Chapter II: Part 2

Her master’s wedding and the journey to Florence were a dream to her. Though the strange sights of a strange city slowly restored her perceptions, they did not her cheerfulness. She felt as if she could no longer endure the misery of her life; she prayed to die.

“Why are you so unhappy?” said the Count Leon kindly to her, one day.

To have explained the cause of her wretchedness would have been death indeed.

“I am going to give you a treat,” continued Leon. “A celebrated singer is to appear to-night in the theatre. I will send you to hear her, and afterwards you shall sing to me what you remember of her performances.”

Anielka went. It was a new era in her existence. Herself, by this time, an artist, she could forget her griefs, and enter with her whole soul into the beauties of the art she now heard practised in perfection for the first time. To music a chord responded in her breast which vibrated powerfully. During the performances she was at one moment pale and trembling, tears rushing into her eyes; at another, she was ready to throw herself at the feet of the cantatrice, in an ecstacy of admiration. “Prima donna,”—by that name the public called on her to receive their applause, and it was the same, thought Anielka, that Justiniani had bestowed upon her. Could _she_ also be a prima donna? What a glorious destiny! To be able to communicate one’s own emotions to masses of entranced listeners; to awaken in them, by the power of the voice, grief, love, terror.

Strange thoughts continued to haunt her on her return home. She was unable to sleep. She formed desperate plans. At last she resolved to throw off the yoke of servitude, and the still more painful slavery of feelings which her pride disdained. Having learnt the address of the prima donna, she went early one morning to her house.

On entering she said, in French, almost incoherently, so great was her agitation—“Madam, I am a poor serf belonging to a Polish family who have lately arrived in Florence. I have escaped from them; protect, shelter me. They say I can sing.”

The Signora Teresina, a warm-hearted, passionate Italian, was interested by her artless earnestness. She said, “Poor child! you must have suffered much,”—she took Anielka’s hand in hers. “You say you can sing; let me hear you.” Anielka seated herself on an ottoman. She clasped her hands over her knees, and tears fell into her lap. With plaintive pathos, and perfect truth of intonation, she prayed in song. The Hymn to the Virgin seemed to Teresina to be offered up by inspiration.

The Signora was astonished. “Where,” she asked, in wonder, “were you taught?”

Anielka narrated her history, and when she had finished, the prima donna spoke so kindly to her that she felt as if she had known her for years. Anielka was Teresina’s guest that day and the next. After the Opera, on the third day, the prima donna made her sit beside her, and said:—

“I think you are a very good girl, and you shall stay with me always.”

The girl was almost beside herself with joy.

“We will never part. Do you consent, Anielka?”

“Do not call me Anielka. Give me instead some Italian name.”

“Well, then, be Giovanna. The dearest friend I ever had—but whom I have lost—was named Giovanna,” said the prima donna.

“Then, I will be another Giovanna to you.”

Teresina then said, “I hesitated to receive you at first, for your sake as well as mine; but you are safe now. I learn that your master and mistress, after searching vainly for you, have returned to Poland.”

From this time Anielka commenced an entirely new life. She took lessons in singing every day from the Signora, and got an engagement to appear in inferior characters at the theatre. She had now her own income, and her own servant—she, who had till then been obliged to serve herself. She acquired the Italian language rapidly, and soon passed for a native of the country.

So passed three years. New and varied impressions failed, however, to blot out the old ones. Anielka arrived at great perfection in her singing, and even began to surpass the prima donna, who was losing her voice from weakness of the chest. This sad discovery changed the cheerful temper of Teresina. She ceased to sing in public; for she could not endure to excite pity, where she had formerly commanded admiration.

She determined to retire. “You,” she said to Anielka, “shall now assert your claim to the first rank in the vocal art. You will maintain it. You surpass me. Often, on hearing you sing, I have scarcely been able to stifle a feeling of jealousy.”

Anielka placed her hand on Teresina’s shoulder, and kissed her.

“Yes,” continued Teresina, regardless of everything but the bright future she was shaping for her friend. “We will go to Vienna—there you will be understood and appreciated. You shall sing at the Italian Opera, and I will be by your side—unknown, no longer sought, worshipped—but will glory in your triumphs. They will be a repetition of my own; for have I not taught you? Will they not be the result of my work?”

Though Anielka’s ambition was fired, her heart was softened, and she wept violently.

Five months had scarcely elapsed, when a _furore_ was created in Vienna by the first appearance, at the Italian Opera, of the Signora Giovanna. Her enormous salary at once afforded her the means of even extravagant expenditure. Her haughty treatment of male admirers only attracted new ones; but in the midst of her triumphs she thought often of the time when the poor orphan of Pobereze was cared for by nobody. This remembrance made her receive the flatteries of the crowd with an ironical smile; their fine speeches fell coldly on her ear, their eloquent looks made no impression on her heart: _that_, no change could alter, no temptation win.

In the flood of unexpected success a new misfortune overwhelmed her. Since their arrival at Vienna, Teresina’s health rapidly declined, and in the sixth months of Anielka’s operatic reign she expired, leaving all her wealth, which was considerable, to her friend.

Once more Anielka was alone in the world. Despite all the honours and blandishments of her position, the old feeling of desolateness came upon her. The new shock destroyed her health. She was unable to appear on the stage. To sing was a painful effort; she grew indifferent to what passed around her. Her greatest consolation was in succouring the poor and friendless, and her generosity was most conspicuous to all young orphan girls without fortune. She had never ceased to love her native land, and seldom appeared in society, unless it was to meet her countrymen. If ever she sang, it was in Polish.

