No. 9.—Vol. I.
Price 1½d.
SATURDAY, MARCH 1, 1884.
{129}
BIRDS OF SPRING.
BY MEAD AND STREAM.
CALLS BEFORE THE CURTAIN.
THE MINER’S PARTNER.
CURIOSITIES OF THE ELECTRIC LIGHT.
HUSH-MONEY.
DONALD—A PONY.
No. 9.—Vol. I.
Price 1½d.
SATURDAY, MARCH 1, 1884.
BY RICHARD JEFFERIES, AUTHOR OF THE ‘GAMEKEEPER AT HOME,’ ETC.
The birds of spring come as imperceptibly as the leaves. One by one the buds open on hawthorn and willow, till all at once the hedges appear green, and so the birds steal quietly into the bushes and trees, till by-and-by a chorus fills the wood, and each warm shower is welcomed with varied song. To many, the majority of spring-birds are really unknown; the cuckoo, the nightingale, and the swallow, are all with which they are acquainted, and these three make the summer. The loud cuckoo cannot be overlooked by any one passing even a short time in the fields; the nightingale is so familiar in verse that every one tries to hear it; and the swallows enter the towns and twitter at the chimney-top. But these are really only the principal representatives of the crowd of birds that flock to our hedges in the early summer; and perhaps it would be accurate to say that no other area of equal extent, either in Europe or elsewhere, receives so many feathered visitors. The English climate is the established subject of abuse, yet it is the climate most preferred and sought by the birds, who have the choice of immense continents.
Nothing that I have ever read of, or seen, or that I expect to see, equals the beauty and the delight of a summer spent in our woods and meadows. Green leaves and grass, and sunshine, blue skies, and sweet brooks—there is nothing to approach it; it is no wonder the birds are tempted to us. The food they find is so abundant, that after all their efforts, little apparent diminution can be noticed; to this fertile and lovely country, therefore, they hasten every year. It might be said that the spring-birds begin to come to us in the autumn, as early as October, when hedge-sparrows and golden-crested wrens, larks, blackbirds, and thrushes, and many others, float over on the gales from the coasts of Norway. Their numbers, especially of the smaller birds, such as larks, are immense, and their line of flight so extended that it strikes our shores for a distance of two hundred miles. The vastness of these numbers, indeed, makes me question whether they all come from Scandinavia. That is their route; Norway seems to be the last land they see before crossing; but I think it possible that their original homes may have been farther still. Though many go back in the spring, many individuals remain here, and rejoice in the plenty of the hedgerows. As all roads of old time led to Rome, so do bird-routes lead to these islands. Some of these birds appear to pair in November, and so have settled their courtship long before the crocuses of St Valentine. Much difference is apparent in the dates recorded of the arrivals in spring; they vary year by year, and now one and now another bird presents itself first, so that I shall not in these notes attempt to arrange them in strict order.
One of the first noticeable in southern fields is the common wagtail. When his shrill note is heard echoing against the walls of the outhouses as he rises from the ground, the carters and ploughmen know that there will not be much more frost. If icicles hang from the thatched eaves, they will not long hang, but melt before the softer wind. The bitter part of winter is over. The wagtail is a house-bird, making the houses or cattle-pens its centre, and remaining about them for months. There is not a farmhouse in the south of England without its summer pair of wagtails, not more than one pair as a rule, for they are not gregarious till winter; but considering that every farmhouse has its pair, their numbers must be really large.
Where wheatears frequent, their return is very marked; they appear suddenly in the gardens and open places, and cannot be overlooked. Swallows return one by one at first, and we get used to them by degrees. The wheatears seem to drop out of the night, and to be showered down on the ground in the morning. A white bar on the tail renders them conspicuous, for at that time much of the surface of the earth is bare and dark. Naturally birds of the wildest{130} and most open country, they yet show no dread, but approach the houses closely. They are local in their habits, or perhaps follow a broad but well-defined route of migration; so that while common in one place, they are rare in others. In two localities with which I am familiar, and know every path, I never saw a wheatear. I heard of them occasionally as passing over, but they were not birds of the district. In Sussex, on the contrary, the wheatear is as regularly seen as the blackbird; and in the spring and summer you cannot go a walk without finding them. They change their ground three times: first on arrival, they feed in the gardens and arable fields; next, they go up on the hills; lastly, they return to the coast, and frequent the extreme edge of the cliffs and the land by the shore. Every bird has its different manner; I do not know how else to express it. Now, the wheatears move in numbers, and yet not in concert; in spring, perhaps twenty may be counted in sight at once on the ground, feeding together and yet quite separate; just opposite in manner to starlings, who feed side by side and rise and fly as one. Every wheatear feeds by himself, a space between him and his neighbour, dotted about, and yet they obviously have a certain amount of mutual understanding; they recognise that they belong to the same family, but maintain their individuality. On the hills in their breeding season they act in the same way; each pair has a wide piece of turf, sometimes many acres. But if you see one pair, it is certain that other pairs are in the neighbourhood. In their breeding-grounds they will not permit a man to approach so near as when they arrive, or as when the nesting is over. At the time of their arrival, any one can walk up within a short distance; so again in autumn. During the nesting-time the wheatear perches on a molehill, or a large flint, or any slight elevation above the open surface of the downs, and allows no one to come closer than fifty yards.
The hedge-sparrows, that creep about the bushes of the hedgerow as mice creep about the banks, are early in spring joined by the whitethroats, almost the first hedgebirds to return. The thicker the undergrowth of nettles and wild parsley, rushes and rough grasses, the more the whitethroat likes the spot. Amongst this tangled mass he lives and feeds, slipping about under the brambles and ferns as rapidly as if the way was clear. Loudest of all, the chiff-chaff sings in the ash woods, bare and leafless, while yet the sharp winds rush between the poles, rattling them together, and bringing down the dead twigs to the earth. The violets are difficult to find, few and scattered; but his clear note rings in the hushes of the eastern breeze, encouraging the flowers. It is very pleasant indeed to hear him; one’s hands are dry and the skin rough with the east wind; the trunks of the trees look dry, and the lichens have shrivelled on the bark; the brook looks dark; gray dust rises and drifts, and the gray clouds hurry over; but the chiff-chaff sings, and it is certainly spring. The first green leaves which the elder put forth in January have been burned up by frost, and the woodbine, which looked as if it would soon be entirely green then, has been checked, and remains a promise only. The chiff-chaff tells the buds of the coming April rains and the sweet soft intervals of warm sun. He is a sure forerunner. He defies the bitter wind; his little heart is as true as steel. He is one of the birds in which I feel a personal interest, as if I could converse with him. The willow-wren, his friend, comes later, and has a gentler, plaintive song.
Meadow-pipits are not migrants in the sense that the swallows are; but they move about and so change their localities, that when they come back they have much of the interest of a spring-bird. They rise from the ground and sing in the air like larks, but not at such a height, nor is the song so beautiful. These, too, are early birds. They often frequent very exposed places, as the side of a hill where the air is keen, and where one would not expect to meet with so lively a little creature. The pond has not yet any of the growths that will presently render its margin green; the willow-herbs are still low, the aquatic grasses have not become strong, and the osiers are without leaf. If examined closely, evidences of growth would be found everywhere around it; but as yet the surface is open, and it looks cold. Along the brook the shoals are visible, as the flags have not risen from the stems which were cut down in the autumn. In the sedges, however, the first young shoots are thrusting up, and the reeds have started, slender green stalks tipped with the first leaves. At the verge of the water, a thick green plant of marsh-marigold has one or two great golden flowers open. This is the appearance of his home when the sedge-reedling returns to it. Sometimes he may be seen flitting across the pond, or perched for a moment on an exposed branch; but he quickly returns to the dry sedges or the bushes, or climbs in and out the willow-stoles. It is too bare and open for him at the pond, or even by the brook-side. So much does he love concealment, that although to be near the water is his habit, for a while he prefers to keep back among the bushes. As the reeds and reed canary-grass come up and form a cover—as the sedges grow green and advance to the edge of the water—as the sword-flags lift up and expand, opening from a centre, the sedge-reedling issues from the bushes and enters these vigorous growths, on which he perches, and about which he climbs as if they were trees. In the pleasant mornings, when the sun grows warm about eleven o’clock, he calls and sings with scarcely a cessation, and is answered by his companions up and down the stream. He does but just interrupt his search for food to sing; he stays a moment, calls, and immediately resumes his prying into every crevice of the branches and{131} stoles. The thrush often sits on a bough and sings for a length of time, apart from his food, and without thinking of it, absorbed in his song, and full of the sweetness of the day. These restless sedge-reedlings cannot pause; their little feet are for ever at work, climbing about the willow-stoles where the wands spring from the trunk; they never reflect, they are always engaged. This restlessness is to them a great pleasure; they are filled with the life which the sun gives, and express it in every motion; they are so joyful, they cannot be still. Step into the osier bed amongst them gently; they will chirp—a note like a sparrow’s—just in front, and only recede a yard at a time, as you push through the tall grass, flags, and underwood. Stand where you can see the brook, not too near, but so as to see it through a fringe of sedges and willows. The pink lychnis or ragged robin grows among the grasses; the iris flowers higher on the shore. The water-vole comes swimming past on his way to nibble the green weeds in the stream round about the great branch which fell two winters since and remains in the water. Aquatic plants take root in its shelter. There, too, a moorhen goes, sometimes diving under the bough. A blackbird flies up to drink or bathe, never at the grassy edge, but always choosing a spot where he can get at the stream free from obstruction. The sound of many birds singing comes from the hedge across the meadow; it mingles with the rush of the water through a drawn hatch—finches and linnets, thrush and chiff-chaff, wren and whitethroat, and others farther away, whose louder notes only, reach. The singing is so mixed and interwoven, and is made of so many notes, it seems as if it were the leaves singing, the countless leaves, as if they had voices.
