Chambers’s Journal

The pleasures of social intercourse are amongst the best and truest enjoyments in which we can participate—the desire for the friendship of others is more or less inherent in human nature. There are nevertheless thousands upon thousands who are surrounded by every opportunity for realising these pleasures, and who yet fail to benefit by their influence, either for temporary and healthy pastime, or for permanent good. Most people have doubtless many amongst their circle of acquaintance who are easily distinguished from others by the term ‘unsociable.’ It would, however, be both unfair and incorrect to estimate that a large proportion of a given number of people have a decided objection to and shun all society. The habitually unsociable people are frequently those who would readily confess to a liking for society, but who do not enter into it on account of the various and numerous obstacles which, they will tell you, are in the way. It is not so much on account of an innate and acknowledged indisposition for social intercourse that the saying, ‘Some folk are as unsociable as milestones,’ is proverbially correct, as that many barriers have been erected by the suspicious imaginations of those concerned. People are often heard to complain of the unsociability of others; but it is not unseldom that the very people who adopt this standpoint are those who, at the least approach from others, retire almost entirely within their insignificant individuality, and assume a reserve of manner and constrained mode of conversation, that of itself forbids any attempt to cultivate their acquaintance. Something like a hedgehog which, should you happen to catch sight of it, instead of making friends, rolls itself up into a ball, and shews off its bristles to the best advantage.

Perhaps nothing constitutes so great a hindrance to what may be termed natural and unadulterated social intercourse as the unnatural appearance which many folk strive to put upon themselves and their belongings for the benefit of the objects of their acquaintance. For the entertainment of their visitors, some good folk will change, as far as they possibly can, the entire face and features of their houses and themselves—in short, for the time being they seem to be somebody else—they go to great pains to make things unreal. On such show-occasions a profusion of apologies is sometimes showered upon the unhappy and disappointed guests; they are begged to excuse the unceremonious and very ordinary preparation made for their reception and entertainment; whilst it is apparent that every available resource has been utilised to make an imposing appearance. It was, we think, John Wesley, who having been invited out to dine, was asked, soon after his arrival at the house of the host, to excuse the fact that no preparation had been made. ‘Then,’ replied he rather sharply, ‘there ought to have been;’ and without waiting to see whether there was reason for such an apology, left the house forthwith.

Feelings of rivalry and jealousy, and the existence of an ultra spirit of caste, are responsible for much of the unsociability which prevails. Mr and Mrs Jones do not fraternise with Mr and Mrs Smith, who may live next door, because they, Mr and Mrs Jones, have concluded that they have ascended two or three more rounds of the ladder of social status. It is quite probable, moreover, that Mr and Mrs Smith may be duly impressed with precisely the same sense of superiority. Mr Jenkins does not wish to be patronised, and therefore cares not to cultivate the acquaintance of Mr Jones. Mr Jones having a paramount consciousness of his pre-eminence, would deem it undignified to be friendly with Mr Jenkins. Thus people sit in judgment upon themselves and other people, and form what they deem a sound opinion as to the disposition of others without ever having had the smallest opportunity of arriving at an accurate estimate. Imagination, hearsay, and the impressions derived from mere appearance at first sight, are often the sole materials employed in producing what is intended to pass as a detailed character-photograph. The estimates thus formed are frequently circulated as genuine and reliable in every particular; and yet there may be as much difference between such estimates and the truth, as between a genuine and a base coin of the realm. The estimate which may be given you by one man of another is only reliable in so far as he is capable and has had the opportunities of forming an accurate judgment.

As the tenor of a man’s life will to some extent be the reflection of his associations, it is essential that some discrimination be employed. But a man may be sociable and yet avoid careless promiscuous friendships. By the same rule that you cannot touch pitch without being defiled, neither can you have the friendship of sensible men and true, without profit. Nor need a sociable man eschew the duties and comforts of home-life. The association with friends, at home, may be made to take the place of association with mere acquaintances, sometimes of a questionable sort, abroad; and hence home may be made more homely.

The plea is sometimes advanced, ‘Oh, we cannot afford to have company.’ Here is where a great mistake is made. Surely we should not measure the value of our friendships on the basis of a knife-and-fork calculation! The friendship which is measured by the amount of money expended on it is surely worth little. It is not so much the good dinner society which we would advocate, as the propagation of simple and genuine friendships. Formal parties and dinings-out are by reason of modern usages acknowledged to be for the most part dreary affairs, both for the givers and the guests. Dinners got up for display, arranged with an object, invitations given for sundry reasons—to the man, for instance, whose only qualification a guest may be his ability to be a source of entertainment; or to the titled gentleman and lady whose style and title shall grace the list in the newspaper columns. This amongst the upper ten thousand may be perhaps regarded as a necessary evil. Such state ceremonies have become fashionable amongst what has come to be popularly designated the élite of society.

We especially refer, however, to the sociable traits of the great middle class, amongst whom a large dinner-party scheme is neither practicable nor desirable, but to whom the more frequent exchange of civilities with their neighbours would be a boon. But the way is frequently barred by the comparisons which are made. The ladies are generally desirous that the furniture of their houses should not compare unfavourably with that in the houses of those with whom they may be intimate. A source of the greatest concern is it if they have not Brussels carpet as good and as new as that of their neighbours. Then their furniture it may be is in green rep, that of their friends in crimson plush. Further anxieties are created as to plate, the size, style, and number of servants, and a dozen other considerations of a kindred sort. This everlasting contest to keep up appearances is at once the bane of our tempers and our pockets. It is the main thing on which the unreality of our time is fed, and upon which it thrives so well. Whatever may be the real impediment to sociability, we ourselves, while fostering the evil, uncharitably and inconsistently plead that the unsociable tendency exists more in others than ourselves!

Were there an utter absence of opportunity for benefiting by the society of others, the fact would be deemed a hardship and a misfortune; and yet there are plenty of individuals who live in crowded cities but are the most lonely of beings. Not only are they never seen to speak to others, but apparently never even see them; the social faculties are thus rarely called into play, and are left to rust out. What do such men lose as the result of this isolation? Their knowledge of the best side of human nature is at a low ebb; while on the other hand the association with and knowledge of those around us teach us not only to misjudge others less, but to know ourselves better; and hence there comes a development and expansion of our sympathies. More freedom of intercourse must tend not only to increase our pleasures but to alleviate our troubles, for as we see that others have their ‘ups’ and ‘downs,’ we learn to look upon our own as less burdensome. The man who neither sees, hears, nor participates in anything beyond his own immediate surroundings, can know little or nothing beyond the narrow boundary of his own individuality—a very circumscribed sphere to live and work in, certainly. People often need friends who, under given circumstances, will afford the benefit of their own experience. The person whose only acquaintance is himself, complains of the hardness of his lot, and whilst estimating what difference he imagines the cultivation of friendships would make to his pockets, fails to estimate what he would gain by the sympathy and good-will of others, and how his dreary path would be brightened by less isolation.

There is, however, an inborn craving in most people for society of some kind, though occasionally it is sought for in directions which are not beneficial in their tendency; and this, we fear, is the result of the swarm of conventionalities which, for the most part, surround the social life of our day, some healthy counteraction of which—especially in the interests of the young—would be welcome.