A year had elapsed since the death of the Signora Teresina when the Count Selka, a rich noble of Volkynia, at that time in Vienna, solicited her presence at a party. It was impossible to refuse the Count and his lady, from whom she had received great kindness. She went. When in their saloons, filled with all the fashion and aristocracy in Vienna, the name of Giovanna was announced, a general murmur was heard. She entered, pale and languid, and proceeded between the two rows made for her by the admiring assembly, to the seat of honour beside the mistress of the house.

Shortly after, the Count Selka led her to the piano. She sat down before it, and thinking what she should sing, glanced round upon the assembly. She could not help feeling that the admiration which beamed from the faces around her was the work of her own merit, for had she neglected the great gift of nature—her voice, she could not have excited it. With a blushing cheek, and eyes sparkling with honest pride, she struck the piano with a firm hand, and from her seemingly weak and delicate chest poured forth a touching Polish melody, with a voice pure, sonorous, and plaintive. Tears were in many eyes, and the beating of every heart was quickened.

The song was finished, but the wondering silence was unbroken. Giovanna leaned exhausted on the arm of the chair, and cast down her eyes. On again raising them, she perceived a gentleman who gazed fixedly at her, as if he still listened to echoes which had not yet died within him. The master of the house, to dissipate his thoughtfulness, led him towards Giovanna. “Let me present to you, Signora,” he said, “a countryman, the Count Leon Roszynski.”

The lady trembled; she silently bowed, fixed her eyes on the ground, and dared not raise them. Pleading indisposition, which was fully justified by her pallid features, she soon after withdrew.

When on the following day Giovanna’s servant announced the Counts Selka and Roszynski, a peculiar smile played on her lips; and when they entered, she received the latter with the cold and formal politeness of a stranger. Controlling the feelings of her heart, she schooled her features to an expression of indifference. It was manifest from Leon’s manner, that without the remotest recognition, an indefinable presentiment regarding her possessed him. The Counts had called to know if Giovanna had recovered from her indisposition. Leon begged to be permitted to call again.

Where was his wife? why did he never mention her? Giovanna continually asked herself these questions when they had departed.

A few nights after, the Count Leon arrived sad and thoughtful. He prevailed on Giovanna to sing one of her Polish melodies; which she told him had been taught, when a child, by her muse. Roszynski, unable to restrain the expression of an intense admiration he had long felt, frantically seized her hand, and exclaimed, “I love you!”

She withdrew it from his grasp, remained silent for a few minutes, and then said slowly, distinctly, and ironically, “but I do not love _you_, Count Roszynski.”

Leon rose from his seat. He pressed his hands to his brow, and was silent. Giovanna remained calm and tranquil. “It is a penalty from Heaven,” continued Leon, as if speaking to himself, “for not having fulfilled my duty as a husband towards one whom I chose voluntarily, but without reflection. I wronged her, and am punished.”

Giovanna turned her eyes upon him. Leon continued, “Young, and with a heart untouched, I married a princess about ten years older than myself, of eccentric habits and bad temper. She treated me as an inferior. She dissipated the fortune hoarded up with so much care by my parents, and yet was ashamed on account of my origin to be called by my name. Happily for me, she was fond of visiting and amusements. Otherwise, to escape from her, I might have become a gambler, or worse; but, to avoid meeting her, I remained at home—for there she seldom was. At first from ennui, but afterwards from real delight in the occupation, I gave myself up to study. Reading formed my mind and heart. I became a changed being. Some months ago my father died, my sister went to Lithuania, whilst my mother, in her old age, and with her ideas, was quite incapable of understanding my sorrow. So when my wife went to the baths for the benefit of her ruined health, I came here in the hope of meeting with some of my former friends—I saw you—”

Giovanna blushed like one detected; but speedily recovering herself, asked with calm pleasantry, “Surely you do not number _me_ among your former friends?”

“I know not. I have been bewildered. It is strange; but from the moment I saw you at Count Selka’s, a powerful instinct of love overcame me; not a new feeling; but as if some latent, long-hid, undeveloped sentiment had suddenly burst forth into an uncontrollable passion. I love, I adore you. I——”

The Prima Donna interrupted him—not with speech, but with a look which awed, which chilled him. Pride, scorn, irony sat in her smile. Satire darted from her eyes. After a pause, she repeated slowly and pointedly, “Love _me_, Count Roszynski?”

“Such is my destiny,” he replied. “Nor, despite your scorn, will I struggle against it. I feel it is my fate ever to love you; I fear it is my fate never to be loved by you. It is dreadful.”

Giovanna witnessed the Count’s emotion with sadness. “To have,” she said mournfully, “one’s first pure, ardent, passionate affection unrequited, scorned, made a jest of, is indeed a bitterness, almost equal to that of death.”

She made a strong effort to conceal her emotion. Indeed she controlled it so well as to speak the rest with a sort of gaiety.

“You have at least been candid, Count Roszynski; I will imitate you by telling a little history that occurred in your country. There was a poor girl born and bred a serf to her wealthy lord and master. When scarcely fifteen years old, she was torn from a state of happy rustic freedom—the freedom of humility and content—to be one of the courtly slaves of the Palace. Those who did not laugh at her, scolded her. One kind word was vouchsafed to her, and that came from the lord’s son. She nursed it and treasured it; till, from long concealing and restraining her feelings, she at last found that gratitude had changed into a sincere affection. But what does a man of the world care for the love of a serf? It does not even flatter his vanity. The young nobleman did not understand the source of her tears and her grief, and he made a present of her, as he would have done of some animal to his betrothed.”

