Spring SongSPRING SONG.Oh, come let us wanderWhere the wide meadow liesHid in the dreamy dell;By woodlands to ponder,Where fickle butterfliesFlirt with the flower bell!One song will I sing you,Sweeter than ever fellMusic from waterfall;One heart will I bring you,While warbleth PhilomelIn liquid madrigal.Oh, come where the wood-doveBids thy compassion moveWhile youth to thee belongs;For there shall my true loveAll my confession proveIn sighs and tender songs!E. M. W.
Spring Song
Oh, come let us wanderWhere the wide meadow liesHid in the dreamy dell;By woodlands to ponder,Where fickle butterfliesFlirt with the flower bell!One song will I sing you,Sweeter than ever fellMusic from waterfall;One heart will I bring you,While warbleth PhilomelIn liquid madrigal.Oh, come where the wood-doveBids thy compassion moveWhile youth to thee belongs;For there shall my true loveAll my confession proveIn sighs and tender songs!E. M. W.
Oh, come let us wanderWhere the wide meadow liesHid in the dreamy dell;By woodlands to ponder,Where fickle butterfliesFlirt with the flower bell!One song will I sing you,Sweeter than ever fellMusic from waterfall;One heart will I bring you,While warbleth PhilomelIn liquid madrigal.Oh, come where the wood-doveBids thy compassion moveWhile youth to thee belongs;For there shall my true loveAll my confession proveIn sighs and tender songs!E. M. W.
Oh, come let us wanderWhere the wide meadow liesHid in the dreamy dell;By woodlands to ponder,Where fickle butterfliesFlirt with the flower bell!
Oh, come let us wander
Where the wide meadow lies
Hid in the dreamy dell;
By woodlands to ponder,
Where fickle butterflies
Flirt with the flower bell!
One song will I sing you,Sweeter than ever fellMusic from waterfall;One heart will I bring you,While warbleth PhilomelIn liquid madrigal.
One song will I sing you,
Sweeter than ever fell
Music from waterfall;
One heart will I bring you,
While warbleth Philomel
In liquid madrigal.
Oh, come where the wood-doveBids thy compassion moveWhile youth to thee belongs;For there shall my true loveAll my confession proveIn sighs and tender songs!
Oh, come where the wood-dove
Bids thy compassion move
While youth to thee belongs;
For there shall my true love
All my confession prove
In sighs and tender songs!
E. M. W.
THE HOUSE WITH THE VERANDAH.ByISABELLA FYVIE MAYO, Author of “Other People’s Stairs,” “Her Object in Life,” etc.CHAPTER IV.THE STRONG PULL.ThenLucy Challoner found herself shut into one of those “secret pavilions,” which God erects so often in the heart of life’s storms—quiet resting-places into which neither the tempest which is overpast, nor the after-swells which are to come, can find entrance. The tossed heart is hushed like that of a little child, and looking neither before nor after, is content with the peace and the benediction of the passing hour.It was cheering to see how the sea-breeze brought healthy tints to Charlie’s pale face, while every hour found him stronger and more fit to throw aside the little physical frailties which hang about one after a great illness.For the first day of their visit they were content with one little stroll on the pier, and then they sat at their window discovering endless interest in the fact that “Lloyd’s” station was in the house next but one to theirs, so that every ship which hove in sight became voluble in nautical signs. Then their walks grew longer, extending ever further down the shingly shore.“Now, Lucy,” said Mr. Challoner, “was not I right to come here instead of to any mere invalid resort? Why, it lifts up one’s soul—and one’s body with it—just to look at these Deal boatmen. They’re so ready to give their lives for you if need be, that a kind of exhalation of health comes from them.”Before they left Deal, Lucy Challoner not only fully approved of her husband’s choice as for himself, but felt convinced that he had made his choice for her too, and with equal wisdom and foresight.As the days passed on, and Charlie and his little boy made friends with many of the old salts who lounge along the shingle as if life was nothing but the sea view (which seems reflected in their very eyes), Lucy sometimes stayed indoors and occupied herself with details of her husband’s outfit. Her landlady came in and out of the room, generally silent, but cheerful and ready to respond to advances.“We can see the Goodwin Sands very plainly to-day,” Lucy said once. “What a terrible trap they are.”“Yes, ma’am,” Mrs. May answered. “And if those in the other world know aught about what’s done in this—and why shouldn’t they?—I wonder how those men feel who neglected to keep down those sands, because they wanted to build a big steeple instead of doing their duty? On wild nights here, when we’re almost certain poor souls are going down by the score, I never can help thinking o’ those others. It must be mighty bad for them surely. And yet maybe they didn’t know what they were doing was so bad—or didn’t think! I’d not make them out worse than most of us, and we all need God our Saviour. Maybe God lets ’em receive the poor drowned souls, and comfort ’em and care for ’em.”“But is it true that the sands became dangerous through neglect?” asked Lucy. “I have heard the story, but I have heard that geology has a different word to say.”Mrs. May shook her head slightly.“I don’t know, ma’am,” she said. “I’m speaking as if the story be true. And certain it is that men and money have been able to do a good bit to lessen the risks of the Sands as they are, and it is a pity that they did not do it sooner. And maybe they might do a great deal more yet. I wish gentlemen in power would think over such things instead of wanting to spend money on guns to kill poor folks in far-off countries. It’s wonderful what has been left for private folk to do before the others stir. I daresay you’ve never heard of one Powell, of Deal, living nigh two hundred years ago?”“No,” answered Lucy reflecting, and unable to recall any Powell of popular memory, save Mary, the wilful wife of the poet Milton.“Well, ma’am,” said Mrs. May, with a slight drawing-up of her neat figure. “That Powell of Deal (my mother was of the family, though, of course, generations later), he seemed to be one of the first to think of saving people off the wrecks on the Sands. There were no lifeboats in his time, you know.”“I know,” Lucy assented. “There were no lifeboats till nearly a hundred years after that, and very few until about seventy years ago.”“Well, that Powell was Mayor of Deal in those days, and pretty well off for just a shopkeeper in the town—a tailor and outfitter he was. And there came a great storm one November night—it was such a storm as never was. It was the night the Eddystone Lighthouse was destroyed along with the man that built it, and people were killed in their beds, even in grand houses, and the loss of life and property was tremendous. We can guess what it was on the Goodwins, ma’am. There were thirteen men-of-war wrecked, and hundreds of men—more than a thousand—were drowned. Then the people who were watching from the shore saw that some had got on the Goodwins, and there they were sure to be washed away.”Mrs. May paused and looked at Lucy with emphatic eyes.“So Powell, he could not bear it, and he ordered out the custom-house boats, and offered a reward of five shillings for every sailor that should be saved. It was not much, for he hadn’t much. They say he went out himself. And two hundred men were saved that otherwise must have been drowned. And he took them all into his care, and fed them and clothed them. And though they were Royal Navy men, he had a deal of bother and loss of time before the Government made up the money he was out of pocket, which he could not afford to lose. He seemed to be the very first to show that it was anybody’s bounden duty to save the drowning. But he’s never been much talked of. The stories of fighting and killing are the stories that are told. He was only a tailor and outfitter, you see, ma’am, and most folks give such but a sneer. But my mother brought all her children up to remember him and to learn from him to look out to see what their hands can do. She used to say people laugh at a tailor as the ninth part of a man; but I say nine good men were rolled into one in my great-great-uncle Powell.”“Then you have always lived in Deal, I suppose?” asked Lucy, interested in the sudden frankness of the hitherto reserved woman.“Yes, ma’am; but I’ve been in London,” she said.“When your husband was living?” Lucy inquired gently.“No, ma’am,” replied Mrs. May. “I married a Kingsdown man, a pilot. His father’s still living in Kingsdown, old and frail, but he’s saved people’s lives by scores and scores. He has been a great man in the lifeboat.”“Did your husband ever go out in the boat?” asked Lucy.“He met his death in it,” said Mrs. May quite calmly. “We hadn’t been married a year, and it was the first time he had ever gone out. It was the Lord’s will that his father should go again and again and do great things and come home safe and sound, and be living at eighty-five. But my Jarvist was knocked over and washed away before he could do anything. But the Lord knew what Jarvist’s will was, and the Lord took it for the deed.”Mrs. May stood gazing out towards the fateful line on the horizon. Lucy’s eyes were full of tears.“Oh, Mrs. May,” she said, “how hard it was for you! How could you bear to go on living beside this cruel sea in sight of that terrible place!”Mrs. May turned towards her with a wistful smile.“Ah,” she said, “how many ladies have said that to me! (Not that I tell everyone who comes, for some would not care to hear. There are folks who go out to picnic and dance on the Goodwins!) But look here, dear,” she went on eagerly, her last reserve melted in Lucy’s tears, “we all see houses, and yet somebody has died in every house; we all see our beds, and yet we’ve seen dear ones die on them, and we look to die there ourselves some day. It’s all hard just at first. After a while, the thought of death settles into a bit of life. It’s the Lord’s will that it comes in one way to one and in another to another. But it’s all right if it means going to Him, and all we’ve got to do is to keep on following.”“And you had your husband such a little time!” cried Lucy, thinking to herself that she and Charlie had already had more than seven years of happy life together.“Yes,” said Mrs. May; “I was a widow at twenty-five. I’m just fifty now, and my people live long, so likely I’ve got a good bit to go yet. I had my Jarvist just for one year. But I reckon that one year was quite enough to soak through all the rest, back and fore, just as a fine perfume does.“I took it very hard at first,” she went on. “I took it rebellious. But Jarvist’s father he came to me, and says he, ‘Joan’—and he put his hand on my shoulder, and it had a kind of feeling as if it pulled me up like—‘Joan,’ says he, ‘Jarvist has done his part. Now you’ve got to do yours. You married a sailor, Joan; he’s died at his place, you’ve got to live at yours. Don’t make no fuss about it, lass,’ says he (he speaks old-fashioned and homely), ‘you won’t see Jarvist a day the sooner. You wouldn’t have liked Jarvist to stay at home to please you, would you?’ says he. ‘And if he’d have done such a mean thing, and yet his time were come, then he’d have broke his neck a-trippin’ over a doormat,’ says the old man. ‘I’ll tell you something, Joan. Before Jarvist went out he said to me, “Father, if aught took me, you’d be good to Joan.” We all thinks that to each other,’ father-in-law says, ‘but the young men—specially the new-married—they generally says it once or twice before they feel it’s taken for granted. Said I back to Jarvist, “Joan’s a lass with grit in her, and she’ll be good to herself and to others, too, I reckon.” And that was my promise to Jarvist for you, Joan, and you’ve got to make it good,’ says he. So I’ve tried to do. That’s five-and-twenty years ago, and time is passing on. It’s not so long for any of us after all.”“I beg pardon for speaking so freely to you, ma’am,” she went on after a short pause, while Lucy’s tears dropped; “but there’s a look in your face that if you’d been a man would have sent you out to the Goodwins. But the women have to do their part at home—keeping ready dry clothes and hot gruel sometimes,” she added with a quiet laugh, “as we did one day this spring, when one poor soul was left wrecked on the Goodwins after all his shipmates were drowned. It was said the lifeboat couldn’t go out; but then our men they couldn’t stay in! Never shall I forget that night at the little mariners’ service where I often go. The gentleman that was praying and reading the Scriptures saw the men’s faces, and he broke short off to say, ‘Can we go? Can we do something?’ Why not? It was all in the service of God. And they went, and they brought off the man safely—a poor Norwegian.”Lucy had learned to fear contact with strangers since her husband’s illness. Their misjudged “sympathy,” their well-meant comments, had so often been as the rubbing of salt into the ever-open wound of anxiety, and the almost tenderer spot of hope. She had learned the lesson that if the greatest consolation for sorrow is to have beside us one who understands it and shares it, then the next greatest blessing is to be able to bear one’s burden alone, apart from those to whom one’s agony is but a spectacle or a dumping ground for commonplaces.But she found there was no need to shrink from Mrs. May. When she confided to the landlady the plans that were in preparation, and the long separation which was impending, Mrs. May was full of encouraging hope. She could narrate cases in which the sea, despite its terrible side, had acted as a beneficent healer and life restorer. She could tell, too, of many who had suffered in the same way as Mr. Challoner, and were still alive—elderly people, with long useful years behind them. To Lucy Challoner this sort of cheer was the more acceptable because it came to her surrounded by an atmosphere, and supported by a foundation, in which neither life nor death were held to be the main things—but only “the will of the Lord,” which could make either death or life blessed both to those who were left and to those who were taken.Very different was the tone of the notes which came from Lucy’s sister Florence. Mrs. Brand wrote a large hand, so that a very few words covered four sides of a sheet of note-paper; also she wrote, as it were, breathlessly, dropping pronouns and punctuation. She was very forcible in bewailing her sister’s departure to Deal—“So sudden—and such a place—and didn’t Charlie feel the journey—and it mightn’t be amiss if it turned him aside from the bigger scheme—couldn’t bear to think of it—poor dear Lucy all alone—well, the child, of course—and if for Charlie’s good, but it seemed a great risk—wasn’t beginning to look for a successor for Pollie yet; no good being in hurry—better not hire anyone till a day or two before wanted—and Lucy not coming back to London till the very night before Charlie sailed for the North—who was Captain Grant?