CHAPTER XII.

CHAPTER XII.Every family and village has had its scapegrace. The family ne'er-do-weel has been its greatest curse, and has torn down and dissipated in a few years what it has taken generations to set up; any fool can destroy—only the wise can build.But it is not so much folly as lack of principle which constitutes the ne'er-do-weel. Many a good man is a stupid one, and his goodness saves his stupidity from carrying him and his family to ruin. And sometimes a clever man is a ne'er-do-weel, because his cleverness is undirected by principle.Perhaps the most flagrant instance of the ne'er-do-weel among the aristocracy was that of Philip Duke of Wharton, the inheritor of a princely fortune, of extensive estates, and endowed by nature with brilliant talents, a manwho forfeited everything simply because he was without principle, and died in abject poverty, the last of a race which had been the pride of the North of England; but he died in something worse than poverty—in dishonour. It was of him that Pope wrote these scathing lines:"Clodis—the scorn and wonder of our days,Whose ruling passion was the lust of praise;Born with whate'er could win it from the wise,Women or fools must like him, or he dies.******His passion still to covet general praise,His life to forfeit it a thousand ways.A tyrant to the wife his heart approves,A rebel to the very king he loves;He dies, sad outcast of each Church and State,And harder still, flagitious, yet not great.Ask you why Clodis broke through every rule?'Twas all for fear the knaves should call him fool."The present time shows us some of these among the inheritors of noble names and fortunes—men as foolish and unprincipled as the wretched Duke of Wharton, and who run through a hardly less disreputable course, to the disgrace of the name which has hitherto been held high in history.In many a humbler family it is the same. It would seem as though occasionally a sport of some ignoble, sordid, selfish element broke out in a stock that has been noted for its self-respect, its goodness and generosity, and the wretched creature in which is this vein of baseness undoes in a few years everything that it has taken his ancestors many years of prudence, self-sacrifice, and forethought to construct.The writer remembers the instance of a gentleman in the North of England of excellent abilities, of many extended estates, and of illustrious name.He, however, had the misfortune to inherit his fortune early; he had lost his father and mother when quite a boy, and when he came into his estates he galloped through them, selling one property and mansion after another, till he came to spend his last days in a cottage.Throughout, one had pitied the man rather than blamed him, because he had not been taught his duties to God and man at a mother's knee. But one day the writer said to him, "Well! I suppose that if we began life again,you and I, with our experiences, we should live very differently.""Not a bit of it," he answered promptly, with a merry laugh, "I'd go through the same round to ruin again." After that, the spring of pity for the man dried up. A man who cannot learn by experience, who has no feeling for the shame and sorrow he has caused his family, deserves only contempt.As a boy I remember seeing a painting of a young gentleman with a flat feeble face, and powdered hair, and laced coat. It was riddled with small holes. I asked the reason.It was the portrait of the family scapegrace, who had alienated the paternal acres and mansion, and for three generations that picture had been used for the children to shoot darts at. So alone did that good-for-naught prove of the slightest use, in that to future generations he was held up as the butt of scorn and loathing in the family, as the one man who in a few years had wrecked what it had taken an illustrious ancestry many centuries to accumulate.The first token of the course the scapegraceis going to take is when he begins to fell the stately trees that have been growing in his park about his estate for over a hundred years.I will quote a scene from Coleman's capital comedy ofThe Poor Gentleman, which held up to detestation a man very common in that age."An apartment inSir Charles Cropland'shouse.Sir Charles Croplandat breakfast; hisvalet de chambreadjusting his hair."Sir Chas.What day of the month was it yesterday, when I left town?"Valet.The first of April, Sir Charles."Sir Chas.Umph! When Mr. Warner (the steward) comes, show him in."Valet.I shall, Sir Charles.[Exit."Sir Chas.This same lumbering timber upon my ground has its merits. Trees are notes issued from the bank of Nature, and as current as those payable to Abraham Newland. I must get change for a few oaks, for I want cash consumedly. So, Mr. Warner.EnterWarner."Warner.Your honour is right welcome into Kent. I am proud to see Sir Charles Cropland on his estate again. I hope you mean to stay on the spot for some time, Sir Charles?"Sir Chas.A very tedious time. Three days, Mr. Warner."Warner.Ah, good sir! I wish you lived entirely upon the estate, Sir Charles."Sir Chas.Thank you, Warner; but modern men of fashion find it devilish difficult to live upon their estates."Warner.The country about you is so charming!"Sir Chas.Look ye, Warner, I must hunt in Leicestershire—for that's the thing. In the frosts and the spring months I must be in town at the clubs—for that's the thing. In summer I must be at the watering-places—for that's the thing. Now, Warner, under these circumstances, how is it possible for me to reside upon my estate? For my estate being in Kent——"Warner.The most beautiful part of the country——"Sir Chas.Curse beauty! My estate being in Kent——"Warner.A land of milk and honey!——"Sir Chas.I hate milk and honey."Warner.A land of fat!"Sir Chas.Damn your fat! Listen to me. My estate being in Kent——"Warner.So woody!——"Sir Chas.Curse the wood! No, that's wrong—for it's convenient. I am come on purpose to cut it."Warner.Ah! I was afraid so! Dice on the table, and then, the axe to the root! Money lost at play, and then, good luck! the forest groans for it."Sir Chas.But you are not the forest, and why the devil do you groan for it?"Warner.I heartily wish, Sir Charles, you may not encumber the goodly estate. Your worthy ancestors had views for their posterity."Sir Chas.And I shall have views for my posterity. I shall take special care the trees shan't intercept their prospect. In short, Mr. Warner, I must have three thousand pounds in three days. Fell timber to that amount immediately."A singular circumstance happened some years ago. I was told it by a timber merchant who was on the spot.A respectable nobleman died, leaving a scapegrace son to inherit his title, estates, and wealth.It was then that the Jews came down like vultures on the heir. They had lent him money on post-obits; and there was not enough to satisfy them. Accordingly the mandate went forth for the cutting-down and sale of the magnificent timber in the park—trees of centuries' growth.The day of the sale arrived, and timber merchants had gathered from far and near, and the auctioneer was about to begin the sale of the trees—standing in their majesty. "By heaven!" said the dealer to me, "it made my heart ache to see them—the trees themselves looked like nobles—I say it made my heart ache, though I hoped to profit by them too."Well, just as the sale began a telegraphic messenger came galloping up with an orange envelope.The earl had shot himself.The sale was stopped. The trees could not be felled. He had cut short his own worthless life, and each stick of timber, every one of which was more valuable than his miserable self, was saved."As the gaming and extravagance of the young men of quality has arrived now at a pitch never heard of, it is worth while to give some account of it," writes Horace Walpole in his last journals (1772). "They had a club at one Almacks in Pall Mall, where they played only for rouleaus of £50 each rouleau; and generally there was £10,000 in specie on the table. Lord Holland had paid about £20,000 for his two sons. Nor were the manners of the gamesters, or even their dresses for play, undeserving notice. They began by pulling off their embroidered clothes, and put on frieze greatcoats, or turned their coats inside outwards for luck. They put on pieces of leather (such as is worn by footmen when they clean knives) to save their lace ruffles; and to guard their eyes from the light, and toprevent tumbling their hair, wore high-crowned straw hats with broad brims, and adorned with flowers and ribbons; masks to conceal their emotions when they played at quinze. Each gamester had a small, neat stand by him, with a large rim to hold his tea, or a wooden bowl with an edge of ormolu, to hold his rouleaus. They borrowed great sums of the Jews at exorbitant premiums. Charles Fox called his outward room, where these Jews waited till he rose, the Jerusalem Chamber. His brother Stephen was enormously fat; George Selwyn said he was in the right to deal with Shylocks, as he could give them pounds of flesh."There is a charming old house in Throwleigh, Devon, called Wonson Manor, the ancient seat of the Knapmans, from whom it passed to the Northmores of Cleave, together with large estates in the neighbourhood.William Northmore of Cleave, M.P. for Okehampton from 1713 to 1734, was a great gambler, and he lost at one sitting £17,000 on the turn of an ace of diamonds in a game of putt.This led to forced sales and the loss of the ancestral acres and house of Well in South Tawton, and of nearly all the property in Throwleigh except the manor-house. William Northmore had an ace of diamonds painted in one of the panels of the wainscot of his bedroom, and every night before turning into bed he cursed the ace instead of saying his prayers. The ace is still shown. Now Wonson is also passed away.There was in North Devon no more ancient family than Dowrish of Dowrish, whose authentic pedigree goes back to King John's reign, when Dowrish Keep was erected. The descent was direct from father to son for twenty generations, that is to say for five hundred years, always seated on the same acres and occupying the same house, that had indeed been added to, remodelled, but which was in itself a record of the lives and thoughts, ambitions, and discouragements of a family that had married into the best in the land, the de Helions, the Carews, the Fulfords, and the Northcotes.Then, in graceless days, came the graceless fool who undid the work of twenty generations in one night. The manor of Kennerleigh belonged and had belonged to the Dowrishes for centuries.WONSON MANOROne night the then squire and Sir Arthur Northcote were playing piquet. Mr. Dowrish, being eldest hand, held the four aces, four kings, and four queens, and promptly offered to bet his manor of Kennerleigh against £500, by no means its value even in those days, that he won the game. Sir Arthur took the bet, having a claim ofcarte blancheon his undiscarded hand. After Sir Arthur had discarded, he took up two knaves, and held two points of five each, each headed by the knave. Mr. Dowrish being about to declare, was stopped by Sir Arthur's claim for ten forcarte blanche, which ruined his chances. The point fell to Sir Arthur, and two quints, who scored thus:Carte blanche10Point5Two quints at 15 each30Repique60——105and game.At the present day there would be holes to pick in this method of counting, as Mr. Dowrish on his side could have claimed his "fourteens" for aces, kings, and queens before allowing the sequences to count, but not so formerly, when the rule was absolute as to the order of counting, point, sequence, threes or fours of suits. So the manor was lost, and Kennerleigh belongs to Lord Iddesleigh at the present day.In commemoration of the game, the table at which it was played was inlaid with representations of the two hands, and is now in Dowrish House, a mansion that has lost all its interest, having been remodelled in suburban villa style, but nobly situated and commanding a glorious view.Gambling thus recklessly is an illustration of reversion to one of the strongest passions that actuates man in his lowest savage state. So the Alaskan natives. "They often pass whole days and nights absorbed in the occupation. Their principal game is played with a handful of small sticks of different colours, which are called by various names, such as thecrab, the whale, the duck, and so on. The player shuffles all the sticks together, then, counting out a certain number, he places them under cover of bunches of moss. The object seems to be to guess in which pile is the whale, and in which the crab, or the duck. Individuals often lose at this trifling game all their worldly possessions. We are told of instances where, spurred on by excitement, a native risks his wife and children, and if he loses, they become the recognized property of the winner, nor would anyone think of interfering with such a settlement."[7]A certain earl, when a young man, being fond of play, called on Beau Nash to gamble with him. Nash first won from him all his ready money, then the title deeds of his estates, and finally the very watch in his pocket, and the rings on his fingers—all in one night. Nash thereupon read him a lecture on his incredible folly, and returned all his winnings, at the same time extracting from him a promise that he would never play again.But it is not among the gentry only that the scapegraces are found, though such as are highly placed are most noticed. They are to be found in every class, and there is not a village which does not produce these sour fruit.The generality of these scapegraces are simply scatter-brains, filled with exuberant spirits that carry them beyond the bounds that constrain the commonplace folk. If these fellows, full of animal spirits, effervescing with the joy of life, have principle and wise parents to advise them, they will turn out admirable men, useful members of society. The army or the navy is the profession to which they naturally gravitate, and first-rate soldiers and sailors they make. But this is if they have principle. Without that as a fly-wheel, they spin themselves out without doing good to themselves or to anyone else.Compare some of the scamps we have known at school, in a parish, with the heavy, plodding lout, who is without go and without intelligence. Which makes the best man in the end? The scamp undoubtedly, if hisscampishness springs out of exuberant spirits and there be no root of vice in the heart.The heavy, plodding lout becomes a wholesome and useful member of society; but he is without freshness and energy.We cannot doubt that some untoward circumstance sometimes throws a young fellow out of his proper course of life, and throughout his career he is conscious that he has got into the wrong groove. Then he either makes the best of it, or continues in sullen resentment with resistance at heart against the restraints and contrarieties he encounters—gets into difficulties, is cast out when too late to take up another course, and squanders life away in disorder or idle repenting. I knew a boy who, getting into a "row" at school, instead of waiting and receiving his punishment pluckily, and accepting it as deserved, ran away to sea.I met him many years after, a sailor, and he said to me, "The blot of my life was that I did not accept the birch I had deserved. I cut away to sea. I have been now a seaman for fifteen years, and havenever yet found my sea-legs. Whenever there is a capful of wind, and the water is a bit rough, I am sick as a dog. It is always the same. It stands against me. I hate the sea. But I made a fool of myself when I ran from school, and a fool I shall remain to the end.""Not a bit," was my reply. "Like a sensible man, you have held to the profession you chose, and make the best of it. You win back thereby all the respect you threw away when you shirked your punishment."There was every temptation to this young man to become a ne'er-do-weel, but he did not give way to the temptation. He recognized the fact that he had made a mistake, and he took the consequences like a man. But, then, it is, perhaps, one only in five of those who make these mistakes who has the courage to accept the results, and accommodate himself to them.Where there is a sound substratum of healthy conscience and force of character, there one may always hope that a mistake in early life will right itself.But if there be mere love of lawlessness, mere wilfulness, in the outbreaks of youth, then there is no redemption, the ne'er-do-weel boy remains a ne'er-do-weel to the end of the chapter.I remember one such. I knew him as a boy, and confess to have entertained a liking for him; but his escapades passed all bounds of moderation. A good-natured, chestnut-haired boy he was, with clear, trembling blue eyes, a fair complexion somewhat marred by freckles, and straight, elastic figure. Unhappily this lad had not parents who taught their children what would do them good in life; nor kept them to the National School, where they might have acquired that which their parents neglected to inculcate.The young fellow sometimes came to church, and then went into the gallery behind the choir. Now, in the choir sat a young fellow with a head covered with natural curls of a tow colour, on Sundays drenched in hair-oil. One Sunday the scapegrace thrust a lighted match into the mass of oiled curls, and the head blazed up at once.The same ne'er-do-weel, whilst he was ringing the tenor bell, suddenly threw the loop of the rope over the neck of the next man, who was instantly whisked up against the belfry floor above and thrown down, and very nearly killed.On again another occasion, he thrashed a fellow called "Old Straw" with a flail, saying that he was bent on finding if there was any good to be got out of him. He broke Straw's leg, and was sentenced by the magistrates to be put in the stocks.That was the last occasion when stocks were used in England, and so angry was the squire at the revival of the stocks, that after the sentence had been carried out he had them chopped up and burnt.The disgrace of the stocks was too much for our ne'er-do-weel; he left the parish and entered the army, but had to leave—he was a ne'er-do-weel under the colours as in fustian. Since then he has been about the world—a ne'er-do-weel everywhere.The other day the church bell was tolling. It was for this ne'er-do-weel. He had returnedhome to die. The sole wish in the heart of the man with a wasted life was to lie, to cast down the wreck of his body, in the earth of the native parish which had bred him, and to have no headstone to mark the mound under which lay naught but the ashes of a ne'er-do-weel.CHAPTER XIII.Where there is private property there must be a demarcation, showing its limits; and where there are crops on arable land, there, either one or other of two alternatives must be adopted, the crops must be protected by a hedge, dyke, or wall, from the incursions of the cattle, or the cattle must be kept in confinement, to prevent their straying. The former is the system adopted in England and in Westphalia, and the latter is that general throughout the rest of Germany and France. The termmarkhas a curious history. Originally it signified the forest, so called because of its gloom, whence our wordmurk. The mark or forest bounded the clearing. Thence it came to signify the limit of a claim made by a community to land heldin common. Land bounding a state or principality was then called also a mark or the marches, and the official who watched it against incursions was the mark-graff, or margrave, in French marquis, hence our marquess.As the limit of a territory or a village, or a private claim had to be given certain indications, when the wood had further retreated, stones or posts were set up, and signs were cut on these to show that they limited claims. The compound was in German entitled the Gemarkung, and over every Gemarkung there was a villicus, bailiff, orschultheiss, who regulated the affairs of the community.In 1854 Dr. Konrad Maurer set all political economists agog by hisIntroduction to the History of the Mark, &c.The book was not intended as a hoax, but it succeeded in hoaxing pretty largely, and in provoking considerable excitement.His thesis was that among the Teutonic races theLand belonged to the People, and that every householder had rights over the land, but that the invasion of Feudalism alteredeverything, the lords then seized on the land and converted the freeholders into serfs and villains. His assertions were accepted as gospel, till disputed by Professor Fustel de Coulanges in 1885 and 1889, who showed, by production of the original texts, that Maurer had little or no evidence to sustain his entire fabric. All the evidence goes the other way, to show that land, directly men settled, became private property, but that the landlord allowed his tenants to take wood from forests, turf from moors, and have certain commons for pasturage, not as a right, but as a favour.Maurer had started from a false premise. TheMarkoragernever meant common land, but the boundary of private estates.[8]In a word, as far as evidence goes, his theory was the erection of a Fools' Paradise for socialand political reformers. Originally, when men were nomads, the land belonged to nobody—but when tillage began, then at once the marking out of fields became a necessity—and with the marking came proprietorship.In France and Germany, where there are no hedges, there the properties are divided by an imaginary line drawn between two stone pegs; and as fields get divided and subdivided by inheritance, the number of these marks or pegs increases.In order to distinguish his boundaries, a proprietor sometimes cut the outline of his foot on a slab, or took the further pains with a hammer and chisel to scoop it out.In course of time the significance of these foot imprints in stone was completely forgotten, and as they are found all the world over, the vulgar began to regard them with awe, and create legends to account for their existence.When Robinson Crusoe lit upon the footprint in the wet sand on the shore, he had no rest till he discovered who had left it there. And so, when the peasantry came on these marks in stone, long after such marks hadceased to have any practical significance, they cudgelled their brains to explain them, and, of course, hit on wrong explanations.In Scotland there are several of these. So also in India and Ceylon. Buddha's footprint is venerated in five places. In the chapel of the Ascension on the top of the Mount of Olives is shown the mark of the footsteps of the Saviour. Arculf, who visited Palestine about the year 700, says, "Upon the ground in the midst of the church may be seen the last prints in the dust made by the feet of the Lord, and the roof is open above where He ascended." Now, however, the impress is shown cut in the rock.At Poitiers, in the church of St. Radegund, is the footprint of the Saviour, impressed by Him when He appeared to this abbess saint.At Bolsena is a slab on which are the footprints of St. Christina.In Rome a chapel called "Domine quo vadis" is built over a similar slab. The story goes that St. Peter, afraid of perishing in the persecution of Nero, attempted to fly from Rome, when he met Christ at the spotwhere stands the chapel, and he asked Him, "Lord, whither goest Thou." "To be crucified again in Rome," was the answer. Peter, ashamed of his cowardice, returned and died a martyr's death.In Poland as many as eighteen of these footprints have been registered.ALABASTER SLAB WITH FOOTPRINTS, VATICAN, ROMECuriously enough, footprints outlined in the marble have been found in the catacombs of Rome closing the graves of early Christians. In the Kircherian Museum in Rome is one of these. It is a square marble slab with two pairs of footprints incised upon it, pointed in opposite directions, as if occasioned by a person going and returning, or by two persons passing each other. Another stone from the catacombs bears the name ofJanuaria, and has on it the print of a pair of feet in sandals carved on it.The circumstance that all sorts of legendary matter attaches to these footprints, shows that their real significance has been lost. Yet they must have had a meaning and a purpose, and that all over the world. When the purpose for which executed no longer existed, or it was no longer necessary to express this purpose, then the purport of these marks was left to wild conjecture.We cannot be very far wrong in saying that primarily these footprints were cut as boundary marks, or as marks indicating possession. When a settler took land and enclosed it, then he cut his mark at the corners of his enclosure; and the simplest and most natural mark was the impression of his foot.Tin miners in old times were required annually to cut their marks in the turf of their claims. If they failed to do this, they forfeited their claims. Indeed, the very termpossessionis derived from the expressionpedes posui—"I have set my feet down." Among the Roman lawyers the maxim held that what thefoot struck that could be claimed as private property. The German word marke, marca, meant a limit, a boundary. Now we use the word mark as a sign, or token of possession. We have tradesmen's marks. And, as already said, the simplest of all marks was the footprint. If any dispute arose, the owner put his foot down on the tracing, and showed thereby a right of ownership.We see in the footprints on tombslabs the same idea—of claiming proprietorship in a grave. The two pairs are for the husband and wife.It has been argued that where horse hoofs have been cut in a slab, that indicates the wider limits of a domain, or a community-district, which was ridden round, but that the footprints of men thus graven betokened private lands belonging to individuals, or rather, to heads of households.At Totnes, in Devon, in the High Street, is a slab of stone, on which is the now much worn impress of a foot. This from time immemorial has been said to have been the print of the foot of Brutus when he landed inBritain, and took possession of our Isle for himself and his descendants. As he did so he declared:"Here I stand, and here I rest,And this place shall be called Totnes!"But now let us turn from boundaries indicated by marks to those artificially erected enclosing the entire claim.Such are our hedges, dykes, and walls.The hedge in many parts of England and in Scotland is a small privet or thorn division between fields, or dividing a field from the road. To a Northerner, to speak of a bank six or ten feet high with trees on the top as a hedge, is held to be a misappropriation of terms. A hedge, according to him, is only a line of quickset eighteen inches or two feet high; a bank of earth dividing fields is a dyke. But then in Ireland a dyke is both a bank and a ditch. In fact,hedgeis derived from the same source as the Latinager, and the Norseakr, and our acre; and signifies earth cast up, either by the plough or the spade, either in tilling or in banking. This is the meaning the Sanskritakarahas; and in Latin,agerhas its double meaning, as a bank and as a field. So I contend that we in the South-West of England are quite right in using for the banks that enclose our fields the term hedge.It is a great hardship to the poor cattle on the Continent to be stall-fed, and how poor is the meat from such beasts every Englishman knows who has travelled. If we glory in the Roast Beef of Old England, it is because our cattle are able to roam about the pastures, and are healthy and vigorous, and their flesh sound and juicy accordingly. And this is due to our hedges.In certain parts of the Alpine chains, there are portions delivered over to the chamois as their own, in which no gun may be fired, where the beautiful creatures may be sure of rest and security, in which they may nurture their young, and to which, when hard pressed, they may flee, as to Cities of Refuge. In Tyrol such an asylum is called a Gämsenfreiheit.Of late years it has become necessary for law in Switzerland to extend its protection to the Edelweiss. This peculiar and beautiful flower is much in request, both by lovers whopresent it to their sweethearts, and also for the formation of little mementoes for travellers.The Edelweiss does not require an altitude so great that it is near the snow, nor a precipitous rock to crown; the poor plant has been driven higher and ever higher, and to inaccessible points as the only places where it can live unmolested. At Rosenheim, on the Bavarian plateau, at the roots of the mountains are fields of Edelweiss, where the plant is cultivated to satisfy the insatiable visitor who insists on going home from his holiday with a tuft in his hat, and on sending dried specimens to all his friends.Well! what must England have been before it was cultivated in nearly every part? Verily, it must have been a land of flowers. Now the flowers are banished—that is to say, the vast majority of kinds, by the plough and harrow. Only those are left which can withstand both and such as take refuge in our hedges. The hedgerow is, in fact, to our English flowers, what the Gämsenfreiheit is to the Tyrolean chamois—their city of refuge, their asylum from utter eradication.How infinitely dreary is the landscape in France without hedges. The eye ranges over a boundless plain of rolling land, that is divided into strips of various colours like a plaid, and no trees are visible except lines of trimmed poplars, or a scrubby wood kept for fuel. The eye ranges over belts of cabbage and colza, potatoes, beetroot, barley and lentils, wheat and sanfoin. There is not a single hedge anywhere—no harbour for such plants as have not the stubbornness to live on in spite of plough, and pick, and spade, and hoe. Flowers there are—for flowers are obstinate and persist in coming—grape hyacinths, star of Bethlehem, lungwort, scarlet anemones, tulips, blue-bottles, cornflowers, salvia, and so on—because they dive out of reach of the spade and share, or because they do not object to having their tubers cut up—they rather like it. They multiply from every portion. But this is not the case with all flowers. Some have too refined a nature, are too frail, modest, reserved, to endure rough treatment. They ask only to be let alone. They will die if incessantly worried—and forsuch there is no other place of refuge available except the hedgerow.I was the other day on the battlefield of Poitiers. The chroniclers tell of the banks, the hedges and vineyard walls that stood in 1356, and afforded shelter for the English archers. Not one remains. Every hedge has been levelled, every mound spread, and with them have gone all those flowers that once made the battlefield like a garden.Our old English hedges are the Poor Man's conservatory, are the playground of his children. How starred they are in spring with primroses! How they flush with red robin! How they mantle with bluebell! How they wave with foxglove! Talking of the latter, I was driving one day in Cornwall, when my coachman pointed to a range of foxgloves, and said: "Look there, sir! They are just like girls!""What do you mean?" I asked."Did you never notice," said he, "that the foxglove always turns its flowers towards the road—it never looks into the hedge?""Naturally, no flower exists that does not look to the light.""'Tain't that," said the driver. "'Tis they know they've got pretty faces, and wants to show them."Then, again, the ferns and the mosses! What a wealth of beauty in them! What a variety! Not to be discovered in the field; only in their own quarter, reserved for them—the hedgerow.Our hedges are probably as ancient as our civilization. We know of a few only that have been erected within the memory of man; the majority have existed from the period when our land was first put into cultivation. And it is remarkable that in the north of Germany, in Westphalia, the Saxon region whence came our Teutonic ancestors, there the hedge with which we are familiar in England is to be met with as well, as an institution of the country, and a feature of the landscape.Look at the size of some hedges—their width at the base, the height to which they rise, the traces they bear of venerable antiquity! This is not perhaps the case in all parts of England, but it is so in the west.An agent of an earl, with large estates, told me that when first he took the agency five-and-twenty years ago, he waged war on the