Leon, agitated and somewhat enlightened, would have interrupted her; but Giovanna said, “Allow me to finish my tale. Providence did not abandon this poor orphan, but permitted her to rise to distinction by the talent with which she was endowed by nature. The wretched serf of Pobereze became a celebrated Italian cantatrice. _Then_ her former lord meeting her in society, and seeing her admired and courted by all the world, without knowing who she really was, was afflicted, as if by the dictates of Heaven, with a love for this same girl,—with a guilty love”—

And Giovanna rose, as she said this, to remove herself further from her admirer.

“No, no!” he replied earnestly; “with a pure and holy passion.”

“Impossible!” returned Giovanna. “Are you not married?”

Roszynski vehemently tore a letter from his vest, and handed it to Giovanna. It was sealed with black, for it announced the death of his wife at the baths. It had only arrived that morning.

“You have lost no time,” said the cantatrice, endeavouring to conceal her feelings under an iron mask of reproach.

There was a pause. Each dared not speak. The Count knew—but without actually and practically believing what seemed incredible—that Anielka and Giovanna were the same person—_his slave_. That terrible relationship checked him. Anielka, too, had played her part to the end of endurance. The long-cherished tenderness—the faithful love of her life could not longer be wholly mastered. Hitherto they had spoken in Italian. She now said in Polish,

“You have a right, my Lord Roszynski, to that poor Anielka who escaped from the service of your wife in Florence; you can force her back to your palace, to its meanest work; but”—

“Have mercy on me!” cried Leon.

“But,” continued the serf of Pobereze, firmly, “you cannot force me to love you.”

“Do not mock—do not torture me more; you are sufficiently revenged. I will not offend you by importunity. You must indeed hate me! But remember that we Poles wished to give freedom to our serfs; and for that very reason our country was invaded and dismembered by despotic powers. We must therefore continue to suffer slavery as it exists in Russia; but, soul and body, we are averse to it: and when our country once more becomes free, be assured no shadow of slavery will remain in the land. Curse then our enemies, and pity us that we stand in such a desperate position between Russian bayonets and Siberia, and the hatred of our serfs.”

So saying, and without waiting for a reply, Leon rushed from the room. The door was closed. Giovanna listened to the sounds of his rapid footsteps till they died in the street. She would have followed, but dared not. She ran to the window. Roszynski’s carriage was rolling rapidly away, and she exclaimed vainly, “I love you, Leon; I loved you always!”

Her tortures were unendurable. To relieve them she hastened to her desk, and wrote these words:—

“Dearest Leon, forgive me; let the past be for ever forgotten. Return to your Anielka. She always has been, ever will be, yours!”

She despatched the missive. Was it too late? or would it bring him back? In the latter hope she retired to her chamber, to execute a little project.

Leon was in despair. He saw he had been premature in so soon declaring his passion after the news of his wife’s death, and vowed he would not see Anielka again for several months. To calm his agitation, he had ridden some miles into the country. When he returned to his hotel after some hours, he found her note. With the wild delight it had darted into his soul, he flew back to her.

On regaining her saloon a new and terrible vicissitude seemed to sport with his passion:—she was nowhere to be seen. Had the Italian cantatrice fled? Again he was in despair; stupified with disappointment. As he stood uncertain how to act in the midst of the floor, he heard, as from a distance, an Ave Maria poured forth in tones he half-recognised. The sounds brought back to him a host of recollections; a weeping serf, the garden of his own palace. In a state of new rapture he followed the voice. He traced it to an inner chamber, and he there beheld the lovely singer kneeling, in the costume of a Polish serf. She rose, greeted Leon with a touching smile, and stepped forward with serious bashfulness. Leon extended his arms; she sank into them; and in that fond embrace all past wrongs and sorrows were forgotten! Anielka drew from her bosom a little purse, and took from it a piece of silver. It was the rouble. _Now_, Leon did not smile at it. He comprehended the sacredness of this little gift; and some tears of repentance fell upon Anielka’s hand.

A few months after, Leon wrote to the steward of Olgogrod to prepare everything splendidly for the reception of his second wife. He concluded his letter with these words:—“I understand that in the dungeon beneath my palace there are some unfortunate men, who were imprisoned during my father’s lifetime. Let them be instantly liberated. This is my first act of gratitude to God, who has so infinitely blessed me!”

Anielka longed ardently to behold her native land. They left Vienna immediately after the wedding, although it was in the middle of January.

It was already quite dark when the carriage, with its four horses, stopped in front of the portico of the Palace of Olgogrod. Whilst the footman was opening the door on one side, a beggar soliciting alms appeared at the other, where Anielka was seated. Happy to perform a good action, as she crossed the threshold of her new home, she gave him some money; but the man, instead of thanking her, returned her bounty with a savage laugh, at the same time scowling at her in the fiercest manner from beneath his thick and shaggy brows. The strangeness of this circumstance sensibly affected Anielka, and clouded her happiness. Leon soothed and re-assured her. In the arms of her beloved husband, she forgot all but the happiness of being the idol of his affections.

Fatigue and excitement made the night most welcome. All was dark and silent around the palace, and some hours of the night had passed, when suddenly flames burst forth from several parts of the building at once. The palace was enveloped in fire; it raged furiously. The flames mounted higher and higher; the windows cracked with a fearful sound, and the smoke penetrated into the most remote apartments.

