Chapter Twenty Two.

Chapter Twenty Two.Miscellaneous Matters, ending with a “Scrimmage” under Water.We are back again in Hong-Kong—in the pagoda—with our old friends seated comfortably round their little table enjoying a good supper.Pretty little Mrs Machowl has prepared it, and is now assisting at the partaking of it. Young Master Teddy Machowl is similarly engaged on his father’s knee. The child has grown appallingly during its father’s absence! Ram-stam and Chok-foo are in waiting—gazing at each other with the affection of Chinese lovers re-united.“What a sight you are, Rooney!” said Mrs Machowl, pausing between bites to look at her husband.“Sure it’s the same may be said of yoursilf, cushla!” replied Rooney, stuffing his child’s mouth with sweet potato.“Yes, but it’s what afrightyou are, I mane,” said Mrs Machowl.“An’ it’s what a purty craturyouare thatImane,” replied Rooney, repeating the dose to Teddy, who regarded his father with looks of deep affection.“Ah! Go ’long wid you. Sure it’s your nose is spoilt entirely,” said Mrs Machowl.“An’ it’s your own that is swaiter than iver, which more than makes up the difference,” retorted her lord.—“Howld it open as wide as ye can this time, Ted, me boy; there, that’s your sort—but don’t choke, ye spalpeen.”There seemed indeed some occasion for the latter admonition, for Teddy, unused to such vigorous treatment, was beginning to look purple in the face and apoplectic about the eyes. In short, there is every probability that an attack of croup, or something dreadful, would have ensued if the child’s mother had not risen hastily and snatched it away from the would-be infanticide.“Now then, Ram-stam and Chok-foo,” said Edgar Berrington, putting down his spoon, “clear away the rat’s-tail soup, and bring on the roast puppy.”Grinning from ear to ear, and with almost closed eyes, the Chinese servitors obeyed.While they cleared the table and laid the second course, the conversation became general. Previously it had been particular, referring chiefly to the soup and the free circulation of the salt.“So, then,” observed Joe Baldwin, leaning back in his chair, “we must make up our minds to be content with what we have got. Well, it an’t so bad after all! Let me see. How much did you say the total is, Mister Eddy?”“Close upon eight thousand five hundred pounds.”“A tidy little sum,” observed Rooney, with an air of satisfaction.“Eight thousand—eh?” repeated Joe; “hum, well, we’ll cut off the five hundred for expenses and passage home, and that leaves eight thousand clear, which, according to agreement, gives each of us two thousand pounds.”Maxwell, who still looked pale and thin from the effects of his late accident, nodded his head slowly, and growled, “Two thousand—jus’ so.”“An’ that, Molly, my dear,” said Rooney, “if properly invisted, gives you an’ me a clair income—only think, anincome, Molly—of wan hundred a year! It’s true, cushla! That ye won’t be able to rowl in yer carridge an’ walk in silks an’ satins on that income, but it’ll pay the rint an’ taxes, owld girl, an’ help Teddy to a collidge eddication—to say nothin’ o’ pipes an’ baccy. Ochone!—if we’d only not lost the first haul, we’d have bin millerinaires be this time. I wouldn’t have called the Quane me grandmother.”“Come, Rooney, be grateful for what you’ve got,” said Edgar. “Enough is as good as a feast.”“Ah! Sur, it’ll be time to say that when we’ve finished the puppy,” replied the Irishman, as Chok-foo placed on the board a savoury roast which bore some resemblance to the animal named, though, having had its head and legs amputated, there could be no absolute certainty on the point. Whatever it was, the party attacked it with relish, and silence reigned until it was finished, after which conversation flowed again—somewhat languidly at first. When, however, pipes were got out by those who smoked, and chairs were placed in the verandah, and no sound was heard around save the yelling of Chinese children who were romping in the Chinese kennel that skirted the pagoda, and the champing of the jaws of Ram-stam and Chok-foo as they masticated inside—then came the feast of reason, not to mention the flow of soul.“I wonder what our friends at Whitstable will say to this ventur’ of ours,” said Maxwell.“Have you many friends there?” asked Edgar.“Many?—of course I has. W’y, I suppose every English diver must have friends there.”“Where is it?” asked Edgar.