Chapter I: Part 1

OF

POPULAR

LITERATURE, SCIENCE, AND ART.

Fourth Series

CONDUCTED BY WILLIAM AND ROBERT CHAMBERS.

NO. 741. SATURDAY, MARCH 9, 1878. PRICE 1½_d._]

IN THE GLOAMING.

To us Northerners few expressions convey such a sense of peace and beauty as this of ‘in the gloaming.’ The twilight hour has had its singers and idealisers ever since poetry found a voice and made itself a power over men; and so long as human nature is as it is now—impressionable, yearning, influenced by the mystery of nature and the sacredness of beauty—so long will the tenderness of the gloaming find its answering echo in the soul, and the sweet influences of the hour be repeated in the depth of the emotions and the purity of the thoughts.

Between the light and the dark—or as we have it in our dear old local tongue, ‘’twixt the gloamin’ an’ the mirk’—what a world of precious memories and holy suggestions lies enshrined! The French _entre chien et loup_ (between dog and wolf) is a poor equivalent for our ‘gloaming;’ and going farther south the thing is as absent as the expression. To be sure the sweet Ave Maria of the evening is to the pious Catholic all that the twilight is to us; when the church bells ring out the hour for prayer, and the sign that the day’s work is done, and the hurrying crowd stands for a moment hushed, with uplifted hands and reverent faces raised to heaven, each man bareheaded as he says his prayer, calling on Madonna to help him and his. But in the fervid countries which lie in the sunshine from winter to autumn and from dawn to dark, there is no gloaming as we have it. The sun goes down in a cloudless glory of burnished gold or blazing red, of sullen purple or of pearly opalescence; and then comes darkness swift and sudden as the overflowing of a tidal river; but of the soft gray luminous twilight—of that lingering after-glow of sky and air which we Northerners know and love—there is not a trace. Just as with the people themselves it is brilliant youth and glorious maturity, but for the most part an old age without dignity or charm. Nothing is so rare in southern climates as to see an old woman with that noble yet tender majesty, that gloaming of the mind and body, which makes so many among us as beautiful in their own way at seventy as they were at twenty. They fade as suddenly as their twilight; and the splendour of the day dies into the blackness of the night with scarce a trace of that calm, soft, peaceful period when it is still light enough for active life and loving duties, after the fervour of the noon has gone and before the dead dark has come.

The gloaming is the hour for some of the dearest circumstances of life; when heart grows nearer to heart, and there seems to be almost another sense granted for the perception of spiritual things. It is the hour when young lovers wander through the green lanes between the hawthorn and the clematis, while the nightingale sings in the high elm-tree, and the white moths flit by like winged ghosts or float like snow-flakes in the dusk. Or if it is in the winter-time, they sit in the bay of the window half hidden by the curtains, half revealed by the dying light, as is their own love. They have no need of speech. Nature and the gloaming are the voices between them which whisper in sigh and o’ercome all that the one longs to tell and the other yearns to hear; and the silence of their lips is the truest eloquence of their hearts. In the full blaze of daylight that silence would be oppressive or chilling. It would tell either too much or not enough; but in the twilight, when speech would be intrusive and commonplace, the mute influences of the hour are the best expressions of the soul. In meadow and wood and garden the scents of flowers and sprouting leaves, of moss and ferns and bark and bud, are more fragrant now than in the freshness of even the early dawn—that childhood of the day! They too come like the voices of Nature, telling softly secrets which the day cannot reveal. Everything is dreamy, indeterminate, and full of possibilities not yet realised. The moon is only a disc of unsubstantial vapour hanging softly in the sky, where the sunset tones still linger; the stars are faint uncertain points scarcely visible through the quivering chromatic haze; but gradually all this mystery will sharpen into the confessed beauty of the night, when the pale pure splendour of the moon, the glorious brightness of the stars, will take the place of the gloaming. As yet it is all softened colour and chastened tenderness; all silence yet eloquence; and the young lovers wandering by the scented hedgerows, or sitting in the bay of the window—they in the soft glow of the twilight, while the ruddy firelight floods the rest of the room—are in that perfect harmony with the circumstances round them of which the other name is happiness. Yes, the gloaming is the hour of love, as which of us does not know who has ever loved at all! Look back over the lapse of years, and see now what you saw then. You are walking on that broad path up the lone fell-side. The young bracken is sending out its rich scents, mixed with the odour of thyme and the sweetness of the golden gorse; the swallows are wheeling for their last rapid flights; the homing rooks are straggling wearily to the elms; the lark is singing faintly in his descent; and the honey-laden bees fly heavily to their hives. Do you not remember the thoughts, the emotions which made life for you at that moment a heavenly poem such as an angel might have written? Do you not remember the love which swelled your heart, and lifted it up from earth to the very footstool of God? Never can you forget the exquisite delight, the unfathomable revelations of that hour! It was in the gloaming when you told your love and knew that you were beloved, when the rack and the pain of doubt were finally set to rest, and the joy of certainty was established! That hour shaped your life for weal—alas! sometimes for woe to follow after! But in all the woe of the loss, you have the imperishable weal of the gain, and are richer by the love that you gave as well as by that which you received—by the memories that will never die, and the emotions which you can never forget!