A single figure of a man was seen stealing over the snow, which lay like a winding-sheet on the solitary waste; his cautious steps were heard on the frozen snow as it crisped beneath his tread. It was the beggar who had accosted Anielka. On a rising ground, he turned to gaze on the terrible scene. “No more unfortunate wretches will now be doomed to pass their lives in your dungeons,” he exclaimed. “What was _my_ crime? Reminding my master of the lowness of his birth. For this they tore me from my only child—my darling little Anielka; they had no pity even for her orphan state; let them perish all!”

Suddenly a young and beautiful creature rushes wildly to one of the principal windows: she makes a violent effort to escape. For a moment her lovely form, clothed in white, shines in terrible relief against the background of blazing curtains and walls of fire, and as instantly sinks back into the blazing element. Behind her is another figure, vainly endeavouring to aid her,—he perishes also; neither are ever seen again!

This appalling tragedy horrified even the perpetrator of the crime. He rushed from the place; and as he heard the crash of the falling walls, he closed his ears with his hands, and darted on faster and faster.

The next day some peasants discovered the body of a man frozen to death, lying on a heap of snow,—it was that of the wretched incendiary. Providence, mindful of his long, of his cruel imprisonment and sufferings, spared him the anguish of knowing that the mistress of the palace he had destroyed, and who perished in the flames, was his own beloved daughter—the Serf of Pobreze!

A STROLL BY STARLIGHT.

We left the Village. On the beaten road
Our steps and voices were the only sound.
The lady Moon was not yet come abroad,—
Our coyly-veiled companion. We found
A footway through the corn; upon the ground
The crake among the holms was occupied;
Rapid of movement, from all points around
Came his rough note whose music is supplied
By iteration while all sounds are hushed beside.

The stars were out, the sky was full of them,
Dotted with worlds. The land was all asleep.
And, like its gentle breath, from stem to stem
Through the dry corn a murmur there would creep,
Murmur of music: as when in the deep
Of the sun-pierced Ægean, with turned ear,
The Nereids might have heard its waters leap
And kiss the dimpled islands, thus, less near,
Fainter, more like a thought, did to our hearts appear,

The midnight melody. Our way then led
Where myriad blades of grass were drinking dew;
Thirsty, to God they looked, by God were fed,
Whose cloudless heaven could their life renew.
A copse beside us on the starry blue
Cut its hard outline. Through the leaves a fire
Shone with enlarging brilliance; red of hue
The large moon rose,—did to a throne aspire
Of dizzy height, and paled in winning her desire.

A change of level, and another scene;
Life, light, and noise. The roaring furnace-blast,
Flame-pointed cones and fields of blighted green!
The vivid fires, dreaming they have surpassed
The stars in brightness, furiously cast
Upward their wild strength to possess the sky;
Break into evanescent stars at last,—
Glitter and fall as fountains. Thus men try,
And thus men try in vain, false gods to deify.

The roar and flame diminish. Busy light
Streams from the casting-house. The liquid ore
Through arch and lancet window, dazzling Night,
Flows in rich rills upon the sanded floor.
Steropes, Arges, Brontes, from the shore
Of Acheron returned, seem glowing here;
Such form the phantom of Hephæstus wore,
Illumined by his forge. Each feature clear,
Men glorified by fire seem demon-births of fear.

But the ray reddens, and the light grows dim.
The cooling iron, counterpaned with sand
By those night servitors, no longer grim
In unaccustomed glow, from the green land
And yonder sky, now ceases to command
Our thoughts to wander. As we backward gaze,
The blast renews; with aspiration grand
The flames again soar upward: but we raise
Our glances to God’s Lamp, which overawes their blaze.

So forward through the stillness we proceed.
Winding around a hill, the white road leaves
Life, light, and noise behind. We, gladly freed
From human interruption, we, mute thieves,
Pass onward through Night’s treasure; each receives
From her rich store his bosom full of wealth,
For secret hoarding. Now an oak-wood weaves
A cloister way to sanctify the stealth
Practised in loving guise, and for the spirit’s health.

We climb into the moonlight once again.
A broken rail beside the way doth keep
Neglectful guard above the Vale’s domain.
The Vale is in the silence laid asleep,
Not far below. Among her beauties peep
The wakeful stars, and from above her bed
The grey night-veil, wherein to rest so deep
She sank, the Moon hath lifted; yet the thread
Of slumber holds, the dream hath from her face not fled.

Yon meadow track leads by the church; it saves
Ten minutes if we follow it. We laugh
To see our saving lost among the graves.
Deciphering a moonlit Epitaph
We linger, laugh and sigh. All mirth is half
Made up of melancholy. There is pure
Humour in woe. Man’s grief is oft the staff
On which his happy thoughts can lean secure;
And he who most enjoys, he too can most endure.

We leave the tombstones, death-like, white, and still,
Fixed in the dim light,—awful, unbeheld.
A squalid village, straggling up a hill
We pass. In passing, one among us yelled,
And from no gallinaceous throat expelled
A crow sonorous. From the near church tower,
Through the cold, voiceless air of night there knell’d
The passing bell of a departed hour:
What sign of budding day? How will the morning flower?

CHIPS.

There is a saying that a good workman is known by his chips. Such a prodigious accumulation of chips takes place in our Manufactory, that we infer we must have some first-rate workmen about us.

There is also a figure of speech, concerning a chip of the old block. The chips with which _our_ old block (aged fifteen weeks) is overwhelmed every week, would make some five-and-twenty blocks of similar dimensions.