hedges, he had them swept away and replaced by low divisions with quickset over which any child might jump. But after long experience he had learned that our ancestors were not such fools as we suppose, in this matter. He learned that not only were the high hedges a protection to the cattle from wind and rain, but that they furnished a very necessary store of dry food for them at a time when their pastures are sodden. See bullocks in wet weather, how they scramble up the hedges, how they ravenously devour the dry grass in them. That is because the hedges supply them with something that they cannot get elsewhere.In the West of England a hedge top is frequently finished off with slates that project, and this is to prevent rabbits, even sheep, from overleaping them. In Cornwall, on the bank top is a footpath beside the lane, a large deep cleft in the land, that converts itself into a torrent in wet weather. It is a commonsight to see women, and children on their way to school, pencilled against the sky walking on the hedge tops. So when certain hedges have thus been converted into footways, then a rail is often put across them to prevent horsemen from using them in like manner.Anent sheep jumping hedges, I may venture here to tell a tale of a certain old rogue who went by the name of Tup-Harry. This is how he got his nickname. Harry was a small farmer, and he had a neighbour with better means, and a better farm than his own. One very dry season Harry had come to the end of his grass for a flock of sheep he possessed. His neighbour had, however, got a fine field of mangel-wurzel. Harry looked over the hedge—a hedge furnished with outstanding slates—and greatly longed for these mangels for his sheep; but he did not relish running the risk of being caught taking them. So he went in the evening into his field that was bare of grass, put his head against the hedge, bent his back, and called "Tup! Tup! Tup!" whereupon up ran his old ram, jumped on his back, wenton to the hedge, and over into the mangel field, and all the flock in Indian file scampered after him over the back of Harry. Very early in the morning the rogue went into the devastated mangel field, put his head against the hedge, bent his back, called "Tup! Tup! Tup!" and up came the ram, ran over his back on to the hedge, and returned to the barren quarter again, followed in Indian file by all the flock. That was done several times, and no signs appeared anywhere of the hedge being broken through, or of a padlocked gate having been opened. At last one night the farmer who was robbed hid himself, and saw the whole proceeding. Tup-Harry did not try that trick on again.CHAPTER XIV.For how far down below the surface the rights of the lord of the manor extend, has not I believe as yet been determined, so we may presume that it goes down as far as man can dig and sink his shafts. In a good number of counties in England there is nothing underground worth bringing up, and consequently such rights are not of much value. It is quite otherwise where there is mineral wealth, and it is from the coal or the copper or the tin that lies deep underground that the wealth of some of our landed proprietors comes. But there is thisconsolation for such as have nothing of great importance below the surface, that those who are deriving their large incomes from the beds or veins deep underground are exhausting their patrimony; coal and metal will not recover themselves as the surface soil will.It has been my lot to live where the underground industry was great, in Yorkshire where were coal-mines, and on the borders of Cornwall where were once great copper and tin mines; also in my youth manganese was extracted out of the rock on my paternal inheritance. I have had a good deal to do with those who have worked underground, and so may be allowed here to give some reminiscences connected with mining and quarrying.Alack-a-day! As the old order changeth, one of the most fresh and delightful characters Old England has produced is disappearing. Cornish mining is almost at its end. Every week away from the peninsula goes a shipload of miners for whom their occupation is gone, and with them the old cap'n.Well, what is our loss is others' gain! andhe goes to another part of the round world to be there as a waft of fresh air, a racy and delightful companion, a typical Cornish Celt, every inch a man, strong in body, and as strong in opinions, a little rough at times, but with a tenderness of heart like that of a woman.If we go along the great backbone of Cornwall, we find it a mass of refuse heaps—every here and there is a bristling chimney, an old engine-house, but all desolate; the chimney gives forth no smoke, the engine is silent. The story is everywhere the same—the mine has failed. Is the lode worked out? Oh dear no! There is still plenty of tin—but foreign competition has struck the death-blow to Cornish mining, and the Cornish miner, if he will not starve, must seek his future elsewhere.Of course there are captains and captains; there is the clever, wheedling captain, who starts mines never intended to pay, of which the only metal to be found is in the pockets of the dupes who are persuaded to invest in them. I knew one such. He found a mine, and was very anxious to get up a company,so he "salted" it cleverly enough, by dynamiting tin into the rock. But the mining engineer sent down to see this mine and report on it to the investors was too shrewd for him. The projected mine was not in Cornwall, but in Devon. "Halloa!" said he, "how comes this tin here? It is Cornish metal."So that mine never got on all fours.In a great number of cases, in the large majority, in fact, the captain is himself the dupe, and dupe of his own ambition. Mining is a speculation; it is a bit of gambling. No one can see an inch into solid rock, and no one can say for certain that indications that promise may not prove deceptive. The captain sees the indications, the dupes do all the rest. If the lode proves a failure, then those who have lost in it come down on the captain and condemn him as a rascal.But there are cases where concealment or falsification of the truth is actually practised. Caradon Hill, near Liskeard, according to the saying, is vastly rich in ore:"Caradon Hill well wroughtIs worth London Town dear bought."It has been mined from time immemorial, but is now left at rest, and has been deserted for some years. The tale is told—we will not vouch for its accuracy—that in one of the principal mines on Caradon the miners came on an immense "bunch" of copper, and at once, by the captain's orders, covered it up and carried on their work where it was sure to be unproductive. Down, ever more downwards went the shares, as the mine turned out less and less copper, and just as all concerned in the bit of roguery were about to buy up the shares at an absurd price, in burst the water and swamped the mine. To clear it of water would require powerful engines, take time, and prove costly. But as shares had fallen so low no capitalists could be found to invest, and there lies this vast treasure of copper unlifted, deep under water. "I tell the tale as 'twas told to me." Is it true? I cannot say—at all events it gives a peep into the methods by which the rise and fall of shares can be managed, and it shows how completely investors are at the mercy of the mining captains. But that there arerogues among the captains does not prove that roguery is prevalent, or that many are tainted with it. On the contrary, as a body they are thoroughly honest, but speculative and sanguine.There is a certain captain who has great faith in the divining-rod. One day he was bragging about what he had done therewith, when an old miner standing near remarked:"How about them eighteen mines, cap'n, you've been on as have turned out flukes?""I don't say that the rod tellshow muchmetal there is, but that it tells where metal lies that is sure sartain. Now look here, you unbelieving Thomas, I'll tell you what happened to me. There was a pas'le o' fools wouldn't believe nothing about the divining-rod, and they said they'd give me a trial wi' my hazel rod; so I took it, and I went afore 'em over the ground, and at last the rod kicked, just like my old woman when her's a bit contrary. Well, said I, you dig there! and dig they did.""And did you come on a lode, cap'n?""I'll tell you what we came on—a farmer'sold 'oss as had been buried 'cos her died o' strangles. Well, I promise you, they laughed and jeered and made terrible fools o' themselves, and said I was done. I done! said I—not I; the divining-rod is right enough. Look, they buried the old 'oss wi' her four shoes on. The rod told the truth—but mark you, her didn't say how much metal was underground."The endurance and coolness of the miner are remarkable. But an instance or two will show this better than by dilating on the fact.At a certain mine, called Drakewalls, the shaft crumbled in. It was sunk through a sandy or rubbly matter that had no cohesion. When it ran in there were below two miners.The entombment at Drakewalls took place on Tuesday, February 5th, 1889, and the two miners shut in by the run of ground were John Rule, aged thirty-five, and William Bant, aged twenty-one, the former being somewhat deaf. They had pasties to eat, and burnt their candles so long as they could keep them alight. They suffered most from cold and damp and want of water, their water keg being buried in the rush of sand. At onetime, while they were discussing the chances of rescue, Rule said to Bant, "I believe they will come through. You never did any crime bad enough to be kept here"; to which Bant replied "No"; and Rule added, reflectively, "This would be a right place for Jack the Ripper. Us two cu'd settle'n—and ate'n too, if hard put to't." They were rescued on the night of Saturday, February 9th. The pitman, Thomas Chapman, had worked night and day without cessation from February 5th to the night of February 9th, and, moreover, was lowered eighty feet to where they were confined. None of the other men would undertake to descend, fearing lest the entombed men might have lost their reason in their long confinement. One of the most curious facts connected with the entombment was that the two men had not lost account of time, but knew almost exactly what day and hour it was. In reply to a question, they said, "It's Saturday midnight," and, as a matter of fact, it was about one o'clock on the Sunday morning.Bant was found in a somewhat dazed condition. Not so Rule, who walked out withgreat composure, and the remark he made was, "Any fellow han' me a light and a bit o' baccy for my pipe?" and on reaching the grass he said, "I wonder if my old woman have got summot cookin' for me."He was much surprised that all wished to shake him by the hand. "Why," said he, "what is all this about? I ain't done nothin' but sit in darkness."Chapman received the Victoria medal for his devotion. He had to go up to town for it, and was presented with it by the Princess of Wales.Very often the captains are sober, and teetotalers. But this is not always the case, unhappily; and some are temperance advocates on the platform, but something else in the public-house. There was an old chap of this description who was known far and wide for his ardent temperance harangues, and for the astounding instances he was able to produce of the judgments that followed on occasional indulgence. A very good friend one day went with him to prospect a promising new district. They entered to refresh at the little tavern,situated some twelve hundred feet above the sea, perhaps the highest planted public-house in England. The friend was amused to see Captain Jonas take the whisky bottle and half fill his glass, holding his hand round the tumbler to hide how much he had helped himself to."Halloa, cap'n!" exclaimed the friend, "I thought you took naught but water.""Sir," answered Jonas with great composure, "us must live up to our elevation. I does it on principle."Some of the Cornish mining captains have had experiences out of England as common miners. There is one I know who worked in the Australian goldfields many years ago, and he loves to yarn about those days."We were a queer lot," said he to me one day; "several of us—and my mate was one—(not I, you understand)—were old convicts. But it was as much as my life was worth to let 'em know that I was aware of it. There were various ways in which a score against a man might be wiped out. I'll tell you what happened once. There was a chap called Rogers—he came from Redruth way—andhe let his tongue run too free one day, and said as how he knew something of the back history of a few of our mates. Well, I was sure evil would come of it, and evil did. Things was rough and ready in those days, and we'd tin buckets for carrying up the gold, and sand, and so on. Well, one day when Rogers was about to come up the shaft, by the merest chance, one of them buckets was tipped over, and fell down. I went after him down the shaft, and that there bucket had cut off half his head, and cut near through his shoulder. You wouldn't ha' thought it would have done it, but it did. Bless you, I've seen a tumblerful of water knock a man down if the water didn't 'break,' as they call it, before reaching the bottom of a deep shaft; it comes down in one lump like lead."After a while he went on—"I had a near squeak once, the nearest I ever had. When we were going to blast below, all men were sent up except the one who was to light the fuse. Well, one day there was only myself to do it. I set fire to the fuse, and away I went, hauled up. But somehow it didn't gooff. I thought that the water had got in, so before I reached the top and had got out, I signalled to be lowered again. I had just reached the bottom when the explosion took place. The rocks and stones went up past me in a rush, and down they came again. How it happened that I escaped is more than I can tell you; but God willed it; that was enough for me. I was back with my shoulder to the rock, and the stones came down in a rain, but not one any bigger than a cherry stone hit me. But I can tell you the men above were frightened. They couldn't believe their ears when I shouted; they couldn't believe their eyes when they saw me come up without a scratch. Folks say the age o' miracles is past. I'll never say that; it was a miracle I weren't killed, and no mistake.""Well, captain," said I, "and did you make a fortune out at the Australian goldfields?"He looked at me with a twinkle in his eye."I went out with half-a-crown in my pocket. When I came back I'd got just one ha'penny.""But all the gold you found?""That had a curious way of leaving me, and getting into the possession of my mate—him who'd been a convict. He grew rich, he did. I didn't. Well, I came back with experience.""And now, cap'n, what are you going to do?""There's nothing going on in the old country. I'm off somewhere over the seas again. Can't help it. I love dear old England, and blessed old Cornwall above all, but if they won't or can't support me and my family I must go elsewhere."Alas! this is too true. The mines are nearly all shut down. In one parish alone, that of Calstock, there were twenty-two in active operation a few years ago, now not one.The miners are scattered over the world. They are gone to South Africa, to Brazil, to the Straits Settlements.But where are no mines, there are quarries. Oh! the delightful hours spent in boyhood in old quarries! In picking blackberries where the brambles grow rank over the heaps ofrubble and ripen their delicious fruit against the crumbled stone that radiates the warmth of the sun! In groping after fossils in the chalk quarries of the South Downs, delighted in being able to extract a fossil sponge or a glistening shark's tooth!Nothing so unsightly as a new quarry, a wound in the face of nature, yet nothing more picturesque than one which is old, all the scars healed over by nature.And then, again, what haunts old quarries are for rabbits—and therefore also places in which boys delight to spend hours ferreting Bunny.In connexion with a quarry I will venture to tell a story—curious, because showing a form of superstition not extinct. I tell the tale my own way, but it is fundamentally true—that is to say, it is quite true that the quarryman told it; and believed himself to have been victimized in the way I relate, though I cannot vouch for the exact words he employed.I was examining for geological purposes a quarry in Cornwall that had been opened in the side of a hill for the extraction of stone,wherewith to metal the roads. Whilst studying the strata, I observed a sort of nick in the uppermost layer of rock, under the earth which rose above the surface of the rock some three feet six inches or four feet.The nick was about two feet deep and the same breadth, and the sides were cut perpendicularly. It was clearly artificial, and at once struck me as being a section of a grave. There was no churchyard interfered with, so that I supposed the grave was prehistoric, and at once exclaimed to the quarryman engaged in the excavation that this was a grave. He put down his pick, and answered:"Yes, sir, it is a grave what you see here, and what is more I can tell you whose grave it is, or was. And a coorious sarcumstance is connected with that there grave, and if you don't mind sitting down on that piece o' rock for five minutes, I'll tell you all about it."Without paying much heed to the statement that the man made, that he knew whose last resting-place it was, I inquired whether any flint or bronze weapons had been found there."No, sir," said the quarryman, "nothing ofthe sort as far as I know; it was the head of the grave we cut through, and when we sent the pick into it, the gentleman's head came down into the quarry.""Gentleman's head? What gentleman's head?""Well, sir, I did not know at the time. It gave me a lot of trouble did that head, or rather the teeth from it. If you'll be so good as to sit down on that stone, I'll tell you all about it, and I reckon it will be worth your trouble. It's a coorious story, as coorious a story as you have ever heard, I take it.""I will listen, certainly. But excuse me one moment. I should like to crawl up the side of the quarry, and examine the grave.""It's my lunch time, and I've nothing to do but to eat and talk for half-an-hour," said the quarry man, "so I'll tell you all the whole story, when you've been up and come down again. There be bones there. You'll find his neck; we cut off the head of the grave. But, whatever you do, leave the bones alone. Don't carry any away with you in your pocket, or you'll be just in a pretty way."I made the exploration I required. I found that a grave had been cut in the rock. Clearly, when the interment took place, those who made the grave did not consider that there was a sufficient depth of earth, and they had accordingly cut out a hole in the rock, below the soil, to accommodate the dead man. Bones were stillin situ. I could find no trace of coffin, but in all likelihood, if there had been one there, it had rotted away, and the gravelly soil from above had fallen in on all sides, and had taken the place of the wood as it decomposed. And if there had been a mound above the dead man, the sinking in after decomposition had caused it to disappear. There were bushes of heather above the grave, but nothing to indicate that a tomb had been in the place, as far as could be judged from above. Its presence would not have been guessed had it not been revealed by the operations of the quarrymen.Having completed my observations, I returned to the bottom, and seated myself on the stone indicated by the workman. He occupied the top of another, and was engagedon a pie—an appalling composition of heavy pastry, potato, and bacon, grey in colour as a Jerusalem artichoke, and close in texture and heavy as a cannon ball. He cut large junks out of this terrible specimen of domestic cookery, and thrust them between knife and thumb into his mouth. As he opened this receptacle I observed that the gums were ill-provided with teeth, so that mastication must be imperfect. It is really extraordinary how the wives of working-men exhibit their ingenuity in proving "how not to do it." It is said that the way to a man's heart is through his stomach. If that be the case, it predicates either extraordinary personal fascination on the part of the wives, or really miraculous virtue on the part of the husbands, that any domestic attachment should subsist in the cottages of the agricultural labourer and artisan. Or is it that the wives are resolved to put the tenderness, the devotion of their men to the severest possible test, as cannon are run over a new suspension-bridge?"You see, sir," said the quarryman, "when we cut that new slice we went slap throughthe head of the grave, and never knowed there was a grave there, till down came the head, like a snowball. It was my partner, James Downe, as was up there wi' his pick. Me was sitting here, and I'd just opened my bag for my dinner, when I heard James a-hollerin' to me to look out. I did look up, and seed that there skull come jumping down the side, and before I could undo my legs—I'd knotted them for my lunch, and had the bag open on my lap—down came the skull, and with one skip it flopped right among my victuals, and there it sat in my lap, looking up in my face, as innocent as a babe, so it seemed to me."Well, sir, I daresay you know, if you know anything—and you seem to be a learned gentleman—that there ain't a better preservative against toothache than to carry about a dead man's tooth in your pocket. Dead men's teeth don't lie about promiscuous as empty snail shells, and I'd often wished to have one. I suffer terrible from my teeth. I've been kept roving with pain night after night, and one ain't up to work when one has been kept roving all night, either with teeth orbabies. Me and the church sexton ain't the best of friends. You see, I'm a Bible Christian and spiritual, and that there sexton is of the earth, earthy. I couldn't ask a favour of him, to accommodate me with a tooth if he haps to turn one up when digging a new grave. It is true we have got a cemetery of our own to the chapel, but it's new, and nothing is turned up there but earthworms. As this was the case I was uncommon joyful when that head came bouncing into my lap. I found the teeth weren't particular tight in, and with my knife I easily got a tooth or two out; I thought I'd be square all round, so I got out a back tooth—they call 'em molars up to the Board School—and an eye tooth and a front one. Then I thought I was pretty well set up and protected against toothache. I got my wife to sew 'em up in a bit o'silk and hung it round my neck. I may say this—from that day so long as I wore the dead man's teeth I never had a touch of toothache.""And how long did you wear them?""Three days, sir.""Not more? Why did you not retain them?""I'll tell you why, if you'll listen to me.""Certainly. But what have you done with the skull?""Chucked it away. It weren't no good to nobody—least of all to the owner. And for me—I'd got out of it all I wanted.""You have not the teeth now?""No. I kept them for three days and then chucked them away.""Have you had toothache since?""Terrible; but I had what was wusser when I had the teeth.""Well, go on and tell me what the wusser was.""So I will, if you'll listen to me. Well, sir, I had them teeth done up in a bit of silk, and hung round my throat. The first night I went to bed, that was Saturday, I had the little bag round my neck. I hadn't laid my head on the pillow, before—but, I must tell you, I'm a Bible Christian, and a serious man. I'm a local, I am, and I preach in our chapel, and am generally reckoned a rousin' sort of a preacher. For, sir, I knows how to work 'em up. Well, when you understand that,you will comprehend how astonished I was when I laid my head on the pillow, to find I wasn't no more what I ought to ha' been. In the first place, I hadn't gone to bed in my clothes, and no sooner was my head on my pillow than I was in a red coat and breeches and gaiters; and what is more, in the second place, I'd laid me down to rest, and I found myself astride on a saddle, on horseback, tearin' over the country, jumpin' hedges, tally-hoin'—me, as never rode a hoss in my life, and never tally-hoed, and wouldn't do it to save my soul. I knowed all the while I was doing wrong. I knowed I'd got to preach in our chapel next evening, the Sabbath Day—and here was I in a red coat, and galloping after the hounds, and tearin' after a fox, and swearing orful! I couldn't help myself. I believe my face was as pink as my coat. I tried to compose my mouth to say Hallelujah, but I couldn't do it—I rapped out a—but, sir, I dussn't even whisper what I then swore at the top o' my voice; and I had to preach at a revival within some few hours. It was terrible—terrible!"I saw the quarryman's face bathed in perspiration. The thought of what he had gone through affected him, and his hand shook as he heaved a lump of pasty to his quivering lips."I tried to think I was in the pulpit; you must understand, sir, if at a right moment you bang the cushion and kick the panels—it'll bring down sinners like over-ripe greengages. But it wor no good; I was whacking into my cob, and kicking with spurs into her flanks, and away she went over a five-barred gate—it was terrible—terrible, to a shining light, one o' the Elect People, sir,—such as be I."The man heaved a sigh and wiped his brow and cheeks, and rose with his pudding-bag."All the Sabbath day after that," continued the quarryman, "I wasn't myself. It lay on my conscience that I'd done wrong; and when I preached in the evening there was no unction in me, no more, sir, than you could have greased the fly-wheel of your watch with; and usually there's quite a pomatum-pot full. I didn't feel happy, and it was with a heavyheart and a troubled head that I went to bed on the Sabbath night." He heaved another sigh, and folded up his lunch-bag."Will you believe it, sir? No sooner had I closed my eyes than I was in a public-house. I—I—who've been a Band of Hope ever since I was a baby. I've heard say I never took to the bottle even in earliest infancy, though it was but a bottle of milk, so ingrained in me be temperance principles. I've heard mother say she put a bit of sopped bread into a rag, and let me have that when a baby—so stubborn was I, and so furious did I kick out with my little legs when shown the bottle. It was the name, I reckon, set me against it. However, sir, there I was, just out of the pulpit at Bethesda, and in the 'Fox and Hounds' drinking. I tried to call out for Gingerade, but the words got altered in my throat to Whisky Toddy. And what was more, I was singing—roaring out at the top of my voice—"'Come, my lads, let us be jolly,Drive away dull melancholy;For to grieve it is a follyWhen we meet together!'"The quarryman covered his eyes with his hands—he was ashamed to look up."If that wasn't bad enough, the words that followed were worse—and I a teetotaler down to the soles of my feet."'Here's the bottle, as it passesDo not fail to fill your glasses;Water drinkers are dull assesWhen they're met together."'Milk is meet for infancy,Ladies like to sip Bohea;Not such stuff for you and meWhen we're met together.'"All the while I sang it I knew I was saying good-bye to my consistency, I was going against my dearest convictions. But I couldn't help myself, it was as though an evil spirit possessed me. I was myself and yet not myself. It was terrible—terrible—terrible!"The quarryman swung his pasty bag and smote his breast with it."That warn't all," he continued, and lowered his tone. "There was an uncommon pretty barmaid with red rosy cheeks and curlingblack hair; and somehow I got my arm round her waist and was kissing her. Well, I don't so much mind about that, for kissing is scriptural, and Paul calls them kisses of peace. But these were not kisses of peace by any means—and there was the mischief, for I knowed my wife was looking on, and, sir, I knowed the consequences would be orful—orful—simply orful."The quarryman's head sank on his knees, he clasped his hands over the back of his head, and groaned for full five minutes. Presently he looked up, pulled himself together, and continued his narrative."The worst of all is behind. I was very busy on Monday, as I was on Mr. Conybeare's committee. We were in for the election, and I'm tremendous strong as a Liberal, and for Home Rule, and I reckon I can influence a good many votes in my district of Cornwall. Well, sir, I'd been about canvassing for Mr. Conybeare very hard, yet all the while I had a sort of deadly fear at my heart that what I'd been doing, both hunting and drinking, and swearing and singing, and kissing thebarmaid, would come out in public, or would be thrown in my teeth by the Consarvatives, and might damage the good cause. But no one said nothing about it on Monday, and towards evening my mind was more at ease."I was very tired when I went to bed, for I had been working, as I said, very hard indeed, and persuading of obstinate politicians is worse than breaking stones for the road, and far worse than converting of obstinate sinners. No sooner had I laid my head on the pillow than—will you believe it, sir?—I was in the full swing of the election. I didn't know it was coming on so fast. I thought it would be three weeks, but not a bit of it. They'd set up a polling place in the Board School, and there was I swaggering up to register my vote. There were placards—Unionist on one side, but I wouldn't look at them; on the other were the Radical posters—from Mr. Conybeare—and I knowed my own mind. If any man in England be true and loyal to the G.O.M. that's me. Well, sir, in I walked and gave my name. I knowed mynumber, and went as confident as possible into the little box of unplaned deal boards, and with my paper in one hand took the pencil in the other, wetted the pencil with my tongue to make sure it marked black enough, and then set down my cross. Will you believe it?—that sperit o' pervarsity and devilry had come over me once more, and I'd gone and voted Consarvative."The quarryman staggered back, and I had just time to spring to his aid. He had fainted. I held him in my arms till he came round. I threw water over his face, and by degrees he was himself again."Orful! orful! wasn't it?" said he. "Well, sir, after that I would have nothing more to do with them teeth. They did it. I chucked 'em away; toothache would be better all night long, than the trials I had to undergo when I had them dead man's teeth about me.""But have you not dreamed since?" I asked, looking at the pasty which, when he fainted, I had taken in my hand."Yes, sir, often, very often; but then my dreams since have always been Nonconformist,Temperance, and Radical dreams—and them's wholesome.""You said something about knowing who it was whose grave you had disturbed?""Well, so I believe I do. I did not know at the time, but afterwards, when I began to tell my story; then there was a talk about it and a raking and a grubbing among old folks' memories, and there was an old woman who said she could throw some light on the subject. Her tale was that about a hundred years ago, or more perhaps, she could not be sure, there lived at the Old Hall one Squire Trewenna. The Hall has been pulled down because of the mines, and the Trewennas are all gone. Squire Trewenna was a terrible man for hunting and drinking, and was, moreover, a regular rory tory Conservative. He was a fast chap, and no good to nobody but to dogs and horses, and before he died he begged that he might be buried on the brink of the moor where he'd ridden so often and enjoyed himself so much, and had killed a tremendous big fox in the last hunt he ever went out in before gout got to his stomick. And he saidhe wanted no headstone over him, that fox and hounds and horses might go over his grave. Well, folks forgot, as there was no headstone, where he lay, exact, and old Betty Tregellas says she believes what we cut into was Squire Trewenna's grave. I think so too, for how else was it that when I had those teeth about me I was so possessed wi' a spirit of unrighteousness and drinking and Consarvatism? I reckon you've had a Board School education and been to the University, and are a larned man. Tell me, now, am I not right?"W. Brendon & son, Printers, Plymouth.

