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The Strand Magazine, Vol. 27, February 1904, No. 159.

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Title: The Strand Magazine, Vol. 27, February 1904, No. 159.

Author: Various


        
Release date: December 12, 2014 [eBook #47642]

Language: English

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Credits: Produced by Victorian/Edwardian Pictorial Magazines,
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE STRAND MAGAZINE, VOL. 27, FEBRUARY 1904, NO. 159. ***




Produced by Victorian/Edwardian Pictorial Magazines,
Jonathan Ingram, Jane Robins, sound files by Linda Cantoni,
and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
http://www.pgdp.net






[Illustration: "I HEARD HIM CHUCKLE AS THE LIGHT FELL UPON A PATCHED
DUNLOP TYRE."

(_See page 135._)]





     THE STRAND MAGAZINE.

     Vol. xxvii.       FEBRUARY, 1904.         No. 159.




THE RETURN OF SHERLOCK HOLMES.

By A. CONAN DOYLE.


_V.--The Adventure of the Priory School._

We have had some dramatic entrances and exits upon our small stage
at Baker Street, but I cannot recollect anything more sudden and
startling than the first appearance of Dr. Thorneycroft Huxtable, M.A.,
Ph.D., etc. His card, which seemed too small to carry the weight of
his academic distinctions, preceded him by a few seconds, and then he
entered himself--so large, so pompous, and so dignified that he was
the very embodiment of self-possession and solidity. And yet his first
action when the door had closed behind him was to stagger against
the table, whence he slipped down upon the floor, and there was that
majestic figure prostrate and insensible upon our bearskin hearthrug.

We had sprung to our feet, and for a few moments we stared in silent
amazement at this ponderous piece of wreckage, which told of some
sudden and fatal storm far out on the ocean of life. Then Holmes
hurried with a cushion for his head and I with brandy for his lips. The
heavy white face was seamed with lines of trouble, the hanging pouches
under the closed eyes were leaden in colour, the loose mouth drooped
dolorously at the corners, the rolling chins were unshaven. Collar and
shirt bore the grime of a long journey, and the hair bristled unkempt
from the well-shaped head. It was a sorely-stricken man who lay before
us.

"What is it, Watson?" asked Holmes.

"Absolute exhaustion--possibly mere hunger and fatigue," said I, with
my finger on the thready pulse, where the stream of life trickled thin
and small.

"Return ticket from Mackleton, in the North of England," said Holmes,
drawing it from the watch-pocket. "It is not twelve o'clock yet. He has
certainly been an early starter."

The puckered eyelids had begun to quiver, and now a pair of vacant,
grey eyes looked up at us. An instant later the man had scrambled on to
his feet, his face crimson with shame.

"Forgive this weakness, Mr. Holmes; I have been a little overwrought.
Thank you, if I might have a glass of milk and a biscuit I have no
doubt that I should be better. I came personally, Mr. Holmes, in order
to ensure that you would return with me. I feared that no telegram
would convince you of the absolute urgency of the case."

"When you are quite restored----"

"I am quite well again. I cannot imagine how I came to be so weak. I
wish you, Mr. Holmes, to come to Mackleton with me by the next train."

My friend shook his head.

"My colleague, Dr. Watson, could tell you that we are very busy at
present. I am retained in this case of the Ferrers Documents, and the
Abergavenny murder is coming up for trial. Only a very important issue
could call me from London at present."

"Important!" Our visitor threw up his hands. "Have you heard nothing of
the abduction of the only son of the Duke of Holdernesse?"

"What! the late Cabinet Minister?"

"Exactly. We had tried to keep it out of the papers, but there was some
rumour in the _Globe_ last night. I thought it might have reached your
ears."

Holmes shot out his long, thin arm and picked out Volume "H" in his
encyclopædia of reference.

"'Holdernesse, 6th Duke, K.G., P.C.'--half the alphabet! 'Baron
Beverley, Earl of Carston'--dear me, what a list! 'Lord Lieutenant
of Hallamshire since 1900. Married Edith, daughter of Sir Charles
Appledore, 1888. Heir and only child, Lord Saltire. Owns about two
hundred and fifty thousand acres. Minerals in Lancashire and Wales.
Address: Carlton House Terrace; Holdernesse Hall, Hallamshire; Carston
Castle, Bangor, Wales. Lord of the Admiralty, 1872; Chief Secretary of
State for----' Well, well, this man is certainly one of the greatest
subjects of the Crown!"

[Illustration: "THE HEAVY WHITE FACE WAS SEAMED WITH LINES OF TROUBLE."]

"The greatest and perhaps the wealthiest. I am aware, Mr. Holmes, that
you take a very high line in professional matters, and that you are
prepared to work for the work's sake. I may tell you, however, that his
Grace has already intimated that a cheque for five thousand pounds will
be handed over to the person who can tell him where his son is, and
another thousand to him who can name the man, or men, who have taken
him."

"It is a princely offer," said Holmes. "Watson, I think that we shall
accompany Dr. Huxtable back to the North of England. And now, Dr.
Huxtable, when you have consumed that milk you will kindly tell me what
has happened, when it happened, how it happened, and, finally, what Dr.
Thorneycroft Huxtable, of the Priory School, near Mackleton, has to do
with the matter, and why he comes three days after an event--the state
of your chin gives the date--to ask for my humble services."

Our visitor had consumed his milk and biscuits. The light had come back
to his eyes and the colour to his cheeks as he set himself with great
vigour and lucidity to explain the situation.

"I must inform you, gentlemen, that the Priory is a preparatory school,
of which I am the founder and principal. 'Huxtable's Sidelights on
Horace' may possibly recall my name to your memories. The Priory
is, without exception, the best and most select preparatory school
in England. Lord Leverstoke, the Earl of Blackwater, Sir Cathcart
Soames--they all have entrusted their sons to me. But I felt that
my school had reached its zenith when, three weeks ago, the Duke of
Holdernesse sent Mr. James Wilder, his secretary, with the intimation
that young Lord Saltire, ten years old, his only son and heir, was
about to be committed to my charge. Little did I think that this would
be the prelude to the most crushing misfortune of my life.

"On May 1st the boy arrived, that being the beginning of the summer
term. He was a charming youth, and he soon fell into our ways. I may
tell you--I trust that I am not indiscreet, but half-confidences are
absurd in such a case--that he was not entirely happy at home. It is an
open secret that the Duke's married life had not been a peaceful one,
and the matter had ended in a separation by mutual consent, the Duchess
taking up her residence in the South of France. This had occurred
very shortly before, and the boy's sympathies are known to have been
strongly with his mother. He moped after her departure from Holdernesse
Hall, and it was for this reason that the Duke desired to send him to
my establishment. In a fortnight the boy was quite at home with us,
and was apparently absolutely happy.

"He was last seen on the night of May 13th--that is, the night of last
Monday. His room was on the second floor, and was approached through
another larger room in which two boys were sleeping. These boys saw
and heard nothing, so that it is certain that young Saltire did not
pass out that way. His window was open, and there is a stout ivy plant
leading to the ground. We could trace no footmarks below, but it is
sure that this is the only possible exit.

"His absence was discovered at seven o'clock on Tuesday morning. His
bed had been slept in. He had dressed himself fully before going off
in his usual school suit of black Eton jacket and dark grey trousers.
There were no signs that anyone had entered the room, and it is quite
certain that anything in the nature of cries, or a struggle, would have
been heard, since Caunter, the elder boy in the inner room, is a very
light sleeper.

"When Lord Saltire's disappearance was discovered I at once called a
roll of the whole establishment, boys, masters, and servants. It was
then that we ascertained that Lord Saltire had not been alone in his
flight. Heidegger, the German master, was missing. His room was on
the second floor, at the farther end of the building, facing the same
way as Lord Saltire's. His bed had also been slept in; but he had
apparently gone away partly dressed, since his shirt and socks were
lying on the floor. He had undoubtedly let himself down by the ivy, for
we could see the marks of his feet where he had landed on the lawn. His
bicycle was kept in a small shed beside this lawn, and it also was gone.

"He had been with me for two years, and came with the best references;
but he was a silent, morose man, not very popular either with masters
or boys. No trace could be found of the fugitives, and now on Thursday
morning we are as ignorant as we were on Tuesday. Inquiry was, of
course, made at once at Holdernesse Hall. It is only a few miles away,
and we imagined that in some sudden attack of home-sickness he had gone
back to his father; but nothing had been heard of him. The Duke is
greatly agitated--and as to me, you have seen yourselves the state of
nervous prostration to which the suspense and the responsibility have
reduced me. Mr. Holmes, if ever you put forward your full powers, I
implore you to do so now, for never in your life could you have a case
which is more worthy of them."

Sherlock Holmes had listened with the utmost intentness to the
statement of the unhappy schoolmaster. His drawn brows and the deep
furrow between them showed that he needed no exhortation to concentrate
all his attention upon a problem which, apart from the tremendous
interests involved, must appeal so directly to his love of the complex
and the unusual. He now drew out his note-book and jotted down one or
two memoranda.

"You have been very remiss in not coming to me sooner," said he,
severely. "You start me on my investigation with a very serious
handicap. It is inconceivable, for example, that this ivy and this lawn
would have yielded nothing to an expert observer."

"I am not to blame, Mr. Holmes. His Grace was extremely desirous to
avoid all public scandal. He was afraid of his family unhappiness being
dragged before the world. He has a deep horror of anything of the kind."

"But there has been some official investigation?"

"Yes, sir, and it has proved most disappointing. An apparent clue was
at once obtained, since a boy and a young man were reported to have
been seen leaving a neighbouring station by an early train. Only last
night we had news that the couple had been hunted down in Liverpool,
and they prove to have no connection whatever with the matter in hand.
Then it was that in my despair and disappointment, after a sleepless
night, I came straight to you by the early train."

"I suppose the local investigation was relaxed while this false clue
was being followed up?"

"It was entirely dropped."

"So that three days have been wasted. The affair has been most
deplorably handled."

"I feel it, and admit it."

"And yet the problem should be capable of ultimate solution. I shall be
very happy to look into it. Have you been able to trace any connection
between the missing boy and this German master?"

"None at all."

"Was he in the master's class?"

"No; he never exchanged a word with him so far as I know."

"That is certainly very singular. Had the boy a bicycle?"

"No."

"Was any other bicycle missing?"

"No."

"Is that certain?"

"Quite."

"Well, now, you do not mean to seriously suggest that this German rode
off upon a bicycle in the dead of the night bearing the boy in his
arms?"

"Certainly not."

"Then what is the theory in your mind?"

"The bicycle may have been a blind. It may have been hidden somewhere
and the pair gone off on foot."

"Quite so; but it seems rather an absurd blind, does it not? Were there
other bicycles in this shed?"

"Several."

"Would he not have hidden _a couple_ had he desired to give the idea
that they had gone off upon them?"

"I suppose he would."

[Illustration: "WHAT IS THE THEORY IN YOUR MIND?"]

"Of course he would. The blind theory won't do. But the incident is an
admirable starting-point for an investigation. After all, a bicycle is
not an easy thing to conceal or to destroy. One other question. Did
anyone call to see the boy on the day before he disappeared?"

"No."

"Did he get any letters?"

"Yes; one letter."

"From whom?"

"From his father."

"Do you open the boys' letters?"

"No."

"How do you know it was from the father?"

"The coat of arms was on the envelope, and it was addressed in the
Duke's peculiar stiff hand. Besides, the Duke remembers having written."

"When had he a letter before that?"

"Not for several days."

"Had he ever one from France?"

"No; never."

"You see the point of my questions, of course. Either the boy was
carried off by force or he went of his own free will. In the latter
case you would expect that some prompting from outside would be needed
to make so young a lad do such a thing. If he has had no visitors, that
prompting must have come in letters. Hence I try to find out who were
his correspondents."

"I fear I cannot help you much. His only correspondent, so far as I
know, was his own father."

"Who wrote to him on the very day of his disappearance. Were the
relations between father and son very friendly?"

"His Grace is never very friendly with anyone. He is completely
immersed in large public questions, and is rather inaccessible to all
ordinary emotions. But he was always kind to the boy in his own way."

"But the sympathies of the latter were with the mother?"

"Yes."

"Did he say so?"

"No."

"The Duke, then?"

"Good heavens, no!"

"Then how could you know?"

"I have had some confidential talks with Mr. James Wilder, his Grace's
secretary. It was he who gave me the information about Lord Saltire's
feelings."

"I see. By the way, that last letter of the Duke's--was it found in the
boy's room after he was gone?"

"No; he had taken it with him. I think, Mr. Holmes, it is time that we
were leaving for Euston."

"I will order a four-wheeler. In a quarter of an hour we shall be at
your service. If you are telegraphing home, Mr. Huxtable, it would be
well to allow the people in your neighbourhood to imagine that the
inquiry is still going on in Liverpool, or wherever else that red
herring led your pack. In the meantime I will do a little quiet work at
your own doors, and perhaps the scent is not so cold but that two old
hounds like Watson and myself may get a sniff of it."

       *       *       *       *       *

That evening found us in the cold, bracing atmosphere of the Peak
country, in which Dr. Huxtable's famous school is situated. It was
already dark when we reached it. A card was lying on the hall table,
and the butler whispered something to his master, who turned to us with
agitation in every heavy feature.

"The Duke is here," said he. "The Duke and Mr. Wilder are in the study.
Come, gentlemen, and I will introduce you."

I was, of course, familiar with the pictures of the famous statesman,
but the man himself was very different from his representation. He was
a tall and stately person, scrupulously dressed, with a drawn, thin
face, and a nose which was grotesquely curved and long. His complexion
was of a dead pallor, which was more startling by contrast with a
long, dwindling beard of vivid red, which flowed down over his white
waistcoat, with his watch-chain gleaming through its fringe. Such
was the stately presence who looked stonily at us from the centre of
Dr. Huxtable's hearthrug. Beside him stood a very young man, whom I
understood to be Wilder, the private secretary. He was small, nervous,
alert, with intelligent, light-blue eyes and mobile features. It was he
who at once, in an incisive and positive tone, opened the conversation.

"I called this morning, Dr. Huxtable, too late to prevent you from
starting for London. I learned that your object was to invite Mr.
Sherlock Holmes to undertake the conduct of this case. His Grace is
surprised, Dr. Huxtable, that you should have taken such a step without
consulting him."

"When I learned that the police had failed----"

"His Grace is by no means convinced that the police have failed."

"But surely, Mr. Wilder----"

"You are well aware, Dr. Huxtable, that his Grace is particularly
anxious to avoid all public scandal. He prefers to take as few people
as possible into his confidence."

"The matter can be easily remedied," said the brow-beaten doctor; "Mr.
Sherlock Holmes can return to London by the morning train."

"Hardly that, doctor, hardly that," said Holmes, in his blandest voice.
"This northern air is invigorating and pleasant, so I propose to spend
a few days upon your moors, and to occupy my mind as best I may.
Whether I have the shelter of your roof or of the village inn is, of
course, for you to decide."

I could see that the unfortunate doctor was in the last stage of
indecision, from which he was rescued by the deep, sonorous voice of
the red-bearded Duke, which boomed out like a dinner-gong.

"I agree with Mr. Wilder, Dr. Huxtable, that you would have done
wisely to consult me. But since Mr. Holmes has already been taken into
your confidence, it would indeed be absurd that we should not avail
ourselves of his services. Far from going to the inn, Mr. Holmes, I
should be pleased if you would come and stay with me at Holdernesse
Hall."

"I thank your Grace. For the purposes of my investigation I think that
it would be wiser for me to remain at the scene of the mystery."

"Just as you like, Mr. Holmes. Any information which Mr. Wilder or I
can give you is, of course, at your disposal."

"It will probably be necessary for me to see you at the Hall," said
Holmes. "I would only ask you now, sir, whether you have formed any
explanation in your own mind as to the mysterious disappearance of your
son?"

"No, sir, I have not."

"Excuse me if I allude to that which is painful to you, but I have no
alternative. Do you think that the Duchess had anything to do with the
matter?"

The great Minister showed perceptible hesitation.

"I do not think so," he said, at last.

"The other most obvious explanation is that the child has been
kidnapped for the purpose of levying ransom. You have not had any
demand of the sort?"

"No, sir."

"One more question, your Grace. I understand that you wrote to your son
upon the day when this incident occurred."

"No; I wrote upon the day before."

[Illustration: "BESIDE HIM STOOD A VERY YOUNG MAN."]

"Exactly. But he received it on that day?"

"Yes."

"Was there anything in your letter which might have unbalanced him or
induced him to take such a step?"

"No, sir, certainly not."

"Did you post that letter yourself?"

The nobleman's reply was interrupted by his secretary, who broke in
with some heat.

"His Grace is not in the habit of posting letters himself," said he.
"This letter was laid with others upon the study table, and I myself
put them in the post-bag."

"You are sure this one was among them?"

"Yes; I observed it."

"How many letters did your Grace write that day?"

"Twenty or thirty. I have a large correspondence. But surely this is
somewhat irrelevant?"

"Not entirely," said Holmes.

"For my own part," the Duke continued, "I have advised the police to
turn their attention to the South of France. I have already said that I
do not believe that the Duchess would encourage so monstrous an action,
but the lad had the most wrong-headed opinions, and it is possible that
he may have fled to her, aided and abetted by this German. I think, Dr.
Huxtable, that we will now return to the Hall."

I could see that there were other questions which Holmes would
have wished to put; but the nobleman's abrupt manner showed that
the interview was at an end. It was evident that to his intensely
aristocratic nature this discussion of his intimate family affairs with
a stranger was most abhorrent, and that he feared lest every fresh
question would throw a fiercer light into the discreetly shadowed
corners of his ducal history.

When the nobleman and his secretary had left, my friend flung himself
at once with characteristic eagerness into the investigation.

The boy's chamber was carefully examined, and yielded nothing save the
absolute conviction that it was only through the window that he could
have escaped. The German master's room and effects gave no further
clue. In his case a trailer of ivy had given way under his weight, and
we saw by the light of a lantern the mark on the lawn where his heels
had come down. That one dint in the short green grass was the only
material witness left of this inexplicable nocturnal flight.

Sherlock Holmes left the house alone, and only returned after eleven.
He had obtained a large ordnance map of the neighbourhood, and this
he brought into my room, where he laid it out on the bed, and, having
balanced the lamp in the middle of it, he began to smoke over it, and
occasionally to point out objects of interest with the reeking amber of
his pipe.

"This case grows upon me, Watson," said he. "There are decidedly some
points of interest in connection with it. In this early stage I want
you to realize those geographical features which may have a good deal
to do with our investigation.

"Look at this map. This dark square is the Priory School. I'll put a
pin in it. Now, this line is the main road. You see that it runs east
and west past the school, and you see also that there is no side road
for a mile either way. If these two folk passed away by road it was
_this_ road."

"Exactly."

"By a singular and happy chance we are able to some extent to check
what passed along this road during the night in question. At this
point, where my pipe is now resting, a country constable was on duty
from twelve to six. It is, as you perceive, the first cross road on the
east side. This man declares that he was not absent from his post for
an instant, and he is positive that neither boy nor man could have gone
that way unseen. I have spoken with this policeman to-night, and he
appears to me to be a perfectly reliable person. That blocks this end.
We have now to deal with the other. There is an inn here, the Red Bull,
the landlady of which was ill. She had sent to Mackleton for a doctor,
but he did not arrive until morning, being absent at another case. The
people at the inn were alert all night, awaiting his coming, and one
or other of them seems to have continually had an eye upon the road.
They declare that no one passed. If their evidence is good, then we are
fortunate enough to be able to block the west, and also to be able to
say that the fugitives did _not_ use the road at all."

"But the bicycle?" I objected.

"Quite so. We will come to the bicycle presently. To continue our
reasoning: if these people did not go by the road, they must have
traversed the country to the north of the house or to the south of the
house. That is certain. Let us weigh the one against the other. On the
south of the house is, as you perceive, a large district of arable
land, cut up into small fields, with stone walls between them. There,
I admit that a bicycle is impossible. We can dismiss the idea. We turn
to the country on the north. Here there lies a grove of trees, marked
as the 'Ragged Shaw,' and on the farther side stretches a great rolling
moor, Lower Gill Moor, extending for ten miles and sloping gradually
upwards. Here, at one side of this wilderness, is Holdernesse Hall,
ten miles by road, but only six across the moor. It is a peculiarly
desolate plain. A few moor farmers have small holdings, where they rear
sheep and cattle. Except these, the plover and the curlew are the only
inhabitants until you come to the Chesterfield high road. There is a
church there, you see, a few cottages, and an inn. Beyond that the
hills become precipitous. Surely it is here to the north that our quest
must lie."

"But the bicycle?" I persisted.

"Well, well!" said Holmes, impatiently. "A good cyclist does not need a
high road. The moor is intersected with paths and the moon was at the
full. Halloa! what is this?"

There was an agitated knock at the door, and an instant afterwards Dr.
Huxtable was in the room. In his hand he held a blue cricket-cap, with
a white chevron on the peak.

"At last we have a clue!" he cried. "Thank Heaven! at last we are on
the dear boy's track! It is his cap."

"Where was it found?"

"In the van of the gipsies who camped on the moor. They left on
Tuesday. To-day the police traced them down and examined their caravan.
This was found."

"How do they account for it?"

"They shuffled and lied--said that they found it on the moor on Tuesday
morning. They know where he is, the rascals! Thank goodness, they are
all safe under lock and key. Either the fear of the law or the Duke's
purse will certainly get out of them all that they know."

