Chapter XXVI: The New Broom (1)

‘Clever enough, and too clever! It’s your look-out, sir, of course, and not mine; but I can’t help thinking that to give my friend Mr Wilkins an estate to manage is uncommonly like turning a fox into a poultry-yard to take care of the chickens.’

Such was Jasper Denzil’s remonstrance with his father, on hearing the baronet’s announcement of his intention to transfer the reins of local government to the willing hands of the City solicitor, _vice_ Pounce and Pontifex superseded. Privately, Sir Sykes was of much the same opinion as his son; but as he was merely seeking to put a good face on what he felt to be really a surrender to a demand imperiously urged, he shook his head, saying: ‘You are prejudiced against this person, Jasper, and perhaps not unnaturally so. His manners, I admit, are not prepossessing, and his moral code has probably been shaped in a rough school of ethics; but I consider him to be one of those men whom it is pleasanter to have for a friend than for an enemy.’

Jasper’s expressive upper lip wore a curl of disgust. It was to him very disagreeable that Mr Wilkins, who had got the better of him, as he resentfully felt, in many an encounter of wits, should be often at Carbery, and right-hand man to its owner. He resolved on one more attempt to dislodge the intruder.

‘I would not, were I you, sir,’ said he, ‘either trust Wilkins a yard farther than I could see him, or be guided by his advice as to the management of the estate. You yourself heard the fellow say, at luncheon to-day, that he should not know turnips when he saw them unless there were boiled mutton in the middle of them. Wilkins only meant to raise a laugh when he hashed up that old joke against the Cockney sportsmen who ride to hounds, but he was nearer the truth than he was aware of.’

‘Ah, well,’ returned the baronet blandly, ‘I daresay his agricultural knowledge is after all pretty much on a par with that of Messrs Pounce and Pontifex.’

And then Jasper shrugged up his shoulders and was silent, for he perceived that it was hopeless to deprecate a foregone conclusion. For good or for ill, Sir Sykes had made up his mind to convert Mr Wilkins into a grand-vizier over the broad acres that lay within the circuit of his wide-stretching ring-fence.

Enoch Wilkins, gentleman, had on that morning reached Carbery Chase, and was in a fair way of earning for himself any rather than golden opinions from its inmates. Mr Wilkins, as he often and not untruly boasted, knew the world, that is to say he had a minute and almost microscopic acquaintance with one or two sections of the shady side of it. He understood turf-men, as a smart prison-governor understands convicts, and knew the natural history of the fast-living and embarrassed young officer as well as some lecturer on entomology knows the ways of beetle and butterfly. In a lower social grade, he was deeply versed in the arcana of Loan Societies, and could apply the thumbscrew of the County Court in nicely calculated proportions to a struggling debtor. Of what he called swell society Mr Wilkins had but a limited experience. He had shared, as the purveyors of welcome cash often do share, in the costly banquets given at Greenwich or Richmond hotels by wild young gentlemen of blood and fashion. He had even, at the instance of some needy man about town who curried favour with any dispenser of ready-money, received a card which entitled him, now and again, to be crushed and jostled and trodden upon by distinguished company at the maddening ‘At Home’ of some berouged and bewigged old peeress.

There was, as Mr Wilkins felt with some inward misgivings, a difference between forming part of a mob at Macbeth House or at the Baratarian Embassy, and mixing on intimate terms with such a family as were the Denzils. Yet, as the French idiomatically twist the phrase, he paid it off with audacity, being greasily familiar with Sir Sykes; on terms of brotherly frankness where Jasper was concerned; and for the benefit of the young ladies, assuming the character of the facetious and agreeable rattle, as he conceived incumbent on a regular Londoner and a bachelor to boot, when on a visit in the country.

Blanche and Lucy Denzil scarcely knew whether to let amusement or dislike predominate in their minds as Mr Wilkins rattled on, pouring out miscellaneous anecdotes and jokes that, if worn threadbare in the metropolis, would, he was convinced, retain enough of their original gloss and sparkle to pass muster in the country. That the man was coarse, pushing, and unscrupulous, was evident even to critics so lenient as the baronet’s daughters; while Sir Sykes, behind his urbane smile, suffered martyrdom from his new agent’s deportment.

There was one member of the family circle at Carbery whom Mr Wilkins eyed with quite an exceptional interest. He rarely addressed himself in conversation to the Indian orphan, Sir Sykes’s ward, but he watched her narrowly, and the more he saw of her the harder he found it to adhere to his original hypothesis as regarded the young lady whom Richard Hold, master mariner, had recommended to his good offices.

‘If that demure manner and those downcast eyes do not belong to as sly a puss as ever lived, write me down a greenhorn!’ was the mental reflection of Enoch Wilkins, of St Nicholas Poultney, in the City of London, gentleman. ‘That she sets her cap at the captain, Sir Sykes Denzil’s hopeful heir, I take for granted. Her communicative friend, the pirate fellow, implied as much. The Lancer does not seem, however, disposed to come forward in a satisfactory style, and play Philemon to her Baucis.’

And it was a fact that since the morning which had witnessed the drive to High Tor and the visit to the pheasantry, the snares of Miss Ruth Willis had been vainly set for the capture of that bird of dubious feather, Jasper Denzil.