A brightly coloured bird, the redstart, appears suddenly in spring, like a flower that has bloomed before the bud was noticed. Red is his chief colour, and as he rushes out from his perch to take an insect on the wing, he looks like a red streak. These birds sometimes nest near farmhouses in the rickyards, sometimes by copses, and sometimes in the deepest and most secluded coombes or glens, the farthest places from habitation; so that they cannot be said to have any preference, as so many birds have, for a particular kind of locality; but they return year by year to the places they have chosen. The return of the corncrake or landrail is quickly recognised by the noise he makes in the grass; he is the noisiest of all the spring-birds. The return of the goatsucker is hardly noticed at first. This is not at all a rare, but rather a local bird, well known in many places, but in others unnoticed, except by those who feel a special interest. A bird must be common and plentiful before people generally observe it, so that there are many of the labouring class who have never seen the goatsucker, or would say so, if you asked them. Few observe the migration of the turtle-doves, perhaps confusing them with the wood-pigeons, which stay in the fields all the winter. By the time the sap is well up in the oaks, all the birds have arrived, and the tremulous cooing of the turtle-dove is heard by those engaged in barking the felled trees. The sap rises slowly in the oaks, moving gradually through the minute interstices or capillary tubes of this close-grained wood; the softer timber trees are full of it long before the oak; and when the oak is putting forth its leaves, it is high spring. Doves stay so much at this time in the great hawthorns of the hedgerows and at the edge of the copses, that they are seldom noticed, though comparatively large birds. They are easily seen by any who wish; the coo-coo tells where they are; and in walking gently to find them, many other lesser birds will be observed. A wryneck may be caught sight of on a bough overhead; a black-headed bunting, in the hedge where there is a wet ditch and rushes; a blackcap, in the birches; and the ‘zee-zee-zee’ of the tree-pipit by the oaks just through the narrow copse.
This is the most pleasant and the best way to observe—to have an object, when so many things will be seen that would have been passed unnoticed. To steal softly along the hedgerow, keeping out of sight as much as possible, pausing now and then to listen as the coo-coo is approached; and then, when near enough to see the doves, to remain quiet behind a tree, is the surest way to see everything else. The thrush will not move from her nest if passed so quietly; the chaffinch’s lichen-made nest will be caught sight of against the elm-trunk—it would escape notice otherwise; the whitethroat may be watched in the nettles almost underneath; a rabbit will sit on his haunches and look at you from among the bare green stalks of brake rising; mice will rustle under the ground-ivy’s purple flowers; a mole perhaps may be seen, for at this time they often leave their burrows and run along the surface; and indeed so numerous are the sights and sounds and interesting things, that you will soon be conscious of the fact, that while you watch one, two or three more are escaping you. It would be the same with any other search as well as the dove; I choose the dove because by then all the other creatures are come and are busy, and because it is a fairly large bird with a distinctive note, and consequently a good guide.
But these are not all the spring-birds: there are the whinchats, fly-catchers, sandpipers, ring-ousels, and others that are occasional or rare. There is not a corner of the fields, woods, streams, or hills, which does not receive a new inhabitant; the sandpiper comes to the open sandy margins of the pool; the fly-catcher, to the old post by the garden; the whinchat, to the furze; the tree-pipit, to the oaks, where their boughs overhang meadow or cornfield; the sedge-reedling, to the osiers; the dove, to the thick hedgerows; the wheatear, to the hills; and I see I have overlooked the butcher-bird or shrike, as indeed in writing of these things one is certain to overlook something, so wide is the subject. Many of the spring-birds do not sing on their first arrival, but stay a little while;{132} by that time, others are here. Grass blade comes up by grass blade till the meadows are freshly green; leaf comes forth by leaf till the trees are covered; and like the leaves, the birds gently take their places, till the hedges are imperceptibly filled.
BY CHARLES GIBBON.
Meanwhile the harvest-work on the lands of Ringsford Manor was progressing rapidly—to the surprise of the neighbours, who had heard that Mr Hadleigh could not obtain hands, owing to his craze about the beer question. He did not obtain much sympathy in the district in this attempted social revolution. It was known that he was not a teetotaler himself; and most of the proprietors and farmers and all the labourers took Caleb Kersey’s view, that apart from the question whether beer was good or bad for them, this autocratic refusal of it to those who preferred to have it was an interference with the liberty of the subject. As he passed through the market-place, a band of labourers had shouted in chorus the old rhyme: ‘Darn his eyes, whoever tries, to rob a poor man of his beer.’
But in spite of this determined opposition, here was a strong troop of men and women clearing the ground so fast that it looked as if the Ringsford cutting and ingathering would be completed as soon as that of any other farm. And the beer was not allowed on the field.
This was wonderful: but a greater wonder still was the fact that the hands who had been so swiftly brought together were working under Caleb Kersey himself—Caleb, the peasants’ champion, the temperance defender of every man’s right to get drunk if he liked! There were mutterings of discontent amongst his followers: there were whispers that he had been heavily bribed to desert their cause; and those who had previously deserted him, shook their heavy heads, declaring that they ‘knowed what was a-coming.’
‘It ain’t fair on him—he ain’t acting square by me,’ Jacob Cone, the Ringsford bailiff, had been heard to say in the Cherry Tree taproom. ‘He comes and he takes my place, and does whatever master wants, when I was a-trying to get master to let folk have their own way, as they’ve been allays ’customed to.’
That was Jacob’s first and last grumble; for Caleb, hearing of it, took him to every one of the hands, and each made the same statement:
‘We can do without the beer. We gave it up because we choose to, and not because we’re forced to.’
For the rest, Caleb contented himself with saying simply: ‘I ain’t working for Mr Hadleigh, and I wasn’t hired by him.’
‘Daresay he contracted with some un?’
A nod would be the response to his inquisitive friend; and Caleb would proceed with his work as earnestly as if his life depended upon accomplishing a given task within the day. His example inspired the younger men with some spirit of emulation, and the women, old and young, with admiration. The old stagers bluntly told him at the close of the first day that they could not keep pace with him, and did not mean to try.
‘Do the best you can, lads, and you’ll satisfy me,’ was all he said.
The whispers as to his treason to the cause of the ‘Union,’ which floated about, and of which he was perfectly conscious, had no other effect upon him than to make him labour with increased zeal. But he smarted inwardly; for, like all popular leaders, he felt keenly the signs of waning favour amongst his followers—felt them the more keenly because he had so often, to his own serious detriment, proved his integrity, and knew that he was faithful as ever to the cause he had espoused.
It is doubtful if he would have been able to hold up so stoutly against the swelling tide of unpopularity, if there had not been a compensating influence upon him, strengthening his arm, although it did not always keep his head cool, or his pulse steady.
Every morning, when the white mist was rising from the hollows, and the trees appeared through it like shadows of themselves, whilst the long grass through which he tramped to the field sparkled and glowed around him, as the sun cleared the atmosphere, his way took him by the gardener’s cottage. Every evening, when the harvest-moon was rising slowly over the tree-tops, his way homeward took him again by the cottage. He frequently caught a glimpse of Pansy, and generally had an opportunity of exchanging greetings with her.
‘A fine morning,’ he would say; and he was under the impression that he spoke with a smile, but always looked as solemn as if he were at a funeral.
‘Yes, a fine morning,’ she would say with a real smile, and a tint on her cheeks as if they reflected the radiance of the sun.
Then he would stand as if he had something more to say; but first he had to look up at the sky; next strain his eyes over the rolling-ground in the direction of the Forest, as if much depended upon his noting the development of the trees through the mist; and again up at the chimney-top, to observe which way the wind was blowing. The result of all this observation being:
‘We’ll have a rare drying wind to-day.’
Then she, in a modified way, would go through the same pantomime and answer pleasantly; ‘Yes, I think you will.’
And he would pass on, leaving that great ‘something’ he wanted to say still unspoken. Yet Caleb was reputed to be a man possessed of a special gift of speech. He showed no lack of it in the presence of any one save Pansy.
‘I wonder what gars him come round this way ilka mornin’ and night,’ said Sam Culver one day to his daughter, looking at her suspiciously. ‘He’d be far sooner hame if he gaed round by the wood, like other folk.’
‘I cannot tell, father,’ she answered, her gypsy{133} cheeks aglow: ‘maybe he has to go up to the House for something.’
Sam shook his head thoughtfully: he did not relish the idea which had entered it.
‘Kersey is a decent enough lad; but he is wildish in his notions of things, and a’ the farmers round about are feared to trust him with ony work. That’s no the right way to get through the world, my lass, and I wouldna like to see you with sic a man.’
Pansy was a little startled by this plain way of suggesting why Caleb chose to take the longest route to his work; and she proceeded hurriedly to clear away the breakfast dishes. That evening, Caleb did not see her as he passed the cottage.
Whatever Sam Culver’s opinion of Caleb Kersey might have been, it underwent considerable modification, if not an entire change, as he watched him work and the harvest rapidly drawing to a close under his care. At anyrate, one evening, as Caleb was exchanging that stereotyped greeting with Pansy, and was about to pass on, her father came up and asked him in to supper.