“Why, sir, don’t you know Whitstable?” exclaimed Joe Baldwin, in surprise.“You forget, Joe,” replied Edgar, with a smile, “that although I have learnt how to dive, and have read a good deal about the history of diving, I am only an amateur after all, and cannot be supposed to know everything connected with the profession. All I know about Whitstable is that it is a port somewhere in the south of England.”“Right, sir,” said Joe, “but it’s more than that; it lies on the coast of Kent, and is famous for its oyster-beds and its divers. How it came to be a place of resort for diversIdon’t know, but so it is, an’ Ihaveheard say it was divin’ for oysters in days of old that gave the natives a taste for the work. Anyhow, they’ve got the taste very decided somehow, an’ after every spell o’ dirty weather they’re sure to have telegrams from all parts of the coast, and you’ll see Lloyds’ agents huntin’ up the divers in the public-houses an’ packin’ ’em off wi’ their gear right and left by rail to look after salvage.“These men,” continued Joe, “are most of ’em handicraftmen as well as divers, because you know, sir, it would be of no use to send down a mere labourer to repair the bottom of a ship, no matter how good he was at divin’; so, you’ll find among ’em masons, and shipbuilders, and carpenters, and engineers—”“Ah!” interrupted Edgar, “I was just wondering how they would manage if it were found necessary to have the engines of a sunk steamer taken to pieces and sent up.”“Well, sir,” rejoined Joe, “they’ve got men there who can dive, and who know as much about marine engines as you do yourself. And these men make lots of tin, for a good diver can earn a pound a day, an’ be kept in pretty regular employment in deep water. In shallow water he can earn from ten to fifteen shillings a day. Besides this, they make special arrangements for runnin’ extra risks. Then the savin’ they sometimes effect is amazin’. Why, sir, although you do know somethin’ of the advantages of diving, you can never know fully what good they do in the world at large. Just take the case of theAgamemnonat Sebastopol—”“Och!” interrupted Rooney, whose visage was perplexed by reason of his pipe refusing to draw well, “wasn’t (puff) that a good job intirely (puff! There; you’re all right at last!) He was a friend o’ mine that managed that job. Tarry, we called him—though that wasn’t his right name. This is how it was. The fleet was blazin’ away at the fortifications, an’ of coorse the fortifications—out o’ politeness if nothin’ else—was blazin’ away at the fleet, and smoke was curlin’ up like a chimbley on fire, an’ big balls was goin’ about like pais in a rattle, an’ small shot like hail was blowin’ horizontal, an’ men was bein’ shot an’ cut to pieces, an’ them as warn’t was cheerin’ as if there was any glory in wholesale murther—bah! I wouldn’t give a day at Donnybrook wid a shillelah for all the sieges of Sebastopool as ever I heard tell of. Well, suddintly, bang goes a round shot slap through the hull of theAgamemnon, below the water-line! Here was a pretty to do! The ordinary coorse in this case would have bin to haul out of action, go right away to Malta, an’ have the ship docked and repaired there. But what does they do? Why, they gets from under fire for a bit, and sends down my friend Tarry to look at the hole. He goes down, looks at it, then comes up an’ looks at the Commodore,—bowld as brass.“‘I can repair it,’ says Tarry.“‘Well, do,’ says the Commodore.“So down he goes an’ does it, an’ very soon after that theAgamemnonwent into action again, and blazed away at the walls o’ the owld place harder than ever.”“Thatwasa good case, an’ atrueone,” said Joe Baldwin, with an approving nod.“And these divers, Mr Edgar,” continued Joe, “sometimes go on their own hook, like we have done this time, with more or less luck. There was one chum of mine who took it into his head to try his chances at the wreck of theRoyal Charter, long after all hope of further salvage had been abandoned, and in a short time he managed to recover between three and four hundred pounds sterling.”“An immense amount of money, they do say, was recovered from theRoyal Charterby divers,” observed Maxwell.