CHAPTER XII.Every family and village has had its scapegrace. The family ne'er-do-weel has been its greatest curse, and has torn down and dissipated in a few years what it has taken generations to set up; any fool can destroy—only the wise can build.But it is not so much folly as lack of principle which constitutes the ne'er-do-weel. Many a good man is a stupid one, and his goodness saves his stupidity from carrying him and his family to ruin. And sometimes a clever man is a ne'er-do-weel, because his cleverness is undirected by principle.Perhaps the most flagrant instance of the ne'er-do-weel among the aristocracy was that of Philip Duke of Wharton, the inheritor of a princely fortune, of extensive estates, and endowed by nature with brilliant talents, a manwho forfeited everything simply because he was without principle, and died in abject poverty, the last of a race which had been the pride of the North of England; but he died in something worse than poverty—in dishonour. It was of him that Pope wrote these scathing lines:"Clodis—the scorn and wonder of our days,Whose ruling passion was the lust of praise;Born with whate'er could win it from the wise,Women or fools must like him, or he dies.******His passion still to covet general praise,His life to forfeit it a thousand ways.A tyrant to the wife his heart approves,A rebel to the very king he loves;He dies, sad outcast of each Church and State,And harder still, flagitious, yet not great.Ask you why Clodis broke through every rule?'Twas all for fear the knaves should call him fool."The present time shows us some of these among the inheritors of noble names and fortunes—men as foolish and unprincipled as the wretched Duke of Wharton, and who run through a hardly less disreputable course, to the disgrace of the name which has hitherto been held high in history.In many a humbler family it is the same. It would seem as though occasionally a sport of some ignoble, sordid, selfish element broke out in a stock that has been noted for its self-respect, its goodness and generosity, and the wretched creature in which is this vein of baseness undoes in a few years everything that it has taken his ancestors many years of prudence, self-sacrifice, and forethought to construct.The writer remembers the instance of a gentleman in the North of England of excellent abilities, of many extended estates, and of illustrious name.He, however, had the misfortune to inherit his fortune early; he had lost his father and mother when quite a boy, and when he came into his estates he galloped through them, selling one property and mansion after another, till he came to spend his last days in a cottage.Throughout, one had pitied the man rather than blamed him, because he had not been taught his duties to God and man at a mother's knee. But one day the writer said to him, "Well! I suppose that if we began life again,you and I, with our experiences, we should live very differently.""Not a bit of it," he answered promptly, with a merry laugh, "I'd go through the same round to ruin again." After that, the spring of pity for the man dried up. A man who cannot learn by experience, who has no feeling for the shame and sorrow he has caused his family, deserves only contempt.As a boy I remember seeing a painting of a young gentleman with a flat feeble face, and powdered hair, and laced coat. It was riddled with small holes. I asked the reason.It was the portrait of the family scapegrace, who had alienated the paternal acres and mansion, and for three generations that picture had been used for the children to shoot darts at. So alone did that good-for-naught prove of the slightest use, in that to future generations he was held up as the butt of scorn and loathing in the family, as the one man who in a few years had wrecked what it had taken an illustrious ancestry many centuries to accumulate.The first token of the course the scapegraceis going to take is when he begins to fell the stately trees that have been growing in his park about his estate for over a hundred years.I will quote a scene from Coleman's capital comedy ofThe Poor Gentleman, which held up to detestation a man very common in that age."An apartment inSir Charles Cropland'shouse.Sir Charles Croplandat breakfast; hisvalet de chambreadjusting his hair."Sir Chas.What day of the month was it yesterday, when I left town?"Valet.The first of April, Sir Charles."Sir Chas.Umph! When Mr. Warner (the steward) comes, show him in."Valet.I shall, Sir Charles.[Exit."Sir Chas.This same lumbering timber upon my ground has its merits. Trees are notes issued from the bank of Nature, and as current as those payable to Abraham Newland. I must get change for a few oaks, for I want cash consumedly. So, Mr. Warner.EnterWarner."Warner.Your honour is right welcome into Kent. I am proud to see Sir Charles Cropland on his estate again. I hope you mean to stay on the spot for some time, Sir Charles?"Sir Chas.A very tedious time. Three days, Mr. Warner."Warner.Ah, good sir! I wish you lived entirely upon the estate, Sir Charles."Sir Chas.Thank you, Warner; but modern men of fashion find it devilish difficult to live upon their estates."Warner.The country about you is so charming!"Sir Chas.Look ye, Warner, I must hunt in Leicestershire—for that's the thing. In the frosts and the spring months I must be in town at the clubs—for that's the thing. In summer I must be at the watering-places—for that's the thing. Now, Warner, under these circumstances, how is it possible for me to reside upon my estate? For my estate being in Kent——"Warner.The most beautiful part of the country——"Sir Chas.Curse beauty! My estate being in Kent——"Warner.A land of milk and honey!——"Sir Chas.I hate milk and honey."Warner.A land of fat!"Sir Chas.Damn your fat! Listen to me. My estate being in Kent——"Warner.So woody!——"Sir Chas.Curse the wood! No, that's wrong—for it's convenient. I am come on purpose to cut it."Warner.Ah! I was afraid so! Dice on the table, and then, the axe to the root! Money lost at play, and then, good luck! the forest groans for it."Sir Chas.But you are not the forest, and why the devil do you groan for it?"Warner.I heartily wish, Sir Charles, you may not encumber the goodly estate. Your worthy ancestors had views for their posterity."Sir Chas.And I shall have views for my posterity. I shall take special care the trees shan't intercept their prospect. In short, Mr. Warner, I must have three thousand pounds in three days. Fell timber to that amount immediately."A singular circumstance happened some years ago. I was told it by a timber merchant who was on the spot.A respectable nobleman died, leaving a scapegrace son to inherit his title, estates, and wealth.It was then that the Jews came down like vultures on the heir. They had lent him money on post-obits; and there was not enough to satisfy them. Accordingly the mandate went forth for the cutting-down and sale of the magnificent timber in the park—trees of centuries' growth.The day of the sale arrived, and timber merchants had gathered from far and near, and the auctioneer was about to begin the sale of the trees—standing in their majesty. "By heaven!" said the dealer to me, "it made my heart ache to see them—the trees themselves looked like nobles—I say it made my heart ache, though I hoped to profit by them too."Well, just as the sale began a telegraphic messenger came galloping up with an orange envelope.The earl had shot himself.The sale was stopped. The trees could not be felled. He had cut short his own worthless life, and each stick of timber, every one of which was more valuable than his miserable self, was saved."As the gaming and extravagance of the young men of quality has arrived now at a pitch never heard of, it is worth while to give some account of it," writes Horace Walpole in his last journals (1772). "They had a club at one Almacks in Pall Mall, where they played only for rouleaus of £50 each rouleau; and generally there was £10,000 in specie on the table. Lord Holland had paid about £20,000 for his two sons. Nor were the manners of the gamesters, or even their dresses for play, undeserving notice. They began by pulling off their embroidered clothes, and put on frieze greatcoats, or turned their coats inside outwards for luck. They put on pieces of leather (such as is worn by footmen when they clean knives) to save their lace ruffles; and to guard their eyes from the light, and toprevent tumbling their hair, wore high-crowned straw hats with broad brims, and adorned with flowers and ribbons; masks to conceal their emotions when they played at quinze. Each gamester had a small, neat stand by him, with a large rim to hold his tea, or a wooden bowl with an edge of ormolu, to hold his rouleaus. They borrowed great sums of the Jews at exorbitant premiums. Charles Fox called his outward room, where these Jews waited till he rose, the Jerusalem Chamber. His brother Stephen was enormously fat; George Selwyn said he was in the right to deal with Shylocks, as he could give them pounds of flesh."There is a charming old house in Throwleigh, Devon, called Wonson Manor, the ancient seat of the Knapmans, from whom it passed to the Northmores of Cleave, together with large estates in the neighbourhood.William Northmore of Cleave, M.P. for Okehampton from 1713 to 1734, was a great gambler, and he lost at one sitting £17,000 on the turn of an ace of diamonds in a game of putt.This led to forced sales and the loss of the ancestral acres and house of Well in South Tawton, and of nearly all the property in Throwleigh except the manor-house. William Northmore had an ace of diamonds painted in one of the panels of the wainscot of his bedroom, and every night before turning into bed he cursed the ace instead of saying his prayers. The ace is still shown. Now Wonson is also passed away.There was in North Devon no more ancient family than Dowrish of Dowrish, whose authentic pedigree goes back to King John's reign, when Dowrish Keep was erected. The descent was direct from father to son for twenty generations, that is to say for five hundred years, always seated on the same acres and occupying the same house, that had indeed been added to, remodelled, but which was in itself a record of the lives and thoughts, ambitions, and discouragements of a family that had married into the best in the land, the de Helions, the Carews, the Fulfords, and the Northcotes.Then, in graceless days, came the graceless fool who undid the work of twenty generations in one night. The manor of Kennerleigh belonged and had belonged to the Dowrishes for centuries.WONSON MANOROne night the then squire and Sir Arthur Northcote were playing piquet. Mr. Dowrish, being eldest hand, held the four aces, four kings, and four queens, and promptly offered to bet his manor of Kennerleigh against £500, by no means its value even in those days, that he won the game. Sir Arthur took the bet, having a claim ofcarte blancheon his undiscarded hand. After Sir Arthur had discarded, he took up two knaves, and held two points of five each, each headed by the knave. Mr. Dowrish being about to declare, was stopped by Sir Arthur's claim for ten forcarte blanche, which ruined his chances. The point fell to Sir Arthur, and two quints, who scored thus:Carte blanche10Point5Two quints at 15 each30Repique60——105and game.At the present day there would be holes to pick in this method of counting, as Mr. Dowrish on his side could have claimed his "fourteens" for aces, kings, and queens before allowing the sequences to count, but not so formerly, when the rule was absolute as to the order of counting, point, sequence, threes or fours of suits. So the manor was lost, and Kennerleigh belongs to Lord Iddesleigh at the present day.In commemoration of the game, the table at which it was played was inlaid with representations of the two hands, and is now in Dowrish House, a mansion that has lost all its interest, having been remodelled in suburban villa style, but nobly situated and commanding a glorious view.Gambling thus recklessly is an illustration of reversion to one of the strongest passions that actuates man in his lowest savage state. So the Alaskan natives. "They often pass whole days and nights absorbed in the occupation. Their principal game is played with a handful of small sticks of different colours, which are called by various names, such as thecrab, the whale, the duck, and so on. The player shuffles all the sticks together, then, counting out a certain number, he places them under cover of bunches of moss. The object seems to be to guess in which pile is the whale, and in which the crab, or the duck. Individuals often lose at this trifling game all their worldly possessions. We are told of instances where, spurred on by excitement, a native risks his wife and children, and if he loses, they become the recognized property of the winner, nor would anyone think of interfering with such a settlement."[7]A certain earl, when a young man, being fond of play, called on Beau Nash to gamble with him. Nash first won from him all his ready money, then the title deeds of his estates, and finally the very watch in his pocket, and the rings on his fingers—all in one night. Nash thereupon read him a lecture on his incredible folly, and returned all his winnings, at the same time extracting from him a promise that he would never play again.But it is not among the gentry only that the scapegraces are found, though such as are highly placed are most noticed. They are to be found in every class, and there is not a village which does not produce these sour fruit.The generality of these scapegraces are simply scatter-brains, filled with exuberant spirits that carry them beyond the bounds that constrain the commonplace folk. If these fellows, full of animal spirits, effervescing with the joy of life, have principle and wise parents to advise them, they will turn out admirable men, useful members of society. The army or the navy is the profession to which they naturally gravitate, and first-rate soldiers and sailors they make. But this is if they have principle. Without that as a fly-wheel, they spin themselves out without doing good to themselves or to anyone else.Compare some of the scamps we have known at school, in a parish, with the heavy, plodding lout, who is without go and without intelligence. Which makes the best man in the end? The scamp undoubtedly, if hisscampishness springs out of exuberant spirits and there be no root of vice in the heart.The heavy, plodding lout becomes a wholesome and useful member of society; but he is without freshness and energy.We cannot doubt that some untoward circumstance sometimes throws a young fellow out of his proper course of life, and throughout his career he is conscious that he has got into the wrong groove. Then he either makes the best of it, or continues in sullen resentment with resistance at heart against the restraints and contrarieties he encounters—gets into difficulties, is cast out when too late to take up another course, and squanders life away in disorder or idle repenting. I knew a boy who, getting into a "row" at school, instead of waiting and receiving his punishment pluckily, and accepting it as deserved, ran away to sea.I met him many years after, a sailor, and he said to me, "The blot of my life was that I did not accept the birch I had deserved. I cut away to sea. I have been now a seaman for fifteen years, and havenever yet found my sea-legs. Whenever there is a capful of wind, and the water is a bit rough, I am sick as a dog. It is always the same. It stands against me. I hate the sea. But I made a fool of myself when I ran from school, and a fool I shall remain to the end.""Not a bit," was my reply. "Like a sensible man, you have held to the profession you chose, and make the best of it. You win back thereby all the respect you threw away when you shirked your punishment."There was every temptation to this young man to become a ne'er-do-weel, but he did not give way to the temptation. He recognized the fact that he had made a mistake, and he took the consequences like a man. But, then, it is, perhaps, one only in five of those who make these mistakes who has the courage to accept the results, and accommodate himself to them.Where there is a sound substratum of healthy conscience and force of character, there one may always hope that a mistake in early life will right itself.But if there be mere love of lawlessness, mere wilfulness, in the outbreaks of youth, then there is no redemption, the ne'er-do-weel boy remains a ne'er-do-weel to the end of the chapter.I remember one such. I knew him as a boy, and confess to have entertained a liking for him; but his escapades passed all bounds of moderation. A good-natured, chestnut-haired boy he was, with clear, trembling blue eyes, a fair complexion somewhat marred by freckles, and straight, elastic figure. Unhappily this lad had not parents who taught their children what would do them good in life; nor kept them to the National School, where they might have acquired that which their parents neglected to inculcate.The young fellow sometimes came to church, and then went into the gallery behind the choir. Now, in the choir sat a young fellow with a head covered with natural curls of a tow colour, on Sundays drenched in hair-oil. One Sunday the scapegrace thrust a lighted match into the mass of oiled curls, and the head blazed up at once.The same ne'er-do-weel, whilst he was ringing the tenor bell, suddenly threw the loop of the rope over the neck of the next man, who was instantly whisked up against the belfry floor above and thrown down, and very nearly killed.On again another occasion, he thrashed a fellow called "Old Straw" with a flail, saying that he was bent on finding if there was any good to be got out of him. He broke Straw's leg, and was sentenced by the magistrates to be put in the stocks.That was the last occasion when stocks were used in England, and so angry was the squire at the revival of the stocks, that after the sentence had been carried out he had them chopped up and burnt.The disgrace of the stocks was too much for our ne'er-do-weel; he left the parish and entered the army, but had to leave—he was a ne'er-do-weel under the colours as in fustian. Since then he has been about the world—a ne'er-do-weel everywhere.The other day the church bell was tolling. It was for this ne'er-do-weel. He had returnedhome to die. The sole wish in the heart of the man with a wasted life was to lie, to cast down the wreck of his body, in the earth of the native parish which had bred him, and to have no headstone to mark the mound under which lay naught but the ashes of a ne'er-do-weel.

