by the vast envelope of the balloon, which as it floats casts a shadow sometimes black and sometimes white; but which is usually surrounded by an aureole or halo more or less distinctly marked.

In throwing out ballast or any small article from a balloon, a certain degree of caution is requisite, as a bottle or any similar object falls with such velocity that if it were to strike the roof of a cottage it would go right through it. We are told that Gay-Lussac, in an ascent in 1804, threw out a common deal chair from the height of 23,000 feet. It fell beside a country girl who was tending some sheep in a field, and as the balloon was invisible, she concluded—and so did wiser heads than hers—that the chair had fallen straight down from heaven, a gift of the Virgin to her faithful followers. No one was sceptical enough to deny it, for there was the chair, or rather its remains. The most the incredulous could venture to do was to criticise the coarse workmanship of the miraculous seat, and they were busy carping and fault-finding with the celestial upholstery, when an account of M. Gay-Lussac’s aërial voyage was published, and extinguished at once the discussion and the miracle.

In 1868 M. Tissandier and a professional aëronaut made a voyage over the North Sea in a balloon called the Neptune. The machine made a splendid ascent, and was soon floating in mid air buoyant as a feather at the height of four thousand feet, bound, as the aëronauts fondly hoped, for the coast of England. But in this they soon found that they had counted without their host; the Neptune, impelled by the wind, was soaring away in the direction of the middle of the German Ocean. This most inauspicious goal struck terror for a few moments into their ardent souls; but they were soon reassured by observing that the wind in the atmospheric regions below them was setting towards the shore, and that by sinking into this lower current of air they could return whenever they chose. Thus yielding to the current of their fate, they allowed themselves to be carried out to sea, floating like gossamer into the very heart of cloudland. Gorgeous scenes, more splendid, more airy, more delicate than the most glowing visions of the Arabian Nights, rose around them. It was like the enchantment of a vivid dream. They took no note of time; every sense was absorbed in that of vision; they even forgot to be hungry, but gazed, and gazed, and gazed again upon the wide waste of waters that spread beneath them, glowing like one vast molten emerald; its glories half seen, half hid by the multitude of cloud mountains and valleys that rose fluctuating and fantastic on every side, fair with luminous half-lights, delicately lovely with pearly iridescence shading into silvery gray. Thus hovering miles above the world and its commonplace cares, they enjoyed an interval of transcendent delight, rudely broken in upon by the professional aëronaut, a creature of appetite, who pulled the valve-rope unbidden, thus causing them to descend from their cloudy paradise into the grosser atmosphere that immediately surrounds the earth, where they at length bethought themselves—of lunch. In spite of thick thronging poetic fancies and transcendental raptures, they made a very tolerable repast, M. Tissandier finishing his portion of the fowl by tossing a well-picked drumstick overboard. For this imprudence the professional was down upon him immediately. ‘Do you not know,’ quoth he, ‘that to throw out ballast without orders is a very serious crime in a balloon?’ M. Tissandier was at first inclined to argue the point; but on consulting the sensitive barometer he was fain to admit that in consequence of the disappearance of the chicken-bone, the Neptune had made an upward bound of between twenty and thirty yards. Very fine calculation—if true.

Luncheon satisfactorily over, they again soared upward out of sight and sound of earth, and soon found themselves once more in their cloudy Elysium, but with a change; mist and fog hemmed them round instead of the breeze and sunshine, but did not make them less happy. The Neptune was to them a little Goshen, a lonely floating temple of peace, dedicated to contentment and ease. The serenity of their souls was depicted in their faces. Tranquil and easy, they took no thought of the morrow, no, nor of the next hour, when suddenly there broke upon their ears, like a faint far-distant murmur, a sound subdued, monotonous, and yet terrible. Was it the voices of the spheres? No, gentle reader; it was a strain more awful still—it was the voice of the sea. In a moment the listless ease, the sweet do-nothingness of those idlers in cloudland was gone, clean washed away by the swish and swell of that intrusive ocean, which stretched beneath them, painted by the sunset with a thousand glowing tints of beauty, which they had neither leisure nor tranquillity to admire. Fortunately the wind was setting inshore; and amid the fast falling shades of night, the anxious aëronauts were fortunate enough to descry a cape crowned with a lighthouse. Every nerve was strained to reach it; and after a few moments of intense anxiety and effort, the anchor was let go. It caught in a sandhill, and the Neptune once more moored to earth, rolled over on its side, and was after some difficulty secured.

The spot where they landed was curiously enough only a few yards from the reef of rocks where the first aëronaut, Pilatre de Rosier, was dashed to pieces in 1785.

Sometimes, like other bubbles, the balloon bursts; and when this little accident happens, say four thousand feet up in the air, it is of course attended with unpleasant and inconvenient consequences, as was the experience of MM. Fonvielle and Tissandier, who with a party of nine made an ascent in a veteran balloon called ‘the Giant.’ Merry as larks they soared into the air, keenly enjoying the beauty of the day, the novelty of the pastime, the sense of liberty, of entire freedom from all wonted conventionalisms or accustomed restraints. Then with what a keen school-boy edge of appetite they fell upon their chicken, which seems the appropriate food for balloons, eaten from newspapers, which served as plates, and washed down with soda-water and Bordeaux. Champagne was inadmissible; an unruly cork might have popped unawares through the silken tissues of the envelope, and thus hastened a catastrophe. But let us not anticipate. The banquet was over, the board, that is to say the newspapers were cleared, and ‘the feast of reason and the flow of soul’ had begun. All was bright airy genial cordiality and mirth, when suddenly the attention of the travellers was attracted to a white smoke issuing from the sides of the balloon. Whence came this ominous mist, this preternatural cloud, that began to enshroud them? One reckless youth said: ‘It is the Giant smoking his pipe.’ And so it was with a vengeance! Then followed a few terrible moments, in which each after his own fashion bade the world farewell, and found it marvellous hard to do so. The clouds, the sky, the pleasant sunlight, was that their last look at each? It seemed so; but while they were still shivering dizzy and aghast upon that awful threshold, the balloon fell, and strange to relate, fell safely, and they were saved.