—hoped he was a decent man—master mariners not always up to much; but if Charlie kept pretty well, perhaps he would not mind about trifles. Must get word as soon as they were sure of dates—must get last look of Charlie—and had good many evening engagements on. Poor dear Lucy, Florence really pitied—things had looked so different at Lucy’s marriage, but might turn out better, even yet.”As Lucy read those notes, her pulse used to quicken with a sense of revolt. Charlie’s wife was no person to be pitied! Come what might, she was not to be pitied! Her anxieties, her possible sorrows, were not to be regarded as so much ill-luck, to be secretly contrasted by Florence with her own splendid fortune in stalwart, prosperous Jem, and her showy house, and large “visiting circle.”After these rebellious sensations, Lucy always turned penitent—said to herself that she was silly and even wicked, and resolved to allow no such feelings to arise again. But Florence’s next note always stirred them anew. The east wind will ruffle us; we can but turn our backs to it, or veil our faces, and afterwards soothe the irritated skin with emollients. So there are natures which thus rush rudely on our souls. And we cannot change those natures, or their effect upon us; we can only avert the worst results by tact, hide our soreness in silence, and heal damages by patience and forbearance. Let us put our conscious misery to a good use by its keeping us humbly aware that any sweetness or amiability that we may seem to possess belongs, after all, almost as much to our environment as to ourselves!The peaceful resting-time wore to an end. Charlie Challoner and his little boy had made friends with nearly all the Deal “hovellers,” lounging so easily on the shingly shore, watching the sea and the sky, as if there were nothing else to do in life, yet with the strength of scores of conquered storms wrought into their fine old faces. They had heard many stories grave and gay, and little Hugh had gathered up some queer treasures in the way of uncommon shells and stones, and even a little carved boat.Lucy herself did not talk much to the old boatmen. Her happy relations with Mrs. May had not overcome all her shrinking from strangers, and she preferred to hear of them from Charlie, and to let him tell over their yarns to her. But when she went out with her husband they all gave her kindly greeting. It was Lucy’s delighted pride that whoever knew Charlie first seemed always ready to welcome and approve of her. She revelled in being regarded kindly for his sake. Yet it was as often something of her which had originally commended him. He or she who is wrapped round by a true and tender love carries its grace everywhere.After Charlie had had his pleasant chats to some of those old men, the one of them had said to the other—“Reckon that gentleman’s got a good woman belonging to him. Ye sort o’ feel it on him, like ye smell the spicy breezes before ye touch a port o’ the land where spices grow.”“Course he has,” said the other; “haven’t ye seen her? A winsome lass—one of the little craft that can go through a great deal of rough weather—the sort that’s generally made for that purpose, to my thinking.”Then came the last day before the returning day.“We will go for a long walk inland,” said Charlie. “It will be my last sight of English trees for a long while; and if autumn has carried off some of their beauty, it has added more of its own.”That afternoon Mrs. May announced that she was going for a walk up to Walmer Castle, and asked if the little master might go with her. Hugh was delighted—the sea was a perennial joy to him—to whom country lanes did not seem marvellously different from London squares and parks. Lucy gratefully assented. She never knew whether it was an accident, or whether the kind woman realised that she and Charlie would be thankful for a quiet ramble and an undisturbed conversation.Perhaps they did not talk much during that walk. Hearts were too full and tears too near the surface. But each uttered solemnly those expressions of mutual love and faith which must generally lie half hidden under the little commonplaces of daily life. Each, as it were, rendered back the mutual charge of the other,—Charles promising faithfully to take care of himself, and to remember all the precautions Lucy would insist on, if she were with him,—Lucy pledging herself to keep as free as possible from worrying, to remember that, under all the circumstances, the coming of letters must be more or less uncertain and far between, adding a voluntary clause that she would do her very best to be brave and wise under any unforeseen conditions which might arise, and under which she could not seek Charlie’s counsel and support. That voluntary clause was due to Lucy’s tender self-reproach against the household secret that she was keeping, even for her husband’s own sake. Charlie received it, with assurances that he knew she would keep her word. Little did either of them then think how that little pledge was to return to their minds, to their common soothing and upholding!Lucy felt that this quiet hour of spiritual nearness was their true farewell. With its thrilling emotions would be blent for ever the memory of the solemn November afternoon sky—sunless, but with suggestions of sunlight in its delicate opal hues—and the square tower of Munceam church, lifting its grey head from a mass of foliage, glorious with vivid autumn tints.After that came the bustle of final packing, the farewell to Mrs. May—to whom Lucy felt she owed something which was not included in her modest bill—the railway journey, the return home. The house was in apple-pie order, and at this critical juncture Charlie ceased to wonder at Pollie’s unrestrained, fast-flowing tears. The Brands “looked in” late that night in evening dress on their way from a dinner-party. Jem Brand talked loud and fast to Charlie, while Florence patted her sister’s hands and whispered that she had not secured her a servant yet—they would go about that business together—the interest and excitement would be cheering to Lucy’s loneliness—there were still three or four days to pass before Pollie left—plenty of time.“Plenty of time!” Lucy echoed absently. “What did it really matter? Charlie was going away!”Then it was over. Lucy came back from seeing her husband on board the Scotch steamer for Aberdeen. She felt as if she had died, and had come to life again in an emptied earth. How strange the street noises sounded! How strange the familiar house looked! Even little Hugh seemed somehow different!Lucy had not experienced enough to know that the worst was not yet. She had still to expect her husband’s telegram of his safe arrival in the north. She could look forward to one or two letters from him written from Peterhead. And when these came, full of cheer, of pleasant descriptions of scenery, fellow-passengers, and friendly welcome, together with good accounts of the dear wanderer’s own progress towards strength, poor Lucy began to feel as if she had passed the sharpest corner of her woe, and almost to congratulate herself on her own bravery.Alas, beyond “the strong pull” on one’s courage and submission, there comes “the long pull.”(To be continued.)
ByISABELLA FYVIE MAYO, Author of “Other People’s Stairs,” “Her Object in Life,” etc.
THE STRONG PULL.
T
henLucy Challoner found herself shut into one of those “secret pavilions,” which God erects so often in the heart of life’s storms—quiet resting-places into which neither the tempest which is overpast, nor the after-swells which are to come, can find entrance. The tossed heart is hushed like that of a little child, and looking neither before nor after, is content with the peace and the benediction of the passing hour.
It was cheering to see how the sea-breeze brought healthy tints to Charlie’s pale face, while every hour found him stronger and more fit to throw aside the little physical frailties which hang about one after a great illness.
For the first day of their visit they were content with one little stroll on the pier, and then they sat at their window discovering endless interest in the fact that “Lloyd’s” station was in the house next but one to theirs, so that every ship which hove in sight became voluble in nautical signs. Then their walks grew longer, extending ever further down the shingly shore.
“Now, Lucy,” said Mr. Challoner, “was not I right to come here instead of to any mere invalid resort? Why, it lifts up one’s soul—and one’s body with it—just to look at these Deal boatmen. They’re so ready to give their lives for you if need be, that a kind of exhalation of health comes from them.”
Before they left Deal, Lucy Challoner not only fully approved of her husband’s choice as for himself, but felt convinced that he had made his choice for her too, and with equal wisdom and foresight.
As the days passed on, and Charlie and his little boy made friends with many of the old salts who lounge along the shingle as if life was nothing but the sea view (which seems reflected in their very eyes), Lucy sometimes stayed indoors and occupied herself with details of her husband’s outfit. Her landlady came in and out of the room, generally silent, but cheerful and ready to respond to advances.
“We can see the Goodwin Sands very plainly to-day,” Lucy said once. “What a terrible trap they are.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Mrs. May answered. “And if those in the other world know aught about what’s done in this—and why shouldn’t they?—I wonder how those men feel who neglected to keep down those sands, because they wanted to build a big steeple instead of doing their duty? On wild nights here, when we’re almost certain poor souls are going down by the score, I never can help thinking o’ those others. It must be mighty bad for them surely. And yet maybe they didn’t know what they were doing was so bad—or didn’t think! I’d not make them out worse than most of us, and we all need God our Saviour. Maybe God lets ’em receive the poor drowned souls, and comfort ’em and care for ’em.”
“But is it true that the sands became dangerous through neglect?” asked Lucy. “I have heard the story, but I have heard that geology has a different word to say.”
Mrs. May shook her head slightly.
“I don’t know, ma’am,” she said. “I’m speaking as if the story be true. And certain it is that men and money have been able to do a good bit to lessen the risks of the Sands as they are, and it is a pity that they did not do it sooner. And maybe they might do a great deal more yet. I wish gentlemen in power would think over such things instead of wanting to spend money on guns to kill poor folks in far-off countries. It’s wonderful what has been left for private folk to do before the others stir. I daresay you’ve never heard of one Powell, of Deal, living nigh two hundred years ago?”
“No,” answered Lucy reflecting, and unable to recall any Powell of popular memory, save Mary, the wilful wife of the poet Milton.
“Well, ma’am,” said Mrs. May, with a slight drawing-up of her neat figure. “That Powell of Deal (my mother was of the family, though, of course, generations later), he seemed to be one of the first to think of saving people off the wrecks on the Sands. There were no lifeboats in his time, you know.”
“I know,” Lucy assented. “There were no lifeboats till nearly a hundred years after that, and very few until about seventy years ago.”
“Well, that Powell was Mayor of Deal in those days, and pretty well off for just a shopkeeper in the town—a tailor and outfitter he was. And there came a great storm one November night—it was such a storm as never was. It was the night the Eddystone Lighthouse was destroyed along with the man that built it, and people were killed in their beds, even in grand houses, and the loss of life and property was tremendous. We can guess what it was on the Goodwins, ma’am. There were thirteen men-of-war wrecked, and hundreds of men—more than a thousand—were drowned. Then the people who were watching from the shore saw that some had got on the Goodwins, and there they were sure to be washed away.”
Mrs. May paused and looked at Lucy with emphatic eyes.
“So Powell, he could not bear it, and he ordered out the custom-house boats, and offered a reward of five shillings for every sailor that should be saved. It was not much, for he hadn’t much. They say he went out himself. And two hundred men were saved that otherwise must have been drowned. And he took them all into his care, and fed them and clothed them. And though they were Royal Navy men, he had a deal of bother and loss of time before the Government made up the money he was out of pocket, which he could not afford to lose. He seemed to be the very first to show that it was anybody’s bounden duty to save the drowning. But he’s never been much talked of. The stories of fighting and killing are the stories that are told. He was only a tailor and outfitter, you see, ma’am, and most folks give such but a sneer. But my mother brought all her children up to remember him and to learn from him to look out to see what their hands can do. She used to say people laugh at a tailor as the ninth part of a man; but I say nine good men were rolled into one in my great-great-uncle Powell.”
“Then you have always lived in Deal, I suppose?” asked Lucy, interested in the sudden frankness of the hitherto reserved woman.
“Yes, ma’am; but I’ve been in London,” she said.
“When your husband was living?” Lucy inquired gently.
“No, ma’am,” replied Mrs. May. “I married a Kingsdown man, a pilot. His father’s still living in Kingsdown, old and frail, but he’s saved people’s lives by scores and scores. He has been a great man in the lifeboat.”
“Did your husband ever go out in the boat?” asked Lucy.
“He met his death in it,” said Mrs. May quite calmly. “We hadn’t been married a year, and it was the first time he had ever gone out. It was the Lord’s will that his father should go again and again and do great things and come home safe and sound, and be living at eighty-five. But my Jarvist was knocked over and washed away before he could do anything. But the Lord knew what Jarvist’s will was, and the Lord took it for the deed.”
Mrs. May stood gazing out towards the fateful line on the horizon. Lucy’s eyes were full of tears.
“Oh, Mrs. May,” she said, “how hard it was for you! How could you bear to go on living beside this cruel sea in sight of that terrible place!”
Mrs. May turned towards her with a wistful smile.
“Ah,” she said, “how many ladies have said that to me! (Not that I tell everyone who comes, for some would not care to hear. There are folks who go out to picnic and dance on the Goodwins!) But look here, dear,” she went on eagerly, her last reserve melted in Lucy’s tears, “we all see houses, and yet somebody has died in every house; we all see our beds, and yet we’ve seen dear ones die on them, and we look to die there ourselves some day. It’s all hard just at first. After a while, the thought of death settles into a bit of life. It’s the Lord’s will that it comes in one way to one and in another to another. But it’s all right if it means going to Him, and all we’ve got to do is to keep on following.”
“And you had your husband such a little time!” cried Lucy, thinking to herself that she and Charlie had already had more than seven years of happy life together.
“Yes,” said Mrs. May; “I was a widow at twenty-five. I’m just fifty now, and my people live long, so likely I’ve got a good bit to go yet. I had my Jarvist just for one year. But I reckon that one year was quite enough to soak through all the rest, back and fore, just as a fine perfume does.