Why Jasper, who had so much to gain by the match on which his father’s mind was inexplicably bent, should hang back and prove recalcitrant, it was hard to say. His was not an independent soul. He was free from any trammels of a too scrupulous delicacy, and would have fingered any money got through the grimiest channels, without fear of soiling those white useless hands of his, the manliest work of which had hitherto been to grasp a bridle-rein. Yet Jasper had been very remiss of late in his attentions towards Ruth Willis, and apparently indifferent to the bribe of an income and establishment to be earned by marrying her.

‘Now look here, Sir Sykes!’ said the lawyer after dinner, as he edged his chair nearer to that of his host, refilled his glass, and assumed a tone of waggish confidence—‘look here, Sir Sykes! You want brushing up down here at Carbery, you do indeed; ay and a little fresh air let in upon you. In an old estate like this, and under such management as those of Pounce and Proser—beg his pardon; I mean Pontifex; ha, ha, ha!’—pursued Mr Wilkins, having his laugh out, without so much as a sympathetic titter from Jasper or a smile from Sir Sykes—‘in an estate of this kind matters are apt to stagnate, and all sorts of abuses and jobs to grow up, like the green duckweed on the surface of a pool. Your head-gamekeeper now, Sir Sykes, I never saw him, but I’m sure that he’s a rogue.’

‘Leathers is an old servant,’ answered Sir Sykes coldly; ‘I have had no reason to think ill of him.’

‘I’ll go bail that he’s a rogue, for all that,’ returned the unabashed lawyer, holding up his glass to the light, to admire the ruby claret before he swallowed it. ‘The head-keeper of an easy-going, moneyed gent of your standing—excuse me, Sir Sykes—must be a saint, if he’s not a sinner. Think of the temptations! Why, the rabbits alone must be a cool two hundred a year to the man; and then the pheasants, and the black-mail from the tenants for keeping the ground-game within reasonable numbers, and the percentage on watchers’ wages. I’ll get you a contract with a London poulterer, Sir Sykes, that shall stand you in something handsome, provide you with a keeper twice as useful as Leathers, and insure your having a hot corner for your friends at battue-time. I’m a new broom, and sweep clean.’

‘You promise well, at anyrate!’ said Jasper with a languid sneer.

‘And did you ever know me not ready to implement when I had once promised?’ briskly retorted the solicitor. ‘I merely mention the gamekeeper to shew that all’s fish that comes to my net, and that I am not above attending to such minor fry as a fellow in velveteen with a dog-whistle at his button-hole. We must go on commercial principles, Sir Sykes, if we want to manage an estate so as to make it pay, nowadays. All that feudal nonsense of an affectionate tenantry and a liberal lord of the manor is about as dead as Queen Anne. You should get a new steward as well as a new gamekeeper, Sir Sykes.’

The baronet stirred restlessly in his chair. He did not at all like this. Carbery, and the fair estate that went with it, had never yet been administered on commercial principles, especially when applied by so sweeping a reformer as Mr Wilkins of St Nicholas Poultney. ‘Mr Cornish keeps his accounts very correctly,’ he said in a hesitating tone. ‘Old Lord Harrogate gave him the stewardship, which his father had had before him, and his tenure of it has satisfied me.’

‘Because you can afford, or fancy you can, to be robbed right and left,’ said the lawyer, gulping down his wine. ‘It is your plausible hereditary steward, that has fattened and battened on the plunder of successive generations, who sucks the very marrow out of the land. Don’t tell _me_! I’ll overhaul Mr Cornish’s accounts in a way he’s little used to. But first you must introduce me to the farmers, Sir Sykes, and give me time to worm out of them what they pay, in kind or money, by way of fines, good-will, premium, and so forth, for the honour of tilling your under-rented acres. I’ll raise your rent-roll, never fear me, but not with a native chawbacon for prime-minister.’

‘So the steward must be flung overboard, it seems, as well as poor old Leathers the keeper,’ observed Jasper, half amused, but half annoyed.

‘And I’ve got another peg to fit into the vacant hole,’ said the lawyer, again addressing himself to the claret. ‘With your permission, Sir Sykes, to-morrow we’ll wire for him to run down from London for your approval. A sharp fellow is Abrahams. You won’t mind his persuasion? Jew as he is, he’s thoroughly at home in a farmhouse, counts every sheaf of wheat in the barn, and every house-lamb in the kitchen on frosty days, and wheedles out of the women what the husbands are too dogged to tell.—This is delicious claret, but no one except myself seems to drink it. Suppose we join the ladies?’

‘What has the governor done,’ groaned Jasper, as he lit his cigar, ‘to be under the thumb of such a man as this?’

WORK IN THE LONDON DOCKS.