"So far, so good," said Holmes, when the doctor had at last left the
room. "It at least bears out the theory that it is on the side of the
Lower Gill Moor that we must hope for results. The police have really
done nothing locally, save the arrest of these gipsies. Look here,
Watson! There is a watercourse across the moor. You see it marked here
in the map. In some parts it widens into a morass. This is particularly
so in the region between Holdernesse Hall and the school. It is vain
to look elsewhere for tracks in this dry weather; but at _that_ point
there is certainly a chance of some record being left. I will call you
early to-morrow morning, and you and I will try if we can throw some
little light upon the mystery."

The day was just breaking when I woke to find the long, thin form of
Holmes by my bedside. He was fully dressed, and had apparently already
been out.

"I have done the lawn and the bicycle shed," said he. "I have also had
a ramble through the Ragged Shaw. Now, Watson, there is cocoa ready in
the next room. I must beg you to hurry, for we have a great day before
us."

His eyes shone, and his cheek was flushed with the exhilaration of the
master workman who sees his work lie ready before him. A very different
Holmes, this active, alert man, from the introspective and pallid
dreamer of Baker Street. I felt, as I looked upon that supple figure,
alive with nervous energy, that it was indeed a strenuous day that
awaited us.

[Illustration: SKETCH MAP SHOWING THE LOCALITY.]

And yet it opened in the blackest disappointment. With high hopes we
struck across the peaty, russet moor, intersected with a thousand
sheep paths, until we came to the broad, light-green belt which marked
the morass between us and Holdernesse. Certainly, if the lad had gone
homewards, he must have passed this, and he could not pass it without
leaving his traces. But no sign of him or the German could be seen.
With a darkening face my friend strode along the margin, eagerly
observant of every muddy stain upon the mossy surface. Sheep-marks
there were in profusion, and at one place, some miles down, cows had
left their tracks. Nothing more.

"Check number one," said Holmes, looking gloomily over the rolling
expanse of the moor. "There is another morass down yonder and a narrow
neck between. Halloa! halloa! halloa! what have we here?"

We had come on a small black ribbon of pathway. In the middle of it,
clearly marked on the sodden soil, was the track of a bicycle.

"Hurrah!" I cried. "We have it."

But Holmes was shaking his head, and his face was puzzled and expectant
rather than joyous.

"A bicycle certainly, but not _the_ bicycle," said he. "I am familiar
with forty-two different impressions left by tyres. This, as you
perceive, is a Dunlop, with a patch upon the outer cover. Heidegger's
tyres were Palmer's, leaving longitudinal stripes. Aveling, the
mathematical master, was sure upon the point. Therefore, it is not
Heidegger's track."

"The boy's, then?"

"Possibly, if we could prove a bicycle to have been in his possession.
But this we have utterly failed to do. This track, as you perceive, was
made by a rider who was going from the direction of the school."

"Or towards it?"

"No, no, my dear Watson. The more deeply sunk impression is, of course,
the hind wheel, upon which the weight rests. You perceive several
places where it has passed across and obliterated the more shallow mark
of the front one. It was undoubtedly heading away from the school. It
may or may not be connected with our inquiry, but we will follow it
backwards before we go any farther."

We did so, and at the end of a few hundred yards lost the tracks as
we emerged from the boggy portion of the moor. Following the path
backwards, we picked out another spot, where a spring trickled across
it. Here, once again, was the mark of the bicycle, though nearly
obliterated by the hoofs of cows. After that there was no sign, but the
path ran right on into Ragged Shaw, the wood which backed on to the
school. From this wood the cycle must have emerged. Holmes sat down on
a boulder and rested his chin in his hands. I had smoked two cigarettes
before he moved.

"Well, well," said he, at last. "It is, of course, possible that a
cunning man might change the tyre of his bicycle in order to leave
unfamiliar tracks. A criminal who was capable of such a thought is a
man whom I should be proud to do business with. We will leave this
question undecided and hark back to our morass again, for we have left
a good deal unexplored."

We continued our systematic survey of the edge of the sodden portion
of the moor, and soon our perseverance was gloriously rewarded. Right
across the lower part of the bog lay a miry path. Holmes gave a cry
of delight as he approached it. An impression like a fine bundle of
telegraph wires ran down the centre of it. It was the Palmer tyre.

[Illustration: "AN IMPRESSION LIKE A FINE BUNDLE OF TELEGRAPH WIRES RAN
DOWN THE CENTRE OF IT."]

"Here is Herr Heidegger, sure enough!" cried Holmes, exultantly. "My
reasoning seems to have been pretty sound, Watson."

"I congratulate you."

"But we have a long way still to go. Kindly walk clear of the path. Now
let us follow the trail. I fear that it will not lead very far."

We found, however, as we advanced that this portion of the moor is
intersected with soft patches, and, though we frequently lost sight of
the track, we always succeeded in picking it up once more.

"Do you observe," said Holmes, "that the rider is now undoubtedly
forcing the pace? There can be no doubt of it. Look at this impression,
where you get both tyres clear. The one is as deep as the other.
That can only mean that the rider is throwing his weight on to the
handle-bar, as a man does when he is sprinting. By Jove! he has had a
fall."

There was a broad, irregular smudge covering some yards of the track.
Then there were a few footmarks, and the tyre reappeared once more.

"A side-slip," I suggested.

Holmes held up a crumpled branch of flowering gorse. To my horror I
perceived that the yellow blossoms were all dabbled with crimson. On
the path, too, and among the heather were dark stains of clotted blood.

"Bad!" said Holmes. "Bad! Stand clear, Watson! Not an unnecessary
footstep! What do I read here? He fell wounded, he stood up, he
remounted, he proceeded. But there is no other track. Cattle on this
side path. He was surely not gored by a bull? Impossible! But I see no
traces of anyone else. We must push on, Watson. Surely with stains as
well as the track to guide us he cannot escape us now."

Our search was not a very long one. The tracks of the tyre began to
curve fantastically upon the wet and shining path. Suddenly, as I
looked ahead, the gleam of metal caught my eye from amid the thick
gorse bushes. Out of them we dragged a bicycle, Palmer-tyred, one
pedal bent, and the whole front of it horribly smeared and slobbered
with blood. On the other side of the bushes a shoe was projecting.
We ran round, and there lay the unfortunate rider. He was a tall man,
full bearded, with spectacles, one glass of which had been knocked
out. The cause of his death was a frightful blow upon the head, which
had crushed in part of his skull. That he could have gone on after
receiving such an injury said much for the vitality and courage of
the man. He wore shoes, but no socks, and his open coat disclosed a
night-shirt beneath it. It was undoubtedly the German master.

[Illustration: "THERE LAY THE UNFORTUNATE RIDER."]

Holmes turned the body over reverently, and examined it with great
attention. He then sat in deep thought for a time, and I could see by
his ruffled brow that this grim discovery had not, in his opinion,
advanced us much in our inquiry.

"It is a little difficult to know what to do, Watson," said he, at
last. "My own inclinations are to push this inquiry on, for we have
already lost so much time that we cannot afford to waste another hour.
On the other hand, we are bound to inform the police of the discovery,
and to see that this poor fellow's body is looked after."

"I could take a note back."

"But I need your company and assistance. Wait a bit! There is a fellow
cutting peat up yonder. Bring him over here, and he will guide the
police."

I brought the peasant across, and Holmes dispatched the frightened man
with a note to Dr. Huxtable.

"Now, Watson," said he, "we have picked up two clues this morning. One
is the bicycle with the Palmer tyre, and we see what that has led to.
The other is the bicycle with the patched Dunlop. Before we start to
investigate that, let us try to realize what we _do_ know so as to make
the most of it, and to separate the essential from the accidental.

"First of all I wish to impress upon you that the boy certainly left of
his own free will. He got down from his window and he went off, either
alone or with someone. That is sure."

I assented.

"Well, now, let us turn to this unfortunate German master. The boy was
fully dressed when he fled. Therefore, he foresaw what he would do. But
the German went without his socks. He certainly acted on very short
notice."

"Undoubtedly."

"Why did he go? Because, from his bedroom window, he saw the flight
of the boy. Because he wished to overtake him and bring him back. He
seized his bicycle, pursued the lad, and in pursuing him met his death."

"So it would seem."

"Now I come to the critical part of my argument. The natural action of
a man in pursuing a little boy would be to run after him. He would
know that he could overtake him. But the German does not do so. He
turns to his bicycle. I am told that he was an excellent cyclist. He
would not do this if he did not see that the boy had some swift means
of escape."

"The other bicycle."

"Let us continue our reconstruction. He meets his death five miles
from the school--not by a bullet, mark you, which even a lad might
conceivably discharge, but by a savage blow dealt by a vigorous arm.
The lad, then, _had_ a companion in his flight. And the flight was a
swift one, since it took five miles before an expert cyclist could
overtake them. Yet we survey the ground round the scene of the tragedy.
What do we find? A few cattle tracks, nothing more. I took a wide sweep
round, and there is no path within fifty yards. Another cyclist could
have had nothing to do with the actual murder. Nor were there any human
footmarks."

"Holmes," I cried, "this is impossible."

"Admirable!" he said. "A most illuminating remark. It _is_ impossible
as I state it, and therefore I must in some respect have stated it
wrong. Yet you saw for yourself. Can you suggest any fallacy?"

"He could not have fractured his skull in a fall?"

"In a morass, Watson?"

"I am at my wits' end."

"Tut, tut; we have solved some worse problems. At least we have plenty
of material, if we can only use it. Come, then, and, having exhausted
the Palmer, let us see what the Dunlop with the patched cover has to
offer us."

We picked up the track and followed it onwards for some distance; but
soon the moor rose into a long, heather-tufted curve, and we left the
watercourse behind us. No further help from tracks could be hoped for.
At the spot where we saw the last of the Dunlop tyre it might equally
have led to Holdernesse Hall, the stately towers of which rose some
miles to our left, or to a low, grey village which lay in front of us,
and marked the position of the Chesterfield high road.

As we approached the forbidding and squalid inn, with the sign of a
game-cock above the door, Holmes gave a sudden groan and clutched
me by the shoulder to save himself from falling. He had had one of
those violent strains of the ankle which leave a man helpless. With
difficulty he limped up to the door, where a squat, dark, elderly man
was smoking a black clay pipe.

"How are you, Mr. Reuben Hayes?" said Holmes.

"Who are you, and how do you get my name so pat?" the countryman
answered, with a suspicious flash of a pair of cunning eyes.

"Well, it's printed on the board above your head. It's easy to see a
man who is master of his own house. I suppose you haven't such a thing
as a carriage in your stables?"

"No; I have not."

"I can hardly put my foot to the ground."

"Don't put it to the ground."

"But I can't walk."

"Well, then, hop."

Mr. Reuben Hayes's manner was far from gracious, but Holmes took it
with admirable good-humour.

"Look here, my man," said he. "This is really rather an awkward fix for
me. I don't mind how I get on."

"Neither do I," said the morose landlord.

"The matter is very important. I would offer you a sovereign for the
use of a bicycle."

The landlord pricked up his ears.

"Where do you want to go?"

"To Holdernesse Hall."

"Pals of the Dook, I suppose?" said the landlord, surveying our
mud-stained garments with ironical eyes.

Holmes laughed good-naturedly.

"He'll be glad to see us, anyhow."

"Why?"

"Because we bring him news of his lost son."

The landlord gave a very visible start.

"What, you're on his track?"

"He has been heard of in Liverpool. They expect to get him every hour."

Again a swift change passed over the heavy, unshaven face. His manner
was suddenly genial.

"I've less reason to wish the Dook well than most men," said he,
"for I was his head coachman once, and cruel had he treated me. It
was him that sacked me without a character on the word of a lying
corn-chandler. But I'm glad to hear that the young lord was heard of in
Liverpool, and I'll help you to take the news to the Hall."

"Thank you," said Holmes. "We'll have some food first. Then you can
bring round the bicycle."

"I haven't got a bicycle."

Holmes held up a sovereign.

"I tell you, man, that I haven't got one. I'll let you have two horses
as far as the Hall."

[Illustration: "WITH DIFFICULTY HE LIMPED UP TO THE DOOR."]

"Well, well," said Holmes, "we'll talk about it when we've had
something to eat."

When we were left alone in the stone-flagged kitchen it was astonishing
how rapidly that sprained ankle recovered. It was nearly nightfall, and
we had eaten nothing since early morning, so that we spent some time
over our meal. Holmes was lost in thought, and once or twice he walked
over to the window and stared earnestly out. It opened on to a squalid
courtyard. In the far corner was a smithy, where a grimy lad was at
work. On the other side were the stables. Holmes had sat down again
after one of these excursions, when he suddenly sprang out of his chair
with a loud exclamation.

"By Heaven, Watson, I believe that I've got it!" he cried. "Yes, yes,
it must be so. Watson, do you remember seeing any cow-tracks to-day?"

"Yes, several."

"Where?"

"Well, everywhere. They were at the morass, and again on the path, and
again near where poor Heidegger met his death."

"Exactly. Well, now, Watson, how many cows did you see on the moor?"

"I don't remember seeing any."

"Strange, Watson, that we should see tracks all along our line, but
never a cow on the whole moor; very strange, Watson, eh?"

"Yes, it is strange."

"Now, Watson, make an effort; throw your mind back! Can you see those
tracks upon the path?"

"Yes, I can."

"Can you recall that the tracks were sometimes like that, Watson"--he
arranged a number of bread-crumbs in this fashion--: : : : :--"and
sometimes like this"--: · : · : · : ·--"and occasionally like this"--.
· . · . · . "Can you remember that?"

"No, I cannot."

"But I can. I could swear to it. However, we will go back at our
leisure and verify it. What a blind beetle I have been not to draw my
conclusion!"

"And what is your conclusion?"

"Only that it is a remarkable cow which walks, canters, and gallops. By
George, Watson, it was no brain of a country publican that thought out
such a blind as that! The coast seems to be clear, save for that lad in
the smithy. Let us slip out and see what we can see."

There were two rough-haired, unkempt horses in the tumble-down stable.
Holmes raised the hind leg of one of them and laughed aloud.

"Old shoes, but newly shod--old shoes, but new nails. This case
deserves to be a classic. Let us go across to the smithy."

The lad continued his work without regarding us. I saw Holmes's eye
darting to right and left among the litter of iron and wood which was
scattered about the floor. Suddenly, however, we heard a step behind
us, and there was the landlord, his heavy eyebrows drawn down over his
savage eyes, his swarthy features convulsed with passion. He held a
short, metal-headed stick in his hand, and he advanced in so menacing
a fashion that I was right glad to feel the revolver in my pocket.

"You infernal spies!" the man cried. "What are you doing there?"

"Why, Mr. Reuben Hayes," said Holmes, coolly, "one might think that you
were afraid of our finding something out."

The man mastered himself with a violent effort, and his grim mouth
loosened into a false laugh, which was more menacing than his frown.

"You're welcome to all you can find out in my smithy," said he. "But
look here, mister, I don't care for folk poking about my place without
my leave, so the sooner you pay your score and get out of this the
better I shall be pleased."

"All right, Mr. Hayes--no harm meant," said Holmes. "We have been
having a look at your horses, but I think I'll walk after all. It's not
far, I believe."

"Not more than two miles to the Hall gates. That's the road to the
left." He watched us with sullen eyes until we had left his premises.

We did not go very far along the road, for Holmes stopped the instant
that the curve hid us from the landlord's view.

"We were warm, as the children say, at that inn," said he. "I seem
to grow colder every step that I take away from it. No, no; I can't
possibly leave it."

"I am convinced," said I, "that this Reuben Hayes knows all about it.
A more self-evident villain I never saw."

"Oh! he impressed you in that way, did he? There are the horses, there
is the smithy. Yes, it is an interesting place, this Fighting Cock. I
think we shall have another look at it in an unobtrusive way."

A long, sloping hillside, dotted with grey limestone boulders,
stretched behind us. We had turned off the road, and were making our
way up the hill, when, looking in the direction of Holdernesse Hall, I
saw a cyclist coming swiftly along.

"Get down, Watson!" cried Holmes, with a heavy hand upon my shoulder.
We had hardly sunk from view when the man flew past us on the road.
Amid a rolling cloud of dust I caught a glimpse of a pale, agitated
face--a face with horror in every lineament, the mouth open, the eyes
staring wildly in front. It was like some strange caricature of the
dapper James Wilder whom we had seen the night before.

"The Duke's secretary!" cried Holmes. "Come, Watson, let us see what he
does."

We scrambled from rock to rock until in a few moments we had made our
way to a point from which we could see the front door of the inn.
Wilder's bicycle was leaning against the wall beside it. No one was
moving about the house, nor could we catch a glimpse of any faces at
the windows. Slowly the twilight crept down as the sun sank behind
the high towers of Holdernesse Hall. Then in the gloom we saw the
two side-lamps of a trap light up in the stable yard of the inn,
and shortly afterwards heard the rattle of hoofs, as it wheeled out
into the road and tore off at a furious pace in the direction of
Chesterfield.

"What do you make of that, Watson?" Holmes whispered.

"It looks like a flight."

"A single man in a dog-cart, so far as I could see. Well, it certainly
was not Mr. James Wilder, for there he is at the door."

A red square of light had sprung out of the darkness. In the middle of
it was the black figure of the secretary, his head advanced, peering
out into the night. It was evident that he was expecting someone. Then
at last there were steps in the road, a second figure was visible for
an instant against the light, the door shut, and all was black once
more. Five minutes later a lamp was lit in a room upon the first floor.

"It seems to be a curious class of custom that is done by the Fighting
Cock," said Holmes.

"The bar is on the other side."

"Quite so. These are what one may call the private guests. Now, what in
the world is Mr. James Wilder doing in that den at this hour of night,
and who is the companion who comes to meet him there? Come, Watson,
we must really take a risk and try to investigate this a little more
closely."

Together we stole down to the road and crept across to the door of the
inn. The bicycle still leaned against the wall. Holmes struck a match
and held it to the back wheel, and I heard him chuckle as the light
fell upon a patched Dunlop tyre. Up above us was the lighted window.

"I must have a peep through that, Watson. If you bend your back and
support yourself upon the wall, I think that I can manage."

An instant later his feet were on my shoulders. But he was hardly up
before he was down again.

[Illustration: "THE MAN FLEW PAST US ON THE ROAD."]

"Come, my friend," said he, "our day's work has been quite long enough.
I think that we have gathered all that we can. It's a long walk to the
school, and the sooner we get started the better."

He hardly opened his lips during that weary trudge across the moor, nor
would he enter the school when he reached it, but went on to Mackleton
Station, whence he could send some telegrams. Late at night I heard
him consoling Dr. Huxtable, prostrated by the tragedy of his master's
death, and later still he entered my room as alert and vigorous as he
had been when he started in the morning. "All goes well, my friend,"
said he. "I promise that before to-morrow evening we shall have reached
the solution of the mystery."

       *       *       *       *       *

At eleven o'clock next morning my friend and I were walking up the
famous yew avenue of Holdernesse Hall. We were ushered through the
magnificent Elizabethan doorway and into his Grace's study. There we
found Mr. James Wilder, demure and courtly, but with some trace of that
wild terror of the night before still lurking in his furtive eyes and
in his twitching features.

"You have come to see his Grace? I am sorry; but the fact is that the
Duke is far from well. He has been very much upset by the tragic news.
We received a telegram from Dr. Huxtable yesterday afternoon, which
told us of your discovery."

"I must see the Duke, Mr. Wilder."

"But he is in his room."

"Then I must go to his room."

"I believe he is in his bed."

"I will see him there."

Holmes's cold and inexorable manner showed the secretary that it was
useless to argue with him.

"Very good, Mr. Holmes; I will tell him that you are here."

After half an hour's delay the great nobleman appeared. His face was
more cadaverous than ever, his shoulders had rounded, and he seemed to
me to be an altogether older man than he had been the morning before.
He greeted us with a stately courtesy and seated himself at his desk,
his red beard streaming down on to the table.

"Well, Mr. Holmes?" said he.

But my friend's eyes were fixed upon the secretary, who stood by his
master's chair.

"I think, your Grace, that I could speak more freely in Mr. Wilder's
absence."

The man turned a shade paler and cast a malignant glance at Holmes.

"If your Grace wishes----"

"Yes, yes; you had better go. Now, Mr. Holmes, what have you to say?"

My friend waited until the door had closed behind the retreating
secretary.

"The fact is, your Grace," said he, "that my colleague, Dr. Watson,
and myself had an assurance from Dr. Huxtable that a reward had been
offered in this case. I should like to have this confirmed from your
own lips."

"Certainly, Mr. Holmes."

"It amounted, if I am correctly informed, to five thousand pounds to
anyone who will tell you where your son is?"

"Exactly."

"And another thousand to the man who will name the person or persons
who keep him in custody?"

"Exactly."

"Under the latter heading is included, no doubt, not only those who may
have taken him away, but also those who conspire to keep him in his
present position?"

"Yes, yes," cried the Duke, impatiently. "If you do your work well,
Mr. Sherlock Holmes, you will have no reason to complain of niggardly
treatment."

My friend rubbed his thin hands together with an appearance of avidity
which was a surprise to me, who knew his frugal tastes.

"I fancy that I see your Grace's cheque-book upon the table," said he.
"I should be glad if you would make me out a cheque for six thousand
pounds. It would be as well, perhaps, for you to cross it. The Capital
and Counties Bank, Oxford Street branch, are my agents."

His Grace sat very stern and upright in his chair, and looked stonily
at my friend.

"Is this a joke, Mr. Holmes? It is hardly a subject for pleasantry."

"Not at all, your Grace. I was never more earnest in my life."

"What do you mean, then?"

"I mean that I have earned the reward. I know where your son is, and I
know some, at least, of those who are holding him."

The Duke's beard had turned more aggressively red than ever against his
ghastly white face.

"Where is he?" he gasped.