“I took it very hard at first,” she went on. “I took it rebellious. But Jarvist’s father he came to me, and says he, ‘Joan’—and he put his hand on my shoulder, and it had a kind of feeling as if it pulled me up like—‘Joan,’ says he, ‘Jarvist has done his part. Now you’ve got to do yours. You married a sailor, Joan; he’s died at his place, you’ve got to live at yours. Don’t make no fuss about it, lass,’ says he (he speaks old-fashioned and homely), ‘you won’t see Jarvist a day the sooner. You wouldn’t have liked Jarvist to stay at home to please you, would you?’ says he. ‘And if he’d have done such a mean thing, and yet his time were come, then he’d have broke his neck a-trippin’ over a doormat,’ says the old man. ‘I’ll tell you something, Joan. Before Jarvist went out he said to me, “Father, if aught took me, you’d be good to Joan.” We all thinks that to each other,’ father-in-law says, ‘but the young men—specially the new-married—they generally says it once or twice before they feel it’s taken for granted. Said I back to Jarvist, “Joan’s a lass with grit in her, and she’ll be good to herself and to others, too, I reckon.” And that was my promise to Jarvist for you, Joan, and you’ve got to make it good,’ says he. So I’ve tried to do. That’s five-and-twenty years ago, and time is passing on. It’s not so long for any of us after all.”
“I beg pardon for speaking so freely to you, ma’am,” she went on after a short pause, while Lucy’s tears dropped; “but there’s a look in your face that if you’d been a man would have sent you out to the Goodwins. But the women have to do their part at home—keeping ready dry clothes and hot gruel sometimes,” she added with a quiet laugh, “as we did one day this spring, when one poor soul was left wrecked on the Goodwins after all his shipmates were drowned. It was said the lifeboat couldn’t go out; but then our men they couldn’t stay in! Never shall I forget that night at the little mariners’ service where I often go. The gentleman that was praying and reading the Scriptures saw the men’s faces, and he broke short off to say, ‘Can we go? Can we do something?’ Why not? It was all in the service of God. And they went, and they brought off the man safely—a poor Norwegian.”
Lucy had learned to fear contact with strangers since her husband’s illness. Their misjudged “sympathy,” their well-meant comments, had so often been as the rubbing of salt into the ever-open wound of anxiety, and the almost tenderer spot of hope. She had learned the lesson that if the greatest consolation for sorrow is to have beside us one who understands it and shares it, then the next greatest blessing is to be able to bear one’s burden alone, apart from those to whom one’s agony is but a spectacle or a dumping ground for commonplaces.
But she found there was no need to shrink from Mrs. May. When she confided to the landlady the plans that were in preparation, and the long separation which was impending, Mrs. May was full of encouraging hope. She could narrate cases in which the sea, despite its terrible side, had acted as a beneficent healer and life restorer. She could tell, too, of many who had suffered in the same way as Mr. Challoner, and were still alive—elderly people, with long useful years behind them. To Lucy Challoner this sort of cheer was the more acceptable because it came to her surrounded by an atmosphere, and supported by a foundation, in which neither life nor death were held to be the main things—but only “the will of the Lord,” which could make either death or life blessed both to those who were left and to those who were taken.
Very different was the tone of the notes which came from Lucy’s sister Florence. Mrs. Brand wrote a large hand, so that a very few words covered four sides of a sheet of note-paper; also she wrote, as it were, breathlessly, dropping pronouns and punctuation. She was very forcible in bewailing her sister’s departure to Deal—“So sudden—and such a place—and didn’t Charlie feel the journey—and it mightn’t be amiss if it turned him aside from the bigger scheme—couldn’t bear to think of it—poor dear Lucy all alone—well, the child, of course—and if for Charlie’s good, but it seemed a great risk—wasn’t beginning to look for a successor for Pollie yet; no good being in hurry—better not hire anyone till a day or two before wanted—and Lucy not coming back to London till the very night before Charlie sailed for the North—who was Captain Grant?—hoped he was a decent man—master mariners not always up to much; but if Charlie kept pretty well, perhaps he would not mind about trifles. Must get word as soon as they were sure of dates—must get last look of Charlie—and had good many evening engagements on. Poor dear Lucy, Florence really pitied—things had looked so different at Lucy’s marriage, but might turn out better, even yet.”
As Lucy read those notes, her pulse used to quicken with a sense of revolt. Charlie’s wife was no person to be pitied! Come what might, she was not to be pitied! Her anxieties, her possible sorrows, were not to be regarded as so much ill-luck, to be secretly contrasted by Florence with her own splendid fortune in stalwart, prosperous Jem, and her showy house, and large “visiting circle.”
After these rebellious sensations, Lucy always turned penitent—said to herself that she was silly and even wicked, and resolved to allow no such feelings to arise again. But Florence’s next note always stirred them anew. The east wind will ruffle us; we can but turn our backs to it, or veil our faces, and afterwards soothe the irritated skin with emollients. So there are natures which thus rush rudely on our souls. And we cannot change those natures, or their effect upon us; we can only avert the worst results by tact, hide our soreness in silence, and heal damages by patience and forbearance. Let us put our conscious misery to a good use by its keeping us humbly aware that any sweetness or amiability that we may seem to possess belongs, after all, almost as much to our environment as to ourselves!
The peaceful resting-time wore to an end. Charlie Challoner and his little boy had made friends with nearly all the Deal “hovellers,” lounging so easily on the shingly shore, watching the sea and the sky, as if there were nothing else to do in life, yet with the strength of scores of conquered storms wrought into their fine old faces. They had heard many stories grave and gay, and little Hugh had gathered up some queer treasures in the way of uncommon shells and stones, and even a little carved boat.
Lucy herself did not talk much to the old boatmen. Her happy relations with Mrs. May had not overcome all her shrinking from strangers, and she preferred to hear of them from Charlie, and to let him tell over their yarns to her. But when she went out with her husband they all gave her kindly greeting. It was Lucy’s delighted pride that whoever knew Charlie first seemed always ready to welcome and approve of her. She revelled in being regarded kindly for his sake. Yet it was as often something of her which had originally commended him. He or she who is wrapped round by a true and tender love carries its grace everywhere.
After Charlie had had his pleasant chats to some of those old men, the one of them had said to the other—
“Reckon that gentleman’s got a good woman belonging to him. Ye sort o’ feel it on him, like ye smell the spicy breezes before ye touch a port o’ the land where spices grow.”
“Course he has,” said the other; “haven’t ye seen her? A winsome lass—one of the little craft that can go through a great deal of rough weather—the sort that’s generally made for that purpose, to my thinking.”
Then came the last day before the returning day.
“We will go for a long walk inland,” said Charlie. “It will be my last sight of English trees for a long while; and if autumn has carried off some of their beauty, it has added more of its own.”
That afternoon Mrs. May announced that she was going for a walk up to Walmer Castle, and asked if the little master might go with her. Hugh was delighted—the sea was a perennial joy to him—to whom country lanes did not seem marvellously different from London squares and parks. Lucy gratefully assented. She never knew whether it was an accident, or whether the kind woman realised that she and Charlie would be thankful for a quiet ramble and an undisturbed conversation.
Perhaps they did not talk much during that walk. Hearts were too full and tears too near the surface. But each uttered solemnly those expressions of mutual love and faith which must generally lie half hidden under the little commonplaces of daily life. Each, as it were, rendered back the mutual charge of the other,—Charles promising faithfully to take care of himself, and to remember all the precautions Lucy would insist on, if she were with him,—Lucy pledging herself to keep as free as possible from worrying, to remember that, under all the circumstances, the coming of letters must be more or less uncertain and far between, adding a voluntary clause that she would do her very best to be brave and wise under any unforeseen conditions which might arise, and under which she could not seek Charlie’s counsel and support. That voluntary clause was due to Lucy’s tender self-reproach against the household secret that she was keeping, even for her husband’s own sake. Charlie received it, with assurances that he knew she would keep her word. Little did either of them then think how that little pledge was to return to their minds, to their common soothing and upholding!
Lucy felt that this quiet hour of spiritual nearness was their true farewell. With its thrilling emotions would be blent for ever the memory of the solemn November afternoon sky—sunless, but with suggestions of sunlight in its delicate opal hues—and the square tower of Munceam church, lifting its grey head from a mass of foliage, glorious with vivid autumn tints.
After that came the bustle of final packing, the farewell to Mrs. May—to whom Lucy felt she owed something which was not included in her modest bill—the railway journey, the return home. The house was in apple-pie order, and at this critical juncture Charlie ceased to wonder at Pollie’s unrestrained, fast-flowing tears. The Brands “looked in” late that night in evening dress on their way from a dinner-party. Jem Brand talked loud and fast to Charlie, while Florence patted her sister’s hands and whispered that she had not secured her a servant yet—they would go about that business together—the interest and excitement would be cheering to Lucy’s loneliness—there were still three or four days to pass before Pollie left—plenty of time.
“Plenty of time!” Lucy echoed absently. “What did it really matter? Charlie was going away!”
Then it was over. Lucy came back from seeing her husband on board the Scotch steamer for Aberdeen. She felt as if she had died, and had come to life again in an emptied earth. How strange the street noises sounded! How strange the familiar house looked! Even little Hugh seemed somehow different!
Lucy had not experienced enough to know that the worst was not yet. She had still to expect her husband’s telegram of his safe arrival in the north. She could look forward to one or two letters from him written from Peterhead. And when these came, full of cheer, of pleasant descriptions of scenery, fellow-passengers, and friendly welcome, together with good accounts of the dear wanderer’s own progress towards strength, poor Lucy began to feel as if she had passed the sharpest corner of her woe, and almost to congratulate herself on her own bravery.
Alas, beyond “the strong pull” on one’s courage and submission, there comes “the long pull.”
(To be continued.)
THINGS IN SEASON, IN MARKET AND KITCHEN.ByLA MÉNAGÈRE.Thereare several new additions to our list. We have grass-lamb, mackerel, the first salmon, salads, salad-herbs, cucumbers, spinach, spring onions, turnip and nettle-tops, but as yet no additional fruits. However, whilst we have such an abundance of good rhubarb and green salads, we have nothing to complain of, for what can be better for health than these, or more refreshing?—so welcome, too, after the winter. Fresh mint, sorrel, chervil, and water-cress add flavour to the bowl, and spring onions give it piquancy.People who suffer from sleeplessness should try the effect of a sandwich of spring onions—bread and butter with finely-minced onion spread between—before retiring to rest. It is said to be most soothing and sleep-inviting.I would specially recommend these “green” sandwiches to all who find a difficulty in eating salad-herbs in any other form—for instance, chopped mustard and cress, thinly-shaved cucumber and onion, chopped parsley, mint and sorrel—all are excellent when spread between thin slices of buttered bread, and very dainty, too, are they.This is the month when we may begin one of our favourite dishes of spinach and eggs—one of our physic dishes, I might say, for on very good authority we learn that spinach contains more iron than almost anything else that can be mentioned, and when combined with the sulphur of the egg becomes a capital tonic medicine. So by all means let us eat plenty of it.I have mentioned mackerel as belonging to the month of April. From now until the end of June they will be prime, and are a good fish to eat; but out of their proper season they are not wholesome. Perhaps they are nicest when carefully boiled and served with parsley sauce; but if baked with butter and accompanied by gooseberry sauce, or split open and broiled, with herb sauce, they are very nearly as good. Also they are excellent for breakfast when pickled and eaten cold.It is hardly possible this month to lay too much stress on the virtues of salads; and to prepare these well, to make as many varieties of them as possible, and to mix the dressing with due art, is well worth careful study on the part of every housewife.A perfectly plain dressing of salt, pepper, vinegar and oil, if well beaten together, and then a spoonful of good cream added, becomes almost equal to a mayonnaise, and is not so expensive or troublesome to make ready.The following would be found a suitable little dinner for this month, and it is easy to vary at will:—MENU.Cream of Spinach Soup.Boiled Mackerel. Parsley Sauce.Roast Lamb. Boiled Cucumber. Mint Sauce.Spring Salad.Rhubarb Fool. Sponge Custard Pudding.Cheese Aigrettes.Cream of Spinach Soup.—Pick and wash a quart of spinach, set it on to boil with enough water to cover it, and a spoonful of salt; stew a couple of young onions and a few herbs in a separate vessel, and then rub all together through a sieve until a greenpuréeis obtained. To this add a pint of hot milk, a spoonful of cornflour wet with milk and an ounce of butter, also seasoning to taste. Boil up once and serve.Boiled Cucumberis an agreeable change amongst vegetables, and is very easy to do. Pare the cucumber and cut it down lengthwise, then across into inch-lengths; throw into salted boiling water and cook ten minutes. Drain well and serve with a little parsley sprinkled over, or in melted butter sauce.Rhubarb Fool.—Cut up two or three bundles of fresh rhubarb into short lengths, and stew quickly with sugar until quite soft, then rub through a sieve. Whip about a quarter of a pint of thick cream and the whites of two eggs together, with one or two tablespoonfuls of castor sugar, and lightly whisk these up with the fruit. Heap all in a bright glass dish.Sponge Custard Pudding.—Make a boiled custard with the yolks of the two eggs, a pint of milk, two ounces of castor sugar, grated lemon rind for flavouring, and an ounce of dissolved gelatine stirred in at the last. Half fill a plain mould with sponge biscuits and pour this custard on them whilst hot. Set aside in a cold place until it is solid. The rhubarb fool would also be improved by being set on ice. Serve both together.Cheese Aigrettes.—Dissolve an ounce of butter and stir into it a tablespoonful of flour; add half a pint of warm milk, and stir over the fire until a smooth paste is obtained. Add whilst hot salt, cayenne pepper, and grated cheese enough to give a strong flavour. When getting cool mix in carefully the yolk of a large fresh egg. Bring half a pound of lard up to boiling point, and then drop into it small pieces of the paste, and boil rapidly. They should puff out and be a beautiful golden brown. Roll each aigrette in grated cheese when it has drained, and serve on a paper doyley whilst hot. They are not good cold.