Happily the habits of isolation and unsociability are more prevalent in some places than in others. Those who have travelled most will readily admit that they have frequently found themselves amongst a circle of individuals whose freedom from conventionalities, and whose unconstrained and hearty mode of intercourse, made them forget for the time being that they were in the company of strangers. It is possible that some readers of these words may almost shudder at the idea of such freedom, such a want of decorum on the part of people who had never met before, and had not gone through the formality of a proper introduction. And yet there may be decorum without painful fastidiousness. Who has not met with unsociable railway travellers, some in whose company he has been for many weary hours, and with whom he may have succeeded, after supreme effort, in breaking the ice, only to receive a solitary monosyllable in response! Such an experience is certainly not the rule, for sometimes we meet with those, the incessant wag of whose tongue may be such as to compel us to leave unread both our newspaper and any favourite book that we may have promised ourself to get through. And yet it is well on such occasions to go on the principle of give and take. Anything rather than the company of an individual who looks suspiciously at you should you be venturesome enough to express to him an opinion on so commonplace a topic as the state of the weather.

As a valuable element in connection with our social life, music does not occupy the position which it might and ought to do. The rapid growth during recent years of a knowledge of this charming solace is out of all proportion to the extent of its social enjoyment. It is unfortunately too often treated as a mere accomplishment. The friendly and informal musical parties such as were enjoyed years ago, do not receive much encouragement. It is of course indisputable that as a concert-giving power, rapid strides have been made in music; but what we contend for is the propagation of home harmony; the social glee, the favourite ballad, the instrumental quartette, with no objection to an occasional sonata for the pianoforte.

It is no less amusing than disagreeable to see so many otherwise worthy people possessed of such a paramount sense of gentility and importance as to make themselves and their surroundings uncomfortable, and often miserable. The great desideratum is that people should appear more like themselves than somebody else. We hear and read a good many sermons on ‘Morality;’ but, excellent in their way as these are, a series of lectures on ‘Reality’ are quite as necessary.

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There may be pleasanter positions in life than that of a dependant, especially when the claim to make one of the household rests on conditions which it is impossible to define. The governess, who is so often held up by moralists as an object for our conventional pity, needs not, surely, to forfeit her self-respect, inasmuch as she earns her salary and its contingent benefits by honest labour. The companion too gives valuable consideration in the shape of a perpetual offering up of her own time, tastes, and wishes, for her pay and maintenance. There are others sometimes however, kindred strangers within the rich man’s gates, who have no ostensible tasks to perform, who cannot give monthly or quarterly notice and go away, and yet whose bread is sometimes made very bitter to them—white slaves who get no compassion from the world at large.

Miss Willis at Carbery Chase was oddly situated. An orphan, she found herself domiciled amongst those who were allied to her neither by blood nor by the still more tenacious tie of common and early associations. She was exempt of course under that roof from many of the annoyances which fall to the lot of the motherless elsewhere. There was no domineering mistress of the house to resent every attention shewn to the interloper as something deducted from the rightful due of her own matchless girls; no niggard to grudge her every meal of which she partook at the stinted family table; or tyrant to pile upon her submissive shoulders the never-ending load of petty cares, which some genteel drudges perform unthanked.

At Carbery there was plenty and to spare. Sir Sykes was a gentleman bland and courteous; the girls as kind good girls as could easily be met with; and the servants sufficiently well trained to take their cue from their employers, and to be civil to one who was smiled on by the higher powers. Yet a sensitive young lady in the position which Sir Sykes’s ward now occupied, might well have been excused if her heart at times was somewhat heavy. All her old habits of life had been in a moment uprooted. She had been suddenly transferred from familiar scenes and people whose ways she understood, to a country every feature of which must have been strange and new to her. Under the circumstances and in spite of the good-nature of those around her, it is not surprising if Ruth Willis at times looked sad and pensive.

‘You cannot think how wonderful it seemed to me at first,’ she said one day to the younger Miss Denzil, ‘not to hear the drums beat tattoo at sundown, or how often I have started from my pillow in the early morning, fancying that I heard again the bugles sounding for the parade. Then the trumpeting of the elephants beside the tank, and the shrill voices of the dusky children at play beneath the peepul trees, and all the sights and sounds about my old home in India—I can’t forget them yet.’

Blanche was sympathetic; but she felt rather than reasoned that the grief for a father’s loss, the regrets for friends abruptly quitted and a mode of life abandoned, could not be assuaged merely by a kiss and a kind word. Yet it was evident that Ruth was by no means disposed to play the part of a kill-joy in the house beneath whose roof she was now established, or to enact the martyr. Her manner was very soft and gentle, not obtrusively sad or unduly deferential, but that of one who sincerely wishes to please. She had a way of bending her will as it were to that of those with whom she now associated, which was really very pretty and graceful, and harmonised well with the modest drooping of her eyelids when she spoke. There were times (so her ill-wishers said, the latter being some of those vigilant critics who take our wage and wear our livery, or it may be caps and aprons and cotton prints such as we sanction, but who are not always too lenient censors of our conduct) when her whole face seemed to change its expression by the mere opening of the fine dark eyes fraught with a singular look, which the same critics averred to be that of ill-temper. But if Miss Willis had not, as Lucy and Blanche Denzil believed her to have, the temper of a lamb, it must be admitted that she was capable of very great self-restraint, since in general conversation she was only too ready to acquiesce with the opinions of others. Jasper had observed the singular brightening of Ruth’s eyes sometimes, when she turned them on Sir Sykes, but never towards himself; while his unsuspecting sisters saw no peculiarity in the bearing of the stranger whom they had learned to like.

‘I could really believe,’ said Jasper to himself more than once, ‘that my father is afraid of that girl—and no wonder after all!’ he added, after a moment’s reflection. Certainly Sir Sykes did appear somewhat over-anxious that his ward should be happy and comfortable at Carbery, that her tastes should be studied, and her inclinations consulted. Yet he never seemed at ease in her company, and always escaped from her presence as early as politeness permitted; so that his own daughters set down his behaviour as merely prompted by an over-strained sense of hospitality.

There was a fascination in the guest’s bearing and conversation, to which even Jasper, with all his predisposition to dislike her, could not but succumb. No great talker, Miss Willis had the power, somehow, of making what she did say more effective than what fell from other lips than hers. What this art or this gift might be, Jasper Denzil, who was no stranger to women and their ways, could not divine. The girl’s voice was rich though low, and admirably modulated, although of music, as she frankly confessed, she knew nothing whatever. And her eyes—the one redeeming feature of a plain pale face—could flash and glitter with wondrously changing play of light; eyes and voice and words all blending together to convey the expression which their owner desired that they should impart.

There was one person to whom the baronet’s ward appeared in the light of an enigma, and this was Lord Harrogate, himself a frequent visitor at the home of the Denzils, between whose family and his own there was indeed some kind of connection. He had given up as preposterous the idea that he had ever seen Miss Willis before. That was of course erroneous, and he must have been the dupe of a fancied resemblance. But he was sufficiently quick-sighted to perceive, what was apparent neither to his sisters nor to Jasper, nor to the Earl or Countess, that a strong sharply marked character was concealed behind the gentle half-bashful demeanour which it pleased Miss Willis to assume.