"He is, or was last night, at the Fighting Cock Inn, about two miles
from your park gate."

The Duke fell back in his chair.

"And whom do you accuse?"

Sherlock Holmes's answer was an astounding one. He stepped swiftly
forward and touched the Duke upon the shoulder.

"I accuse _you_," said he. "And now, your Grace, I'll trouble you for
that cheque."

Never shall I forget the Duke's appearance as he sprang up and clawed
with his hands like one who is sinking into an abyss. Then, with an
extraordinary effort of aristocratic self-command, he sat down and sank
his face in his hands. It was some minutes before he spoke.

"How much do you know?" he asked at last, without raising his head.

"I saw you together last night."

"Does anyone else besides your friend know?"

"I have spoken to no one."

The Duke took a pen in his quivering fingers and opened his cheque-book.

"I shall be as good as my word, Mr. Holmes. I am about to write your
cheque, however unwelcome the information which you have gained may be
to me. When the offer was first made I little thought the turn which
events might take. But you and your friend are men of discretion, Mr.
Holmes?"

"I hardly understand your Grace."

"I must put it plainly, Mr. Holmes. If only you two know of this
incident, there is no reason why it should go any farther. I think
twelve thousand pounds is the sum that I owe you, is it not?"

But Holmes smiled and shook his head.

"I fear, your Grace, that matters can hardly be arranged so easily.
There is the death of this schoolmaster to be accounted for."

"But James knew nothing of that. You cannot hold him responsible for
that. It was the work of this brutal ruffian whom he had the misfortune
to employ."

"I must take the view, your Grace, that when a man embarks upon a crime
he is morally guilty of any other crime which may spring from it."

"Morally, Mr. Holmes. No doubt you are right. But surely not in the
eyes of the law. A man cannot be condemned for a murder at which he was
not present, and which he loathes and abhors as much as you do. The
instant that he heard of it he made a complete confession to me, so
filled was he with horror and remorse. He lost not an hour in breaking
entirely with the murderer. Oh, Mr. Holmes, you must save him--you must
save him! I tell you that you must save him!" The Duke had dropped the
last attempt at self-command, and was pacing the room with a convulsed
face and with his clenched hands raving in the air. At last he mastered
himself and sat down once more at his desk. "I appreciate your conduct
in coming here before you spoke to anyone else," said he. "At least we
may take counsel how far we can minimize this hideous scandal."

"Exactly," said Holmes. "I think, your Grace, that this can only be
done by absolute and complete frankness between us. I am disposed to
help your Grace to the best of my ability; but in order to do so I
must understand to the last detail how the matter stands. I realize
that your words applied to Mr. James Wilder, and that he is not the
murderer."

[Illustration: "THE MURDERER HAS ESCAPED."]

"No; the murderer has escaped."

Sherlock Holmes smiled demurely.

"Your Grace can hardly have heard of any small reputation which I
possess, or you would not imagine that it is so easy to escape me. Mr.
Reuben Hayes was arrested at Chesterfield on my information at eleven
o'clock last night. I had a telegram from the head of the local police
before I left the school this morning."

The Duke leaned back in his chair and stared with amazement at my
friend.

"You seem to have powers that are hardly human," said he. "So Reuben
Hayes is taken? I am right glad to hear it, if it will not react upon
the fate of James."

"Your secretary?"

"No, sir; my son."

It was Holmes's turn to look astonished.

"I confess that this is entirely new to me, your Grace. I must beg you
to be more explicit."

"I will conceal nothing from you. I agree with you that complete
frankness, however painful it may be to me, is the best policy in this
desperate situation to which James's folly and jealousy have reduced
us. When I was a very young man, Mr. Holmes, I loved with such a love
as comes only once in a lifetime. I offered the lady marriage, but she
refused it on the grounds that such a match might mar my career. Had
she lived I would certainly never have married anyone else. She died,
and left this one child, whom for her sake I have cherished and cared
for. I could not acknowledge the paternity to the world; but I gave him
the best of educations, and since he came to manhood I have kept him
near my person. He surprised my secret, and has presumed ever since
upon the claim which he has upon me and upon his power of provoking a
scandal, which would be abhorrent to me. His presence had something
to do with the unhappy issue of my marriage. Above all, he hated my
young legitimate heir from the first with a persistent hatred. You may
well ask me why, under these circumstances, I still kept James under
my roof. I answer that it was because I could see his mother's face in
his, and that for her dear sake there was no end to my long suffering.
All her pretty ways, too--there was not one of them which he could not
suggest and bring back to my memory. I _could_ not send him away. But
I feared so much lest he should do Arthur--that is, Lord Saltire--a
mischief that I dispatched him for safety to Dr. Huxtable's school.

"James came into contact with this fellow Hayes because the man was a
tenant of mine, and James acted as agent. The fellow was a rascal from
the beginning, but in some extraordinary way James became intimate
with him. He had always a taste for low company. When James determined
to kidnap Lord Saltire it was of this man's service that he availed
himself. You remember that I wrote to Arthur upon that last day. Well,
James opened the letter and inserted a note asking Arthur to meet him
in a little wood called the Ragged Shaw, which is near to the school.
He used the Duchess's name, and in that way got the boy to come. That
evening James bicycled over--I am telling you what he has himself
confessed to me--and he told Arthur, whom he met in the wood, that his
mother longed to see him, that she was awaiting him on the moor, and
that if he would come back into the wood at midnight he would find a
man with a horse, who would take him to her. Poor Arthur fell into the
trap. He came to the appointment and found this fellow Hayes with a led
pony. Arthur mounted, and they set off together. It appears--though
this James only heard yesterday--that they were pursued, that Hayes
struck the pursuer with his stick, and that the man died of his
injuries. Hayes brought Arthur to his public-house, the Fighting Cock,
where he was confined in an upper room, under the care of Mrs. Hayes,
who is a kindly woman, but entirely under the control of her brutal
husband.

"Well, Mr. Holmes, that was the state of affairs when I first saw you
two days ago. I had no more idea of the truth than you. You will ask
me what was James's motive in doing such a deed. I answer that there
was a great deal which was unreasoning and fanatical in the hatred
which he bore my heir. In his view he should himself have been heir of
all my estates, and he deeply resented those social laws which made
it impossible. At the same time he had a definite motive also. He was
eager that I should break the entail, and he was of opinion that it
lay in my power to do so. He intended to make a bargain with me--to
restore Arthur if I would break the entail, and so make it possible for
the estate to be left to him by will. He knew well that I should never
willingly invoke the aid of the police against him. I say that he would
have proposed such a bargain to me, but he did not actually do so, for
events moved too quickly for him, and he had not time to put his plans
into practice.

"What brought all his wicked scheme to wreck was your discovery of this
man Heidegger's dead body. James was seized with horror at the news. It
came to us yesterday as we sat together in this study. Dr. Huxtable had
sent a telegram. James was so overwhelmed with grief and agitation that
my suspicions, which had never been entirely absent, rose instantly
to a certainty, and I taxed him with the deed. He made a complete
voluntary confession. Then he implored me to keep his secret for three
days longer, so as to give his wretched accomplice a chance of saving
his guilty life. I yielded--as I have always yielded--to his prayers,
and instantly James hurried off to the Fighting Cock to warn Hayes and
give him the means of flight. I could not go there by daylight without
provoking comment, but as soon as night fell I hurried off to see my
dear Arthur. I found him safe and well, but horrified beyond expression
by the dreadful deed he had witnessed. In deference to my promise,
and much against my will, I consented to leave him there for three
days under the charge of Mrs. Hayes, since it was evident that it was
impossible to inform the police where he was without telling them also
who was the murderer, and I could not see how that murderer could be
punished without ruin to my unfortunate James. You asked for frankness,
Mr. Holmes, and I have taken you at your word, for I have now told you
everything without an attempt at circumlocution or concealment. Do you
in your turn be as frank with me."

"I will," said Holmes. "In the first place, your Grace, I am bound to
tell you that you have placed yourself in a most serious position in
the eyes of the law. You have condoned a felony and you have aided the
escape of a murderer; for I cannot doubt that any money which was taken
by James Wilder to aid his accomplice in his flight came from your
Grace's purse."

The Duke bowed his assent.

"This is indeed a most serious matter. Even more culpable in my
opinion, your Grace, is your attitude towards your younger son. You
leave him in this den for three days."

"Under solemn promises----"

"What are promises to such people as these? You have no guarantee that
he will not be spirited away again. To humour your guilty elder son
you have exposed your innocent younger son to imminent and unnecessary
danger. It was a most unjustifiable action."

The proud lord of Holdernesse was not accustomed to be so rated in
his own ducal hall. The blood flushed into his high forehead, but his
conscience held him dumb.

"I will help you, but on one condition only. It is that you ring for
the footman and let me give such orders as I like."

Without a word the Duke pressed the electric bell. A servant entered.

"You will be glad to hear," said Holmes, "that your young master is
found. It is the Duke's desire that the carriage shall go at once to
the Fighting Cock Inn to bring Lord Saltire home.

"Now," said Holmes, when the rejoicing lackey had disappeared, "having
secured the future, we can afford to be more lenient with the past.
I am not in an official position, and there is no reason, so long
as the ends of justice are served, why I should disclose all that I
know. As to Hayes I say nothing. The gallows awaits him, and I would
do nothing to save him from it. What he will divulge I cannot tell,
but I have no doubt that your Grace could make him understand that
it is to his interest to be silent. From the police point of view he
will have kidnapped the boy for the purpose of ransom. If they do not
themselves find it out I see no reason why I should prompt them to take
a broader point of view. I would warn your Grace, however, that the
continued presence of Mr. James Wilder in your household can only lead
to misfortune."

"I understand that, Mr. Holmes, and it is already settled that he shall
leave me for ever and go to seek his fortune in Australia."

"In that case, your Grace, since you have yourself stated that any
unhappiness in your married life was caused by his presence, I would
suggest that you make such amends as you can to the Duchess, and
that you try to resume those relations which have been so unhappily
interrupted."

"That also I have arranged, Mr. Holmes. I wrote to the Duchess this
morning."

"In that case," said Holmes, rising, "I think that my friend and I
can congratulate ourselves upon several most happy results from our
little visit to the North. There is one other small point upon which
I desire some light. This fellow Hayes had shod his horses with shoes
which counterfeited the tracks of cows. Was it from Mr. Wilder that he
learned so extraordinary a device?"

The Duke stood in thought for a moment, with a look of intense surprise
on his face. Then he opened a door and showed us into a large room
furnished as a museum. He led the way to a glass case in a corner, and
pointed to the inscription.

"These shoes," it ran, "were dug up in the moat of Holdernesse Hall.
They are for the use of horses; but they are shaped below with a cloven
foot of iron, so as to throw pursuers off the track. They are supposed
to have belonged to some of the marauding Barons of Holdernesse in the
Middle Ages."

Holmes opened the case, and moistening his finger he passed it along
the shoe. A thin film of recent mud was left upon his skin.

"Thank you," said he, as he replaced the glass. "It is the second most
interesting object that I have seen in the North."

"And the first?"

Holmes folded up his cheque and placed it carefully in his note-book.
"I am a poor man," said he, as he patted it affectionately and thrust
it into the depths of his inner pocket.

Copyright, 1904, by A. Conan Doyle, in the United States of America.




[Illustration: Voices in Parliament.]

BY ALEX. GRANT.


The more particular object of this article is to describe some of the
various styles of Parliamentary speakers, and to give a pictorial
presentment of short passages from the speeches of members who
participate frequently in the debates, showing the approximate pitch
and modulation of the voices. For the latter purpose nearly two hundred
different speeches were "sampled."

Anyone familiar with the theories and principles of speech sounds knows
that it is an impossibility to render accurately the multitude of
sounds occurring in even a short typical passage. Different plans for
writing speech sounds have been tried with varying success. Any system
aiming at scientific accuracy implies a degree of minute analysis which
is impracticable in an endeavour to procure an estimate of the pitch
and average inflection of numerous voices heard at some distance, and
under conditions not favourable to close scrutiny. In speech a single
syllable may traverse half an octave, a semitone, or a fraction of a
semitone, and it may be jerked out in separate tones, or undulate in
portamento. There is usually, however, a prime sound, which may be more
prominent and longer sustained than the other sounds that go to round
off the syllable. With a succession of those prime sounds, which, for
convenience, may be called notes, it is possible to give a rough notion
(which is all that is claimed here) of how a speaker's voice rises and
falls in the hearing of an ordinary listener.

Each of the samples represents an average bit of speaking. The notes
given must not be taken literally. If the speaking tone, for instance,
was somewhere about D, and descended to somewhere about A, those notes
D and A would be near enough for the purpose of these observations.
True musical intervals are out of the question, but the accompanying
diagrams have been written on the bass clef in the natural key, this
being the most simple and direct way of showing roughly the variation
as between different speakers, and the prevailing pitch, as nearly as
it has been possible to discover them.

The natural speaking notes of a man's voice vary considerably in
different places and in different circumstances. A certain accomplished
cathedral singer who has studied this question puts the average pitch
of preachers' voices at about F sharp in the bass clef. He has heard
preachers ascend to top tenor G and A, descending to C (above the bass
clef), improbable though it sounds. Others he has observed speaking
effectively from B to F (bass clef), with F as the top tone. He
himself, with an exceptionally deep voice, has in speaking an average
pitch of low G, with inflections upwards to F and downwards to C below
the clef. One acknowledged authority gives the ordinary range of the
speaking voice of a man as the notes comprised in the bass clef,
_i.e._, G to A, B flat to F sharp above the clef being occasionally
used. Another authority points out that a good tone is desired for
singing within two octaves, whereas, in speaking, an audible tone is
desired at pitches generally within one-fifth, and only occasionally
extending to an octave. Still another authority says that the part
of a bass voice most often brought into requisition will consist of
the notes D, E, F, G, and in the case of a tenor voice of G, A, B, C,
the dominant note for the bass being E or F, and for the tenor A or
B. At the same time it is admitted by one of those authorities that
great actors have used with best effect their lowest notes, _i.e._,
extending upward from C below the bass clef. Of course, the declamation
of the actor as well as that of the clergyman is more favourable to a
sustained and singing quality of tone than ordinary speech. The same is
true to a certain extent in the case of Parliamentary speaking.

In the House of Commons there is a good deal of uniformity in
the pitch, which is lower than might be expected. The pitch of
three-quarters of the speaking tones heard in the House is within
one-third, viz., C to E, and the note most frequently used is D.
Descents to A and G, and even lower, are frequent, but seldom do
voices rise above the top A of the clef. The acoustic properties of
the chamber and perhaps the element of imitation, which, after all, is
the genesis of speech itself, may account partly for the prevailing
similarity in pitch.

A voice often appears to be jumping a scale when in reality it is
sticking to one or two dominant notes. Pronounced accentuation gives
the appearance of inflection, and by some people the former is regarded
as the more important consideration. The singing voice in a monotone
song or a recitative exemplifies the value of emphasis as distinct from
modulation.

[Music: T. P. O'Connor]

[Music: W. O'Brien]

[Music: J. M. Healy]

A notable instance of the power of accentuation in speaking is the
elocution of Mr. T. P. O'Connor, whose brilliancy no one may deny. He
often sinks his voice to an almost inaudible whisper, attaining thereby
impressiveness, and heightening the effect in the following passage,
which receives the strength of loud tones. Mr. W. O'Brien and Mr. T. M.
Healy use a similar device, and so do other members. It is telling, but
apt to be overdone, words at the end of a sentence being continually
lost to some of the audience. Mr. O'Connor's voice is seldom above or
below C and D. Mr. O'Brien modulates somewhat more. Both members have
good articulation and resonant tones. Mr. Healy has a lower and fuller
voice than either of the other two. He has a very decided habit of
throwing a point at his opponents with a big, contemptuous shout. The
voice often swings into a musical curve when he utters something pithy
and amusing, carrying with it the suggestion of a great laugh.

[Music: R. B. Haldane]

[Music: Sir John Gorst]

[Music: Ivor Guest]

Among members whose voices appear to be pitched very high, but are in
reality not so, may be mentioned Mr. R. B. Haldane, Sir John Gorst,
Mr. Ivor Guest, Mr. Sydney Buxton, Mr. Robson, Mr. Scott Montagu,
and several others. In each case the quality is light. Mr. Haldane's
voice has no great body in it and does not carry too well. Possibly
long practice at the courts induces his rapid utterance. One who
appreciates Mr. Haldane's high intellectual level cannot help wishing
that Nature had endowed him with the tones of some other public men,
whose intensity is rather vocal than intellectual. Sir John Gorst has
one of the pleasantest voices in the House and perfect articulation,
his chief note being about F, with falls to C. Mr. Guest repeatedly
descends to G. Mr. Sydney Buxton speaks often and briefly, but into a
short space of time he can cram a wonderful lot of words, being one
of the most rapid speakers in the House. The dominant note is about C
sharp, and the modulation seldom varies in character, the speech being
broken up into short phrases, with a downward inflection at the end
of each. This is a style of speaking characteristic of a great many
members. Mr. Robson, one of the most formidable among the younger men
of the Opposition, adds to a clever debating power a distinct utterance
and an earnest, careful style.

[Music: S. Buxton]

[Music: W. S. Robson]

There are few really deep voices in the House. Mr. C. Fenwick may lay
claim to the lowest pitch. His strong, vigorous, ringing style is a
good index to the character which has raised its owner from work in
the collieries to a seat in Parliament. Added to his excellent voice,
which fills the House, he has a natural and forcible manner of gesture.
The dominant note is somewhere between lower A and B flat. Sir Edgar
Vincent also possesses a pronounced bass organ, which is musical,
resonant, and full of tone, and which would be even more effective
with added "light and shade." Lower G and A occur frequently in his
speech. Sir F. Powell, Sir John Brunner, and Sir Samuel Hoare are other
deep-voiced members. The late Sir William Allan's speaking suggested
that he was trolling out notes impossible to the rest of mankind;
but, though he had a big, rugged, splendid voice, in keeping with his
handsome stature and leonine head, we find he said the many candid
things that helped to stiffen the back of the Admiralty on an average
note about D. One good quality of his speaking was the prolonged
singing tone which he gave to some syllables. The Welsh members,
however, display this peculiarity more than others.

[Music: C. Fenwick]

[Music: Sir E. Vincent]

[Music: Sir Wᵐ. Allan]

There are a considerable number of members who vary but little from
monotone. That is to say, their speech strikes the ear of the ordinary
listener as running along pretty nearly on one tone. As has already
been pointed out, there are always considerable variations on single
syllables and even on consonants, which are more or less perceptible,
and which have their own due effect in rendering a voice agreeable. The
existence of a perfect monotone through a passage of spoken sounds,
vowels and consonants, in singing or speaking is well-nigh impossible.
At all events, the beginning and the end of a spoken sound, unless that
sound be a simple vowel, have each a certain twist which may often
be detected. In many voices it is very noticeable. But the volume of
tone that reaches the ear in a sound that is meant to be sustained
overwhelms the little twist at the beginning or the end, and is for
all practical purposes one note. In singing that is always true. In
speaking it is true up to a certain point. Some speaking voices appear
to be almost entirely confined to one tone, because to the auditor it
is only one dominant note throughout that is appreciable. Many members,
designedly and undesignedly, depart but little from this apparent
monotone, which is to some extent associated with the dignified and
solemn manner, but may be due in some cases to inability to render the
delivery responsive to the mood. If there is little inflection and
no accentuation the result is bad. But it does not follow that good
delivery requires a continual coursing up and down the gamut.

It has been stated, by one in a position to judge, that Mr. Bright
seldom dropped or raised his voice more than a semitone, and everybody
has experienced, or heard of, the charm of Bright's delivery. No
disrespect is implied, therefore, when the following gentlemen are
mentioned as being among those numerous members who depart very little
from the one dominant pitch: Mr. Cathcart Wason, Sir W. Holland, Mr.
Channing, Mr. Claude Hay, Sir Samuel Hoare, Mr. Arnold-Forster, Sir
William Harcourt, Mr. John Burns, Sir Fortescue Flannery, and Mr. Bryce.

[Music: J. Cathcart Wason]

Mr. Wason adheres pretty closely to the neighbourhood of C sharp,
and combines with a swift utterance an earnest demeanour and a total
absence of hesitation. Sir W. Holland, the possessor of a deep, rich
vocal organ, seldom goes away from B or C. Mr. Channing gets a good
deal said on C sharp, with a slight downward inflection at the end of a
sentence. Mr. Claude Hay also adheres pretty generally to C sharp. Sir
Samuel Hoare is heard through the medium of full, sonorous tones, his
manner being eminently that of a man of ripe experience and practical
methods.

[Music: H. O. Arnold-Forster]

Mr. Arnold-Forster, the new Secretary of State for War, one of the most
serious speakers in the House, has a rather thin voice and a rapid
utterance, but he articulates well and reaches his audience in a clear,
direct manner.

[Music: Sir Wᵐ. Harcourt]

Sir William Harcourt is one of few left belonging to the old school.
There is the traditional Parliamentary style--a studied form of
oratory--deliberate, lofty, and impressive; the manner that is followed
at a considerable distance by some of the younger men. We find in Sir
William Harcourt's speech a series of words almost on the one note,
uttered in a restrained tone and finishing at each phrase with a
characteristic turn of the voice--perhaps, also, a suppressed laugh or
a "humph," the meaning of which can never be mistaken. The voice is not
so strong as it used to be, but the fine old type of English oratory
is still there. The diagrams relating to Mr. Arnold-Forster and Sir
William Harcourt, though probably not quite correct in the matter of
pitch, give an idea of the modulation.

[Music: John Burns.]