ByLA MÉNAGÈRE.
Thereare several new additions to our list. We have grass-lamb, mackerel, the first salmon, salads, salad-herbs, cucumbers, spinach, spring onions, turnip and nettle-tops, but as yet no additional fruits. However, whilst we have such an abundance of good rhubarb and green salads, we have nothing to complain of, for what can be better for health than these, or more refreshing?—so welcome, too, after the winter. Fresh mint, sorrel, chervil, and water-cress add flavour to the bowl, and spring onions give it piquancy.
People who suffer from sleeplessness should try the effect of a sandwich of spring onions—bread and butter with finely-minced onion spread between—before retiring to rest. It is said to be most soothing and sleep-inviting.
I would specially recommend these “green” sandwiches to all who find a difficulty in eating salad-herbs in any other form—for instance, chopped mustard and cress, thinly-shaved cucumber and onion, chopped parsley, mint and sorrel—all are excellent when spread between thin slices of buttered bread, and very dainty, too, are they.
This is the month when we may begin one of our favourite dishes of spinach and eggs—one of our physic dishes, I might say, for on very good authority we learn that spinach contains more iron than almost anything else that can be mentioned, and when combined with the sulphur of the egg becomes a capital tonic medicine. So by all means let us eat plenty of it.
I have mentioned mackerel as belonging to the month of April. From now until the end of June they will be prime, and are a good fish to eat; but out of their proper season they are not wholesome. Perhaps they are nicest when carefully boiled and served with parsley sauce; but if baked with butter and accompanied by gooseberry sauce, or split open and broiled, with herb sauce, they are very nearly as good. Also they are excellent for breakfast when pickled and eaten cold.
It is hardly possible this month to lay too much stress on the virtues of salads; and to prepare these well, to make as many varieties of them as possible, and to mix the dressing with due art, is well worth careful study on the part of every housewife.
A perfectly plain dressing of salt, pepper, vinegar and oil, if well beaten together, and then a spoonful of good cream added, becomes almost equal to a mayonnaise, and is not so expensive or troublesome to make ready.
The following would be found a suitable little dinner for this month, and it is easy to vary at will:—
Cream of Spinach Soup.—Pick and wash a quart of spinach, set it on to boil with enough water to cover it, and a spoonful of salt; stew a couple of young onions and a few herbs in a separate vessel, and then rub all together through a sieve until a greenpuréeis obtained. To this add a pint of hot milk, a spoonful of cornflour wet with milk and an ounce of butter, also seasoning to taste. Boil up once and serve.
Boiled Cucumberis an agreeable change amongst vegetables, and is very easy to do. Pare the cucumber and cut it down lengthwise, then across into inch-lengths; throw into salted boiling water and cook ten minutes. Drain well and serve with a little parsley sprinkled over, or in melted butter sauce.
Rhubarb Fool.—Cut up two or three bundles of fresh rhubarb into short lengths, and stew quickly with sugar until quite soft, then rub through a sieve. Whip about a quarter of a pint of thick cream and the whites of two eggs together, with one or two tablespoonfuls of castor sugar, and lightly whisk these up with the fruit. Heap all in a bright glass dish.
Sponge Custard Pudding.—Make a boiled custard with the yolks of the two eggs, a pint of milk, two ounces of castor sugar, grated lemon rind for flavouring, and an ounce of dissolved gelatine stirred in at the last. Half fill a plain mould with sponge biscuits and pour this custard on them whilst hot. Set aside in a cold place until it is solid. The rhubarb fool would also be improved by being set on ice. Serve both together.
Cheese Aigrettes.—Dissolve an ounce of butter and stir into it a tablespoonful of flour; add half a pint of warm milk, and stir over the fire until a smooth paste is obtained. Add whilst hot salt, cayenne pepper, and grated cheese enough to give a strong flavour. When getting cool mix in carefully the yolk of a large fresh egg. Bring half a pound of lard up to boiling point, and then drop into it small pieces of the paste, and boil rapidly. They should puff out and be a beautiful golden brown. Roll each aigrette in grated cheese when it has drained, and serve on a paper doyley whilst hot. They are not good cold.
SHEILA.A STORY FOR GIRLS.ByEVELYN EVERETT-GREEN, Author of “Greyfriars,” “Half-a-dozen Sisters,” etc.CHAPTER IIINEW RELATIONS."Havethey come yet?” asked a man’s voice, which sounded through the house the moment the door had been opened by the latch-key in his hand.A girl had darted out of a room upon the ground-floor at the sound of the opening door, and she gave quick reply.“No, but we are expecting them every minute. I’m glad you are back, North. Father always likes to see you first thing.”The young man was divesting himself of his overcoat in the hall. He was a broad-shouldered muscular fellow, with very much the same stamp of features as his father, only that as he was clean-shaven, all but a moustache, the square outline of the jaw could be more distinctly seen. It was not a handsome face, but it was a strong one, and there was a gleam of humour in the brown eyes which redeemed it alike from heaviness and sternness.The sister was a merry-looking girl of about twenty, with the family features, a little square in outline, but she had a tip-tilted nose, “a snub,” as the brothers called it, which gave her an expression of sauciness not at all contradicted by the dancing light in her eyes.“Come in and warm yourself. The wind has been bitter all day. We must wait tea for the travellers. Any news in town?”North walked into the long drawing-room, which occupied all the space through the house on one side of the hall. The house, though it now stood in a street, was detached from its neighbours, and showed in many of its arrangements that it had once been a gentleman’s country abode. It was old-fashioned and a little dark, but it wore a homelike aspect; and the room, which was panelled half-way up in sombre oak, was filled with the dancing light from a blazing fire of logs.There were three persons in the room when the brother and sister entered. Mrs. Thomas Cossart (who was generally known in the place as Mrs. Tom, on account of the other Mrs. Cossart up at the big house) was knitting in her arm-chair with a book beside her. She was a matronly lady, with a pleasant face, which had been beautiful in youth, and was still quite comely. Her elder daughter Raby stood with a screen in her hand shielding her face from the blaze, and another son lounged upon the sofa, his hands clasped behind his head.It was sometimes said of the Cossarts by their friends, that North and Ray were the useful ones in the family, and Raby and Cyril the ornamental. Raby was tall and slight, and took after her mother. Without being a beauty she was a decidedly good-looking girl, and had many admirers of both sexes. She dressed always a little better and more carefully than her sister; but she was not really either useless or idle. She had plenty of fun in her, and good nature too. But she had a greater love of admiration and amusement than that possessed by Ray.Cyril presented a contrast to all the others of the family by being very fair where they were all inclined to be dark. As a child he had been singularly beautiful, with big blue eyes and a cloud of golden hair about his softly tinted face. His mother had been devoted to him from his babyhood, and even his father had found it difficult not to make something of an especial darling of him.Now at three and twenty he was a very good-looking fellow, although some declared that he was girlish and effeminate in his looks. Certainly the golden hair and big blue eyes were rather suggestive of a fair girl; and this likeness was perhaps a little intensified from the fact that he was quite clean-shaven, and did not grow even a moustache, as Ray had often begged him to do. But he had inherited sufficient of the Cossart type of features to redeem the face from the charge of weakness. It was a refined and etherialised face, but something of the square outline of the jaw remained, although the lips did not close over each other in the firm way that was noticeable in North and Ray, but were a little inclined to fall apart, giving the face a dreamy and abstracted expression, which was much admired by many of the young ladies of Isingford, who were fond of making studies from Cyril Cossart’s profile, and turning them into pictures called “Sir Galahad,” or “The Knight without fear and without reproach.”“Here they are!” cried Ray, who was still lingering about the half open door, “I hear wheels stopping. They have come! Mother, I shall go and open the door? It will look more friendly.”She was across the hall before she had finished speaking, and had thrown the front door wide open before the maid could arrive upon the scene. North followed her and stood full in view. The next minute their father led in a girl dressed in deep mourning, whom he pushed towards his daughter saying—“There Sheila, there is Ray. She will take care of you and make you feel at home.”“To be sure I will!” cried Ray, kissing Sheila’s cold face. “Come along in and see mother and Raby. I’m so glad you have come all safe. It feels just as though it would snow. But it won’t matter if it does, now that you’re safe home.”Sheila, a little shy and bewildered in her strange surroundings, was led into the warm drawing-room, where she was kissed by Mrs. Tom and Raby, and installed beside the fire in a comfortable chair, almost before she had time to get out a word.Mr. Tom had come in with North and Oscar, and there was a considerable confusion of tongues, kissing and welcoming. For the moment Sheila was left in her cosy corner; and it was then that she heard a gentle voice at her elbow saying—“You must let me add my welcome to the rest; though I am afraid it is really a sorrowful time for you. We are inclined to forget that what is our gain is your loss.”She looked up quickly, and saw that a stranger was slipping into the seat beside her. She did not guess for a moment that he, too, was a cousin. He looked so different from all the Cossarts she had seen so far. Perhaps the startled look in her big wistful eyes showed this, for the voice continued speaking.“I am your cousin Cyril. Probably you know our names from our father by this time. I think I can feel for you better than the rest—coming into this strange life, which is so different from anything you have known before. They had been used to it all their lives—they know nothing else. But I do, and I can understand how you must feel about it.”“I don’t think I feel anything yet,” said Sheila slowly, “I have not had time. But Uncle Tom has been very kind. I think—I hope—I am sure I ought to be very happy.”Yet even as she spoke Sheila felt the tears suddenly spring to her eyes. She did not know how it was; but just this arrival at a strange house, this feeling of being suddenly cast into the midst of a number of strange people seemed to bring before her her loneliness in a way she had never felt it before. She looked round for Oscar, but Ray hadgot him in her care, and was chattering gaily to him. Her uncle was for the moment engrossed with his wife and elder son. The wave of loneliness seemed to rise higher and higher about her. She felt the sob in her throat, and turned her face towards the fire to get rid of the welling tears before they should be seen.“I know so well what you feel,” said Cyril’s sympathetic voice in her ear. “Often when I have come home from college, or from other people’s houses, the same feeling has come over me. If I had been a girl I should have cried too. It seemed like stepping into a new world where one had no interests, no heart, no sympathies.”“Oh, but I don’t want to feel like that!” said Sheila quickly. “That would be wrong and ungrateful. Uncle Tom has been so kind. You are all kind. Only—only—I haven’t often been away from home; and it seems all so strange; and there isn’t any more home left behind—that is what is the strangest thing of all!”Her voice broke for a moment, and Cyril put out his hand and laid it on hers in token of comprehension and sympathy; but there was no time for more words, for the group in the middle of the room broke up.There was a stir at the door, and two maids appeared with the tea-table and equipage; and Sheila found herself the centre of attraction as the lamp shed its light over the darkening room, and everybody gathered round the fire to discuss hot cakes and steaming cups of tea, whilst they “took stock” of the new cousins and tried to make them feel at home.Cyril spoke the least now; but Sheila was conscious that he looked after her wants with a gentle consideration, and she felt grateful to him, and stole glances at him from time to time, wondering what made him so different from all the rest. All were kind and cousinly, and seemed interested in her, and liked to hear her talk; but there was a difference—a quiet sympathy about Cyril’s manner which was totally distinct from the friendliness of the rest. He reminded her of the world in which she had been accustomed to move. Everything else was different, the very atmosphere seemed changed, though she could not have accounted for or defined the change.Ray took her upstairs at last.“I am glad you are to stay a day or two here. This is our spare room. Oscar has the little one. We could not take you in for good, or it would have left us no spare room at all. Besides, they want you up at Cossart Place. I wonder how you and Effie will get on. This cold spell has made her breathing bad; but she is beginning to look forward to your coming.”“Didn’t she like it at first?” asked Sheila, reading something between the lines.“Well, you know, Effie is a bit crossgrained. If she thinks of a thing herself, she’s as keen after it as possible; but if somebody else suggests it, she takes a dislike to it directly. It’s partly because she’s out of health, and partly because she’s been so spoiled. I get along with her very well, though she’s not always in the sweetest of tempers. But then perhaps none of us are!” And Ray laughed, showing her white even teeth.Ray stayed and helped Sheila to unpack the one box which had come to River Street. Her heavy baggage had been sent straight to Cossart Place.