The gloaming is the children’s hour, when mamma sings sweet songs, or plays for them brisk and lively music, to which they dance like shadowy sprites in and out from the dusk to the light. Or what is still dearer, she gathers them all close about her, the elder ones touching her knees, clinging to her shoulders, while the little one of all is in her arms half asleep in a cloud of fairy dreams of vague delight, as its curly head rests on her bosom, and the sweet soft voice lulls its senses into a state of enchantment, to which no opiate of after-time gives aught that is like. Then she tells them stirring tales of bold knights and lovely ladies, and how faith and courage conquered all the dangers that beset them, and brought them to good issues through evil paths. Or in a lower voice, she speaks to them of the great God in heaven, who through all His supreme might and majesty, can condescend even to the wants of a little child; and she tells them of the sinless angels; and of that dear Lord who came on the earth to save weak men from the consequences of their own wilful wickedness. She speaks to them of His purity, His love, His tenderness, and of the pattern left us in His life, by which we may all walk if we will. And to the end of their lives they remember those lessons of the quiet gloaming. One may go out into wild lands and live there with graceless men and Godless companions; but in the midst of all the evil which surrounds him, the mother’s words spoken when he was a little lad at her knee, come back like cool rains in the parching drought; and the crust of carelessness and something worse breaks from his soul as memory leads him back into what was the truest and holiest Church of his youth. Or the girl—she who now sits with her big blue eyes fixed on her mother, shining with pitying tears for the sorrows of the divine Son of Man, for the trials of suffering saint and heroic martyr—when she is thrown into the great world of fashion and dissipation to become a ‘leader of society,’ surrounded by temptations of all kinds—she too will remember this hour, and all that she learned and felt at her mother’s side. She will turn back to the holy lessons of piety and humility, of modesty and honour, taught her then by one who fulfilled those lessons in her own life; and she will be strengthened to meet her dangers from the memory of those pure defences. The mother’s influence never wholly dies; and never is that influence more powerfully exerted, its traces more deeply engraved than in the gloaming, when the sweet, sad Bible stories are told in a low and loving voice, till the whole heart is stirred, and the deepest recesses of spiritual consciousness are reached.

The gloaming is the hour of the highest thoughts of which we may be capable; the hour when the poet sings his song in his own heart before he has written down the words on paper; when the painter sees his picture completed by the divine artistry of the imagination before he has set his palette or sketched in the outline; when the unformed and chaotic thought long floating in the brain, clears itself from the mists and takes definite shape, soon to become embodied in creation. The youth dreams of that splendid achievement which is to win the great game of fortune; he sees himself going up for his degree in advance of the rest, cheered by his companions, congratulated by the ‘dons’ as he comes out Double-first, or the Senior Wrangler of his year. Or he is pleading before the judge at a very early stage in his legal career, and winning the most important cause of the term—winning it by sheer hard work and strength of brain—with ‘silk’ and perhaps the woolsack to follow. Or he is in the House arguing for humanity against statecraft, for justice against oppression, for truth against falsehood, and carrying the majority with him—making men’s hearts to burn within them by reason of his eloquence, his daring, and the intrinsic justice of his cause, for the first time indubitably proved by him. Or he has written his book, and wakes to find himself famous, the world lifting its cap to him in recognition of his success, and the critics united in praise, with not a surly note of blame in all the pack. Or he has painted his heroic picture—his art of the highest, his theme the most heroic—and the Royal Academy opens its doors with a clang to let him through. Or he has built his cathedral, and is not ashamed to look up at the lines of the old Abbey. Or he has invented his new engine, discovered his new planet, demonstrated the hidden law which so many suspect and no one has proved. It is the hour for all these grand dreams of ambition, all these fairy tales of hope; and if impossible at times to realise, yet they are good for the young mind to entertain; as it is good for the young athlete to try his strength against superior forces, and for the young bowman to aim higher than he can strike.

It is the hour when greatness, yet inchoate and undeveloped, grows within its husk—the seed-time of future excellence through the fermentation of thought. There must be intervals of preparation, and this is one of them. The quiet spell of the gloaming, when the fairest visions are seen, the boldest wishes framed, the loftiest points reached—how useful it is if taken as the spring-board for the true leap—harmful enough if accepted as sufficient in itself; as if the hope, the wish, the incoherent intention were enough, and realisation always put off till the morrow, did not count. For there is ever the danger that day-dreaming should become a habit, and that a man should be contented with fashioning a thought in his brain without caring to embody it in deed. But there is always danger of misuse in all things; and the fear of falling is no bad help towards keeping one’s footing firm when the path is slippery and the way-marks treacherous.

The gloaming is the hour for quiet retrospection of the hours that are past, for fearless onlooking to those which are to come, and for closer communing with God and one’s own soul. The day is flowing into the night through the golden gate of the twilight, just as fervid youth and fragrant womanhood, the strength of manhood and the leader’s power, are passing through the calm rest of old age into the stillness of death. In the gloaming, the soul seems to see the right value and the true shapes of things more clearly than it did when the sun was high, and the eyes were dazzled with its shine and the blood fevered with its heat. Then passion was strong, and with passion, self-will, false aims, false beliefs—and disappointment as the shadow lying behind. If the power was there to create, to resist, to combat, to subdue, so also was the bitter smart and the cruel blow. And there was the inevitable deception of the senses. Then the sunlight fell on the stagnant waters of the deadly swamp and turned them into lakes of purest gold, which a wise man would spend his time well to seek and his strength to possess. Now in the twilight the false shine has faded from the low-lying pools, and the dank and deadly mists creep up to mark both their place and quality. If only he had known the truth of things in time! If only he had not believed that marsh-lands were living lakes of golden waters, which a man would do well to give his life to gain!