‘I never saw the iron hand,’ he thought to himself, ‘so well hidden before by the velvet glove; but it’s there for all that. Yonder girl looks capable of turning the whole family round her finger.’

Meanwhile Jasper at anyrate had other subjects for contemplation than were presented by a psychological study of the orphaned daughter of the late Major Willis, of the Honourable East India Company’s Service. Gentlemen who own and gentlemen who are going to ride horses intended to win a race which had so suddenly swelled into importance as the forthcoming one at Pebworth, have need of frequent communication with one another. Jasper during the next ten days was often in his principal’s company, sometimes at Pebworth, now and then at Exeter, when the routine of military duty held the other captain to his post.

In the interim, Captain Denzil could tell by the language of the newspapers which were the accredited organs of the turf, how considerable was the excitement evoked by the selection of Pebworth as a place where might be matched against one another some of the finest weight-carriers chronicled in the Stud Book. The wildest rumours were afloat, and an April sky was not more changeable than were the odds, as reported from the headquarters of gambling, London and Liverpool. Sometimes the bookmakers were reported to be assured of triumph; sometimes it was hinted that the great betting firms would be severely hit, so unexpected would be the finish of the race.

‘Why,’ indignantly demanded one influential paper, ‘should Pebworth be dragged into the daylight?’ Nor were the other organs of the sporting press slow to swell the chorus of complaint that a cramped and hitherto unheard-of course, situated in an obscure nook of the far west, should be the arena for a struggle such as was anticipated. And then followed dark innuendos and vague suggestions as to the motives of the noble lord who owned The Smasher, and the scarcely less illustrious commoner to whom Brother to Highflyer appertained. During the period preceding the race, the most contradictory rumours were incessantly published with reference to the rival favourites. They were ill; they were well; they had met with all the accidents slight or serious to which the equine genus is liable. One of these important animals had a cough. The other was not quite sound of limb. Both had been overtrained. No. Their training was insufficient, and any nameless outsider could reach the winning-post before them. Once again both horses were in the very perfection of bloom and beauty, and would compete fairly for the prize.

Strange faces, some of which were not calculated to inspire confidence in those who had silver spoons in the pantry or linen drying on garden-hedge, began to appear at Pebworth and the parts adjacent. Lodgings were in such request that the meanest rooms were eagerly disputed at fancy prices, while inn and beershop drove a brisker trade than had been known since Pebworth had been disfranchised.

‘Sad business, Denzil, this!’ exclaimed Jack Podgers as he dashed into the private parlour of the De Vere Arms. ‘Here’s a private telegram, and here a special edition of a sporting paper. Both agree as to the facts.’

Jasper glanced at the telegram and at the paragraph. Yes. A most unfortunate accident, due to the carelessness of a porter, had occurred to Brother to Highflyer, just as that noble horse was being led from his box to the platform. Mr Splint, the eminent veterinary surgeon, summoned in hot haste, had examined the off fore-leg, and had expressed a positive opinion; in deference to which Mr John Knavesmire the trainer and Mr Wylie the owner had reluctantly decided to withdraw the name of Brother to Highflyer from the list.

‘The race naturally must be won by the other favourite, The Smasher,’ said Captain Prodgers with a grim smile.

From early morning the usually sleepy streets of quiet Pebworth had been disturbed by the shouts of bawling hoarse-voiced vendors of so-called ‘correct’ cards, purporting to furnish accurate information as to the names, weights, and colours of the riders, the nomenclature and ownership of the horses, and other particulars relating to the forthcoming race. Some of these itinerants were in faded red jackets that had felt the dust and the rain on every race-course in Great Britain; others were in tattered fustian, stained by the wet grass of the moorside, where the foot-sore wretches had been sleeping for a few hours after their weary tramp across country. It might have been opined that gold had been discovered in Dartmoor, and that diggers were hurrying up like so many eagles to the prey, so many were the uncouth groups that flocked in. Some of the pilgrims were the veriest human vermin that cumber the earth. There was the thimble-rigger, whose stock-in-trade consisted of the tiny board or slender table, which his unacknowledged associate is carrying now, with the peas and the thimble in his pocket. There were the proprietors of the roulette boards, and the manipulators of the ‘three card trick,’ so dangerous to unwary youth. There were gipsy fortune-tellers, dark-eyed, yellow-kerchiefed, and long-haired gipsy men, laden with sticks to be pelted at cocoa-nuts propped on an ash-wand, or at Aunt Sally with her time-honoured pipe.

All the beggars, street-singers, and sellers of toys or gingerbread in the west of England seemed to have been drawn to Pebworth as steel filings are attracted to a magnet; and with them arrived many a scowling ruffian in baggy slop-suit, or slinking fellow in greasy garments of threadbare black, whose object could hardly have been the wish to witness a contest of strength and speed between two or more gallant horses. Probably the man in black was one of those miserable beings who bet with chance customers, and if they lose, pay in person if not in purse, braving kicks, ducking, and ill-usage, in hopes of five or ten ill-got sovereigns. As for the sturdier brute in nailed boots and velveteen, with the knotted bludgeon beneath his arm, it will go hard with him if some half-tipsy owner of a watch be not lightened of it before bedtime.

In poured gigs and carts and carriages of every size and kind, some full of honest holiday-makers, others of thoughtful devotees of the Mammon that presides over the great green gaming-table that we know by the name of a race-course. Among the last-mentioned, who in turf phraseology are termed ‘bookmakers,’ were many, often of gentle birth and nurture, whose feverish life for ten months of the year was one of incessant locomotion, calculation, care, and toil. Some men, sufficiently well educated to see themselves as others see them, yet work harder at the dubious profession they have selected, than does a prosperous doctor or barrister of many briefs—ever on the railroad or in telegraph office, scrambling for make-shift lodgings, suing at the doors of crowded hotels—chilled by the rain of Newmarket, broiled by the sun of Chantilly—and incessantly on the wing to some new race-meeting, goaded on by the ignis-fatuus of Hope.

The carriages were drawn up three deep around the judge’s chair and the stand. Small as the race-course of Pebworth was, it presented a gay and animated appearance. There were the well-appointed drags of every regiment within reach of the little Devonshire town, while the equipages of the county aristocracy were there in unusual numbers. There were the Fulfords, the Carews, the Trelawneys, and the Tresyllians, the Courtenays, and the Penruddocks, all the rural dignitaries of the district. The Earl of Wolverhampton was there with two of his daughters, accompanied by Blanche Denzil, who was confident of her brother’s success. Lord Harrogate too was there on horseback.