“We don’t have a maid here; but Effie has one. I daresay she’ll share with you. You’ve been used to one, I expect. You have been county people, I know. We are onlybourgeoise, of course. I expect our ways will seem funny to you!”It did seem rather strange to Sheila to come down and find the father and elder son in morning dress. Cyril and the girls dressed for dinner; but had never got the rest of their men-folk to do so. Indeed, it was but within the last few years that they had been able to get the father to consent to a seven o’clock dinner. It had been the fashion in Isingford for business men to leave their works about five, and dine at six or earlier, and have a supper later. The girls had had something of a fight to get afternoon tea and seven o’clock dinner, and with that they had to be content without further concessions to more fashionable habits.In the evening there was music, for the Cossarts were fond of singing and had good voices, though they had only been trained by local teachers, and lacked finish and culture. Cyril was the exception. He had been a chorister in his boyhood, and had been carefully taught both at school and afterwards. He generally declined to assist at the family concert; but to-night he sang several times, and got Sheila to sing duets with him, though she told him she had no voice, and was only good at playing accompaniments.It was true that her voice was not powerful, but it was very sweet in tone, and had been carefully cultivated by a good master.Cyril appreciated this, and Sheila enjoyed his approval and friendliness; and went to bed feeling more cheered and less lonely than she would have believed it possible.The next day was a very interesting and rather exciting one, for they were both taken to the works by their uncle and North, and Oscar was shown something of what was expected of him in the future. There was to be a good deal of desk-work at first, which was not much to his taste; but he was to receive training in the electrical branch which was being established in connection with the works, so that when the new buildings were opened, he would be able to take a position there as assistant manager. Meantime it was essential that he should learn the routine of office work and book-keeping; and he assented to the drudgery willingly, his common sense telling him that there was nothing like beginning at the bottom of the ladder. He had seen too much of the evil effects of not understanding business not to be ready and willing to acquire the power himself of understanding it thoroughly.“North is a capital fellow,” he said to Sheila that night, following her into her room for a talk in private; for in that busy, merry household there was little time for confidential conversation, and Sheila had been taken possession of all the afternoon by her girl-cousins, and introduced right and left to a bewildering number of their friends. “He isn’t one to make professions; but I know he’ll do what he can to help me. It will be dull work, some of it, and I may be rather stupid at it; but I mean to do my best, and get on if I can.”“I hope you will. I think they all mean to be kind; but, Oscar, do you call our cousins—well, what shall I say? If we had met them at home, do you think we should have called them quite ladies and gentlemen—except Cyril?”Oscar laughed, and made a little expressive grimace.“Since they are our cousins, perhaps we’d better not put the question quite so straight, Sheila. But, indeed, it’s better not to think too much about rank and station and the gloss on the top. It’s very nice when one can get it too; but the great thing is whether people are really good and honest and kindly, as our relations are. And our mother was one of them; we must not forget that. It would be awfully snobbish of us to look down on them—as though we were better than they—after all they are doing for us too!”“Oh, yes—indeed, I don’t mean to do that. Only things do seem funny sometimes; and, you know, Cyril feels it too. I think he feels it more than we do. He is so very different from all the rest.”“Yes,” assented Oscar slowly; “but I’m not sure that I like him as well as the others.”“Oh, Oscar, I like him much the best!”“Yes, I can see you do. Perhaps I shall when I know him better. I feel rather as though he gave himself airs.”“Oh, no! It’s only that he feels more as we do—he would like things different. He has been to college, and stayed with people who live differently. I am quite glad he is here. He has promised to come often to see me when I go to The Grange. He likes to call it The Grange, too. He thinks Cossart Place sounds vulgar. Cyril and I think alike in a lot of ways.”“And when are you going to The Grange? I thought Aunt Cossart was to come and see you this afternoon?”“Yes; but Effie had one of her attacks, and so she couldn’t. She will write to-night and say if I am to go to-morrow, or wait for another day. I hope I shall get on with Effie; but, from what Cyril says, I think she is verydifficile.”“Don’t let Cyril set you against people and things!” said Oscar, rather gravely.“Oh, no, I won’t!” was Sheila’s eager answer.(To be continued.)
A STORY FOR GIRLS.
ByEVELYN EVERETT-GREEN, Author of “Greyfriars,” “Half-a-dozen Sisters,” etc.
NEW RELATIONS.
"H
avethey come yet?” asked a man’s voice, which sounded through the house the moment the door had been opened by the latch-key in his hand.
A girl had darted out of a room upon the ground-floor at the sound of the opening door, and she gave quick reply.
“No, but we are expecting them every minute. I’m glad you are back, North. Father always likes to see you first thing.”
The young man was divesting himself of his overcoat in the hall. He was a broad-shouldered muscular fellow, with very much the same stamp of features as his father, only that as he was clean-shaven, all but a moustache, the square outline of the jaw could be more distinctly seen. It was not a handsome face, but it was a strong one, and there was a gleam of humour in the brown eyes which redeemed it alike from heaviness and sternness.
The sister was a merry-looking girl of about twenty, with the family features, a little square in outline, but she had a tip-tilted nose, “a snub,” as the brothers called it, which gave her an expression of sauciness not at all contradicted by the dancing light in her eyes.
“Come in and warm yourself. The wind has been bitter all day. We must wait tea for the travellers. Any news in town?”
North walked into the long drawing-room, which occupied all the space through the house on one side of the hall. The house, though it now stood in a street, was detached from its neighbours, and showed in many of its arrangements that it had once been a gentleman’s country abode. It was old-fashioned and a little dark, but it wore a homelike aspect; and the room, which was panelled half-way up in sombre oak, was filled with the dancing light from a blazing fire of logs.
There were three persons in the room when the brother and sister entered. Mrs. Thomas Cossart (who was generally known in the place as Mrs. Tom, on account of the other Mrs. Cossart up at the big house) was knitting in her arm-chair with a book beside her. She was a matronly lady, with a pleasant face, which had been beautiful in youth, and was still quite comely. Her elder daughter Raby stood with a screen in her hand shielding her face from the blaze, and another son lounged upon the sofa, his hands clasped behind his head.
It was sometimes said of the Cossarts by their friends, that North and Ray were the useful ones in the family, and Raby and Cyril the ornamental. Raby was tall and slight, and took after her mother. Without being a beauty she was a decidedly good-looking girl, and had many admirers of both sexes. She dressed always a little better and more carefully than her sister; but she was not really either useless or idle. She had plenty of fun in her, and good nature too. But she had a greater love of admiration and amusement than that possessed by Ray.
Cyril presented a contrast to all the others of the family by being very fair where they were all inclined to be dark. As a child he had been singularly beautiful, with big blue eyes and a cloud of golden hair about his softly tinted face. His mother had been devoted to him from his babyhood, and even his father had found it difficult not to make something of an especial darling of him.
Now at three and twenty he was a very good-looking fellow, although some declared that he was girlish and effeminate in his looks. Certainly the golden hair and big blue eyes were rather suggestive of a fair girl; and this likeness was perhaps a little intensified from the fact that he was quite clean-shaven, and did not grow even a moustache, as Ray had often begged him to do. But he had inherited sufficient of the Cossart type of features to redeem the face from the charge of weakness. It was a refined and etherialised face, but something of the square outline of the jaw remained, although the lips did not close over each other in the firm way that was noticeable in North and Ray, but were a little inclined to fall apart, giving the face a dreamy and abstracted expression, which was much admired by many of the young ladies of Isingford, who were fond of making studies from Cyril Cossart’s profile, and turning them into pictures called “Sir Galahad,” or “The Knight without fear and without reproach.”
“Here they are!” cried Ray, who was still lingering about the half open door, “I hear wheels stopping. They have come! Mother, I shall go and open the door? It will look more friendly.”
She was across the hall before she had finished speaking, and had thrown the front door wide open before the maid could arrive upon the scene. North followed her and stood full in view. The next minute their father led in a girl dressed in deep mourning, whom he pushed towards his daughter saying—
“There Sheila, there is Ray. She will take care of you and make you feel at home.”
“To be sure I will!” cried Ray, kissing Sheila’s cold face. “Come along in and see mother and Raby. I’m so glad you have come all safe. It feels just as though it would snow. But it won’t matter if it does, now that you’re safe home.”
Sheila, a little shy and bewildered in her strange surroundings, was led into the warm drawing-room, where she was kissed by Mrs. Tom and Raby, and installed beside the fire in a comfortable chair, almost before she had time to get out a word.
Mr. Tom had come in with North and Oscar, and there was a considerable confusion of tongues, kissing and welcoming. For the moment Sheila was left in her cosy corner; and it was then that she heard a gentle voice at her elbow saying—
“You must let me add my welcome to the rest; though I am afraid it is really a sorrowful time for you. We are inclined to forget that what is our gain is your loss.”
She looked up quickly, and saw that a stranger was slipping into the seat beside her. She did not guess for a moment that he, too, was a cousin. He looked so different from all the Cossarts she had seen so far. Perhaps the startled look in her big wistful eyes showed this, for the voice continued speaking.
“I am your cousin Cyril. Probably you know our names from our father by this time. I think I can feel for you better than the rest—coming into this strange life, which is so different from anything you have known before. They had been used to it all their lives—they know nothing else. But I do, and I can understand how you must feel about it.”
“I don’t think I feel anything yet,” said Sheila slowly, “I have not had time. But Uncle Tom has been very kind. I think—I hope—I am sure I ought to be very happy.”
Yet even as she spoke Sheila felt the tears suddenly spring to her eyes. She did not know how it was; but just this arrival at a strange house, this feeling of being suddenly cast into the midst of a number of strange people seemed to bring before her her loneliness in a way she had never felt it before. She looked round for Oscar, but Ray hadgot him in her care, and was chattering gaily to him. Her uncle was for the moment engrossed with his wife and elder son. The wave of loneliness seemed to rise higher and higher about her. She felt the sob in her throat, and turned her face towards the fire to get rid of the welling tears before they should be seen.
“I know so well what you feel,” said Cyril’s sympathetic voice in her ear. “Often when I have come home from college, or from other people’s houses, the same feeling has come over me. If I had been a girl I should have cried too. It seemed like stepping into a new world where one had no interests, no heart, no sympathies.”
“Oh, but I don’t want to feel like that!” said Sheila quickly. “That would be wrong and ungrateful. Uncle Tom has been so kind. You are all kind. Only—only—I haven’t often been away from home; and it seems all so strange; and there isn’t any more home left behind—that is what is the strangest thing of all!”
Her voice broke for a moment, and Cyril put out his hand and laid it on hers in token of comprehension and sympathy; but there was no time for more words, for the group in the middle of the room broke up.
There was a stir at the door, and two maids appeared with the tea-table and equipage; and Sheila found herself the centre of attraction as the lamp shed its light over the darkening room, and everybody gathered round the fire to discuss hot cakes and steaming cups of tea, whilst they “took stock” of the new cousins and tried to make them feel at home.
Cyril spoke the least now; but Sheila was conscious that he looked after her wants with a gentle consideration, and she felt grateful to him, and stole glances at him from time to time, wondering what made him so different from all the rest. All were kind and cousinly, and seemed interested in her, and liked to hear her talk; but there was a difference—a quiet sympathy about Cyril’s manner which was totally distinct from the friendliness of the rest. He reminded her of the world in which she had been accustomed to move. Everything else was different, the very atmosphere seemed changed, though she could not have accounted for or defined the change.
Ray took her upstairs at last.
“I am glad you are to stay a day or two here. This is our spare room. Oscar has the little one. We could not take you in for good, or it would have left us no spare room at all. Besides, they want you up at Cossart Place. I wonder how you and Effie will get on. This cold spell has made her breathing bad; but she is beginning to look forward to your coming.”
“Didn’t she like it at first?” asked Sheila, reading something between the lines.
“Well, you know, Effie is a bit crossgrained. If she thinks of a thing herself, she’s as keen after it as possible; but if somebody else suggests it, she takes a dislike to it directly. It’s partly because she’s out of health, and partly because she’s been so spoiled. I get along with her very well, though she’s not always in the sweetest of tempers. But then perhaps none of us are!” And Ray laughed, showing her white even teeth.
Ray stayed and helped Sheila to unpack the one box which had come to River Street. Her heavy baggage had been sent straight to Cossart Place.
“We don’t have a maid here; but Effie has one. I daresay she’ll share with you. You’ve been used to one, I expect. You have been county people, I know. We are onlybourgeoise, of course. I expect our ways will seem funny to you!”
It did seem rather strange to Sheila to come down and find the father and elder son in morning dress. Cyril and the girls dressed for dinner; but had never got the rest of their men-folk to do so. Indeed, it was but within the last few years that they had been able to get the father to consent to a seven o’clock dinner. It had been the fashion in Isingford for business men to leave their works about five, and dine at six or earlier, and have a supper later. The girls had had something of a fight to get afternoon tea and seven o’clock dinner, and with that they had to be content without further concessions to more fashionable habits.