In the metropolis there is always to be found a vast amount of ‘labour unattached,’ recruited from men in nearly every rank of life. To form an idea of the surplusage in the labour market, advertise for a ‘light-porter,’ and you will have at least two hundred applications before eleven o’clock the next day. If you desire a clerk at a salary of, say, twenty shillings a week, half a thousand eager candidates will apply for the vacancy. While if you have anything of a superior sort to offer, such as the secretaryship of a charitable institution, or hospital, suitable to the talents of retired military officers and others, probably a thousand competitors will offer themselves to your discrimination. Of course many people will be surprised that such numbers should prefer living in semi-idleness, hunting after any opportunity that offers, rather than exert themselves to obtain employment in less crowded localities; but then in London there is the great magnet of the ‘lucky chance’ constantly before their eyes. If one obtains a situation at a pound a week, there are constantly opportunities of bettering one’s self, especially in large firms, who carefully select and promote their men according to capability and merit. Then, again, a man may be starving in a garret, poorly dressed, existing somehow by borrowing a shilling or two occasionally when you meet him in the street; but in a month or two may be in a good position in an insurance company or an actuary’s office. But as bread must be obtained somehow until the golden opportunity offers itself, a number of men who have seen better days are compelled by sheer necessity to fly to that paradise of the destitute, the Docks.

The great Dock Companies in London, fully aware of the superabundance of labour always in the market, do not employ, permanently, one-third of the men they require, since they are usually able to procure at least twice as many hands as they need at a moment’s notice. Indeed so great is the competition for even Dock employment, that unless you are known to one of the foremen, or in some way furnished with an introduction to one of the Company’s officials, you stand a very poor chance of obtaining work, save occasionally, when a sudden pressure of business comes on and they are glad to accept any one that offers. Sometimes a huge ship comes in requiring to be discharged in a few days; and everybody who can work may, by offering himself, obtain employment for a brief period; but, the time of pressure over, he will present himself at the Dock-gates day after day in vain. The Company’s foremen of course give the preference to their regular hands, and the stranger who has helped them in their time of need is passed over. So the best thing you can do if you desire employment at the Docks is to obtain a letter of recommendation from some broker or merchant who does business with the Company, and according to the influence he possesses so will your work be regulated. It will require great influence to enable you to be placed on the ‘permanent’ or ‘extra-permanent’ staff; and the utmost you can hope for is to obtain employment by the day so long as any ships are at work, with the prospect of losing a few days now and then when things are dull.

The clock has struck a quarter past seven in the morning, and already may be seen clustered round the Dock-gates small groups of men, with hands invariably in their pockets and short pipes in their mouths, discussing the prospect of work for the day, and the only chance they have of obtaining a meal of food and a night’s lodging. These are the ‘chance’ or ‘odd-time’ men, who if they are not taken on the first thing, loiter about the entrance all day, waiting a ‘call’ from one of the foremen; sometimes making two, four, or five hours, as the case may be. Of all this class of men, it may be truly said that they are waiters upon Providence, for they are usually the last selected; and as to their garments (their sole earthly possession), very few of them could obtain a shilling for all they wear from head to foot. Indeed so dilapidated are some of their shoes, that it is no uncommon thing for them to be paid off after an hour’s work or so, because their feet will not retain a footing upon a slippery floor. It also occurs at times that they come in to work so famished that they sink exhausted after a little exertion, though in this case the foremen who employ them are generally kind-hearted enough to advance a few pence to obtain a little food to enable them to hold out the day. As the clock nears the half-hour (7.30 A.M.) the regular ‘outsiders’ come up. These men are in better condition than the others; but there is a seedy, ragged appearance about most of them, which tells the unmistakable tale that their chief earnings go to the public-house. And now there is a stir. A small wicket in the gate is open, and a foreman comes out, and calling out the names of the men he requires, they pass in. These are engaged by the half-hour, and are liable to be dismissed as soon as their work is completed, let the time be what it may. Usually they remain at work the whole day; but, should any unforeseen occurrence—such as stoppage of a ship’s discharge on account of weather, or a break-down in some of the machinery for removing cargo—prevent them labouring, the word is passed to ‘wash up,’ and they are paid off at once, perhaps an hour or two after they have been engaged.

After this crew come the Company’s ‘recommended’ men, persons who through the influence of some merchant obtain employment. With them also arrive the ‘extra-permanent’ men; and these two classes always have a preference when any work is going on. They are engaged by the day and paid by the day; and each man on entering receives a numbered ticket about the size of a railway ticket, which will entitle him to receive his wages in rotation at the pay-box in the afternoon. The pay for all alike is fivepence per hour; but the highest class of all, the ‘permanent’ men, receive twenty shillings per week all the year round, be the hours long or short, and are always certain of their money whether the Company can find work for them or not. In the months of November, December, January, and February, the work is from nine to four, and the remainder of the year from eight to four, with extra pay for overtime to all alike when any is to be made. Thus it will be seen that with pretty constant employment a fair living is to be made at the Docks; but in addition, many men make something extra in the evenings, either as ‘supers’ at one of the theatres, chairmen at those convivial meetings known as ‘Free-and-Easies,’ or in some other capacity. In short, at the Docks, as elsewhere, it is only the idle and disreputable class that starves; for the Company’s officials naturally select the best men first, and only employ the ‘duffers’ when they cannot possibly do without them.

