No. 33.—Vol. I.
Price 1½d.
SATURDAY, AUGUST 16, 1884.
{513}
CAVE-CHAPELS.
BY MEAD AND STREAM.
LONDON HOSPITALS AND DISPENSARIES.
IN A FLASH.
SPIDER-SILK.
THIEVES AND THIEVING.
ST JOHN’S GATE.
’TWIXT DAYBREAK AND DAYLIGHT.
No. 33.—Vol. I.
Price 1½d.
SATURDAY, AUGUST 16, 1884.
In the biographies of the saints of the early Celtic Church it is frequently recorded that towards the close of their lives they left their monasteries and sought the seclusion of some lonely island or mountain solitude, in order to pass the evening of their days in undisturbed devotion and freedom from worldly cares. Joceline in his Life of St Kentigern also records that it was his custom to retire to a cave during Lent, so that, ‘removed from the strife of tongues and the tumults of this world, he might hide himself in God.’ Such retreats, whether they were used for periodical and temporary seclusion or for permanent retirement, were called in the ecclesiastical language of the day Deserta; and the frequent occurrence of this term in the topography of Scotland and Ireland—in its modern form of Dysart or Disert—shows how common the custom must once have been. Sometimes the recluse erected a habitation for himself of stones and turf, as St Cuthbert did in the island of Farne; but frequently he chose the shelter of a natural cavern or crevice in the rocks, as St Cuthbert is also said to have done at Weem in Perthshire. As the veneration for the memory of the saint increased with lapse of time, the sites of such hermitages naturally became places of pilgrimage, and troops of devotees were drawn to visit them by rumours of special benefits accruing to pilgrims of weak health, or peace of mind procured by the performance of special vows. In consequence of the peculiar prevalence of this mode of retirement in the primitive Celtic Church, cave-hermitages must have been exceedingly numerous in Scotland. But the thoroughness of the breach which the Church of the Reformation made with the traditions and especially with the superstitious practices of the past, has obliterated most of the traces of this early devotion; and it is only in a few isolated and exceptional cases that any of its associations have survived to our day.
St Ninian’s Cave, near Physgill, in the parish of Glasserton, Wigtownshire, is situated a little to the west of the wooded valley which terminates in the creek known as Portcastle. It is simply a triangular fissure in the rock, some ten or twelve feet wide at the entrance, and about fifteen feet in height, narrowing inwards until, at a distance of about twenty-five feet from the entrance, the sides of the fissure come gradually together. A rudely-built wall has been constructed across the mouth of the cave, of which the lower part still remains. On the occasion of a visit to the cave by the late Dean Stanley of Westminster, a small cross was discovered carved on a projecting part of the rock, and three others were subsequently made visible by the partial removal of the debris from the face of the rock. The form of these crosses is peculiar. They are equal-limbed crosses, formed by four arcs of circles intersecting the circumference of a circumscribing circle. Similar equal-limbed crosses, but bearing the hook-like curve at the right-hand corner of the upper limb, which constitutes the chrisma or monogram—the combined Chi and rho of the Greek word Christos—are found upon early Christian monuments at Kirkmadrine and Whithorn in the same county, but nowhere else in Scotland. These monuments bear inscriptions commemorative of certain ‘holy and distinguished priests’—Viventius, Mavorius, and Florentius. Their names are so different from those of the priesthood of the Columban Church, that they may be regarded as followers if not as contemporaries of St Ninian. But none of the crosses in Ninian’s Cave present this peculiarly ancient characteristic of the chrisma, and these crosses may therefore be of a much later date than Ninian’s time. They are not confined to the rock-face, but have also been carved upon several of the loose stones found on the floor of the cave.
In the month of June last the cave was thoroughly explored for the Ayrshire and Wigtownshire Archæological Association, under the superintendence of Sir Herbert Maxwell, M.P., and Mr Cochran-Patrick, M.P., Secretary of the Association and of the Society of{514} Antiquaries of Scotland. They found that the whole floor of the cave had been regularly paved; and close to the entrance, but outside the external wall which converted the cave into a chapel, there was a large stone basin placed under a natural drip from the rock, which may have served as a holy-water vessel. A number of additional crosses were also discovered. On a stone which had been placed as one of the steps leading down to the paved floor there were four crosses in a line. On one of the stones of the pavement was an inscription in Roman letters, of which the word Sancti could only be deciphered. Underneath the pavement and throughout the debris of the cave-floor there was a considerable accumulation of shells, consisting chiefly of limpets and periwinkles, mingled with splintered bones, evidently the refuse of the food of some earlier occupants. At a considerable depth immediately outside the wall of the chapel, the decayed remnants of a human skeleton were disentombed. Whether these were the bones of a hermit of the chapel who had chosen to be buried in the spot where he had ended his solitary life, or the remains of some victim of violence placed there for concealment, will probably remain unknown.
St Ninian, to whom the cave was dedicated, was the first who preached Christianity among the southern Picts. His life and labours are briefly related by the Venerable Bede, and more fully by Ailred, a Cistercian monk of Rievaux, in Yorkshire. Ailred, whose Life of St Ninian was written in the second half of the twelfth century, states that he derived his materials from a certain barbarously written manuscript, presumably of much earlier date. He informs us that Ninian was born at Whithorn—then called Rosnat—and that he was the son of a Christian Prince. Having received his education under the care of St Martin of Tours, he subsequently went to Rome, where he remained till he was made a bishop and sent to evangelise the people of his native province. From St Martin he obtained masons to build a stone church in Galloway after the Roman fashion. As this was the first stone church erected in Scotland, the fame of Ninian’s Candida Casa or White House has been perpetuated in the Saxon form of Whitherne or Whithorn. The date of its erection is fixed by the fact that St Martin died in 397 A.D.; and St Ninian, having heard of his death while the church was being built, resolved to dedicate the finished edifice to his memory. Ninian himself, after a life full of labours, was buried in the church of St Martin which he had built; and Ailred mentions the stone sarcophagus which contained his remains as still existing in his day, and much venerated in consequence of the many miraculous cures said to be wrought upon those who devoutly frequented it. Pilgrimages continued to be made to the shrine of St Ninian down to the period of the Reformation. In a letter of King James V. of Scotland to the Pope, the king states that pilgrims from England, Ireland, the Isles, and adjoining countries came yearly in flocks to St Ninian’s shrine at Whithorn. That notable pilgrim King James IV. made special pilgrimages to this famous shrine, and his Treasurer has preserved an account of his disbursements on these occasions. From it we learn that the king made offerings in money ‘at the Rude Altar; at the fertir (or shrine) in the outer kirk; at the reliques at the Hie Altair; at the Lady Altar; and in the chapel on the hill—at ilk place xiiis. 4d.’ And in 1505 he offered also ‘ane relique of the king’s awn silver’ of considerable weight and value.
The number of dedications to St Ninian, scattered over the whole country from the remotest Northern and Western Isles to the Mull of Galloway, bear testimony to the widespread devotion to his memory which once pervaded the Scottish Church. The removal of a portion of the wall of the choir of the old church of St Congan at Turriff in 1861 brought to light a fresco-painting of St Ninian, robed as a bishop, with mitre and pastoral staff—the only relic of pre-Reformation work of the kind that has been discovered in Scotland. Neither in his Life nor in any ancient document has any reference been found to the occupation of the cave at Physgill by St Ninian; but Sulpicius Severus, who wrote a Life of St Martin of Tours, mentions that he had a little cell in the rock at Marmoutier to which he was accustomed to retire for prayer and meditation, and that many of his disciples also dug cells in the rock and took up their abodes in them. St Ninian being a disciple of St Martin, there is reason to conclude that in this respect he would follow the example of his master. But apart from this consideration, it is certain that from a very early period this cave has been traditionally associated with his name, and that this association was the reason for converting it into a chapel, where services would be held on the saint’s anniversaries, pilgrimages performed, vows paid, and offerings presented. It is not unlikely that in its earlier days the chapel may have been ministered to by a resident recluse, as was often the custom in similar circumstances. For instance, we are told by Bower, the continuator of Fordun’s Chronicle, that in crossing the Firth of Forth in the year 1123, King Alexander I. was driven by stress of weather to land on the island of Inchcolm, ‘where at that time lived an island hermit, who, belonging to the service of St Columba, devoted himself sedulously to his duties at a little chapel there, content with such poor food as the milk of one cow, and the shells and small sea-fishes he could collect.’ It is suggestive, too, that one of the copies of the Scotichronicon—that which belonged to the Abbey of Coupar-Angus—connects the island of Inchcolm with St Columba by saying that he lived in it for a certain time during his ministry among the Picts and Scots, just as the cave at Physgill is connected with St Ninian.
There is another cave-chapel on the Wigtownshire coast, which had a reputation scarcely less famous than that of St Ninian. St Medan’s Cave, still locally known as ‘The Chapel Co’,’ is an irregular rent in the cliff between Maryport and East Tarbert, about four miles from Drumore. In front of it are the remains of a wall about four feet thick, of rough stones and lime, still showing traces of the doorway, and one deeply splayed window. About twelve feet farther in{515} is the back wall of the chapel, reaching to the roof of the cave, but giving access, by a square-headed doorway four feet high and two and a half feet wide, to the small natural cell in which the cave terminates. Near the external entrance there are three pools or rock basins, within the tide-mark, and usually full of sea-water. The largest, which is about four feet in diameter, is known as ‘the Body Pool,’ and was used for the cure of internal and wasting disorders, being specially efficacious in cases of ‘back-gane bairns’. The second pool, of an irregularly triangular shape, and about two feet long, was known as ‘the Knee Pool,’ and was considered effectual for the cure of diseases of the lower limbs. The third pool, a circular basin about six inches diameter and the same in depth, was used for sore eyes. The cave and its pools were largely frequented for curative purposes down almost to the commencement of the present century, and continued to be occasionally visited to a much later period. There are persons yet living who remember large gatherings at St Medan’s Chapel, especially on the first Sunday of May, old style. St Medan, who is commemorated in the dedication of the church of Kirkmaiden, was one of the ‘devout women’ of the early Celtic Church of whom there is no distinct biographic record. The Breviary of Aberdeen states that she came from Ireland to Galloway, and ended her days near the blessed St Ninian. Mr Skene identifies her with Modwena, whose original name was Darerca, a convert of St Patrick, who died on St Columba’s birthday, July 6, 519 A.D.