No carriage from Carbery was on the Pebworth course that day. Sir Sykes had heard with displeasure that his son was about to take a part in a steeplechase. Jasper’s promise, however, had been given. His name was in print as the rider of Norah Creina, and the baronet saw no help for it. He refused, however, to attend the race with the ladies of his family, and gave but a reluctant consent to his younger daughter’s petition to be allowed to accompany Lady Maud and Lady Gladys to the festive scene. The course itself presented a lively and not uncomely scene, the brilliant beauty of the day adding a witchery to the homeliest objects. The dancing sunbeams gilded the tinker’s squalid tent and the rags of the beggar-boys who ran, clamorous for halfpence, after the horsemen cantering by. It was possible to forget the gathering of bookmakers and betting-men, now hoarsely shouting out their offers of a wager, possible to ignore the sordid greed that had prompted the attendance of so many, and to imagine what the scene may have been two hundred years ago, when races were a novelty, a mere trial of merit between swift and strong horses, minus the thousand and one degrading ingredients which now compose the saturnalia.

Jasper, his gay silken jacket concealed by the loose white overcoat which he wore, elbowed his way through the crowd towards the place where, hard by the weighing-stand, the nineteen horses which were the practical residuum of the sixty-seven entries were being led to and fro.

‘Have a care there! Do mind his heels!’ exclaimed the reedy voice of an attenuated being in drab gaiters and striped waistcoat, one of the three body-servants in attendance on the magnificent Smasher, as that superb animal began to lash out furiously amongst the mob.

‘Grand horse that!’ said Captain Prodgers, as with impartial admiration he surveyed the formidable favourite. ‘See! what muscles those are that swell beneath a skin as bright and supple as a lady’s satin! Does “My Lord” credit.’

‘My Lord,’ a vacuous young gentleman in a suit of black and white checks and a soft hat, stood a little way off, sucking the gold head of a short whipstock, and contemplating society in general, through his eyeglass, with a serene stare. Nobody could ever be quite certain whether this aristocratic patron of the turf was unfathomably deep or absurdly shallow. His Lordship was a man of few words, and never committed himself in public to an opinion wise or foolish.

That ‘My Lord’s’ stud had a knack of winning was notorious. But then the laurels, such as they were, may have been due to the florid, well-shaven, middle-aged trainer, with a flower in his buttonhole, who stood at his Lordship’s elbow.

The Smasher was a splendid black horse, over sixteen hands high, and very powerful. His glossy coat shone like a looking-glass; but that his temper was none of the best was evident, not only by the frequent scattering of the crowd, to avoid his iron-shod heels, but by the sidelong glance of his wicked eye and the irritable lashing of his silken tail.

‘Shews the whites of them eyes of his, he do, this morning,’ remarked one appreciative groom.

‘Bless ye! the captain won’t care,’ was the phlegmatic reply.

‘Rather the captain had the riding of him then nor me,’ returned the other.

The captain in question was not Jasper Denzil. It was Captain Hanger, pale and unimpassioned as ever, who now pressed up to speak for a moment with the owner and trainer of the horse he was to ride. As he stood, tapping his bright boots with his heavy whip, his gaudy silk jacket peeping from beneath the loose overcoat, he was the object of an inquisitive admiration that might well have been spent upon a worthier object. In certain circles, now, your gentleman steeplechase rider receives an amount of adulation singularly disproportioned to his utility to the commonweal. Of the well-known Captain Hanger, once in the army, then beggared, and now living by the deliberate risk of neck and bones, it was popularly believed that he would die in the exercise of his profession.

‘I don’t see the mare!’ said Jasper, looking around.

‘We’re keeping her quiet till the last minute,’ whispered his friend. ‘No use in letting her chafe here, teased by sun and flies. There, though, is the bell for saddling; and here she comes.’

And as Captain Prodgers spoke, a Homeric burst of laughter from the mob, peal upon peal, announced that something had tickled the fancy of the populace. That something was soon seen to be no other than Norah Creina, looking even uglier, as she was led into the inclosure, than she had done in the stable; a lengthy, clumsy, ungainly creature to look upon, and wearing a bridle of a peculiar and cumbrous construction, fitted with a muzzle and blinkers, and somewhat similar to that employed in horse-taming by the late Professor Rarey.

‘There’s a beauty for you!’ cried out, in the midst of ironical cheers and merriment, a scoffer in drab gaiters.

‘Take care of her, gentlemen—she bites!’ bawled another voice; and there was tittering among the spectators in carriages and unrestrained guffaws amidst the populace.

‘Do you mean, seriously, that the mare is to run in that hideous-looking contrivance?’ demanded Jasper sharply and with displeasure in his face, of his ally. ‘I’m not a mountebank, I suppose, that I should be made publicly ridiculous on the back of such a horse. A man might as well stand in the pillory as’——

‘How many hundreds will be in your pocket, Denzil, and thousands in mine, what with bets and stakes, if Norah Creina comes in first?’ interrupted Prodgers earnestly. ‘Let those laugh that win. They are waiting for us yonder in the weighing-stand.’

Of all the candidates for success who, seated in their saddles, took one by one their turn at the scales, the only two who attracted much attention were Jasper Denzil and Captain Hanger; the latter because he was to ride the favourite, the former because he had consented to exhibit himself on so very extraordinary an animal as Norah Creina.

‘I’ve known a dark horse to win a race,’ remarked one veteran, as he booked a trifling wager on the Irish mare.

‘Not with a muzzle though, George!’ replied a contemporary, with twinkling eyes.

The riders were all mounted now, and taking, some of them, the preliminary canter that is supposed to dissipate stiffness, and then the glistening line of gaily attired horsemen marshalled itself for the start. To the last moment Captain Prodgers, on foot, kept close to Jasper’s stirrup. ‘There’s the bell!’ cried Norah Creina’s owner at last. ‘Now bend your ear down, dear boy, and mark what I say.’

And as Jasper stooped his head to listen, the other captain whispered to him cautiously but with emphasis. ‘Only if you’re hard pressed—but she may win without that,’ added Prodgers more loudly.

Jasper’s suddenly compressed lips, arching brows, and dilated eyes told that the communication had taken even him by surprise.

‘The curb-rein, eh?’ he said hoarsely.

‘Yes; but only as a last expedient. Leave it slack as long as you can, and use the snaffle only; it’s as strong as a cable,’ called out Prodgers; and Jasper nodded, and cantered up to take his place among the rest.

A waving to and fro of the many-coloured line, the dropping of a flag, a roar from the rabble, and they were off. It was like the effect produced by some gigantic rocket bursting into a galaxy of variously tinted spangles, pink, green, blue, and orange. Then most of these colours seemed to gather themselves together in a group, while Jasper’s yellow jacket and black cap, and Captain Hanger’s cherry colour and white, crept clear of the crowd.

‘The Smasher’s third!’

‘He’s second now. Green’s in front.’

‘Ah! the captain’s a deal too wise to be first, so long as Green will make running for him.’

‘Yes, but look at the ugly long-backed Irish mare! The Smasher can’t shake her off, straight as he goes.’

The leading horses had got by this time over two-thirds of the course—the first round only—and already the competitors were reduced to seven. Gallant Green was yet in front, riding hard, but his horse was much distressed; and as the second circuit of the course began, The Smasher, skilfully handled by Captain Hanger, shot past him with no apparent effort, and was for the moment first.

‘My Lord’s usual luck! The race is safe!’