At a few minutes before eight we are all at our posts; men are on board ship commencing to roll out the bales of merchandise from the ‘hold;’ the ponderous hydraulic ‘ram’ swings out from the warehouse, and three or four bales are hooked on and hoisted ashore. It is (we will say) a large Australian wool ship; and as soon as the bales are landed, they are pounced upon by a man with stencil-plate and brush, who with nimble fingers marks the name of the ship on each. Then an individual with stentorian lungs (probably a broken-down auctioneer) shouts out to the check clerk at the table the mark on each particular bale, and this is recorded in a book called a ‘tally-sheet.’ Next, a couple of muscular men attack with axes the iron bands with which the bales are clamped, and sever them, so that the wool expands to nearly double its size; for it is all pressed by hydraulic machinery previous to being stowed in the ship, in order to economise space. The bales thus released are now trotted off by active truckmen to the scales, where they are weighed, marked, and sorted in different piles according to their mark. All this is done in less time than it takes to read about it, amid a storm of shouts, execrations, commands, and other noises in every conceivable variety.

Let us take a walk round the Docks and warehouses and inspect the vast piles of merchandise lying about in every direction. Yonder is a ship discharging brandy, with a vigilant Custom-house officer watching every cask as it comes ashore. In another place they are emptying on the floor hogshead after hogshead of coffee, to be weighed for duty. That sedate-looking man with a needle in his hand sewing up rice-bags has been a schoolmaster, and can write excellent hexameters. A little farther on, a solicitor, unfortunately struck off the rolls, is wheeling a truck; and farther on a once prosperous merchant is assisting to push along a hogshead of sugar. The conclusion one arrives at, after making the round of the Docks, is, that nearly everything we eat and drink is manipulated first by the dirty classes, who shovel our necessaries about at their pleasure, and tread over them as if they were so much dirt. See those dingy men with garments tattered and patched stooping and working on those sloppy floors. They are scraping up the molasses which has filtered out from the sugar-casks, and putting it into tubs. This will be all sent away to the sugar-boilers’, and converted into cheap sugar, and go to localities where it will be bought by housekeepers who study economy in the kitchen. This sort of sugar always has a lumpy clear appearance, with a slight clammy taste in the mouth, and can be detected with a little practice at a glance. It is usually sold alone, but is often mixed with better sugar, in order to make that half-penny difference in the pound so tempting to certain housewives.

We are warned that it is noon by the tinkling of a bell, which resounds all over the Dock; and at the first stroke everything is dropped out of hand immediately, and to the cry of ‘Bell ho!’ every one rushes out of the warehouses for dinner. A few of the more provident have brought some in their pockets; but the majority go straight to the old man or old woman who is permitted by the Company to supply them with bread, cheese, beer, soup, and pudding, all of an indifferent sort; and if they have any money, buy something to eat; and if they have none, try and borrow a penny or two from somebody else; or cajole the refreshment caterer into giving them credit until four o’clock. Very few of them have knives wherewith to cut their food decently; they gnaw it anyhow; in fact their chief rule seems to be to buy nothing that they are not absolutely compelled to buy, for fear the vendor should cheat them; and if some of them could observe this rule so far as the beer-shop is concerned, they would make their fortunes, many of them possessing talents, as experts in ‘tasting,’ of no common order.

Their meal finished, some now creep on board ship to smoke, a thing they are not allowed to do in the warehouses; others of a larcenous disposition, prowl about the cook’s galley to appropriate anything they can, such as meat, knives, brushes, in short any small portable articles, which they either devour, or else sell at any price to somebody else. At twenty minutes past twelve the bell again summons them to work, and each man crawls slowly back to his post, the majority of cheeks indicating apparently the existence of gum-boil to the uninitiated, but which abnormal appearance is due solely to the companionable ‘quid’ of tobacco.

By this time a number of vans are in the yard waiting to take away goods, and the foremen are pretty nearly sure to want some extra hands to assist. Consequently out they go to the gates, and select as many as they require from the forest of palms held up before them. In this way work goes on until a few minutes before four, when all parties knock off, unless the ship should have to work an hour or two longer. At the pay-box the men arrange themselves in numerical order, and are paid with great celerity by the cashier, the exact amount due to each man being handed to him as he passes the window. At the exit gate are stationed two of the Company’s constables, who search any one they have cause to suspect, for in spite of the utmost vigilance and the aid of a large staff of police, pilfering is constantly going on within the Docks, and it requires great watchfulness to prevent the men taking anything out. As it is, things are occasionally smuggled out, though, when an offender is convicted, he usually meets with a severe penalty.

The London and St Katherine’s Docks (now amalgamated under one Company) cover an area of about forty-five acres, and have nearly as much warehouse accommodation as all the other Dock companies put together. The capital embarked in them, inclusive of loans and debentures, may be stated at about eight millions sterling, and the employés of all classes about three thousand daily. The annual imports into these Docks are seldom less than seventy millions, the exports being also considerable. With all this enormous trade and this vast amount of business, things are managed with great, though of course not perfect accuracy; every man knows his place, and there are seldom any mistakes but such as will occur at times from unavoidable hurry and confusion.

PRETTY MRS OGILVIE.