‘It’s just a plate o’ porridge and milk, you ken; but you’re welcome, if yer not ower proud to sup it. Mony’s the great man has sought naething better.’
A little shyness on Caleb’s part was quickly overcome. He entered the cottage, and was presently seated at the same table with Pansy. He was amply compensated for all that he had suffered on account of yielding to Madge’s request that he should take the Ringsford harvest in hand.
The gardener, since he had settled in the south, had, like many of his countrymen, considerably loosened the Puritanical stays which he had been accustomed to wear in the north. Indeed, it was said that he had been discovered in the greenhouse on a Sabbath, when he ought to have been in church. He still, however, felt the influence of old habits, and so he said grace in this fashion:
‘Fa’ tae, fa’ tae, and thank the Lord for a guid supper.’
When the meal was finished, Sam took his guest out to see a new geranium which he was cultivating; and then he revealed to him a fancy which he had been cultivating as largely as his geranium.
‘I was thinking, Kersey, that you have been getting on bravely with the harvest. Noo, if you could just manage to cut the last stook on the day of Mr Philip’s dinner, it would be a real surprise to the folk at the house, and a grand feather in your cap.’
‘I think it can be done,’ said Caleb quietly.
And it was done. On the evening fixed for the festival, the last sheaf of the Ringsford grain was placed on the lawn in front of the Manor. Whilst the guests were arriving, Madge had been told by Sam Culver that this was to be done; so she went out with Uncle Dick and Mr Hadleigh to congratulate Caleb on the good harvest he had gathered in, and to thank him on her own part for having undertaken the task.
‘It’s the best job you have ever done, Caleb,’ cried Uncle Dick, giving him a hearty slap on the shoulder. ‘Stick to this kind of thing, my lad, and leave speechifying to them that cannot do any better.’
‘I am always ready to work,’ replied Caleb, avoiding the second part of his well-wisher’s speech.
‘I offer you my sincere thanks, Kersey,’ said Mr Hadleigh in his reserved way; ‘and it would please me to hear of anything I could do for you.’
‘I am obliged to you.’
This ungraciously, but with a slight movement of the head, which might be called half a nod.
‘You can bear it in mind. Had I known that you would be finished to-day, I should have arranged for our harvest-home gathering to take place this evening. I am sure that would have gratified Miss Heathcote and my son.’
Another half-nod, and Caleb moved away.
The gong sounded. Mr Hadleigh gave his arm to Madge, and led her towards the house.
As they entered the hall, they were met by the butler.
‘Do you know where Mr Philip is, sir?’ asked the man nervously. ‘Dinner is quite ready, and he is not in the house; and nobody has seen him since he started for town this morning.’
The butler’s anxiety was equally divided between the danger of having the dinner spoiled and the question as to what had become of Philip.
‘Have you sent to his room?’
‘I have been there myself, sir. His things are all lying ready for him; but he is nowhere about.’
Mr Hadleigh frowned.
‘This is very annoying. I told him he should not go to town to-day. He has missed his train, I suppose. Give him a quarter of an hour, Terry, and then serve dinner.... Excuse me, Miss Heathcote, one moment.’
He beckoned to a footman, who followed him into a small sideroom.
‘Send Cone to the station,’ he said in a low voice; ‘and bid him inquire if there has been an accident on the line.’
The explanation that Philip, having important business in town, had no doubt been detained so long as to have missed his train, satisfied all the guests except one. She, however, maintained as calm a demeanour as Mr Hadleigh himself; and he regarded her at times with a curiously thoughtful expression.
‘How brave she is,’ was his thought. ‘Can she have misgivings and he so firm?’
Madge had misgivings; for Philip had told her that he had only to put his seal on the despatch-box containing the important papers he was to carry with him to Uncle Shield, and that he expected to return early enough to call at Willowmere before going home. This, she had suggested, would be waste of time, for she would be busy with her elaborate toilet, and unable to see him. They both enjoyed the fun of the idea that she should be so long engaged in dressing for this important occasion as to leave no time to see him.
‘Well, I shall see Uncle Dick at anyrate, and of course he will be a first-rate substitute. Indeed, now I think of it, he would be far more interesting than a coquettish young person whose mind is{134} wholly absorbed in the arrangement of her bows and laces. He would tell me all about the spread of the foot-and-mouth disease, and that would be useful information at anyrate. Eh?’
They parted, laughing, and thus it was only a half-promise that he should call. She was not surprised, therefore, when he did not appear.
When, however, the hour of dinner at the Manor arrived and he had not yet returned, she felt that vague anxiety which is almost more difficult to hide in the presence of others than the pain of some definite calamity. She knew quite well that if he had only missed a train, he would have telegraphed. But no one looking at her would have suspected that her mind was disturbed by the least unhappy thought.
Miss Hadleigh only said: ‘That careless boy! To be late on such an occasion as this when he knows that papa is always put out when anybody is late’—and went on doing her best to remember her duty as a hostess by not giving all her attention to ‘Alfred.’ Miss Caroline only whispered in reply: ‘He is so stupid.’ As for Miss Bertha, she was so busily engaged in conversation with one of her brother Coutts’s friends, that she was unconscious of any disarrangement of the evening’s programme.
So the party in the drawing-room buzzed like a hive of contented bees on a warm summer day, and no one showed the slightest symptom of being aware that the hour appointed for dinner had passed.
The vicar, Paul Havens, was a hale, sunny-faced man of about fifty years, with bushy iron-gray hair and whiskers, and square muscular frame. He was one of those men whose strong, kindly nature reflects itself upon all who come in contact with him, and inspires them too with a sense of strength. His genial presence was like fresh air in the mansion or the peasant’s cot. He was no ‘sporting parson;’ but he chatted with Crawshay with as much interest as if he were, about the prospects of sport on the stubble this season, and how the pheasants were likely to turn out when their time came. Then, as Dr Guy came up, the vicar turned to little Mrs Joy in time to relieve her from utter distraction at the cynical jokes and compliments of Coutts Hadleigh. The latter delighted in bewildering this good lady, whose wits were not particularly quick, although, with her husband, Dr Edwin Joy, she was an enthusiastic social reformer.
‘My husband and I believe,’ she would say, with her little head bending slightly to one side, ‘that want of thrift is at the bottom of all the poverty and misery of the working-classes in town and country. Now we endeavour to inculcate that great fact on all who come under our influence; and Dr Joy, as my father’s partner, you know, has many opportunities for speaking a word in season. And we always speak it! Thrift, thrift, thrift, is our text; and I assure you we have succeeded in making some improvements in our district.’
And they did preach from this text with untiring enthusiasm; they diligently perused every book and pamphlet published on the subject, and their own affairs were continually in a hopeless muddle. They could always see exactly what other people ought to do under any given circumstances, and were always ready with the best advice; but they were like children in dealing with the most ordinary difficulties of their own lives. They were a good-natured couple, however, thoroughly sincere and well meaning, so that these little idiosyncrasies amused their friends, and did no harm to the working-people on whose behalf they were specially exercised.
Mrs Joy’s father, Dr Guy, smiled grimly at the profound wisdom they displayed in other people’s business, and the folly which invariably cropped up whenever they had anything to do for themselves. At the beginning of every year, they made a serious calculation of the least amount their income was likely to be for the coming twelve months, and resolved to live within it; they even determined to lay aside some portion to meet contingencies. At the end of every year, they were amazed to find how far they had exceeded their calculated expenditure, and spent days in wondering how it could be.
‘Edwin, I cannot understand it,’ Mrs Joy would exclaim helplessly.
‘Neither can I,’ he would answer with a puzzled look at the figures before him. Then, brightening up, he would say: ‘We must try again, my dear.’
‘Yes, we must try again, dear,’ she would say, also brightening up, and comforted by visions of the surplus which the mighty thrift would give them next time.
Then they would make another serious calculation of ways and means, and with light hearts, go on just as before, studying and preaching the doctrines which, by some inscrutable twist in their natures, they were unable to practise. They were so like children playing at housekeeping, that although Dr Guy had to bear the consequences of their mismanagement, he could not be angry with them long at a time. Besides, he had consolation in two facts: first, that Fanny was his only child, and would inherit everything he possessed; and second, that Edwin Joy was really a clever surgeon, successful in his practice, and much liked by his patients, notwithstanding his stupidity in money matters. Indeed, the greater part of the practice rested on his shoulders now, and nothing delighted him more than to be up to the eyes in work.
Dr Guy belonged to the old school of country practitioners, and was as much interested in agriculture as in physic. He had a small farm, in the management of which he found agreeable occupation. So he took the first opportunity of getting Crawshay into a corner to discuss the best means of stamping out the rapidly spreading foot-and-mouth disease and the advantages of ensilage.
Madge and Mrs Crawshay looking on, were well pleased to see that for once Uncle Dick did not regret coming to Ringsford. But although Madge found time to think of this, and to give intelligent attention to any one who addressed her, she glanced often at the door expectantly.
At length the door opened, the butler entered, spoke a few words to his master, and then withdrew. Mr Hadleigh immediately advanced to Madge.
‘I am glad to tell you, Philip has returned,’ he said in a quiet voice.
{135}
A flush of pleasure on her calm face expressed her gratitude for this good news.
‘Then he was only detained—nothing has happened?’
‘I presume that nothing particular has happened; but we shall learn presently from himself. His message to me was only to desire that we should proceed to dinner at once, and allow him to join us in the dining-room. So you must permit Coutts to take you down.’