[Music: Rᵗ. Hon. Jos. Bryce]

Mr. John Burns speaks well within a third, and delivers most of his
breezy remarks somewhere about C and D with a musical organ of resonant
and robust quality. Sir Fortescue Flannery has a quiet but distinct,
full-toned, pleasant voice, which modulates little apart from a
pronounced drop at the end of each phrase or sentence. Mr. Bryce's
conspicuous quality as a speaker, _qua_ speaker, lies in the successful
way in which he plans his discourse. Exordium, proposition, division,
narration, confirmation, refutation, peroration--he seems to be
conscious of all these rhetorical parts in his most casual intervention
in debate. His delivery is detached. The frequent pause, cutting off
sharply each phrase, is reminiscent of the professor's rostrum. No
doubt this device helps the understanding, though it runs the risk of
being inelegant. Mr. Bryce talks on D, with constant falls to A. His
voice has a good ring and an accent belonging to the North.

[Music: Sir M. Hicks Beach]

[Music: Rᵗ. Hon. J. Morley]

Members who have marked inflection, yet do not bridge over a large
interval, include Sir Michael Hicks Beach, Mr. John Morley, Sir Edward
Grey, Mr. Austen Chamberlain, Mr. John Redmond, Mr. T. W. Russell, Sir
William Anson, Mr. Keir Hardie, Lord Hugh Cecil, Sir James Fergusson,
Mr. Richard Bell, and a host of others. Sir M. Hicks Beach has a calm,
deliberate, dignified manner; his voice is clear and distinct, and it
flows in easy cadences without effort. Few can compel more easily the
attention of their audience. Mr. Morley's delivery is of a different
type, and is even more telling on the platform than in the House.
When occasionally induced to depart from a restrained attitude--which
suits him best and which proves him the possessor of an exceedingly
mild, pleasant, and sympathetic voice--his production inclines to
"throatiness" and the carrying quality is diminished. Only to this
extent is his delivery unequal, but his tones are usually slow and
musical. His average notes run about D and E.

[Music: Sir E. Grey]

[Music: Rᵗ. Hon. A. Chamberlain]

Sir Edward Grey, the most prominent young man on the Liberal side, has
a style of his own. His quiet voice is even more youthful than himself,
and is used without forcing or visible effort. One never hears him
"tear a passion to tatters." He reserves most of his speeches for big
debates, and these are usually masterpieces of form, well thought out,
and arranged in simple, telling language. Many points of resemblance
have been discovered between Mr. Austen Chamberlain and his father. The
resemblance in mannerism is, perhaps, more pronounced than similarity
in voice. There is a distant echo of the elder statesman when the
younger speaks, but Mr. A. Chamberlain's tones are not so clear as
those of his "right honourable friend." His natural production is not
so good; the voice is deeper and the articulation is less distinct.
The relationship compels comparison, but that does not prevent the
recognition of Mr. Austen Chamberlain as a telling speaker and a
powerful debater. His dominant note is seldom much away from somewhere
between C and D.

[Music: J. Redmond]

[Music: J. W. Russell]

Mr. John Redmond, the leader of the Irish Nationalist party, has none
of those vocal extravagances which frequently characterize some of his
followers. He has usually a well-set-out argument to lay before the
House, and his full voice and plain utterance hold the attention. Mr.
T. W. Russell is so earnest on any theme he attacks that his prevailing
mood may be said to be vehemence. This forcible manner accounts for
a large measure of his success on the platform, for even an English
audience likes to be roused now and again. He separates his syllables
after the Scotch fashion, and has thus a very distinct pronunciation,
gesticulates a good deal, and rejoices in a clear, ringing voice of an
average pitch.

[Music: Sir Wᵐ. Anson]

[Music: J. Keir Hardie]

Sir William Anson is academical in his style, with a rather quiet
manner, indulging in little variation of any sort, and delighting in a
precise, neatly-rounded sentence. Mr. Keir Hardie is chiefly concerned
in saying what he has got to say in an earnest, determined sort of
manner. He has a good voice, which he never forces. One peculiarity,
which characterizes other speakers also, is the habit of running on
with half-a-dozen words, then dropping the voice both in pitch and
intensity, pausing, and again proceeding in the same manner. Due regard
may not be had either to the conclusion of a sentence or the moods that
have their recognised rise or fall. A habit such as this may serve a
purpose in arresting the attention, but it is apt to become tiresome.
Mr. Hardie speaks usually on D, constantly dropping his pitch a tone or
more.

[Music: Lord H. Cecil]

Lord Hugh Cecil has the voice of the family--clear and ringing. He
indulges in occasional upward progressions, on what notes it is
impossible to say. Like many more brilliant men he has a number of
habits all his own, chief of which is a wringing of the hands while
speaking. He commonly adheres to D and E. The Cecils and the Balfours
have all voices more or less resembling each other. None is heavy. The
quality is resonant and ringing, the articulation in each case being
very distinct. The late Marquis of Salisbury had a much mellower voice
than his son Lord Hugh, though in later years it weakened very much.

[Music: Wᵐ. Jones]

Some of the Welsh voices in the House come nearest the singing or
sustained manner. We have a notable instance in the speaking of
Mr. W. Jones. Mr. Lloyd-George and Mr. W. Abraham (Rhondda Valley)
display a like characteristic. Mr. Jones speaks less frequently than
the House would desire. His Celtic spirit and cultivated intellect
find expression in a voice which can go direct to the hearts of his
audience. Hear him speak for the Penrhyn miners or champion Welsh
nationality and institutions, and you hear the true orator, the man
who, with his own soul moved, can move and persuade others. His voice
seems to sing in a soft musical cadence, the manner being at the same
time earnest, impassioned, and intense. Every syllable reaches his
hearers. He roams over many notes, constantly covering an octave,
and giving true inflection to every mood, to the accompaniment of
natural and eloquent gestures. The above diagram gives a notion of the
modulation, his true pitch being perhaps a little higher.

[Music: D. Lloyd-George]

Mr. Lloyd-George, one of the most skilful debaters and word-fencers
in the House--a man destined to have a high place in the State, who
has the word of the Prime Minister that he has risen high among
Parliamentarians--possesses a flexible voice of light, clear, and
pleasant quality. He articulates perfectly, and never minces his words
one way or another. The voice is admirably adapted to the _rôle_ he
plays, for he has no need of one to suit a heavy style. When in a
practical mood he gets along on D and E, but at other times he bridges
a considerable interval. Mr. Abraham might well be expected to sing a
number of notes, seeing that he takes a part in the Eisteddfod. Like
his leader, he indulges in a good deal of gesture.

[Music: Rᵗ. Hon. A. J. Balfour]

A number of individual styles remain to be mentioned. When the Prime
Minister speaks we are conscious of listening to a great personality.
His voice fills the chamber, and yet it is not a big, robust organ.
It has that undefinable something in its timbre which one listens
for in a first-class baritone's singing. It has the carrying quality
in a great degree, and needs but little exertion because of the
perfect articulation to which it gives sound. Mr. Balfour seldom
speaks rapidly, and when he pauses abruptly his hearers may expect to
receive a smart epigram, an ingeniously-turned phrase, or a surprising
application of an interruption. He is one of the keenest fencers in the
House, delighting to make even a small point against his opponents,
though it be at the expense of a great deal of elaboration. He is a
skilful reasoner--a dialectician of the highest order. These qualities
naturally infer variety in speech, and Mr. Balfour's elocution, in the
modern sense of the word, responds to the various moods efficiently,
and yet without much overstraining. The note on which he does most
speaking is somewhere between D and E, but he frequently ranges the
octave from G to G.

[Music: Rᵗ. Hon. G. Wyndham]

Mr. George Wyndham, whose name has been cursed and blessed by Irish
Nationalists, has great gifts of eloquence and a powerful, clear voice,
which he uses with great effect. His delivery seems to improve each
Session. The progress of the Irish Land Bill through the House last
Session showed him to be master of the most intricate details of his
subject, and his lucid expositions gained the admiration of all who
heard him. D is the note on which he most frequently speaks, and the
diagram illustrates a passage from his speech on the second reading of
the Land Bill.

[Music: Sir H. Campbell-Bannerman]

Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman makes himself heard to some effect by
means of clear utterance rather than strong tones. Notwithstanding an
occasional huskiness he is a pleasant speaker, and the English he uses
in debate is above reproach. He is usually heard on E.

[Music: Rᵗt. Hon. Joseph Chamberlain]

Mr. Chamberlain's triumph is his debating power. The substance of his
speeches almost overshadows the manner of delivery. In the case of the
Prime Minister the manner, in addition to the substance, engrosses
a large share of attention. Mr. Chamberlain is direct, trenchant,
unsparing, when the occasion offers. He will not trouble over peddling
points for their own sake. He must have a big issue or nothing, and
heavy, slashing blows please him best. He is a sure-footed fighter. The
manner in which he sometimes springs to the table with a bound proves
it, apart from his reputation. To all appearance nervousness is not
in his nature. His normal voice is soft, almost inclined to approach
a thick quality, yet so admirably does he enunciate, so pleasing a
variety is given to its tones, and so perfect a restraint is exercised,
that never a syllable is lost in any part of the House. Every mood
finds due expression. From vehemence he can return to pleasantry by an
easy step.

[Music: Rᵗ. Hon. H. H. Asquith]

[Music: Rᵗ. Hon. C. T. Ritchie]

[Music: Rᵗ. Hon. Sir John Brodrick]

Mr. Asquith modulates his voice a good deal, but largely uses the power
of emphasis at the risk of being unheard at the end of occasional
sentences. Resonance, vigour, and brevity characterize his speaking.
Mr. Gibson Bowles expresses himself rapidly, readily, and wittily,
in a good tone, about D and E. His _rôle_ of candid friend to the
Government lends something to the piquancy of his remarks. Mr. Ritchie,
in introducing his first, and perhaps last, Budget, used the modulation
represented in the diagram at one part of his speech. He has a hurried,
broken-up style of delivery, though the possessor of a good voice. Mr.
Brodick's manner is anxious, and distinctness suffers, more especially
when the mood is that of indignation. As Secretary for War he rose
well to the occasion in the severe ordeals he had to pass through last
Session. Mr. Chaplin has a serviceable vocal organ, with which he
combines an effective manner. His speeches are perspicuous to a degree.
There is a big bit of the old-fashioned, dignified Parliamentarian
about him, and he is invariably welcomed in debate. Mr. Dillon's voice
is like a clenched fist, ready for the striking blow. His manner is
often vehement and always forcible. Few are superior in the expression
of passionate bitterness. He is fond of dwelling on differently-pitched
strings of notes--viz., C sharp, E, or F.

[Music: The Speaker]

The last voice to be mentioned here is that of the Speaker (the Right
Hon. W. Court Gully). Its tones are, like the manner of the right hon.
gentleman, dignified and gracious. Musical and distinct, it is heard
with equal force in storm and calm, and when it speaks it carries a
persuasion more certain and effective than does the voice of the Prime
Minister himself.

[Illustration]




[Illustration: Mᴿ DONAH]

BY Tom Gallon


"If there is one matter about which I am more particular than
another," said Sir Leopold Kershaw, with much emphasis, "it is that
due recognition should be given to the absolute equality of man with
his fellow-man. Show me my fellow-man"--Sir Leopold was very defiant
at this point--"and I will grasp him by the hand and hail him as
'Brother.' And I defy anyone to prevent me!"

Sir Leopold Kershaw--big, portly, and somewhat brow-beating--stood in
front of the blazing fire in his comfortable dining-room and addressed
these remarks to his son. Some eight or nine winters only having
passed over the head of that young gentleman, it must be presumed that
his father addressed him for lack of a better audience. Master Teddy
Kershaw, for his part, gazed solemnly up at his father from the depths
of an easy chair, and took in the ponderous phrases like gospel.

"Then I suppose, papa, that Wilkins is my brother?" said the child,
slowly, after some moments of deep thought. Wilkins, it should be said,
was the butler.

Sir Leopold Kershaw coughed. "My child, there are certain distinctions
absolutely necessary to be observed. Wilkins, although nominally your
brother, has already, I am given to understand, an abnormally large
following of relatives, and needs no addition to them. When I touched
upon the principles of brotherhood just now, I did not speak so much of
distinct individuals as of man in the abstract. Wilkins, I trust, knows
his place"--Sir Leopold frowned a little, and seemed to suggest that,
if Wilkins did not, there were those capable of teaching him--"and
is, in a sense, provided for. In an ideal condition of society men
would share and share alike: one man would not be permitted to partake
of roast pheasant while his less fortunate fellow gnawed the humble
trotter; feather beds would be unknown among the classes while the
masses continued to court repose upon doorsteps."

Now, the mind of a child is a peculiar thing--having a tendency, by
some strange gift of the gods, to retain the true and to cast aside
the worthless. So it happened that the mind of little Teddy Kershaw,
by some subtle process, eliminated from his father's speech all that
was mere verbiage, and began to construct for itself a glorious fabric
called Universal Brotherhood. Setting aside those who were well fed
and prosperous, the child came to see in every houseless wanderer of
the streets--in every toil-worn, white-faced man or woman--some being
who had a right, not only to his pity, but to every luxury which
he himself enjoyed. And the idea grew and grew until it filled his
childish mind, and until--like a small and gallant Crusader--he began
to feel that he must do something, more than mere thoughts and words,
to carry the thing into effect. He began for the first time to notice,
with a sort of pained wonder, that little children, smaller and weaker
even than himself, shivered in the streets while he rolled along in
his father's carriage; that women carried heavy baskets, while his own
mother would scarce put her delicate feet to the ground and was buried
in furs and wraps. The incongruity of it came full upon him; and he
determined at last, in an inspired moment, to do something to remedy
the matter.

To carry out his desires in the presence of those who were responsible
for him was, of course, out of the question; instead, he watched his
opportunity, and slipped out of the house one day unobserved.

The town house of Sir Leopold Kershaw was in a very fine and extremely
aristocratic square; but quite near to it--crouching and hiding under
the wing of its grandeur--was a terrible nest of slums. And into this,
by some natural instinct, drifted Master Teddy Kershaw.

With that newly-kindled love of humanity fairly bursting out of him he
was prepared to seize the first likely wastrel by the hand and give
instant effect to his father's many speeches; and he had not far to
seek.

Just on the borderland, where the genteel streets began to grow more
shabby and where untidy women and children seemed to be overflowing out
of every house, stood a costermonger's barrow, the proprietor of which
was leaning, in a dejected attitude, against it. It was the poorest
barrow imaginable, with one of its shafts mended with string, and with
a few sorry-looking vegetables, which never by any chance could have
grown in any imaginable garden, displayed upon it.

The costermonger himself had evidently come to the conclusion that
it was quite useless to attempt to impose his wares, at any price,
even in that most poverty-stricken market; despair sat heavily upon
him, and lurked even in the empty bowl of his cold pipe. Yet he was
comparatively a young man, and not ill-looking; and the woman who
leaned near him, with her elbows on the barrow and her chin propped in
her hands, had once, and not so long ago, been quite pretty, despite
the gaudy hat which drooped disconsolately over her eyes.

Here, surely, was a forlorn brother indeed! Teddy hesitated for but an
instant, and then advanced towards the man. He felt that it would be
wiser not to shake hands with him at once, as that smacked too much of
familiarity; so he merely bowed and put a casual question--suggested by
the barrow--as to the state of trade.

"Can't you sell anything?" he asked.

The costermonger looked Teddy up and down in astonishment, and then
looked round at the woman and jerked his head sideways in a very
curious fashion; drew the back of his hand slowly and elaborately
across his mouth, and looked at Teddy again.

"No, yer 'Ighness, I can't," he replied, slowly and emphatically.
Turning to the woman, with another jerk of the head, he muttered
something about a "rum start."

"But wouldn't people buy the things if you shouted?" asked the boy.
"Other people shout what they have to sell." Which was evident by the
babel of noise about them.

The costermonger, who appeared to have got over his surprise, and
who seemed to be rather a friendly sort of fellow, proceeded to
explanations. "You see, yer 'Ighness, it's this 'ere way," he began.
"I've 'ollered an' 'ollered till there ain't a puff of bref left in
me; an' it's me private opinion that if yer was to bring sparrergrass
tied up wiv pink ribbin into this 'ere street an' chuck it at 'em,
they'd chuck it back agin. As fer this little lot"--he indicated the
contents of the barrow with a backward jerk of his thumb--"they'll see
me blue-mouldy afore they'll lay out a bloomin' farden on 'em."

Having so far relieved his mind, the man looked into the bowl of his
pipe and, finding nothing there, returned the pipe to his pocket; then
took up the handles of the barrow and prepared to move away.

Now it happened that Master Teddy knew that his father and mother
were out and were not expected to return until late; it was probably
owing to that circumstance that he had escaped from durance so easily.
Further, the boy knew that, in a household where he ruled supreme as
the only child of a rich man, he could practically do as he liked.
True, he had never attempted so bold a scheme as that which was at
the present moment seething in his small brain; but he felt not the
slightest doubt that he could carry it through successfully and without
opposition. Accordingly, in the most casual fashion possible, he asked
the costermonger if he would come and have some lunch.

The unfortunate man almost upset the barrow in the shock of the moment;
but, recovering himself, began to perform the most extraordinary
antics Teddy had ever seen. First he straightened himself from the
hips and gave a sudden tilt to his hat with both hands, which threw it
dexterously over one eye; next he twisted up the collar of his coat and
stuck his thumbs in the arm-holes of his waistcoat; then took a little
skip backwards and a little skip forwards; put his tongue into his
cheek and ejaculated the single word: "Walker!"

[Illustration: "WALKER!"]

Perceiving from these signs, in a dim fashion, that the man doubted
the honesty of his intentions, Teddy became more emphatic, assuring
the man that he lived quite near at hand, and that lunch would be just
about ready; that he would be quite alone with them; even going so far
as to enumerate some of the dishes which might be expected. But the
costermonger evidently still had his doubts.

The woman, however, with the keenness of her sex, saw farther into the
matter than the man. She spoke in a lower voice.

"Sam, there may be summink in it, arter all. 'E's a little swell, by
the looks of 'im, an' 'e don't look 'ard-'earted enough to go for to
guy us, do 'e?"

The man, who appeared, even under the most distressing circumstances,
to have some latent spark of humour about him, scratched his head for
a moment, and then addressed the boy with extreme politeness.

"Seein' as 'ow you're so pressin', yer nibs, I dunno but what we won't
take a snack wiv yer--me an' me Donah"--he indicated the woman with one
hand. "Do yer fink I might leave the barrer in yer front garding?"

Teddy was wise enough to see that the carrying out of the latter
suggestion might cause tongues to wag in the aristocratic square, so
it was finally decided that the barrow should be left in the care of
a worthy man, of disreputable appearance, who lived in a yard near at
hand, and who, for its better protection, agreed to sleep in it until
their return.

It is probable that, had Master Teddy Kershaw brought in a travelling
menagerie with him--including the elephant--to lunch, Wilkins the
butler would scarcely have expressed surprise, whatever his private
feelings might have been. Therefore, when the boy introduced his two
new friends into the house, gravely referring to them as "Mr. and Mrs.
Donah," and announcing that they would partake of lunch with him,
Wilkins merely bowed and murmured "Very good, Master Edwin"; discreetly
waiting until he had gained the seclusion of his pantry before
exploding.

Mrs. Donah was very much subdued and decidedly ill at ease; but
Mr. Donah, on the other hand, made himself quite at home with much
rapidity. He addressed the appallingly stiff footman pleasantly as
"Calves," and taunted him with the suggestion that he was quite big
enough to be "put into trahsis." Finally, having appeased his appetite,
he lounged easily about the room and admired its appointments.

"I say, yer nibs, is this 'ere yer guv'nor's chivvy?" he asked
presently, stopping in front of a full-length portrait of Sir Leopold
Kershaw--a portrait which, by the way, appeared to frown down upon him
with anything but a brotherly expression.

"I beg your pardon?" said Teddy.

"I sed: 'Is this yer guv'nor's chivvy?' 'Chivvy' bein' parlyvoo for
face," replied Mr. Donah.

"Oh, I see," said the boy. "Yes, that's my father."

Mr. Donah surveyed the portrait for some moments, with his head on one
side; finally turning to Mrs. Donah, with that curious sideways jerk of
the head.

"Twig 'is dial, ole gal? Lor' luv us--'e's a 'ot 'un--I giv' yer _my_
word. 'Eard 'im spout once, abaht every bloke bein' 'is bruvver. That
was abaht 'lection time las' year. Ain't 'eard nuffink from 'im since,
an' I don't fink 'e's bin ter tea dahn our court, 'as 'e?"

"You're quite right about what my father says," broke in Teddy,
proudly. "Every man is his brother, and everyone has the right to
exactly the same things that he enjoys."

"Yuss; if 'e can git 'em," responded Mr. Donah, with fine scorn. "But
if I 'ooked it wiv a dozen or two of 'is spoons 'e wouldn't 'ave
nuffink to say abaht it--bless yer eyes--not 'e!"

Mr. Donah was becoming so particularly scornful, and he jerked his head
so threateningly in the direction of the portrait, that Teddy deemed it
wise to change the subject; accordingly he said:--

"It's because I believe that my father is right that I asked you and
Mrs. Donah to come in to lunch to-day. I'm not quite sure--but I think
my father would have been delighted to welcome you."

"Take yer oaf of it!" replied Mr. Donah, with a chuckle. "'E'll be that
upset w'en 'e finds 'e's missed us, there won't be no 'oldin' 'im. As
to me--I'm fair bowed down wiv it--an' the missis--w'y, ole gal, wot
yer blubbin' for?"