St Kieran’s Cave is situated in the precipitous cliffs of Achinhoan Head, about three miles south of the site of the church dedicated to him at Kilkerran, in Kintyre, Argyllshire. It is one of many fissures occurring in the limestone rock on this coast, irregularly triangular in shape, spacious and lofty. A substantially built wall three feet thick has been constructed across the entrance. Immediately within the entrance is a rough boulder with an oval basin scooped in its upper surface, which is placed beneath a drip of water from the roof of the cave, and thus forms a reservoir, which may have answered the purposes of a hermit’s well, a holy-water vessel for the pilgrims’ chapel, and a curative or holy well for the superstitious uses of later times. Close by it is another boulder about two feet in diameter, the upper surface of which is prettily carved with a circular border of fretwork, such as is frequently seen on the early sculptured monuments of Scotland and Ireland, inclosing a hexafoil with its points connected by arcs of circles. A writer in the old Statistical Account of Scotland also speaks of the cross which St Kieran had cut upon the rock; but this is no longer visible. Kieran Macantsaor, or the ‘carpenter’s son,’ was Abbot of Clonmacnois. In his youth he was a disciple of St Finan of Clonard; and in proof of the sanctity of his life, it is told of him that ‘he never looked upon a woman, and never told a lie.’ He was held in great esteem by St Columba, who is said to have written a hymn in praise of Kieran. He died at the age of thirty-three, and ‘was likened to Christ, both on account of his age and that his father was a carpenter like Joseph Muire.’
A cave on the western shore of Loch Caolisport, also in Argyllshire, is associated with the name of the great evangelist of Scotland, St Columba. Like most other cave-chapels, it has the remains of a wall, with a doorway, constructed across the entrance. On a kind of rocky shelf close by the doorway is a rude circular basin, which probably served as the holy-water vessel of the chapel. Against the rock forming the east side of the cave is the altar platform, roughly but solidly built, and still standing—or at least till quite recently—to nearly its full height. On the smooth face of the rock above the centre of the altar platform is a cross carved in relief, of the Latin form, but with its arms and summit slightly expanding towards the extremities. This cross is placed a little to one side of the centre; but more nearly in a central position over the altar there are discernible the almost obliterated outlines of a much older cross which has been incised in the rock. At a little distance from the cave are the ruins of an ancient chapel dedicated to St Columba. It is a small plain edifice about forty feet by twenty-two, with one east window, and the remains of a window in each of the side-walls near the eastern end. The tradition is that St Columba, landing here on his way to Iona, established the chapel in the cave, which was ever afterwards held sacred to his memory, and that the chapel near it was subsequently founded in his honour. The cave was cleared out about two years ago by the proprietor; but no record of what might have been a most interesting scientific investigation appears to have been preserved. It is said that a great many burials were found in the floor of the cave—as many as sixteen or eighteen different skeletons are supposed to have been found—and underneath them the traces of a more ancient occupation of the cavern, probably in pagan times.
The cave of St Molio in the Island of Lamlash, or Holy Island, on the east side of Arran, is a natural cavity in the sandstone rock, about twenty-five feet above the present tide-mark. Traces of a rudely-built wall across its entrance are still visible. A shelf of rock within the cave is known as ‘the Saint’s Bed;’ a large flat-topped rock close by with several step-like recesses cut in its circumference is called ‘the Saint’s Chair;’ and a fine spring of pure water, which is known as ‘the Saint’s Well,’ was formerly much resorted to for the healing virtues of its water. The Island of Lamlash appears in ancient documents as Helant-in-laysche or Almeslach, and this form of the name identifies it with St Molaissi or Laisren of Leighlin, a nephew of St Blane of Kingarth in Bute. His mother was a daughter of Aedhan, king of the Scots of Dalriada; and it is told of him, that in order to avoid being made king, he retired to an island in the sea between Alban and Britain—between the country of the Scots and that of the Britons of Strathclyde. This answers precisely to the situation of the Holy Island which is still associated with his name. There was a relic either of St Molaissi or of St Moluag of Lismore preserved in Arran down to the time of Martin’s visit to the island in the beginning of the last century. This was the Baul Muluy, a ‘green stone, like a globe in figure, about the bigness of a goose-egg,’ which{516} was much used by the islanders for curing diseases and ‘for swearing decisive oaths upon it.’ It seems to have been in the hereditary custody of a family of Mackintoshes, and had also the reputation of having been anciently a vexillum or battle-ensign of the Macdonalds of the Isles, carried with their host in their conflicts, in the belief that its presence would secure to them victory over their enemies. The cave of St Molio has several Runic inscriptions cut upon its interior—mere graffiti of occasional visitors at the time when the galleys of the Northmen frequented the western seas. Amudar, Ontur, and Sea-elk, who have left their names there, may have been pagans; but Nicolas of Haen, who carved the longest inscription, bears a good Christian name.
St Serf’s Cave at Dysart, in Fife, derived its sanctity—as the town of Dysart has derived its name—from its having been the desertum or place of retirement of the saint during his seasons of meditation and prayer. The Aberdeen Breviary states that ‘once upon a time the devil tempted the blessed St Serf with divers questions in the cave at Dysart; but confounded by the divine virtue, he went away; and from that day the said demon has appeared to no one in that cave, although the place is still held famous in honour of St Serf.’ Andrew of Wyntoun, prior of St Serf’s monastery in Lochleven, as in duty bound, gives, in his Cronykill of Scotland, a circumstantial account of this disputation with the Evil One:
proposing to the saint many of the questions of high theological speculation which presented themselves to the cultivated minds of the fifteenth century, and receiving orthodox, and consequently unanswerable replies to them all:
and the saint becoming impatient of his flattery, commanded him to begone from his cave, and never more to annoy any one in it. This prohibition apparently obtained for the cave a reputation as of a place for ever freed from the temptations of the Evil One, and it continued in consequence to be used as a chapel, and largely frequented by pilgrims down almost to the Reformation.
St Adrian’s Cave at Caiplie, also on the north shore of the Firth of Forth, consists of a cluster of contiguous cavities formed by the sea washing out the softer parts of the rock. The principal cavity bears obvious marks of artificial adaptation. It is somewhat irregular in shape, but large and lofty; and the foundation courses of a wall constructed across its entrance are still visible. Near the mouth of the cave, a kind of platform or seat is shaped in the rock, and a door cut through the rock communicates with a smaller cell on the south side. On the west side, a series of steps led up to a smaller cell, in the inner part of which was a kind of bench cut in the rock, which is said to have been the hermit’s bed. In front of the cave, five human skeletons were found, four of which were regularly buried east and west, the heads to the west, but without coffins. A considerable quantity of bones of oxen, sheep, and swine, and portions of deer-horns, were found mixed with the debris in front of the cave, evidently the refuse of the food of its occupants at some remote period. On the interior of the rocky walls of the cave, many pilgrim crosses are carved, some of the equal-armed form and surrounded with a border, but mostly of the Latin form. St Adrian, whose true name was probably Odran, is represented as having settled and laboured among the Pictish people of the east parts of Scotland. His settlement in the Firth of Forth is thus described by Wyntoun:
At Pittenweem, St Monance, and other places along the coast as far as Fifeness, there are several caves which have pilgrim crosses and other symbols of archaic character carved upon their rocky walls. All of these seem at one time to have been occupied as places of retreat and devotion by saints or recluses of the early Celtic Church, and doubtless are the steddis sere (that is, the ‘several places’) referred to in Wyntoun’s narrative. At Fifeness is the cave of Constantine, king of the Scots, who, after a reign of forty years, exchanged the sceptre for the pilgrim’s staff, and ‘died in the house of the Apostle;’ that is, of St Andrew. At St Andrews itself is the cave of St Rule, or rather what remains of it, for it has been much destroyed within the last half-century. Sir Walter Scott describes the palmer in Marmion as bound to fair St Andrews:
and mentions that on one side of the cave there still remained a sort of stone altar. The Aberdeen Breviary states that St Gernadius, who settled at Kennedor, in Moray, lived in a cell partly natural, but artificially adapted for a habitation, in which he was wont to repose his wearied limbs on a bed of stone. His cave in the neighbourhood of Lossiemouth is distinguished by the holy well close beside it, which had a local reputation until quite recently, and is still known as St Gerardine’s Well. St Baldred of the Bass, who sat upon the rock in Aldhame Bay, and caused it to transport itself out of the fairway, had his cave also in the cliff opposite this rock; and traces have been found both upon the rock itself and in the cave of a long-continued occupation at a remote period.
Although the materials for the illustration of this long-forgotten phase of ecclesiastical life are so few and fragmentary, they suffice to reveal the presence in these early ages of a passionate fervour of devotion and a child-like simplicity of faith to which we are altogether strangers in these times. The systems and institutions by{517} which they were created and fostered ‘are productions of old ages, not to be repeated in the new: they presuppose a certain rudeness of conception, which the progress of mere scientific knowledge puts an end to.’