Every family and village has had its scapegrace. The family ne'er-do-weel has been its greatest curse, and has torn down and dissipated in a few years what it has taken generations to set up; any fool can destroy—only the wise can build.

But it is not so much folly as lack of principle which constitutes the ne'er-do-weel. Many a good man is a stupid one, and his goodness saves his stupidity from carrying him and his family to ruin. And sometimes a clever man is a ne'er-do-weel, because his cleverness is undirected by principle.

Perhaps the most flagrant instance of the ne'er-do-weel among the aristocracy was that of Philip Duke of Wharton, the inheritor of a princely fortune, of extensive estates, and endowed by nature with brilliant talents, a manwho forfeited everything simply because he was without principle, and died in abject poverty, the last of a race which had been the pride of the North of England; but he died in something worse than poverty—in dishonour. It was of him that Pope wrote these scathing lines:

"Clodis—the scorn and wonder of our days,Whose ruling passion was the lust of praise;Born with whate'er could win it from the wise,Women or fools must like him, or he dies.

His passion still to covet general praise,His life to forfeit it a thousand ways.A tyrant to the wife his heart approves,A rebel to the very king he loves;He dies, sad outcast of each Church and State,And harder still, flagitious, yet not great.Ask you why Clodis broke through every rule?'Twas all for fear the knaves should call him fool."

The present time shows us some of these among the inheritors of noble names and fortunes—men as foolish and unprincipled as the wretched Duke of Wharton, and who run through a hardly less disreputable course, to the disgrace of the name which has hitherto been held high in history.

In many a humbler family it is the same. It would seem as though occasionally a sport of some ignoble, sordid, selfish element broke out in a stock that has been noted for its self-respect, its goodness and generosity, and the wretched creature in which is this vein of baseness undoes in a few years everything that it has taken his ancestors many years of prudence, self-sacrifice, and forethought to construct.

The writer remembers the instance of a gentleman in the North of England of excellent abilities, of many extended estates, and of illustrious name.

He, however, had the misfortune to inherit his fortune early; he had lost his father and mother when quite a boy, and when he came into his estates he galloped through them, selling one property and mansion after another, till he came to spend his last days in a cottage.

Throughout, one had pitied the man rather than blamed him, because he had not been taught his duties to God and man at a mother's knee. But one day the writer said to him, "Well! I suppose that if we began life again,you and I, with our experiences, we should live very differently."

"Not a bit of it," he answered promptly, with a merry laugh, "I'd go through the same round to ruin again." After that, the spring of pity for the man dried up. A man who cannot learn by experience, who has no feeling for the shame and sorrow he has caused his family, deserves only contempt.

As a boy I remember seeing a painting of a young gentleman with a flat feeble face, and powdered hair, and laced coat. It was riddled with small holes. I asked the reason.

It was the portrait of the family scapegrace, who had alienated the paternal acres and mansion, and for three generations that picture had been used for the children to shoot darts at. So alone did that good-for-naught prove of the slightest use, in that to future generations he was held up as the butt of scorn and loathing in the family, as the one man who in a few years had wrecked what it had taken an illustrious ancestry many centuries to accumulate.

The first token of the course the scapegraceis going to take is when he begins to fell the stately trees that have been growing in his park about his estate for over a hundred years.

I will quote a scene from Coleman's capital comedy ofThe Poor Gentleman, which held up to detestation a man very common in that age.

"An apartment inSir Charles Cropland'shouse.Sir Charles Croplandat breakfast; hisvalet de chambreadjusting his hair.

"Sir Chas.What day of the month was it yesterday, when I left town?

"Valet.The first of April, Sir Charles.

"Sir Chas.Umph! When Mr. Warner (the steward) comes, show him in.

"Valet.I shall, Sir Charles.

[Exit.

"Sir Chas.This same lumbering timber upon my ground has its merits. Trees are notes issued from the bank of Nature, and as current as those payable to Abraham Newland. I must get change for a few oaks, for I want cash consumedly. So, Mr. Warner.

EnterWarner.

"Warner.Your honour is right welcome into Kent. I am proud to see Sir Charles Cropland on his estate again. I hope you mean to stay on the spot for some time, Sir Charles?

"Sir Chas.A very tedious time. Three days, Mr. Warner.

"Warner.Ah, good sir! I wish you lived entirely upon the estate, Sir Charles.

"Sir Chas.Thank you, Warner; but modern men of fashion find it devilish difficult to live upon their estates.

"Warner.The country about you is so charming!

"Sir Chas.Look ye, Warner, I must hunt in Leicestershire—for that's the thing. In the frosts and the spring months I must be in town at the clubs—for that's the thing. In summer I must be at the watering-places—for that's the thing. Now, Warner, under these circumstances, how is it possible for me to reside upon my estate? For my estate being in Kent——

"Warner.The most beautiful part of the country——

"Sir Chas.Curse beauty! My estate being in Kent——

"Warner.A land of milk and honey!——

"Sir Chas.I hate milk and honey.

"Warner.A land of fat!

"Sir Chas.Damn your fat! Listen to me. My estate being in Kent——

"Warner.So woody!——

"Sir Chas.Curse the wood! No, that's wrong—for it's convenient. I am come on purpose to cut it.

"Warner.Ah! I was afraid so! Dice on the table, and then, the axe to the root! Money lost at play, and then, good luck! the forest groans for it.

"Sir Chas.But you are not the forest, and why the devil do you groan for it?

"Warner.I heartily wish, Sir Charles, you may not encumber the goodly estate. Your worthy ancestors had views for their posterity.

"Sir Chas.And I shall have views for my posterity. I shall take special care the trees shan't intercept their prospect. In short, Mr. Warner, I must have three thousand pounds in three days. Fell timber to that amount immediately."

A singular circumstance happened some years ago. I was told it by a timber merchant who was on the spot.

A respectable nobleman died, leaving a scapegrace son to inherit his title, estates, and wealth.

It was then that the Jews came down like vultures on the heir. They had lent him money on post-obits; and there was not enough to satisfy them. Accordingly the mandate went forth for the cutting-down and sale of the magnificent timber in the park—trees of centuries' growth.

The day of the sale arrived, and timber merchants had gathered from far and near, and the auctioneer was about to begin the sale of the trees—standing in their majesty. "By heaven!" said the dealer to me, "it made my heart ache to see them—the trees themselves looked like nobles—I say it made my heart ache, though I hoped to profit by them too."

Well, just as the sale began a telegraphic messenger came galloping up with an orange envelope.

The earl had shot himself.

The sale was stopped. The trees could not be felled. He had cut short his own worthless life, and each stick of timber, every one of which was more valuable than his miserable self, was saved.

"As the gaming and extravagance of the young men of quality has arrived now at a pitch never heard of, it is worth while to give some account of it," writes Horace Walpole in his last journals (1772). "They had a club at one Almacks in Pall Mall, where they played only for rouleaus of £50 each rouleau; and generally there was £10,000 in specie on the table. Lord Holland had paid about £20,000 for his two sons. Nor were the manners of the gamesters, or even their dresses for play, undeserving notice. They began by pulling off their embroidered clothes, and put on frieze greatcoats, or turned their coats inside outwards for luck. They put on pieces of leather (such as is worn by footmen when they clean knives) to save their lace ruffles; and to guard their eyes from the light, and toprevent tumbling their hair, wore high-crowned straw hats with broad brims, and adorned with flowers and ribbons; masks to conceal their emotions when they played at quinze. Each gamester had a small, neat stand by him, with a large rim to hold his tea, or a wooden bowl with an edge of ormolu, to hold his rouleaus. They borrowed great sums of the Jews at exorbitant premiums. Charles Fox called his outward room, where these Jews waited till he rose, the Jerusalem Chamber. His brother Stephen was enormously fat; George Selwyn said he was in the right to deal with Shylocks, as he could give them pounds of flesh."

There is a charming old house in Throwleigh, Devon, called Wonson Manor, the ancient seat of the Knapmans, from whom it passed to the Northmores of Cleave, together with large estates in the neighbourhood.

William Northmore of Cleave, M.P. for Okehampton from 1713 to 1734, was a great gambler, and he lost at one sitting £17,000 on the turn of an ace of diamonds in a game of putt.

This led to forced sales and the loss of the ancestral acres and house of Well in South Tawton, and of nearly all the property in Throwleigh except the manor-house. William Northmore had an ace of diamonds painted in one of the panels of the wainscot of his bedroom, and every night before turning into bed he cursed the ace instead of saying his prayers. The ace is still shown. Now Wonson is also passed away.

There was in North Devon no more ancient family than Dowrish of Dowrish, whose authentic pedigree goes back to King John's reign, when Dowrish Keep was erected. The descent was direct from father to son for twenty generations, that is to say for five hundred years, always seated on the same acres and occupying the same house, that had indeed been added to, remodelled, but which was in itself a record of the lives and thoughts, ambitions, and discouragements of a family that had married into the best in the land, the de Helions, the Carews, the Fulfords, and the Northcotes.

Then, in graceless days, came the graceless fool who undid the work of twenty generations in one night. The manor of Kennerleigh belonged and had belonged to the Dowrishes for centuries.

WONSON MANOR

WONSON MANOR

WONSON MANOR

One night the then squire and Sir Arthur Northcote were playing piquet. Mr. Dowrish, being eldest hand, held the four aces, four kings, and four queens, and promptly offered to bet his manor of Kennerleigh against £500, by no means its value even in those days, that he won the game. Sir Arthur took the bet, having a claim ofcarte blancheon his undiscarded hand. After Sir Arthur had discarded, he took up two knaves, and held two points of five each, each headed by the knave. Mr. Dowrish being about to declare, was stopped by Sir Arthur's claim for ten forcarte blanche, which ruined his chances. The point fell to Sir Arthur, and two quints, who scored thus:

At the present day there would be holes to pick in this method of counting, as Mr. Dowrish on his side could have claimed his "fourteens" for aces, kings, and queens before allowing the sequences to count, but not so formerly, when the rule was absolute as to the order of counting, point, sequence, threes or fours of suits. So the manor was lost, and Kennerleigh belongs to Lord Iddesleigh at the present day.

In commemoration of the game, the table at which it was played was inlaid with representations of the two hands, and is now in Dowrish House, a mansion that has lost all its interest, having been remodelled in suburban villa style, but nobly situated and commanding a glorious view.

Gambling thus recklessly is an illustration of reversion to one of the strongest passions that actuates man in his lowest savage state. So the Alaskan natives. "They often pass whole days and nights absorbed in the occupation. Their principal game is played with a handful of small sticks of different colours, which are called by various names, such as thecrab, the whale, the duck, and so on. The player shuffles all the sticks together, then, counting out a certain number, he places them under cover of bunches of moss. The object seems to be to guess in which pile is the whale, and in which the crab, or the duck. Individuals often lose at this trifling game all their worldly possessions. We are told of instances where, spurred on by excitement, a native risks his wife and children, and if he loses, they become the recognized property of the winner, nor would anyone think of interfering with such a settlement."[7]

A certain earl, when a young man, being fond of play, called on Beau Nash to gamble with him. Nash first won from him all his ready money, then the title deeds of his estates, and finally the very watch in his pocket, and the rings on his fingers—all in one night. Nash thereupon read him a lecture on his incredible folly, and returned all his winnings, at the same time extracting from him a promise that he would never play again.

But it is not among the gentry only that the scapegraces are found, though such as are highly placed are most noticed. They are to be found in every class, and there is not a village which does not produce these sour fruit.