In the evening there was music, for the Cossarts were fond of singing and had good voices, though they had only been trained by local teachers, and lacked finish and culture. Cyril was the exception. He had been a chorister in his boyhood, and had been carefully taught both at school and afterwards. He generally declined to assist at the family concert; but to-night he sang several times, and got Sheila to sing duets with him, though she told him she had no voice, and was only good at playing accompaniments.
It was true that her voice was not powerful, but it was very sweet in tone, and had been carefully cultivated by a good master.
Cyril appreciated this, and Sheila enjoyed his approval and friendliness; and went to bed feeling more cheered and less lonely than she would have believed it possible.
The next day was a very interesting and rather exciting one, for they were both taken to the works by their uncle and North, and Oscar was shown something of what was expected of him in the future. There was to be a good deal of desk-work at first, which was not much to his taste; but he was to receive training in the electrical branch which was being established in connection with the works, so that when the new buildings were opened, he would be able to take a position there as assistant manager. Meantime it was essential that he should learn the routine of office work and book-keeping; and he assented to the drudgery willingly, his common sense telling him that there was nothing like beginning at the bottom of the ladder. He had seen too much of the evil effects of not understanding business not to be ready and willing to acquire the power himself of understanding it thoroughly.
“North is a capital fellow,” he said to Sheila that night, following her into her room for a talk in private; for in that busy, merry household there was little time for confidential conversation, and Sheila had been taken possession of all the afternoon by her girl-cousins, and introduced right and left to a bewildering number of their friends. “He isn’t one to make professions; but I know he’ll do what he can to help me. It will be dull work, some of it, and I may be rather stupid at it; but I mean to do my best, and get on if I can.”
“I hope you will. I think they all mean to be kind; but, Oscar, do you call our cousins—well, what shall I say? If we had met them at home, do you think we should have called them quite ladies and gentlemen—except Cyril?”
Oscar laughed, and made a little expressive grimace.
“Since they are our cousins, perhaps we’d better not put the question quite so straight, Sheila. But, indeed, it’s better not to think too much about rank and station and the gloss on the top. It’s very nice when one can get it too; but the great thing is whether people are really good and honest and kindly, as our relations are. And our mother was one of them; we must not forget that. It would be awfully snobbish of us to look down on them—as though we were better than they—after all they are doing for us too!”
“Oh, yes—indeed, I don’t mean to do that. Only things do seem funny sometimes; and, you know, Cyril feels it too. I think he feels it more than we do. He is so very different from all the rest.”
“Yes,” assented Oscar slowly; “but I’m not sure that I like him as well as the others.”
“Oh, Oscar, I like him much the best!”
“Yes, I can see you do. Perhaps I shall when I know him better. I feel rather as though he gave himself airs.”
“Oh, no! It’s only that he feels more as we do—he would like things different. He has been to college, and stayed with people who live differently. I am quite glad he is here. He has promised to come often to see me when I go to The Grange. He likes to call it The Grange, too. He thinks Cossart Place sounds vulgar. Cyril and I think alike in a lot of ways.”
“And when are you going to The Grange? I thought Aunt Cossart was to come and see you this afternoon?”
“Yes; but Effie had one of her attacks, and so she couldn’t. She will write to-night and say if I am to go to-morrow, or wait for another day. I hope I shall get on with Effie; but, from what Cyril says, I think she is verydifficile.”
“Don’t let Cyril set you against people and things!” said Oscar, rather gravely.
“Oh, no, I won’t!” was Sheila’s eager answer.
(To be continued.)
THE GIRL’S OWN QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS.The Examiners report on the Second Twenty-four Questions.Practicemakes perfect, so though the first instalment of answers in this competition was good, the second proved better, and we look forward to the third and last being the best of all. It takes time to discover to what fountains one ought to go for information; but once that is done, the rest is comparatively easy—you fill your pitcher and come away triumphant.The number who engaged in this second trial was slightly under that of those taking part in the first. Out of every hundred girls who started with questions 1-24, about fifteen failed to put in an appearance. Many causes, from whimsicality to illness, no doubt account for this. It was often, we are sure, unavoidable, for some girls whom we missed had done so well that they would have had a good place had they only continued.We give here our notes on questions 25-48 inclusive, so that competitors may check their own answers and see in some cases what they might have replied had they been fortunate enough to find out. General remarks on the competition, as we said last month, will follow when we come to intimate who the painstaking girls are who have won prizes and certificates.25. Who was the monarch who once attended the rehearsal of his own funeral?The monarch we had in view in framing this question was Charles V., Emperor of Germany and King of Spain. After his abdication in 1555-56 he retired to the monastery of St. Juste in the north of Estremadura, and here he resolved to celebrate his own obsequies. His domestics marched to the chapel of the monastery in funeral procession with black tapers in their hands, and he himself followed in his shroud. He was laid in his coffin with much solemnity. “The service for the dead was chanted, and Charles joined in the prayers which were offered up for the repose of his soul, mingling his tears with those which his attendants shed, as if they had been celebrating a real funeral.” Judging by the numbers who failed to answer, this was one of our difficult questions.26. What is the largest palace in the world used as a residence?Three palaces were prominent in the answers given—the Vatican at Rome, the Winter Palace at St. Petersburg, and the Palace of Versailles in the neighbourhood of Paris. The last-named, however, was mentioned by error, as it is now not a residence, but little more than a showplace. But it is huge enough, for in the heyday of its prosperity it accommodated about ten thousand persons—courtiers, dependents, etc. To the Vatican, the residence of the Pope, apparently belongs the credit of being of all palaces that on the largest scale. It is said to contain no fewer than seven thousand rooms. It became the fixed residence of the Popes in 1377. The Winter Palace at St. Petersburg is also an enormous structure, in which six thousand persons have frequently had a habitation.27. What is the exercise most conducive to physical beauty?The answers to this query were as varied as could be. Dancing, fencing, cycling, swimming, golfing, dumb-bell drill, and many other forms of exercise all had their advocates. Some girls said, “Housekeeping for ever!” and recommended constant devotion to sweeping and dusting; but others remarked that that was too narrow a view, and that we ought to move about in the open air as well. Most, however, held that the right form of exercise was walking, the cheapest, safest, and best of all. “And see,” says one competitor, “that you persevere in it and do it in all weathers, but the very worst, and particularly in winter.”28. What was the first street ever lit by gas?This was Pall Mall in London, which was first lit by gas on the 28th of January, 1807. The introduction of gas-lighting into London is due to the zeal and unwearied patience of a German named Winsor. He managed to gain some supporters, “and,” says a writer in Chambers’sBook of Days, “the long line between St. James’s Palace and Cockspur Street blazed out in a burst of gas-lamps on the night in question to the no small admiration of the public.” Westminster Bridge was lit with gas for the first time on the last night of 1812. Two years later in other parts of the metropolis gas was introduced on the streets, and from that time the new mode of lighting gradually made its way all over the world.29. How fast can one read when reading silently?Most competitors gave an answer to this question; but why did not all? It was easy enough, because the best answer a girl could make was to record the result of experimenting on herself. It was pointed out by many with much truth that the rate of reading varies greatly with different individuals and also with the kind of book read. We cannot, for instance, read philosophy as rapidly as history, or history as fast as a work of fiction. Poetry also, says a sensible competitor, must be read slowly in order to appreciate the style and rhythm. A moderately rapid reader, says this same competitor, will read history at the rate of about 600 words in five minutes, fiction at about 2,000 words in the same time, and poetry at about 700 words. The 600 and 700 words here given appear slow compared with the 2,000; but there is all the difference in the world between reading to remember and criticise and reading merely for a pastime.30. What famous philanthropist was known as the “Nightingale of the House of Commons?”When a girl shoots a bow at a venture she may hit the mark, but more often she does not. Here are some of the random shots at this answer—the Earl of Shaftesbury, John Bright, Mr. Gladstone, Sir Henry Fawcett, Sir Thomas Fowell Buxton, Lord Coleridge, the Earl of Chatham, and William Pitt. No, it was none of these—it was William Wilberforce, who will always be associated with the abolition of the slave trade. His remarkably sweet voice, so often used on behalf of those unable to plead for themselves, obtained for him the name to which we have referred in our question.31. How many hours a day should we give to sleep?There was a good deal of common-sense shown here in the answers, it being generally allowed that no hard and fast rule could be laid down. “Sleep till you have slept enough,” says one girl; “and enough is not the same with everybody.” The time will be found to vary, with grown-up people, from six to eight hours in the twenty-four, it very much depending on whether they are strong or weakly. One competitor quotes a medical authority to the effect that “the weakly very rarely require more than nine hours’ sleep at the utmost, and a longer indulgence will scarcely ever fail to injure them.”32. What is the most famous signal ever made to the British Navy?Hardly any competitors omitted to answer this question; almost every one right too. The ever-to-be-remembered signal was that made by Lord Nelson, before the battle of Trafalgar—“England expects every man to do his duty.” It was a signal, says Southey, in hisLife of Nelson, received throughout the fleet with a shout of answering acclamation, “made sublime by the spirit which it breathed and the feeling which it expressed.” As everyone knows, it was the last signal of our great naval hero, for he received his mortal wound in the heat of the action.It is worth mentioning that one girl, whom we guess to be a humorist, would have it that the most famous naval signal was that made to the British fleet at the conclusion of the greatest naval review ever seen—that held in commemoration of the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee, in 1897. The Commander-in-Chief signalled that, at the request of the Prince of Wales, he “ordered the mainbrace to be spliced,” which, says our competitor, refers to “an extra ration of grog!”33. What useful discovery was made by lighting a fire on the sand and using pieces of natron (sub-carbonate of soda) to support the cooking-pot?The story of the discovery of glass—whether an actual historical fact or only a legend we shall not too particularly inquire—proved to be well known to all our girls. To quote one of them: “The credit of inventing glass was always given by the ancients to the Phœnicians. It was a discovery made quite accidentally by some Phœnician merchants, who were homeward bound in a ship laden with natron or soda. A storm came on, which obliged them to land on a sandy tract under Mount Carmel. There they rested their cooking pots on blocks of natron, and when the cooking was over found glass produced, by the union under heat of the alkali and the sand of the shore.”34. What are the “borrowed days,” and how do they come by their name?Those who did not answer this question, and those who answered it wrongly, are now informed that the “Borrowed Days” referred to, are the last three days of March. According to a popular tradition they were borrowed by March from April, in order to accomplish the destruction of a parcel of unoffending young sheep, a purpose, however, in which March did not succeed. The story is told in a well-known Scottish rhyme:—“March said to Aperill,I see three sheep upon yon hill,And if you lend me days threeI’ll find a way to make them dee.The first o’ them was wind and weet.The second o’ them was snaw and sleet.The third o’ them was sic a freeze,It froze the birds’ beaks to the trees.And when the three days were past and gane,The three poor sheep came hirpling (limping) hame.”Some girls got the “borrowed days” mixed up with the extra day that comes in Leap year. One told us that they were “the mild days of winter borrowed from Spring.” Another gave them as “Sunday, Monday andSaturday.” Three or four furnished an interesting piece of local information to the effect that in Cheshire the name “Borrowed Days,” is given to the first eleven days of May.35. What is the simplest and least troublesome of all cookery processes?Some girls surprised us by apparently knowing little about this woman’s subject; a few surprised us still more by not answering at all. There was room for difference of opinion. Boiling, steaming, grilling, toasting, roasting, and baking all met with support, but on the whole we side with the girls who said stewing. It is a method that certainly requires very little attention, barring the care that must of course be taken to keep the stew from sticking to the bottom of the pot and burning, if the stewing be done in a saucepan or in a jar. Some competitors fell into error by giving such answers as “boiling an egg,” “making a milk pudding,” “boiling a potato in its jacket,” and “preparing a Devonshire junket.” They should have taken note that the query spoke ofprocessesnot ofperformances.36. Are there any extinct volcanoes in Great Britain?