It has often been said that an actor exists upon the breath of applause; and to a certain extent this is literally as well as figuratively true; for during a long period of his early career he is fated to undergo many hardships, and frequently finds himself playing week after week for one of those unscrupulous ‘managers’ who can hardly be got to pay their company their salaries, while revelling in all possible comfort themselves. Indeed, a long chapter might be written upon the sorrows incident to ‘the profession;’ but this would be entirely beside our present purpose. Suffice it to remark, as an introduction to our immediate theme, that no histrion ever yet trod the boards who was unmindful of the public recognition of his talents; and so soon as an opportunity offers in which to distinguish himself, and his efforts are rewarded with a round of applause, from that moment will he devote himself the more assiduously to his calling, by reason of the enviable stimulus so received.
It has been placed upon record how Fanny Horton, a once celebrated actress, won her first applause in a somewhat singular manner. During her performance in a particular scene, she was loudly hissed, when, advancing to the footlights, she asked: ‘Which do you dislike—my playing or my person?’ ‘The playing, the playing!’ was the answer from all parts of the house. ‘Well,’ she returned, ‘that consoles me; for my playing may be bettered, but my person I cannot alter!’ The audience were so struck with the ingenuity of this retort, that they immediately applauded as loudly as they had the moment before condemned her; and from that night she improved in her acting, and soon became a favourite with the public.
It will scarcely be denied that applause is not only welcome, but necessary to the actor; and even so great an artiste as Mrs Siddons was susceptible to the force of this truth, though not so much in its regard to professional adulation, as for personal convenience. ‘It encourages,’ she was wont to say; ‘and better still, it gives time for breath!’ On this account, as well as for other obvious reasons, the managers of the Parisian theatres have organised a regular system of hired applause, termed the claque; and this not only saves the audience the trouble of applauding, but it is frequently the means of influencing the success of a new production, while it affords the actors engaged an opportunity of purchasing a too frequently questionable notoriety by a monetary arrangement with the claque, or at anyrate with the head of that department who grandiloquently styles himself ‘the contractor for success.’
But it must not by any means be imagined that the claque is a modern institution. From the time of the ancient drama downwards, the approbation of the spectators has always been eagerly courted by the performers, and hired persons to applaud their acting regularly attended the representations. Both the Greeks and the Romans made use of the device. It has been well attested that Nero, the Roman emperor, who at all times took an active part in the theatrical representations of his day, enforced applause at the point of the sword; and Suetonius tells us that one day when Nero sang the fable of Atis and the Bacchantes, he deputed Burrhus and Seneca to incite the audience to applaud. On one occasion, while the emperor was on the stage, singing to his own accompaniment on the lyre, an earthquake shook the imperial city; yet not one among that enormous assemblage dared so much as attempt to flee from the danger, or leave his seat, fearing the summary wrath of the tyrant, whose will held them so powerfully in bondage. At another time, a poor woman fell asleep during the performance, and on one of Nero’s soldiers descrying her situation, she narrowly escaped with her life.
But the Romans could not give Nero the honour of a call before the curtain, for the simple reason that drop-curtains were not then in use. Indeed, the introduction of stage-curtains belongs to a comparatively late period. In the reign of Elizabeth, we find that the theatres—or playhouses, as they were termed—were of the most primitive kind. For the most part the performances were conducted on a rude platform in the London inn yards; while the few regular stationary playhouses were little better furnished in the way of proper dramatic accessories. The use of scenery is, of course, nowhere to be traced, and the only semblance to a proscenium consisted of a pair of tapestry curtains, which were drawn aside by cords when the performance began. The same arrangement has also been found in all examples of the early Spanish, Portuguese, and other continental theatres.
Among the earliest permanent English playhouses were ‘The Theatre’ and ‘The Fortune,’ neither of which, however, possessed a proper drop-curtain. But ‘The Red Bull,’ another old theatre, had a drop-curtain; and when, in the year 1633, that playhouse was demolished, rebuilt, and enlarged, it was decorated in a manner almost in advance of the time, the management particularly priding itself upon ‘a stage-curtain of pure Naples silk.’ It was not until the year 1656 that the first attempt of Sir William Davenant to establish the lyric drama in England brought{136} with it the use of regular painted scenery on our stage. As an introductory venture, and fully aware that the performance of everything of a dramatic tendency had long been prohibited throughout the country, he announced a miscellaneous kind of entertainment, consisting of ‘music and declamation,’ which was duly held at Rutland House in Charterhouse Yard, on the 23d of May. Thus far encouraged, he immediately followed with the first genuine opera, entitled The Siege of Rhodes, employing a libretto, music, costumes, and five elaborate scenes. Further representations of opera were always signalised by the use of scenery, and the example was naturally soon followed by the drama, so soon as the altered condition of the times had sufficiently permitted its revival. In place of a drop-curtain of tapestry, silk, or other material, a painted scene also came into fashion, on which was generally shown some incident in the opera about to be enacted. The painted crimson curtain used in The Siege of Rhodes had upon it also a representation of the arms and military trophies of the several nations which took part in this memorable siege.
Still, for all that, the green curtain retained its position in all permanent theatres—and even in the puppet-shows, so popular in their day—nor was it until quite recently that the more fashionable houses thought proper to dispense with it altogether.
Touching upon stage-curtains of our own time, it will scarcely be necessary to dilate upon the peculiarly constructed proscenium of the present Haymarket Theatre, London, which is nothing more or less than an elaborate picture in its gilt frame. The curtain of course forms the picture, and no orchestra-pew being visible, the frame or proscenium is continued on the lower side without interruption. The footlights are not discovered until the rising of the curtain, and the ‘calls’ are necessarily responded to on the stage itself, for which purpose the curtain is again drawn up. Perhaps the most interesting curtain of the ordinary character is that now in use at New Sadler’s Wells Theatre, which conveys to the eye a very perfect idea of that famous ‘musick-house’ on the banks of the New River in ‘merrie Islington,’ as it appeared rather more than a hundred years ago.
Mr Henry Irving in his established dramatic home at the Lyceum Theatre has always preferred to take his ‘calls’ on the stage itself; indeed, he never appears in front of the curtain except on the night of the opening or the termination of his season, which is always looked forward to in London as an event. The production of Romeo and Juliet afforded him an agreeable opportunity, however, of making a new departure in his manner of responding to the congratulations of his patrons—the living ‘Prologue’ opening the tragedy by stepping forward from between a pair of truly magnificent curtains of yellow plush, when, having recited his lines, the withdrawal of these curtains unveiled the first scene representing ‘the public place’ at Verona. Mr Irving, further, took occasion at the close of each act of leading Miss Ellen Terry before the footlights in the same manner, thus obviating the necessity of raising the curtain proper before these calls could be replied to.
So much for theatrical curtains in general. We will now go on to narrate several notable incidents connected with ‘Calls before the Curtain.’
When David Garrick made his re-appearance at Drury Lane, after an absence of two years during a provincial tour, the theatre was packed from floor to ceiling, and the audience were quite beside themselves with enthusiasm. The play was announced to be Much Ado About Nothing; but, as the actor expected, he had first to show himself in front of the curtain. He had prepared an address to the audience, which he delivered previous to beginning the play. When he came upon the stage, he was welcomed with three loud plaudits, each finishing with a huzza.
When R. W. Elliston was manager of the ‘Royal Circus,’ to which he gave the present name of the ‘Surrey Theatre,’ he was one night called before the curtain under rather exceptional circumstances. On that occasion, an actor named Carles, who had long been a popular favourite at that house, was absent, having unfortunately been arrested for debt while on his way to the theatre, and another actor, possibly not very much his inferior in regard to talent, had to be substituted. The performance, however, had not long commenced, when the audience missed their favourite, and called loudly for ‘Carles!’ Carles not appearing, the uproar became general; and as soon as the curtain had fallen upon the first act, the manager was summoned. Elliston duly appeared and asked, ‘Ladies and gentlemen, what is your pleasure?’ But to all that he said they cried only ‘Carles!’ Not yet aware of their intentions, he exclaimed: ‘One at a time, if you please;’ and singling out a puny yet over-energetic malcontent in the pit, he begged pardon of the audience, saying: ‘Let me hear what this gentleman has to say.’ Then addressing the man: ‘Now, sir, I’ll attend to you first, if the rest of the gentlemen will allow me.’
The man, as might be imagined, was not a little taken aback at this remark; yet he managed to say: ‘Carles’ name is in the bill, and where is he?’ At this, Elliston assumed a grave air, and folding his arms, addressed the people as follows: ‘Ladies and gentlemen, with your leave I will say a few words. I admit that Mr Carles’ name is in the bill; I do not wish to deny it; but’—here he assumed a decidedly tragic tone—‘but are you to be reminded of the many accidents that may intervene between the issuing of that bill and the evening’s fulfilment of its promise? Is it requisite to remind the enlightened and thinking portion of the public here assembled that the chances and changes of human life are dependent upon circumstances, and not upon ourselves?’
Here all shouted: ‘Ay, ay; bravo!’
The manager, pointing to the man in the pit, went on: ‘And you, sir, who are so loud in your demand for Mr Carles, cannot you also imagine that his absence may be occasioned by some sore distress, some occurrence not within human foresight to anticipate or divert? Cannot you picture to yourself the possibility of Mr Carles at this moment lying upon a sick—nay, perhaps a dying bed, surrounded by his weeping children and his agonised wife’ [Mr Carles was a bachelor!], ‘whose very bread depends upon the existence of an affectionate devoted husband and father, and who may be deprived of his exertions and support for ever? Is it so very difficult to imagine a scene{137} like this taking place at the very moment when you are calling for him so imperiously to appear before you, selfishly desirous of your present amusement and unmindful of his probable danger!’ Great and general applause.