‘Cherry and white wins!’ shouted hundreds.

But then uprose another roar of, ‘Yellow, Yellow for ever!’ as the Irish mare, which had hitherto kept the third place, taking fence, wall, brook, and rail with lamb-like docility, suddenly quickened her pace, racing neck to neck, head to head, with the redoubtable Smasher.

‘A pretty race! A fine sight! A sheet would cover both of them!’ was the general cry. The ladies in the carriages and on the stand waved their handkerchiefs enthusiastically, and of the lookers-on there were scores who forgot that their money was at stake, in genuine enjoyment of the struggle. On the rivals went. Together they flew across the brook, together they crashed through the hedges and fences in their way. Then, thanks to his own skill or to the excellence of his horse, Captain Hanger gained ground, and was in front as he prepared to ride at a stiff line of rails, the last serious obstacle, save one, to be encountered in the circuit.

Then it was that Jasper tightened the curb-rein that he had hitherto left untouched, and the disfiguring blinkers dropped as if by magic from before Nora Creina’s eyes! The result was startling. With a snort and a scream, the fierce mare caught sight of her opponent in the act of gathering himself together for the leap; and with a bound such as a tigress might have given, she hurled herself upon him, striving—but owing to the muzzle, ineffectually—to tear the other horse with her teeth. There was a crashing of splintered timber, an outcry, a heavy fall, and both horses and both men were down amidst the wreck of the fence.

Jasper, bareheaded and dizzy, was the first to stagger to his feet and regain his saddle. A hundred yards in front was the stone wall with its double ditch, the so-called ‘sensation jump’ of the race, and which the Committee had taken it upon themselves to heighten for this exceptional contest. Beyond, there was the easy run home over smooth turf to the winning-post.

‘Yellow! yellow! Yellow wins!’ shouted the crowd, as Jasper approached the wall; but then there was a quick thunder of hurrying hoofs upon the green-sward, and Captain Hanger swept past at whirlwind speed, while cries of ‘Cherry and white! The Smasher’s first!’ rent the air. Till that instant, the Irish mare had been going steadily; but now, on seeing her rival outstrip her rapid pace, her fiendish temper again kindled into flame, and with a shrill scream she darted forward. But Captain Hanger knew his art too well to be surprised for the second time. He had his own horse, sobered by the late fall, well in hand; whereas he saw that the savage animal which Jasper rode was completely freed from the control of her rider. By a quick and masterly motion of the rein, he wheeled off, eluding the shock that threatened him, and with a rare courage and coolness put The Smasher’s head straight for the wall. The gallant horse rose like a bird, topped the obstacle on which his hind-feet clattered, and recovering himself with an effort, galloped in, the winner, amid the deafening applause of thousands.

Jasper was less fortunate. Panting, snorting with rage, in a lather of heat and foam, the furious mare he rode rose at the wall, struck it with her chest, breaking down the new masonry, and rolled over upon the turf beyond, bearing down beneath her weight the unfortunate rider. ‘A man killed!’ It needed but that cry to make the mob utterly ungovernable; and in spite of the efforts of the police, gentle and simple, and those who were neither the one nor the other, hurried pell-mell to the spot where lay, beneath the broken wall, the hapless form of Jasper Denzil. ‘He’s alive!’ cried fifty voices, with the oddest mingling of gratification and disappointment. ‘The rider’s living. It’s only the mare that’s dead,’ a verdict which turned out to be correct. Then a doctor, one out of the half-dozen of doctors on the course, jumped off the cob he rode and took possession of Jasper.

‘He’ll get over it!’ cried the surgeon, feeling first the heart and then the wrist of the sufferer. ‘If we had but a carriage now, to get him quietly to the inn.’

Sir Gruntley Pigbury, whose barouche stood near, willingly lent it for such a purpose; and in it Jasper Denzil, under the doctor’s escort, was duly removed to the shelter of the De Vere Arms.

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An obliging correspondent writes to us as follows: An article in the September number of Chambers’s Journal entitled ‘Poppet’s Pranks’ having afforded much amusement to our young people, it has occurred to me that a short account of one of our numerous pets might not be unacceptable, especially as we have often said in our own circle, that ‘Billy’s doings ought to be immortalised in print.’

We have always considered it an important element in the education of children that they should be taught to regard the brute creation with kindly feelings, and in our own family we have fostered the love of animals by encouraging them to keep pets; so at various periods, dogs, cats, birds, rabbits, guinea-pigs, &c. have all in turn been domiciled with us; and I believe we also harboured for a time a hedgehog and a bat; but these last proving rather intractable, were soon restored to their native freedom.

Those who have had experience in it, best know how interesting any living intelligence becomes, when one is brought closely in contact with it; and we elders, as well as the more juvenile members of our family, have found both pleasure and instruction in observing the habits and dispositions of the little creatures to whom we gave a kindly shelter. Among these, none ever excited more interest or stood higher in the family regards, than Billy our tame rat.

It was in the winter of 1874–5 that a friend who was coming to spend Christmas with us, brought Billy as a new treasure for the children; and for some months he afforded us great amusement. He arrived in a cigar-box in which he usually slept, and on its being opened, he sprang instantly inside our friend’s waistcoat, from which safe retreat he ventured to peep out at the strange faces, which he seemed to regard with terror; and this habit he retained, for although he soon established friendly relations with us, he always darted behind the piano or sideboard on the entrance of a stranger; yet his little head with its bright bead-like eyes was sure to peep out presently, as if he wanted to satisfy his own curiosity without being himself observed.

But here let me say, no one must suppose for an instant that Billy resembled the repulsive-looking rat of our farm-yards and ditches. He was of a much smaller size, not larger than a kitten of a month old, and very prettily spotted in brown and white; his eyes were very prominent, standing out like large black beads, and he was particularly nice in his toilet, washing just as a cat does, and keeping his coat always scrupulously clean.

Yet I confess it was some time before I could regard him with equanimity: it was so hard to divest one’s self of the general prejudice against his race; and his receding under jaw gave an uncomfortable impression at first; so I used to shrink from him and gather up my skirts at his approach, although my son declared that if he had been introduced to me as a ‘rodent,’ I should have had no objection to him, and that it was merely the name of ‘rat’ which excited my aversion.

However, be this as it may, Billy soon won his way to favour in spite of prejudice, and by his intelligence and good temper made himself a general favourite. He especially attached himself to my eldest daughter, and would come at the call of ‘Billy, Billy!’ from any of his hiding-places, except at night, when he seemed to be quite aware that he was wanted to go to bed (in the cigar-box before mentioned); and then it was often with great difficulty she could entice him from his lurking-place. Sometimes she would tempt him with a biscuit, and he would dart out, snatch it from her fingers, and dart again behind the sideboard before she could get hold of him.