In the daytime, clouds obscured the sun, so that the impatient and sore-hearted said in his bitterness that the god had turned his face from the earth and from him, and that to-morrow’s glory would never rise. Now in the gloaming the hope of that morrow has already lessened in anticipation the evil done by the clouds of to-day, and trust and hope come in the place of sorrow and despair. The worst has been—make room now for the better. No more false seeming and no more blinding by the deceived and flattered senses; no more mis-diversion of energy, and taking for pure and beautiful waters of life deadly morass and stagnant marsh. The gloaming of life sets a man straight not only with himself but with things, and gives him a truer knowledge than he ever had before. He stands full face to the west and looks into the light, which now he can bear, and which he no longer finds bewildering or blinding. That time of tumult and passion, of heat and strife, through which he has passed, how glad he is to leave it all behind him while waiting, watching for the quiet peace of the night through the tender softness of the gloaming! How near and yet how far off seem to him the unfulfilled hopes of the morning, the mistaken endeavour of the noon, the hard labour and fierce struggle of the day! If he had only known in time the things which were best for him, how differently he would have acted—and now: God’s will be done, and God pardon all his sins! He must take things as they stand, trusting in the unfailing mercy; for if repentance is good, regret is vain, and the gloaming is for peace, not strife.

Slowly the last rays of the sun fade out of the sky, and the lingering light as slowly follows. The world lies hushed as a tired sleeper, and the moon and the stars come out as watchers—as signs too of other worlds and other lives. But the old man sitting pale and peaceful in the house-porch knows now what he no longer sees; for the gloaming of his life has passed into the deep stillness of something beyond, as the day has flowed into the night, and both lie in the hollow of God’s right hand.

HELENA, LADY HARROGATE.

CHAPTER XIV.—THE SHARING OF THE SPOIL.

The name of Mr Enoch Wilkins, Solicitor in the High Court of Chancery, and Attorney-at-law, before, according to the polite legal fiction, the Queen herself at Westminster, was deeply inscribed, in fat black engraved characters, on a gleaming brass plate which formed the chief adornment of the dark-green door of his City office. If this brass plate really did gleam, as it did, like a piece of burnished gold, its refulgence was due to unremitting exertions on the part of the office lad, whose objurgations were frequent as at unholy matutinal hours he plied the obdurate metal with rotstone, oiled flannels, and chamois leather. For the atmosphere of St Nicholas Poultney (so named from the hideous effigy of a begrimed saint, mottled by frost and blackened by soot, which yet decorated the low-browed doorway of a damp little church hard by) was not conducive to brilliancy, whether of glass, brass, or paint, being heavily charged, on the average of days, with tainted air, foul moisture, and subdivided carbon, with rust, dust, and mildew. Nevertheless Mr Wilkins, who was a master to be obeyed, contrived that his plate-glass windows should flash back whatever rays of light the pitying sun might deign to direct on so dismal a region, girt in and stifled by a wilderness of courts, lanes, streets, and yards, and also that door-handles and bell-pulls should be shining and spotless as a sovereign new-minted, the door-step a slab of unsullied stone, and passage, staircase, and offices as trim and clean as the floors of some lavender-scented farmhouse among the cabbage roses of Cheshire. These praiseworthy results were not attained without labour, sustained and oft renewed, on the part of Mrs Flanagan, the so-called laundress, whose washing was effected by the vigorous application of scrubbing-brush and Bath-brick; of a melancholy window-cleaner from Eastcheap, whose bread was earned by perpetual acrobatic feats on narrow sills and outside ledges; and of the office lad already mentioned, whose main duties, though he called himself a clerk, were those of keeping the externals of his master’s place of business at the utmost pitch of polish.

In very truth, although there was a messenger, fleet of foot and cunning in threading his way through the labyrinthine intricacies of the City, always perched on a leather-covered stool in the antechamber, to supplement the services of the office lad, Mr Wilkins had no clerk. A great deal of his business was transacted by word of mouth; he answered his own letters; and when much of the scribe’s work became requisite, some civic law stationer would send in one or two red-eyed men in mouldy black, with finger-nails indelibly stained by the ink that had become their owners’ element, and a sufficient quantity of draught folio paper would be covered with legal copperplate.

The outer office was neatness itself, from the bright fire-irons in the fender to the maps on the wall and the rulers and pewter inkstands on the desks. And the inner room, where the lawyer himself gave audience, was almost cheerful, with its well-brushed Turkey carpet, sound furniture, well-stored book-shelves, and general aspect of snug comfort. There were those who wondered that Mr Wilkins, whose reputation did not rank very high in the learned confraternity to which he belonged, should so pointedly have deviated from the tradition which almost prescribes dirt and squalor and darkness for the surroundings of those who live by the law. There were, not very far off, most respectable firms, the name of whose titled employers was Legion, yet through whose cobwebbed panes was filtered the feeble light by which their bewildered clients stumbled among ragged carpets and rickety furniture to reach the well-known beehive chair. But Mr Wilkins was a man capable of attending to his own interests, and probably he had found out what best chimed with the prejudices of those for whose custom he angled.