Inwardly, Mr Elliston felt struck at the success of his diplomacy, especially as at this point the audience turned against the man who had spoken, and joined their voices in cries of ‘Turn him out!’ to which sentence the manager found it best to lend countenance; and having given his permission, the unlucky ‘pitite’ was summarily ejected from the theatre, and in a little while the performance was continued in perfect order.
Calls for the author after the first representation of a new play are, of course, frequent, the more especially when the work has given entire satisfaction. In some instances, the audience summon that individual to appear for no other purpose than to hiss him for the unskilfulness of his performance; in which case, the author will most probably retaliate with a speech wherein mention of ‘an organised opposition’ comes uppermost. Speaking of the former, some curious examples might be noted. An author frequently announces, through the medium of the manager, that he has betaken himself abroad, or, say, to Scotland, fearing the result of his piece, whereas he may be quietly looking on at the back of the pit, or has concealed himself behind the curtains of a private box. In another case, the successful author will attempt to make a speech, while bowing his acknowledgments, and signally fail, retiring considerably more abashed than triumphant. But the crowning episode to be narrated in this connection occurred some years ago at one of the Dublin theatres, when one of the tragedies of Sophocles was put on the stage. At the close of the performance, the ‘gods’ loudly called for the author; whereupon the manager explained that as the author had been dead more than two thousand years, he could not very well appear. Nothing disconcerted, a very small gallery-boy called out: ‘Then let’s have his mummy!’
Dramatic, including operatic, artistes taking their benefits are almost invariably honoured with a call before the curtain. On such occasions, too, they may fairly be entitled to considerable latitude in various ways, as, for instance, in their own selection of the programme for that evening. Notwithstanding this, they should not suffer themselves to infringe the ordinary regulations of the establishment. Not very long ago, a star prima donna of the very first magnitude, when taking her benefit at the Imperial Opera, St Petersburg, found herself called before the curtain more than twenty consecutive times. In the end she occupied the centre of the stage, and addressed her enthusiastic patrons a few words in the Russian language, then offered to show her gratitude for their favours by singing them a song in their own tongue. This was received with rapturous applause; but judge of her surprise when, after retiring from the stage, the management fined her two thousand francs for addressing the audience without permission! The proceeds of her benefit were thus considerably reduced; and her experience was only in one degree removed from that of the French pantomimist and dancer, as related by Charles Kemble. This individual was in the habit of taking a benefit at regular intervals, but always with a loss. One night, however, he came before the curtain with a beaming countenance, and after a polite bow, he acknowledged his thanks in these terms: ‘Dear public, moche oblige; very good benefice; only lose half a crown dis time. I come again!’
At an American theatre, an actor once took his benefit, and selected as the play for the occasion, Uncle Tom’s Cabin. The company being small, he found it necessary not only to subject several of the incidental characters to being doubled—that is, one actor to sustain two different characters in the same piece, rapidly changing his costume from one to the other as occasion requires—but he also accepted a double himself. His was that of Sambo with St Clair. St Clair appears in one act, and Sambo in the next. Having won considerable honours as the first individual, the actor, directly the curtain had descended, hurried away to his dressing-room to prepare in all haste his toilet and costume for Sambo. His face and hands had of course to be blacked; and in the midst of this operation of applying the burnt cork, the prompter entered his room to announce that the audience were uproarious for him to appear before the curtain. ‘But I can’t,’ he exclaimed; ‘it is impossible; I’m just making up for Sambo!’ Nothing, however, would satisfy his patrons short of responding to his call; so boisterously demanded, that, without his compliance, the performance could not possibly proceed. At length our hero made his appearance. But the audience were scarcely prepared to receive him in his altered person, and, failing to recognise the metamorphosed St Clair in the half-made-up Sambo, they shouted: ‘Go away! Who sent for you?’
Floral offerings are, of course, pleasantly associated with artistes’ benefits, and long may they so continue. The Emperor Nero, it is said, always provided the Roman spectators with the thousand-and-one bouquets which were thrown at his feet when he occupied the stage. But bouquets voluntarily offered are worthy to be prized very highly. Not very long ago, Mr Edward Terry, when taking his leave of an Irish audience, was honoured with the reception of a beautiful floral wreath, which must have been infinitely more acceptable than that wreath of immortelles which some insulting ruffian cast at the feet of Mademoiselle Favart, at a French theatre, a few years ago, in order to indicate that her age had placed her beyond the power of playing youthful parts. Had she been composed of the same metal as was the actor in the following example, she would have enjoyed the opportunity presented of paying the wretch back in his own coin. The story may be accepted as true.
At the close of his own benefit performance, a certain favourite comedian was called before the curtain at a theatre in Vienna. In the midst of a shower of bouquets, some insulting individual threw a bunch of vegetables on the stage. Very complacently the bénéficier, having marked from what portion of the house it had proceeded, picked up the article, and said: ‘We have here an interesting collection of carrots and turnips. From my slight knowledge of natural history, I believe this to be the proper food for asses; I therefore return it to its owner, for who knows in these hard times he may be in want of such{138} a meal in the morning!’ With these words, he threw the object whence it came; and the individual being discovered, was immediately expelled from the theatre amid mingled hisses and applause.
There was a good deal of excitement in the mining camps at and near Flume City, which, as every mining reader knows, was prominent among the gold-diggings, and gold-washings also, of Colorado twenty years ago. A meeting of miners was being held at the largest building in the city—a wooden shed, which called itself a restaurant, at which there were assembled some forty or fifty men, rough-looking, roughly clad, and armed with revolver and knife, although no intention existed of using such weapons at this gathering. The assembly, indeed, had been called together with an object calculated to promote union and comradeship—to assist in maintaining individual rights and to support the law generally.
There was a president, of course, and his discourse, if not polished, was much to the point. ‘I reckon,’ he said, after the meeting had lasted perhaps an hour, and several speeches had been made, with a good deal of shouting in the way of approval—‘I reckon that the citizens who have spoken are about right. We have got some traitors among us, and that’s where the worst comes in. It wasn’t by chance that any outside loafer knew just when to steal the washings at the Long Placer last night, or that Scotch Ned was sent away when the stamp-mill was broken. We know who broke the mill—it was Bill Dobell. But who told him to come in then? And who could have known that the Kentucky boys at the Long Placer had got the best washings they had seen this year? Who could have known that but one among us?’
The president said much more to this effect; but the remainder of his speech, with the various orations which followed, need not be given, as we have shown what was the nature of the excitement which had called the miners into solemn conclave.
The language used was odd and quaint enough; to many it would have sounded absurd in its phraseology; but no fault could have been found with the matter. That was direct and shrewd, and evinced a strong determination to put down the mischief which was making itself felt.
At the conclusion of a pithy harangue, in which the speaker urged vigorous and brief proceedings against any one detected in such unpardonable conduct, or reasonably suspected of complicity in the crime—for robbing the troughs in a mining country is looked upon as worse than murder, and is considered to be quite as bad as horse-stealing—a voice exclaimed: ‘You air right, colonel!’
Every one started at the sound, and looked in the direction of the speaker, who, having recently joined the meeting, with several others, stood near the door. A dozen men whispered to their next neighbours: ‘Why, it is Rube Steele!’ And significant glances were exchanged.
‘I thought the other day there was Injuns lying around to thieve,’ continued the man; ‘so, when’——
‘You told us so, Rube,’ interrupted the president; ‘and the Kentucky boys from the Long Placer came into committee on the subject; and their troughs were robbed while they were gone. You know that, I estimate?’
A murmur as of approval of the president’s language ran through the meeting. Rube noted this, but it did not disturb him. A peculiarly sinister glance which he threw around him was perhaps natural to his not greatly attractive features.
‘Yes; I expect I know that; and I expect that I know the tale about the Injuns was a fraud,’ returned Rube. Something like a sarcastically approving laugh ran through the meeting at these words; but the speaker continued, without appearing to notice it: ‘That stranger from San Francisco was the man who brought the news. You believed him; so did I.’
‘We believed you, Rube; you said the man was reliable,’ again interrupted the president.
‘That is so,’ replied Rube. ‘He brought messages from leading Frisco citizens, men known to me, and so I believed him. But I tell you he is no good; and he has gone off with nigh upon three thousand dollars in gold-dust which I trusted to him. He brought me an order from Ben, my pardner, to say he was to have the dust; and though I did not like the idea, I parted with it. And on coming into camp and asking Ben about it, I find he never gave any order at all. And it is my belief that this is the man who robbed the washings at the Kentucky boys’ placer.’
‘And where is Ben?’ began the president, who would probably have said more, but that a man burst hastily into the saloon as the question was asked, and shouted in answer: ‘Here! Here is Reuben Steele’s pardner. Who wants him?’
‘We want you to hear what has been said,’ returned the president, ‘and to give us your opinion about Californy Jones—the stranger who was introduced by your pardner, but who, Rube now says, is the man who robbed the placer, and has robbed him of three thousand dollars.’
‘I can’t say anything about the placer; maybe Rube knows more about that than I do,’ replied the new-comer. ‘But the man has gone off with three thousand dollars; that’s a sure fact; and as Rube gave him the dust, it’s a sure fact too, he knows more about that than I do.’
‘I know no more than yourself,’ retorted Rube. ‘The man produced an order from you. I could not tell that it was a forgery, and you have always considered yourself as the boss of our outfit.’