The generality of these scapegraces are simply scatter-brains, filled with exuberant spirits that carry them beyond the bounds that constrain the commonplace folk. If these fellows, full of animal spirits, effervescing with the joy of life, have principle and wise parents to advise them, they will turn out admirable men, useful members of society. The army or the navy is the profession to which they naturally gravitate, and first-rate soldiers and sailors they make. But this is if they have principle. Without that as a fly-wheel, they spin themselves out without doing good to themselves or to anyone else.

Compare some of the scamps we have known at school, in a parish, with the heavy, plodding lout, who is without go and without intelligence. Which makes the best man in the end? The scamp undoubtedly, if hisscampishness springs out of exuberant spirits and there be no root of vice in the heart.

The heavy, plodding lout becomes a wholesome and useful member of society; but he is without freshness and energy.

We cannot doubt that some untoward circumstance sometimes throws a young fellow out of his proper course of life, and throughout his career he is conscious that he has got into the wrong groove. Then he either makes the best of it, or continues in sullen resentment with resistance at heart against the restraints and contrarieties he encounters—gets into difficulties, is cast out when too late to take up another course, and squanders life away in disorder or idle repenting. I knew a boy who, getting into a "row" at school, instead of waiting and receiving his punishment pluckily, and accepting it as deserved, ran away to sea.

I met him many years after, a sailor, and he said to me, "The blot of my life was that I did not accept the birch I had deserved. I cut away to sea. I have been now a seaman for fifteen years, and havenever yet found my sea-legs. Whenever there is a capful of wind, and the water is a bit rough, I am sick as a dog. It is always the same. It stands against me. I hate the sea. But I made a fool of myself when I ran from school, and a fool I shall remain to the end."

"Not a bit," was my reply. "Like a sensible man, you have held to the profession you chose, and make the best of it. You win back thereby all the respect you threw away when you shirked your punishment."

There was every temptation to this young man to become a ne'er-do-weel, but he did not give way to the temptation. He recognized the fact that he had made a mistake, and he took the consequences like a man. But, then, it is, perhaps, one only in five of those who make these mistakes who has the courage to accept the results, and accommodate himself to them.

Where there is a sound substratum of healthy conscience and force of character, there one may always hope that a mistake in early life will right itself.

But if there be mere love of lawlessness, mere wilfulness, in the outbreaks of youth, then there is no redemption, the ne'er-do-weel boy remains a ne'er-do-weel to the end of the chapter.

I remember one such. I knew him as a boy, and confess to have entertained a liking for him; but his escapades passed all bounds of moderation. A good-natured, chestnut-haired boy he was, with clear, trembling blue eyes, a fair complexion somewhat marred by freckles, and straight, elastic figure. Unhappily this lad had not parents who taught their children what would do them good in life; nor kept them to the National School, where they might have acquired that which their parents neglected to inculcate.

The young fellow sometimes came to church, and then went into the gallery behind the choir. Now, in the choir sat a young fellow with a head covered with natural curls of a tow colour, on Sundays drenched in hair-oil. One Sunday the scapegrace thrust a lighted match into the mass of oiled curls, and the head blazed up at once.

The same ne'er-do-weel, whilst he was ringing the tenor bell, suddenly threw the loop of the rope over the neck of the next man, who was instantly whisked up against the belfry floor above and thrown down, and very nearly killed.

On again another occasion, he thrashed a fellow called "Old Straw" with a flail, saying that he was bent on finding if there was any good to be got out of him. He broke Straw's leg, and was sentenced by the magistrates to be put in the stocks.

That was the last occasion when stocks were used in England, and so angry was the squire at the revival of the stocks, that after the sentence had been carried out he had them chopped up and burnt.

The disgrace of the stocks was too much for our ne'er-do-weel; he left the parish and entered the army, but had to leave—he was a ne'er-do-weel under the colours as in fustian. Since then he has been about the world—a ne'er-do-weel everywhere.

The other day the church bell was tolling. It was for this ne'er-do-weel. He had returnedhome to die. The sole wish in the heart of the man with a wasted life was to lie, to cast down the wreck of his body, in the earth of the native parish which had bred him, and to have no headstone to mark the mound under which lay naught but the ashes of a ne'er-do-weel.

CHAPTER XIII.Where there is private property there must be a demarcation, showing its limits; and where there are crops on arable land, there, either one or other of two alternatives must be adopted, the crops must be protected by a hedge, dyke, or wall, from the incursions of the cattle, or the cattle must be kept in confinement, to prevent their straying. The former is the system adopted in England and in Westphalia, and the latter is that general throughout the rest of Germany and France. The termmarkhas a curious history. Originally it signified the forest, so called because of its gloom, whence our wordmurk. The mark or forest bounded the clearing. Thence it came to signify the limit of a claim made by a community to land heldin common. Land bounding a state or principality was then called also a mark or the marches, and the official who watched it against incursions was the mark-graff, or margrave, in French marquis, hence our marquess.As the limit of a territory or a village, or a private claim had to be given certain indications, when the wood had further retreated, stones or posts were set up, and signs were cut on these to show that they limited claims. The compound was in German entitled the Gemarkung, and over every Gemarkung there was a villicus, bailiff, orschultheiss, who regulated the affairs of the community.In 1854 Dr. Konrad Maurer set all political economists agog by hisIntroduction to the History of the Mark, &c.The book was not intended as a hoax, but it succeeded in hoaxing pretty largely, and in provoking considerable excitement.His thesis was that among the Teutonic races theLand belonged to the People, and that every householder had rights over the land, but that the invasion of Feudalism alteredeverything, the lords then seized on the land and converted the freeholders into serfs and villains. His assertions were accepted as gospel, till disputed by Professor Fustel de Coulanges in 1885 and 1889, who showed, by production of the original texts, that Maurer had little or no evidence to sustain his entire fabric. All the evidence goes the other way, to show that land, directly men settled, became private property, but that the landlord allowed his tenants to take wood from forests, turf from moors, and have certain commons for pasturage, not as a right, but as a favour.Maurer had started from a false premise. TheMarkoragernever meant common land, but the boundary of private estates.[8]In a word, as far as evidence goes, his theory was the erection of a Fools' Paradise for socialand political reformers. Originally, when men were nomads, the land belonged to nobody—but when tillage began, then at once the marking out of fields became a necessity—and with the marking came proprietorship.In France and Germany, where there are no hedges, there the properties are divided by an imaginary line drawn between two stone pegs; and as fields get divided and subdivided by inheritance, the number of these marks or pegs increases.In order to distinguish his boundaries, a proprietor sometimes cut the outline of his foot on a slab, or took the further pains with a hammer and chisel to scoop it out.In course of time the significance of these foot imprints in stone was completely forgotten, and as they are found all the world over, the vulgar began to regard them with awe, and create legends to account for their existence.When Robinson Crusoe lit upon the footprint in the wet sand on the shore, he had no rest till he discovered who had left it there. And so, when the peasantry came on these marks in stone, long after such marks hadceased to have any practical significance, they cudgelled their brains to explain them, and, of course, hit on wrong explanations.In Scotland there are several of these. So also in India and Ceylon. Buddha's footprint is venerated in five places. In the chapel of the Ascension on the top of the Mount of Olives is shown the mark of the footsteps of the Saviour. Arculf, who visited Palestine about the year 700, says, "Upon the ground in the midst of the church may be seen the last prints in the dust made by the feet of the Lord, and the roof is open above where He ascended." Now, however, the impress is shown cut in the rock.At Poitiers, in the church of St. Radegund, is the footprint of the Saviour, impressed by Him when He appeared to this abbess saint.At Bolsena is a slab on which are the footprints of St. Christina.In Rome a chapel called "Domine quo vadis" is built over a similar slab. The story goes that St. Peter, afraid of perishing in the persecution of Nero, attempted to fly from Rome, when he met Christ at the spotwhere stands the chapel, and he asked Him, "Lord, whither goest Thou." "To be crucified again in Rome," was the answer. Peter, ashamed of his cowardice, returned and died a martyr's death.In Poland as many as eighteen of these footprints have been registered.ALABASTER SLAB WITH FOOTPRINTS, VATICAN, ROMECuriously enough, footprints outlined in the marble have been found in the catacombs of Rome closing the graves of early Christians. In the Kircherian Museum in Rome is one of these. It is a square marble slab with two pairs of footprints incised upon it, pointed in opposite directions, as if occasioned by a person going and returning, or by two persons passing each other. Another stone from the catacombs bears the name ofJanuaria, and has on it the print of a pair of feet in sandals carved on it.The circumstance that all sorts of legendary matter attaches to these footprints, shows that their real significance has been lost. Yet they must have had a meaning and a purpose, and that all over the world. When the purpose for which executed no longer existed, or it was no longer necessary to express this purpose, then the purport of these marks was left to wild conjecture.We cannot be very far wrong in saying that primarily these footprints were cut as boundary marks, or as marks indicating possession. When a settler took land and enclosed it, then he cut his mark at the corners of his enclosure; and the simplest and most natural mark was the impression of his foot.Tin miners in old times were required annually to cut their marks in the turf of their claims. If they failed to do this, they forfeited their claims. Indeed, the very termpossessionis derived from the expressionpedes posui—"I have set my feet down." Among the Roman lawyers the maxim held that what thefoot struck that could be claimed as private property. The German word marke, marca, meant a limit, a boundary. Now we use the word mark as a sign, or token of possession. We have tradesmen's marks. And, as already said, the simplest of all marks was the footprint. If any dispute arose, the owner put his foot down on the tracing, and showed thereby a right of ownership.We see in the footprints on tombslabs the same idea—of claiming proprietorship in a grave. The two pairs are for the husband and wife.It has been argued that where horse hoofs have been cut in a slab, that indicates the wider limits of a domain, or a community-district, which was ridden round, but that the footprints of men thus graven betokened private lands belonging to individuals, or rather, to heads of households.At Totnes, in Devon, in the High Street, is a slab of stone, on which is the now much worn impress of a foot. This from time immemorial has been said to have been the print of the foot of Brutus when he landed inBritain, and took possession of our Isle for himself and his descendants. As he did so he declared:"Here I stand, and here I rest,And this place shall be called Totnes!"But now let us turn from boundaries indicated by marks to those artificially erected enclosing the entire claim.Such are our hedges, dykes, and walls.The hedge in many parts of England and in Scotland is a small privet or thorn division between fields, or dividing a field from the road. To a Northerner, to speak of a bank six or ten feet high with trees on the top as a hedge, is held to be a misappropriation of terms. A hedge, according to him, is only a line of quickset eighteen inches or two feet high; a bank of earth dividing fields is a dyke. But then in Ireland a dyke is both a bank and a ditch. In fact,hedgeis derived from the same source as the Latinager, and the Norseakr, and our acre; and signifies earth cast up, either by the plough or the spade, either in tilling or in banking. This is the meaning the Sanskritakarahas; and in Latin,agerhas its double meaning, as a bank and as a field. So I contend that we in the South-West of England are quite right in using for the banks that enclose our fields the term hedge.It is a great hardship to the poor cattle on the Continent to be stall-fed, and how poor is the meat from such beasts every Englishman knows who has travelled. If we glory in the Roast Beef of Old England, it is because our cattle are able to roam about the pastures, and are healthy and vigorous, and their flesh sound and juicy accordingly. And this is due to our hedges.In certain parts of the Alpine chains, there are portions delivered over to the chamois as their own, in which no gun may be fired, where the beautiful creatures may be sure of rest and security, in which they may nurture their young, and to which, when hard pressed, they may flee, as to Cities of Refuge. In Tyrol such an asylum is called a Gämsenfreiheit.Of late years it has become necessary for law in Switzerland to extend its protection to the Edelweiss. This peculiar and beautiful flower is much in request, both by lovers whopresent it to their sweethearts, and also for the formation of little mementoes for travellers.The Edelweiss does not require an altitude so great that it is near the snow, nor a precipitous rock to crown; the poor plant has been driven higher and ever higher, and to inaccessible points as the only places where it can live unmolested. At Rosenheim, on the Bavarian plateau, at the roots of the mountains are fields of Edelweiss, where the plant is cultivated to satisfy the insatiable visitor who insists on going home from his holiday with a tuft in his hat, and on sending dried specimens to all his friends.Well! what must England have been before it was cultivated in nearly every part? Verily, it must have been a land of flowers. Now the flowers are banished—that is to say, the vast majority of kinds, by the plough and harrow. Only those are left which can withstand both and such as take refuge in our hedges. The hedgerow is, in fact, to our English flowers, what the Gämsenfreiheit is to the Tyrolean chamois—their city of refuge, their asylum from utter eradication.How infinitely dreary is the landscape in France without hedges. The eye ranges over a boundless plain of rolling land, that is divided into strips of various colours like a plaid, and no trees are visible except lines of trimmed poplars, or a scrubby wood kept for fuel. The eye ranges over belts of cabbage and colza, potatoes, beetroot, barley and lentils, wheat and sanfoin. There is not a single hedge anywhere—no harbour for such plants as have not the stubbornness to live on in spite of plough, and pick, and spade, and hoe. Flowers there are—for flowers are obstinate and persist in coming—grape hyacinths, star of Bethlehem, lungwort, scarlet anemones, tulips, blue-bottles, cornflowers, salvia, and so on—because they dive out of reach of the spade and share, or because they do not object to having their tubers cut up—they rather like it. They multiply from every portion. But this is not the case with all flowers. Some have too refined a nature, are too frail, modest, reserved, to endure rough treatment. They ask only to be let alone. They will die if incessantly worried—and forsuch there is no other place of refuge available except the hedgerow.I was the other day on the battlefield of Poitiers. The chroniclers tell of the banks, the hedges and vineyard walls that stood in 1356, and afforded shelter for the English archers. Not one remains. Every hedge has been levelled, every mound spread, and with them have gone all those flowers that once made the battlefield like a garden.Our old English hedges are the Poor Man's conservatory, are the playground of his children. How starred they are in spring with primroses! How they flush with red robin! How they mantle with bluebell! How they wave with foxglove! Talking of the latter, I was driving one day in Cornwall, when my coachman pointed to a range of foxgloves, and said: "Look there, sir! They are just like girls!""What do you mean?" I asked."Did you never notice," said he, "that the foxglove always turns its flowers towards the road—it never looks into the hedge?""Naturally, no flower exists that does not look to the light.""'Tain't that," said the driver. "'Tis they know they've got pretty faces, and wants to show them."Then, again, the ferns and the mosses! What a wealth of beauty in them! What a variety! Not to be discovered in the field; only in their own quarter, reserved for them—the hedgerow.Our hedges are probably as ancient as our civilization. We know of a few only that have been erected within the memory of man; the majority have existed from the period when our land was first put into cultivation. And it is remarkable that in the north of Germany, in Westphalia, the Saxon region whence came our Teutonic ancestors, there the hedge with which we are familiar in England is to be met with as well, as an institution of the country, and a feature of the landscape.Look at the size of some hedges—their width at the base, the height to which they rise, the traces they bear of venerable antiquity! This is not perhaps the case in all parts of England, but it is so in the west.An agent of an earl, with large estates, told me that when first he took the agency five-and-twenty years ago, he waged war on the hedges, he had them swept away and replaced by low divisions with quickset over which any child might jump. But after long experience he had learned that our ancestors were not such fools as we suppose, in this matter. He learned that not only were the high hedges a protection to the cattle from wind and rain, but that they furnished a very necessary store of dry food for them at a time when their pastures are sodden. See bullocks in wet weather, how they scramble up the hedges, how they ravenously devour the dry grass in them. That is because the hedges supply them with something that they cannot get elsewhere.In the West of England a hedge top is frequently finished off with slates that project, and this is to prevent rabbits, even sheep, from overleaping them. In Cornwall, on the bank top is a footpath beside the lane, a large deep cleft in the land, that converts itself into a torrent in wet weather. It is a commonsight to see women, and children on their way to school, pencilled against the sky walking on the hedge tops. So when certain hedges have thus been converted into footways, then a rail is often put across them to prevent horsemen from using them in like manner.Anent sheep jumping hedges, I may venture here to tell a tale of a certain old rogue who went by the name of Tup-Harry. This is how he got his nickname. Harry was a small farmer, and he had a neighbour with better means, and a better farm than his own. One very dry season Harry had come to the end of his grass for a flock of sheep he possessed. His neighbour had, however, got a fine field of mangel-wurzel. Harry looked over the hedge—a hedge furnished with outstanding slates—and greatly longed for these mangels for his sheep; but he did not relish running the risk of being caught taking them. So he went in the evening into his field that was bare of grass, put his head against the hedge, bent his back, and called "Tup! Tup! Tup!" whereupon up ran his old ram, jumped on his back, wenton to the hedge, and over into the mangel field, and all the flock in Indian file scampered after him over the back of Harry. Very early in the morning the rogue went into the devastated mangel field, put his head against the hedge, bent his back, called "Tup! Tup! Tup!" and up came the ram, ran over his back on to the hedge, and returned to the barren quarter again, followed in Indian file by all the flock. That was done several times, and no signs appeared anywhere of the hedge being broken through, or of a padlocked gate having been opened. At last one night the farmer who was robbed hid himself, and saw the whole proceeding. Tup-Harry did not try that trick on again.

Where there is private property there must be a demarcation, showing its limits; and where there are crops on arable land, there, either one or other of two alternatives must be adopted, the crops must be protected by a hedge, dyke, or wall, from the incursions of the cattle, or the cattle must be kept in confinement, to prevent their straying. The former is the system adopted in England and in Westphalia, and the latter is that general throughout the rest of Germany and France. The termmarkhas a curious history. Originally it signified the forest, so called because of its gloom, whence our wordmurk. The mark or forest bounded the clearing. Thence it came to signify the limit of a claim made by a community to land heldin common. Land bounding a state or principality was then called also a mark or the marches, and the official who watched it against incursions was the mark-graff, or margrave, in French marquis, hence our marquess.

As the limit of a territory or a village, or a private claim had to be given certain indications, when the wood had further retreated, stones or posts were set up, and signs were cut on these to show that they limited claims. The compound was in German entitled the Gemarkung, and over every Gemarkung there was a villicus, bailiff, orschultheiss, who regulated the affairs of the community.

In 1854 Dr. Konrad Maurer set all political economists agog by hisIntroduction to the History of the Mark, &c.The book was not intended as a hoax, but it succeeded in hoaxing pretty largely, and in provoking considerable excitement.

His thesis was that among the Teutonic races theLand belonged to the People, and that every householder had rights over the land, but that the invasion of Feudalism alteredeverything, the lords then seized on the land and converted the freeholders into serfs and villains. His assertions were accepted as gospel, till disputed by Professor Fustel de Coulanges in 1885 and 1889, who showed, by production of the original texts, that Maurer had little or no evidence to sustain his entire fabric. All the evidence goes the other way, to show that land, directly men settled, became private property, but that the landlord allowed his tenants to take wood from forests, turf from moors, and have certain commons for pasturage, not as a right, but as a favour.

Maurer had started from a false premise. TheMarkoragernever meant common land, but the boundary of private estates.[8]In a word, as far as evidence goes, his theory was the erection of a Fools' Paradise for socialand political reformers. Originally, when men were nomads, the land belonged to nobody—but when tillage began, then at once the marking out of fields became a necessity—and with the marking came proprietorship.

In France and Germany, where there are no hedges, there the properties are divided by an imaginary line drawn between two stone pegs; and as fields get divided and subdivided by inheritance, the number of these marks or pegs increases.

In order to distinguish his boundaries, a proprietor sometimes cut the outline of his foot on a slab, or took the further pains with a hammer and chisel to scoop it out.

In course of time the significance of these foot imprints in stone was completely forgotten, and as they are found all the world over, the vulgar began to regard them with awe, and create legends to account for their existence.

When Robinson Crusoe lit upon the footprint in the wet sand on the shore, he had no rest till he discovered who had left it there. And so, when the peasantry came on these marks in stone, long after such marks hadceased to have any practical significance, they cudgelled their brains to explain them, and, of course, hit on wrong explanations.