All the women are jealous of her; there is no doubt about that. The first time she appears in church with crisp mauve muslins floating about her and a dainty mauve erection on her head, which presumably she calls a bonnet, I know at once how it will be. And of course the other sex will range themselves on her side to a man; that is also beyond question. As she rises from her knees and takes her little lavender-gloved hands from her face and looks about her for a moment with a sweet shy glance, she is simply bewitching; and I doubt if any male creature in our musty little church pays proper attention to the responses for ten minutes afterwards. A new face is a great rarity with us, and _such_ a new face one might not see more than once in a decade, so let us hope we may be forgiven.

As I gaze at the delicate profile before me, the coils of golden hair, the complexion like the inside of a sea-shell, the slender milk-white throat, and the long dark eyelashes, which droop modestly over the glorious gray eyes, shall I own that I steal a glance of disapproval at Mary Anne, my Mary Anne, the partner of my joys and sorrows for twenty years, and the mother of my six children? Mary Anne’s figure is somewhat overblown, her hair is tinged with gray, and the complexion of her good-humoured face is slightly rubicund. But she has been a good wife to me; and I feel, with a twinge of compunction, that I have no right to be critical, as I think of a shining spot on the top of my own head, and of a little box I received from the dentist only a month ago, carefully secured from observation. But as we emerge from church I draw myself up and try to look my best as we pass the trailing mauve robes. Jack, one of our six, stumbles over the train; which gives me an opportunity of raising my hat and apologising for the brat’s awkwardness; and I am rewarded with a sweet smile and an upward glance out of the great gray eyes which is simply intoxicating.

‘We must call on Mrs Ogilvie at once,’ I observe to Mary Anne as we proceed across the fields on our homeward walk. ‘It is my duty as her landlord to find out if she is comfortable. She is a ladylike person,’ I continue, diplomatically forbearing to allude to the obvious beauty; ‘and I daresay, my dear, you will find her an agreeable neighbour.’

‘Ladylike!’ cries my wife, with a ring of indignation in her voice. ‘I don’t call it ladylike to come to a quiet country church dressed as if she were going to a flower-show. Besides, she is painted. A colour like that can’t be natural. But you men are all alike—always taken with a little outside show and glitter.’

‘But my dear,’ I remonstrate, ‘perhaps she did not know how very countrified and bucolic our congregation is; and I really do think it will be very unneighbourly if we don’t call. It must be very dull for her to know no one.’ I ignore the remark about the paint, but in my heart I give the assertion an emphatic contradiction.

Mrs Ogilvie has rented a small cottage which I own in the west-country village in which I am the principal doctor. She is the wife of a naval officer who is away in the Flying Squadron, and has settled in our sleepy little hamlet to live quietly during his absence. All her references have been quite unexceptionable, and indeed she is slightly known to our Squire, as is also her absent husband. ‘A splendid fellow he is,’ Mr Dillon tells me, ‘stands six feet in his stockings, and is as handsome as Apollo; indeed I don’t believe that for good looks you could find such another couple in England.’

The following day Mary Anne, with but little persuasion, agrees to accompany me to the cottage to call on Mrs Ogilvie. The door is opened by a neat maid-servant. She is at home; and we are ushered into the drawing-room, which we almost fail to recognise, so changed is it. Bright fresh hangings are in the windows, a handsome piano stands open, books and periodicals lie on the tables in profusion, and flowers are everywhere. ‘Evidently a woman of refinement and cultivated tastes,’ I think to myself; ‘the beauty is more than skin deep.’

Presently Mrs Ogilvie comes in, looking if possible even lovelier than she did the day before. She is in a simple white dress, with here and there a knot of blue ribbon about it; and she has a bit of blue also in her golden hair. Her manner is as charming as her looks, and as she thanks my wife with pleasant cordial words for being the first of her neighbours to take compassion on her loneliness, I can see that my Mary Anne, whose heart is as large as her figure, basely deserts the female faction and goes over to the enemy. Mrs Ogilvie is very young, still quite a girl, though she has been married three years she tells us.

‘It is dreadful that Frank should have to go away,’ she says, and the tears well up in her large gray eyes; ‘that is the worst of the service. But I suppose no woman ought to interfere with her husband’s career. I am going to live here as quietly as possible until he returns. See; here is his photograph,’ she continues, lifting a case from the table and handing it to Mary Anne. ‘Is he not handsome?’

He is most undeniably so, if the likeness speaks truth, and we both say so; Mary Anne, with the privilege of her sex and age, adding a word as to the beauty of the pair.

‘O yes,’ replies Mrs Ogilvie without the smallest embarrassment: ‘we are always called the “handsome couple.”’

I suppose something of my astonishment expresses itself in my countenance, for she smiles, and says: ‘I am afraid you think me very vain; but I cannot help knowing that I am good-looking, any more than I can help being aware that my eyes are gray, not black, and that my hair is golden. It is a gift from God, like any talent; a valuable one too, I think it; and I own that I am proud of it, for my dear Frank’s sake, who admires it so much.’