To be unhappy and alone at night in chambers is to have an opportunity of realising the sense of desolation in its bitterest degree. The double doors and double windows which secure the stillness that is of so much importance for working purposes, seem now to shut you off doubly from the world; from help if you are dying, and from sympathy if you live. The rumble of the heaviest wagon reaches the ears as a faint sound from afar off; no footstep is heard at all; and the adjacent chambers are silent as the tenements of the dead. You welcome the plash of rain against the window-panes—dull as that is—as if it were a friend come to speak to you in your solitude.
That is the time for thoughts of suicide to haunt a man if his mind is disturbed; and that is the time for cynical broodings on the vanity of life, the falsehood of friendship, and the fickleness of love. He sees in what miserable failure his most earnest efforts have resulted; he misinterprets the most trivial word and look of his friend, and he loses grip altogether of that faith which in healthier state enables him to find consolation in love. He recalls all the bitter things that have been written about women, and for the time-being believes them.
How was it, Philip asked himself, that he had fallen into this desperate position? He had laboured with all his might for others rather than for himself; his object was a noble one, and quite feasible, he was still convinced. Yet the social revolution he had dreamed of was as far off as ever, and he suddenly found that he was face to face with absolute ruin. Evidently his blunder lay in his miscalculation of the power of his capital. There had been disappointments with his fellow-workers, who, shrewdly counting the cost of material and the market value of the manufactured article, saw that the latter would barely realise enough to give them a fair ordinary wage in the best of times, to say nothing of the share of profits promised them. The cost of material was too high; and it was natural that they should conclude the cost was so fixed by arrangement with their chief in order to deprive them of what they now called their rights.
Philip saw the force of their argument, and began to inquire about the items of expenditure. Hitherto, he had been so deeply occupied in the organisation of his scheme, that he had left financial matters almost entirely in Wrentham’s hands. Hints were given him that the prices he was charged were not the prices paid for materials, but that a large proportion went in secret commissions. As soon as he began to look into the question closely, he was met by the astounding fact, that he had reached the end of his capital, and had heavy liabilities to meet almost immediately, as well as heavy current expenses to provide for. How to do this without applying to Mr Shield, he had been trying for weeks to find out; and the more harassed he became, the more impossible it appeared to work through the mess without assistance.
Then had come the last humiliation: he must submit to the immediate and entire overthrow of all he had been working for, and in which he had sunk the considerable fortune placed at his disposal, or he must seek the help which only a short time ago had appeared to him as an impossible necessity. He was bewildered, and could not understand how it came about. It should not have been so. He yielded to the necessity, however; but determined that when his course became clear again, his first task should be to institute a thorough investigation into the causes of his failure.
Through all this agitated survey of his position, how was it that the figure of Beecham continually obtruded itself? What could Wrentham have had in his head, when he urged him so strongly to find out from Madge all that she knew of the man’s history and possible friendship with Mr Shield? He had not felt very keenly impressed by the suggestion during Wrentham’s presence; but now, in the silence and alone with his chagrin, he became infected with Wrentham’s suspicion. It had not occurred to him until now that there was something most incongruous and altogether incomprehensible in a girl consenting to accept from an acquaintance of only a few weeks a confidence which she could not disclose to her guardians or the man who was soon to be her husband.
If Beecham had been a younger man than he was, there would have been a ready and most bitter explanation of the mystery; but it was not available in the present case. And yet (so outrageously morbid had he become that he was capable of the thought!) women were such strange creatures, that there was no telling who might win their favour or by what charm it might be done.
Pah!—What madness was this?
He went to the front room and opened a window overlooking Gray’s Inn Road. The stillness of the chambers had become intolerable. This was better; much better. There was more air; he could hear the rattle of cabs, and catch glimpses of hurrying foot-passengers on the opposite side of the way.
Why should he remain indoors, to be haunted by these horrible phantoms of doubt and suspicion? He knew they were phantoms, and yet he could not drive them from his brain. Sleep was impossible, and he was afraid to take more drugs, for he was conscious that they had already impaired his power of self-control. When would the morning come? The active duties he had to discharge would relieve him. He looked at his watch. Very little past midnight. Why, it seemed as if two nights had passed since Wrentham went away!
Well, he would try Dr Joy’s specific, and endeavour to work, or walk off this nervous frenzy. First he tried the work. There was much need that he should master the accounts and compare prices paid with prices quoted in{518} the markets. But the figures performed such strange antics before his eyes, that after an hour of vain endeavour to master their meaning, he impatiently closed the book and rose no wiser, or rather less wise, than he had been before he sat down.
He took himself to task. It was of the utmost importance that in the morning he should be cool and clear-headed; but he could not hope to be so unless he obtained sleep. Well, he would try the second remedy.
He put on his hat and overcoat and went out. It was not of any consequence to him in which direction he should walk, his sole object being to exhaust himself by the physical exercise, in order to induce healthy sleep. To distract his mind from its troublous ruminations, he turned instinctively towards those quarters where he was most likely to encounter signs of life.
He strode along Oxford Street and down Regent Street. But he was walking in a dream. The lights of the lamps were dim in his eyes, the figures which flitted by him were like shadows, and he could not have told whether they were men or women. The voices of those who passed him seemed to be muffled, and he scarcely distinguished any sounds. A hansom cab came rattling at full speed towards him: the horse slipped, staggered, fell. There was a commotion, and although, a minute before, the street seemed to be deserted, figures sprang out of the darkness, and there was a crowd at the scene of disaster.
He passed on, with that insensibility to the fate of others which characterises people when in dreamland. His feelings were numbed as his eyes were dimmed. The sense of humiliation at the utter failure of what he had believed to be so certain of success produced the one pain of which he was conscious, and which no drugs, fatigue, or reason had power to subdue.
If the money had been his own, he could have borne with comparative calmness the overthrow of his hopes and the ridicule of those who had from the first called his project folly.
But despite the assurances of Mr Shield and of Mr Shield’s solicitors, Philip had never regarded the money otherwise than as held in trust; and the loss of it was as bitter as the destruction of the beautiful palace he had built in air.
The only bit of ballast left him was the dogged conviction that the principle which he had endeavoured to carry into practical effect was a right one, and would be turned to good account by some one more fortunate or more careful than he had been.
He set his teeth together and marched on. He began to realise how strangely numbed his sensations were, and how vague everything appeared to him. The rain had ceased, and the tiny pools in the roadway glistening in the lamplight seemed like great white eyes staring at him in pity. He passed down the Haymarket, nor did he slacken his pace until he reached the Embankment. There he halted and leaned over the parapet. He was not fatigued: the rapid walk seemed to have instilled new strength into him and had partially cleared the cobwebs from his brain. He was attracted by the lights gleaming in the dark fast-flowing river. Out there, were black islets of barges, and on the opposite shore the fantastic outlines of buildings, showing like irregular ramparts against the dull gray sky. He was thinking of Madge, and the pain she would suffer on his account, when the worst was made known to her in the morning, perhaps, or next day.
‘Got a copper to spare a poor cove as hasn’t had a crust for two days?’ said a husky voice close to him.
Philip started up. He was aware of the evil reputation of the Embankment and the character of the roughs who infest it after nightfall. A lamp close by showed him a miserable-looking wretch, ragged and hungry-eyed. He did seem to need help, poor fellow. Philip gave him a shilling, and was about to pass on. But a huge hulk of a fellow stood in his way.
‘We want som’at more nor that, guv’nor. So tip us’——
The man went down as if he had been shot. Philip was in the mood for mischief, and he had not forgotten his practice with the gloves. So the first words of the ruffian plainly intimating his purpose, a well-delivered blow straight from the shoulder finished the sentence for him. Philip knew that it would have been madness to have given the man time to attack him, and as it was, the other man was already attempting to rifle his pockets. This one belonged to the sneak tribe, and finding his throat suddenly gripped by fingers that seemed to possess the strength of a vice, his hands went up to loosen them. He was hurled aside; and Philip hurried away with a sort of savage pleasure in having punished the brace of scoundrels, as well as disappointed them of their expected prize.
Near Blackfriars Bridge he met a policeman, to whom he briefly reported the incident. The man listened with stolid indifference.
‘They are a bad lot about here, at nights, sir,’ he said composedly; ‘and it ain’t a place for decent people at this hour.’
The constable’s idea evidently was that decent people should keep out of the way of the roughs, not that it was his duty to keep the roughs from molesting the decent people who might be compelled to use the thoroughfare.
Philip entered his dreary chambers again. He felt better, but still he could not sleep.
From the day when Rahere the troubador, in the year 1123 A.D., founded the hospital of St Bartholomew, the number of hospitals, dispensaries, infirmaries, and other institutions for the cure and medical treatment of the sick poor, has gone on increasing, till now it stands at considerably over one hundred and fifty for London and its district alone. This is altogether exclusive of the workhouse infirmaries. Besides hospitals and dispensaries, there are included in the above number institutions for the supply of surgical instruments, &c., either free, or at such reduced prices as bring them within the reach even of the very poor. Twelve of the London hospitals have medical schools attached to them, amongst which is one for the education of lady-doctors. Differences of opinion of course exist as to the medical{519} woman, some no doubt regarding her as a great acquisition, and one of the glories of the nineteenth century; whilst others would speak of her as an institution naturally to be expected in the dark ages, but quite an anomaly in a civilised age. Which of the views may be the correct one, we will not pretend to say. However this may be, in Henrietta Street stands the medical school for women, which is in connection with the Royal Free Hospital, Gray’s Inn Road.