There was nothing in the room itself to shew that it was a lawyer’s office. It might have been that of a surveyor or a promoter of companies, for there was nothing on the walls but a set of good maps and four or five excellent engravings. Not a deed-box, not a safe, was to be seen, and if there were law-books on the shelves they held their place unobtrusively amongst other well-bound volumes. Mr Wilkins sitting in his usual place, with one elbow resting on the table before him, seemed to be indulging in a reverie of no distasteful character, to judge by the smile that rested on his coarse mouth as he softly tapped his front teeth with the mother-of-pearl handle of a penknife, as though beating time to his thoughts. At last, warned by the striking of the office clock, the hour-hand of which pointed to eleven, Mr Wilkins shook off his preoccupation of mind, and rang the hand-bell at his elbow.

The office lad, who called himself a clerk, was prompt in answering the tinkling summons of his employer.

‘Any one been here yet?’ demanded the lawyer.

‘Touchwood and Bowser’s articled clerk with notice of new trial in case of Green (in holy orders) _v._ Gripson—the bill-stealing case, you know, sir, that the country parson chose to go to a jury about.’

‘Ah, yes,’ rejoined Mr Wilkins, again tapping his front teeth with the pearl-handled knife, while a look of intense amusement overspread his face. ‘Wants another shot at the enemy, does he, the Rev. James Green! It was grand to see him in the witness-box, indignantly insisting on the fact that not one sixpence ever reached him in return for his promissory-note despatched per post, on the faith of Mr Gripson’s advertisement and fair words. Then some Mr Jenks, a total stranger, happens to give valuable consideration, at third or fourth hand, for the stamped paper with the clergyman’s signature, and, Rev. Green objecting to cash up, gets a _fi. fa._—a neat contraction of _fieri facias_, which, as we lawyers know, is a term which directs an execution to be levied on the goods of a debtor, ha, ha!—has it backed in Wiltshire, and sells up every bed and chest of drawers in the vicarage. Mr Green brings an action against Gripson, who is comfortably out of the way, but retains me. We traverse everything, demur to everything, put in counter pleas and rebutters, change the venue, and play Old Gooseberry with the too confiding Green, whose counsel elects to be nonsuited. Now, like a Briton, he is ready for us again.’

Mr Wilkins laughed, and the juvenile clerk re-echoed the laugh. Sharp practice, such as that so lovingly narrated by the attorney, apparently for lack of a better audience, was congenial to the mind of this keen-witted young acolyte of Themis, with whom the proverbial distinction between Law and Equity seemed to be very clearly defined.

‘Nobody else called?’ asked Mr Wilkins.

‘Yes. Stout sporting-looking gent, who said he’d make shift, when I told him you had stepped out to the Master’s chambers, to come again to-morrow. Name of Prior,’ returned the youth.

‘Ah, Nat the bookmaker, wanting to know how near the wind he may sail without getting into the sweep-net of a criminal indictment,’ said the lawyer placidly. ‘Nothing else, hey?’

‘Only Mr Isaacs of Bowline Court, Thames Street, sent round to say he would look in between eleven and twelve,’ was the reply.

‘I’ll see him and any gentleman he may bring with him,’ rejoined Mr Wilkins, taking up the newspaper, as the office lad retired; but in five minutes returned, ushering in three gentlemen, whose hooked noses, full red lips, jet-black hair, and sloe-black eyes gave them a strong family resemblance. They were old acquaintances doubtless, for the greeting which they received from Mr Wilkins was a familiar one.

‘How do, Moss? How goes it, Braham, my buck? You’re all right, Isaacs, I can see for myself.’

Nothing could well be more unlike what, during the regency of the late King George IV., was called a buck than was Mr Braham, who was simply a corpulent Jew, ineffably greasy in appearance, and who wore a faded olive-green greatcoat that might have passed for a medieval gabardine, and carried an empty blue bag over his left arm. Mr Moss, his junior by some years, was better dressed, but his raven locks fell upon a shirt collar of dubious whiteness, and his dingy finger-nails were in unpleasant contrast with the splendour of the heavy rings he wore, and of the huge emerald in his satin necktie. The youngest of the three, Mr Isaacs, a hawk-eyed little man, bejewelled and florid of attire, was by far in dress and person the least unclean of the three.

There was a little conversation as to weather and other general topics, and then Braham the senior of the three Hebrews pulled out a watch as round and almost as big as a golden turnip, and compared it with the office clock. ‘Letsh get along,’ he said genially: ‘bushinesh, bushinesh, my dears, waitsh for no man.’

‘You’re right, Uncle Jacob,’ chimed in Mr Moss, who could scarcely have been, otherwise than figuratively and in oriental fashion, the nephew of his stout kinsman, but who was certainly a Jew of a much more modern pattern. He, at anyrate, coquetted with soap and water, and had discarded the shibboleth in his speech; but it might be doubted whether the elder Israelite, for all his repellent exterior, was not the better fellow of the two.

‘Business by all means,’ cheerily responded Mr Wilkins. ‘We’ve done it together before to-day, and we’ll do it again, I hope, gentlemen, for many a day yet to come. It is a very pleasant occasion on which we now assemble—nothing less, if I may say so, than the dividing of the profits, the sharing of the spoil.’

There was a hearty laugh.

‘Sharing of the shpoil!’ chuckled elderly but still vigorous Mr Braham. ‘What a boy he ish, thish Wilkinsh, what a boy he ish!’