Yes, this is Mrs Ogilvie’s peculiarity, as we afterwards discover—an intense and quite open admiration of her own beauty. And indeed there is something so simple and naïve about it, that we do not find it displeasing when we get accustomed to it. She always speaks of herself as if she were a third person, and honestly appreciates her lovely face, as if it were some rare picture, as indeed it is, of Dame Nature’s own painting. She is equally ready to admit the good looks of other women, and has not a trace of jealousy in her composition. But often you will hear her say, in describing some one else: ‘She has a lovely complexion—something in the style of mine, but not so clear.’ Or, ‘She has a beautiful head of hair, but not so sunny as mine;’ &c. &c. At first, every one is astonished at this idiosyncrasy of hers, but in a little while we all come to laugh at it; there is something original and amusing about it; and in all other ways she is _so_ charming.

My wife, with whom she speedily becomes intimate, tells me that she is sure she values her beauty more for her husband’s sake than her own. ‘She evidently adores him,’ says Mary Anne; ‘and he seems to think so much of her sweet looks. She says he fell in love with her at first sight, before he ever spoke to her.’

But Mrs Ogilvie has many more attractions than are to be found in her face. She is a highly educated woman, a first-rate musician and a pleasant and intelligent companion; and more than all, she has a sweet loving disposition, and a true heart at the core of all her little vanities. She is very good to the poor in our village, and often when I am on my rounds, I meet her coming out of some cottage with an empty basket in her hand, which was full when she entered it.

In a quiet little neighbourhood like ours, such a woman cannot fail to be an acquisition, and every one hastens to call on her, and many are the dinners and croquet parties which are inaugurated in her honour. To the former she will not go; she does not wish to go out in the evening during her husband’s absence—much to my wife’s satisfaction, who approves of women being ‘keepers at home’—and it is only seldom that she can be induced to grace one of the croquet parties with her presence.

But when she does, she eclipses every one else. She always dresses in the most exquisite taste, as if anxious that the setting should be worthy of the jewel—the beauty which she prizes so highly. She is always sweet and gracious, and vanquishes the men by her loveliness, the women in spite of it. But she is in no sense of the word a coquette; and the only admirer she favours is our Jack, aged fourteen, who is head-over-ears in love with her, and is ready at any moment to forego cricket for the honour of escorting Mrs Ogilvie through the village, and the privilege of carrying her basket. So the quiet weeks and months glide by, linking us daily more closely together.

She has been settled at the cottage rather more than two years and is beginning to count the weeks to her husband’s return. _We_ do not number them quite so eagerly, for when he comes he will take her away from us, and we shall miss her sorely. It is summer again, a hot damp summer; it has been a very sickly season, and my hands are full.

‘I shall have to get a partner, my dear,’ I say to my wife as I prepare to go out. ‘If this goes on I shall have more to do than I can manage. There is a nasty fever about which I don’t like the look of; and if we don’t have a change for the better in this muggy weather, there is no saying what it may turn to.’

‘I am glad all the boys are at school,’ observes Mary Anne, ‘and I think I will let the girls accept their aunt’s invitation and go to her for a month.’

‘It would be a very good plan, and I should be glad if you would go too. A little change would do you good.’

‘And pray who is to look after you?’ asks my wife reproachfully. ‘Who is to see that you take your meals properly, and don’t rush off to see your patients, leaving your dinner untasted on the table?’

Mentally I confess that I should probably be poorly off without my Mary Anne; but it is a bad plan to encourage vanity in one’s wife, so I say: ‘Oh, I should do very well by myself;’ and with a parting nod betake myself to my daily duty.

In the village I meet Mrs Ogilvie, basket in hand. She doesn’t look well, and I say so.

‘You have no business out in the heat of the day,’ I tell her. ‘You are not a Hercules, and you will only be knocking yourself up. What will your husband say, if he does not find you looking your best when he comes back?’

A shade passes over her face. ‘Ah! he would not be pleased,’ she says rather gravely; ‘he always likes to see me look my _very_ best and prettiest.’

‘Well then, as your doctor, I must forbid your doing any more cottage-visiting just at present. You are not looking strong, and going into those close houses is not good for you. I will come and see you on my way back.’

Which I do. I find there is nothing the matter with her; she is only a little languid. Perhaps the weather has affected her; perhaps she is wearying for her husband; and I prescribe a tonic, which I think will soon set her to rights. I do not remain long with her, for I have an unspoken anxiety, and I am in a hurry to get home.

‘You had better send the children away to-morrow morning, Mary Anne,’ I say as soon as I get in. ‘Mrs Black is very ill, and I am afraid—I cannot quite tell yet, but I am afraid—she is going to have small-pox. Of course I shall have her removed at once, if I am right; but it may prove not to be an isolated case, and it will be as well to get the children out of the way. I shall try and persuade every one in the village to be vaccinated to-morrow.’

‘You will be clever if you manage that,’ says my wife. ‘I am afraid some of the people are very prejudiced against it. You know when the children and I were revaccinated three years ago, you could not persuade any of the villagers to be done at the same time.’

On the following day we despatch the children early to their aunt’s, under the care of an old servant; and as soon as I have seen them off, I go down to Mrs Black’s. To my consternation I find Mrs Ogilvie just leaving the house.