The hospitals with medical schools attached undertake the treatment of almost every form of disease both surgical and medical. Still, there are some diseases which it is necessary should be treated apart in special hospitals, and the chief of these is that terrible scourge of past times, smallpox. Not only smallpox but scarlet fever and other infectious diseases have to be excluded from some of the hospitals of which we are speaking, inasmuch as they are not all provided with wards set apart for infectious cases. To get an idea, however, of the great variety of work undertaken by the largest hospitals, it may be well to glance at the various departments of medicine and surgery represented at St Bartholomew’s Hospital, the oldest of these London institutions. In addition to the out-patients’ rooms, and wards devoted to the treatment of ordinary medical and surgical diseases and accidents, there are the following special departments: A department for skin diseases; for diseases of the eye, ear, and throat; an orthopædic department; a dental department; a department for the special diseases of women; a maternity department; and lastly, in the case of this hospital, a ward for the treatment of cases of infectious disease. The average number of in-patients is estimated at over six thousand annually, and the out-patients at more than one hundred and fifty thousand. It will readily be believed that the work of the physicians and surgeons, both visiting and resident, connected with such an institution is by no means light. There are many other general hospitals in various parts of London, besides those having medical schools attached to them, but we cannot speak of them here. The nature of their work is much the same as that of the others, though of course the extent of it is more limited.
Coming next to the dispensaries—their name is legion. Almost every parish in London has one or more, and they are very abundant in the immediate suburbs also. Some of these dispensaries are free, others are to a greater or less extent self-supporting. It is, we hope, needless to say that the public dispensaries of which we are speaking are not to be confounded with the private dispensaries set up by medical men, quite legitimately, for their own benefit, but which are not unfrequently conducted upon the lowest of commercial principles. The public dispensaries of London, with their committees of management and staffs of physicians and surgeons—who in the case of the free dispensaries are almost invariably honorary—do excellent work, and are worthy of all, and more than all, the support which they obtain. Unlike the majority of hospitals, they undertake the treatment of disease at the patients’ own homes; and by calling in the aid of the nursing institutions, they are able to supply not only medical attendance and medicine, but also trained nurses. Recently, an effort has been made to increase the number of provident dispensaries; and this indeed appears to be one of the best ways of meeting the difficulty of supplying good medical treatment to the poor cheaply, without demanding of medical men more unpaid work. It has been estimated that the medical profession does more work without payment than the rest of the professions put together.
We will now say a few words concerning the special hospitals and dispensaries. And first, it is to be remembered that all are not of the same merit. Many of them may be said to be above praise; but some, it is to be feared, are almost beneath contempt. Indeed, the opinion of those in the medical profession best able to judge of the matter is, we believe, strongly opposed to the multiplication of special hospitals, except of course for those diseases which cannot be advantageously treated in the general hospitals. Enumerating now the special hospitals and dispensaries in their alphabetical order, first of all come those for the treatment of cancer, of which there are two. Then there are eight hospitals for children. A visit to the hospital in Great Ormond Street is calculated to make most persons enthusiastic on the subject of well-managed children’s hospitals; and many readers will remember the glowing description given by Charles Dickens of the East London Hospital for Children. Of hospitals for diseases of the chest there are five. The physicians of the general hospitals do not, if they can avoid it, admit patients suffering from consumption. The air of a hospital in which wounds and diseases of almost every kind are being treated is ill fitted to give any good chance of recovery to a case of consumption, which requires almost more than anything else fresh air and plenty of it; and if such a patient gets no good, he only occupies uselessly the place of some one who might benefit greatly by admission. Chest diseases require, too, arrangements for the securing of appropriate temperature, and this it would not be easy to do in a general hospital. It is well, therefore, that there should be special hospitals for diseases of the chest, and it is to be regretted the number is at present quite insufficient. Still, these chest hospitals contrive to treat a very large number of patients in the course of the year, the average being estimated at considerably over thirty-two thousand.
There are six hospitals and infirmaries for the throat and ear; and three for diseases of the nervous system. Next we come to the fever hospitals—four in number. It is almost impossible to overrate the value of these hospitals. They not only tend to prevent the occurrence of epidemics, by removing the fever-stricken from the healthy, but they also save many from the untimely death that might have befallen them in their own ill-ventilated homes, and with the intermittent nursing which alone they could have secured. And further; even when the danger of death is past, the continuous care which can be given to patients in a hospital may restore many more to sound health, who in their own homes would only have escaped death to remain for the rest of their days miserable invalids.
The hospitals to be next mentioned are one for fistula and one for diseases of the hip. Then there are three buildings for the reception of{520} cases of incurable disease; two hospitals for lunatics; six lying-in hospitals; six for diseases of the eye; three orthopædic hospitals; one specially for accidents; six for skin diseases; four for smallpox—to which the remarks made on the fever hospitals of course apply; one for stone; three for women; and four for women and children.
We have said nothing concerning the convalescent hospitals. Most of them are of course situated in the country; but those anywhere near London are largely supplied with patients from the metropolis. Their value is immense, for they restore many patients to complete health, who, had they gone back to their work immediately after severe illness, and the bad hygienic conditions pertaining to their homes, might have sunk into a state of permanent ill-health.
There are a few other hospitals which may be alluded to, for, though they are not special as regards the diseases treated in them, yet they are special in other ways. Thus, there is the hospital at Greenwich for seamen; the French hospital for all foreigners who speak the French language; and the German hospital ‘for natives of Germany, others speaking the German language and English, in cases of accident;’ and lastly, there are a temperance hospital, a medical mission hospital, and one medical mission dispensary.
And now it might perhaps seem that London has hospitals enough; but those who have had some experience of the matter are not wont to say so. They freely admit that numbers of persons seek and obtain the help of hospitals who have from their circumstances no right to it, and these they would gladly see excluded; but they cannot admit that even then there would be hospital accommodation enough for the legitimate claimants. Nay, they may go further, and declare that there is, through the length and breadth of that ‘great province of houses’ which men call London, an urgent and increasing demand for more. An attempt to meet this demand so far was made a few years ago, when Pay-hospitals were opened in Fitzroy Square and elsewhere (as described in this Journal for October 13, 1880). This class of institutions might well be extended, as there are many patients both able and willing to pay for the treatment they require; and the still further development of such hospitals would greatly relieve the pressure presently felt by the purely charitable institutions.
When first I remember my aunt Barbara, she was over forty years of age; but she could never have been accounted a handsome woman. She was very tall and very angular, with a long thin face, the most remarkable feature of which was a Roman nose of commanding proportions. But as she had one of the kindest hearts in the world, her paucity of good looks seemed a matter of trifling moment to those who had the privilege of knowing her well. It was at my request that, some two or three years before her death, she wrote out the following narrative of an actual occurrence in her early life. I put the manuscript away at the time, and did not come across it again till the other day. On looking over it once more, it seemed to me not unworthy of being transcribed for a wider circle of readers than that comprised by the writer’s immediate friends and acquaintances.
You ask me to go back in memory (begins my aunt) to what seems to me now like a period of remote antiquity, when I, Barbara Waldron, was twenty-four years of age, and my sister Bessie five years younger, and endeavour to put down in writing the little story I told you by word of mouth a few days ago.
You must know, then, that in those far-off days, my sister and I were keeping house for our brother John, who at that time filled the position of steward and land-agent to Lord Dorrington. The house we lived in was a pleasant but somewhat lonely residence, about half a mile from the little country town of Levensfield. The house suited us for several reasons. In the first place, the rent was low; in the next, a large walled garden was attached to it, in which Bessie and I spent many happy hours; and in the third place, there was a side-entrance to Dorrington Park, by which my brother could take a short-cut to the Hall whenever he had business with his lordship, or his lordship had business with him. Our household was a small one, and besides ourselves, comprised only Mary Gibbs, a middle-aged woman, and her niece, a girl of sixteen. John’s horse and gig were looked after by a young man named Reuben Gates, who did not, however, sleep on the premises. An important part of John’s duties was to receive and pay into the Levensfield bank the rents due from the farmers and other tenants of property held under Lord Dorrington. One such tenant was a certain Mr Shillito, a corn and seed merchant, who was noted for his eccentricities. It was only in keeping with Mr Shillito’s aggravating way of doing business that he should never pay his rent at the time other people paid theirs; that he should always pay it in gold and notes, instead of giving a cheque for the amount, as he was quite in a position to have done; and that he should make a point of bringing it himself, instead of naming a time when my brother might have called upon him; and finally, that he seldom arrived with the money till after banking-hours.
We come now to a certain autumn evening. Kitty had just brought in the tea-tray. It was growing dusk, almost too dusk to see clearly without the lamp; but Bessie and I liked to economise the daylight as much as possible, especially now that the long winter nights were so close upon us. John had come in for a cup of tea. This evening, he was going to drive over to Nethercroft, some ten miles away, dine there with some friends, and stay all night.{521} After dinner, there was to be a dance; and I was not without my suspicions as to the nature of the attraction which was taking him so far from home, although he laughingly pooh-poohed the soft impeachment, when I challenged him with it. John was in the act of putting down his cup and saucer, when we heard a noise of wheels outside, which presently came to a stand opposite the house. He crossed the room and peered through the window.
‘It’s old Shillito, come to pay his rent,’ he remarked a moment later. ‘Two hours after banking-time, as usual. What a nuisance he is!’ He went down-stairs; and about ten minutes later we heard Mr Shillito’s trap start off. Presently John came back. ‘Ninety pounds, all in gold and notes,’ he said. ‘I’ve had to lock it up in my desk till morning.’