“That is true, and it happens,” said Edgar, sadly, “that I know a few interesting facts regarding that vessel. I know of some people whose hearts were broken by the loss of relatives in that wreck. There were many such—God comfort them! But that is not what I meant to speak of. The facts I refer to are connected with the treasure lost in the vessel. Just before leaving London I had occasion to call on the gentleman who had the management of the recovered gold, and he told me several interesting things. First of all, the whole of the gold that could be identified was handed at once over to its owners; but this matter of identification was not easy, for much of the gold was found quite loose in the form of sovereigns and nuggets and dust. The dust was ordered to be sent up with the ‘dirt’ that surrounded it, and a process of gold-washing was instituted, after the regular diggings fashion, with a bowl and water. Tons of ‘dirt’ were sent up and washed in this way, and a large quantity of gold saved. The agent showed me the bowl that was used on this occasion. He also showed me sovereigns that had been kept as curious specimens. Some of them were partly destroyed, as if they had been caught between iron-plates and cut in half; others were more or less defaced and bent, and a few had been squeezed almost into an unrecognisable shape. In one place, he told me, the divers saw a pile of sovereigns through a rent in an iron-plate. The rent was too small to admit a man’s arm, and the plates could not be dislodged. The divers, therefore, made a pair of iron tongs, with which they picked out the sovereigns, and thus saved a large sum of money. One very curious case of identification occurred. A bag of sovereigns was found with no name on it. A claimant appeared, but he could tell of no mark to prove that he was the rightful owner. Of course it could not be given up, and it appeared as if the unfortunate man (who was indeed the owner) must relinquish his claim, when in a happy moment his wife remembered that she had put a brass ‘token’ into the bag with the gold. The bag was searched, the token was found, and the gold was immediately handed to them.”“Molly, my dear,” said Rooney Machowl at this point, “you make a note o’ that; an’ if ever you have to do with bags o’ goold, just putt a brass token or two into ’em.”“Ah! Shut up, Rooney,” said Mrs Machowl, in a voice so sweet that the contrast between it and her language caused Edgar and Joe to laugh.“Well, then,” continued Edgar, “in many other curious ways gold was identified and delivered to its owners: thus, in one case, an incomplete seal, bearing part of the legs of a griffin, was found on a bag of two thousand sovereigns, and the owner, showing the seal with which he had stamped it, established his claim. Of course in all cases where bars of gold were found with the owners’ names stamped on them, the property was at once handed over; but after all was done that could be done by means of the most painstaking inquiry, an immense amount of gold necessarily remained unclaimed.”“And I s’pose if it wasn’t for us divers,” said Maxwell, “the whole consarn would have remained a dead loss to mankind.”“True for ye,” responded Rooney; “it’s not often ye come out wid such a blaze of wisdom as that, David! It must be the puppy as has stirred ye up, boy, or, mayhap, the baccy!”“Take careyoudon’t stir me up, lad, else it may be worse for you,” growled Maxwell.“Och! I’m safe,” returned the Irishman, carelessly; “I’d putt Molly betwain us, an’ sure ye’d have to come over her dead body before ye’d git at me.—It wasn’t you, was it, David,” continued Rooney, with sudden earnestness, “that got knocked over by a blast at the works in Ringwall harbour two or three years ago?”“No, it warn’t me,” responded Maxwell; “it was long Tom Skinclip. He was too tall for a diver—he was. They say he stood six futt four in his socks; moreover he was as thin as a shadow from a bad gas-lamp. He was workin’ one day down in the ’arbour, layin’ stones at the foundations of the noo breakwater, when they set off a blast about a hundred yards off from where he was workin’, an’ so powerful was the blast that it knocked him clean on his back. He got such a fright that he signalled violently to haul up, an’ they did haul ’im up, expectin’ to find one of his glasses broke, or his toobes bu’sted. There was nothin’ wotsomedever the matter with ’im, but he wouldn’t go down again that day. ’Owsever, he got over it, an’ after that went down to work at a wreck somewhere in the eastern seas—not far from Ceylon, I’m told. When there ’e got another fright that well-nigh finished him, an’ from that day he gave up divin’ an’ tuck to gardening, for which he was much better suited.”