Mrs. Donah, who had really eaten very sparingly of everything put
before her, had suddenly begun to dab her eyes in a most suspicious
manner with the corner of her shawl. Mr. Donah's question, however,
appeared at once to rouse her; she got up hurriedly and jerked her hat
straight with some fierceness, and told him angrily to--"Come aht of
it!"

"'Ere we've bin a-settin' and shovin' grub into ourselves, like beasts,
and that poor little nipper at 'ome wivaht so much as a bite!"

Mr. Donah, appeared instantly to droop; his fine spirits were gone in
a moment. Indeed, Teddy had a suspicion that he saw the man draw his
sleeve hurriedly across his eyes. Curiously, too, there was a sort of
dull, heavy anger upon him as he made for the door.

"Come back ter the barrer, ole gal," he said, in a voice more husky
even than usual. "An' don't fink that I was fergettin' the nipper--'cos
I wasn't." Stopping awkwardly at the door, he came back to the boy. "As
fer you, my nibs--you're a nobleman--that's wot _you_ are. There ain't
no flam abaht you, an' no partic'ler gas-works. It's a deal pleasanter
ter fill a man's stummick than to fill 'is bloomin' 'ed. If yer don't
mind, I'd be prahd ter shake a fin wiv yer."

Understanding by this that Mr. Donah desired to shake hands, Teddy
promptly responded. He had but dimly understood the half of what they
said, or he might have pressed something further upon them; but they
were gone before he had had time to make up his mind what to do; and
the house returned to its normal condition.

With a curious distrust of that loud-voiced father of his, the boy
refrained from saying anything about his extraordinary guests; so that
nothing of the matter came to the ears of Sir Leopold Kershaw.

Some three nights later little Teddy Kershaw had a dream. He thought
in his dream that he had just sat down comfortably to dinner, and that
in some extraordinary fashion the dining-room was open to the street;
and that first one hungry child and then another crept in upon him
unawares, and snatched desperately the very food from before him; that
although Thomas, the large footman, and Wilkins, the equally large
butler, and even his father, Sir Leopold, strove hard to drive the
famished mites away, they swarmed thicker and faster--until at last,
by some subtle dream-change not to be explained in waking hours, his
seat at the table was usurped and he had taken the place of a shivering
street-boy, who seemed the hungriest of them all; so that he stood
outside the house, among the ragged ones, shivering with cold and
hunger. Waking suddenly he still seemed to shiver, and found, to his
astonishment, that the window of his room was wide open.

While he was meditating sleepily upon this circumstance a stranger
thing happened--the head and shoulders of a man appeared against the
light of the sky, and the man himself dropped, with a soft thud, into
the room.

Teddy started up in bed and opened his mouth with the full intention of
giving vocal effect to his alarm; but in an instant a hand--rough, and
not particularly sweet-smelling--had closed over it, and a gruff voice,
which seemed in the darkness curiously familiar, whispered huskily in
his ear:

"Lie dahn, will yer! If yer so much as breave I'll be the death of yer!"

Teddy Kershaw could see nothing distinctly in the darkness; only the
dim form of the man seemed to hover above him. On the man releasing
his grip Teddy lay down passively, and tried to breathe as little as
possible.

"'Oller, an' I'll be back afore yer can say 'knife' an' do fer yer,"
whispered the man again. Then, quite noiselessly, he crept to the door
and opened it, and glided out into the house.

Master Teddy Kershaw, consumed by curiosity, waited for a few moments
and then slipped out of bed and went through the door also. Outside
on the stair-case a dim light was burning; and, leaning over the
stair-head, Teddy could see the man gliding down and keeping as much as
possible within the shadow of the wall. A door creaked on its hinges
and the man disappeared.

[Illustration: "LEANING OVER THE STAIR-HEAD, TEDDY COULD SEE THE MAN
GLIDING DOWN."]

Teddy, mindful of the threat which had been breathed into his ear, was
just about to creep back again when he heard another door open more
noisily than the first, and then a quick challenging voice; the sound
of running feet--a scuffle--and a fall: then other doors opening and
more running feet; and lights seemed to flash up all over the house.
Unable to restrain himself any longer, Teddy scuttled downstairs in his
small pyjamas and headed straight for the fray.

In the dining-room he burst in upon a curious group. In the centre
was Mr. Donah, struggling feebly and ineffectually between the grasp
of two of the footmen; standing by the fireplace, looking at Mr.
Donah sternly, was Sir Leopold Kershaw, appearing dignified even in a
dressing-gown and with his hair rumpled; while the room was half-filled
by a crowd of semi-clad, startled servants.

"Yer 'Ighness," exclaimed Mr. Donah, with some poor show of
cheerfulness, as the boy appeared, "yer 'umble is a fair gorner!"

Sir Leopold, apparently not hearing the remark or not understanding,
proceeded to improve the occasion.

"You have been caught, my fine fellow, in the perpetration of one of
the most heinous crimes possible to imagine--that of purloining, after
forcible entry, goods to which you have no right. Now, sir, I am a
Justice of the Peace, and, while I must warn you not to say anything
which will tend to incriminate you at your public trial, I am willing
to hear any remarks you may make with reference to your purpose in
being here or your reason for selecting my abode for your nefarious
practices."

Mr. Donah looked all round him, somewhat helplessly; fixed his eye on
Teddy, and winked with some cheerfulness; gave that peculiar jerk to
his head which seemed to express any emotion of the moment; and spoke.

"Guv'nor, _and_ yer 'Ighness, it's a thousand to one in canary birds
that I'm up the wust gum-tree as ever you see! Fair nabbed, wiv me
dukes on the bloomin' 'all-marked ladles and corfee-pots, I am, an'
don't yer fergit it! As fer alibis an' sich-like fings, yer won't find
one abaht me, if yer search me till Easter Monday. It's a fair cop, an'
no error. Same time I should jist like to say as 'ow this is the fust
time I've been on the rails in all my natural, an' it ain't exactly my
fault."

"Pray explain yourself," said Sir Leopold, loftily.

"Righto, ole Poker-back, just 'arf a shake! I'm a-comin' to it. I've
got a little nipper at 'ome, wot's wasted away to a mere shadder--yer
might let go a bloke's arm an' let him rub 'is dial-plate, Calves--'an
'e's a-lyin' in one room, an' most of the bed-clothes is up the spout.
I've 'ollered 'Fine 'earty cabbage!' till I've got it on my brain, an'
'tain't no good. Then, comin' in 'ere wiv the missis t'other day ter
lunch (leastways they called it lunch, but it was abaht a full week's
grub fer us) wiv 'is 'Ighness----"

"To lunch? What is the man talking about?" broke in Sir Leopold
Kershaw, sternly.

"W'y, 'is nibs comes aht w'en me and the ole gal was a-standin' by
the barrer, and ses 'e, quite friendly-like, 'Come in an' 'ave lunch
alonger me,' ses 'e. Not 'avin' me party frock on, in consequence of
it bein' kep' at the wash, I 'ung back; but 'is nibs was that pressin'
there was no gettin' over 'im, an' very 'andsome 'e done us, I mus'
say." Thus Mr. Donah, with much emphasis.

"It is perfectly right," said Teddy, coming a little farther into
the room. "I had heard what you said, father, about every man being
my brother, except Wilkins" (the unfortunate butler blushed hotly on
finding himself brought into such prominent notice), "and Mr. Donah, as
well as Mrs. Donah, looked so miserable and so hungry that I thought
you wouldn't mind. So I brought them in here, and we had quite a good
time."

"You brought them in here?" ejaculated the master of the house, in
amazement.

[Illustration: "'YOU BROUGHT THEM IN HERE?' EJACULATED THE MASTER OF
THE HOUSE."]

"Yes," said Teddy, boldly. Then, beginning to feel dimly and miserably
that Mr. Donah was in a very tight place, Teddy, for the first time
in his brief career, began to lie. "In fact, I told Mr. Donah that I
thought he had a perfect right to everything which we had, and I'm
afraid I even suggested that it wouldn't matter very much if he just
helped himself to----"

"'Ere, stow it, yer 'Ighness; no perjury," exclaimed Mr. Donah. "Yer
won't never sing wiv the angels if yer go on in that way." He turned
suddenly towards Sir Leopold, and spoke with a certain despairing
fierceness upon him: "Look 'ere, guv'nor--I don't want 'is nibs to
be tellin' no crams abaht it. I come in 'ere, an' I 'as a jolly good
feed--fair wallers in it, I does--till the ole gal breaks dahn, an'
reminds me abaht our little nipper at 'ome, wivaht a crust. I goes 'ome
that night an' meets the parish doctor on the stairs. 'Dockery'--that's
me name w'en I goes a-ridin' in the park--'Dockery,' ses 'e, 'that kid
o' yourn wants nourishment--beef tea--good eggs; and you did ought ter
get 'im away into the country.' Lor' luv us--w'y didn't 'e tell me to
take 'im to 'ave tea alonger the Queen at Buckingham Pallis while 'e
was abaht it?"

"You were not able to provide these necessaries for your child?" said
Sir Leopold, somewhat unnecessarily.

"I were not," responded Mr. Donah, doggedly. "So that night I sits
a-thinkin', an' a-thinkin', till me head fair buzzes, an' all next
day I thinks a bit 'arder, till at last it comes over me that it
ain't right, arter wot you've said abaht me bein' yer bruvver, that
'is nibs 'ere should be 'avin' roas' duck an' tomater sauce, so ter
speak, an' my pore kid a-chewin' 'is fingers fer comfort. An' this
mornin', seein' 'im look a bit finner than usual, I got fair desp'rit',
an' couldn't stan' it no longer. So I made up me min' as 'ow I'd 'elp
meself to a bit of me bruvver's silver stuff."

"To use one of the vulgarisms familiar to your class, my friend,"
interposed Sir Leopold, "I am afraid that your statement won't wash."

"It'll wash a lump better than some er yer spoutings," retorted Mr.
Donah, with some indignation. "Wot's the good er tellin' a man one
minute 'e's yer bruvver an' 'as a right ter share everyfink wiv yer,
an' lockin' 'im up the nex' fer 'elpin' 'isself? There, I've 'ad me
little jaw; now send fer the bloomin amberlance."

Sir Leopold Kershaw was thinking very hard indeed. It would be too much
to say that he was in any sense converted; such sudden conversions are
rare. But he had a wholesome dread of seeing his principles derided
or himself made a laughing-stock; and Mr. Donah's remarkably caustic
mode of speech would, he felt, suit the humour of the evening papers
to a nicety. Sir Leopold had a mental vision of himself prosecuting in
a police-court, and writhing under Mr. Donah's remarks in defence of
his crime--the while busy reporters scribbled as if for their lives.
Moreover, the man, to do him justice, had a certain honesty of purpose
beneath all his ponderous phrases; his only fault lay in the fact that
he did not, in any sense, understand the class about whom he talked so
much. After a moment or two of thought he sternly dismissed the whole
of the servants, cautioning them against chattering about the matter
for the present; and was left alone in the room with his little son and
Mr. Donah.

"Now, Dockery: I think you said that was your name----"

"C'ristened Sam, at Sin George's in the Borough, on a Toosday--wiv me
a 'owlin' proper an' bitin' the parson's little finger," broke in Mr.
Dockery.

"Well, Dockery, the circumstances attending your offence are somewhat
peculiar, and I am disposed to take a lenient view of the matter. I
am impelled to this course by the remembrance that my son is, to an
extent, concerned in the affair"--Sir Leopold Kershaw felt that he must
really make an excuse of some kind or other--"and I am unwilling that
he should imagine that the principles I have so strongly laid down in
his hearing are sentiments merely, and that I am not prepared to carry
them out when opportunity occurs. I deny your right to purloin my
property, but I will have inquiry made into your case, and if I find
that you are really deserving I will carry my principles into effect.
Leave me your name and address--and then go."

Sam Dockery looked all about him for a moment in sheer amazement, put
his hat on, and then took it off in a great hurry; took those queer
little dancing steps of his, first backwards and then forwards, made a
feint of squaring up to Teddy, and finally put his arm before his eyes
and broke into unmistakable tears.

"Yer 'Ighness," he observed, in a shaky voice, when he had somewhat
recovered, "parss no rude remarks! This is me one an' only; I was
thinkin' of the nipper an' of 'ow 'e might 'ave bin wivaht 'is daddy
fer a munf er two. Guv'nor"--he turned to Sir Leopold--"I've sed a few
fings wot I didn't orter; let it parss. Yer ain't sich a bad sort as
yer look--an' Gawd knows yer didn't make yer own chivvy! Ask for Sam
Dockery dahn in Dock's Buildings, an' anyone will direck yer to me
'umble cot. An' I'll interdooce yer to the missis an' the nipper."

Despite his levity Mr. Dockery appeared to find some difficulty
in getting out of the door. Sir Leopold--amazing man!--opened the
hall-door himself, and Teddy fancied he heard the quick chink of money.
Curiously, too, Sir Leopold, when he came back into the dining-room,
wore a smile on his usually stern face, and told Teddy, in quite a
pleasant tone of voice, to "cut away to bed."

Nor did Sir Leopold Kershaw forget his promise. Sam Dockery and his
wife were startled the very next day by a visit from the great man
himself, accompanied by "'is Ighness" and by a footman bearing a
hamper. Nor was this all: for, a lodge-keepership falling vacant on
Sir Leopold's country estate, Sam and his wife and the "nipper" were
installed in it in comfort; on which occasion Mr. Dockery gave himself
airs in Duke's Buildings, before his departure, and informed all
and sundry that he was going down to his country house "ter pot the
bloomin' dicky-birds."

Sir Leopold Kershaw is as great a man as ever; but he talks less about
the equality and brotherhood of man.




_The Story of "Bradshaw."_

BY NEWTON DEANE.


"What books do you consult most?" a political adherent once asked John
Bright in the midst of an arduous campaign. "The Bible and 'Bradshaw,'"
was the reply of the great Quaker. To this another statesman added that
both stood in equal need of commentators. "Bradshaw"--or, to give it
its correct title, "Bradshaw's General Railway and Steam Navigation
Guide"--is essentially a British institution, like the _Times_,
football, _Punch_, and cricket. In common with all great institutions,
it is a target for libel and detraction on the part of people who are
a little difficult to please. Its very accuracy has been questioned.
It has been said--by a succession of incorrigible humorists, including
Charles Dickens--to have driven countless British lieges to lunacy.
Our retreats for the insane are said to be invariably provided with a
"Bradshaw ward," filled with the unhappy victims of the famous guide.
But, seriously, "Bradshaw"--like the Bench of Bishops--can afford to
be indulgent in the knowledge that it is indispensable. What should we
do without "Bradshaw"? What if the portly brochure in the buff covers,
that was born in the heart of England some sixty-five years ago, had
never come into existence? True, Londoners have their "A B C," but
London is only a tenth of the kingdom, and, besides, "Bradshaw" has
all Europe for its province. Anyway, the origin and early progress of
"Bradshaw" are interesting enough to be better known to the world.

[Illustration: GEORGE BRADSHAW.

_From a Water Colour Drawing._]

The name of the man who founded the celebrated guide was George
Bradshaw. He was a Quaker, and a map-maker by calling. Before the
days of railways he employed himself on maps showing the canals of
Lancashire and Yorkshire. But by 1839 the kingdom was rapidly becoming
intersected by that astonishing--but, when one comes to think of it,
very simple--invention, the steel rail. The iron horse of Stephenson
was prancing stertorously about between Manchester and Liverpool and
Manchester and London and other cities. Passengers--who had hardly been
taken into Stephenson's calculations at all when he inaugurated the
first railway in 1825--were clamouring for transportation. A knowledge
of train arrivals and departures was imperative.

[Illustration: "THE BRADSHAW RAILWAY GUIDE: OR, AIDS TO BEDLAM."

_From an Old Print._]

In the year of Queen Victoria's accession the only "guide" available
for the patrons of the Birmingham and Liverpool--or, as it was called,
the Grand Junction Railway--took the singular form of a large pewter
medal, which the traveller could carry in his pocket. On the obverse
of this metallic guide was inscribed:--

     Grand Junction Railway. Opened July 4, 1837.
     The trains leave:--

     BIRMINGHAM.
     Hour.        Min.
     VII.            0
     VIII.          30
     XI.            30
     II.            30
     IV.            30
     VII.            0

     LIVERPOOL & MANCHESTER.
     Hour.        Min.
     VI.            30
     VIII.          30
     XI.            30
     II.            30
     IV.            30
     VI.            30

On the reverse:--

     Time and Distance from Birmingham.

         To.                Miles.  H.  M.
     Wolverhampton          14½     0  40
     Stafford               29¼     1  15
     Whitmore               43¾     1  55
     Crewe                  54      2  24
     Hartford               65¾     2  59
     Manchester }
     Liverpool  }           97¼     4  30

Afterwards the railway companies--there were just seven of them--issued
monthly leaflets on their own account. What a convenience to the
travelling public it would be if someone would collect these leaflets
and reprint them in the form of a little book or pamphlet! No sooner
did the idea occur to Bradshaw than he acted on it. There is no doubt
that had he delayed there were others ready to promulgate the notion.
Indeed, one Gadsby, a Manchester printer, followed close at his heels,
just missing priority by a few weeks.

[Illustration: THE COVER OF THE FIRST NUMBERS OF "BRADSHAW"--ACTUAL
SIZE.]

It was towards the end of October, the "10th mo." of the Quakers, that
the printing press at Manchester turned out the first "Bradshaw." It
was a very modest, unobtrusive little volume, bound in green cloth,
with a simple legend in gilt. It could be obtained of any bookseller or
railway company for the sum of sixpence. It was not, however, as we may
see, entitled "Bradshaw's Railway Guide"--that title was not to come
till later. Here, too, is the "address" or introduction to the first
"Bradshaw":--

"This book is published by the assistance of the several railway
companies, on which account the information it contains may be depended
upon as being correct and authentic. The necessity of such a work is
so obvious as to need no apology; and the merits of it can best be
ascertained by a reference to the execution both as regards the style
and correctness of the maps and plans with which it is illustrated."
For it must be borne in mind that Bradshaw was first and foremost a
map-engraver, and was not likely to let such an opportunity for a
display in public of his skill pass profitless by. We also give a
reproduction of the first page of Bradshaw's effort. From this little
book we learn that, like the French trams and omnibuses of to-day,
there was one charge for inside and another for outside passengers, six
shillings being the first-class fare between Liverpool and Manchester.
Of the first "time-tables," only two copies of each variety--for there
was a slight variation in the issues for October, 1839--are known to be
in existence: two are in the Bodleian Library, Oxford, and two are in
the possession of Bradshaw's successors, Henry Blacklock and Co., of
Manchester, so that they are among the rarest editions extant.

Some two months later, on New Year's Day, 1840, Bradshaw brought out
his little work in an amended form, with a brand-new title. This gave
him further opportunities, in the course of its thirty-eight pages,
for maps and letterpress, and to it he gave the title of "Railway
Companion." It is really in size and type and style the same thing as
the time-tables; but being sold at a shilling was continued distinct
from the time-tables until it was merged into the "Guide" in 1848.
There is some interesting, if somewhat startling, information in the
"Companion." One can only gasp at being confronted by "A table showing
the rate of travelling from one to four hundred miles an hour." These
rosy anticipations have not yet been realized--not even in the velocity
of the electric mono-rail.

[Illustration: TITLE-PAGE OF THE FIRST COPY OF "BRADSHAW."]

How, it may be asked, did the railway companies of 1840 receive the
first general railway guide? Odd to relate, not with any great favour.
They even refused to supply their time-tables to Bradshaw when they
ascertained the use to which that enterprising Quaker was putting them.
"Why," they said, "if this fellow goes on in this way he will make
punctuality a kind of obligation, with penalties for failure. Whereas
at present, if the ten minutes past three train steams gently out at
twenty minutes to four, or even four o'clock, we do not fall much in
the esteem of the public, accustomed to the free and easy methods of
the stage-coach."

But the Quaker was not thus to be repressed. He got hold of the
time-tables somehow: he waited in person on the boards; afterwards
he even purchased stock in the hostile railway companies, and the
enterprise went on. But as yet the guides we have been describing
were not regularly issued. They were mere fitful publications, and it
was not until Adams, whom Bradshaw had secured as his London agent,
urged upon him the necessity of a regular issue that the first monthly
"Guide" made its _début_ in the world. This was on December 1st, 1841.
The "Guide" differed from its predecessors in being bound in paper--not
cloth--and in consisting of but thirty-two pages of printed matter. By
this time, too, Bradshaw could announce that "This work is published
monthly, under the direction and with the assistance of the railway
companies, and is carefully corrected up to the date it bears; every
reliance may, therefore, be placed on the accuracy of its details."

Moreover, it was dispensed in another and simpler form. The pages
of which it was composed were arranged on a single large sheet or
"broadside," "exhibiting at one view the hours of departure and arrival
of the trains on every railway in the kingdom, and are particularly
adapted for counting-houses and places of business." For this sheet
only threepence was demanded, but if mounted on stiff boards the price
was two shillings and ninepence.

In 1843 the railway mania, which afterwards enriched and beggared
thousands, was advancing apace. There were in that year just
forty-eight different railways in kingdom: and as the public were
keenly interested in them we find, together with a slight alteration
in the title of "Bradshaw" to the "Monthly General Railway and Steam
Navigation Guide," more reading matter, and "a list of shares,
exhibiting at one view the cost, traffic length, dividend, and market
value of the same."

[Illustration: TITLE-PAGE OF THE FIRST COPY ISSUED WITH THE WORDS
"RAILWAY GUIDE."]

There is one curious circumstance in the early history of "Bradshaw,"
which Mr. Percy Fitzgerald has pointed out. Its founder appears to
have been ashamed of its youth, for when the fortieth number had been
attained we find, in September, 1844, a sudden jump to number 146.
Did those missing hundred numbers ever afterwards disturb the pious
Quaker's rest?