We did not usually see much of him in the morning, as he liked to conceal himself behind the heavy furniture. But at dinner-time he was sure to appear, and generally placed himself on my knee, where from time to time he was fed with small bits of bread and vegetables; and if I was not sufficiently attentive to his wants, he would pass over to one of the children’s plates, and watching his opportunity, would make a seizure, and dart with the stolen morsel to his storing-place; and this habit of storing was very curious, being evidently an instinct belonging to very different surroundings. In a room appropriated chiefly to the children there was an old sofa a good deal the worse for wear, as what sofa would not be that had been carriage, omnibus, or railway train to seven or eight youngsters successively? Under the pillow, the haircloth had given way, so Billy found a hole conveniently ready for him, and lost no time in appropriating it. Thither he carried many of his stores; and it was most amusing to watch him nibble a biscuit just like a squirrel, sitting back on his haunches and holding it neatly between his fore-paws; and then when he had had enough for immediate wants, he would spring with the remainder to this hole in the old sofa.

But it was not only food he stored; he had a decided fancy for bright colours; and if bits of ribbon or coloured silk were left in his way, he would drag them along the floor, and then leap to the sofa with such celerity that it was almost impossible to deprive him of his booty. Once I looked up in time to see and seize one end of a blue necktie as Billy disappeared with the other behind the sofa pillow. He came up directly to see what detained it, and was very unwilling to give it up; so he pulled and I held, until finding that I was the stronger, he relinquished it, but with such impatient little squeaks! Yet neither then nor at any other time did he ever attempt to bite or shew any ill-temper towards any of us; though, like most pets, he had to bear a fair amount of well-meant teasing, which no kitten would have stood as well.

I recollect one day watching him with much interest. He had found on the floor a large newspaper, which he seized by one corner and pulled towards the sofa, up which he made several vain attempts to leap with the paper in his mouth. He then dropped it, and jumped back and forwards several times, as if he was measuring his distance, or making calculations with an eye to future success. Then again catching hold of the paper, he tried to leap with it, but again he failed; so at last I took pity upon him, and tore one half of the paper away, when he was able to manage the remainder, and carry it off in triumph to his den.

During the winter evenings, when the children were engaged with their lessons, Billy was usually to be found on the table rummaging among their books and catching at their pens; which latter amusement he enjoyed very much after the manner of a kitten running after a knitting-needle drawn quickly up and down the table; but as these amusements rather interfered with the studies, Billy would occasionally be dismissed to the kitchen, to which he had a great dislike. He never stayed there longer than he could help, but on the first chance would rush up the stairs and scratch, or rather I should say gnaw for admittance. Speaking of this gnawing, leads me to observe that one objection I had to receiving him, was the fear that he would be very mischievous; but fortunately I never found him so. He had free access to a pantry where a variety of eatables, usually considered dear to a rat’s heart, were to be found; but I never knew him to injure anything or even to cut the paper covering of any parcel, no matter what it contained. No doubt it was partly owing to his being so well fed that he was not driven to theft by hunger. I generally scattered for him on the shelves some grains of rice or pickles of starch, and to these he helped himself when inclined. From soap or candles he turned away in disgust, being far too well-bred a rat to indulge in such low tastes; but he dearly loved a bit of plum-cake; and, shall I confess it? he was by no means a teetotaler. If ale was used at dinner, he would rush eagerly about the glasses until he was supplied with some in a spoon. I believe, before he came to us, he had been accustomed to even stronger potations, in which, however, we did not indulge him.

I have said he was not mischievous, neither was he, as mischief among rats is generally understood; but there is no rule without exception, and Billy had a decided penchant for kid gloves. If any were left carelessly about, he was sure to get hold of them and have the fingers eaten off in a few minutes. I cannot tell how many gloves he destroyed, until repeated lessons of this sort enforced more tidy habits.

I must not omit to mention his love of music; when he heard the piano, he would rush to the drawing-room and spring to the performer’s knee, where he would remain perfectly quiet, evidently listening with much pleasure. When he first came he was very restless, seeming to live in a state of perpetual motion; but he soon learned to come upon the knee to be caressed and have his head rubbed, which operation afforded him intense enjoyment. He would have lain in a state of supreme delight for an hour if any one would have rubbed his head for so long.

Very various were the opinions entertained of Billy by our friends. Some of our young visitors would ask to see him when they called, and with them he soon became familiar, and would run over their shoulders and about their necks quite freely; but others had a perfect horror of him; and I remember once, on going down to receive two ladies, I found one of them standing on the piano-stool in dread of his attacking her; and no declarations as to his perfect harmlessness were of any avail. Another time an old lady and gentleman were spending the evening with us, and knowing the latter to be of a very nervous temperament, I had given strict orders that Billy should be kept down-stairs. But Billy had no idea of losing his tea, and managing to escape from the servant who had him in charge, in he rushed, as soon as the door was opened, and made straight across the room, as usual for my knee. I gave him a bit of cake to keep him quiet, and covered him up with my handkerchief. ‘What’s that, what’s that?’ exclaimed the old gentleman anxiously. I replied as carelessly as I could: ‘Oh, it’s only a little pet of the children’s;’ and hoped no more notice would be taken; but presently our friend got up, and came round to where I sat just as Billy had finished his cake and put up his head for more. Never shall I forget his look of dismay as he exclaimed: ‘It’s a rat!’ while making hasty tracks for the door. However, we succeeded in allaying his fears; and Billy was allowed to run about freely, with only an occasional shudder from our friend if he approached him too closely.

During the spring we had a lady staying with us who could not be reconciled to seeing a rat run about the house, and who repelled all friendly overtures on the part of our pet; so one morning, out of consideration for her, Billy was banished to another room whilst we were at breakfast; and lo! on going into the room afterwards, I found my friend’s ball of cotton cut into shreds, which were piled in a little heap on the floor. It really seemed as if he had done it from revenge, for though I had had knitting about repeatedly, he often rolled the balls on the carpet, but never injured them.

While enough has been said, I think, to shew that Billy was a very interesting pet, candour compels me to admit that, like wiser and better folk, he had his faults; and I am sorry to say his besetting sin was jealousy. Although so thoroughly good-tempered with all the members of our family, he would not tolerate another pet in the house. He had not been long with us, when he killed a canary that had lighted on his back. At first, there were threats of summary vengeance; but on reflection, it was thought possible that he had been frightened by its sudden descent upon him, and had killed the bird in an impulse of self-defence; so it was decided to give him the benefit of this supposition, and he was forgiven and restored to favour.

But when the midsummer holidays arrived, one of our boys brought home a handsome young retriever, whom it was evident from the first Billy regarded with no friendly eye. The children of course were much taken up with the fresh arrival; and I presume Billy felt himself neglected, and therefore lost no opportunity of revenging himself upon the new favourite. It was wonderful to see the courage of the little creature in venturing to attack an animal so much larger than himself. If the dog were lying quietly on the rug, he would spring on him, and then retreat so quickly that at first we did not know whether he had bitten him or not, as the dog would merely utter a low growl and retire. But one day at dinner, when our canine friend was being supplied with pieces which probably had formerly fallen to Billy’s share, our little pet was so enraged, that he rushed across the table and bit the dog on the mouth severely. From that time his doom was sealed; it was felt that either he or the dog must be dismissed, and the verdict was unanimous in favour of keeping the retriever; so Billy was tied up in his box and sent back to his former owner. Since then, we have occasionally heard of his welfare; and the last news concerning him was, that he had been taken into a garden, ‘but was evidently too much awed by the immensity of the universe to enjoy it.’