‘Wal, gentlemen, and Mr President,’ continued Ben, ‘I can tell you we have got murderers among us. Yes, gentlemen, that is so—real cold-blooded murderers, that will lie in wait for honest, law-abiding citizens and shoot them from behind rocks.’
A louder murmur ran through the assembly here; and the president asked Ben his meaning.
‘My meaning is this,’ continued Ben. ‘You know I am clearing out, and shall leave the camp in a day or two, so that we are realising all our property, and this gold-dust was a part of what{139} I am going East with. So, I kinder felt like riled at losing it; and when my pardner told me, as cool as maybe, that he concluded this stranger had vamoosed with my dust’——
‘And mine!’ interjected Rube.
‘Wal, let every man speak of his own business,’ returned Ben, who was evidently in anything but a good temper. ‘I say he had cleared out with mine, anyhow; and I was riled, I tell you. But at that minute, I saw, crossing the Mule Back Ridge, two men on horseback. The Ridge is distant a good piece; but I could swear one was that stranger. “Send some of the boys on,” said I to Rube. “I shall go through the cañon, so shall meet them. They must cross there, if they don’t mean to go into the mountains.” And I was sure they did not want the mountain road. So I sot off. But I was waited for. There are as bad men left in the camp as have gone out of it; and at the very entrance of the cañon, when them horsemen must have been a good two miles away, some desperadoes fired at me from behind a rock. There was more than one shot fired at the same time, I know; and—see here, Mr President!—they took good aim.’ As he said this, he threw off his long outer coat, and handed it to the president, who, after a momentary examination, held it up, and exhibited an unmistakable bullet-hole in the skirt.
‘That was near—that is a fact!’ exclaimed the president. ‘And what did you do then?’
‘I turned back,’ said Ben. ‘It was of no use my pushing on alone, with the rocks lined with murderers, with men who expected me, and were in league with Californy Jones.’
‘And where was Rube?’ asked the president.
‘I was at the head of a bunch of boys of the right sort, seven or eight of them, that I had looked up in the camp. They are here now: Long Sim, Missouri Rob, Major Dimey and friend, with some others, all first-class citizens.’
An assenting exclamation from each of those he named confirmed the speaker.
‘I could not do more than that,’ continued Rube. ‘And when I found my pardner on the return-track, it was no use my proceeding. I came back to the city, and then right away to this here convention.’
‘I could have raised twice the force in a quarter of the time he took!’ cried Ben, intercepting some remark which it was evident the president was about to make. ‘And why I did not come straight here was because there was something in my tent I thought I had best look after. I had left my tent in the care of a friend; but you don’t know what may happen, with such loafers and scoundrels hanging around.’
‘Wal, fellow-citizens,’ said the president, ‘this convention didn’t assemble, I reckon, to hear the rights of any difference between two pardners; and it ain’t our business nohow. We are here to discuss the existence of thieves and scallawags amongst us, and to decide upon the beet means of clearing them out—that is all.’
Thus recalled to business, the assembly resumed its former discussion, and the quarrel between the partners was not again openly referred to; but it coloured all that was said, and many remarks upon it were made in the body of the meeting. It was clear that public feeling was much against Rube Steele, although a few of those present were his partisans; but these latter appeared to consist only of the ‘bunch’ of citizens he had referred to, and were not altogether free from suspicion themselves.
The gathering separated without having come to any formal resolve, beyond appointing a few of their members to act in committee and to decide what steps should be taken; but as it was notorious that each of the chosen ones was a leader among the Regulators, as they were once called—or the Vigilantes, to use their now familiar Spanish name—there was probably more significance in their appointment than at first appeared.
For that night at anyrate no fresh outrages were apprehended; the thieves, whoever they were, possessed information too prompt and too certain to allow them to venture on a renewal of their attempts during the excitement and watchfulness which would prevail for a time in the vicinity of Flume City.
In its neighbourhood, few persons were abroad after nightfall; it was dangerous, indeed, for any one to approach a tent without making his presence loudly known; a shot would probably be the first intimation that he was trespassing on dangerous ground; while a few of the miners possessed large and savage dogs, which would be loosed on hearing a footstep near the tent. So those who had business which led them abroad, were careful to confine themselves to the main street of Flume City, if such a title could fitly be applied to the straggling avenue which ran from end to end of the place. But spite of these drawbacks, a few persons were moving in the environs of the city, and even at a good distance beyond its boundaries, dark though the night was, and only relieved from utter gloom by the starlight, for moon there was none.
One man who was going towards the town, stopped suddenly, as his quick ear caught the sound of an approaching footstep, and with the caution of one accustomed to frontier-life, drew himself up by the side of one of the very few trees which remained in the vicinity of Flume City, so that in the obscurity it was almost impossible for any passing eye to detect him. The next instant a single man hurried by, passing between the first comer and the starry sky, so that his figure was visible with tolerable distinctness to the concealed watcher. This second man did not look to the right or left—it would have been almost impossible for him to detect the spy, had he done so—but went quickly on in a direction which seemed to surprise the hidden observer.
‘What can he want there?’ exclaimed the latter, stepping from his hiding-place, when the other had fairly gone past. ‘There ain’t no shanties nor no living soul in that direction. It was surely Rube Steele; and without he has gone crazy, I can’t fix anyhow why he should be going towards the cañon after nightfall. I will see where he is going; and if he has turned crazy, I may help him; and if not, I shall find out what he wants in the mountain pass.
He was moving carefully but quickly in the direction the other had taken, while he was muttering these disinterested sentiments; and although he could only see the figure he followed, at intervals, when the man climbed a ledge and{140} stood for an instant in relief against the sky, yet there was no difficulty in the pursuit. He could hear his steps as they disturbed the loose stones which strewed the way, and knew besides, that in the wild spot which they had reached, there was no means of turning to the right or left, so that he could not easily miss the chase. Presently the tread of the foremost man became slower, and the pursuer, as a matter of course, moved at a slower rate also—slower and slower still, until the former stopped, or only moved about the same spot of ground.
‘What on airth is he going to do?’ muttered the other man. ‘It’s so dark—for he is right under the shadow of Big Loaf Rock—that he can’t see to dig, nor hunt after any buried—— Wal! that means something!’ This exclamation was caused by a low whistle which Rube Steele—if indeed it were that person—suddenly gave. This was repeated, and then answered from a distance. ‘I feel like seeing the end of this,’ continued the spy; ‘and I mean to.’
Acting upon this determination, he crawled carefully forward, for he was too near to venture upon standing upright; and moreover, as the answering whistle had proved that others were in the neighbourhood, he was compelled to be on his guard against discovery from other quarters. His quick ear soon caught the sound of an approaching tread, and directly after, he heard words spoken. The spy’s curiosity was now raised tenfold, especially as one of the two men who were now, as he well knew, close to him, struck a match to light his pipe, and the momentary flash showed him both figures in a brief glimpse. They were unluckily placed with their backs towards him, so that he could not see their features. He now felt confident that the first one was Rube Steele, and that the second was not entirely unknown to him, but more than this he could not tell.
This was terribly tantalising; and after the brief illumination of the match, a more impenetrable darkness seemed to have settled upon the pass and the rocks around; so, at all hazards, he resolved to get still nearer. He was perhaps a little unguarded in his eagerness, and made some slight noise, and it is certain that he had not calculated all the hazards which might environ him, for a low fierce growl showed that a dog was with the men, and the spy shuddered with horror as he heard the sound.
‘Did you hear anything?’ said a harsh voice. ‘The dog would not have growled like that, unless some one was hanging around.’
‘Nonsense!’ returned the other; and the voice was certainly the voice of Rube Steele. ‘He heard a jack-rabbit, perhaps, or scented a polecat. I reckon there ain’t a soul within a league of this cañon to-night. The miners are all at Flume City, and the Indians have left the district for more than a week past.’
‘You may be right,’ returned the first speaker. ‘But the dog is uneasy, and I never knew him give them signs for game or venison; no, nor for Injun neither. I should have said there was a white man near. But we air a little too much in the line of the main pass to show a light, which we must do. Come behind this rock.—Good dog!—mind ’em!’ These last words were of course addressed to the dog, which had continued to growl at intervals while his master was speaking, although the unseen watcher had lain as still as death. The animal was apparently soothed by being thus noticed, and probably followed the men, whose footsteps could be heard as they removed to the proposed cover behind the Big Loaf Rock.
The spy had no inclination to follow them to learn more, but crawled carefully and noiselessly over the ground until he was at a safe distance from the pass; so far, indeed, that he judged that even the acute ears and scent of the dog could not detect him when he rose, and hurried in the direction of the city as fast as his legs could carry him.
On the outskirts, he knocked at the door of a shanty, a log-built hut with earthen floor, such as the Mexican peasantry, and even their betters, often reside in; and in answer to a gruff challenge from within—for the inmates were in bed, or stretched on such pallets as served for beds—he returned an answer which seemed to satisfy the questioner, for after a little more gruff grumbling, the door was opened, and he was admitted.
In answer to his inquiry, the gruff voice said: ‘No; nary drop of anything but water; ye kin have that. Your voice sounds all of a tremble, Absalom; and if ye don’t get shot over the cards or drown yourself, I guess ye won’t last long as a miner, anyhow.’
Absalom, as he was called, hesitated for a moment, as though about to say something in his defence, but eventually decided on making no reply to this rather unpleasant speech, and threw himself down on a buffalo skin which the other man pushed towards him. No further conversation took place, and the shanty was as dark and silent as were the remainder of the scattered dwellings on the outskirts of Flume City.