In Scotland there are several of these. So also in India and Ceylon. Buddha's footprint is venerated in five places. In the chapel of the Ascension on the top of the Mount of Olives is shown the mark of the footsteps of the Saviour. Arculf, who visited Palestine about the year 700, says, "Upon the ground in the midst of the church may be seen the last prints in the dust made by the feet of the Lord, and the roof is open above where He ascended." Now, however, the impress is shown cut in the rock.

At Poitiers, in the church of St. Radegund, is the footprint of the Saviour, impressed by Him when He appeared to this abbess saint.

At Bolsena is a slab on which are the footprints of St. Christina.

In Rome a chapel called "Domine quo vadis" is built over a similar slab. The story goes that St. Peter, afraid of perishing in the persecution of Nero, attempted to fly from Rome, when he met Christ at the spotwhere stands the chapel, and he asked Him, "Lord, whither goest Thou." "To be crucified again in Rome," was the answer. Peter, ashamed of his cowardice, returned and died a martyr's death.

In Poland as many as eighteen of these footprints have been registered.

ALABASTER SLAB WITH FOOTPRINTS, VATICAN, ROME

ALABASTER SLAB WITH FOOTPRINTS, VATICAN, ROME

ALABASTER SLAB WITH FOOTPRINTS, VATICAN, ROME

Curiously enough, footprints outlined in the marble have been found in the catacombs of Rome closing the graves of early Christians. In the Kircherian Museum in Rome is one of these. It is a square marble slab with two pairs of footprints incised upon it, pointed in opposite directions, as if occasioned by a person going and returning, or by two persons passing each other. Another stone from the catacombs bears the name ofJanuaria, and has on it the print of a pair of feet in sandals carved on it.

The circumstance that all sorts of legendary matter attaches to these footprints, shows that their real significance has been lost. Yet they must have had a meaning and a purpose, and that all over the world. When the purpose for which executed no longer existed, or it was no longer necessary to express this purpose, then the purport of these marks was left to wild conjecture.

We cannot be very far wrong in saying that primarily these footprints were cut as boundary marks, or as marks indicating possession. When a settler took land and enclosed it, then he cut his mark at the corners of his enclosure; and the simplest and most natural mark was the impression of his foot.

Tin miners in old times were required annually to cut their marks in the turf of their claims. If they failed to do this, they forfeited their claims. Indeed, the very termpossessionis derived from the expressionpedes posui—"I have set my feet down." Among the Roman lawyers the maxim held that what thefoot struck that could be claimed as private property. The German word marke, marca, meant a limit, a boundary. Now we use the word mark as a sign, or token of possession. We have tradesmen's marks. And, as already said, the simplest of all marks was the footprint. If any dispute arose, the owner put his foot down on the tracing, and showed thereby a right of ownership.

We see in the footprints on tombslabs the same idea—of claiming proprietorship in a grave. The two pairs are for the husband and wife.

It has been argued that where horse hoofs have been cut in a slab, that indicates the wider limits of a domain, or a community-district, which was ridden round, but that the footprints of men thus graven betokened private lands belonging to individuals, or rather, to heads of households.

At Totnes, in Devon, in the High Street, is a slab of stone, on which is the now much worn impress of a foot. This from time immemorial has been said to have been the print of the foot of Brutus when he landed inBritain, and took possession of our Isle for himself and his descendants. As he did so he declared:

"Here I stand, and here I rest,And this place shall be called Totnes!"

But now let us turn from boundaries indicated by marks to those artificially erected enclosing the entire claim.

Such are our hedges, dykes, and walls.

The hedge in many parts of England and in Scotland is a small privet or thorn division between fields, or dividing a field from the road. To a Northerner, to speak of a bank six or ten feet high with trees on the top as a hedge, is held to be a misappropriation of terms. A hedge, according to him, is only a line of quickset eighteen inches or two feet high; a bank of earth dividing fields is a dyke. But then in Ireland a dyke is both a bank and a ditch. In fact,hedgeis derived from the same source as the Latinager, and the Norseakr, and our acre; and signifies earth cast up, either by the plough or the spade, either in tilling or in banking. This is the meaning the Sanskritakarahas; and in Latin,agerhas its double meaning, as a bank and as a field. So I contend that we in the South-West of England are quite right in using for the banks that enclose our fields the term hedge.

It is a great hardship to the poor cattle on the Continent to be stall-fed, and how poor is the meat from such beasts every Englishman knows who has travelled. If we glory in the Roast Beef of Old England, it is because our cattle are able to roam about the pastures, and are healthy and vigorous, and their flesh sound and juicy accordingly. And this is due to our hedges.

In certain parts of the Alpine chains, there are portions delivered over to the chamois as their own, in which no gun may be fired, where the beautiful creatures may be sure of rest and security, in which they may nurture their young, and to which, when hard pressed, they may flee, as to Cities of Refuge. In Tyrol such an asylum is called a Gämsenfreiheit.

Of late years it has become necessary for law in Switzerland to extend its protection to the Edelweiss. This peculiar and beautiful flower is much in request, both by lovers whopresent it to their sweethearts, and also for the formation of little mementoes for travellers.

The Edelweiss does not require an altitude so great that it is near the snow, nor a precipitous rock to crown; the poor plant has been driven higher and ever higher, and to inaccessible points as the only places where it can live unmolested. At Rosenheim, on the Bavarian plateau, at the roots of the mountains are fields of Edelweiss, where the plant is cultivated to satisfy the insatiable visitor who insists on going home from his holiday with a tuft in his hat, and on sending dried specimens to all his friends.

Well! what must England have been before it was cultivated in nearly every part? Verily, it must have been a land of flowers. Now the flowers are banished—that is to say, the vast majority of kinds, by the plough and harrow. Only those are left which can withstand both and such as take refuge in our hedges. The hedgerow is, in fact, to our English flowers, what the Gämsenfreiheit is to the Tyrolean chamois—their city of refuge, their asylum from utter eradication.

How infinitely dreary is the landscape in France without hedges. The eye ranges over a boundless plain of rolling land, that is divided into strips of various colours like a plaid, and no trees are visible except lines of trimmed poplars, or a scrubby wood kept for fuel. The eye ranges over belts of cabbage and colza, potatoes, beetroot, barley and lentils, wheat and sanfoin. There is not a single hedge anywhere—no harbour for such plants as have not the stubbornness to live on in spite of plough, and pick, and spade, and hoe. Flowers there are—for flowers are obstinate and persist in coming—grape hyacinths, star of Bethlehem, lungwort, scarlet anemones, tulips, blue-bottles, cornflowers, salvia, and so on—because they dive out of reach of the spade and share, or because they do not object to having their tubers cut up—they rather like it. They multiply from every portion. But this is not the case with all flowers. Some have too refined a nature, are too frail, modest, reserved, to endure rough treatment. They ask only to be let alone. They will die if incessantly worried—and forsuch there is no other place of refuge available except the hedgerow.

I was the other day on the battlefield of Poitiers. The chroniclers tell of the banks, the hedges and vineyard walls that stood in 1356, and afforded shelter for the English archers. Not one remains. Every hedge has been levelled, every mound spread, and with them have gone all those flowers that once made the battlefield like a garden.

Our old English hedges are the Poor Man's conservatory, are the playground of his children. How starred they are in spring with primroses! How they flush with red robin! How they mantle with bluebell! How they wave with foxglove! Talking of the latter, I was driving one day in Cornwall, when my coachman pointed to a range of foxgloves, and said: "Look there, sir! They are just like girls!"

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"Did you never notice," said he, "that the foxglove always turns its flowers towards the road—it never looks into the hedge?"

"Naturally, no flower exists that does not look to the light."

"'Tain't that," said the driver. "'Tis they know they've got pretty faces, and wants to show them."

Then, again, the ferns and the mosses! What a wealth of beauty in them! What a variety! Not to be discovered in the field; only in their own quarter, reserved for them—the hedgerow.

Our hedges are probably as ancient as our civilization. We know of a few only that have been erected within the memory of man; the majority have existed from the period when our land was first put into cultivation. And it is remarkable that in the north of Germany, in Westphalia, the Saxon region whence came our Teutonic ancestors, there the hedge with which we are familiar in England is to be met with as well, as an institution of the country, and a feature of the landscape.

Look at the size of some hedges—their width at the base, the height to which they rise, the traces they bear of venerable antiquity! This is not perhaps the case in all parts of England, but it is so in the west.

An agent of an earl, with large estates, told me that when first he took the agency five-and-twenty years ago, he waged war on the hedges, he had them swept away and replaced by low divisions with quickset over which any child might jump. But after long experience he had learned that our ancestors were not such fools as we suppose, in this matter. He learned that not only were the high hedges a protection to the cattle from wind and rain, but that they furnished a very necessary store of dry food for them at a time when their pastures are sodden. See bullocks in wet weather, how they scramble up the hedges, how they ravenously devour the dry grass in them. That is because the hedges supply them with something that they cannot get elsewhere.

In the West of England a hedge top is frequently finished off with slates that project, and this is to prevent rabbits, even sheep, from overleaping them. In Cornwall, on the bank top is a footpath beside the lane, a large deep cleft in the land, that converts itself into a torrent in wet weather. It is a commonsight to see women, and children on their way to school, pencilled against the sky walking on the hedge tops. So when certain hedges have thus been converted into footways, then a rail is often put across them to prevent horsemen from using them in like manner.

Anent sheep jumping hedges, I may venture here to tell a tale of a certain old rogue who went by the name of Tup-Harry. This is how he got his nickname. Harry was a small farmer, and he had a neighbour with better means, and a better farm than his own. One very dry season Harry had come to the end of his grass for a flock of sheep he possessed. His neighbour had, however, got a fine field of mangel-wurzel. Harry looked over the hedge—a hedge furnished with outstanding slates—and greatly longed for these mangels for his sheep; but he did not relish running the risk of being caught taking them. So he went in the evening into his field that was bare of grass, put his head against the hedge, bent his back, and called "Tup! Tup! Tup!" whereupon up ran his old ram, jumped on his back, wenton to the hedge, and over into the mangel field, and all the flock in Indian file scampered after him over the back of Harry. Very early in the morning the rogue went into the devastated mangel field, put his head against the hedge, bent his back, called "Tup! Tup! Tup!" and up came the ram, ran over his back on to the hedge, and returned to the barren quarter again, followed in Indian file by all the flock. That was done several times, and no signs appeared anywhere of the hedge being broken through, or of a padlocked gate having been opened. At last one night the farmer who was robbed hid himself, and saw the whole proceeding. Tup-Harry did not try that trick on again.