[Illustration: FACSIMILE OF A PAGE OF THE VERY EARLIEST "BRADSHAW."]

From these early guides a great deal of entertainment and instruction
is to be obtained. There is no mention of "express" trains, for
instance; they are described as "first class," "second class," "mixed,"
"fast," and "mail." We are told that "first-class trains stop at
first-class stations." Third-class travellers travelled on the roof
or in open "waggons." At the other end of the scale of luxury were
"glass coaches"--_i.e._, carriages with plenty of windows. Tickets
are "passes" or "check tickets," and it is strictly enjoined that
"the check ticket given to the passenger on payment of his fare will
be demanded from him at the station next before his arrival at London
or Birmingham, and if not then produced he will be liable to have the
fare again demanded." As to fares, we learn from the "Guide" that
they fluctuate according to day or night or the number of passengers
in a carriage. The fare from London to Birmingham was thirty-two
shillings and sixpence first class, but if six travelled inside by day
the tariff was reduced to thirty shillings, and a similar reduction
for second-class passengers. Now that the season-ticket system is so
widespread and familiar, the reader learns with some amazement that "An
annual subscription ticket from London to Brighton and back is £100."
Here are some further extracts from the "Guide":--

"Passengers are especially recommended to have their names and address
or destination written on each part of their luggage, when it will be
placed on the top of the coach in which they ride.

"If the passenger be destined for Manchester or Liverpool, and has
booked his place through, his luggage will be placed on the Liverpool
or Manchester coach, and will not be disturbed until it reaches its
destination.

"Where the space is dotted the trains call; where a blank, thus ----,
they do not." (Here is an example of this new arrangement, which, it
must be confessed, is a little revolutionary of the accepted method.)
"Infants in arms, _unable to walk_, free of charge.

"A passenger may claim the seat corresponding to the number on his
ticket, and when not numbered he may take any seat not previously
occupied.

"Preserve your ticket until called for by the company's servant."
(Fancy the passengers of 1904 requiring to be curbed in their
propensity for throwing their tickets out of the window!)

"Do not lean upon the door of the carriage."

[Illustration: "WHERE THE SPACE IS DOTTED THE TRAINS CALL: WHERE A
BLANK, THUS ----, THEY DO NOT."]

But by far the most surprising injunction to us nowadays, when the tips
of railway porters show a tendency to expand instead of diminish, is
this: "No gratuity, under any circumstances, is allowed to be taken by
any servant of the company."

How incomprehensible to us nowadays, when not even Mr. Beit, Mr. Astor,
or Mr. Carnegie owns his own railway vehicle: "Gentlemen riding in
their own carriages are charged second-class fares."

How "Bradshaw" has grown from that day! It began with thirty odd pages;
it is now some twelve hundred. The weight of the first little "Guide"
was a couple of ounces--it now tips the scale at a pound and a half.
And think of the immense labour involved in the production of each
monthly issue. It taxes all the resources of a large staff of editors
and printers--for are not "perpetual and minute changes taking place
in the hours and places," which "have to be introduced often at the
last moment"? Every single page has literally to be packed to bursting
with type, not merely with words and numerals, but with characters
and spaces--altogether three thousand to the page, or equivalent to
a dozen ordinary octavo volumes. Every change, however trifling,
inaugurated by the traffic superintendent of the smallest railway has
here to instantly set down. New trains must be crowded in somehow into
an already overcrowded page for there must be no "over-running." No
wonder, then, that if "Bradshaw's Guide" is difficult to compile it is
often equally difficult to understand. It has been called "a recondite
treatise on the subject of railway times." From the earliest day its
method has elicited the severest criticism from the wits. George
Cruikshank and other wits called it an "Aid to Bedlam." Mark Lemon
wrote innumerable skits in _Punch_, which his friend Leech illustrated.
In one of these (May 24th, 1856) we have nearly two pages devoted to
"Bradshaw--a Mystery," in which two lovers, parted by distance, seek
to unite by means of the "Guide." They are utterly unable to discover
when Orlando's train should depart and arrive. Both are plunged into
the madness of despair. At last blind chance favours the lovers, and
the fair one confesses:--

     "Bradshaw" has nearly maddened me.

     ORLANDO:      And me.

     He talks of trains arriving that ne'er start;
     Of trains that seem to start and ne'er arrive;
     Of junctions where no union is effected:
     Of coaches meeting trains that never come;
     Of trains to catch a coach that never goes;
     Of trains that start after they have arrived;
     Of trains arriving long before they leave.
     He bids us "see" some page that can't be found.
     Henceforth take me not "Bradshaw" for your guide.

                                    (_Curtain._)

[Illustration: AN ILLUSTRATION BY LEECH FOR "BRADSHAW: A MYSTERY," IN
"PUNCH."]




[Illustration: GOLDEN BARS]

A STORY OF THE AFRICAN TREASURE.

BY MAX PEMBERTON.


I.

They were talking of treasure in the parlour of the Three Tuns at
Gravesend--old salts, every one of them, to whom five hundred pounds a
year had been riches beyond desire. The precise inspiration of their
eloquence chanced to be the money which had been smuggled out of Africa
at the time of the war. Some said that it was all banked in France
and Holland; others declared that a few paltry millions had gone to
America. In the heat of the argument pipes were broken and glasses
overturned. Gilbert Lorimer, a young officer on a Scotch tramp, who had
been ashore on his captain's business, smiled often and said little;
but he corrected old Crabb of the Margate service, and drew down upon
himself that worthy's wrath thereby.

"There's more nonsense than not talked about a million of money," the
captain had remarked, sententiously. The others agreed. Had anyone
bestowed such a trifle upon them, they would have been at no loss how
to handle it.

"I'd pop my lot in the Savings Bank," said Billy of the wherry, in
parsimonious solemnity. Jack the waterman, however, declared that
he would ferry his across the river and leave it to-morrow with the
lawyers. Then the sage and learned Skipper Crabb delivered himself of
the oracle.

"A million weighs close upon five tons," said he.

"More than ten," exclaimed Gilbert Lorimer, quietly.

"Ah, here's Crɶsus," was the captain's sly retort, "and I dare say,"
he put it familiarly to Gilbert, "that you are very much at home with
sums like that. Suppose you make it champagne, young man?"

Gilbert laughed drily. He was a fine specimen of a sailor, and he would
have been called handsome by the women in spite of the scar upon his
cheek--an ugly gash which seemed to have a history behind it. A little
reserved and proud, he had listened to the talk of money with some
contempt; but the captain's challenge drew him out, and he rang the
bell impatiently for the barman.

"Champagne, by all means," he said, "since the next that I shall drink
will be in Sydney. As to your million, I know nothing about it; but I
once owned some large part of one. What's more, I was careless enough
to lose it."

A solemn silence fell upon the company. Gilbert Lorimer raised his
glass and gave them "To our next." The aged Captain Crabb surrendered
at once to a master. I, alone, followed the young sailor from the room
and asked him, at the river's bank, to let me have a story.

"Yonder's my ship," he said, indicating the anchor light of a large
steamer. "She would be at the Nore before I had well begun."

"Then why not write it----?"

He shook his head.

"I am handier with the gloves," said he.

"Oh, but you can spin a plain yarn, I'll be bound."

"Well, as to that----"

The great steamer sounded her siren and he leaped into the wherry.
His last word was a cheery "So long." But he sent me the story of his
treasure three months afterwards, and I give it here with scarce a line
deleted or a phrase re-turned.


II.

Every man on board the _Oceanus_--sometime a mail-boat to the South
African ports--knew that we carried treasure to Europe, but what was
the amount of it, or for whom we carried it, our captain, Joey Castle,
alone could say. We had been chartered at Sydney for the purpose, being
one of the fastest steamers in Southern waters, and we took in the
bullion, chiefly in golden ingots, at Lorenzo Marques. Some did say
that it was the property of a Dutch bank, which preferred the American
flag to the German, for the _Oceanus_ was under American colours, and
a handier steamer of her tonnage I never sailed in. Grant you that the
crew were a rough lot--niggers and Lascars, Poles and Swedes, with
half-a-dozen Christian white men to put currants on your cake. Well,
the owners were one of the safest houses in New York, and fat Joey
Castle you might have trusted with the Bank of England itself. Not
two cents did he care whether he had a hold full of diamonds or of
doughnuts.

"I'm going right through, gentlemen," he said to us at dinner the night
we sailed, "and if any tin warship threatens me I'll make Europe laugh.
Risk! Why, there's twenty times the risk in a roundabout at a fair! Let
'em stop me if they like--I'll put 'em through the goose-step before
they've been two minutes aboard, as sure as my name's Joey Castle!"

Well, we didn't think very much about it, but there had been a lot
of talk ashore concerning the British Government and how it handled
suspicious ships entering or leaving Lorenzo Marques. I myself thought
it not unlikely that we should have some trouble. To put it honestly,
I didn't take the hook on the end of this Dutch bank line; and I just
said to myself that our gold was Government gold, and that if it were
found aboard of us all the Stars and Stripes between 'Frisco and Sandy
Hook wouldn't be worth a red cent to us. We should have to pay out, and
quick about it.

In this view I stood alone, however, and I must say that when we put
to sea without let or hindrance, and were steaming next morning due
south before a rattling breeze and with a splendid swell under us, I
dismissed the subject as readily as the others and considered our port
already made. That opinion lasted for ten days. On the eleventh day,
at noon, we sighted a British cruiser on our port quarter. Poor old
Joey Castle! He didn't say a word about the Stars and Stripes then. His
topic concerned the nether regions. You shivered in your boots when he
talked to the engineers. I was on the bridge when the nigger Sam cried
up his news of the other ship; and while I was spying her through my
glass Captain Castle himself came out of the chart-room and asked me
what was there.

"Looks like an ugly one, sir," said I; "a cruiser, I should say, of the
second class."

He took the glass from my hand--I can see him now, fat and florid, and
as plainly anxious at heart as a nervous man could be. I thought then
of all his boasts the night we left Lorenzo, and I was really a bit
sorry for him.

"Do you think she means mischief, Mr. Lorimer?" he asked, with the
glass still to his eye.

I said that he was the best judge of that.

"These dirty Britishers have their finger in every pie," he went on,
presently. "Well, we'll make 'em look foolish. What the deuce are they
doing in the stokehold? Just let me have a word with Nicolson, will
you?"

His "word" was something to hear. A barge-master who had dropped his
dinner overboard might have come up to Joey Castle at his best; but I
doubt it. He had the ship doing sixteen knots before one bell in the
afternoon watch. She was a Belfast-built mail-boat, with boilers and
engines not twelve months old, and a better for the purpose we could
not have chartered. By three bells it was patent that the cruiser
gained nothing on us. Her smoke burned upon a clear horizon, but her
stumpy funnel was no longer to be seen. The captain seemed as pleased
as a schoolboy who has won a race--he ordered champagne for our mess
and he talked as big as he had done when we sailed from Lorenzo.

"Here's to a good pair of heels and hoofs for the Britisher," was his
toast. "I'd like to see him stop me, by thunder. There'll be good money
for this at Bremerhaven, and more to come afterwards. Fill your glass,
Lorimer, and drink to a sharp eye on the next watch. Let him come
aboard just for five minutes, and I'll teach him the French language as
they speak it out 'Frisco way. It's a wonderful tongue there, Lorimer,
a wonderful tongue!"

I did not doubt it. Spoken as Joey Castle speaks it, a harbour-master
will take off his hat to you. What I was not so sure of was the
Britisher's understanding of it. Many a ship sailing out of Lorenzo had
been stopped and searched--so much was common gossip aboard. If the
cruiser overhauled us, she would certainly find our million pounds'
worth of ingots--marked "fruit" though they might be, kept in the great
refrigerator for better security.

Here was something more tangible than Joey Castle's French lingo.
I did not know much about international law, but it was in my head
that our ship would be sent to a British port and the gold aboard her
handed over to the British Government. With the crew, I had a sense of
personal honour in the matter. If it had been my ship I would have sunk
the _Oceanus_ before I hauled down my colours to any foreigner, let her
flag be what it might. But what the captain was going to do I did not
know; and thirty-six hours passed before I was any wiser. The afternoon
watch taught me little. Now and then I saw the stumpy funnel upon the
horizon; at other times there was nothing but the hand's-breadth of
smoke to mark the cruiser's course.

On the following day she seemed to be playing a game with us. First
she would show herself clear and threatening on the horizon; then we
lost her again and were just breathing freely when up she pops, like a
squatting hare, and has a good look at us. The see-saw worked on the
captain like an overdose of French absinthe. He couldn't rest a minute
anywhere. He swore and cursed, prayed and threatened, until I thought
the men would mutiny and have done with it. That, however, was to
come later on, when the gold fever fairly got hold of them. They were
willing enough for the time being.

[Illustration: "HE SWORE AND CURSED, PRAYED AND THREATENED."]

"What do you make of it now, Mr. Lorimer?" says the captain at
supper-time. I answered him just as bluntly as he had asked me.

"She's got the legs of you, sir--it seems to me that she's waiting for
something or other. Perhaps it's only a watching job," I put it to him.

"I was thinking the same. The little man in the cap waiting for the
big man in the cocked hat. Well, I hope he'll keep himself cool. We'll
give him a fever draught if he comes aboard. Just pass the whisky, will
you?--my head's queer to-night; but there's a good deal in it--a great
deal--Lorimer, and it's coming out by-and-by."

I had no doubt of it--he had taken enough whisky that afternoon to
start a bar. As for what was in his head, a madder scheme never came to
any man whom fear had robbed of nerve and sense.

"If the cocked hat wants to come aboard here, he shall," he said,
presently; "that's my notion, Lorimer. Let him come aboard and hear
the French lingo. We'll do the honours and then drum him out. You'll
be standing by in the launch with as much gold as she'll carry in her
coal-holes. The life-boats can take the rest. You and Nicolson and the
'fourth' must take charge of them. I'll pick you up next day and you'll
have your compasses. There's not weather enough to hurt a toy yacht,
and a night out will do you good. All this, mind you, if he has the
heels of us and means to come aboard. But I don't believe he can make
sixteen knots, and that's what we're making now."

Well, he chuckled away over this wild notion just as though it had
been a sane man's plan; and, fuddled as he was with the whisky, he
kept repeating it until I was tired of hearing it. When Billy Frost,
our young fourth officer, came down presently to say that the cruiser
had picked us up again and was using her search-light, it was a relief
to go on deck and tot the position up. My belief all along had been
that the cruiser had the legs of us, and what I saw from the bridge
confirmed my judgment. She stood now upon our starboard quarter--her
search-light ran all over us in silvery waves like water washing down a
rock-side. And yet, mind you, she did not challenge us, did not ask us
a question; but just followed us, patiently waiting, I did not doubt,
for some further instructions to be received in European waters. This
doubt and uncertainty plagued our captain to the last point. "They
shall come aboard, by Heaven," he said; "ten days more of this would
kill me." I knew then how much he had at stake, and that it was no mere
captain's wage which had tempted him to carry gold from the Transvaal.
He was playing for a bigger sum of money than he had ever played for in
all his life, and the game had robbed him of his man's common sense.

The cruiser's search-light contrived for a good hour or more to play
all over us like a hose. It made the captain dance, I can tell you; and
when they dropped it just upon eight bells in the morning watch, I saw
that he had come to a resolution and that nothing would turn him from
it.

"We must get the brass overboard, Lorimer," he said; "this crew will
turn ugly if the thing goes on. We'll make a beginning with the launch.
Take Sam the nigger, Peter Barlow, and young Nicolson the engineer, and
bear west for Ascension. I'll make them search us at dawn and turn back
for you; keep your bearings as close as you can and take an observation
every hour. We should pick you up by noon to-morrow--I'll mark the
place on the chart. A cockle-shell could swim in this sea, and the
launch will come to no harm. It's a great scheme, man, and there's few
would have thought of it."

I tried to argue with him, putting it that, even if the cruiser did
search us, she would have no authority to take the gold; moreover, it
would be an international question for the two Governments. He wouldn't
hear a word of it.

"Let 'em wrangle," he said; "I'll hold the dollars meanwhile. The men
will turn on me if I don't. Why, just look at it. They come aboard
and find nothing but silver spoons. The report goes in that we are
all right, and we steam to Bremerhaven without let or hindrance. It's
mighty, man, just mighty; and I'll not be turned from it."

So he had his way. The cruiser fell back at the dark hour before the
dawn, and we began to get the ingots of gold into the launch. This was
one of Simpson's larger boats, carried by us especially to transport
bullion expeditiously--part of the whole affair planned out from the
beginning. Willing hands passed up the golden bars--we packed a fortune
on the deck, and the men stood round about shivering with greed of
the treasure. Let the scheme be mad or sane, I had to go through with
it then; and I own up to a better opinion of it as the time went on.
Nothing could be easier to a trained seaman than to keep such a course
as the captain laid down for us. We had compasses, sextants, and our
navigation books. There was not wind enough to shake a judge's wig nor
any omen of bad weather. Let us get away under cover of the darkness,
and the rest would be child's play. The "if" was a big one. The light
might strike upon us at any instant. I went about the deck with my
heart in my mouth. Sometimes I covered my eyes with my arm, fearing to
find the bright beams upon me. It was all or nothing--an hour's grace
or a million sterling on board the British ship.

Well, we lowered the launch with her heavy cargo of ingots--as many of
them as we dared to put into her--and getting her away under shelter
of the steamer we headed due west toward Ascension Isle. True, there
was an ugly red glimmer from our funnel, but the furnace was under a
half-deck, and our memory didn't run to lights, be sure of it. I had
Sam the nigger with me, together with Nicolson the young engineer, and
Peter Barlow for quarter-master; these were the hands named for my
crew; and I was not a little astonished when we were well away from
the steamer's side to hear the loud voice of Mike the Irishman--a lazy
rogue I would gladly have left behind me.

[Illustration: "THE BLINDING LIGHT SWEPT OVER THEM."]

"Why, Mike," cries I, "and how did you get here?"

"Please, your honour, I just dropped in," says he.

"Then, if I had a rope's end, I'd make you drop out again!" says I.

"Aye, but, your honour," says he, "when was the Irishman born that had
any liking for the water? Sure, I always loved ye from the first day
I clapped these blessed eyes upon ye! 'I'll go aboard to take care of
him,' says I, 'for I feel like his own mother's son!'"

There was no time to argue with him. What with getting the launch away
neatly, and being mortal afraid to find myself any minute in the path
of the cruiser's search-light, I had too much to do to begin with a
hullabaloo--and for that matter the situation was not one to set a man
against companionship. There we were, the five of us, in a boat not
built for ocean seas, running like a good one away from the ship that
should have carried us to Europe and our homes. Let the search-light
be clapped upon us, and the gold would be aboard the British cruiser
within an hour. Or, in another case and a harder one, let the wind
blow, and what then? The gold weighed us down as it was, until even
gentle seas splashed us as we lifted to them. A hatful of wind would
sink us; a shoreman would have known that. I believed that it was the
spin of a coin anyway; and just as I was saying it the cruiser showed
her light again, and a great white arc fixed itself upon the distant
steamer like a mighty river of molten radiance flowing out upon a
darkened sea.

"Look at that for a lantern now," says Mike the Irishman, cowering
before it. "'Twould see ye home from a waking, and no mistake about it.
Just douk your head, sir, if you please. 'Twould be as well not to be
on speaking terms with them when next ye meet."

I smiled at his notion that any amount of "douking" would save us from
the cruiser's light, but instinctively I crouched down with the others.
To me it seemed impossible that any freak of fortune could hide us from
the cruiser's observation. There we were in the still sea, a black
speck, no doubt, but one that a clever eye on a warship's bridge would
never fail to spy out. Our own steamer, the _Oceanus_, was running
north as fast as honest engines could drive her. She, too, appeared
now to be just a shimmer of dancing lights--the captain showed every
lantern he had got to divert the chase from the launch, and here he
succeeded only too well.

Though it was all Lombard Street to a china orange that the cruiser
marked us, she held on obstinately after the bigger game. Perhaps she
believed that it was all a sham and that we had put off to make a fool
of her. I never learned; but I could scarcely believe my eyes when the
blinding light swept over them and still nothing happened. Were they
all daft aboard her? It was really incredible.

"The admiral's having his hair cut, I suppose," said Barlow the
quarter-master, who watched the affair with me from a seat aft. "He's
telling 'em to keep it short in the neck, sir--some day a dog will be
leading him at the end of a string. Well, I don't make no complaint
about that."

"Better not, my man," said I, "if you wish to see the _Oceanus_ again."

"Oh, as to that, we're well enough off here, sir," he said, turning
away his eyes from me; "though if we never saw Captain Castle again, I
reckon we'd have meat and drink for the rest of our lives."

I looked at him sharply; he coughed and glanced down at the compass.
This was the first time I quite understood how well the hands were
acquainted with the cargo and its owners. The danger of the knowledge
could not be hidden from me. Even the nigger Sam, with his blinking
green eyes, ate up every word of our talk and smacked his lips over it.

"You buy barrel of rum and no mistake, sar," he chimed in, unasked.
"You change your Sunday shirt on Monday and blarm the expense. We all
very rich gentlemen, surely."

I turned it with a laugh, though I was well aware of the reservation
behind it. Happily, but for a bottle of brandy of my own, there was no
drink on the launch. I had a revolver in my pistol-pocket, and I said
that at the worst, which was then but a suspicion, I could keep both
the nigger and Peter in order. Mike the Irishman might go any way; but
Nicolson, the young engineer, could certainly be counted upon. To him
I said a word when two of the hands had been ordered to turn in. His
answer was reassuring, but more ambiguous than I liked.