A few days afterwards Monsieur Tissandier made another ascent in the Neptune with Monsieur de Fonvielle, and they were busily engaged conducting some scientific experiments when a sharp crack like a sudden quick peal of thunder fell upon their astounded ears, and the professional aëronaut exclaimed in a loud startled voice: ‘The balloon has burst!’ What followed, we give in Monsieur Tissandier’s own words: ‘It was too true; the Neptune’s side was torn open and transformed suddenly into a bundle of shreds, flattening down upon the opposite half. Its appearance was now that of a disc surrounded with a fringe! We came to the ground immediately. The shock was awful. The aëronaut disappeared. I leaped into the hoop, which at that instant fell upon me, together with the remains of the balloon and all the contents of the car. All was darkness. I felt myself rolled along the ground, and wondered if I had lost my sight, or if we were buried in some hole or cavern. An instant of quiet ensued, and then the loud voice of the aëronaut was heard exclaiming: “Now come all of you from under there.”’ And one after another they emerged unhurt into the sunshine, in time to bid farewell to a few fragments of the balloon which were floating away upon the rising wind.

Such experiences must as a rule be trying to the nerves of most people, and we must be so plain as say that travelling by balloon is at best an act of extreme danger and temerity. In order to utilise balloons, it is evident that some sure means of guiding them must be invented; and this discovery or anything approaching to it has yet to be made. In fact, a balloon is still, after about a hundred years’ experience, little better than a toy.

LIGHTNING-CONDUCTORS.

Many of our readers may have wondered why tall buildings such as church steeples and factory chimneys are provided with thin rods of iron running down their sides; and may have been at a loss to understand their meaning. Their use is to conduct lightning harmlessly to the ground during thunder-storms. We have, however, had warnings enough that a bad lightning-conductor is worse, as regards the security of the building it is supposed to protect, than none at all. Unless the electrical connection with the earth be perfect, the conductor may invite the very danger which it ought to turn aside. Rusted chains, imperfect fittings, and the absence of a sufficient thickness of untarnished metal, are responsible for much mischief. Lightning, properly dealt with, is robbed of much of its terrific power; but when its natural path is blocked, and its swift circuit interrupted, it inevitably rends and tears and burns, scathing and scattering all substances before its resistless might.

Franklin meant the lightning-conductors which he invented to consist of iron alone. Iron, however, has too strong an affinity for oxygen to allow of this. All moisture, and all heat, corrode it more or less; and thus grew up the custom of pointing the conductors with copper, and in some cases with costly platinum, soldered to the iron rod. But exposure to weather, and the weak galvanic currents which unavoidably set in where metal of one sort is in contact with metal of another sort, cause rapid decomposition at the joint, and encourage the rust to eat into the substance of the rod. A heavy flash will melt or cripple a conductor thus imperfect, and then woe to the structure! This defect can now be cured by coating the iron rod completely with nickel, a metal which defies rust, and which conducts electricity better than the pure iron does. Bars and rods of this nickelised iron have been kept under water for several days without tarnishing, and resist the effects of the most powerful battery of Leyden jars.

It had been believed, until lately, that platinum was a metal with which no rogue, however dexterous, could tamper. The platinum coinage of the Russia of thirty years since was considered un-imitable by the manufacturers of false money; while the capsules, crucibles, and other apparatus required by scientific men were sold according to the high market value of what is really a precious metal. Unluckily, fraud has been found possible even in this case. The Director of the Royal Italian Observatory on Vesuvius, M. de Luca, surprised at finding first one and then another of the platinum points of his conductors melted by the effect of lightning, made a careful investigation, and discovered that the platinum had been adulterated with from ten to twelve per cent. of lead, and thus rendered fusible. Platinum thus mixed with an inferior metal can be identified by its lesser density, or more easily by the blowpipe, before which a tell-tale green flame will reveal the presence of the lead. Such a mixture would render the hitherto resisting platinum absolutely worthless in the laboratory.

A SPRING BOUQUET.

Rails the rude Wind-king through the surging sea
Of swaying boughs, that bending to the blast
Their countless arms, with murmurous rustling wave,
In wood and forest; and the hedgerows burst
Into the tender greenery of Spring.

Now shew the clumps of golden crocuses
Their crowns above the freshly scented mould;
And quavering bells of snowdrops glimmer white,
In roadside garden; purple violets
Lurk mid their green leaves, heavy-eyed with dew,
Their fragrant perfume scattering on the Dawn.

The polyanthus in her velvet robe—
Yellow and russet—nestles by the side
Of proud auricula; the splendid stars
Of periwinkle—palest lavender—
Gleam from the ivied bank; ranunculus
All-stately queens it o’er her satellites,
The yellow daffodils; Narcissus scents,
With his frankincense sweet, the keen March air,
A flower of peerless beauty.

Wall-flowers shew
From bed and border, their brown-orange blooms;
And under them lingereth a vestal pure,
The last pale primrose. All the pear-trees bend
Beneath their flower-snow; the almonds blush
With roseate bloom; the young year’s minstrel sweet—
The mellow thrush—his liquid carol pours
From the old blackthorn.

Nature is astir;
She wakes rejoicing from her Winter sleep,
And with a thousand voices welcomes Spring!

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