I may here remark that iron safes for the custody of money and other valuables were by no means so common in those days, especially in out-of-the-way country-places, as they appear to have since become.
‘But the money will be quite safe in your desk, won’t it, John?’ asked Bessie.
‘Safe enough without a doubt, seeing that no one but ourselves knows of its presence there. Only, as a matter of business, I should prefer to have had it in the coffers of the bank.’ Presently he added: ‘The old fellow was half-seas over, as he generally is; and I have no doubt, with so many houses of call by the way, that he will be soaked through and through before he reaches home. I wonder whether he goes to bed sober a night in his life?’
A few minutes later, John kissed us and bade us good-night. Bessie and I went to the window to see him start; but by this time it was nearly dark. He waved his whip at us as soon as he had settled himself in his seat, then he gave the reins a little shake. Black Beryl’s heels struck fire from the stones as she sprang forward, the gravel scrunched beneath the wheels, and a moment later the shadows of evening had swallowed up horse and gig and driver. My sister and I pulled down the blinds and drew the curtains and rang for Kitty to bring in the lamp.
The evening passed after our usual quiet fashion. We worked a little and read a little and played some half-dozen duets, and chatted between times, till the clock pointed to half-past ten, at which hour we generally retired for the night. My last duty every evening was to go the round of the house and satisfy myself that all lights were out, that the fires were safe, and that all the doors and windows were properly secured. When this duty had been duly accomplished to-night, the drawing-room lamp was extinguished, and then Bessie and I took our bed candles and marched up-stairs, leaving darkness and solitude behind us. Mary Gibbs and Kitty had retired long ago.
My sister’s room and mine adjoined each other, with a door of communication between, which generally stood partly open at night, for the sake of companionship. The windows of both rooms looked into the garden, which ran in a wide strip along that side of the house, and was shut in by a wall some seven or eight feet high, beyond which were three or four meadows, and then the boundary-wall of Dorrington Park.
It was close on one o’clock—as I found out afterwards—when I woke suddenly from a sound sleep. The instant I opened my eyes the room was illumined by a vivid flash of lightning, and in all probability it was a peal of thunder that had broken my slumbers. Another flash followed after a brief interval, succeeded again by the deafening accompaniment. My sleep was effectually broken. I arose, flung a shawl over my shoulders, and crossing to the window, drew back the blind and peered out. As long ago as I can remember, lightning has always had a singular fascination for me. As a child, I loved to gaze upon its vivid splendours, and in this respect at least years have left me unchanged. A board creaked as I crossed the floor.
‘Is that you, Barbara?’ asked my sister from the other room.
‘Yes, dear. I am going to look out for a few minutes. Is not the lightning beautiful?’
‘Very beautiful; only I wish it were anywhere rather than here,’ answered Bessie, who at such times was just as nervous as I was the reverse.
The flashes followed each other at intervals of about a minute. I had witnessed three or four when suddenly I gave a start, and an exclamation broke involuntarily from my lips. The last flash had revealed to me the figures of two men in the act of climbing over the garden-wall. One of the men was a stranger to me; but in the other, instantaneous as was the revelation, I recognised the somewhat peculiar face and figure of a man named Dethel, whom my brother had employed temporarily during the last week or two in the garden, our regular man being laid up at the time with rheumatism. There was something in the looks of the man in question which had set me against him from the first; but if we were all to be judged by our looks alone, what would become of us! For aught I knew to the contrary, Dethel might be an honest, hard-working fellow, with a wife and children dependent on him; but for all that, on the days he was working for us I carefully refrained from going into the garden.
And now, here was this man, and another with him, effecting a surreptitious entry of the premises at one o’clock in the morning! Such a proceeding could have but one end in view. Two questions at once put themselves to me. Firstly, were these men aware that my brother was from home for the night, and that only three helpless women and a girl were left in the house? Secondly, had they by some means become cognisant of the fact that a few hours previously Mr Shillito had paid my brother a considerable sum of money, which must necessarily still be somewhere on the premises? In my mind there was little doubt that both these facts were fully known to the men. My brother’s movements were as open as the day, and Dethel had doubtless ascertained from Reuben the groom that his master would be from home on this{522} particular night; while as for Mr Shillito, everybody knew how he talked in his loud-voiced way about his most private affairs when he had taken more to drink than was good for him. At the bar of more than one tavern that evening, every one who might chance to be within hearing would not fail to be informed that Mr Shillito had just paid John Waldron his half-year’s rent.
These thoughts flashed through my mind almost as quickly as that flash which revealed so much. Breathlessly I waited for the next flash. It came, shattering the darkness for an instant, and then it, too, was swallowed up. The men were no longer visible. Between the two flashes they had had time to drop on the inner side of the wall, where the thick clumps of evergreens which clothed that part of the grounds would effectually screen them from view. At that very moment they were doubtless making their way stealthily towards the house. What was to be done? Never had I realised so fully as at that moment how helpless a creature a woman is. Drawing my shawl more closely round me and putting on a pair of list slippers which I wore about the house in cold weather, I crept noiselessly out of the room. At the top of the stairs I halted and listened; but all was silence the most profound. The corridor out of which the bedroom opened was lighted at the opposite end by a high narrow window which looked into the garden. To this window I now made my way, and there, with one ear pressed to the cold glass, I stood and listened. Presently I heard the faint sound of footsteps, and then the subdued voices of two people talking to each other. Directly under the place where I was standing was the back drawing-room, which opened on the garden by means of a French-window; and although this window was secured at night by shutters, I had an idea that the security in question was more fancied than real, and was of a kind that would be laughed to scorn by any burglar who was acquainted with his business. If the men had made up their minds to break into the house—and with what other object could they be there?—the probability was that they would make the attempt by way of the French-window. Even while this thought was passing through my mind, the voices of the men sank to a whisper, and a low peculiar grating sound made itself heard. Evidently they had already begun to force the fastenings of the window. I crept back to my room, feeling utterly dazed and helpless.
‘Is that you, Barbara? Where have you been?’ asked my sister.
Going into her room, I sat down on the side of the bed and told her everything in as few words as possible. She was of a somewhat timid and nervous disposition, and my news visibly affected her. She sat up in bed, trembling and clinging to my arm.
‘Perhaps,’ she whispered, ‘if we lock our bedroom doors and keep very quiet, they will go away without coming near us.’
‘Why, you goose, it’s not us they have come after, but Mr Shillito’s ninety pounds,’ I answered.
‘And there’s poor mamma’s silver tea-service down-stairs; I hope they won’t find that,’ said Bessie.
I hoped so too; but there was no judging how much Dethel had contrived to ascertain respecting us and our affairs. I went to the corridor window again and listened. The noise made by the men was now plainly distinguishable. It seemed as if they were trying to file or cut their way through some obstruction. After listening for a few moments, I went back to my room and began almost mechanically to put on a few articles of clothing, asking myself again and again as I did so whether it was not possible to do something—though what that something ought to be I knew no more than the man in the moon. The nearest house was a quarter of a mile away; and even if I could have stolen out unnoticed by way of the front-door, before I could have reached the farm and brought back help, the burglars would have effected their purpose and decamped. Our pecuniary means at that time were very straitened. For some time back John had been paying off some old family debts; and the loss of the ninety pounds—which, as a matter of course, he would feel bound to make good—would be a great blow to him. If I could only have got at the money, and have hidden it where the burglars would not be likely to find it, I felt that I should have accomplished something. But the bag was locked up in John’s strong mahogany desk, and was as utterly beyond my reach as if it had been in the coffers of the Bank of England, while yet it could hardly have been placed more conveniently ready to the hands of the thieves. To them the strong mahogany desk would seem a trifling obstacle indeed.
All this time, metaphorically speaking, I was wringing my hands, knowing full well how precious were the fast-fleeting moments, but only feeling my helplessness the more, the more I strove to discern some loophole of escape. Oh, the wretchedness of such a feeling! I hope never to experience it again in the same degree as I experienced it that night.
The lightning, if not quite so vivid as it had been a little while previously, still came in as frequent flashes, and by its light my sister and I made a hurried toilet. Our house stood a little way back from the high-road, from which it was divided by a tiny lawn and a low screen of evergreens. Once or twice in the course of the night one of the mounted constabulary would ride slowly past as he went his rounds; but I was without any knowledge as to the particular time when he might be expected, or whether, in fact, the time at which he might be looked for at any specified point did not vary from night to night. Still, there was just a possibility that he might put in an appearance at any moment; so I stationed Bessie at the window to keep a lookout for him, and be in readiness to raise an alarm the moment she heard the tramp of his horse’s hoofs. For once in a way the lightning was something to be thankful for; each flash lighted up the high-road for a considerable distance on both sides of the house.
When this was done, it seemed as if everything possible had been done; and yet it was next to nothing. With both hands pressed to my eyes, I stood thinking as I seemed never to have thought before. Then it was that—as sudden, swift, and startling as one of those flashes which{523} were momently illumining the outer world—an idea shot through my brain, which for an instant or two seemed to cause my heart to stand still. And yet at the first blush it was an idea that had about it something so preposterous, so ludicrous, even, that had the need been at all less imminent, I should have discarded it at once as little better than the inspiration of a mad woman. But preposterous as the idea might seem, for the life of me I could think of no other, and every minute now was invaluable. There was no time for hesitation. I must discard it or adopt it, and that without a moment’s delay. ‘I will try it; it can but fail,’ I said to myself with an inward groan.