"Oh," he said, "anything to help the Dutchmen. They'll miss this odd
lot if we lose it--and, of course, we're all honest, Lorimer. Don't
you be uneasy. I've no fancy for gilded firesides myself; besides," he
added, "if we took our oaths that we had to jettison it, who'd believe
us? Better go straight under the circumstances."

I replied that there were no circumstances possible to make common
rogues of us, and his cheery assent did much to deceive me. Counting
upon him entirely, I let the launch simply drift while he lay down
for a couple of hours' sleep, and afterwards I wrapped myself up in
a blanket and managed to get some rest. When I awoke it was broad
daylight. An immensely round sun fired the placid water with sheets
of crimson splendour; the air came heavy from the Equator; a burning,
intolerable day seemed before us. Restless and anxious already to be
sure of our bearings, that the _Oceanus_ might find us at noon, I
bustled up almost as soon as I was awake; but the first thing I saw
took my breath away, and I just stood like a man in a wonder-world to
watch it. There amidships, in the well where the money was stored, Sam
the nigger, Mike the Irishman, and Nicolson the engineer were grouped
about a box of golden ingots, and so transported with the sight of
them that they scarcely heard me. One by one they had laid out those
shimmering yellow bars, each a fortune to such men; and they watched
the sunlight glittering upon them, and caressed them with gentle hands
and feasted their eyes upon them. When I appeared, no man budged from
his place or seemed in any way abashed. Evidently they were all agreed
upon a purpose, and this Nicolson made known to me.

"Yes," he said, coolly; "we're counting up the dollars, old
chap--divide on shore, you know--fair and square. Come, don't
look blue. The Dutchman won't miss them, and old Joey's made his
own bargain. We can rig up a tale between us and buy the crowd at
Ascension--good joke, isn't it, Lorimer?"

"Why, yes," said I; "but, as my port's not Ascension, I don't quite
see the point of it. Come, Nicolson, don't be a fool. Just put that
lid on and help me to go over the chart. We mustn't keep the captain
waiting--you know what he is."

Very lazily, I thought, he put the lid on the box of ingots, and,
laughing at the others, he came aft with me. When I took up the chart
to make a dead reckoning by the help of his own calculations during my
watch off, he laughed again in his peculiar way. "It's all right," he
said; "due west for Ascension, as you wished."

"Nicolson," I said, quietly, "you've been playing a fool's game; what
does it mean?"

He sat on the gunnel and looked me full in the face.

"Means that our port is Ascension," he said.

I kept my temper.

"Nicolson," I said, "do you wish me to think you a scoundrel?"

"Think what you like; there are four in this launch who don't mean Joey
Castle to touch these dollars again."

I turned away from him, wrestling with my temper.

"'Bout ship!" I cried. Barlow took no notice whatsoever. Then my hand
went to my pistol-pocket and I knew the worst. They had taken the
revolver while I slept. I was one against four, and the launch was
running over a calm sea to Ascension Isle and the discovery which
inevitably awaited us there.


III.

We steamed all that day upon a fair sea, but at sundown the truth came
out. We had not coal enough for another hour's run and were still a
hundred miles from Ascension. I watched the faces of the men when
Nicolson told them. They seemed to care nothing. The gold greed was
upon them; the ingots were piled up everywhere about the launch and the
hands hugged them as children, dearer than anything afloat or ashore.
Nicolson got curses for his pains and went below again.

[Illustration: "THE GOLD GREED WAS UPON THEM."]

I watched the scene gloomily from the stern--it was beginning to dawn
upon me that no man would see land again; and when an hour and a half
had passed and the engines of the launch suddenly stopped I could not
call myself a pessimist. The hands themselves, awed by the mishap,
began to talk of sailing ships which would pick them up and of a story
they must have ready. Nicolson was to be the captain of a ship which
had stranded; Barlow was his mate. They did not name me; and, as the
day is my witness, I believe they intended to murder me.

You may think that this sent a man to his supper with a good appetite.
Truth to tell, I lay down in my blanket at ten o'clock and never
expected to see the sun again. A shadow passing by me, a voice, a
whisper, made me start like a frightened hare. Once I found the nigger
Sam bending over me, and I jumped up, wet through with perspiration.
Even a child would have seen that these madmen, lost to all sense of
reason, would never take me ashore with them. Then when would they make
an end of it? Soon, I hoped, if it must be. The suspense was making an
old man of me. Every evil glance that was turned upon me seemed like
a warning anew. I believe to this hour that they would have shot me
before dawn but for the wind, the truest friend a man ever had in the
hour of his need. Yes, to the wind and the sea, twin brothers to a
sailor, I owed my life. It began to blow about seven bells in the first
watch, and by dawn the waves were running as they run on no other ocean
but the Atlantic. Laden as we were, deep down in the seas, our chances
of weathering the gale may be imagined. Had we still owned a fire the
first wash over would have snuffed it out. The good launch staggered at
every blow, like a boxer badly hit. I said that the gold must go--and
not a man aboard who did not know that I spoke the truth.

I have witnessed some strange scenes in my life--niggers running amuck
in St. Louis, French sailors among the drink in a panic, a liner
sinking with more than a hundred women aboard; but for honest madness
about money the scene on that launch defies my words. No sooner was it
plain that we should sink if we could not raise her in the water than
the men (but chiefly the Irishman and the nigger Sam) got the gold open
again and fell on it, blubbering and raving like children. Drink they
had from somewhere, that I was sure of--even Nicolson the engineer
showed the whites of his eyes when he staggered up to them; and what
with their terror of the sea, their greed of the gold, and the whisky
they had drunk, they might have been raving madmen let loose from
Bedlam.

I said that the launch could not last another hour. The shrieking of
the wind, the monster green seas gathered up in walls of jade-like
water, the great hollows into which we went rushing like a switchback,
cascades of foam and spindrift, the scudding masses of cloud, they
terrified these wretched men, and would have appalled the heart of the
strongest. If we were to have any hope at all, the gold must go. Again
I said it; and fearful for my own life, yet caring nothing what they
might do to me, I stepped forward and addressed them.

"This is your share and share alike, is it?" I cried--"the little bit
that Joey Castle will not miss. Well, it's got to go overboard, my
lads, and pretty soon about it. Nicolson, you're no fool; Barlow, you
know how long the game can last. Do you want to live or die? It's come
to that, as you pretty well see."

They heard me in sullen silence. A big wave catching the launch
amidships heeled her so far over that I thought she would never
recover. It threw Nicolson off his feet; and as he fell and turned
over my own revolver dropped from his pocket. You need not ask me if I
snatched it up. It was in my hand and smoking before ten seconds had
passed. And there was one man less upon the launch.

So it came about. The great Irishman, standing ankle-deep in the gold,
leaped out upon me when the launch righted herself. What quite happened
I can scarcely tell you, but I know that I felt his colossal arms
crushing the life out of me and that I saw it was his hour or mine.
Then a report rang loud in my ears, and I was free once more; while the
man tumbled backward, clutching at the air; and the sea engulfed him,
and there were four in peril where five had been. From that moment the
fear of God, I do believe, fell upon the others. They neither spoke
nor stirred for many minutes together. The terrible wind howled its
wildest--the heavens were black as night. I said that the sea was with
me, and, crying out to them to save themselves, I began to drop the
ingots overboard.

One by one, each a fortune to a poor man, we cast the gold bars into
the ocean. That which would have meant so much to us ashore meant
nothing here in the face of death and the storm. And yet I could
not but think of the pleasures this very dross (as it seemed there
upon the high seas) would give to many a home, to honest toilers and
starving children in the great cities I had known. Nevertheless, it
must be swallowed by the green water, lost for ever upon the bed of the
Atlantic. And moment by moment the launch rose higher and higher upon
the mountainous seas, like a bird that has been weighed down but now is
free. I began to tell them that we should make Ascension Isle after
all. I did not know that we should have no need to make it.

[Illustration: "THE MAN TUMBLED BACKWARD, CLUTCHING AT THE AIR."]

The last of the ingots had been cast overboard, the wind had begun to
fall, when the British cruiser picked us up. There was no need for
explanations. She had searched the _Oceanus_ at dawn and seized her
treasure before Joey Castle could get what was left of it away. She
knew that we had ingots for our cargo, and she followed us westward. We
went aboard her to laugh at the chagrin of her commander and to show
him our empty well.

"What you seek is a thousand fathoms down," said I, a little bitterly;
"you don't need to ask me why."

"Mr. Lorimer," he cried, with a smile, "if all the gold in the world
were in the same place, what a pleasant place this old globe would be
to live on!"

I knew what he meant--but, after all, if men weren't cutting each
other's throats for gold they would be doing the same for shells or
silver or other rubbish, as any philosopher will tell you.




_Our Grandmothers' Fashion-Plates._

BY ARABELLA DRYSDALE-DAVIS.


What philosopher being propounded the query, "Which are the
most popular pictures in the world?" could reply other than
"Fashion-plates"? Are they not rapturously studied and admired weekly
by millions of women? Do they not elicit the furtive interest--not
unmingled, perhaps, with astonishment--of millions of men?

"Grotesque forecasts of ephemeral plumes and deciduous fig-leaves,"
as a famous novelist, Kingsley, called fashion-plates, are only an
invention of less than a century and a quarter ago. A lady of the olden
time, who wished to learn the very latest mode in skirts, bodices,
hats, bonnets, or shoes, betook herself at certain seasons to her
dressmaker, where dressed _poupées_ straight from Paris were on view.
The making and dressing of these dolls was quite a business in the
French capital before coloured fashion-plates came to oust them from
favour in the closing years of Louis XVI.'s reign. Prior to this period
drawings of fashionably-attired ladies had appeared from time to time
in the magazines and periodicals devoted to the interests of the fair
sex--such as the first in the present series, showing a lady in full
dress for 1770--and these may have imparted to country cousins an idea
of what was being worn in the Faubourg St. Germain and Mayfair--but the
_beau monde_ never relied on these.

[Illustration: A Lady in Full Dress in Aug. 1770]

It is probable that the earliest coloured examples were produced in
1784-85. In the latter year the _Cabinet des Modes_ appeared in Paris,
consisting of twenty-four parts annually, three coloured designs
with each part. In England many years before we had had the _Lady's
Magazine_, which had devoted much space to dress, but seems to have
just missed the idea of fashion-plates, although its descriptions of
current modes are often most diverting. "Dress," it says, in its very
first number, "is like the sunshine introduced into the designs of
Titian: it animates the figures and gives them all their embellishment."

"The hoop or circumference of charms," we read in 1785, "is a most
essential part of contemporary costume. The magnificence of the
full-dress hoop carries with it a most noble and majestic appearance,
and I hope will never be given up or _hors de la mode_ as long as
England can boast of such fine women as appear within the circle of a
Drawing Room."

But the French Revolution burst into boudoirs and salons and "the hoop
or circumference of charms" disappeared, and in the next few years was
witnessed an entire change of style.

Here is a simple little afternoon dress for 1796: "The hair dressed
in light curls and ringlets; Armenian turban, made of white and York
flame-coloured satin, crossed in the front with two strings of pearls,
and the ends trimmed with gold fringe; a white ostrich and a blue
esprit feather on the left side; Armenian robe of embroidered muslin,
the train with a broad hem; full short sleeves; trimming of blond round
the neck and at the top of the sleeves; tucker of blond; gold cord with
two large tassels round the waist, tied at the left side; two strings
of pearls, and a festoon gold chain with a medallion round the neck;
diamond earrings; white shoes and gloves."

[Illustration: FASHIONS FOR 1785 (THE EARLIEST COLOURED PLATE).]

[Illustration: A RETURN TO SPARTAN SIMPLICITY, 1800.]

In 1800 we read that the newest fashion is "a simple blue tunic, bound
by tassels at the waist." "Nothing is now so elegant as a straw hat:
they are worn either ornamented with the flower called convolvulus or
coloured like a shell." "Ribbons are worn either clouded or striped;
the latter are nankeen."

[Illustration: LATEST PARIS MODES, 1802.]

It is strange that, notwithstanding the horror which the conduct of the
French had excited throughout Europe, and especially in England, there
should be found any votaries of French fashions. It is even stranger
that, while French modes were still worn with us, in France there was
a general adoption, in 1802, of English fashions such as are shown
herewith for that year. "The head-dress for undress," we read, "is
frequently only a piece of muslin, sometimes enlivened with pearls. In
full dress turbans are principally worn."

Our next illustration forecasts the fashions for 1806. "Never was
there a period that exhibited a greater variety of female decorations
than the present; and it is as difficult to find a costume to condemn
as to describe one that has a decided preference." Nevertheless we
find men's large beaver hats already in vogue. What will ladies of
1904 think of the following: "MORNING WALKING DRESS.--A plain muslin
dress, walking length, made high in front and forms a shirt collar,
richly embroidered; long sleeves, also embroidered round the wrists
and at the bottom of the dress; a pelisse opera coat without any seam
in back, composed of orange blossom tinged with brown, made of Angola
cloth or sarsnet, trimmed with rich Chincheally fur, tipped with gold.
The pelisse sets close to the form on one side, fastened on the right
shoulder with a brooch."

[Illustration: EMPIRE GOWNS AND GEORGIAN BEAVER, 1806.]

It seems odd that there was ever a time when there were public
defenders of false complexions for ladies; yet we find in _La Belle
Assemblée_ for March, 1806, a writer pleading in favour of rouge,
"which may be rendered extremely innocent, and may be applied with
such art as sometimes to give an expression to the figure which it
would never have without that auxiliary. The colour of modesty has many
charms; and in an age when women blush so little ought we not to value
this innocent artifice, which is capable at least of exhibiting to us
the picture of modesty? We ought to be thankful to the sex which, in
the absence of estimable virtue, knows at least how to preserve its
portrait."

[Illustration: A VIEW OF DIAPHANOUS DRAPERIES, 1809.]

In this fashion-plate for 1809 we see a lady very coolly attired in a
white jaconot frock--somewhat scanty and diaphanous--and rejoicing in
a gorgeous parasol. Here is the exact description:--

"PROMENADE COSTUME.--A white jaconot muslin high dress, with long
sleeves and collar of needlework; treble flounces of plaited muslin
round the bottom; wrist and collar confined with a silk cord and
tassel. The hair disposed in the Eastern style, with a fancy flower
in front or on one side. A Vittoria cloak, or Pyrennean mantle, of
pomona-green sarsnet, trimmed with Spanish fringe of a correspondent
shade, and confined in graceful folds on the left shoulder. A white
lace veil thrown over the head-dress. A large Eastern parasol, the
colour of the mantle, with deep Chinese awning. Roman shoe, or
Spanish slipper, of pomona-green kid, or jean. Gloves of primrose or
amber-coloured kid."

[Illustration: SOMEWHAT SCANTY ATTIRE, 1809.]

One is perpetually surprised at the scantiness of the attire of
those days. It offers such a contrast to the rotundity of the hoop
or "circumference of fashion," or to the later crinoline. For 1809
bonnets have suddenly assumed gigantic dimensions--as in the picture
herewith--but the question amongst the fair sex doubtless was, Will
they last?

[Illustration: A DAINTY LITTLE BONNET, 1809.]

In turning over the thousands of fashion-plates of the first quarter of
the last century one is constantly confronted by designs bearing such
titles as "Costume for the Seaside," "Toilette for the Seaside," "Dress
for the Seashore." Seaside in those days meant Margate, Weymouth,
and Scarborough; and we naturally expect to find trim little frocks,
accompanied by tight sailor hats, capable of withstanding the stiffest
breeze. But instead of this we find transparent, flowing gossamers and
top-lofty turbans, which would never weather the mildest gale.

[Illustration: AT FASHIONABLE MARGATE, 1810.]

[Illustration: A BOND STREET PROMENADE, 1810.]

About the same time we read: "As our families of rank are fast
migrating either to their country seats or some fashionable
watering-place, and as the Metropolis at this season offers little of
novel elegance save an occasional display at Vauxhall, we shall follow
the varying goddess to all her favourite haunts, and contemplate her
fair votaries as they ramble on the sea-shore, saunter on the lawns,
or lounge at the libraries, as they grace the _déjeuné_, animate the
social party, or illume the theatre and ballroom."

Of our next illustration (1810) we may glean a notion from the
following extract from a contemporary fashion letter:--

"Mantles and coats of green vigonia or merino cloth of various shades,
from the sober hue of the Spanish fly to the more lively pea-green,
have succeeded to the purple, which, though a colour most pleasing
in itself, is now become too general to find a place in a select
wardrobe. Scarlet cloaks are no longer seen on genteel women, except as
wraps for the theatres; the satiated eye turns, overpowered by their
universal glare, to rest on more chaste and more refreshing shades.
Mantles and pelisses are now considered more elegant when trimmed with
gold or silver lace, or binding; or with black velvet, bound or laid
flat, and which is sometimes finished at its terminations with a narrow
gold edging of flat braid. Some are decorated with borders of coloured
chenille."

[Illustration: BALLOON SLEEVES, 1811.]

Albeit every year sees the attire growing less scanty--even the
fashions for 1811 display more generous draperies; besides which the
latter are flanked and reinforced by huge muffs now coming into vogue
and recently made familiar to us in Mr. Barrie's play of "Quality
Street." Accompanied, as they occasionally were, by huge beaver hats,
these Gargantuan muffs--which must surely have required the pelts of
more than one fox to produce, if not of an entire bear--demanded all
the attention from their fair wearers, as well as from the gallants of
the day. The next illustration shows a carriage dress, conveniently
short, for 1811.

[Illustration: GIGANTIC MUFFS À LA MODE, 1811.]

[Illustration: A SIMPLE CARRIAGE DRESS, 1811.]

[Illustration: VARIEGATED STYLES OF COIFFURE, 1816.]

Coal-scuttle bonnets are likewise growing in favour, as may be seen
by the picture at the top of this page. Still more interesting is the
style of coiffure of the period. Nothing more fantastic, we venture to
say, ever came out of the brain of the most imaginative coiffeur. We
especially call the attention of those readers who inveigh against the
over-elaboration of twentieth-century head-dressing to the rear view
of the bottom right-hand elegant cranium. It resembles nothing more
closely than a bouquet of turnips, carrots, and other homely vegetables.

[Illustration: A CHARMING BACK VIEW, 1820.]

When we approach the "twenties" we are fain to perceive more gravity in
the fashions of the day. Indeed, nothing could well be more grave--we
might even say more awkward--than the back view of the (doubtless)
charming lady of the above illustration. It certainly does not suggest
the lightness and lissom grace of the earlier designs. What a great
change the fashions have undergone since 1809 may be seen by the plate
for 1829.

[Illustration: CHILDREN À LA MODE, 1829.]

[Illustration: A VIEW IN HYDE PARK, 1829.]

Here we doubtless confront just such a pair of fashionable ladies as
are described in the pages of Dickens, Bulwer, and Disraeli, with
their Liliputian ruffs--which fortunately did not become a permanent
fashion--their leg-of-mutton sleeves, and quintuple rows of lace
"insertion." We are fain to speculate upon the countenance of one of
these pre-Victorian young ladies, for it is wholly obscured by a
magnificently-plumed "blush-concealer," as the coal-scuttle bonnets
were facetiously called.

[Illustration: FASHION-PLATE FOR 1837. ATTRIBUTED TO "PHIZ."]

[Illustration: FASHION PLATE FOR 1851. DRAWN BY JOHN LEECH.]

In order that our fair readers may have a peep at the dress of the
juvenile portion of the community in that same year, we give a spirited
drawing from a French fashion journal. The costume may perhaps hardly
commend itself to the children of 1904, but it doubtless appeared quite
appropriate to the mammas of the time, as well as to the artist. As to
the artists of these fashion-plates, it must be remembered that they
were usually struggling young painters and draughtsmen, who were glad
to get work of this kind, and many of them afterwards became famous.
Both Doré and Meisonier drew fashions for the magazines and _Cabinets
des Modes_ of their day. Moreover, our own Hablot K. Browne ("Phiz")
was responsible for many such, the accompanying plate for 1837 being
attributed to him; while there is no doubt of John Leech's authorship
of the fashion-plate for 1851, which we also reproduce.

[Illustration: LADIES' FASHIONS, 1854 (THE BLOOMER PERIOD).]

Before we approach the "sixties," with their extraordinary revival of
the hoop or crinoline fashion, we must remark on the extraordinary
fashion-plate promulgated for the year 1854. What would the ladies say
to such a tyrannical dictate of fashion to-day? It is inconceivable
now; but many a fair dame and damsel seeing it in that year must
inwardly have quaked with terror at the prospect of facing her beloved
Adolphus in Bloomerian garb. Happily, the prophets proved false for
once, and the fashion passed away, just as a year or two ago the
threatened crinoline scare passed away with us. Crinoline had to run
its course although not before it had been guilty of many enormities,
as will be seen by the appended plate. The ladies' heads herein appear
but as the apexes of pyramids; and the singular cut of the bodices and
the rotundity of the young ladies' skirts appear to us, in this age,
ludicrous.

[Illustration: CRINOLINE AT ITS ZENITH. 1865.]

On the whole, it may be our vanity and self-sufficiency, or it may be
our superior taste; but to us it seems (and we trust the reader, on
comparing these fashion-plates of our grandmothers with the last of
our series that for 1904--will agree with us) that however our past
generations dressed, and whatever Worth and Paquin have in store for
the future, our English girl of the present has decidedly the best of
the sartorial bargain.

[Illustration: SOMEWHAT NEATER THAN OUR GRANDMOTHERS (LADIES' FASHIONS
FOR 1904).

(By courtesy of Messrs. Weldons, Ltd.)]




_A Willing Scape-Goat._

BY S. B. ROBINSON.