‘I have been disobedient, you see,’ she says gaily; ‘but I promised to bring Mrs Black something early this morning; and she seemed so ill yesterday that I did not like to disappoint her. But I am not going to transgress orders again—for Frank’s sake,’ she adds softly.

I give an internal groan. Heaven grant she may not have transgressed them once too often! And I hasten into the cottage, to find my worst fears confirmed. Mrs Black has small-pox quite unmistakably.

For some hours I am occupied in making arrangements for her removal to the infirmary, and in vaccinating such of my poorer patients as I can frighten or coerce into allowing me to do so; and it is afternoon before I am able to go and look after Mrs Ogilvie.

She seems rather astonished when I inform her what my errand is—that I want to vaccinate her (for of course I do not wish to frighten her by telling her about Mrs Black); but she submits readily enough when I say that I have heard of a case of small-pox in a neighbouring village (which I have), and think it would be a wise precautionary measure.

‘It is very good of you,’ she says in her pretty gracious way as she bares her white arm. ‘I have never been vaccinated since I was a baby, so I suppose it will be desirable.’

Desirable? I should think so indeed! And I send up a prayer as I perform the operation that I may not be too late.

I am so busy for the next few days that I am unable to go down to the cottage. One or two more cases of small-pox appear in the village, and I am anxious and hard-worked; but Mary Anne tells me that Mrs Ogilvie has heard of Mrs Black’s removal and is dreadfully nervous about herself. ‘I hope she will not frighten herself into it,’ adds my wife.

‘If she hadn’t contracted it before I vaccinated her, I think she is pretty safe,’ I reply; ‘but there is just the chance that she may have had the poison in her previously.’

Almost as I speak a message comes from Mrs Ogilvie, who ‘wishes to see me professionally.’ My heart sinks as I seize my hat and follow the messenger; and with too good reason. I find her suffering from the first symptoms of small-pox; and in twenty-four hours it has declared itself unequivocally and threatens to be a bad case. I try to keep the nature of her illness from her, but in vain. She questions me closely, and when she discovers the truth, gives way to a burst of despair which is painful to witness. ‘I shall be marked; I shall be hideous!’ she exclaims, sobbing bitterly. ‘Poor Frank, how he will hate me!’

In vain I try to comfort her, to convince her that in not one out of a hundred cases does the disease leave dreadful traces behind it; she refuses to be consoled. And soon she is too ill to be reasoned with, or indeed to know much of her own state. She is an orphan, and has no near relatives for whom we can send, so Mary Anne installs herself in the sick-room as head-nurse; and as I see her bending lovingly over the poor disfigured face, and ministering with tender hands to the ceaseless wants of the invalid, my wife is in my eyes beautiful exceedingly; so does the shadow of a good deed cast a glory around the most homely countenance.

For some time Mrs Ogilvie’s life is in great danger; but her youth and good constitution prevail against the grim destroyer, and at length I am able to pronounce all peril past.

But alas, alas! all my hopes, all my care, all my poor skill have been in vain; and the beauty which we have all admired so much, and which has been so precious to our poor patient, is a thing of the past. She is marked—slightly it is true; but the pure complexion is thick and muddy, the once bright eyes are heavy and dull, and the golden hair is thin and lustreless. We keep it from her as long as we can, but she soon discovers it in our sorrowful looks; and her horror, her agony, almost threaten to unseat her reason. My wife is with her night and day, watching her like a mother, using every argument she can think of to console her, and above all, counselling with gentle words submission to the will of God. But her misery, after the first shock, is not so much for herself as for the possible effect the loss of her beauty may have on her husband, who is now daily expected. His ship has been at sea, so we have been unable to write to him; and only on his arrival in Plymouth Sound will he hear of his poor young wife’s illness and disfigurement. Before her sickness she had been counting the hours; now she sees every day go past with a shudder, feeling that she is brought twenty-four hours nearer to the dread trial. At length his vessel arrives, and I receive a telegram telling me when we may expect him, and begging me to break the news gently to his wife. She receives it with a flood of bitter tears and sobs, crying out that he will hate and loathe her, and that she is about to lose all the happiness of her life. My wife weeps with her; and I am conscious of a choking sensation in my throat as we take leave of her half an hour before Mr Ogilvie is expected, and pray God to bless and sustain her.

We are sitting in rather melancholy mood after dinner, talking of the poor young husband and wife, when Mr Ogilvie is announced, and I hasten to the door to meet him.

‘She will not see me!’ he says impetuously, coming in without any formal greeting. ‘She has shut herself into her room, and calls to me with hysterical tears that she is too dreadful to look upon, that I shall cease to love her as soon as I behold her, and that she cannot face it.’ And the strong man falls into a chair with a sob.

‘It is not so bad as that,’ I begin.

‘I don’t care how bad it is,’ he cries; ‘she need not doubt my love. My poor darling will always be the same to me whether she has lost her beauty or not.’

Whereupon I extend my hand to him and shake his heartily; and I know my wife has great difficulty in restraining herself from enveloping him in her motherly arms and embracing him.

‘We must resort to stratagem,’ I say. ‘I will go down to the cottage at once, and you follow me in ten minutes with my wife. I will try and coax Mrs Ogilvie to come out and speak to me, and you must steal upon her unawares.’