‘And now for it,’ said Mr Wilkins, rustling over a bundle of papers that lay before him. ‘Here we have it in black and white, worth all the patter and palaver in the world. These are the baronet’s first and second letters, the second inclosing an uncommonly stiff cheque. Here are Captain Denzil’s bills—pretty bits of kites they are, renewed here and renewed there—and here are our old agreements, notes, and memoranda, duplicates of which I’ve no doubt are in all your pockets. Pass them round, Isaacs, and take a good look at them first. You’re an attorney, you know, and that’s why you’re here, though I don’t believe, my friend, that you “pull off” a clear five hundred out of the haul.’

‘Yesh, yesh, he’sh an attorney, ash Wilkinsh saysh,’ said Mr Braham, whose laughter was very ready, as that of fat people often is; ‘and sho we have him here. Shet a thief to catch a’——

Here a warning kick or other practical exhortation to caution on the part of his kinsman appeared to cut short the over-fluency of the bulky Hebrew, and he became as mute as a mouse, while Mr Isaacs read aloud in a high shrill voice the contents of Sir Sykes Denzil’s letters and also a brief summary which Mr Wilkins had prepared.

There was some discussion, but there really was not room for much. Here was no compromise, no handing over of so many shillings in the pound. Sir Sykes Denzil had paid his son’s liabilities without the abatement of a guinea. Mr Braham was to receive what he called ‘shix thoushand odd;’ Mr Moss, two thousand eight hundred and seventy-two; four hundred and thirty were for Mr Isaacs; and the residue was for Enoch Wilkins, Esquire, gentleman.

It was a strange sight when the rolls of bank-notes were produced, to see the actual partition of the Bank of England’s promises to pay, the vulture beaks bending over the crisp paper, the wary inspection of water-mark and number and signature, and the stuffing of pocket-books and cramming of purses and stowing away of what seemed to be regarded rather as plunder than as lawful gains. Two odd things during this transaction were to be noticed—first, that Mr Braham, who was incomparably the shabbiest Jew present, met with deference on every hand save from irreverent Wilkins; and secondly, that all the Jews seemed to take up their money grudgingly, like hounds that have chopped their fox in covert.

‘Well done, Shir Shykesh!’ exclaimed the heavy Hebrew with the green gabardine and the blue bag. ‘If they wash all of hish short, there might be the moneysh, but there wouldn’t be the fun!’

‘We’ll drink Sir Sykes’ health, at anyrate,’ briskly put in Mr Wilkins.—‘Sims!’ and he tinkled the office hand-bell as he spoke, ‘glasses and cork-screw.’

It was good amber-hued sherry, none of your modern abominations, but a real Spanish vintage, long mellowed in its dusty bin, that gurgled into the glasses under the careful handling of Mr Wilkins. The Hebrews sipped, appraised—where could be found judges so critical!—and drank.

‘I’m shorry for the poor young man,’ said Mr Braham, in a sort of outburst of sentiment, at mention of Captain Denzil’s name.

‘So that he gets his victuals,’ remarked the Jew attorney curtly, ‘I don’t see why he’s to be pitied.’

‘It _ish_ a shelling out!’ was the mild rejoinder of the stout Israelite with the blue bag, who seemed to be by far the softest-hearted of the company. ‘Of courshe, when I thought he would do me, I didn’t care; but now I remember he didn’t get much, not above sheven-fifty cash. All the resht wash pictures, wine—not like yoursh, Wilkinsh—cigars, and opera-tickets.’

‘He went through the mill, I suppose,’ said Mr Moss, ‘as others have done before him, and others will do after him; eh, Uncle Jacob?’

‘Eh, eh, grisht to the mill!’ chuckled the stout proprietor of the empty blue bag; and the quartette of confederates soon separated.

Mr Wilkins, left alone, purred contentedly as he poured out and tossed off another glass of the sherry so deservedly lauded, and then, rising from his chair, took down a Baronetage, bound in pink and gold, and fluttered over the leaves until his finger rested on the words: ‘Denzil, Sir Sykes; of Carbery Chase, county Devon; of Threepham Lodge, Yorkshire; Ermine Moat, Durham; and Malpas Wold, Cheshire, succeeded _his_ father, Sir Harbottle Denzil, August 18—; married, May 18—; formerly in the army, and attained the rank of Major. Is a magistrate and deputy-lieutenant for Devonshire. Unsuccessfully contested the county at the election of 18—.’

‘To think,’ said the attorney, stroking the book with his fleshy hand, ‘how much one can read between the lines of these plausible announcements, almost as blandly eulogistic as the inscriptions which chronicle on their tombstones fond wives, faultless husbands, and parents worthy to be immortalised by Plutarch! How trippingly the name of that needy old reprobate Sir Harbottle rolls off the tongue. He to be described as of Threepham and Malpas! Say, rather, of any foreign lodging or foreign jail, of the Isle of Man while it was yet a sanctuary for the debtor, of the Rules of the King’s Bench. But Carbery is very genuine anyhow.’

Mr Wilkins paused for a moment, and then mused: ‘I could spoil your little game, Sir Sykes—spoil it in a moment, and compel you to exchange your D. L.’s uniform of scarlet and gold for—never mind what! So long as the goose lays the golden eggs, it would not be the part of a wise man to twist her neck.’ Having said which, Mr Wilkins brushed his coat, drew on his gloves, and taking up his hat, sallied out. ‘Taxing office; back in an hour,’ he said to the office lad as he went out. ‘If I am detained, you need not wait for me after two o’clock.’