On the toilet-table was a jar of white tooth-powder, which had been replenished the previous day. I shook out a quantity of this powder, shut my eyes, and proceeded to rub it thickly over my face, arms, and hands. That done, I drew the white coverlet off the bed, and draped myself with it loosely from head to foot; then I unbound my hair, which in those days was ebon black and reached below my waist, and shook it round my face and over my shoulders in ‘most admired disorder.’ I was now ready for the rôle I had made up my mind to enact.
Bessie has told me since that she thought I had taken leave of my senses. Just at the moment my toilet was completed, and as I turned and advanced towards her, another long, quivering flash lighted up the room. A low shriek burst involuntarily from my sister’s lips, and she shrank away from me as though I were something altogether uncanny.
‘O Barbara, dear, what is the matter?’ she cried. ‘Why do you frighten me so?’
‘It is not you I want to frighten, but the men down-stairs,’ I replied. Then, in a few hurried words, I told her my plan.
She would have tried to dissuade me; but there was no time to listen. Leaving her there watching by the window, ready to raise an alarm in case the mounted constable should pass on his round, I stole swiftly and noiselessly down the carpeted staircase, and only paused when I reached the corridor below. I could hear a subdued murmur of voices, and a moment later I was startled by a noise of falling glass. The burglars had succeeded in effecting an entrance. They and I were separated only by the drawing-room door, which, although locked, was an obstacle that very few minutes would suffice to overcome. With an indrawing of my breath I sped quickly past the door along the length of the corridor until I reached the opposite end, where there were two more doors, one of them being that of my brother’s office, which also was locked, and from the lock of which I now withdrew the key. I have omitted to state that the window of John’s office was secured by two stout bars, which was probably one reason why the thieves had chosen to effect an entrance at a point more readily adapted for their purpose. The second door at the end of the corridor shut off a short passage leading to the kitchen. This door I succeeded in opening without noise. I had decided to take my stand a little way on the inner side of it, and there await the course of events. By this time the men were busily at work forcing the lock of the drawing-room door. A thin thread of light which shone from under showed that although the lightning was still as frequent as before, they did not find it sufficient for their purpose.
Scarcely breathing, I waited. I was too excited, too wrought up, the tension of my nerves was too extreme, to allow of any personal fear. It was all terribly real, yet with a strange, vague sense of unreality underlying it. I felt as if I should not have been surprised had I woke up and found the whole affair resolve itself into a dream; while yet fully assured in my mind that it was nothing of the kind. Suddenly the noise at the door ceased; the lock had been forced. The thread of light disappeared; for a few moments all was silence the most profound. Then a faint creaking, which at any other time would have been inaudible, told me that the drawing-room door was being opened and that the crucial moment had come. I pressed one hand over my heart, and for a few brief seconds an almost overpowering longing seized me to get back to my room at any cost and lock myself within. But it was too late; by this time the men were in the corridor. I knew it, although I could not see them.
‘Where’s the door we want?’ I heard one whisper to the other.
‘On the right—the first door we come to.’
As they advanced a step, I did the same.
‘What noise was that?’ asked one of them quickly.
‘Don’t be a fool. There was no noise.’
‘I tell you there was.—Where’s the glim?’
But the lightning was quicker than the bull’s-eye. It came, smiting the darkness, and flooding the corridor with the blinding intensity of its glare. Then I saw the men, and the men saw me, but darkness had hidden us from each other again before they had time to make sure that their eyes had not deceived them.
One of them gave a gasp and whispered to his mate: ‘What was that tall, white thing at the end of the passage? Seemed to me like a ghost.’
‘Ghost be dashed! There ain’t no such things.—Here’s the glim. We’ll soon see what it is.’ As he spoke, the light of his bull’s-eye lantern was turned full upon me.
I advanced a couple of paces, and the men fell back in speechless surprise and terror. I have often tried since to picture to myself the appearance I must have presented when seen at such a moment and by that uncertain light, with my ghastly, death-like face, my dilated eyes, my black, snake-like locks, my tall figure all in white, and with one extended arm and finger pointed direct at the men. I cannot wonder at their fright.
At this juncture came another flash, and a terrible peal of thunder startled the air and shook the house. At the very instant, impelled thereto by something within me that I was powerless to control, I burst into a wild peal of maniacal, blood-curdling laughter. One step nearer I advanced; but that was enough. With a loud yell of terror, the men turned and fled by the way they had come. I heard a crash of shattered glass; and after that, I remember nothing more till I came to my senses, to find Bessie supporting my head on her lap and pressing her smelling-salts to my nose.
{524}
But John’s ninety pounds were saved, and it is hardly necessary to add that Dethel the ex-gardener was never seen in those parts again.
It may not be inopportune to recall to the minds of our readers a somewhat neglected silk-source, which may perhaps at some future period form a profitable commercial undertaking. It is unnecessary to expatiate upon the beauty of the gossamer spun by the Aranea diadema, or common Garden spider, as the fairy-like tracery must be familiar to every one who has wandered through the woods in autumn, when the gauzy films festooned between and over the bushes were rendered prominent through saturation with dew or a sprinkling of hoar-frost. The thread produced by this little creature is estimated to be many times finer than the most attenuated filament of the well-known silkworm of Europe, the Bombyx mori; consequently, as may be imagined, the difficulty of obtaining such silk is so great that, except for land-surveying purposes, the web of spiders as a class has not been permanently utilised. For the latter object, the plan adopted by our surveying instrument makers[1] in order to secure small supplies of spider’s line, is remarkably simple, and affords an illustration of how closely instinct in the lower creation sometimes approaches reasoning intelligence in the higher. Having caught the selected spider, it is immediately tossed backwards and forwards from hand to hand of the operator, until the impulse of self-preservation induces the emission of its thread. Meanwhile, a wire, bent double like a hairpin—the distance between the prongs being slightly greater than the diameter of the telescope to be fitted—is at hand to receive the silk. As soon as the filament appears, the end is attached to the wire and the spider dropped, when it immediately emits its thread with great rapidity, in the hope of reaching the ground and escaping. This is frustrated by a dexterous revolution of the extemporised reel, which winds up the line as fast as it is produced, until the spider’s store of silk is exhausted. It is then allowed its liberty; and a touch of gum on each prong secures the silk in convenient lengths for future use.
Rather more than fifty years ago, it seemed as if a new and important trade was about to be inaugurated by the rearing of spiders for their silk, which the Society of Arts marked with their approval by awarding a medal to a Mr Rolt for his success in obtaining an appreciable quantity from the Garden spider. This gentleman accomplished his purpose by connecting a reel with a steam-engine, setting it revolving at the rate of one hundred and fifty feet per minute; when, after two hours’ patience, he wound off eighteen thousand feet of beautiful white line of a metallic lustre from twenty-four spiders. Subsequent examination proved this thread to be only the thirty-thousandth part of an inch in diameter, so that a single pound-weight was estimated to be sufficient to encircle the globe. Although this gentleman appears not to have pushed his interesting experiments much further, a Frenchman of Languedoc afterwards established a factory for producing and weaving spider-silk into articles of utility. He manufactured gloves and stockings which were much admired; but the difficulty of rearing a sufficiently numerous family of spinners within a reasonable space, on account of their extreme pugnacity, soon interfered with this budding industry, and led to its abandonment. No difficulty was experienced by M. Reaumur in collecting some five thousand spiders and immuring them in fifty separate cells; but unfortunately, on one occasion there occurred a scarcity of flies; a food-panic ensued, and the hungry and infuriated prisoners, escaping during the night, fell upon one another with such deadly ferocity, that when the anxious proprietor paid his usual morning visit, only a few gorged and bloated specimens survived. It seemed, indeed, so vain to expect European spiders to exist peacefully within sight and reach of each other without their usual employment conducted after their own fashion, that the hope of rendering them useful for commercial purposes gradually died away, and has for many years been almost wholly relinquished.
Certain species of foreign spiders, however, when examined with a view to their silk, offer a field of very considerable encouragement. In the island of Ceylon there is one described by Sir Samuel Baker as being two inches long, with a large yellow spot upon its back, which spins a beautiful yellow web two and a half feet in diameter, so strong that an ordinary walking-stick thrown in is entangled, and retained among the meshes. As might be expected, the filament, which is said to exhibit a more silky appearance than common spider’s web, is easily wound by hand on a card, without any special care being exercised in the operation. A spider of even more formidable dimensions is alluded to in the fascinating work, The Gardens of the Sun, by Mr F. W. Burbidge. It is a large, black, yellow-spotted creature, measuring six or eight inches across its extended legs, and it spins a web strained on lines as stout as fine sewing-cotton.
The prince of the species, however, seems to be the Aranea maculata of Brazil, vouched for by Dr Walsh as having been seen and examined by him during his travels in that country. In this huge, ungainly, yet harmless and domesticated creature, we evidently possess a treasure of a silk-spinner, with which the non-nervous and practical among our colonial ladies, situated in moderately warm localities like Northern New Zealand, Queensland, and the Cape of Good Hope, might spend many a profitable hour when they became mutually acquainted. It is not only free from the vices of the European spider in not devouring its kind, but it actually exists in little harmonious communities of over one hundred individuals of different ages and sizes occupying the same web. Like the last-mentioned spider, this one is of similar colossal dimensions, and it spins a beautiful yellow network ten or twelve feet in diameter quite as strong as the silk of commerce. Regarding the toughness of this filament, the doctor{525} says: ‘In passing through an opening between some trees, I felt my head entangled in some obstruction, and on withdrawing it, my light straw-hat remained behind. When I looked up, I saw it suspended in the air, entangled in the meshes of an immense cobweb, which was drawn like a veil of thick gauze across the opening, and was expanded from branch to branch of the opposite trees as large as a sheet, ten or twelve feet in diameter.’ Another traveller, Lieutenant Herndon of the United States navy, confirms Dr Walsh’s account of this enormous spider, with the addition that he saw a single web which nearly covered a lemon tree; and he estimated its diameter at ten yards!