The first curiosity of the electric light was of course its discovery in 1802 by Humphry Davy, then an assistant-lecturer at the Royal Institution. With one of the new batteries which Volta had invented two years before, Davy was surprised to get a brilliant white light when the poles of the battery were joined through two pieces of carbon. Later on, his astonishment was increased when he found how intensely hot was this ‘arch’ of carbon light—the hottest known artificial source. ‘Platinum,’ he wrote, ‘was melted as readily as is wax in the flame of a common candle; quartz, the sapphire, magnesia, lime, all entered into fusion.’ Even the diamond swells out into a black mass in the electric arc, and carbon itself has been known to soften. Dr Siemens, as is well known, utilised this fervent heat to fuse metals in a crucible. With the arc from a dynamo capable of giving a light of five thousand candles, he fused fifteen pounds of broken files in as many minutes. Indeed, the temperature of the arc ranges from two thousand to five thousand degrees Centigrade. Another curiosity of the arc is that it can be{141} shown in water or other liquids without quenching. Liquids have a diffusive action on the light; and a globule of fused oxide of iron between platinum wires conveying the current, produces a very fine golden light. The fused plaster of Paris between the carbons of the Jablochkoff candle also forms a brilliant source of light in the arc; as does the marble separator which answers the same purpose in the lampe soleil. Indeed, this white-hot marble, rendered luminous by the arc, gives out a mellow radiance so closely resembling sunshine as to give the lamp its name. Such a light is very suitable for illuminating picture-galleries.
Electric light is also produced by sending a discharge through vacuum tubes like those of Geissler; and the varied colours thus produced are exceedingly pretty. Phosphorescent substances, too, such as the sulphide of barium, or the platino-barium cyanide, become highly luminous when inclosed in a tube and traversed by the electric current.
Besides the voltaic arc, we have now, however, another kind of electric light—namely, the incandescence which is produced by sending the current through a very slender filament of platinum wire or carbon fibre inclosed in a glass bulb exhausted of air. Such are the lamps of Swan, Edison, and others. These lamps have also their curious features. The temperature of the filament is of course much lower than the temperature of the arc. It is only about eighteen hundred degrees Centigrade, for if it were higher, the delicate filament would be dissipated into vapour which would condense like smoke on the cool glass. With a platinum filament, the metal would ‘silver’ the interior of the bulb. Curiously enough, when the copper ‘electrodes’ or wires conveying the current inside the bulb to the filament of an Edison lamp are accidentally dissipated by excess of current, the carbon thread seems to shelter the glass from the copper shower, for Dr J. Fleming has observed that there is always a blank line on the glass opposite the filament, while all the rest is coated with a film of copper. When the carbon itself is dissipated, this blank line is not seen, and the whole interior of the bulb appears to be smoked. According to Dr Fleming, this means that the molecules of copper move in straight lines in the vacuum.
During the ordinary action of one of these lamps there is believed to be a kind of molecular bombardment between the two sides of the carbon filament, which is usually bent into a loop. This battery of atoms in time disintegrates the filament near its junction with the wires where it is severest, and a patent has recently been taken out by Mr Brush, the well-known inventor, for the insertion of a mica screen between the legs of the filament to shield them from the pellets.
The spectrum of the voltaic arc consists of the continuous ribbon spectrum of the white-hot solid carbons, and certain bright lines due to the glowing vapours of the arc. The light is rich in the blue or actinic rays so productive of chemical action, and hence it is, perhaps, that Dr Siemens found it so effective in forcing fruit and flowers by night in lieu of the sun. It helps the development of chlorophyl; and perhaps the electricity itself has also something to do with assisting growth, apart from the light, for several French experimenters have found that electrified soil and air seem to foster plants better than unelectrified. It is remarkable, too, that young bamboo shoots grow very rapidly after the thunderstorms which usher in the Indian monsoons.
The power of the arc-light is something unrivalled by any other light, whether of limelight or magnesium. At the famous Crystal Palace Electrical Exhibition, an arc reputed to be one hundred and fifty thousand candles in power was lighted every evening. The carbons were stout copper-plated bars nearly two and a half inches thick. This intensity of illumination renders the arc eminently adapted for lighthouses and search-lights. Hence it is that the French government have decided to light forty of their coast lighthouses by electricity, and that most of our warships and military trains are now equipped with electric lamps for searching purposes. We read that the fleet at Alexandria explored the Egyptian forts by night with powerful arcs; and that the French Admiral at Madagascar struck terror into the breasts of the simple Hovas by a similar display.
For scouring the sea in search of torpedo-boats by night, or icebergs and other ships during a fog, the value of the arc-light cannot be too highly estimated. The screw-steamer Faraday, while engaged some time ago in laying a new Atlantic cable, would have run right into an iceberg in a Newfoundland fog, but for the electric beam projected from her bows into the misty air ahead. Fog, however, has a peculiarly strong quenching power over the arc-light, owing to the preference it has for absorbing all the blue rays, and to the comparative poverty of the orange colour. Hence it is that electric arc-lamps look so white and dim in a dense fog. A single gas-jet can be seen about as far as a two-thousand-candle arc-lamp. This is because the gas-jet is rich in those red rays which penetrate a fog without being absorbed; whereas it is poor in the blue rays which are quenched. For this reason, also, the incandescence lamp is preferable to the arc for a misty atmosphere.
The incandescence lamp can also burn under water, and owing to its pretty shape, its pure light, its cleanliness, and independence of everything except wires to bring the current to it, is highly suitable for decorative purposes. It particularly lends itself to ornamental devices of a floral order; and a great variety of chandeliers and brackets have now been designed representing various plants with leaves of brass or filagree, and flowers composed of tinted crystal cups containing the lamps. Fruit is also simulated by lamps of coloured glass. For example, at a Drury Lane Christmas pantomime, both holly and mistletoe berries were imitated by incandescence{142} lamps of crimson and opal glass. Artificial lemon-trees, with fruit consisting of yellow lamps, also make a pretty dining-table ornament. So do vases of roses with incandescence lamps hid in them, an ornament devised by Mr J. W. Swan for his residence at Bromley. Aquaria, too, can be lighted internally by incandescence bulbs, and it would be very pretty to see the lamps lying beside growing sea-anemones, whose expansion might seem the more lovely under the stimulus of their rays.
A Christmas-tree looks very pretty when lighted by a hundred incandescence lamps; the first attempted being in all probability that in the Swedish section of the Electrical Exhibition held in Paris two years ago. At the Vienna Electrical Exhibition there are, while we write, some novel effects of electric illumination; for instance, there is a hall lighted entirely from the ceiling by electricity. The ceiling is painted a deep blue to represent the sky, and studded with innumerable stars in the shape of incandescence lamps. This reminds us of the allegorical sun produced in the window of Mr Mayal, the well-known photographer, by means of the same illuminant.
From its cool brightness and safety from fire, the incandescence light is very well adapted for theatres, and there are now several opera-houses and theatres lighted by it. The Savoy Theatre, London; the Princess’s Theatre, Manchester; the Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh, &c., are all lit by incandescence lamps owing to its brilliance as compared with gas. Some change was necessary in the making-up of the actors and actresses, and the painting of the scenes; but at the New Grand Theatre, Islington, the changes have been avoided by the use of yellow glass bulbs which soften the light. At the Electrical Exhibition, Vienna, there is a model theatre with numerous scenic effects never before attempted by gas; and moonlight, sunrise, sunset, twilight, and night are all imitated with great fidelity. In the drama of Love and Money at the Adelphi Theatre, a flood of daylight bursting in upon some entombed miners through a hole cut in the coal by a rescuing party was very well imitated by a beam of ‘arc’ light. The practice of wearing tiny star lamps on the hair or dress has also come more into fashion. Probably the first use of it was by the fairies in the comic opera of Iolanthe at the Savoy Theatre. Each fairy carried a small accumulator on her back half concealed by her wings, and this gave electricity to a miniature Swan lamp mounted on her forehead. Ladies are sometimes to be seen with miniature lamps attached to their dresses, and lighted by a touch of their fingers upon a small key hid in their belts. One might have glowworm or firefly ornaments at this rate. The ‘death’s-head’ pin worn by gentlemen in Paris a year or two ago was a similar application of the electric current. On touching a key to complete the electric circuit of a small pocket battery, the eyes of the death’s-head in the wearer’s breast began to shine like sparks of fire.
The use of the electric light for sporting purposes has had some curious developments. Polo, cricket, base ball, skating, and so on, have all been played by night. At the Montreal Ice Carnival last winter, the huge ice palace was illuminated both out and in with thousands of electric lights, and skating, curling, snow-shoeing, and toboganning went on by night as well as day.
Gnats are fascinated by a powerful electric lamp, and dance about it as they do in a beam of evening sunshine. Light has an attraction for many animals besides insects. Flying-fish spring out of the sea when sailors hang a lantern by the ship’s side; and in California now it is the custom to submerge a cluster of Edison lamps from the bows of a boat with a net expanded below. When the fish gather round the light the net is closed on them, and after being hauled out of the water they are put into water-tanks, and sent alive on special cars by overland rail to New York and the Eastern States. The French chasseur also makes a bag sometimes by employing an electric light to attract his feathered game; pigeons especially being lured by it.
Owing to its power, the arc-light is very well suited for signalling purposes; and hence it is now used with the heliograph to signal the approach of cyclones between the British island of Mauritius and Reunion in the Indian Ocean. It has also been proposed to signal by transparent balloons lit by incandescence lamps. The balloon is raised to a good height by a rope which also carries the wires conveying the current to the lamps; and flashes according to an understood code of signals are made by working a key to interrupt the current, as in the act of telegraphing.