Mrs Ogilvie at first refuses to see or speak to me; but I go up to her door and am mean enough to remind her of my wife’s devotion to her and entreat her, for her sake, to come down to me.

‘Where is Frank?’ she asks.

‘I left him at home with Mary Anne,’ I reply, feeling that I am worthy of being a diplomatist at the court of St Petersburg, as she opens the door and descends the stairs. I take her out into the garden and begin to reprove her for her conduct, with assumed anger. She listens with eyes blinded by tears. I, on the look-out for it, hear the latch of the garden gate click; but she, absorbed in her sorrow, does not notice it. I look up and see Frank Ogilvie’s eyes fixed hungrily on his wife. Her changed appearance must be an awful shock to him; but he bears it bravely; and in a moment he has sprung forward, clasped her in his arms, and the poor scarred face is hidden on his true and loving heart!

Then Mary Anne and I turn silently away, and leave him to teach her that there are things more valuable, of far higher worth than any mere beauty of face or form.

* * * * *

After all, we do not lose her, for Mr Ogilvie coming into some money, leaves the navy and purchases a small estate in our neighbourhood, on which they still reside. Mrs Ogilvie is no longer young, and has a family of lads and lasses around her, who inherit much of their mother’s loveliness. But one of the first things she teaches them is not to set a fictitious value on it; ‘for,’ she says, ‘I thought too much of mine, and God took it from me.’ No one ever hears her regret the loss of her beauty; ‘for through that trial,’ she tells my wife, ‘I learned to know the true value of my Frank’s heart.’

She simply worships her husband, and is in all respects a happy woman. Indeed, seeing the sweet smiles which adorn her face and the loving light which dwells in her eyes, I am sometimes tempted to call her as of yore—Pretty Mrs Ogilvie.

BURNABY’S RIDE IN TURKEY.

In his volume of travels in Turkey, Captain Burnaby has given such a large variety of amusing particulars, that it is eminently worthy of perusal. The following are a few rough notes:

Radford, the captain’s English servant, was one of the veritable descendants of Uncle Toby’s Corporal Trim; men—for there are a large family of them—to whom the word duty means obeying the word of command, no matter what form it may happen to take, be it to cook a dinner or storm a trench. At Constantinople another servant was required and engaged—one Osman, a Mohammedan, a very smart fellow, in every sense of the word. Picturesque in dress, tall and fine-looking into the bargain, and fully alive to the worth of the Effendi’s gold, to which he helped himself unsparingly, without hurt to his conscience or hinderance to his prayers. The devotions of this worthy proving a fruitful source of misery to the captain, he came to the conclusion that religious servants are a mistake, especially in the East.

At Constantinople there was some little delay occasioned by having horses to buy and friends to see, and then there were the cafés, which are always amusing more or less; for the proprietors find that good voices and pretty girls are sure attractions, whether for Giaour or Turk. But the poor girls have a hard time of it. By birth they are chiefly Hungarian and Italian. They act as waitresses mostly, and are compelled by the Turks who frequent the cafés to sweeten, by tasting, all that they order. The violence thus done to their digestive organs may be imagined. One Italian girl bemoaned her lot, saying: ‘It is such a mixture. I have a pain sometimes (pointing to the bodice of her dress). I wish to cry; but I have to run about and smile, wait upon visitors and drink with them. It is a dreadful life! Oh, if I could only return to Florence!’

Captain Burnaby found the Turkish women’s faces ‘sadly wanting in expression;’ at least those he had an opportunity of seeing, for the women all go veiled. Still their veils are of very thin muslin, and man’s curiosity is penetrating. But this noticeable lack of expression is not to be wondered at, when we hear that they are wholly uncultivated in mind—only one in a thousand among them can read or write. They amuse themselves in gossip and eating.

The Ride was not at all times agreeable. It was not pleasant, for instance, having to cross wooden bridges without parapets, and to see the river below through holes in the wooden planks beneath the horse’s feet; or to wade up to the horse’s girths through lanes of water. But such is the fortune of travelling in the unknown.

At the village of Nahilan the caimacan or governor was hospitable, and soon the whole population was in attendance to see and talk with the traveller. He was given the seat of honour on a rug near the fire. The caimacan in a fur-lined dressing-gown came next, the rest of the party in order not according to rank, but according to their possessions—the man who owned one hundred cows being seated next the governor. Conversation at first did not get on any better there than at home. But some one made a plunge, and the state of the roads was discussed. This opened the way to politics and the prospect of English help, about which the Turks were eager and anxious to learn. The war was the one topic of interest among them, as well it might be. The scenery in the neighbourhood was lovely, and Captain Burnaby wished that he had been born a painter, to have caught the impression of the beauty around him, and have fixed it for ever on canvas. He has painted at least one little sketch successfully in words: ‘A succession of hills, each one loftier than its fellow, broke upon us as we climbed the steep (leading towards Angora). They were of all forms, shades, and colours, ash gray, blue, vermilion, robed in imperial purple, and dotted with patches of vegetation. Our road wound amidst these chameleon-like heights, whose silvery rivulets streamed down the sides of the many-coloured hills.’