There is a popular simile—an awkward one in this connexion—founded on the dryness of a chip. This has almost deterred us from our intention of bundling a few chips together now and then. But, reflection on the natural lightness of the article has re-assured us; and we here present a few to our readers,—and shall continue to do so from time to time.

DESTRUCTION OF PARISH REGISTERS.

As the poorest man cannot foresee to what inheritance he may succeed, through the instrumentality of Parochial Registers, so in their preservation every member of the community is more or less interested; but the Parish Register returns of 1833 show that a general feeling seemed to exist in favour of their destruction. Scarcely one of them pronounced the Registers in a satisfactory state. The following sentences abound in the Blue Book: “leaves cut out,” “torn out,” “injured by damp,” “mutilated,” “in fragments,” “destroyed by fire,” “much torn,” “illegible,” “tattered,” “imperfect,” “early registers lost.”

Thanks to the General Registry Act of William the Fourth, all such records made since 1835 are now properly cared for; but those prior to that date are still in parochial keeping, to be torn, lost, burnt, interpolated, stolen, defaced, or rendered illegible at the good pleasure of every wilful or heedless individual of a destructive organisation. Some time ago Mr. Walbran, of Ripon, found part of a Parish Register among a quantity of wastepaper in a cheesemonger’s shop. The same gentleman has rescued the small but very interesting register of the chapelry of Denton, in the county of Durham, from the fate which once had nearly befallen it, by causing several literatim copies to be printed and deposited in public libraries. Among other instances of negligent custody, Mr. Downing Bruce, the barrister, relates, in a recently published pamphlet, that the Registers of South Otterington, containing several entries of the great families of Talbot, Herbert, and Fauconberg, were formerly kept in the cottage of the parish-clerk, who used all those preceding the eighteenth century for waste paper; a considerable portion having been taken to “singe a goose!”

Abstraction, loss, and careless custody of registers is constantly going on. Mr. Bruce mentions, that in 1845 he made some copious extracts from the dilapidated books at Andover, “but on recently visiting that place for the purpose of a supplementary search,” he says, “I found that these books were no longer in existence, and that those which remained were kept in the rectory-house, in a damp place under the staircase, and in a shameful state of dilapidation.” The second case occurred at Kirkby Malzeard, near Ripon, where the earliest register mentioned in the parliamentary return was reported to be lost. “Having occasion to believe that the statement was not correct,” Mr. Bruce states, “I persevered in my inquiries, and at length fortunately discovered the book, in a tattered state, behind some old drawers in the curate’s back kitchen. Again, at Farlington, near Sheriff Hutton, the earliest registers were believed and represented to be lost, until I found their scattered leaves at the bottom of an old parish chest which I observed in the church.”

Even as we write, an enquiry appears in the newspapers from the parish officers of St. Paul’s, Covent Garden, addressed to “collectors” and others, after their own Registers; two among the most historically important and interesting years of the seventeenth century are nowhere to be found.

The avidity and dishonesty of many of these “collectors,” or archæological cockchafers, are shocking to think of. They seem to have passed for their own behoof a universal statute of limitations; and when a book, an autograph, or a record is a certain number of years old, they think it is no felony to steal it. Recently we were interested in searching the Register for the birth of Joseph Addison; and at the altar of the pretty little church of Milston, in Wilts, we were told that a deceased rector had cut out the leaf which contained it, to satisfy the earnest longings of a particular friend, “a collector”—a poet, too, who ought to have been ashamed to instigate the larceny. It is hoped that his executors—his name has been inserted in a burial register since—will think fit to restore it to its proper place at their early convenience.

Mr. Bruce recommends that the whole of the Registers now deposited in parish churches, in rectors’ coal-cellars, churchwardens’ outhouses, curates’ back-kitchens, and goose-eating parish clerks’ cottages, should be collected into one central fire-proof building in London.

Innocent Mr. Bruce! While the great historical records of this land are “preserved” over tons of gunpowder in the White Tower of the Tower in London; while the Chancery records are feeding a fine, fat, historical, and uncommonly numerous breed of rats in the cellars of the Rolls Chapel; while some of the most important muniments existing (including William the Conqueror’s Domesday Book) are being dried up in the Chapter-House of Westminster Abbey, by the united heats of a contiguous brew-house and an adjacent wash-house; and while heaps of monastic charters and their surrenders to Henry the Eighth, with piles of inestimable historical treasures, are huddled together upon scaffolds in the interior of the dilapidated Riding-School in Carlton Ride—can Mr. Bruce or any other man of common sense, suppose that any attention whatever will be paid by any person in power to his very modest suggestion?

FROM MR. T. OLDCASTLE CONCERNING THE COAL EXCHANGE.

“SIR, Blue Dragon Arms, South Shields.

“I have just read in your ‘Household Words’ a pleasant enough account of the ‘Coal Exchange of London,’ in which my name is mentioned. I suppose I ought—and therefore I do—consider it a great honour; and what Captain of a collier-brig would not? So, no more about that, except to thank you. Same time, mayhap, there may be a trifle or two in the paper to which I don’t quite subscribe; and, as I seem to be towed astern of the writer as he works his way on, it seems only fair that I should overhaul his log in such matters as I don’t agree to, whether so be in respect of his remarks or reckoning.