Diving operations under the sea are greatly facilitated by the electric light; and a trial was recently made of a powerful lamp at Marseilles in lighting up the hull of a sunken ship. The amber hunters of the Baltic are also using the light for seeking the fossil gum on the sea-bed, instead of waiting until the waves cast it on the shore. Sea-water is remarkably clear, and the rocks of the seashore are often beautifully covered with weeds and shells. It is no wonder, then, that a submarine balloon has been devised by one Signor Toselli at Nice, for going under water to examine them. This observatory holds eight people, and has a glass bottom and an electric light for illuminating the sea-caves.
The electric light is not free from danger; but, from not being explosive, it is far from being as fatal in its effects as gas. There have been several deaths from electric shock caused by the very powerful currents of the Brush and Jablochkoff machines. For instance, a man was killed instantly on board the late Czar’s yacht Livadia when crossing the Bay of Biscay. He had accidentally grasped the bare connections of one of the electric lamps and received the current through his breast. Others have been killed by touching bare wires conveying the current; a man in Kansas City, United States, met his death quite recently in repairing some electric light wires without knowing that the current flowed in them. Carelessness of some kind was the source of these misfortunes; but the use of such very deadly currents is to be deprecated. When the electromotive force of an electric current exceeds five hundred volts it becomes dangerous, and hence it is that the Board of Trade prohibits the use of more powerful currents for general lighting. The use of overhead wires, sometimes uninsulated and never wholly insulated, such as obtains in{143} some parts of the United States, ought also to be eschewed, and underground cables, safe out of harm’s way, employed instead. With cables buried in the earth, we should not have a repetition of the curious incident which recently happened at the Luray Cavern in Virginia, where lightning ran into the cave along the electric light conductors and destroyed some of the finest stalactites.
The plan of having tall masts with a cluster of very powerful lights reflected from the height by mirrors is a very good one, since it obviates the distribution of wires and lamps. By imitating the sun, in this way a Californian town is entirely lighted from one or two masts; and it is satisfactory to know that the system is being tried at South Kensington.
The dynamos of electric machines have been known to explode, or rather burst from the centrifugal force due to the rapid revolution of the armature. An accident of this kind recently caused great alarm in a New York theatre. Sparks from the red-hot carbons of arc-lamps, or between wire and wire of the conductors, have also led to many small fires; but none of any great consequence. A spark is so feeble a source of heat that, unlike the spilling of an oil-lamp, it does not produce a powerful fire, provided the materials it falls among are not highly inflammable. On the whole, the danger of fire with electric lighting, especially incandescence lighting, has probably been exaggerated. The incandescence lamp itself is very safe, since if one be enveloped in light dry muslin and broken, the muslin is not burnt. In fact, the rush of air caused by the broken vacuum entirely dissipates the red-hot filament.
From its injurious aspects we turn now to its beneficial qualities. The arc-light by its brilliance is not good for the eyesight when looked at direct, but there is probably nothing harmful in the light itself, unless it should be the excess of violet rays. It is a cool light; and hot lights, by drying the natural humours of the eye, are the most prejudicial to the sight. The incandescence light which is free from excess of violet rays is also a cool light; and as it neither pollutes nor burns the air of a chamber, it is the best light for a student. Small reading-lamps, fitted with movable arms carrying incandescent bulbs, are now manufactured for this purpose. Even with the incandescence lamp, however, it is advisable not to look at the brilliant filament.
Surgeons and dentists find these little incandescence lamps of great service in examining the teeth and mouth. Some are made no larger than a pea. Others are fitted into silver probes (cooled by circulating water) for insertion into the stomach to illuminate its coats, or enable a physician to diagnose other internal organs. Dr Payne, of Newcastle-on-Tyne, recently made an examination of the liver by inserting one of these endoscopes into it through an incision made in the abdomen. M. Trouvé has also fitted a small lamp to a belt which goes round the physician’s forehead, thereby enabling him to direct the light to where he is looking. Another experimenter has so applied the light that he has been able to photograph the vocal chords while in the act of singing; and a third has illuminated the whole interior of a living fish, so that all the main physiological operations could be witnessed by a class of students. Such services as these could not be rendered by any other known illuminator.
Out of the countless variety of evil-doers who thrive upon the misfortunes of their fellow-creatures, and are enabled to gain a means of livelihood by the folly and timidity of their dupes, one class above all others seem to conduct their depredations with much success, on account of the defenceless position of the unhappy individuals upon whom they prey. We allude to those who make it their business to levy what is termed ‘hush-money.’
There are innumerable miscreants who thrive upon the possession of some discreditable secret or family skeleton, which throws a desolating blight over many a life, to all appearance surrounded by every comfort and luxury wealth can command. Scoundrels of this description, secure in the helplessness of their victims, pursue with impunity their merciless system of extortion, being well aware that the terror of exposure is so great, that silence will be purchased at any price. If persons who are threatened by ruffians of this kind with exposure of some private matter, were once and for all to refuse to pay one penny for the silence of these extortioners, how much misery would be avoided! Each instalment of hush-money only serves to whet the appetites of these social harpies. It is infinitely preferable to face boldly at first the worst, no matter of how serious a nature, than to supply blackmail for the purchase of what can never be security. The majority of malefactors are cowards at heart, although a craven nature is in such cases concealed often by bluster and braggadocio. It therefore becomes all the more important at once to withstand their infamous importunities.
The ordinary observer, while reading in some sensational novel the evil deeds and extortion perpetrated by the class of knaves who subsist on hush-money, would be inclined to attribute them to romance. It is, however, well known to those who have had experience in criminal matters, that the novelist’s fertile imagination pales before stern reality. Innocent persons have been threatened with an accusation of some infamous crime, and at the same time money has been demanded as the price of silence. The dread caused by even an accusation of such a nature has often, unfortunately, induced persons so situated to accede to extortionate demands. There are plenty of mauvais sujets hovering about society who make it their business to become intimate with the private history of those upon whose infirmities they intend to trade. Not many years since, a notable instance of this occurred. A gentleman in a high social position was ruthlessly assailed and socially ruined by a miscreant, who traded upon the possession of some information of a dubious nature reflecting discredit upon his wife. For a lengthened period this gentleman had paid considerable sums of money for the silence of his persecutor; at last, however, driven to desperation by continual and increased demands for hush-money, he preferred rather to face a{144} public trial than continue longer subject to such tyranny and extortion.
The following apt illustration of blackmailing, which came under the writer’s personal cognisance, will show the rascality in vogue amongst these wretches. A wealthy merchant was for some years completely in the power of a thorough-paced scoundrel who had previously been in his employ. This knave became acquainted with a delicate family matter, which, if disclosed, could but entail shame and misery upon his late employer. He threatened to make this information public unless well paid for his silence. This gentleman, although surrounded by every luxury, was in truth a thoroughly miserable man. Living in a constant state of fear lest his family skeleton should be revealed in all its hideousness, he continued from time to time to supply his tormentor with large sums of money. The continual mental strain caused his health to give way, until at last he wisely determined to consult his legal adviser upon what was the bane of his life. Prompt steps were then taken, which for ever freed him from further extortion. These things daily happen, and yet, unfortunately, frequently remain unpunished.
What can be more terrible than to exist in constant fear of pending ruin—entirely at the mercy of some miscreant, who by one word can destroy a hitherto stainless reputation! It is a true saying that ‘there is a skeleton in every house,’ and if discovered by any designing knave, may be transformed into a sword of Damocles. Confidential servants and discharged valets often wring large sums from their former employers by means of extortionate demands combined with threats of disclosing certain family matters calculated to bring shame upon their late masters’ or mistresses’ good name.
The payment of any illicit demand as a price of secrecy rarely, if ever, permanently obtains the object in view, the donor being more or less in constant fear lest a disclosure should take place. This usually transpires sooner or later, when the torturer has abstracted the uttermost penny from his victim. No greater delusion can possibly exist than that ‘hush-money’ will secure durable secrecy.
Happily, however, the legislature, having in view the nefarious practices of such criminals, has provided a most potent remedy against this class of robbers, which remedy cannot be too generally known. The Act of Parliament 24 and 25 Vict. s. 49, enacts, That whosoever shall accuse or threaten any person with a view to extort money or valuable security, shall be guilty of felony, and be liable at the discretion of the court to be kept in penal servitude for life, or for any term not less than five years. All demands for hush-money met at the outset by firm and unyielding refusal, is the best and only course to adopt. In the majority of instances, a villain would at once be completely checkmated; and even should he venture to extremities, the law is powerful enough to put an end to his shameful trade. Anything is better than to live in constant terror of exposure, and to be remorselessly plundered by such a vampire. We often hear of strange suicides, the reason for which is wholly incomprehensible. It is by no means surprising that, at times, persons wanting in resolution, are made desperate by a system of exquisite mental torture, when unmercifully applied by these extortioners. Innumerable unhappy persons are unquestionably thus tormented, like Prometheus on his rock. Such anguish, although unseen, is far greater than physical suffering, as all mental tribulation is more severe than mere bodily pain.
If any one who is assailed by a miscreant in quest of ‘hush-money’ were at once to place the matter in the hands of some respectable solicitor, a course of misery would be avoided, as any attempt to extort money through threats or otherwise comes clearly within the provisions of the Act above mentioned; and criminal proceedings will be found the most effectual means for exterminating so great a social pest.
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