CHAPTER XIV.For how far down below the surface the rights of the lord of the manor extend, has not I believe as yet been determined, so we may presume that it goes down as far as man can dig and sink his shafts. In a good number of counties in England there is nothing underground worth bringing up, and consequently such rights are not of much value. It is quite otherwise where there is mineral wealth, and it is from the coal or the copper or the tin that lies deep underground that the wealth of some of our landed proprietors comes. But there is thisconsolation for such as have nothing of great importance below the surface, that those who are deriving their large incomes from the beds or veins deep underground are exhausting their patrimony; coal and metal will not recover themselves as the surface soil will.It has been my lot to live where the underground industry was great, in Yorkshire where were coal-mines, and on the borders of Cornwall where were once great copper and tin mines; also in my youth manganese was extracted out of the rock on my paternal inheritance. I have had a good deal to do with those who have worked underground, and so may be allowed here to give some reminiscences connected with mining and quarrying.Alack-a-day! As the old order changeth, one of the most fresh and delightful characters Old England has produced is disappearing. Cornish mining is almost at its end. Every week away from the peninsula goes a shipload of miners for whom their occupation is gone, and with them the old cap'n.Well, what is our loss is others' gain! andhe goes to another part of the round world to be there as a waft of fresh air, a racy and delightful companion, a typical Cornish Celt, every inch a man, strong in body, and as strong in opinions, a little rough at times, but with a tenderness of heart like that of a woman.If we go along the great backbone of Cornwall, we find it a mass of refuse heaps—every here and there is a bristling chimney, an old engine-house, but all desolate; the chimney gives forth no smoke, the engine is silent. The story is everywhere the same—the mine has failed. Is the lode worked out? Oh dear no! There is still plenty of tin—but foreign competition has struck the death-blow to Cornish mining, and the Cornish miner, if he will not starve, must seek his future elsewhere.Of course there are captains and captains; there is the clever, wheedling captain, who starts mines never intended to pay, of which the only metal to be found is in the pockets of the dupes who are persuaded to invest in them. I knew one such. He found a mine, and was very anxious to get up a company,so he "salted" it cleverly enough, by dynamiting tin into the rock. But the mining engineer sent down to see this mine and report on it to the investors was too shrewd for him. The projected mine was not in Cornwall, but in Devon. "Halloa!" said he, "how comes this tin here? It is Cornish metal."So that mine never got on all fours.In a great number of cases, in the large majority, in fact, the captain is himself the dupe, and dupe of his own ambition. Mining is a speculation; it is a bit of gambling. No one can see an inch into solid rock, and no one can say for certain that indications that promise may not prove deceptive. The captain sees the indications, the dupes do all the rest. If the lode proves a failure, then those who have lost in it come down on the captain and condemn him as a rascal.But there are cases where concealment or falsification of the truth is actually practised. Caradon Hill, near Liskeard, according to the saying, is vastly rich in ore:"Caradon Hill well wroughtIs worth London Town dear bought."It has been mined from time immemorial, but is now left at rest, and has been deserted for some years. The tale is told—we will not vouch for its accuracy—that in one of the principal mines on Caradon the miners came on an immense "bunch" of copper, and at once, by the captain's orders, covered it up and carried on their work where it was sure to be unproductive. Down, ever more downwards went the shares, as the mine turned out less and less copper, and just as all concerned in the bit of roguery were about to buy up the shares at an absurd price, in burst the water and swamped the mine. To clear it of water would require powerful engines, take time, and prove costly. But as shares had fallen so low no capitalists could be found to invest, and there lies this vast treasure of copper unlifted, deep under water. "I tell the tale as 'twas told to me." Is it true? I cannot say—at all events it gives a peep into the methods by which the rise and fall of shares can be managed, and it shows how completely investors are at the mercy of the mining captains. But that there arerogues among the captains does not prove that roguery is prevalent, or that many are tainted with it. On the contrary, as a body they are thoroughly honest, but speculative and sanguine.There is a certain captain who has great faith in the divining-rod. One day he was bragging about what he had done therewith, when an old miner standing near remarked:"How about them eighteen mines, cap'n, you've been on as have turned out flukes?""I don't say that the rod tellshow muchmetal there is, but that it tells where metal lies that is sure sartain. Now look here, you unbelieving Thomas, I'll tell you what happened to me. There was a pas'le o' fools wouldn't believe nothing about the divining-rod, and they said they'd give me a trial wi' my hazel rod; so I took it, and I went afore 'em over the ground, and at last the rod kicked, just like my old woman when her's a bit contrary. Well, said I, you dig there! and dig they did.""And did you come on a lode, cap'n?""I'll tell you what we came on—a farmer'sold 'oss as had been buried 'cos her died o' strangles. Well, I promise you, they laughed and jeered and made terrible fools o' themselves, and said I was done. I done! said I—not I; the divining-rod is right enough. Look, they buried the old 'oss wi' her four shoes on. The rod told the truth—but mark you, her didn't say how much metal was underground."The endurance and coolness of the miner are remarkable. But an instance or two will show this better than by dilating on the fact.At a certain mine, called Drakewalls, the shaft crumbled in. It was sunk through a sandy or rubbly matter that had no cohesion. When it ran in there were below two miners.The entombment at Drakewalls took place on Tuesday, February 5th, 1889, and the two miners shut in by the run of ground were John Rule, aged thirty-five, and William Bant, aged twenty-one, the former being somewhat deaf. They had pasties to eat, and burnt their candles so long as they could keep them alight. They suffered most from cold and damp and want of water, their water keg being buried in the rush of sand. At onetime, while they were discussing the chances of rescue, Rule said to Bant, "I believe they will come through. You never did any crime bad enough to be kept here"; to which Bant replied "No"; and Rule added, reflectively, "This would be a right place for Jack the Ripper. Us two cu'd settle'n—and ate'n too, if hard put to't." They were rescued on the night of Saturday, February 9th. The pitman, Thomas Chapman, had worked night and day without cessation from February 5th to the night of February 9th, and, moreover, was lowered eighty feet to where they were confined. None of the other men would undertake to descend, fearing lest the entombed men might have lost their reason in their long confinement. One of the most curious facts connected with the entombment was that the two men had not lost account of time, but knew almost exactly what day and hour it was. In reply to a question, they said, "It's Saturday midnight," and, as a matter of fact, it was about one o'clock on the Sunday morning.Bant was found in a somewhat dazed condition. Not so Rule, who walked out withgreat composure, and the remark he made was, "Any fellow han' me a light and a bit o' baccy for my pipe?" and on reaching the grass he said, "I wonder if my old woman have got summot cookin' for me."He was much surprised that all wished to shake him by the hand. "Why," said he, "what is all this about? I ain't done nothin' but sit in darkness."Chapman received the Victoria medal for his devotion. He had to go up to town for it, and was presented with it by the Princess of Wales.Very often the captains are sober, and teetotalers. But this is not always the case, unhappily; and some are temperance advocates on the platform, but something else in the public-house. There was an old chap of this description who was known far and wide for his ardent temperance harangues, and for the astounding instances he was able to produce of the judgments that followed on occasional indulgence. A very good friend one day went with him to prospect a promising new district. They entered to refresh at the little tavern,situated some twelve hundred feet above the sea, perhaps the highest planted public-house in England. The friend was amused to see Captain Jonas take the whisky bottle and half fill his glass, holding his hand round the tumbler to hide how much he had helped himself to."Halloa, cap'n!" exclaimed the friend, "I thought you took naught but water.""Sir," answered Jonas with great composure, "us must live up to our elevation. I does it on principle."Some of the Cornish mining captains have had experiences out of England as common miners. There is one I know who worked in the Australian goldfields many years ago, and he loves to yarn about those days."We were a queer lot," said he to me one day; "several of us—and my mate was one—(not I, you understand)—were old convicts. But it was as much as my life was worth to let 'em know that I was aware of it. There were various ways in which a score against a man might be wiped out. I'll tell you what happened once. There was a chap called Rogers—he came from Redruth way—andhe let his tongue run too free one day, and said as how he knew something of the back history of a few of our mates. Well, I was sure evil would come of it, and evil did. Things was rough and ready in those days, and we'd tin buckets for carrying up the gold, and sand, and so on. Well, one day when Rogers was about to come up the shaft, by the merest chance, one of them buckets was tipped over, and fell down. I went after him down the shaft, and that there bucket had cut off half his head, and cut near through his shoulder. You wouldn't ha' thought it would have done it, but it did. Bless you, I've seen a tumblerful of water knock a man down if the water didn't 'break,' as they call it, before reaching the bottom of a deep shaft; it comes down in one lump like lead."After a while he went on—"I had a near squeak once, the nearest I ever had. When we were going to blast below, all men were sent up except the one who was to light the fuse. Well, one day there was only myself to do it. I set fire to the fuse, and away I went, hauled up. But somehow it didn't gooff. I thought that the water had got in, so before I reached the top and had got out, I signalled to be lowered again. I had just reached the bottom when the explosion took place. The rocks and stones went up past me in a rush, and down they came again. How it happened that I escaped is more than I can tell you; but God willed it; that was enough for me. I was back with my shoulder to the rock, and the stones came down in a rain, but not one any bigger than a cherry stone hit me. But I can tell you the men above were frightened. They couldn't believe their ears when I shouted; they couldn't believe their eyes when they saw me come up without a scratch. Folks say the age o' miracles is past. I'll never say that; it was a miracle I weren't killed, and no mistake.""Well, captain," said I, "and did you make a fortune out at the Australian goldfields?"He looked at me with a twinkle in his eye."I went out with half-a-crown in my pocket. When I came back I'd got just one ha'penny.""But all the gold you found?""That had a curious way of leaving me, and getting into the possession of my mate—him who'd been a convict. He grew rich, he did. I didn't. Well, I came back with experience.""And now, cap'n, what are you going to do?""There's nothing going on in the old country. I'm off somewhere over the seas again. Can't help it. I love dear old England, and blessed old Cornwall above all, but if they won't or can't support me and my family I must go elsewhere."Alas! this is too true. The mines are nearly all shut down. In one parish alone, that of Calstock, there were twenty-two in active operation a few years ago, now not one.The miners are scattered over the world. They are gone to South Africa, to Brazil, to the Straits Settlements.But where are no mines, there are quarries. Oh! the delightful hours spent in boyhood in old quarries! In picking blackberries where the brambles grow rank over the heaps ofrubble and ripen their delicious fruit against the crumbled stone that radiates the warmth of the sun! In groping after fossils in the chalk quarries of the South Downs, delighted in being able to extract a fossil sponge or a glistening shark's tooth!Nothing so unsightly as a new quarry, a wound in the face of nature, yet nothing more picturesque than one which is old, all the scars healed over by nature.And then, again, what haunts old quarries are for rabbits—and therefore also places in which boys delight to spend hours ferreting Bunny.In connexion with a quarry I will venture to tell a story—curious, because showing a form of superstition not extinct. I tell the tale my own way, but it is fundamentally true—that is to say, it is quite true that the quarryman told it; and believed himself to have been victimized in the way I relate, though I cannot vouch for the exact words he employed.I was examining for geological purposes a quarry in Cornwall that had been opened in the side of a hill for the extraction of stone,wherewith to metal the roads. Whilst studying the strata, I observed a sort of nick in the uppermost layer of rock, under the earth which rose above the surface of the rock some three feet six inches or four feet.The nick was about two feet deep and the same breadth, and the sides were cut perpendicularly. It was clearly artificial, and at once struck me as being a section of a grave. There was no churchyard interfered with, so that I supposed the grave was prehistoric, and at once exclaimed to the quarryman engaged in the excavation that this was a grave. He put down his pick, and answered:"Yes, sir, it is a grave what you see here, and what is more I can tell you whose grave it is, or was. And a coorious sarcumstance is connected with that there grave, and if you don't mind sitting down on that piece o' rock for five minutes, I'll tell you all about it."Without paying much heed to the statement that the man made, that he knew whose last resting-place it was, I inquired whether any flint or bronze weapons had been found there."No, sir," said the quarryman, "nothing ofthe sort as far as I know; it was the head of the grave we cut through, and when we sent the pick into it, the gentleman's head came down into the quarry.""Gentleman's head? What gentleman's head?""Well, sir, I did not know at the time. It gave me a lot of trouble did that head, or rather the teeth from it. If you'll be so good as to sit down on that stone, I'll tell you all about it, and I reckon it will be worth your trouble. It's a coorious story, as coorious a story as you have ever heard, I take it.""I will listen, certainly. But excuse me one moment. I should like to crawl up the side of the quarry, and examine the grave.""It's my lunch time, and I've nothing to do but to eat and talk for half-an-hour," said the quarry man, "so I'll tell you all the whole story, when you've been up and come down again. There be bones there. You'll find his neck; we cut off the head of the grave. But, whatever you do, leave the bones alone. Don't carry any away with you in your pocket, or you'll be just in a pretty way."I made the exploration I required. I found that a grave had been cut in the rock. Clearly, when the interment took place, those who made the grave did not consider that there was a sufficient depth of earth, and they had accordingly cut out a hole in the rock, below the soil, to accommodate the dead man. Bones were stillin situ. I could find no trace of coffin, but in all likelihood, if there had been one there, it had rotted away, and the gravelly soil from above had fallen in on all sides, and had taken the place of the wood as it decomposed. And if there had been a mound above the dead man, the sinking in after decomposition had caused it to disappear. There were bushes of heather above the grave, but nothing to indicate that a tomb had been in the place, as far as could be judged from above. Its presence would not have been guessed had it not been revealed by the operations of the quarrymen.Having completed my observations, I returned to the bottom, and seated myself on the stone indicated by the workman. He occupied the top of another, and was engagedon a pie—an appalling composition of heavy pastry, potato, and bacon, grey in colour as a Jerusalem artichoke, and close in texture and heavy as a cannon ball. He cut large junks out of this terrible specimen of domestic cookery, and thrust them between knife and thumb into his mouth. As he opened this receptacle I observed that the gums were ill-provided with teeth, so that mastication must be imperfect. It is really extraordinary how the wives of working-men exhibit their ingenuity in proving "how not to do it." It is said that the way to a man's heart is through his stomach. If that be the case, it predicates either extraordinary personal fascination on the part of the wives, or really miraculous virtue on the part of the husbands, that any domestic attachment should subsist in the cottages of the agricultural labourer and artisan. Or is it that the wives are resolved to put the tenderness, the devotion of their men to the severest possible test, as cannon are run over a new suspension-bridge?"You see, sir," said the quarryman, "when we cut that new slice we went slap throughthe head of the grave, and never knowed there was a grave there, till down came the head, like a snowball. It was my partner, James Downe, as was up there wi' his pick. Me was sitting here, and I'd just opened my bag for my dinner, when I heard James a-hollerin' to me to look out. I did look up, and seed that there skull come jumping down the side, and before I could undo my legs—I'd knotted them for my lunch, and had the bag open on my lap—down came the skull, and with one skip it flopped right among my victuals, and there it sat in my lap, looking up in my face, as innocent as a babe, so it seemed to me."Well, sir, I daresay you know, if you know anything—and you seem to be a learned gentleman—that there ain't a better preservative against toothache than to carry about a dead man's tooth in your pocket. Dead men's teeth don't lie about promiscuous as empty snail shells, and I'd often wished to have one. I suffer terrible from my teeth. I've been kept roving with pain night after night, and one ain't up to work when one has been kept roving all night, either with teeth orbabies. Me and the church sexton ain't the best of friends. You see, I'm a Bible Christian and spiritual, and that there sexton is of the earth, earthy. I couldn't ask a favour of him, to accommodate me with a tooth if he haps to turn one up when digging a new grave. It is true we have got a cemetery of our own to the chapel, but it's new, and nothing is turned up there but earthworms. As this was the case I was uncommon joyful when that head came bouncing into my lap. I found the teeth weren't particular tight in, and with my knife I easily got a tooth or two out; I thought I'd be square all round, so I got out a back tooth—they call 'em molars up to the Board School—and an eye tooth and a front one. Then I thought I was pretty well set up and protected against toothache. I got my wife to sew 'em up in a bit o'silk and hung it round my neck. I may say this—from that day so long as I wore the dead man's teeth I never had a touch of toothache.""And how long did you wear them?""Three days, sir.""Not more? Why did you not retain them?""I'll tell you why, if you'll listen to me.""Certainly. But what have you done with the skull?""Chucked it away. It weren't no good to nobody—least of all to the owner. And for me—I'd got out of it all I wanted.""You have not the teeth now?""No. I kept them for three days and then chucked them away.""Have you had toothache since?""Terrible; but I had what was wusser when I had the teeth.""Well, go on and tell me what the wusser was.""So I will, if you'll listen to me. Well, sir, I had them teeth done up in a bit of silk, and hung round my throat. The first night I went to bed, that was Saturday, I had the little bag round my neck. I hadn't laid my head on the pillow, before—but, I must tell you, I'm a Bible Christian, and a serious man. I'm a local, I am, and I preach in our chapel, and am generally reckoned a rousin' sort of a preacher. For, sir, I knows how to work 'em up. Well, when you understand that,you will comprehend how astonished I was when I laid my head on the pillow, to find I wasn't no more what I ought to ha' been. In the first place, I hadn't gone to bed in my clothes, and no sooner was my head on my pillow than I was in a red coat and breeches and gaiters; and what is more, in the second place, I'd laid me down to rest, and I found myself astride on a saddle, on horseback, tearin' over the country, jumpin' hedges, tally-hoin'—me, as never rode a hoss in my life, and never tally-hoed, and wouldn't do it to save my soul. I knowed all the while I was doing wrong. I knowed I'd got to preach in our chapel next evening, the Sabbath Day—and here was I in a red coat, and galloping after the hounds, and tearin' after a fox, and swearing orful! I couldn't help myself. I believe my face was as pink as my coat. I tried to compose my mouth to say Hallelujah, but I couldn't do it—I rapped out a—but, sir, I dussn't even whisper what I then swore at the top o' my voice; and I had to preach at a revival within some few hours. It was terrible—terrible!"I saw the quarryman's face bathed in perspiration. The thought of what he had gone through affected him, and his hand shook as he heaved a lump of pasty to his quivering lips."I tried to think I was in the pulpit; you must understand, sir, if at a right moment you bang the cushion and kick the panels—it'll bring down sinners like over-ripe greengages. But it wor no good; I was whacking into my cob, and kicking with spurs into her flanks, and away she went over a five-barred gate—it was terrible—terrible, to a shining light, one o' the Elect People, sir,—such as be I."The man heaved a sigh and wiped his brow and cheeks, and rose with his pudding-bag."All the Sabbath day after that," continued the quarryman, "I wasn't myself. It lay on my conscience that I'd done wrong; and when I preached in the evening there was no unction in me, no more, sir, than you could have greased the fly-wheel of your watch with; and usually there's quite a pomatum-pot full. I didn't feel happy, and it was with a heavyheart and a troubled head that I went to bed on the Sabbath night." He heaved another sigh, and folded up his lunch-bag."Will you believe it, sir? No sooner had I closed my eyes than I was in a public-house. I—I—who've been a Band of Hope ever since I was a baby. I've heard say I never took to the bottle even in earliest infancy, though it was but a bottle of milk, so ingrained in me be temperance principles. I've heard mother say she put a bit of sopped bread into a rag, and let me have that when a baby—so stubborn was I, and so furious did I kick out with my little legs when shown the bottle. It was the name, I reckon, set me against it. However, sir, there I was, just out of the pulpit at Bethesda, and in the 'Fox and Hounds' drinking. I tried to call out for Gingerade, but the words got altered in my throat to Whisky Toddy. And what was more, I was singing—roaring out at the top of my voice—"'Come, my lads, let us be jolly,Drive away dull melancholy;For to grieve it is a follyWhen we meet together!'"The quarryman covered his eyes with his hands—he was ashamed to look up."If that wasn't bad enough, the words that followed were worse—and I a teetotaler down to the soles of my feet."'Here's the bottle, as it passesDo not fail to fill your glasses;Water drinkers are dull assesWhen they're met together."'Milk is meet for infancy,Ladies like to sip Bohea;Not such stuff for you and meWhen we're met together.'"All the while I sang it I knew I was saying good-bye to my consistency, I was going against my dearest convictions. But I couldn't help myself, it was as though an evil spirit possessed me. I was myself and yet not myself. It was terrible—terrible—terrible!"The quarryman swung his pasty bag and smote his breast with it."That warn't all," he continued, and lowered his tone. "There was an uncommon pretty barmaid with red rosy cheeks and curlingblack hair; and somehow I got my arm round her waist and was kissing her. Well, I don't so much mind about that, for kissing is scriptural, and Paul calls them kisses of peace. But these were not kisses of peace by any means—and there was the mischief, for I knowed my wife was looking on, and, sir, I knowed the consequences would be orful—orful—simply orful."The quarryman's head sank on his knees, he clasped his hands over the back of his head, and groaned for full five minutes. Presently he looked up, pulled himself together, and continued his narrative."The worst of all is behind. I was very busy on Monday, as I was on Mr. Conybeare's committee. We were in for the election, and I'm tremendous strong as a Liberal, and for Home Rule, and I reckon I can influence a good many votes in my district of Cornwall. Well, sir, I'd been about canvassing for Mr. Conybeare very hard, yet all the while I had a sort of deadly fear at my heart that what I'd been doing, both hunting and drinking, and swearing and singing, and kissing thebarmaid, would come out in public, or would be thrown in my teeth by the Consarvatives, and might damage the good cause. But no one said nothing about it on Monday, and towards evening my mind was more at ease."I was very tired when I went to bed, for I had been working, as I said, very hard indeed, and persuading of obstinate politicians is worse than breaking stones for the road, and far worse than converting of obstinate sinners. No sooner had I laid my head on the pillow than—will you believe it, sir?—I was in the full swing of the election. I didn't know it was coming on so fast. I thought it would be three weeks, but not a bit of it. They'd set up a polling place in the Board School, and there was I swaggering up to register my vote. There were placards—Unionist on one side, but I wouldn't look at them; on the other were the Radical posters—from Mr. Conybeare—and I knowed my own mind. If any man in England be true and loyal to the G.O.M. that's me. Well, sir, in I walked and gave my name. I knowed mynumber, and went as confident as possible into the little box of unplaned deal boards, and with my paper in one hand took the pencil in the other, wetted the pencil with my tongue to make sure it marked black enough, and then set down my cross. Will you believe it?—that sperit o' pervarsity and devilry had come over me once more, and I'd gone and voted Consarvative."The quarryman staggered back, and I had just time to spring to his aid. He had fainted. I held him in my arms till he came round. I threw water over his face, and by degrees he was himself again."Orful! orful! wasn't it?" said he. "Well, sir, after that I would have nothing more to do with them teeth. They did it. I chucked 'em away; toothache would be better all night long, than the trials I had to undergo when I had them dead man's teeth about me.""But have you not dreamed since?" I asked, looking at the pasty which, when he fainted, I had taken in my hand."Yes, sir, often, very often; but then my dreams since have always been Nonconformist,Temperance, and Radical dreams—and them's wholesome.""You said something about knowing who it was whose grave you had disturbed?""Well, so I believe I do. I did not know at the time, but afterwards, when I began to tell my story; then there was a talk about it and a raking and a grubbing among old folks' memories, and there was an old woman who said she could throw some light on the subject. Her tale was that about a hundred years ago, or more perhaps, she could not be sure, there lived at the Old Hall one Squire Trewenna. The Hall has been pulled down because of the mines, and the Trewennas are all gone. Squire Trewenna was a terrible man for hunting and drinking, and was, moreover, a regular rory tory Conservative. He was a fast chap, and no good to nobody but to dogs and horses, and before he died he begged that he might be buried on the brink of the moor where he'd ridden so often and enjoyed himself so much, and had killed a tremendous big fox in the last hunt he ever went out in before gout got to his stomick. And he saidhe wanted no headstone over him, that fox and hounds and horses might go over his grave. Well, folks forgot, as there was no headstone, where he lay, exact, and old Betty Tregellas says she believes what we cut into was Squire Trewenna's grave. I think so too, for how else was it that when I had those teeth about me I was so possessed wi' a spirit of unrighteousness and drinking and Consarvatism? I reckon you've had a Board School education and been to the University, and are a larned man. Tell me, now, am I not right?"W. Brendon & son, Printers, Plymouth.

For how far down below the surface the rights of the lord of the manor extend, has not I believe as yet been determined, so we may presume that it goes down as far as man can dig and sink his shafts. In a good number of counties in England there is nothing underground worth bringing up, and consequently such rights are not of much value. It is quite otherwise where there is mineral wealth, and it is from the coal or the copper or the tin that lies deep underground that the wealth of some of our landed proprietors comes. But there is thisconsolation for such as have nothing of great importance below the surface, that those who are deriving their large incomes from the beds or veins deep underground are exhausting their patrimony; coal and metal will not recover themselves as the surface soil will.

It has been my lot to live where the underground industry was great, in Yorkshire where were coal-mines, and on the borders of Cornwall where were once great copper and tin mines; also in my youth manganese was extracted out of the rock on my paternal inheritance. I have had a good deal to do with those who have worked underground, and so may be allowed here to give some reminiscences connected with mining and quarrying.

Alack-a-day! As the old order changeth, one of the most fresh and delightful characters Old England has produced is disappearing. Cornish mining is almost at its end. Every week away from the peninsula goes a shipload of miners for whom their occupation is gone, and with them the old cap'n.

Well, what is our loss is others' gain! andhe goes to another part of the round world to be there as a waft of fresh air, a racy and delightful companion, a typical Cornish Celt, every inch a man, strong in body, and as strong in opinions, a little rough at times, but with a tenderness of heart like that of a woman.

If we go along the great backbone of Cornwall, we find it a mass of refuse heaps—every here and there is a bristling chimney, an old engine-house, but all desolate; the chimney gives forth no smoke, the engine is silent. The story is everywhere the same—the mine has failed. Is the lode worked out? Oh dear no! There is still plenty of tin—but foreign competition has struck the death-blow to Cornish mining, and the Cornish miner, if he will not starve, must seek his future elsewhere.

Of course there are captains and captains; there is the clever, wheedling captain, who starts mines never intended to pay, of which the only metal to be found is in the pockets of the dupes who are persuaded to invest in them. I knew one such. He found a mine, and was very anxious to get up a company,so he "salted" it cleverly enough, by dynamiting tin into the rock. But the mining engineer sent down to see this mine and report on it to the investors was too shrewd for him. The projected mine was not in Cornwall, but in Devon. "Halloa!" said he, "how comes this tin here? It is Cornish metal."

So that mine never got on all fours.

In a great number of cases, in the large majority, in fact, the captain is himself the dupe, and dupe of his own ambition. Mining is a speculation; it is a bit of gambling. No one can see an inch into solid rock, and no one can say for certain that indications that promise may not prove deceptive. The captain sees the indications, the dupes do all the rest. If the lode proves a failure, then those who have lost in it come down on the captain and condemn him as a rascal.

But there are cases where concealment or falsification of the truth is actually practised. Caradon Hill, near Liskeard, according to the saying, is vastly rich in ore:

"Caradon Hill well wroughtIs worth London Town dear bought."

It has been mined from time immemorial, but is now left at rest, and has been deserted for some years. The tale is told—we will not vouch for its accuracy—that in one of the principal mines on Caradon the miners came on an immense "bunch" of copper, and at once, by the captain's orders, covered it up and carried on their work where it was sure to be unproductive. Down, ever more downwards went the shares, as the mine turned out less and less copper, and just as all concerned in the bit of roguery were about to buy up the shares at an absurd price, in burst the water and swamped the mine. To clear it of water would require powerful engines, take time, and prove costly. But as shares had fallen so low no capitalists could be found to invest, and there lies this vast treasure of copper unlifted, deep under water. "I tell the tale as 'twas told to me." Is it true? I cannot say—at all events it gives a peep into the methods by which the rise and fall of shares can be managed, and it shows how completely investors are at the mercy of the mining captains. But that there arerogues among the captains does not prove that roguery is prevalent, or that many are tainted with it. On the contrary, as a body they are thoroughly honest, but speculative and sanguine.

There is a certain captain who has great faith in the divining-rod. One day he was bragging about what he had done therewith, when an old miner standing near remarked:

"How about them eighteen mines, cap'n, you've been on as have turned out flukes?"

"I don't say that the rod tellshow muchmetal there is, but that it tells where metal lies that is sure sartain. Now look here, you unbelieving Thomas, I'll tell you what happened to me. There was a pas'le o' fools wouldn't believe nothing about the divining-rod, and they said they'd give me a trial wi' my hazel rod; so I took it, and I went afore 'em over the ground, and at last the rod kicked, just like my old woman when her's a bit contrary. Well, said I, you dig there! and dig they did."

"And did you come on a lode, cap'n?"

"I'll tell you what we came on—a farmer'sold 'oss as had been buried 'cos her died o' strangles. Well, I promise you, they laughed and jeered and made terrible fools o' themselves, and said I was done. I done! said I—not I; the divining-rod is right enough. Look, they buried the old 'oss wi' her four shoes on. The rod told the truth—but mark you, her didn't say how much metal was underground."