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IN TWO PARTS.

Some years ago, while upon a professional visit at the mansion of a well-known Highland gentleman, I was invited one morning by my host to inspect his famous kennel of staghounds. On that occasion, I remember well, my interest was curiously divided between the princely animals themselves and the magnificent specimen of humanity who acted as their custodian. Standing at least six feet, his finely proportioned, athletic figure was displayed to advantage by a well-made knickerbocker deer-stalking suit. His face was fair, full-bearded, and strikingly regular in its features. In the quick blue eyes gleamed the rapidly succeeding emotions of an intelligent, proud, sensitive nature. I observed that he usually addressed the chief by the name of the estate (a practice by no means uncommon in some parts of Scotland), and that the word ‘sir’ was somewhat infrequent in his speech. There was nothing decidedly disrespectful or assumptive in his manner, yet it was quite unlike that of modern inferiors towards superiors generally. I had been so struck during our inspection of the kennels with his appearance and bearing, that on our return to Inchgarry Hall, I put several questions to my worthy host respecting him. The result of these was, that after informing me that the young fellow’s name was Donald Stewart, and that he was a native of Badenoch, he entered upon the following curious and instructive narrative of his first settlement at Inchgarry, and of the tragedy in which it eventuated; pointing out as he did so, with great frankness, the evils a landlord may create among his people by delegating too largely to an inferior the personal supervision of his interests.

James Forbes, the son of one of the chief’s humblest dependants, had been reared upon the estate. Industry, a certain versatility of talent, and above all, an uncompromising yet judicious sycophancy, had together stood him in such good stead that, beginning his career as stable-boy, he had passed rapidly to assistant-gardener, head-gardener, and manager of the home-farm; until, at the time the events we are about to record took place, he was his master’s factotum, holding the position and title of sub-factor to the property. Residing for three parts of the year in London or abroad, Inchgarry necessarily gave him large powers in matters affecting his tenantry and servants; so that—the factorship proper being then in the hands of an estimable but old and infirm lawyer, with whom the wily Forbes had ingratiated himself—the authority of the latter was almost boundless. Like all sycophants, he was also a tyrant. The tenantry, who held their farms on long leases, and were practically part and parcel of the soil, escaped the oppression to which, under other circumstances, they might have been subjected. Nevertheless, Forbes contrived in many ways to harass and annoy all who in any way offended him. As for the immediate servants of the Hall and home-farm, the foresters and keepers, the labourers and handicraftsmen on the estate, his was to them strictly a reign of terror. None but those who chose to do so by abject flattery and toadyism dared hope to escape molestation.

Among those trucklers to whom Forbes extended his patronage, was one John Sutherland—or Ian Dhu, as he was invariably styled—the idlest and most worthless character in the district. It would be difficult to conceive what bond could exist between this semi-pariah, poacher, and vagabond, and the chief’s confidential agent, did we not remember that men of the sub-factor’s stamp invariably make a henchman of some unscrupulous master of their own weapon—sycophancy. Ian Dhu had not only the skill to step into the good-will of Forbes by his fawning, but to establish himself therein by acting as spy and reporter upon all that was said and done upon the estate. Following no recognised employment, though ostensibly odd-man about his patron’s private grounds, he perverted his leisure by haunting the garden, workshops, bothies, the keepers’ houses, and the kitchen of the Hall itself, picking up scraps of information for the jealous ear of the sub-factor. He was, in fact, a necessity of the pernicious system of control which reigned; and he was, at the time our story commences, in the full light of favouritism.

Inchgarry, my host, was a just, large-hearted, and clear-headed man; of rather an indolent disposition no doubt, but, when roused to interest, both prompt and strong-willed, brooking neither argument nor persuasion. His brief occasional visits to the Hall were always marked by some change in, or reversal of, his agent’s arrangements, as well as by some considerate extension of privileges to his ‘people.’ In one instance his wrath had been awakened by the neglected condition of his garden and kennels; the latter perhaps his dearest subject of pride. He spoke sharply and conclusively about these matters to Forbes, whose minions both the head-gardener and chief-keeper were. Ten days thereafter he announced that he had engaged a man from the Lothians to superintend his garden-grounds, and a gamekeeper from Badenoch to supplant the inefficient favourite; adding, however, with characteristic kindness, that the superseded men might remain, if they chose, as second-hands until they could better themselves. Forbes received the news of these innovations with outward deference and submission, but inward chagrin and rage. It was the beginning of the end, as it proved.

Archie Guthrie, the new gardener, arrived first on the scene to form a nine days’ subject of comment to the simple population of Inchgarry; and a few weeks later Donald Stewart took possession of the roomy and comfortable keeper’s cottage so picturesquely situated by the loch side. He was accompanied by his sister, a few years his junior, who undertook to act as his housekeeper, and by a powerful-looking young serving-lass. Effie was as unlike her brother as well could be. She was petite, of slight frame, with small delicate features. Lithe, active, elfish, her dark hair and pale face, together with the general grace and rapidity of her movements, soon acquired for her the pretty sobriquet of sheach or fairy. Cheerful, even volatile, this singular creature had yet a depth of tenderness and sympathy so easily stirred, so sensitive and all-pervading, that nothing animate appeared to escape its influence. In character, then, as well as in appearance, she presented a marked contrast to her handsome, really good-hearted, but choleric and somewhat imperious brother. Yet never perhaps, the chief informed me, was brotherly and sisterly affection more complete and perfect than between these two. In a short time they had finished their new domestic arrangements, and passed through the usual ordeal of rustic criticism. Effie glided at once into the respect and confidence of every woman on the estate—a feat which the student of womankind will consider an all but impossible one. Her kind-heartedness and tact, doubtless, were the means towards such a result, aided as they were by the incessant and impartial distribution of favours, which her deft fingers and clever little head enabled her to do with an expenditure of nothing more than her redundant good-will and energy. The other sex became her slaves to a man. Every one within a radius of ten miles in that sparsely peopled district came under the spell of the sheach, and loved or admired her secretly or openly, platonically or otherwise, according to temperament or position. Inchgarry gave some most amusing instances of her sway: of stalwart Highlanders seized by the ear and marched off to perform some menial duty, or commanded to execute some commission for herself or neighbours. It was said that even Forbes himself, surly as he was, and imbittered from the first against her brother, could never disguise the pleasure which Effie’s presence gave him: probably the most harmless and respectable sentiment he ever entertained. He refused nothing she asked for herself or others, and did not hesitate to proclaim his high opinion of her disposition and character. I record this with pleasure as the one bright spot redeeming a dark and contemptible nature.