“In the first place, the writer says the Coal Exchange is painted as bright as a coffee-garden or dancing-place on the continent. Well—belike it is. And what o’ that? Did he wish it to be painted in coal-tar? as if we didn’t see enough of this at home—whether collier-men or coal-merchants! I make no doubt he wanted to see all the inside just of the same colour as your London buildings are on th’ outside—walls, and towers, and spires, like so many great smoke-jacks. Then as to his taste in female beauty, he seems more disposed to the pale faces of novel-writers’ young ladies than such sort of brown and ruddy skins as some of us think more mettlesome. I confess I do; and so he may rig me out on this matter as he pleases. Howsomever, I must say that I believe most people will prefer both the bright ladies, and the bright adornment of the building, to any mixture of soot and blacking, which has, hitherto, characterised the taste of my old friends the Londoners. And it is my advice to the artist, Mr. Sang, just to snap his fingers at the opposite taste of your writer, which is exactly what I do myself, for his comparing my ‘hard weather-beaten face’ to the wooden figure of a ship’s head.

“I remain, respected Sir,
“Yours to command,
“THOMAS OLDCASTLE.”

“P.S. What the writer of these coal-papers says I told him about Buddle of Wallsend, is all true enough; but why did he tell me, in return, that his name was ‘Gulliver?’”

NEW SHOES.

The following “Chip” is from the chisel of a blacksmith—a certain Peter Muller of Istra, son of the person to whom it refers. It was gathered from his forge by M. Stæhlin, who inserted it in his original anecdotes of Peter the Great, collected from the conversation of several persons of distinction at St. Petersburg and Moscow.

Among all the workmen at Muller’s forge, near Istra, about ninety versts from Moscow, there was one who had examined everything connected with the work with the most minute attention, and who worked harder than the rest. He was at his post every day, and appeared quite indifferent to the severity of the labour. The last day on which he was employed, he forged eighteen poods of iron—the pood is equal to forty pounds—but though he was so good a workman, he had other matters to mind besides the forging of iron; for he had the affairs of the State to attend to, and all who have heard of Peter the Great, know that those were not neglected.

It happened that he spent a month in the neighbourhood of Istra, for the benefit of the chalybeate waters; and wherever he was, he always made himself thoroughly acquainted with whatever works were carried on. He determined not only to inspect Muller’s forge accurately, but to become a good blacksmith. He made the noblemen who were in attendance on him accompany him every morning, and take part in the labour. Some he appointed to blow the bellows, and others to carry coals, and perform all the offices of journeymen blacksmiths. A few days after his return to Moscow, he called on Muller, and told him that he had been to see his establishment, with which he had been much gratified.

“Tell me,” said he, “how much you allow per pood for iron in bar, furnished by a master blacksmith.”

“Three copecks or an altin,” answered Muller.

“Well, then,” said the Czar, “I have earned eighteen altins, and am come to be paid.”

Muller went to his bureau, and took from it eighteen ducats, which he reckoned before the Emperor. “I would not think of offering less to a royal workman, please your Majesty.”

“Put up your ducats again,” interrupted the Czar, “I will not take more than I have earned, and that you would pay to any other blacksmith. Give me my due. It will be sufficient to pay for a pair of shoes, of which you may see,” added he, as he raised his foot, and displayed a shoe somewhat the worse for the wear, “I am very much in need.”

Muller reckoned out the eighteen altins, with which the Czar hurried off to a shop, and purchased a pair of shoes. He put them on with the greatest delight; he thought he never had worn such a pair of shoes; he showed them with a triumphant air to those about him, and said, “See them; look how well they fit; I have earned them well—by the sweat of my brow, with hammer and anvil.”

One of these bars of iron, forged by Peter the Great, and bearing his mark, was kept as a precious relic in the forge at Istra, and exhibited with no little pride to all who entered. Another bar which was forged by his hand is shown in the Cabinet of the Academy of Sciences at Petersburg.

THE MODERN “OFFICER’S” PROGRESS.

III.—THE CATASTROPHE.

What the Psalmist said in sorrow, those who witnessed the career of the Honourable Ensign Spoonbill and his companions might have said, not in sorrow only but in anger: “One day told another, and one night certified another.”

When duty was to be performed—(for even under the command of such an officer as Colonel Tulip the routine of duty existed)—it was slurred over as hastily as possible, or got through as it best might be. When, on the other hand, pleasure was the order of the day,—and this was sought hourly,—no resource was left untried, no expedient unattempted; and strange things, in the shape of pleasure, were often the result.

The nominal duties were multifarious, and, had they been properly observed, would have left but a comparatively narrow margin for recreation,—for there was much in the old forms which took up time, without conveying any great amount of real military instruction.

The orderly officer for the day—we speak of the subaltern—was supposed to go through a great deal. His duty it was to assist at inspections, superintend drills, examine the soldiers’ provisions, see their breakfasts and dinners served, and attend to any complaints, visit the regimental guards by day and night, be present at all parades and musters, and, finally, deliver in a written report of the proceedings of the four-and-twenty hours.