“Not one,” says a confident competitor. In opposition to this, however, we have the answers of a great many who knew better, and were well aware that “the volcanoes of Britain are still around and beneath us, on the sea-coast and in the heart of the country, under our great cities and in our most favourite holiday haunts.” Some gave examples from central England, and one girl quoting from an article that appeared not long ago in theLeisure Hour, pointed out that “what is now the heart of England, was once dotted with volcanic vents.” Others took their illustrations from Devonshire, from North Wales, from the neighbourhood of Edinburgh and from the Western Isles of Scotland.37. What famous musical composition came to a violinist in a dream?The competitors who did not answer this question were a numerous company. Some made such guesses at it as Haydn’s “Creation,” and the “Moonlight Sonata.” But—without going into the dream question—Haydn was not a violinist, and neither was Beethoven. The musician of our query was the famous violin player, Giuseppe Tartini, and the composition was his singularly fine piece, “Il Trillo del Diavolo.” One night the Evil One appeared to Tartini in a dream. “The idea struck me,” says the composer, “to hand him my fiddle, and to see what he could do with it. But how great was my astonishment when I heard him play with consummate skill a sonata of such exquisite beauty as surpassed the boldest flight of my imagination.” When Tartini awoke he seized his violin and tried to reproduce the sounds he had heard. “But,” he sorrowfully says, “it was in vain. The piece I then composed, the Devil’s Sonata, although the best I ever wrote, was far below the one I had heard in my dream!”38. When did witchcraft cease to be recognised as a crime by the law of England?This query was generally well answered, and there was really no difficulty about it. The last trial for witchcraft in England was that of Jane Wenham, who was convicted at Hertford in 1712. Feeling towards witchcraft had, by that time, begun to change, however, and she was not executed. Twenty-four years later—that is to say, in 1736—came the repeal of the famous statute against witchcraft passed at the accession of James I. At the same time was repealed the Act of the Scottish Parliament passed in 1563 making it a capital offence to use witchcraft, sorcery, or necromancy, or to pretend to such knowledge, or to seek help from witches.39. What famous book was mislaid when in manuscript and partly written, and was only discovered by the author nine years afterwards in the drawer of an old writing-desk?Puzzled? Yes, many were puzzled and answered nothing. A few bold spirits ventured on such guesses asThe Vicar of Wakefield,Evelyn’s Diary,Peter Simple, andJessica’s First Prayer! The book in question was the Waverley of Sir Walter Scott. About a third of the first volume of this work was written about the year 1805, and then thrown aside in the drawer of an old writing-desk and entirely forgotten. Nine years afterwards, the author himself says, “I happened to want some fishing tackle for the use of a guest, when it occurred to me to search the old writing-desk already mentioned, in which I used to keep articles of that nature. I got access to it with some difficulty, and in looking for lines and flies, the long-lost manuscript presented itself. I immediately set to work to complete it.”40. What English cathedral was set on fire and severely damaged by a man who was afterwards found to be insane?The fire was that caused in York Minster on the 2nd of February, 1829, by Jonathan Martin, who, as the question says, was subsequently discovered to be out of his mind. Having taken it into his head that it was his duty to destroy the cathedral, he concealed himself after evening service on the 1st of February behind a monument in the north transept, and in the night collected inflammable material which he set fire to. The whole of the beautiful tabernacle work of carved oak, the stalls, the pulpit, the organ, the roof, and much of the stonework of the choir, were all destroyed, the east window which was in great danger, being saved with difficulty. The building was restored at a cost of about £65,000, which was raised by a national subscription. This question was well answered. A few girls gave instances of fires at the cathedrals of Carlisle and Salisbury, but the insane incendiary was left out of account. Four or five gave the burning of St. Paul’s in the Great Fire of 1666, as that well-known event is described in Mr. W. Harrison Ainsworth’sOld St. Paul’s, but they should have remembered that a novelist’s facts should be verified before quoting them as history.41. What is the best diet for brain-workers?There is no doubt that brain-workers—whether literary, professional or business people—need the best of food served in the most agreeable manner, and in variety and abundance. If it were possible to live by brain alone, without any exercise of the muscles, then the diet might be exclusively confined to those articles which contain the fat, salt and phosphorus of which the brain is composed. But this being out of the question, a wide variety of food is necessary for the brain-working classes, its quantity and quality being adapted to nourish the whole body with special reference to the nervous system. An important point is that the food be light and easily digested. Most girls answered this question, and many sensible replies were received.42. What saint was so able a musician that, according to tradition, an angel descended to earth enraptured with her melodious strains?Few queries were better or more fully answered than this one, the essence of most of the replies being that the saint was St. Cecilia, a young Roman lady of noble birth, who suffered martyrdom about 329—perhaps earlier. She “has long been regarded as the tutelary saint of music and musicians, but the period at which she was first so looked upon is involved in obscurity.” When the tradition mentioned in the question originated is equally unknown. It is an odd fact that early writers make no mention of her skill in music.43. What is the origin of the three ostrich feathers as a badge of the Prince of Wales?This has long been a matter of perplexity to antiquaries. The cherished and popular belief, however—quoted by almost all our competitors—is that the feathers were derived from the blind King of Bohemia, who lost his life at the battle of Crecy in 1346. The feathers do not appear in connection with our Princes of Wales till after that battle. The ostrich feather, it appears, was a distinction of Luxemburg, and John, Count of Luxemburg, was the original style and title of the King of Bohemia, who fell so bravely at Crecy. The first Prince of Wales to assume the feathers was of course Edward the Black Prince, the victor of Crecy.44. When did ignorant people in this country imagine that they had been defrauded out of eleven days by those in authority?It was in 1752 when the Act for the change of Style came into operation in this country. After the 2nd of September of that year, the following day was held to be not the 3rd, but the 14th, thus dropping out eleven days. The common people of England, we are told, “were violently inflamed against the statesmen who had carried through the bill for the change of style, and generally believed that they had been defrauded out of eleven days (as if eleven days of their destined lives) by the transaction. Accordingly for some time afterwards a favourite opprobrious cry to unpopular statesmen in the streets and on the hustings was, ‘Who stole the eleven days? Give us back the eleven days!’” A few girls failed to answer this question, but not so many as we expected.45. Who was the hermit who lived for over thirty years on the top of a pillar?This was the famous St. Simeon Stylites, so called from the Greek wordstylos, a pillar. He lived early in the fifth century and adopted his original mode of life by way of penance, beginning with residence on the top of a pillar nine feet high. This was raised by degrees to the somewhat incredible height of sixty feet. He lived on his pillar situated on a mountain-side thirty or forty miles from Antioch for over thirty years, and died on the top in the year 459. He was the founder of the singular race of pillar-saints who, though never very numerous, existed in Eastern lands down to the twelfth century.46. What famous stone in this country is said to have been Jacob’s pillow?Competitors were right in saying that this is the Coronation Stone now in Westminster Abbey, brought from Scotland by Edward I. on his return from invading that country in 1296. According to some, it was originally the stone on which Jacob rested his head when he slept at Bethel and had a vision of angels ascending and descending the ladder between heaven and earth. Old chroniclers give a pretty circumstantial account of its wanderings till it arrived at Scone, the coronation city of the ancient kings of Scotland, from which King Edward carried it away. We notice that two or three girls describe the stone as of marble—“black marble,” says one. They are wrong. It is ablock of sandstone—to be particular, “a dull reddish or purplish sandstone, with a few small embedded pebbles.”47. Why is the wedding-ring worn on the fourth finger of the left hand?Nearly everybody gave an answer and a good answer. We shall quote one competitor in full, and she will reply for all the rest: The selection of the fourth finger of the left hand as the wedding-ring finger both in Pagan and Christian times is accounted for by several reasons. In an ancient ritual of marriage, the husband placed the ring on the top of the thumb of the left hand whilst he said, “In the name of the Father”; he then removed it to the forefinger, saying, “And of the Son,” and then to the middle finger with the words, “And of the Holy Ghost,” and with the final word “Amen” he placed the ring on the fourth finger, where it remained.The ancient supposition that a vein led direct from the fourth finger to the heart, and the fact that this finger is used less than any other, the ring being thereby less liable to receive injury, were doubtless also at the root of this old custom.48. How did the forget-me-not get its name?Several popular traditions, all no doubt equally authentic, were quoted in reply, hardly any competitor omitting to answer. According to some, the name perpetuates the last words of a lover to his mistress as he threw her the flower she craved of him at the cost of his own life in the Danube.Another tradition told, with variations, by a good many was that “Adam, as he named the plants in Paradise, bade them all remember their names. One little flower, that had allowed its thoughts to wander, had to ask the father of men to repeat what he had said. ‘By what name dost thou call me?’ ‘Forget-me-not,’ was the reply; which has caused that humble flower ever since to droop its head in shame and ignominy.”
The Examiners report on the Second Twenty-four Questions.
Practicemakes perfect, so though the first instalment of answers in this competition was good, the second proved better, and we look forward to the third and last being the best of all. It takes time to discover to what fountains one ought to go for information; but once that is done, the rest is comparatively easy—you fill your pitcher and come away triumphant.
The number who engaged in this second trial was slightly under that of those taking part in the first. Out of every hundred girls who started with questions 1-24, about fifteen failed to put in an appearance. Many causes, from whimsicality to illness, no doubt account for this. It was often, we are sure, unavoidable, for some girls whom we missed had done so well that they would have had a good place had they only continued.
We give here our notes on questions 25-48 inclusive, so that competitors may check their own answers and see in some cases what they might have replied had they been fortunate enough to find out. General remarks on the competition, as we said last month, will follow when we come to intimate who the painstaking girls are who have won prizes and certificates.
25. Who was the monarch who once attended the rehearsal of his own funeral?
The monarch we had in view in framing this question was Charles V., Emperor of Germany and King of Spain. After his abdication in 1555-56 he retired to the monastery of St. Juste in the north of Estremadura, and here he resolved to celebrate his own obsequies. His domestics marched to the chapel of the monastery in funeral procession with black tapers in their hands, and he himself followed in his shroud. He was laid in his coffin with much solemnity. “The service for the dead was chanted, and Charles joined in the prayers which were offered up for the repose of his soul, mingling his tears with those which his attendants shed, as if they had been celebrating a real funeral.” Judging by the numbers who failed to answer, this was one of our difficult questions.
26. What is the largest palace in the world used as a residence?
Three palaces were prominent in the answers given—the Vatican at Rome, the Winter Palace at St. Petersburg, and the Palace of Versailles in the neighbourhood of Paris. The last-named, however, was mentioned by error, as it is now not a residence, but little more than a showplace. But it is huge enough, for in the heyday of its prosperity it accommodated about ten thousand persons—courtiers, dependents, etc. To the Vatican, the residence of the Pope, apparently belongs the credit of being of all palaces that on the largest scale. It is said to contain no fewer than seven thousand rooms. It became the fixed residence of the Popes in 1377. The Winter Palace at St. Petersburg is also an enormous structure, in which six thousand persons have frequently had a habitation.
27. What is the exercise most conducive to physical beauty?
The answers to this query were as varied as could be. Dancing, fencing, cycling, swimming, golfing, dumb-bell drill, and many other forms of exercise all had their advocates. Some girls said, “Housekeeping for ever!” and recommended constant devotion to sweeping and dusting; but others remarked that that was too narrow a view, and that we ought to move about in the open air as well. Most, however, held that the right form of exercise was walking, the cheapest, safest, and best of all. “And see,” says one competitor, “that you persevere in it and do it in all weathers, but the very worst, and particularly in winter.”
28. What was the first street ever lit by gas?
This was Pall Mall in London, which was first lit by gas on the 28th of January, 1807. The introduction of gas-lighting into London is due to the zeal and unwearied patience of a German named Winsor. He managed to gain some supporters, “and,” says a writer in Chambers’sBook of Days, “the long line between St. James’s Palace and Cockspur Street blazed out in a burst of gas-lamps on the night in question to the no small admiration of the public.” Westminster Bridge was lit with gas for the first time on the last night of 1812. Two years later in other parts of the metropolis gas was introduced on the streets, and from that time the new mode of lighting gradually made its way all over the world.
29. How fast can one read when reading silently?
Most competitors gave an answer to this question; but why did not all? It was easy enough, because the best answer a girl could make was to record the result of experimenting on herself. It was pointed out by many with much truth that the rate of reading varies greatly with different individuals and also with the kind of book read. We cannot, for instance, read philosophy as rapidly as history, or history as fast as a work of fiction. Poetry also, says a sensible competitor, must be read slowly in order to appreciate the style and rhythm. A moderately rapid reader, says this same competitor, will read history at the rate of about 600 words in five minutes, fiction at about 2,000 words in the same time, and poetry at about 700 words. The 600 and 700 words here given appear slow compared with the 2,000; but there is all the difference in the world between reading to remember and criticise and reading merely for a pastime.
30. What famous philanthropist was known as the “Nightingale of the House of Commons?”
When a girl shoots a bow at a venture she may hit the mark, but more often she does not. Here are some of the random shots at this answer—the Earl of Shaftesbury, John Bright, Mr. Gladstone, Sir Henry Fawcett, Sir Thomas Fowell Buxton, Lord Coleridge, the Earl of Chatham, and William Pitt. No, it was none of these—it was William Wilberforce, who will always be associated with the abolition of the slave trade. His remarkably sweet voice, so often used on behalf of those unable to plead for themselves, obtained for him the name to which we have referred in our question.
31. How many hours a day should we give to sleep?
There was a good deal of common-sense shown here in the answers, it being generally allowed that no hard and fast rule could be laid down. “Sleep till you have slept enough,” says one girl; “and enough is not the same with everybody.” The time will be found to vary, with grown-up people, from six to eight hours in the twenty-four, it very much depending on whether they are strong or weakly. One competitor quotes a medical authority to the effect that “the weakly very rarely require more than nine hours’ sleep at the utmost, and a longer indulgence will scarcely ever fail to injure them.”