“What happened to him?” asked Edgar.“I’m not rightly sure,” answered Maxwell, refilling his pipe, “but I’ve bin told he had to go down one day in shallow water among sea-weed. It was a beautiful sort o’ submarine garden, so to speak, an’ long Tom Skinclip was so fond o’ flowers an’ gardens nat’rally, that he forgot hisself, an’ went wanderin’ about what he called the ‘submarine groves’ till they thought he must have gone mad. They could see him quite plain, you see, from the boat, an’ they watched him while he wandered about. The sea-weed was up’ard of six feet high, tufted on the top with a sort o’ thing you might a’most fancy was flowers. The colours, too, was bright. Among the branches o’ this submarine forest, or grove, small lobsters, an’ shrimps, an’ other sorts o’ shell-fish, were doin’ dooty as birds—hoppin’ from one branch to another, an’ creepin’ about in all directions.“After a time long Tom Skinclip he sat down on a rock an’ wiped the perspiration off his brow—at least he tried to do it, which set the men in the boat all off in roars of laughter, for, d’ee see, Skinclip was an absent sort of a feller, an’ used to do strange things. No doubt when he sat down on the rock he felt warm, an’ bein’ a narvish sort o’ chap, I make no question but he was a-sweatin’ pretty hard, so, without thinkin’, he up with his arm, quite nat’ral like, an’ drawed it across where his brow would have bin if the helmet hadn’t been on. It didn’t seem to strike him as absurd, however, for he putt both hands on ’is knees, an’ sat lookin’ straight before ’im.“He hadn’t sat long in this way when they see’d a huge fish—about two futt long—comin’ slowly through the grove behind ’im. It was one o’ them creeters o’ the deep as seems to have had its head born five or six sizes too big for its tail—with eyes an’ mouth to match. It had also two great horns above its eyes, an’ a cravat or frill o’ bristles round its neck. Its round eyes and half-open mouth gave it the appearance o’ bein’ always more or less in a state of astonishment. P’r’aps it was—at the fact of its havin’ bin born at all! Anyhow, it swum’d slowly along till it cotched sight o’ Skinclip, when it went at him, an’ looked at the back of his helmet in great astonishment, an’ appeared to smell it, but evidently it could make nothin’ of it. Then it looked all down his back with an equal want of appreciation. Arter that it came round to the front, and looked straight in at Skinclip’s bull’s-eye! They do say it was a sight to see the start he gave!“He jump up as smart a’most as if he’d bin in the open air, an’ they obsarved, when he turned round, that a huge lobster of some unbeknown species was holdin’ on to his trousers with all its claws like a limpet! The fish—or ripslang, as one of the men called it, who said he knowed it well—turned out to be a pugnaceous creetur, for no sooner did it see Skinclip’s great eyes lookin’ at it in horror, than it set up its frill of spikes, threw for’ard the long horns, an’ went slap at the bull’s-eye fit to drive it in. Skinclip he putt down his head, an’ the ripslang made five or six charges at the helmet without much effect. Then it changed its tactics, turned on its side, wriggled under the helmet, an’ looked in at Skinclip with one of its glarin’ eyes close to the glass. At the same time the lobster gave him a tree-mendious tug behind. This was more than Skinclip could stand. They see’d him jump round, seize the life-line, an’ give it four deadly pulls, but his comrades paid no attention to it. The lobster gave him another tug, an’ the ripslang prepared for another charge. It seemed to have got some extra spikes set up in its wrath, for its whole body was bristlin’ more or less by this time.“Again Skinclip tugged like a maniac at the line. The ripslang charged; the lobster tugged; the poor feller stepped back hastily, got his heels entangled in sea-weed, and went down head first into the grove!“The men got alarmed by this time, so they pulled him up as fast as they could, an’ got him inboard in a few minutes; but they do say,” added Maxwell, with emphasis, “that that ripslang leaped right out o’ the water arter him, an’ the lobster held on so that they had to chop its claws off with a hatchet to make it let go. They supped off it the game night, and long Tom Skinclip, who owned an over strong appetite, had a bad fit of indisgestion in consikence.”