Probably the latest addition to our knowledge of spider-silk has recently come from the Paris ‘Ecole pratique d’Acclimation,’ a member of which has discovered an African species which spins a strong yellow web, so like the product of the silkworm as to be scarcely distinguishable from it. So promising a material as a fibre of commerce does this seem to be, that, after close investigation, a syndicate of Lyons silk-merchants has reported in its favour; the more so as there is said to be no difficulty in acclimatising the spider in France.
In those gigantic spiders there is evidently the nucleus of an important industry of the future, which colonists might perhaps easily ingraft upon their ordinary sericultural or other occupations. If the period has scarcely yet arrived for the profitable utilisation of ordinary spider’s web, surely something might be evolved from the less attenuated filaments just alluded to, which are strong enough to whisk a man’s hat from his head and retain his walking-stick dangling in the air. There are countless difficulties to be surmounted, such as the feeling of repulsion, or even disgust, at being brought into proximity with monstrous spiders like Dr Walsh’s pets; but as this species, unlike the Lycosa tarantula and other poisonous and dreaded kinds, is harmless to human beings, and as their silk would evidently become a valuable addition to the resources of the loom as well as the boudoir, any such feelings and other obstacles would probably soon be overcome. The French—always in the van in such matters, notwithstanding their comparatively limited colonial opportunities—are not likely to allow this curious and interesting occupation to go begging for want of experiment and patience. But Britain—with her numerous dependencies and myriads of active, scheming, inventive brains scattered all over the globe—occupies a peculiarly favourable position to test and localise such an industry.
The days when Border moss-troopers made a raid on the well-stocked farmyards of Northumberland, or when Highland caterans swooped down from Rob Roy’s country to levy ‘blackmail’ or ‘toom a fauld’ in the Lennox or in the Carse of Stirling, and departed, leaving burning byres or weeping widows behind, are for ever gone. Gone, too, are those later days when bold highwaymen of the Dick Turpin type—all well mounted and equipped, if we are to credit the legends that have come down to us—stopped the mailcoach or the travelling postchaise, and made the terrified passengers hand over their valuables. The traveller of to-day, whether cyclist or pedestrian, may roam from John o’ Groat’s to Land’s End without interruption from highwayman or footpad. The thieving profession has changed its character; and as now unfolded in courts of justice, it appears vulgar, prosaic, and mean. Indeed, we are doubtful if it was not always so. The pen of the novelist has thrown a glamour of romance around that as well as other features of former times, which we love to read about, but should not care to experience. But while this is so, the study of thieves as a class is far from being uninteresting. It has been our lot to see much of them and to learn more, from sources whose reliability is unquestionable.
There are many grades of intellect and ability among these Ishmaelites—from the low type of thief that lies in wait in our large towns for children going messages, and, beguiling them into a dark close, strips them of clothing and money—to the well-dressed, well-bred man of the world, who floats a swindling Company, has his office in a good locality, moves for a time in the best circles, and then decamps, carrying with him the capital of the elderly annuitant, or the hard-earned savings of the struggling tradesman. To her shame be it said, the child-stripper is generally a woman. Far more to his shame, the high-class swindler is generally a well-educated man, who occupies a good position in society, and has often only his own folly to blame for his having fallen to be a needy adventurer. They differ in degree, but not in kind; and though the law may call their offences by different names, the essence of the crime is the same in both cases.
It is sad to see mere children, charged with daring acts of pocket-picking or purse-snatching, brought before a court; but such is often their only chance of salvation from a life of crime. Smutty-faced, ragged little urchins many of them are, dressed in clothes and shoes a world too big for them; and yet, when the dirt is washed from their faces, there is the glance of keen intelligence, and often comely features, underneath. Brought up in the murky closes that yet occupy the older parts of most of our cities, surrounded by influences such as may be inhaled from drunken, swearing men, and tawdry, coarse, and unkempt women, how could they grow up other than they do? Perchance they are reared in low lodging-houses, where a clever theft or an artful dodge is extolled as worthy of the highest admiration, or where some old hand is assiduous in giving them training lessons in crime. Industrial and Reformatory Schools are worthy of all support, checking as they do the career of these young prodigals while yet there is some hope. Apart altogether from considerations of a higher nature, it is surely to the interest of the public that children should be trained into useful wealth-producing members of the community, instead of growing up to prey upon society when out of prison, and burden the ratepayers when in.
A large number of thieves are merely skirmishers or auxiliaries, as it were, on the flanks of the regular army. These auxiliaries do not{526} live wholly by crime, but have some ostensible occupation which they follow. At the same time, they never lose a good opportunity of stealing. In all large towns, the cinder-gatherer may be seen. Late at night and early in the morning she goes through the streets and lanes, probing with a long knife the depths and shallows of every dust-heap, and rescuing therefrom every scrap that will sell. Papers, rags, bones, cinders, and old boots are transferred with marvellous celerity into the depths of the capacious bag which she carries. Should a stray door-mat be lying handy, or an unsecured back-door give access to a green where clothes lie bleaching, her ideas of meum and tuum become straightway rather hazy, and the chances are that a theft is reported next morning. A large number of thefts of umbrellas and greatcoats from lobbies are the work of pedlars, beggars, or old-clothesmen, who loaf around and watch their chance. A smart ‘professional’ of our acquaintance, who is at present in penal servitude, was an adept at stealing greatcoats. He had a piece of wire with a sort of hook on one end, with which he could snatch them from lobby-pegs without making his own appearance. Each ‘professional’ has his own particular style of thieving in which he has graduated. These soon become known to the detectives, who, on learning the modus operandi of a theft, are often able to pounce on the person wanted, even when no description can be supplied.
One class of theft was very prevalent in Glasgow and neighbourhood some time ago. A man dressed like a tradesman called at a number of houses where the owners happened to be absent. (Of course the operator satisfied himself on that point first.) He represented that he had been sent by some well-known firm of upholsterers to measure a room for a new carpet, or by a joiner to repair the windows. In various instances, he got into houses, and generally found an opportunity to steal. Another thief well known in Dundee does the ‘pigeon’ trick. His method is to look out for an open window, ring the bell, and say that a pigeon has just flown away from him on the street and fluttered in at the window. Would they kindly search for it, or permit him to do so? Once in, ten to one but the clever thief manages to commit a theft before he goes out lamenting the loss of his bird, which, of course, cannot be found.
A decrepit youth used to go about the city in which the writer lives. This lad’s legs were useless, so he had flat boards fastened with straps below his knees, and, assisted by short crutches, he crept along the pavement. He was a dexterous thief. If a lady stopped to look in at a shop-window, he could just reach her handbag or pocket; and if she was unwary, she was minus her purse in a few seconds, while the insignificant appearance of the thief disarmed suspicion.
Thieves sometimes quarrel in their cups, and if a detective happens to meet them before the heat of anger has passed off, spitefulness often induces them to give him valuable information. Criminals are almost always prodigal in spending their ill-gotten gains, and the old proverb, ‘Lightly come, lightly go,’ seems specially applicable to them. If in funds, they share freely with their needy brethren, probably with an eye to receiving similar help when out at the knees and elbows themselves.
Stolen property is often stowed away in very curious hiding-places. A lame man was convicted at Leeds assizes last year of passing base coin. When apprehended, it was found he had a receptacle in his wooden leg, in which a considerable stock of the bad money was cunningly secreted. We have sometimes seen a considerable pile of coins unearthed from the voluminous folds of a ragged coat, trousers, or vest. Banknotes, for obvious reasons, are capable of being stowed away in little space; and thieves often hide them in the cracked joints of a dilapidated old table, chair, or bed. Underneath a picture, or between the portrait and the back, appears to be a favourite place of concealment. Articles are often ‘planked’ in the chimney behind the grate; and a watch has even been tossed into a glowing coal-fire, when pursuit was close, although in at least one instance the latter device was unavailing. Two detectives were once searching the house of a well-known thief for some stolen jewellery. The scent was keen, and the examination searching. High and low they rummaged, but without success. From the air of the thief, the officers were satisfied the stolen property was concealed in or about the room. One of them observed that the interest of the ‘suspect’ got always most intense as they approached the window. Taking this as his cue, the officer narrowly examined the shutters, and even tore off the straps that kept in the window-sashes; but without result. Suddenly, a thought struck him, and lifting the lower sash, he scanned the outside of the wall closely. About three or four feet below the window-sill he saw a stone in the wall that appeared to be loose. Calling his comrade to hold him by the legs, he reached down, pulled out a small square stone, thrust in his hand, and found a nice little ‘hide,’ containing not only the articles he was in search of, but also other stolen property sufficient to connect the thief with several ‘jobs,’ and to procure him a long term of quiet contemplation.
A smart female thief once very nearly outwitted an officer by wrapping a crumpled and dirty five-pound note round a candle, and stuffing it into a candlestick, which she then obligingly handed to him. He searched a considerable time before discovering that he had the object of his search in his hand. Another detective, after in vain searching a house for some trussed poultry that had been stolen, cast one parting glance around, when his eye chanced to alight on a cradle in which a woman was vainly trying to hush a squalling baby. A thought struck him. He asked her to lift the child. The woman made some excuse, but the officer insisted, and was immediately rewarded by finding a couple of the stolen fowls.