To go through this routine, required—as it received in some regiments—a few days’ training; but in the Hundredth there was none at all. Every officer in that distinguished corps was supposed to be “a Heaven-born genius,” and acquired his military education as pigeons pick up peas. The Hon. Ensign Spoonbill looked at his men after a fashion; could swear at them if they were excessively dirty, and perhaps awe them into silence by a portentous scowl, or an exaggerated loudness of voice; but with regard to the real purpose of inspection, he knew as little, and cared as much, as the valet who aired his noble father’s morning newspaper. His eye wandered over the men’s kits as they were exposed to his view; but to his mind they only conveyed the idea of a kaleidoscopic rag-fair, not that of an assortment of necessaries for the comfort and well-being of the soldier. He saw large masses of beef, exhibited in a raw state by the quartermaster, as the daily allowance for the men; but if any one had asked him if the meat was good, and of proper weight, how could he have answered, whose head was turned away in disgust, with his face buried in a scented cambric handkerchief, and his delicate nature loathing the whole scene? In the same spirit he saw the men’s breakfasts and dinners served; fortifying his opinion, at the first, that coffee could only be made in France, and wondering, at the second, what sort of _potage_ it could be that contrived to smell so disagreeably. These things might be special affectations in the Hon. Ensign, and depended, probably, on his own peculiar organisation; but if the rest of the officers of the Hundredth did not manifest as intense a dislike to this part of their duties, they were members of much too “crack” a regiment to give themselves any trouble about the matter. The drums beat, the messes were served, there was a hasty gallop through the barrack-rooms, scarcely looking right or left, and the orderly officer was only too happy to make his escape without being stopped by any impertinent complaint.

The “turning out” of the barrack guard was a thing to make an impression on a bystander. A loud shout, a sharp clatter of arms, a scurry of figures, a hasty formation, a brief enquiry if all was right, and a terse rejoinder that all _was_ remarkably so, constituted the details of a visit to the body of men on whom devolved the task of extreme watchfulness, and the preservation of order. If the serjeant had replied “All wrong,” it would have equally enlightened Ensign Spoonbill, who went towards the guardhouse because his instructions told him to do so; but why he went there, and for what purpose he turned out the guard, never entered into his comprehension. Not even did a sense of responsibility awaken in him when, with much difficulty, he penned the report which gave, in a narrative form, the summary of the duties he had performed in so exemplary a manner. Performed, do we say? Yes, once or twice wholly, but for the most part with many gaps in the schedule. Sometimes the dinners were forgotten, now and then the taptoo, generally the afternoon parade, and not unfrequently the whole affair. For the latter omission, there was occasionally a nominal “wigging” administered, not by the commanding officer himself, but through the adjutant; and as that functionary was only looked upon by the youngsters in the light of a bore, without the slightest reverence for his office, his words—like those of Cassius—passed like the idle wind which none regarded. When Ensign Spoonbill “mounted guard” himself, his vigilance on his new post equalled the assiduity we have seen him exhibit in barracks. After the formality of trooping, marching down, and relieving, was over, the Honourable Ensign generally amused himself by a lounge in the vicinity of the guardhouse, until the field-officer’s “rounds” had been made; and that visitation at an end for the day, a neighbouring billiard-room, with Captain Cushion for his antagonist or “a jolly pool” occupied him until dinner-time. It was the custom in the garrison where the Hundredth were quartered, as it was, indeed, in many others, for the officers on guard to dine with their mess, a couple of hours or so being granted for this indulgence. This relaxation was made up for, by their keeping close for the rest of the evening; but as there were generally two or three off duty sufficiently at leisure to find cigars and brandy-and-water attractive, even when consumed in a guard-room, the hardship of Ensign Spoonbill’s official imprisonment was not very great. With these friends, and these creature-comforts to solace, the time wore easily away till night fell, when the field-officer, if he was “a good fellow,” came early, and Ensign Spoonbill, having given his friends their _congé_, was at liberty to “turn in” for the night, the onerous duty of visiting sentries and inspecting the reliefs every two hours, devolving upon the serjeant.

It may be inferred from these two examples of Ensign Spoonbill’s ideas of discipline and the service, what was the course he generally adopted when _on_ duty, without our being under the necessity of going into further details. What he did when _off_ duty helped him on still more effectually.

Lord Pelican’s outfit having “mounted” the young gentleman, and the credit he obtained on the strength of being Lord Pelican’s son, keeping his stud in order, he was enabled to vie with the crackest of the crack Hundredth; subject, however, to all the accidents which horseflesh is heir to—especially when allied to a judgment of which green was the prevailing colour. A “swap” to a disadvantage; an indiscreet purchase; a mistake as to the soundness of an animal; and such other errors of opinion, entailed certain losses, which might, after all, have been borne, without rendering the applications for money at home, more frequent than agreeable; but when under the influence of a natural obstinacy, or the advice of some very “knowing ones,” Ensign Spoonbill proceeded to back his opinion in private matches, handicaps, and steeple-chases, the privy purse of Lady Pelican collapsed in a most unmistakeable manner. Nor was this description of amusement the only rock-a-head in the course of the Honourable Ensign. The art or science of betting embraces the widest field, and the odds, given or taken, are equally fatal, whether the subject that elicits them be a match at billiards or a horse-race. Nor are the stakes at blind-hookey or unlimited loo less harmless, when you hav’n’t got luck and _have_ such opponents as Captain Cushion.

In spite of the belief in his own powers, which Ensign Spoonbill encouraged, he could not shut his eyes to the fact that he was every day a loser; but wiser gamblers than he—if any there be—place reliance on a “turn of luck,” and all he wanted to enable him to take advantage of it, was a command of cash; for even one’s best friends prefer the coin of the realm to the most unimpeachable I. O. U.