‘Ten to four, he don’t shew up,’ said the youth, who was accustomed to the professional figments which served to beguile credulous clients, but who congratulated himself at the prospect of a speedy release from duty. ‘If the governor doesn’t put in an appearance by 1.30, I’ll make myself scarce, or my name is not Sims!’

Meanwhile, Mr Wilkins made his way through the jostling crowd that roared and seethed among the busy streets of the City, until he reached an office, resplendent with plate-glass and French-polished mahogany, in Cornhill, on the door of which was inscribed, ‘Bales and Beales, Stock and Share Brokers.’

There were a good many customers in the outer office, a few of whom were quiet men of business, while the others, nearly half of whom were anxious-eyed ladies who had reached middle life, seemed flushed and ill at ease as they perused and reperused the written and printed memoranda with which they all seemed to be provided, and glanced impatiently at the ornamental clock on its gilded bracket. The lawyer, as an _habitué_ of the place, sent in his name, and gained speedy admittance to the inner den, where Mr Bales himself, tall, thin, and with a thatch of bushy eyebrows projecting in pent-house fashion over his steady blue eyes, held out a cool white hand to be grasped by the hot red hand of Mr Wilkins.

The head of the firm of Bales and Beales was pre-eminently a cool man, and nothing could be in stronger contrast than was his unimpassioned bearing and the flutter and flurry of his customers.

‘How about my Turks?’ unceremoniously demanded Mr Wilkins. ‘Of course I know they’re down again—confound them!’

‘The fall continues. They have receded, let me see, two and seven-eighths since this morning,’ returned the broker, pointing to the official bulletin in its frame on the wall beside him. ‘Probably they are falling as we speak, for the Bourses of Paris, Amsterdam, and Vienna opened heavily.’

‘Well, you _are_ a Job’s comforter, Bales,’ said the lawyer, wiping his heated brow. ‘Will this sort of thing go on, hey? Shall I sell, or stick to my colours like a Briton? Can’t you give a fellow your advice?’

‘I never advise,’ answered Mr Bales, with his cold smile. ‘Life would be a burden to me if I did. I prefer to lay the facts before those who do me the favour to come to me, leaving to their unbiassed judgment the course to pursue. Here are some Stock Exchange telegrams, part of which you will see presently, no doubt, in the evening papers. They help to explain the rush on the part of the public to sell out.’

The attorney took the half-dozen square pieces of hastily printed paper, yet damp from the press, some of them, which Mr Bales courteously proffered him, and at a glance mastered their contents.

‘Can rascally fabrications like this,’ asked the attorney, in a glow of something like honest indignation, ‘impose upon the veriest gull in Christendom?’

‘Ah!’ answered the unmoved Mr Bales, scrutinising the despatch which his irate client held between his finger and thumb, ‘you mean the rumour about the sale of the six Turkish ironclads to the Russian government? Popular credulity, my dear sir, would swallow more than that. You have overlooked the other telegram, which mentions that Adamapoulos and Nikopolos, the Greek bankers of Galata, have declined to advance to the Porte at twenty per cent. the wherewithal to meet the next coupon of the Debt. That report has more weight with business-men than the nautical one. Will you give me instructions to sell?’

‘No; but to buy!’ rapped out Mr Wilkins, with suddenness. ‘There must come a reaction soon. I’ll take another ten thousand of the Imperial Ottomans. I know what you would say, Bales,’ he added irritably: ‘the cash I left on deposit won’t cover the margin. Here’—and he produced the bank-notes that had fallen to his share in the division of that day—‘are funds, and to spare.’

As the lawyer quitted the stock-broker’s office he muttered between his set teeth: ‘I stand to win; but at anyrate I know of back-play of a safer sort. Sir Sykes Denzil of Carbery, you are a sponge well worth the squeezing!’

SENSATIONAL REPORTING.

Scarcely a week passes in which the newspaper press is not the medium of attracting the attention of the public to a _cause célèbre_ of one kind or another. Crimes of brutal violence, of gross immorality, of wholesale fraud, have been so terribly prevalent of late, that we might almost believe that civilisation and crime are going hand in hand; certainly the horrors of the latter go a considerable way towards neutralising the blessings of the former, and cause us to pause in our self-congratulation upon the progress and enlightenment of the age in which we live. At but too frequent intervals some villain is held up before the public, and becomes, so to speak, fashionable for the period over which his trial extends.

Every class of society provides its recruits now and again for the ranks of the infamous, and no matter to which stratum the criminal belongs, one newspaper or another is sure to be ready to report—with a minuteness which could not be more detailed if it were inspired by personal animosity—every stage and incident of his crime, and if procurable and sufficiently sensational, to supply an epitome of his antecedent career.

When the influence of the press is properly taken into consideration, the responsibility of writing for it is a very serious one. To many thousands even in great centres of human life like London, Liverpool, Glasgow, or Edinburgh, the daily paper is almost the sole intellectual food sought for and within reach; and when we further consider the immense circulation of some of our newspapers, nearly approaching a quarter of a million a day, and when we think that each copy becomes the centre of an ever-increasing circle of information, we may reasonably assert that the penny paper, once held in contempt, is one of the most potent agents for good or evil which our generation possesses; and in proportion to the influence which it exerts, is the necessity of that influence being exerted in a right direction. So far as regards politics, theology, and social problems, each paper may legitimately represent a particular party or sect, and inculcate its particular views; but upon certain broad principles of morality, and as far as regards general rules for the inculcation and protection of public morals, there ought to be no difference of opinion at all.