Forbes and Stewart instinctively regarded each other as enemies from the first. Frank and open to a fault, the new keeper chafed under the reticence and duplicity of the sub-factor; and to every unreasonable command he returned a hot and indignant refusal; to every malicious word an angry, contemptuous retort. Thoroughly acquainted with his own duties, he would brook no interference; and to Forbes’s utter confusion, on one occasion, when that worthy had attempted to meddle in some matter affecting the dogs, he boldly threatened, in presence of several underlings, to report him to Inchgarry for obstructing his work. Before two months had passed, it was war to the knife between them. As was natural, the majority of the natives secretly rejoiced to find that the young stranger meant to beard the tyrant; while the great man’s favourites and the constitutionally envious nursed a bitter enmity against him as an interloper. The despotism was now broken up into two struggling factions; and the contest was a protracted and unhappy one.

But more fierce and implacable even than Forbes’s hatred of the keeper was that conceived by his henchman, Ian Dhu. To the keenness of partisanship he added a violent personal animosity, which only ended with the tragic event hereafter detailed. Ian had long been suspected of deer-poaching; but hitherto the friendship of the sub-factor had screened him from conviction if not from detection. At last Stewart caught him red-handed in the act of ‘gralloching’ a stag in one of the favourite ‘passes’ of the forest. He reported the fact at once to Inchgarry, who, if not exactly claiming his ancestral power of ‘pit and gallows,’ reserved to himself the right of deciding whether or not any of his ‘people’ should be handed over to the civil authorities. His decision was a most merciful one—merely requiring Sutherland to surrender his gun to the keeper. The sentence nevertheless rankled with deadly purpose in his heart; and but for one singular circumstance, would doubtless have earlier taken the form of the terrible revenge he ultimately sought.

That circumstance was his love for Effie Stewart. He too had been smitten by the sheach’s bewitching face and smile—smitten as only such dark, troublous natures can be smitten. His love was to him a terrible torture. The better thoughts which this new and powerful passion awakened, only goaded and stabbed, being too intermittent to subdue the darker passions which they illumined. From the moment he first saw Effie, a marked change came over him, or, more properly speaking, his idiosyncrasies became intensified. Always taciturn, he was now morose and brooding; his surliness became vehement irascibility, and his roving stealthy movements were now erratic and purposeless. He would hang for hours around the kennels, pass and repass the keeper’s cottage a dozen times a day, inventing trifling excuses for calling there, that he might look upon the girl whose unconscious influence had so strongly affected him. In her presence his misery was complete. He would crouch on a settle by the fireside, silent and burning with the unquenchable fire within him, his furtive impassioned glances following her every movement, as Effie flitted about the house. Whenever the little woman paused from her work, and with piquant, gracious vivacity addressed some pleasant remark to him, the heavy brows would unbend, and the dark eyes lift themselves to her face with a transient gleam of supreme pleasure, only to be averted again in increased gloom and depression. On those occasions when the young neighbours extemporised a merry-making at one or other of their houses, or, as was oftener the case, in the roomy cottage of the keeper, Ian Dhu’s torture was beyond description. There he was compelled to witness the object of his infatuation surrounded by a number of youths, many of whom he instinctively knew were fascinated by her. He listened entranced when she sung—but, then, other ears also drank in the sweet sounds; he watched the slight elfish figure move in the merry dance, but was she not observed with admiration by every one? First one and then another of the strapping young Highlanders became her partner, would hold her hands, clasp her waist, and whirl with her in the freedom of the old-fashioned reels; every incident adding a fresh torment to the jealous heart of Ian Dhu.

Time went on, and Ian Dhu was thus fain to curb the rebellious desire for revenge upon Donald Stewart. The gratification of looking upon Effie was only possible under conditions which his revenge would entirely destroy. Like a hungry spaniel, he crouched and fawned when he would otherwise have snapped. He submitted to obey many overbearing behests of the haughty young keeper, to assist him about the croft or go on messages; and acted generally so as to gain Stewart’s tolerance, if not his confidence. These tactics were not unobserved by Forbes, who, however, satisfied of the genuineness of the hatred with which his henchman viewed Donald, for a time attributed them to crafty zeal in his own service.

As for the sub-factor himself, time only increased his detestation of the keeper. Inchgarry was in London attending to his parliamentary duties; and Forbes did not neglect the opportunity of wreaking his malice in every possible way upon his proud-spirited subordinate. In his letters to the chief, the sub-factor conveyed many hints derogatory to Stewart, and succeeded to some extent in his unworthy purpose.

The young man, who was not only conscious of his abilities, but enthusiastic in his desire to acquit himself creditably in all that concerned his craft, one morning received a cold sharp letter from Inchgarry, recounting a charge of permitting poaching in the forest, and commenting severely upon his negligence. The chief circumstantially stated that the interior portions of a deer had been found in a ‘pass’ through a certain hill, where it had been ‘gralloched.’ The astonishment of Stewart was for the moment fully equal to his chagrin. He had had that very pass carefully watched by the under-keepers, and especially by his favourite and friend, a young sandy-haired blue-eyed lad from Lochaber, whose surname of Grant had been familiarised, in Highland fashion, into ‘Grantoch’ on account of his popularity. After the first burst of angry surprise, Stewart sought Grantoch, who in his laconic way repudiated the possibility of the thing, and after a deliberate study of the subject, as he leant upon his gun, quietly delivered himself of his opinion. About ten days previous, he said, while cutting open a hind, which in accordance with orders he had shot for the dogs, Ian Dhu had been present. Chancing to return to the same place about half an hour later in search of the knife which he had dropped, he was not a little surprised to find the refuse portions removed; and was completely puzzled when he observed, by the traces of blood amongst the heather, that they had evidently been carried up the forest. He was certain now that Sutherland had, with the connivance of Forbes, taken this method of throwing suspicion of negligence upon Stewart. The head-keeper’s quick intelligence grasped the whole affair before Grantoch had finished. He directed his assistant to state the facts as they were, in a letter to the chief; and wrote himself a respectful but firm repudiation of the charge. The effect was this: Forbes received a freezing order from Inchgarry to turn Ian Dhu out of his service. Nothing further was said; no reflection made as to his possible complicity in a design to injure the keeper’s character.

But the incident had rendered the sub-factor’s desire for revenge incontrollable. He goaded on his discharged henchman to be the instrument of wreaking their common hatred on the keeper. To his surprise, Ian Dhu was sullenly intractable. Forbes was at first furious, but incidentally learning the obstacle which existed in Sutherland’s passion for Effie Stewart, he resolved to use this as the very means of bringing him round to his purpose. He had heard, amongst other gossip, that Archie Guthrie’s attentions to the girl were received with favour. Ian was now completely under his control, and accident unfortunately favoured the factor in working upon his jealousy. Returning home from a visit to the post-town one evening in his dog-cart, Forbes observed, on a part of the road near Stewart’s cottage, the lovers standing together arm-in-arm, in the moonlight, evidently transacting a lengthened and agreeable parting for the night. Ian, whom he still sheltered, was waiting his arrival and assisted him to alight. With a malignance worthy of the worst part of his evil nature, he immediately despatched the unsuspecting Sutherland upon a message which should take him past the spot where Archie and Effie were standing. The effect was terrible. Ian Dhu on reaching the place discovered the pair in the act of embracing; staggering for a moment as if shot, he fled from the spot and disappeared, to return, after several weeks, to consummate the tragedy which forms the sequel of the tale.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I laughed at the naïve remark.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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