32. What is the most famous signal ever made to the British Navy?
Hardly any competitors omitted to answer this question; almost every one right too. The ever-to-be-remembered signal was that made by Lord Nelson, before the battle of Trafalgar—“England expects every man to do his duty.” It was a signal, says Southey, in hisLife of Nelson, received throughout the fleet with a shout of answering acclamation, “made sublime by the spirit which it breathed and the feeling which it expressed.” As everyone knows, it was the last signal of our great naval hero, for he received his mortal wound in the heat of the action.
It is worth mentioning that one girl, whom we guess to be a humorist, would have it that the most famous naval signal was that made to the British fleet at the conclusion of the greatest naval review ever seen—that held in commemoration of the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee, in 1897. The Commander-in-Chief signalled that, at the request of the Prince of Wales, he “ordered the mainbrace to be spliced,” which, says our competitor, refers to “an extra ration of grog!”
33. What useful discovery was made by lighting a fire on the sand and using pieces of natron (sub-carbonate of soda) to support the cooking-pot?
The story of the discovery of glass—whether an actual historical fact or only a legend we shall not too particularly inquire—proved to be well known to all our girls. To quote one of them: “The credit of inventing glass was always given by the ancients to the Phœnicians. It was a discovery made quite accidentally by some Phœnician merchants, who were homeward bound in a ship laden with natron or soda. A storm came on, which obliged them to land on a sandy tract under Mount Carmel. There they rested their cooking pots on blocks of natron, and when the cooking was over found glass produced, by the union under heat of the alkali and the sand of the shore.”
34. What are the “borrowed days,” and how do they come by their name?
Those who did not answer this question, and those who answered it wrongly, are now informed that the “Borrowed Days” referred to, are the last three days of March. According to a popular tradition they were borrowed by March from April, in order to accomplish the destruction of a parcel of unoffending young sheep, a purpose, however, in which March did not succeed. The story is told in a well-known Scottish rhyme:—
“March said to Aperill,I see three sheep upon yon hill,And if you lend me days threeI’ll find a way to make them dee.The first o’ them was wind and weet.The second o’ them was snaw and sleet.The third o’ them was sic a freeze,It froze the birds’ beaks to the trees.And when the three days were past and gane,The three poor sheep came hirpling (limping) hame.”
“March said to Aperill,I see three sheep upon yon hill,And if you lend me days threeI’ll find a way to make them dee.The first o’ them was wind and weet.The second o’ them was snaw and sleet.The third o’ them was sic a freeze,It froze the birds’ beaks to the trees.And when the three days were past and gane,The three poor sheep came hirpling (limping) hame.”
“March said to Aperill,I see three sheep upon yon hill,And if you lend me days threeI’ll find a way to make them dee.The first o’ them was wind and weet.The second o’ them was snaw and sleet.The third o’ them was sic a freeze,It froze the birds’ beaks to the trees.And when the three days were past and gane,The three poor sheep came hirpling (limping) hame.”
“March said to Aperill,
I see three sheep upon yon hill,
And if you lend me days three
I’ll find a way to make them dee.
The first o’ them was wind and weet.
The second o’ them was snaw and sleet.
The third o’ them was sic a freeze,
It froze the birds’ beaks to the trees.
And when the three days were past and gane,
The three poor sheep came hirpling (limping) hame.”
Some girls got the “borrowed days” mixed up with the extra day that comes in Leap year. One told us that they were “the mild days of winter borrowed from Spring.” Another gave them as “Sunday, Monday andSaturday.” Three or four furnished an interesting piece of local information to the effect that in Cheshire the name “Borrowed Days,” is given to the first eleven days of May.
35. What is the simplest and least troublesome of all cookery processes?
Some girls surprised us by apparently knowing little about this woman’s subject; a few surprised us still more by not answering at all. There was room for difference of opinion. Boiling, steaming, grilling, toasting, roasting, and baking all met with support, but on the whole we side with the girls who said stewing. It is a method that certainly requires very little attention, barring the care that must of course be taken to keep the stew from sticking to the bottom of the pot and burning, if the stewing be done in a saucepan or in a jar. Some competitors fell into error by giving such answers as “boiling an egg,” “making a milk pudding,” “boiling a potato in its jacket,” and “preparing a Devonshire junket.” They should have taken note that the query spoke ofprocessesnot ofperformances.
36. Are there any extinct volcanoes in Great Britain?
“Not one,” says a confident competitor. In opposition to this, however, we have the answers of a great many who knew better, and were well aware that “the volcanoes of Britain are still around and beneath us, on the sea-coast and in the heart of the country, under our great cities and in our most favourite holiday haunts.” Some gave examples from central England, and one girl quoting from an article that appeared not long ago in theLeisure Hour, pointed out that “what is now the heart of England, was once dotted with volcanic vents.” Others took their illustrations from Devonshire, from North Wales, from the neighbourhood of Edinburgh and from the Western Isles of Scotland.
37. What famous musical composition came to a violinist in a dream?
The competitors who did not answer this question were a numerous company. Some made such guesses at it as Haydn’s “Creation,” and the “Moonlight Sonata.” But—without going into the dream question—Haydn was not a violinist, and neither was Beethoven. The musician of our query was the famous violin player, Giuseppe Tartini, and the composition was his singularly fine piece, “Il Trillo del Diavolo.” One night the Evil One appeared to Tartini in a dream. “The idea struck me,” says the composer, “to hand him my fiddle, and to see what he could do with it. But how great was my astonishment when I heard him play with consummate skill a sonata of such exquisite beauty as surpassed the boldest flight of my imagination.” When Tartini awoke he seized his violin and tried to reproduce the sounds he had heard. “But,” he sorrowfully says, “it was in vain. The piece I then composed, the Devil’s Sonata, although the best I ever wrote, was far below the one I had heard in my dream!”
38. When did witchcraft cease to be recognised as a crime by the law of England?
This query was generally well answered, and there was really no difficulty about it. The last trial for witchcraft in England was that of Jane Wenham, who was convicted at Hertford in 1712. Feeling towards witchcraft had, by that time, begun to change, however, and she was not executed. Twenty-four years later—that is to say, in 1736—came the repeal of the famous statute against witchcraft passed at the accession of James I. At the same time was repealed the Act of the Scottish Parliament passed in 1563 making it a capital offence to use witchcraft, sorcery, or necromancy, or to pretend to such knowledge, or to seek help from witches.
39. What famous book was mislaid when in manuscript and partly written, and was only discovered by the author nine years afterwards in the drawer of an old writing-desk?
Puzzled? Yes, many were puzzled and answered nothing. A few bold spirits ventured on such guesses asThe Vicar of Wakefield,Evelyn’s Diary,Peter Simple, andJessica’s First Prayer! The book in question was the Waverley of Sir Walter Scott. About a third of the first volume of this work was written about the year 1805, and then thrown aside in the drawer of an old writing-desk and entirely forgotten. Nine years afterwards, the author himself says, “I happened to want some fishing tackle for the use of a guest, when it occurred to me to search the old writing-desk already mentioned, in which I used to keep articles of that nature. I got access to it with some difficulty, and in looking for lines and flies, the long-lost manuscript presented itself. I immediately set to work to complete it.”
40. What English cathedral was set on fire and severely damaged by a man who was afterwards found to be insane?
The fire was that caused in York Minster on the 2nd of February, 1829, by Jonathan Martin, who, as the question says, was subsequently discovered to be out of his mind. Having taken it into his head that it was his duty to destroy the cathedral, he concealed himself after evening service on the 1st of February behind a monument in the north transept, and in the night collected inflammable material which he set fire to. The whole of the beautiful tabernacle work of carved oak, the stalls, the pulpit, the organ, the roof, and much of the stonework of the choir, were all destroyed, the east window which was in great danger, being saved with difficulty. The building was restored at a cost of about £65,000, which was raised by a national subscription. This question was well answered. A few girls gave instances of fires at the cathedrals of Carlisle and Salisbury, but the insane incendiary was left out of account. Four or five gave the burning of St. Paul’s in the Great Fire of 1666, as that well-known event is described in Mr. W. Harrison Ainsworth’sOld St. Paul’s, but they should have remembered that a novelist’s facts should be verified before quoting them as history.
41. What is the best diet for brain-workers?
There is no doubt that brain-workers—whether literary, professional or business people—need the best of food served in the most agreeable manner, and in variety and abundance. If it were possible to live by brain alone, without any exercise of the muscles, then the diet might be exclusively confined to those articles which contain the fat, salt and phosphorus of which the brain is composed. But this being out of the question, a wide variety of food is necessary for the brain-working classes, its quantity and quality being adapted to nourish the whole body with special reference to the nervous system. An important point is that the food be light and easily digested. Most girls answered this question, and many sensible replies were received.
42. What saint was so able a musician that, according to tradition, an angel descended to earth enraptured with her melodious strains?
Few queries were better or more fully answered than this one, the essence of most of the replies being that the saint was St. Cecilia, a young Roman lady of noble birth, who suffered martyrdom about 329—perhaps earlier. She “has long been regarded as the tutelary saint of music and musicians, but the period at which she was first so looked upon is involved in obscurity.” When the tradition mentioned in the question originated is equally unknown. It is an odd fact that early writers make no mention of her skill in music.
43. What is the origin of the three ostrich feathers as a badge of the Prince of Wales?
This has long been a matter of perplexity to antiquaries. The cherished and popular belief, however—quoted by almost all our competitors—is that the feathers were derived from the blind King of Bohemia, who lost his life at the battle of Crecy in 1346. The feathers do not appear in connection with our Princes of Wales till after that battle. The ostrich feather, it appears, was a distinction of Luxemburg, and John, Count of Luxemburg, was the original style and title of the King of Bohemia, who fell so bravely at Crecy. The first Prince of Wales to assume the feathers was of course Edward the Black Prince, the victor of Crecy.
44. When did ignorant people in this country imagine that they had been defrauded out of eleven days by those in authority?
It was in 1752 when the Act for the change of Style came into operation in this country. After the 2nd of September of that year, the following day was held to be not the 3rd, but the 14th, thus dropping out eleven days. The common people of England, we are told, “were violently inflamed against the statesmen who had carried through the bill for the change of style, and generally believed that they had been defrauded out of eleven days (as if eleven days of their destined lives) by the transaction. Accordingly for some time afterwards a favourite opprobrious cry to unpopular statesmen in the streets and on the hustings was, ‘Who stole the eleven days? Give us back the eleven days!’” A few girls failed to answer this question, but not so many as we expected.
45. Who was the hermit who lived for over thirty years on the top of a pillar?
This was the famous St. Simeon Stylites, so called from the Greek wordstylos, a pillar. He lived early in the fifth century and adopted his original mode of life by way of penance, beginning with residence on the top of a pillar nine feet high. This was raised by degrees to the somewhat incredible height of sixty feet. He lived on his pillar situated on a mountain-side thirty or forty miles from Antioch for over thirty years, and died on the top in the year 459. He was the founder of the singular race of pillar-saints who, though never very numerous, existed in Eastern lands down to the twelfth century.
46. What famous stone in this country is said to have been Jacob’s pillow?
Competitors were right in saying that this is the Coronation Stone now in Westminster Abbey, brought from Scotland by Edward I. on his return from invading that country in 1296. According to some, it was originally the stone on which Jacob rested his head when he slept at Bethel and had a vision of angels ascending and descending the ladder between heaven and earth. Old chroniclers give a pretty circumstantial account of its wanderings till it arrived at Scone, the coronation city of the ancient kings of Scotland, from which King Edward carried it away. We notice that two or three girls describe the stone as of marble—“black marble,” says one. They are wrong. It is ablock of sandstone—to be particular, “a dull reddish or purplish sandstone, with a few small embedded pebbles.”
47. Why is the wedding-ring worn on the fourth finger of the left hand?
Nearly everybody gave an answer and a good answer. We shall quote one competitor in full, and she will reply for all the rest: The selection of the fourth finger of the left hand as the wedding-ring finger both in Pagan and Christian times is accounted for by several reasons. In an ancient ritual of marriage, the husband placed the ring on the top of the thumb of the left hand whilst he said, “In the name of the Father”; he then removed it to the forefinger, saying, “And of the Son,” and then to the middle finger with the words, “And of the Holy Ghost,” and with the final word “Amen” he placed the ring on the fourth finger, where it remained.
The ancient supposition that a vein led direct from the fourth finger to the heart, and the fact that this finger is used less than any other, the ring being thereby less liable to receive injury, were doubtless also at the root of this old custom.
48. How did the forget-me-not get its name?
Several popular traditions, all no doubt equally authentic, were quoted in reply, hardly any competitor omitting to answer. According to some, the name perpetuates the last words of a lover to his mistress as he threw her the flower she craved of him at the cost of his own life in the Danube.
Another tradition told, with variations, by a good many was that “Adam, as he named the plants in Paradise, bade them all remember their names. One little flower, that had allowed its thoughts to wander, had to ask the father of men to repeat what he had said. ‘By what name dost thou call me?’ ‘Forget-me-not,’ was the reply; which has caused that humble flower ever since to droop its head in shame and ignominy.”