The endurance and coolness of the miner are remarkable. But an instance or two will show this better than by dilating on the fact.

At a certain mine, called Drakewalls, the shaft crumbled in. It was sunk through a sandy or rubbly matter that had no cohesion. When it ran in there were below two miners.

The entombment at Drakewalls took place on Tuesday, February 5th, 1889, and the two miners shut in by the run of ground were John Rule, aged thirty-five, and William Bant, aged twenty-one, the former being somewhat deaf. They had pasties to eat, and burnt their candles so long as they could keep them alight. They suffered most from cold and damp and want of water, their water keg being buried in the rush of sand. At onetime, while they were discussing the chances of rescue, Rule said to Bant, "I believe they will come through. You never did any crime bad enough to be kept here"; to which Bant replied "No"; and Rule added, reflectively, "This would be a right place for Jack the Ripper. Us two cu'd settle'n—and ate'n too, if hard put to't." They were rescued on the night of Saturday, February 9th. The pitman, Thomas Chapman, had worked night and day without cessation from February 5th to the night of February 9th, and, moreover, was lowered eighty feet to where they were confined. None of the other men would undertake to descend, fearing lest the entombed men might have lost their reason in their long confinement. One of the most curious facts connected with the entombment was that the two men had not lost account of time, but knew almost exactly what day and hour it was. In reply to a question, they said, "It's Saturday midnight," and, as a matter of fact, it was about one o'clock on the Sunday morning.

Bant was found in a somewhat dazed condition. Not so Rule, who walked out withgreat composure, and the remark he made was, "Any fellow han' me a light and a bit o' baccy for my pipe?" and on reaching the grass he said, "I wonder if my old woman have got summot cookin' for me."

He was much surprised that all wished to shake him by the hand. "Why," said he, "what is all this about? I ain't done nothin' but sit in darkness."

Chapman received the Victoria medal for his devotion. He had to go up to town for it, and was presented with it by the Princess of Wales.

Very often the captains are sober, and teetotalers. But this is not always the case, unhappily; and some are temperance advocates on the platform, but something else in the public-house. There was an old chap of this description who was known far and wide for his ardent temperance harangues, and for the astounding instances he was able to produce of the judgments that followed on occasional indulgence. A very good friend one day went with him to prospect a promising new district. They entered to refresh at the little tavern,situated some twelve hundred feet above the sea, perhaps the highest planted public-house in England. The friend was amused to see Captain Jonas take the whisky bottle and half fill his glass, holding his hand round the tumbler to hide how much he had helped himself to.

"Halloa, cap'n!" exclaimed the friend, "I thought you took naught but water."

"Sir," answered Jonas with great composure, "us must live up to our elevation. I does it on principle."

Some of the Cornish mining captains have had experiences out of England as common miners. There is one I know who worked in the Australian goldfields many years ago, and he loves to yarn about those days.

"We were a queer lot," said he to me one day; "several of us—and my mate was one—(not I, you understand)—were old convicts. But it was as much as my life was worth to let 'em know that I was aware of it. There were various ways in which a score against a man might be wiped out. I'll tell you what happened once. There was a chap called Rogers—he came from Redruth way—andhe let his tongue run too free one day, and said as how he knew something of the back history of a few of our mates. Well, I was sure evil would come of it, and evil did. Things was rough and ready in those days, and we'd tin buckets for carrying up the gold, and sand, and so on. Well, one day when Rogers was about to come up the shaft, by the merest chance, one of them buckets was tipped over, and fell down. I went after him down the shaft, and that there bucket had cut off half his head, and cut near through his shoulder. You wouldn't ha' thought it would have done it, but it did. Bless you, I've seen a tumblerful of water knock a man down if the water didn't 'break,' as they call it, before reaching the bottom of a deep shaft; it comes down in one lump like lead."

After a while he went on—"I had a near squeak once, the nearest I ever had. When we were going to blast below, all men were sent up except the one who was to light the fuse. Well, one day there was only myself to do it. I set fire to the fuse, and away I went, hauled up. But somehow it didn't gooff. I thought that the water had got in, so before I reached the top and had got out, I signalled to be lowered again. I had just reached the bottom when the explosion took place. The rocks and stones went up past me in a rush, and down they came again. How it happened that I escaped is more than I can tell you; but God willed it; that was enough for me. I was back with my shoulder to the rock, and the stones came down in a rain, but not one any bigger than a cherry stone hit me. But I can tell you the men above were frightened. They couldn't believe their ears when I shouted; they couldn't believe their eyes when they saw me come up without a scratch. Folks say the age o' miracles is past. I'll never say that; it was a miracle I weren't killed, and no mistake."

"Well, captain," said I, "and did you make a fortune out at the Australian goldfields?"

He looked at me with a twinkle in his eye.

"I went out with half-a-crown in my pocket. When I came back I'd got just one ha'penny."

"But all the gold you found?"

"That had a curious way of leaving me, and getting into the possession of my mate—him who'd been a convict. He grew rich, he did. I didn't. Well, I came back with experience."

"And now, cap'n, what are you going to do?"

"There's nothing going on in the old country. I'm off somewhere over the seas again. Can't help it. I love dear old England, and blessed old Cornwall above all, but if they won't or can't support me and my family I must go elsewhere."

Alas! this is too true. The mines are nearly all shut down. In one parish alone, that of Calstock, there were twenty-two in active operation a few years ago, now not one.

The miners are scattered over the world. They are gone to South Africa, to Brazil, to the Straits Settlements.

But where are no mines, there are quarries. Oh! the delightful hours spent in boyhood in old quarries! In picking blackberries where the brambles grow rank over the heaps ofrubble and ripen their delicious fruit against the crumbled stone that radiates the warmth of the sun! In groping after fossils in the chalk quarries of the South Downs, delighted in being able to extract a fossil sponge or a glistening shark's tooth!

Nothing so unsightly as a new quarry, a wound in the face of nature, yet nothing more picturesque than one which is old, all the scars healed over by nature.

And then, again, what haunts old quarries are for rabbits—and therefore also places in which boys delight to spend hours ferreting Bunny.

In connexion with a quarry I will venture to tell a story—curious, because showing a form of superstition not extinct. I tell the tale my own way, but it is fundamentally true—that is to say, it is quite true that the quarryman told it; and believed himself to have been victimized in the way I relate, though I cannot vouch for the exact words he employed.

I was examining for geological purposes a quarry in Cornwall that had been opened in the side of a hill for the extraction of stone,wherewith to metal the roads. Whilst studying the strata, I observed a sort of nick in the uppermost layer of rock, under the earth which rose above the surface of the rock some three feet six inches or four feet.

The nick was about two feet deep and the same breadth, and the sides were cut perpendicularly. It was clearly artificial, and at once struck me as being a section of a grave. There was no churchyard interfered with, so that I supposed the grave was prehistoric, and at once exclaimed to the quarryman engaged in the excavation that this was a grave. He put down his pick, and answered:

"Yes, sir, it is a grave what you see here, and what is more I can tell you whose grave it is, or was. And a coorious sarcumstance is connected with that there grave, and if you don't mind sitting down on that piece o' rock for five minutes, I'll tell you all about it."

Without paying much heed to the statement that the man made, that he knew whose last resting-place it was, I inquired whether any flint or bronze weapons had been found there.

"No, sir," said the quarryman, "nothing ofthe sort as far as I know; it was the head of the grave we cut through, and when we sent the pick into it, the gentleman's head came down into the quarry."

"Gentleman's head? What gentleman's head?"

"Well, sir, I did not know at the time. It gave me a lot of trouble did that head, or rather the teeth from it. If you'll be so good as to sit down on that stone, I'll tell you all about it, and I reckon it will be worth your trouble. It's a coorious story, as coorious a story as you have ever heard, I take it."

"I will listen, certainly. But excuse me one moment. I should like to crawl up the side of the quarry, and examine the grave."

"It's my lunch time, and I've nothing to do but to eat and talk for half-an-hour," said the quarry man, "so I'll tell you all the whole story, when you've been up and come down again. There be bones there. You'll find his neck; we cut off the head of the grave. But, whatever you do, leave the bones alone. Don't carry any away with you in your pocket, or you'll be just in a pretty way."

I made the exploration I required. I found that a grave had been cut in the rock. Clearly, when the interment took place, those who made the grave did not consider that there was a sufficient depth of earth, and they had accordingly cut out a hole in the rock, below the soil, to accommodate the dead man. Bones were stillin situ. I could find no trace of coffin, but in all likelihood, if there had been one there, it had rotted away, and the gravelly soil from above had fallen in on all sides, and had taken the place of the wood as it decomposed. And if there had been a mound above the dead man, the sinking in after decomposition had caused it to disappear. There were bushes of heather above the grave, but nothing to indicate that a tomb had been in the place, as far as could be judged from above. Its presence would not have been guessed had it not been revealed by the operations of the quarrymen.

Having completed my observations, I returned to the bottom, and seated myself on the stone indicated by the workman. He occupied the top of another, and was engagedon a pie—an appalling composition of heavy pastry, potato, and bacon, grey in colour as a Jerusalem artichoke, and close in texture and heavy as a cannon ball. He cut large junks out of this terrible specimen of domestic cookery, and thrust them between knife and thumb into his mouth. As he opened this receptacle I observed that the gums were ill-provided with teeth, so that mastication must be imperfect. It is really extraordinary how the wives of working-men exhibit their ingenuity in proving "how not to do it." It is said that the way to a man's heart is through his stomach. If that be the case, it predicates either extraordinary personal fascination on the part of the wives, or really miraculous virtue on the part of the husbands, that any domestic attachment should subsist in the cottages of the agricultural labourer and artisan. Or is it that the wives are resolved to put the tenderness, the devotion of their men to the severest possible test, as cannon are run over a new suspension-bridge?

"You see, sir," said the quarryman, "when we cut that new slice we went slap throughthe head of the grave, and never knowed there was a grave there, till down came the head, like a snowball. It was my partner, James Downe, as was up there wi' his pick. Me was sitting here, and I'd just opened my bag for my dinner, when I heard James a-hollerin' to me to look out. I did look up, and seed that there skull come jumping down the side, and before I could undo my legs—I'd knotted them for my lunch, and had the bag open on my lap—down came the skull, and with one skip it flopped right among my victuals, and there it sat in my lap, looking up in my face, as innocent as a babe, so it seemed to me.

"Well, sir, I daresay you know, if you know anything—and you seem to be a learned gentleman—that there ain't a better preservative against toothache than to carry about a dead man's tooth in your pocket. Dead men's teeth don't lie about promiscuous as empty snail shells, and I'd often wished to have one. I suffer terrible from my teeth. I've been kept roving with pain night after night, and one ain't up to work when one has been kept roving all night, either with teeth orbabies. Me and the church sexton ain't the best of friends. You see, I'm a Bible Christian and spiritual, and that there sexton is of the earth, earthy. I couldn't ask a favour of him, to accommodate me with a tooth if he haps to turn one up when digging a new grave. It is true we have got a cemetery of our own to the chapel, but it's new, and nothing is turned up there but earthworms. As this was the case I was uncommon joyful when that head came bouncing into my lap. I found the teeth weren't particular tight in, and with my knife I easily got a tooth or two out; I thought I'd be square all round, so I got out a back tooth—they call 'em molars up to the Board School—and an eye tooth and a front one. Then I thought I was pretty well set up and protected against toothache. I got my wife to sew 'em up in a bit o'silk and hung it round my neck. I may say this—from that day so long as I wore the dead man's teeth I never had a touch of toothache."

"And how long did you wear them?"

"Three days, sir."

"Not more? Why did you not retain them?"

"I'll tell you why, if you'll listen to me."

"Certainly. But what have you done with the skull?"

"Chucked it away. It weren't no good to nobody—least of all to the owner. And for me—I'd got out of it all I wanted."

"You have not the teeth now?"

"No. I kept them for three days and then chucked them away."

"Have you had toothache since?"

"Terrible; but I had what was wusser when I had the teeth."

"Well, go on and tell me what the wusser was."

"So I will, if you'll listen to me. Well, sir, I had them teeth done up in a bit of silk, and hung round my throat. The first night I went to bed, that was Saturday, I had the little bag round my neck. I hadn't laid my head on the pillow, before—but, I must tell you, I'm a Bible Christian, and a serious man. I'm a local, I am, and I preach in our chapel, and am generally reckoned a rousin' sort of a preacher. For, sir, I knows how to work 'em up. Well, when you understand that,you will comprehend how astonished I was when I laid my head on the pillow, to find I wasn't no more what I ought to ha' been. In the first place, I hadn't gone to bed in my clothes, and no sooner was my head on my pillow than I was in a red coat and breeches and gaiters; and what is more, in the second place, I'd laid me down to rest, and I found myself astride on a saddle, on horseback, tearin' over the country, jumpin' hedges, tally-hoin'—me, as never rode a hoss in my life, and never tally-hoed, and wouldn't do it to save my soul. I knowed all the while I was doing wrong. I knowed I'd got to preach in our chapel next evening, the Sabbath Day—and here was I in a red coat, and galloping after the hounds, and tearin' after a fox, and swearing orful! I couldn't help myself. I believe my face was as pink as my coat. I tried to compose my mouth to say Hallelujah, but I couldn't do it—I rapped out a—but, sir, I dussn't even whisper what I then swore at the top o' my voice; and I had to preach at a revival within some few hours. It was terrible—terrible!"

I saw the quarryman's face bathed in perspiration. The thought of what he had gone through affected him, and his hand shook as he heaved a lump of pasty to his quivering lips.

"I tried to think I was in the pulpit; you must understand, sir, if at a right moment you bang the cushion and kick the panels—it'll bring down sinners like over-ripe greengages. But it wor no good; I was whacking into my cob, and kicking with spurs into her flanks, and away she went over a five-barred gate—it was terrible—terrible, to a shining light, one o' the Elect People, sir,—such as be I."

The man heaved a sigh and wiped his brow and cheeks, and rose with his pudding-bag.

"All the Sabbath day after that," continued the quarryman, "I wasn't myself. It lay on my conscience that I'd done wrong; and when I preached in the evening there was no unction in me, no more, sir, than you could have greased the fly-wheel of your watch with; and usually there's quite a pomatum-pot full. I didn't feel happy, and it was with a heavyheart and a troubled head that I went to bed on the Sabbath night." He heaved another sigh, and folded up his lunch-bag.

"Will you believe it, sir? No sooner had I closed my eyes than I was in a public-house. I—I—who've been a Band of Hope ever since I was a baby. I've heard say I never took to the bottle even in earliest infancy, though it was but a bottle of milk, so ingrained in me be temperance principles. I've heard mother say she put a bit of sopped bread into a rag, and let me have that when a baby—so stubborn was I, and so furious did I kick out with my little legs when shown the bottle. It was the name, I reckon, set me against it. However, sir, there I was, just out of the pulpit at Bethesda, and in the 'Fox and Hounds' drinking. I tried to call out for Gingerade, but the words got altered in my throat to Whisky Toddy. And what was more, I was singing—roaring out at the top of my voice—

"'Come, my lads, let us be jolly,Drive away dull melancholy;For to grieve it is a follyWhen we meet together!'"

The quarryman covered his eyes with his hands—he was ashamed to look up.

"If that wasn't bad enough, the words that followed were worse—and I a teetotaler down to the soles of my feet.

"'Here's the bottle, as it passesDo not fail to fill your glasses;Water drinkers are dull asses

When they're met together.

"'Milk is meet for infancy,Ladies like to sip Bohea;Not such stuff for you and me

When we're met together.'

"All the while I sang it I knew I was saying good-bye to my consistency, I was going against my dearest convictions. But I couldn't help myself, it was as though an evil spirit possessed me. I was myself and yet not myself. It was terrible—terrible—terrible!"

The quarryman swung his pasty bag and smote his breast with it.

"That warn't all," he continued, and lowered his tone. "There was an uncommon pretty barmaid with red rosy cheeks and curlingblack hair; and somehow I got my arm round her waist and was kissing her. Well, I don't so much mind about that, for kissing is scriptural, and Paul calls them kisses of peace. But these were not kisses of peace by any means—and there was the mischief, for I knowed my wife was looking on, and, sir, I knowed the consequences would be orful—orful—simply orful."

The quarryman's head sank on his knees, he clasped his hands over the back of his head, and groaned for full five minutes. Presently he looked up, pulled himself together, and continued his narrative.

"The worst of all is behind. I was very busy on Monday, as I was on Mr. Conybeare's committee. We were in for the election, and I'm tremendous strong as a Liberal, and for Home Rule, and I reckon I can influence a good many votes in my district of Cornwall. Well, sir, I'd been about canvassing for Mr. Conybeare very hard, yet all the while I had a sort of deadly fear at my heart that what I'd been doing, both hunting and drinking, and swearing and singing, and kissing thebarmaid, would come out in public, or would be thrown in my teeth by the Consarvatives, and might damage the good cause. But no one said nothing about it on Monday, and towards evening my mind was more at ease.

"I was very tired when I went to bed, for I had been working, as I said, very hard indeed, and persuading of obstinate politicians is worse than breaking stones for the road, and far worse than converting of obstinate sinners. No sooner had I laid my head on the pillow than—will you believe it, sir?—I was in the full swing of the election. I didn't know it was coming on so fast. I thought it would be three weeks, but not a bit of it. They'd set up a polling place in the Board School, and there was I swaggering up to register my vote. There were placards—Unionist on one side, but I wouldn't look at them; on the other were the Radical posters—from Mr. Conybeare—and I knowed my own mind. If any man in England be true and loyal to the G.O.M. that's me. Well, sir, in I walked and gave my name. I knowed mynumber, and went as confident as possible into the little box of unplaned deal boards, and with my paper in one hand took the pencil in the other, wetted the pencil with my tongue to make sure it marked black enough, and then set down my cross. Will you believe it?—that sperit o' pervarsity and devilry had come over me once more, and I'd gone and voted Consarvative."

The quarryman staggered back, and I had just time to spring to his aid. He had fainted. I held him in my arms till he came round. I threw water over his face, and by degrees he was himself again.

"Orful! orful! wasn't it?" said he. "Well, sir, after that I would have nothing more to do with them teeth. They did it. I chucked 'em away; toothache would be better all night long, than the trials I had to undergo when I had them dead man's teeth about me."

"But have you not dreamed since?" I asked, looking at the pasty which, when he fainted, I had taken in my hand.

"Yes, sir, often, very often; but then my dreams since have always been Nonconformist,Temperance, and Radical dreams—and them's wholesome."

"You said something about knowing who it was whose grave you had disturbed?"

"Well, so I believe I do. I did not know at the time, but afterwards, when I began to tell my story; then there was a talk about it and a raking and a grubbing among old folks' memories, and there was an old woman who said she could throw some light on the subject. Her tale was that about a hundred years ago, or more perhaps, she could not be sure, there lived at the Old Hall one Squire Trewenna. The Hall has been pulled down because of the mines, and the Trewennas are all gone. Squire Trewenna was a terrible man for hunting and drinking, and was, moreover, a regular rory tory Conservative. He was a fast chap, and no good to nobody but to dogs and horses, and before he died he begged that he might be buried on the brink of the moor where he'd ridden so often and enjoyed himself so much, and had killed a tremendous big fox in the last hunt he ever went out in before gout got to his stomick. And he saidhe wanted no headstone over him, that fox and hounds and horses might go over his grave. Well, folks forgot, as there was no headstone, where he lay, exact, and old Betty Tregellas says she believes what we cut into was Squire Trewenna's grave. I think so too, for how else was it that when I had those teeth about me I was so possessed wi' a spirit of unrighteousness and drinking and Consarvatism? I reckon you've had a Board School education and been to the University, and are a larned man. Tell me, now, am I not right?"

W. Brendon & son, Printers, Plymouth.

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