A slight clue, sometimes discovered by the merest accident, often helps to unravel not only one, but a whole series of thefts. A peculiar button, a footmark, or a portion of dress, will spring a mine under the feet of a rascal who thought he was off scot-free. Of late years, thefts of money by young clerks or salesmen from their employers have become increasingly common. There are several causes for this. Beyond doubt the tastes and habits of the young men of{527} to-day are more expensive than those of their fathers. With small means, or no means at all, they dress up as ‘mashers,’ and smoke choice cigars, attend theatres, concerts, balls, and race-meetings. If often indulged in, these are rather expensive luxuries; and as the supply of youths anxious for genteel employment is always in excess of the demand, the salaries given are in many cases low. Then firms are sometimes very lax in the oversight of young men who have large sums of money daily passing through their hands. It seems so easy to take the loan of a small sum, which, of course, is to be put back again. After the first false step, the descent is rapid; and many a young man fills a felon’s cell, or has to fly the country, under circumstances due to his master’s carelessness as well as his own folly.
The plea of kleptomania is now put forward in defence of thieves much oftener than it used to be. Of course there are some cases in which kleptomania is indisputable, as, for instance, when we hear of a nobleman having to be watched by his valet to prevent him from pocketing his own silver spoons. We know a respectable bookseller who had for a considerable time, at intervals, been missing books from his shop. He was satisfied some of his customers were helping themselves, but he could not say which. At last his suspicions rested on a reverend gentleman of great abilities, but rather eccentric character. He watched him narrowly, and one day caught him in the act of surreptitiously carrying off a volume. The divine tried to explain it away; but the bookseller, after listening gravely, called a cab, and insisted on accompanying him home and examining his library. He hinted that otherwise he would be under the painful necessity of calling in the police. The clergyman made no further objection. They went to his house; and the bookseller brought back a number of valuable books, some of which he had not before missed, and said no more about the matter. The thief was a wealthy man, and had a large library; but he was a bibliomaniac.
Some thefts, however, are of a different character, and in these the plea of kleptomania, like that of insanity in cases of murder, is sometimes pushed rather far. Without attempting to argue the matter on scientific principles, it seems rather strange that kleptomania appears only to affect those who are rich enough to pay an able advocate, and that the morbid desire to steal something—instead of moving them to carry it off openly—appears to be accompanied by an equally morbid desire to secrete the article stolen.
We shall conclude this paper by one or two instances which show that thieving has also its comic side.
A fire was raging fiercely in a grocery store, and the owner, accompanied by an active staff of assistants, was trying to rescue some of the goods by removing them to one side. Immense cheeses and hams were lying about in tempting profusion. A keen-eyed thief had just secured a large Gouda, and was marching off with it, when he found himself face to face with a policeman. The rogue grasped the situation instantly. ‘Here, policeman!’ cried he, planting the cheese in X’s arms before that officer knew what he was about; ‘you had better take charge of that, or somebody’ll be carrying it off;’ and in an instant the nimble rascal disappeared in the crowd.
One morning, a merchant who had come by rail from his country residence was hurrying along the street to his counting-house in a pouring rain. He had forgotten his umbrella; but spying, as he thought, a friend with a large one a little before him, he hastened up, and seizing the handle of the umbrella, jocularly observed: ‘Hillo! is this mine you’ve got?’ He had just had time to observe that the man was a complete stranger to him, and was about to apologise in some embarrassment, when the unknown saved him the trouble, by saying coolly: ‘Oh, it’s yours, is it? Pardon me; I did not know.’ And he hurried off, leaving the astonished merchant in full possession.
About two years ago, a constable in a business part of London found a horse and van, about midnight, standing at the door of a grocer’s shop. He approached, and saw several men in aprons, apparently carrying chests of tea into the shop. Remarking that they were late at work, one of the men replied: ‘O yes; we’re preparing for Christmas;’ and the constable, thinking all was right, walked on. Next morning it was found the shop had been entered by thieves, who had carried off what they evidently took to be twenty-two half-chests of tea, most of which had been standing in the shop-window. The rogues had gone leisurely to work, and being caught by the constable, had employed themselves in carrying in some of the boxes, till he should pass. The reader may judge the surprise and disgust of the thieves, when they found that only one of the chests contained tea, and a second tea-dust, the remaining twenty boxes being merely ‘dummies’ filled with sawdust, with a sprinkling of tea on the top!
Nothing tends more to root out and lessen the number of nests of thieves than the exercise of the power vested in corporations to pull down old houses, which, densely populated with the poorer classes, become at last the abodes of filth, disease, and crime. The former inmates cannot stand the new sanitary and social atmosphere introduced by wider streets and purer air. They gradually betake themselves to other and more honest modes of employment, or seek for ‘fresh woods and pastures new.’ On the other hand, the exercise of a little prudence and common-sense by the general public would prevent an opportunity being given for the commission of a large number of petty but often very annoying thefts.
A short distance from the very heart of London, stands—for it has not yet been swept away by the builder’s hand—one of the finest remaining relics of the ancient city. It is a heavy fortified gate, built of large blocks of freestone, and flanked by bastions. It has a fine groined Norman arch; and though it is now old and decayed, it is still strong, and shows us what its strength and stability have been in days gone by. It was built by, and belonged to, at one time, that famous order of chivalry, ‘The Knights Hospitallers,’ or ‘Knights of St John of Jerusalem,’ the great rivals of the Templars, and who did such good service{528} in the Holy Land in the time of the crusades; and when Palestine was hopelessly lost, kept up their incessant war against the Infidel in Rhodes, and when driven from that island by the Turks—in Malta.
This order had at one time many religious houses scattered over Europe; and their London priory, that of St John of Clerkenwell, has quite a history of its own to tell. It was founded in the year 1100 by a devout baron named Jordan Briset, this being the time that the first crusade, led by Godfrey of Bouillon, was going on. For a considerable time after this, we know little of the priory, save that the knights were growing in riches and arrogance, and thus were making themselves obnoxious to the people, although some of the old chroniclers tell us that ‘they tended the sick and the needy.’ In fact, they got to be so disliked by the common people, that in the riots which took place in the reign of Richard II.—in which Wat Tyler, Jack Straw, and John Ball took so prominent a part, the last-named being a clergyman, who, in his harangues to the multitude, took for his text the rhyme,
and made the people think that all the property of the rich was really theirs—the rebels made the Priory of St John a special mark of their fury, and after destroying houses and much property belonging to the knights, they attacked the place itself and burnt it to the ground; and capturing the prior soon after, they executed him upon the spot.
For many years after, the knights were engaged in building a new priory; but the work went slowly on, owing to the troubled state of the order at what was then their great stronghold, Rhodes, and the large numbers of men and sums of money required there to assist in keeping back the conquering Turks, who were fighting with great zeal under the victorious Sultan Solyman. Gradually, a fine church, whose bell is related to have had an exceedingly fine tone, was added to the priory; and soon after the church was finished, Thomas Dockwra, who was then prior, built the gate; this being in or about the year 1504, in the latter part of the reign of Henry VII., the first of the famous dynasty of Tudor sovereigns.
About the year 1540, Henry VIII. suppressed all the larger monasteries and private religious houses in England, and the venerable priory fell with the others. This was a severe blow to the prosperity of the order, and is said to have broken the heart of the valiant old L’isle Adam, the grandmaster, who held Rhodes till he could hold it no longer, and then, obtaining honourable terms from the Sultan Solyman, removed to the island of Malta, where the knights continued to be a powerful enemy to the Turks until 1798, when, ‘through the treachery of the Maltese, and the cowardice of D’Hompesch the grandmaster, the island was surrendered to the French;’ and soon after this, most of the property still belonging to the order in many parts of Europe was confiscated by the various governments. Since then, the order, which had been gradually degenerating, has not had any political importance.
The priory, however, was not destroyed, like most of its kindred buildings, at the Reformation, for even the bluff, matter-of-fact King Henry had some respect for the venerable old building; and so, instead of destroying it, we are told that he used it for a military storehouse. In Edward VI.’s reign, however, a more ruthless and sweeping hand came to deal with it. The proud and ambitious Seymour, Duke of Somerset, at that time Lord Protector, had no kindly feeling for such places; and the church and all the rest of the priory, with the exception of the gate, were blown up with gunpowder. The large blocks of stone were used to build Somerset’s palace in the Strand in 1549. It remained till the year 1776, when it gave place to the present one, a building erected after the Palladian style, from the designs of Sir William Chambers.
We hear nothing more of the gate till the reign of James I., when that monarch bestowed the building on Sir Roger Wilbraham, who lived there for many years. Long after this, Cave the printer rented the old gate for a small sum, and here was first printed and published the Gentleman’s Magazine. This was one of the first places to which Dr Johnson, then poor, and almost unknown, came, when he settled in the great city. Here he made his first literary efforts by helping Cave in his publication. Here also Garrick the actor first played, some of Cave’s interested workmen taking the other parts of the pieces.
The old gate is now turned into a tavern, called Old Jerusalem Tavern, and inside may still be seen some interesting relics of the former days of the gate, when it was the chief entrance to the priory of one of the most powerful religious bodies in Europe. Who can look upon such a relic without being reminded of the great spirit of chivalry, that strange compound of barbarity and courtesy; of the crusades, and the great changes which have taken place since the time of the prosperous days of the old priory? and we cannot but feel thankful that we live in a happier, less troubled, and more enlightened age; and as we gaze upon the grim old gate, think of the words of Shakspeare: ‘To what base uses may we return.’
Printed and Published by W. & R. Chambers, 47 Paternoster Row, London, and 339 High Street, Edinburgh.
All Rights Reserved.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] In theodolites and other similar instruments for taking observations, lines of spider-silk cross the centre of the glass at right angles for certain purposes of observation.