Jack Selden only half suppressed an exclamation of angry despair by a
simulated fit of coughing, as he read at breakfast the solitary letter
that had fallen to his share from the mail-bag. It was not pleasant
reading: it was a thinly-veiled command to pay, within three days, a
card and betting debt to the tune of two hundred pounds.

He raised his face, from which the colour had fled, and glanced
furtively round at the other occupants of the table, as he crushed the
letter into his pocket.

His father, Dr. Selden, a tall, grey, ascetic-looking man--blind for
some years through a disease of the optic nerve--had not noticed the
exclamation; neither had Madge Westbrook, his _fiancée_, a handsome
girl, who chanced to be too deeply occupied with her duties of hostess,
in the absence of Miss Selden, the doctor's sister. Cyril Wayne,
a fair, resolute-looking young fellow of Jack's age, the doctor's
amanuensis, was the only one of the trio who had perceived the trouble.

Jack dropped his eyes guiltily, and made a show of continuing his meal
while he mentally reviewed the situation. It seemed to be a desperate
one, and he cursed his fate. He could expect no assistance from his
father. A college career that had resulted in nothing but heavy debts
was too fresh in his memory for that. Jack had been told by his
exasperated parent that never again would he receive assistance beyond
his ample allowance; and, further, that the bulk of the property would
go to Madge, the doctor's niece. Jack could only, in a sense, become
his father's heir by marrying his cousin when she came of age.

At the time this arrangement had been made Madge had acquiesced to her
share in it without any effort and, indeed, without much thought. It
pleased her uncle, and that had been enough to decide her. As for Jack,
he would have preferred a free hand; but since he was not to have it
he consoled himself with the thought that Madge was a very presentable
encumbrance.

But the arrival of Cyril Wayne at Highbank--the country residence which
the doctor had occupied since his blindness--had opened a new chapter
in Madge's uneventful life. The new-comer, intelligent, accomplished,
masterful, made a startling contrast to the weak-willed, illiterate
Jack, who was intellectually lost when he ventured outside the
precincts of the stable.

The result of the companionship into which Madge and Cyril insensibly
drifted was as inevitable as the course of time. There was no one to
warn them of the danger. The doctor could not see it; Miss Selden was
too deeply engrossed in her charities, and Jack in his own affairs.
There came a moment then when the pair found out for themselves how
imperceptible is the boundary sometimes that separates friendship and
love. Madge discovered with horror that her thoughtless promise was
repugnant to her, and Cyril that he was in love with another man's
betrothed! The pleasant intercourse was broken from that moment,
without a word of explanation on either side.

With Cyril Wayne this discovery could only have one result: he
immediately commenced his preparations for leaving Highbank, sore in
heart and self-respect.

This morning at breakfast Jack's stifled exclamation had warned him
that some mischief was afoot, and he was anxious to know what it was.
What concerned Jack concerned Madge, alas! When the meal was concluded,
instead of at once following the doctor to his study he stepped through
the open French window on to the terrace, where the _enfant prodigue_
had already preceded him.

He was standing at the stone balustrade reperusing his letter. When he
heard Cyril's footsteps on the flags behind him he started, crushed the
paper in his hand, and turned round.

"Jack, I want to speak to you for a few moments," said Cyril, as he
advanced.

"What's up?" asked Jack, shortly. He thrust the letter into his pocket
and took out his pipe.

"Well----" Cyril hesitated a moment to ransack his brain for some
reasonable pretext; then it occurred to him that it was nearly a
certainty his listener's trouble was a pecuniary one. To feign a like
predicament for himself might evoke Jack's confidence.

"Well," said he, "I want you to lend me twenty-five pounds. I'm hard
pressed for it at this moment."

Madge had approached the window to speak to Jack. She caught Cyril
Wayne's remark, and, drawing back at once, turned away unperceived by
both of the young men.

Jack fell an easy prey to the trap that had been laid for him. He gazed
at Cyril in astonishment and let the match he had lighted die out in
his hand.

[Illustration: "HE GAZED AT CYRIL IN ASTONISHMENT."]

"Lend you twenty-five pounds? Great Scot!" he exclaimed.

"Yes."

"Twenty-five pounds! You've come to the wrong shop this time, old
man!" Then he suddenly lowered his voice and bent his head forward,
anxiously. "Can you tell me where I can get just eight times that
amount?" he asked. "I want it badly."

"Oh! So that is the reason for the letter you received just now?"

Jack nodded his head and flushed.

"Two hundred pounds!" exclaimed Cyril, aghast. "Let me hear the whole
business," he continued. "I can't lend you the money, but I may be able
to suggest something."

It was the same old story of betting and cards. Cyril had heard it
all before, in the same stumbling phraseology of contrition. "And the
brute gives me only three days--three days, or he will write to the
governor," concluded Jack, turning suddenly savage.

"Then forestall him," replied Cyril, "for as far as I can see there is
no remedy but to ask your father to help you out of the mire once more."

"Ask the governor? You can just bet I sha'n't do that," said Jack,
sullenly. He thrust his hands deep into his pockets and stared hard at
the ground.

"Then, no money-lenders," replied Cyril. "It will only make bad worse.
Come!" He caught Jack by the arm. "Make a clean breast of it to your
father. He has much more than the sum you require in the house at
present, and you may not find him so difficult as you imagine."

Jack started. More money than he required for his wants in the house!
So near him! Oh, if he only had it! He shook his arm free with
impatience.

"No, no, I sha'n't do that," said he.

"Very well," said Cyril. "But you will do nothing without consulting
me? Is that understood?"

Jack nodded his head and, turning quickly, stared blindly across the
fields that sloped and stretched from the terrace. He didn't see them.
His brain was working just then as it had never worked before. Cyril's
words about the money had raised a sudden storm of temptation in him
which seemed to carry him out of himself. He must try to think--to
decide.

At midnight Cyril turned in, but could not sleep; his thoughts were
too busily occupied with Madge, Jack, and the present uncertainty of
his own future. He had heard the clock in the little sitting-room
adjoining chime every hour from midnight to three. Then a strange thing
happened. As he lay broad awake in the dark, a slender pencil of
yellow light stole across the carpet from his door. Jack's room was
next to his. He heard no sound in the corridor, though he sat up in his
bed and listened intently. The pencil of light remained stationary a
few moments, then wavered, and finally, sweeping slowly round the room,
disappeared.

Something prompted Cyril to rise and investigate. Putting on his
dressing-gown and slippers, he noiselessly crossed his room and
looked out. The feeble yellow light was dancing on the ceiling of the
corridor, but the bearer of it, unseen, was already descending the
broad oak staircase.

Cyril hurried quietly along the corridor and, looking over the
balustrade, saw Jack. He was at the foot of the stairs, and about to
enter the lower corridor.

Cyril remained where he was in the darkness a few moments, when the
light began to reappear and a cool breath of air swept up the stair.

Jack must have opened the French window which gave access to the
garden. He now approached the foot of the stair with stealthy tread;
but, instead of mounting it, he passed on in the direction of the other
wing.

Cyril felt instinctively that something was wrong, and descending the
stairs he followed in Jack's wake. Turning the corner of the corridor
he was just in time to see the young man insert a key in the lock of
the study door, and then enter.

By the time Cyril had arrived Jack had placed his candle on the
writing-table and was stooping, with his back to the door, in front of
his father's safe, which he had just opened.

This safe was of peculiar construction. For the convenience of the
doctor it opened by means of the simple pressure of a small button in
the wainscot. But the room in itself was a safe, for the door was of
steel with a powerful lock, and the one window was heavily shuttered
within and barred without.

All unconscious of a watcher, Jack was cautiously engaged in
disconnecting the wires switched on to an alarm in the doctor's room
above, when Cyril, unable to contain his feelings any longer, stepped
forward.

[Illustration: "JACK WAS CAUTIOUSLY ENGAGED IN DISCONNECTING THE
WIRES."]

"Jack!" he exclaimed, sternly, "what is the meaning of this?"

Jack bounded to his feet in horror. His hand fell nervelessly from the
stud he had been manipulating, and, catching in one of the drawers,
drew it partially open. It was sufficient to actuate the mechanism. A
faint whirr in the room above responded to the movement of the drawer;
and at the same time the study door, as if impelled by an invisible
hand, swung quickly to and closed with a faint click.

The two young men were prisoners. There was no means of egress except
by the door, and that could only be opened now from the outside. The
doctor's burglar trap had fulfilled its purpose admirably.

For the space of two or three moments the pair stood motionless facing
each other, Jack had gripped the back of the doctor's study chair and
was staring with haggard eyes at the door. Then suddenly, with a
half-frenzied exclamation, he threw himself at it and tore desperately
with his fingers at its smooth, hard surface. It was of no use. He
fell back with a groan of despair and, dropping heavily into a chair,
covered his face with his hands.

"Good Heaven! My father!--Madge! What will they think of me?" said he,
hoarsely, as he passed his hand over his damp forehead. "Oh, I must
have been mad--mad!"

Cyril Wayne looked down at the wretched Jack, half pitying, half
despising him. Was this crouching, would-be thief to become Madge's
husband? What a match! Was it not for the best that the innocent girl
should be undeceived before it was too late? But the cruelty of it! He
shrank involuntarily from the idea of witnessing the death-blow that
was to be dealt at her affection. He pictured to himself a misery, an
anguish, a hundred-fold greater than this cowering wretch was capable
of feeling. Oh, it was impossible!

"Jack!" said he, stooping suddenly and shaking the abject figure by the
shoulder. "Look up, man! Do you hear?"

Jack lifted his head and stared at Cyril stupidly.

"Just collect your wits and listen to me," said Cyril, imperiously,
as he fixed Jack's gaze with his own. "If you get out of this scrape
scot-free--you understand?"--Jack nodded hungrily--"will you swear
never to touch a card or back a horse again?"

"Get out of it? Oh, Wayne--Cyril, old man, how? How?" implored Jack,
with trembling lips, half rising from his seat.

Cyril pushed him back impatiently. "That is not the answer I want,"
said he. He repeated his question. "Do you swear?" he asked. "Quick!
Quick, man! I can hear footsteps. A moment more and it won't matter
what you say."

"Yes, yes, I swear, I swear!" repeated Jack, fervently, as he gulped
down something that had risen in his throat.

"Very good!" Cyril's grasp closed like a steel vice on his shoulder.
"Jack Selden," continued the young man, sternly, "what I am going to do
I shall do for Madge's--your cousin's--sake; but if you fail to keep
that oath you have just made, do you know that you will be the meanest,
pitifullest hound that ever walked God's earth? If you _do_ fail--" he
paused, "well, never cross my path, that's all. Now rouse up. Look like
yourself, man; they are here."

It was true. There was a sound of slippered feet outside the study
door. Jack rose from his chair and stood behind it, his face drawn, his
eyes roving. He felt sick with the fear clutching at his heart.

"Not a word from you," whispered Cyril, rapidly; "leave everything to
me."

There was the sharp click of a pistol-trigger outside; a pause; and
then the study door was flung wide open. In the corridor stood the
doctor and Madge alone. The latter was holding a candle above her head
in her left hand; with her right she pointed a revolver.

[Illustration: "IN THE CORRIDOR STOOD THE DOCTOR AND MADGE ALONE."]

"You may give up. There is no escape. If you move you will be shot down
without mercy," said the doctor, rapidly. "How many, Madge?"' he added,
in a lower tone.

Madge had with great difficulty checked the exclamation that had risen
to her lips as her glance fell on Cyril and Jack. Both arms dropped to
her side. What did this mean? Her startled, questioning glance dwelt on
each of the young men alternately, but no explanation came. They stood
before her like two statues. Jack hung his head; he could not even face
his father's sightless eyes. Cyril looked at her, silent, calm, and
speechless.

"How many, Madge?" repeated the doctor, impatiently.

"Two," she gasped, with a great effort.

"Do you recognise them?"

There was a momentary pause. Jack trembled so violently that his grasp
shook the chair he held. He felt that his fate hung on Madge's lips,
and his torture was exquisite. Cyril did not blench.

Again Madge swept the faces of the two young men with her keen,
questioning glance. Still no attempt at explanation! Oh, this
obstinate silence! Jack's shrinking figure, Cyril's cool hardihood,
were convincing proofs of guilt. Know them! Know _them_! The cowardly
thieves! She coloured hotly; her eyes flashed, and her lips curled with
the intensest scorn.

"No, I do not," she replied.

With a sudden and unexpected movement the doctor closed the door with
a crash. He rubbed his hands excitedly.

"We have them, Madge; we have them safe, the scoundrels," said he.
"Like rats in a trap! Now to get Wayne and Jack, at once, to secure
them."

There was a choking sob at his side. Madge had turned and laid her
forehead against the wall; the hot tears were coursing down her cheeks.
The doctor heard her, and reaching forward caught a hand that was
hanging limply down.

"Why, why, my dear!" said he, with sudden compunction, as he felt
Madge's fingers trembling in his grasp. "It was too bad of me to put
you to such a trial. I ought to have waited for Wayne and Jack. I
didn't stop to think. Your nerves are shaken, and no wonder. There!
there!"

No wonder, indeed! They went upstairs side by side, Madge scarcely
hearing, and still less heeding, the doctor's flow of exculpation.

When they reached the doctor's room the old man wished Madge to rest
there while he went to call his son and secretary and alarm the house
generally. But to this proposal Madge objected with astonishing energy.
She herself would go and no one else. She was quite recovered now and
did not feel the slightest fear. Would he promise her to remain quietly
in his room until she returned with the others?

The doctor reluctantly yielded his consent, and then Madge slipped from
the room with a wildly beating heart. Instead, however, of turning
along the corridor towards the rooms occupied by Cyril, Wayne and Jack,
she swiftly descended the stairs, and reaching the study door flung it
wide open.

"Come!" said she, addressing Jack--she did not look at Cyril--"your
father sent me to your room to call you--to your _room_!" She paused a
moment, and then continued, with flashing eyes and a bitter emphasis:
"Oh, deceive him still, if you can! If you can keep him from learning
to what you have fallen, do so! You need expect no opposition from
me--for his sake, but never, never, dare to speak to me again!"

"Jack is not to blame in the least," said Cyril, quietly. "I am the
culprit; he is as innocent as you are, Miss Westbrook."

Madge started and blanched; that coolly-worded confession seemed to
stab her like a knife. Then like lightning there flashed across her
brain the request she had overheard for a loan of twenty-five pounds.
Oh, this was all so horrible--so incomprehensible! Jack had lifted his
head as Cyril spoke, but had quickly let it fall again.

"Jack followed me, only to watch me," continued Cyril, in the same even
tones. "He was caught by the closing of the door when I opened the
drawer--you know how it works--that is all as far as he is concerned. I
throw myself on your mercy, Miss Westbrook. I offer no useless excuses.
If I dared ask a favour of you I would say, keep my secret--at least
until I am free of Highbank."

Madge paused a moment, overwhelmed; then she turned on him with
passionate scorn. "Oh, how you have deceived us! Then all the time
you have been here you were only a thief--a common thief, at heart.
Oh!"--she waved her hand with a gesture of horror--"you acted well as
a pretender, a masquerader, a specious, lying counterfeit of honesty."
She turned to her cousin: "Jack! Jack! speak!"

"For Heaven's sake, Madge, don't go on so. I--I can't stand it, I tell
you," exclaimed Jack, violently. "I--I----"

[Illustration: "SHE TURNED ON HIM WITH PASSIONATE SCORN."]

"Hush! hush! There is no need to say anything further," broke in Cyril,
hastily. "Miss Westbrook will keep silence, I am sure. I only ask for
a few hours' grace."

Madge swept out of the study without another word. Cyril pushed the
reluctant Jack and then followed him. At the doctor's door Madge
left them and, her heart broken with passion, sought her room. The
old man had been awaiting the arrival of the young men in a fever of
impatience. The first excitement consequent on the capture of the
burglars having subsided somewhat, he had had time to reflect. It had
occurred to him then that the thieves must have effected their entrance
by the study door; they could scarcely have done so by the window. In
this case they had, he thought, probably entered by means of a skeleton
key and had escaped in the same manner.

It was a pitiful, distasteful farce to Cyril, but it had to be acted
through to the finale. The birds had flown, of course, and equally of
course by the French window found open in the corridor.

Search parties were sent out, and Cyril wondered with a pang what could
be Madge's feelings as the flickering lights wandered to and fro in the
garden on their wild-goose chase.

The next day Madge did not leave her room, and Cyril Wayne, feeling
that he was the cause, hastened his departure. One more lie, he
bitterly told himself, and his career of deception was concluded. It
was an intense relief, sore as his heart might be, to get away as far
as possible from Highbank. He had spent there the happiest and the most
painful hours of his existence.

       *       *       *       *       *

In less than a fortnight after Cyril's departure Jack Selden was
watching, with a feeling of considerable satisfaction, from the deck of
a "liner," the English coast-line fading in the distance. His debts had
been paid and a hardly-won consent obtained to try the experiment of
sheep-farming in Australia. His father, aunt and Madge had accompanied
him to Tilbury Docks; and Jack was wondering vaguely, as he puffed
his cigar and the summer night gathered round, what Madge was at that
precise moment thinking of him.

Before leaving he had written a letter for Madge, which she would have
received on her return to the hotel from the docks. In it Jack had done
full justice to Cyril Wayne. He had concealed nothing relating to the
crime which he had so nearly committed, and which Cyril, to shield him,
had so quixotically taken upon his own shoulders. In conclusion he had
begged Madge to keep his secret from his father, and to consider that
as far as he, Jack, was concerned she was free.

Madge had found Jack's letter on her dressing-table, and had read its
frank out-pouring with quickened pulse, flushed cheeks, and sparkling
eyes. What a dull, crushing weight it had suddenly lifted from her
heart! She did not attempt to analyze her feelings, but the crime
seemed nearly trivial now that she knew it was Jack's. And then an
uncontrollable desire seized her to make amends to Cyril. Jack had
evidently anticipated this; for, with wonderful thoughtfulness, he had
supplied the address, and Madge recognised with a thrill that it was
not distant more than five minutes' walk from the spot where she was at
that moment standing.

Should she write to Cyril or should she go to him? A moment's thought
decided that question. The cruel words she had used could only be
withdrawn personally; so, without bestowing a moment's reflection on
the proprieties, she crushed Jack's precious epistle in her hand and,
hurrying down the stairs, left the hotel.

It was with a beating heart that she presently found herself at the
house where Cyril was living. He was acting as _locum tenens_ for a
friend who was enjoying his holiday abroad. The servant, thinking
she was a late patient, ushered her into a little waiting-room, and
from there, a few moments later, into the consulting-room. Cyril, who
was standing at the window, turned and started in astonishment as he
recognised her.

"What! Miss Westbrook!" he exclaimed, as he hurried forward. "The
doctor----?"

Madge held out her hand impulsively.

"No," said she; and then, without further preamble, she plunged
tumultuously into the reason that had brought her there.

"I have come to beg your pardon. Oh, you must forgive me for what--what
I said. I'm so sorry--oh, so sorry; but I couldn't help it. Please read
this before you say anything."

She thrust Jack's letter into Cyril's hand. The young man took it,
glanced at the super-scription, and flushed.

"Ah! so Jack has betrayed me!" said he, as he commenced to read. "And
you are not angry at my deception?" He looked into her eager, appealing
face. "It is I who must ask forgiveness, but----"

"But you hurt me very much indeed," broke in Madge. "You should not
have done it; no, you should not. I said things--I misjudged you,
because you--oh, you had disappointed me--wounded me so much." Her eyes
grew humid and her last words faltered and fell almost to a whisper.

"I--I thought the end justified the means," stammered Cyril. He
scarcely knew what to say. He turned to the letter again.

There followed a momentary silence while Cyril read on. Suddenly his
heart bounded wildly, and the writing swam before his eyes as he came
to Jack's declaration of freedom. He dropped the letter and turned to
her.

"Miss Westbrook--Madge--tell me--you must! Did you love him?"

"I--I had promised," she whispered, with drooping eyelids.

"Promised! Promised! Only promised? I always thought you loved him,"
exclaimed Cyril.

Madge did not reply, but the colour surged sudden and warm into her
half-averted cheek.

"My dear! my dear!" said he, passionately, as he caught both her hands
in his. "It was I that loved you after all--not Jack. I deceived you
for your sake, not for his. What could I do? Could I see you suffer? I
have loved you from the first, but I never thought to tell you this. Is
it useless for me to do so now? Madge, dear, is it? Is it?"

[Illustration: "HE CAUGHT BOTH HER HANDS IN HIS."]

There was no reply, but as he drew her unresisting form towards him he
read his answer in her uplifted, happy eyes.




[Illustration: CHILDHOOD IN PICTURES]

By S. K. LUDOVIC.

[Illustration: "ASLEEP."

_From the Painting by F. Charderon._

By permission of Braun, Clément, & Co.]

Childhood's joys and childhood's sorrows, its beauty, and even its
little frailties--in fact, everything connected with the dawn of life,
has its own especial charm. It is, perhaps, not given to all of us
to detect with a sympathetic eye the picturesque in a very naughty
young person, who hits at every moment on a fresh idea to make his
fellow-creatures uncomfortable: nor is the spectacle of children in
their best-loved state of dirty happiness too pleasing to the average
observer. But the artist's eye sees things differently. Happily so; his
imaginative brain sees the humour of the little self-assertions, and
the pathetic side of the joy of living even in the gutter. Yet, after
all is said, it remains, of course, a certain truth that there are many
aspects of child-life which can only in reality be fully understood by
mothers.

The subject of our first picture--"Asleep," by the French painter, F.
Charderon--is a little masterpiece of its kind. There may be prettier
children than this one, but the natural and unconscious grace of the
little warm and rosy body is i

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