Without question, the newspapers of our day are animated by a laudable desire to act for the moral as well as material welfare of the people, and we could not accuse any one of them of voluntarily inserting matter having a tendency subversive to morality; but as to what is and what is not calculated to taint the public mind, the opinion of the press seems to be very undecided. Particularly is this the case with regard to the record of crime, which it is part of their duty to publish. It is unquestionably advisable that the public should be informed of every crime that is discovered; but the scope of the information to be given becomes a matter for careful consideration, and upon which some difference of opinion may reasonably be expected to exist.

What, it may be asked, is the object of a public report of the trial of a criminal? Presumably that by the knowledge of what has occurred the public may be on their guard against similar crimes, and that the story of detection and punishment may act as a deterrent; the first of these objects applying more particularly to what we may call the respectable classes, and the latter to the criminal, vicious, or viciously disposed. The story of crime should legitimately produce in the public mind a sense of indignation against the criminal, of pity for the victim, of personal caution; the criminal should not be considered a sort of social scapegoat, and the indignation should not be Pharisaical, but should have its origin in an abhorrence of the crime rather than of the criminal. To the viciously inclined the story of detected crime should be a warning and a deterrent, both on the score of fear of detection as also upon higher moral considerations. The history of crime or of a criminal career is invariably pitiable enough; but it is possible in some instances to invest it with a spurious interest, and even a sort of meretricious brilliance which is calculated to work an immense amount of harm among a certain class of people.

The principal object of a newspaper report nowadays would seem to be to present the public with an exciting and dramatic narrative, rather than a calm, unimpassioned statement of facts; to write, in short, rather for their amusement than information. Undoubtedly few things increase the sale of a newspaper more than a graphic account of heart-rending ‘Scenes in Court,’ and the demeanour, for instance, of ladies who have been accommodated with seats on the bench! a style of reporting which seems to us to be little short of a breach of trust, inasmuch as it is pandering to that which it ought to suppress.

It may be said that in criminal cases it is well that the public should have the fullest possible details of the proceedings, so that they may follow them closely, and perhaps aid in the administration of justice; but as public comment upon cases _still under trial_ is not recognised, the value of full reports is nullified so far as this consideration is concerned. But if a judge, a man of eminent experience in human nature, learned in the law, and accustomed to the consideration of every variety of evidence; and twelve jurymen, well meaning, unprejudiced, of business habits and unimpassioned judgment, cannot be trusted to decide a case upon its merits, surely it would be unreasonable to suppose that the outside public could do better, reading as they do simply in print the words which may have had their significance increased immeasurably in either direction by the tone in which they were uttered, by the bearing of the speaker, and the voluntary or involuntary gestures which may have accompanied them.

When we read detailed accounts of the appearance of prisoners, verbatim reports of their most insignificant utterances; when we are given details of their meals; when we are told that one prisoner is dressed with scrupulous care, and that the affection existing between two other prisoners was very apparent to those in court; when we have a picture of the judge passing sentence amidst sobbing women; when piquant details of past careers are dragged to light, and the various amiable or vicious points commented upon, although having absolutely no bearing whatever upon the case under consideration—then we cannot avoid the conclusion that the main object of all the report is to sell the paper. It would be impossible to give the public such information regarding the demeanour and tone of witnesses or prisoners as to enable them to form a really just and reliable idea; while it is quite possible and a very frequent practice to be just graphic enough to make the public fancy that they are in a position not only to criticise and speculate, but to dogmatise, and even to protest vehemently against the verdict of a jury and the sentence of a judge, deliberately given after a long and careful inquiry, in which the prisoner had the benefit of counsel learned in every intricacy and subtlety of the law. The practice of giving detailed descriptions of the personal appearance and social habits of criminals, which are now acknowledged features of newspaper reporting, has a tendency to invest the prisoners with something of a meretricious glory, which ought to be condemned by all properly minded people.

If crime has been committed, it is surely injurious to the public morals to write or publish anything calculated to elicit misplaced sympathy, and it is a poor trade to pander to morbid curiosity. If people fairly appreciated not only the wickedness and horror of crime, but its almost invariable meanness, pettiness, and misery, its feverish restlessness, its ever-haunting dread of detection—crime would be robbed of much of its semi-heroic character, and would cease to prove so attractive a bait to those who gloat over its every detail. It is common to speak of ‘great’ criminals as distinguished from the vulgar herd; but there is never anything great in crime. Graphic pens pandering to vulgar curiosity may produce a passing interest of even absorbing intensity; the crime and the criminal may form a nine days’ wonder; but the end comes; and as soon as the convict dress is donned, the erstwhile man is degraded into a mere automaton, a mere numeral, and is utterly dead to the outside world; while if the scaffold should be his destined finale, the only thing which survives the wretched criminal is his infamy.

Sensational reporting pays, for papers with a reputation for ‘Special’ descriptions are at a premium whenever there is a _cause célèbre_ before the public; but it is eminently prejudicial to public morality. The remedy rests solely with the proprietors, on whom lies also the responsibility of purveying garbage to an unhappily large section of readers; but until public opinion forces upon them the fact that they are deliberately lowering themselves to the level of the vendors of ‘Penny Dreadful’ literature, sensational reporting of criminal trials is likely to flourish, inoculating the public mind with an unwholesome craving for details which should be banished from the pale of discussion among people with any pretensions to refinement, good taste, or common decency.