The want of money is a common dilemma,—not the less disagreeable, however, because it _is_ common—but in certain situations this want is more apparent than real. The Hon. Ensign Spoonbill was in the predicament of impecuniosity; but there were—as a celebrated statesman is in the habit of saying—three courses open to him. He might leave off play, and do without the money; he might “throw himself” on Lord Pelican’s paternal feelings; or he might _somehow_ contrive to raise a supply on his own account. To leave off just at the moment when he was sure to win back all he had lost, would have been ridiculous; besides, every man of spirit in the regiment would have cut him. To throw himself upon the generosity of his sire, was a good poetical idea; but, practically, it would have been of no value: for, in the first place, Lord Pelican had no money to give—in the next, there was an elder brother, whose wants were more imperative than his own; and lastly, he had already tried the experiment, and failed in the most signal manner. There remained, therefore, only the last expedient; and being advised, moreover, to have recourse to it, he went into the project _tête baissée_. The “advice” was tendered in this form.

“Well, Spooney, my boy, how are you, this morning?” kindly enquired Captain Cushion, one day on his return from parade, from which the Honourable Ensign had been absent on the plea of indisposition.

“Deuced queer,” was the reply; “that Roman punch always gives me the splittingest headaches!”

“Ah! you’re not used to it. I’m as fresh as a four-year old. Well, what did you do last night, Spooney?”

“Do! why, I lost, of course; _you_ ought to know that.”

“I—my dear fellow! Give you my honour I got up a loser!”

“Not to me, though,” grumbled the Ensign.

“Can’t say as to that,” replied the Captain; “all I know is, that I am devilishly minus.”

“Who won, then?” enquired Spoonbill.

“Oh!” returned the Captain, after a slight pause, “I suspect—Chowser—he has somebody’s luck and his own too!”

“I think he must have mine,” said the Ensign, with a faint smile, as the alternations of the last night’s Blind Hookey came more vividly to his remembrance. “What did I lose to you, Cushion?” he continued, in the hope that his memory had deceived him.

The Captain’s pocket-book was out in an instant.

“Sixty-five, my dear fellow; that was all. By-the-bye, Spooney, I’m regularly hard up; can you let me have the tin? I wouldn’t trouble you, upon my soul, if I could possibly do without it, but I’ve got a heavy bill coming due to-morrow, and I can’t renew.”

The Honourable Ensign sank back on his pillow, and groaned impotently. Rallying, however, from this momentary weakness, he raised his head, and, after apostrophising the spirit of darkness as his best friend, exclaimed, “I’ll tell you what it is, Cushion, I’m thoroughly cleaned out. I haven’t got a dump!”

“Then you must fly a kite,” observed the Captain, coolly. “No difficulty about that.”

This was merely the repetition of counsel of the same friendly nature previously urged. The shock was not greater, therefore, than the young man’s nerves could bear.

“How is it to be done?” asked the neophyte.

“Oh, I think I can manage that for you. Yes,” pursued the Captain, musing, “Lazarus would let you have as much as you want, I dare say. His terms are rather high, to be sure; but then the cash is the thing. He’ll take your acceptance at once. Who will you get to draw the bill?”

“Draw!” said the Ensign, in a state of some bewilderment. “I don’t understand these things—couldn’t you do it?”

“Why,” replied the Captain, with an air of intense sincerity, “I’d do it for you with pleasure—nothing would delight me more; but I promised my grandmother, when first I entered the service, that I never _would_ draw a bill as long as I lived; and as a man of honour, you know, and a soldier, I can’t break my word.”

“But I thought you said you had a bill of your own coming due to-morrow,” observed the astute Spoonbill.

“So I did,” said the Captain, taken rather aback in the midst of his protestations, “but then it isn’t—exactly—a thing of _this_ sort; it’s a kind of a—bond—as it were—old family matters—the estate down in Lincolnshire—that I’m clearing off. Besides,” he added, hurriedly, “there are plenty of fellows who’ll do it for you. There’s young Brittles—the Manchester man, who joined just after you. I never saw anybody screw into baulk better than he does, except yourself—he’s the one. Lazarus, I know, always prefers a young customer to an old one; knowing chaps, these Jews, arn’t they?”

Captain Cushion’s last remark was, no doubt, a just one—but he might have applied the term to himself with little dread of disparagement; and the end of the conversation was, that it was agreed a bill should be drawn as proposed, “say for three hundred pounds,” the Captain undertaking to get the affair arranged, and relieving Spoonbill of all trouble, save that of “merely” writing his name across a bit of stamped paper. These points being settled, the Captain left him, and the unprotected subaltern called for brandy and soda-water, by the aid of which stimulus he was enabled to rise and perform his toilette.

Messrs. Lazarus and Sons were merchants who perfectly understood their business, and, though they started difficulties, were only too happy to get fresh birds into their net. They knew to a certainty that the sum they were asked to advance would not be repaid at the end of the prescribed three months: it would scarcely have been worth their while to enter into the matter if it had; the profit on the hundred pounds’ worth of jewellery, which Ensign Spoonbill was required to take as part of the amount, would not have remunerated them sufficiently. Guessing pretty accurately which way the money would go, they foresaw renewed applications, and a long perspective of accumulating acceptances. Lord Pelican might be a needy nobleman; but he _was_ Lord Pelican, and the Honourable George Spoonbill was his son; and if the latter did not succeed to the title and family estates, which was by no means improbable, there was Lady Pelican’s settlement for division amongst the younger children. So they advanced the money; that is to say, they produced a hundred and eighty pounds in cash, twenty they took for the accommodation (half of which found its way into the pocket of—never mind, we won’t say anything about Captain Cushion’s private affairs), and the value of the remaining hundred was made up with a series of pins and rings of the most stunning magnificence.