THE BONE-CAVE INSCRIPTION.

The pleasant town of Q——, among its other attractions, possesses a bone-cave. The cave, situated in a little valley close by the sea, had not long been discovered to contain bones before it was invaded by an army of geologists, who dug deep holes in the floor, and unearthed the remains of prehistoric fires, of ancient knives and needles, and of even a man’s jaw buried in stalagmite. And every year the fashionable people of Q—— made an excursion into the windings of the cavern, under the guidance of gnome-like guides with torches.

Within a certain period of its modern history, the Q—— bone-cave, like the sacred caves of India, had a high-priest, an exponent of its mysteries. He did not, however, dwell in its recesses, but in a smart villa overlooking Q—— Bay. He was a local celebrity, and the most active member of a committee appointed to examine the cavern. The cavern was his hobby, and as it was of tolerably uniform temperature, there was no time of year when he did not take delight in exploring its mysteries. Every fresh discovery was a joy to Mr Grope; and though a sceptical few laughed at him, and even called some of his flint knives in question, his researches had thrown much light on geology and archæology. One thing alone was wanting—he had found no dates in the cave. There were dates and inscriptions in caves belonging to other places, and he did not like Q—— to be behind them.

Prefacing, for the benefit of the reader, that stalac_tite_ is the substance that hangs to the roof of caverns, like icicles, and stalag_mite_ the substance that has fallen to the floor, a concretion of carbonate of lime—we proceed with the story. One day, as Mr Grope was examining a wall in one of the passages, he thought he detected a weakness in the rock, and working at it with his great hammer he found that it speedily crumbled away. Soon he had made a hole through which he was able to pass, and presently he stood in a small apartment full of large stalagmitic blocks, and with a very moderate amount of water dripping from the roof. As he flashed his lantern about, his keen eye caught sight of artificial markings on the smooth surface of one of the blocks. His heart leaped within him. Here of a certainty was at last an inscription which, composed of several well-formed letters carved on the block but interrupted by breaks, ran as follows:

F . . ll . . . to . . . Nor.
Capt T . . ck
r . . m 20 Br
15 . . 71 k . . to ret

Mr Grope carefully copied the interesting record into his note-book. He looked about for more inscriptions, but this was apparently the only one; however, there might be other unexplored caverns beyond. At present he must devote himself to deciphering these letters. He had a clue in the date 1571, for though there was a break between the ‘15’ and the ‘71,’ it was only caused by a slight inequality in the block.

That evening, in the seclusion of his study, he devoted himself with ardour to the inscription. He did not doubt that it was intended for abbreviated Latin. In the sixteenth century every one who could write knew Latin, and wrote Latin too when he or she wished to be succinct. There were, it is true, only scraps of words on which to proceed, but this circumstance did but occasion a pleasing exercise of Mr Grope’s ingenuity. The conquest would have been too easy had the words been given at length. The very uncertainty had in it that excitement which is dear to the hearts of all true antiquaries.

Before he thoroughly set to his task, Mr Grope balanced in his mind whether he should treat the inscription as private or political. He inclined to the political aspect. If it were private, nothing could be made of it, and it was unlikely that a gentleman should carve his personal remarks in the depths of a subterranean cave. No doubt the letters referred to public matters. For a moment Mr Grope could not recollect who reigned in England in 1571; for though he took a great interest in history, he was somewhat oblivious about dates. Soon, however, a vision of Queen Elizabeth in ruff and farthingale rose before him, and then he attacked the first line in good earnest.

F . . ll . . . to . . . Nor.

Now it seemed clear as noonday that Nor was the first syllable of a proper name, or at least the name of a place; for Mr Grope remembered that in the sixteenth century it was not the custom to begin every noun with a capital letter, as it was in the eighteenth. Could it refer to Norwich? Norwich was a long way from Q——; but the gentleman in the cave might have been mixed up in a conspiracy which embraced the capture of several towns. Mr Grope took down Mr Froude’s _History of England_, and turned over the pages referring to Elizabeth’s reign in search of names beginning with Nor. Then a great light broke upon him, and he wondered that he had not remembered his history better. The name of Norfolk occurred several times in connection with what Mr Froude calls the ‘Ridolfi Plot,’ and the ‘Ridolfi Plot’ was going on in 1571. The course of his investigation seemed to flow almost too smoothly now. He soon found that the first line ran: ‘Fallete tollite Norfolk’ (Betray and take Norfolk); whence it was evident that the man in the cave had played false to all parties, and after engaging in the conspiracy, had leagued with some fellow-conspirators to betray their chief, the unhappy Duke who preceded Mary of Scotland to the scaffold instead of sharing her throne. ‘Betray and take Norfolk!’ It was not good Latin certainly, but good enough for an inscription where there were so many breaks, which imagination could fill up with the elegances of language; and the morality was characteristic of the sixteenth century.

The second line of the inscription puzzled Mr Grope more.

Capt T . . ck

The two words composing it were carved in larger letters, and stood by themselves, as if specially important. ‘Capt’ of course meant _caput_, a head, and might hint at the approaching loss of Norfolk’s own; but the ‘T . . ck’ puzzled Mr Grope sorely, and was evidently another cognomen. It puzzled him so much that he resolved to finish the remainder of the inscription

r . . m 20 Br

first, and see if _it_ threw any light on the subject.