We are back again in Hong-Kong—in the pagoda—with our old friends seated comfortably round their little table enjoying a good supper.

Pretty little Mrs Machowl has prepared it, and is now assisting at the partaking of it. Young Master Teddy Machowl is similarly engaged on his father’s knee. The child has grown appallingly during its father’s absence! Ram-stam and Chok-foo are in waiting—gazing at each other with the affection of Chinese lovers re-united.

“What a sight you are, Rooney!” said Mrs Machowl, pausing between bites to look at her husband.

“Sure it’s the same may be said of yoursilf, cushla!” replied Rooney, stuffing his child’s mouth with sweet potato.

“Yes, but it’s what afrightyou are, I mane,” said Mrs Machowl.

“An’ it’s what a purty craturyouare thatImane,” replied Rooney, repeating the dose to Teddy, who regarded his father with looks of deep affection.

“Ah! Go ’long wid you. Sure it’s your nose is spoilt entirely,” said Mrs Machowl.

“An’ it’s your own that is swaiter than iver, which more than makes up the difference,” retorted her lord.—“Howld it open as wide as ye can this time, Ted, me boy; there, that’s your sort—but don’t choke, ye spalpeen.”

There seemed indeed some occasion for the latter admonition, for Teddy, unused to such vigorous treatment, was beginning to look purple in the face and apoplectic about the eyes. In short, there is every probability that an attack of croup, or something dreadful, would have ensued if the child’s mother had not risen hastily and snatched it away from the would-be infanticide.

“Now then, Ram-stam and Chok-foo,” said Edgar Berrington, putting down his spoon, “clear away the rat’s-tail soup, and bring on the roast puppy.”

Grinning from ear to ear, and with almost closed eyes, the Chinese servitors obeyed.

While they cleared the table and laid the second course, the conversation became general. Previously it had been particular, referring chiefly to the soup and the free circulation of the salt.

“So, then,” observed Joe Baldwin, leaning back in his chair, “we must make up our minds to be content with what we have got. Well, it an’t so bad after all! Let me see. How much did you say the total is, Mister Eddy?”

“Close upon eight thousand five hundred pounds.”

“A tidy little sum,” observed Rooney, with an air of satisfaction.

“Eight thousand—eh?” repeated Joe; “hum, well, we’ll cut off the five hundred for expenses and passage home, and that leaves eight thousand clear, which, according to agreement, gives each of us two thousand pounds.”

Maxwell, who still looked pale and thin from the effects of his late accident, nodded his head slowly, and growled, “Two thousand—jus’ so.”

“An’ that, Molly, my dear,” said Rooney, “if properly invisted, gives you an’ me a clair income—only think, anincome, Molly—of wan hundred a year! It’s true, cushla! That ye won’t be able to rowl in yer carridge an’ walk in silks an’ satins on that income, but it’ll pay the rint an’ taxes, owld girl, an’ help Teddy to a collidge eddication—to say nothin’ o’ pipes an’ baccy. Ochone!—if we’d only not lost the first haul, we’d have bin millerinaires be this time. I wouldn’t have called the Quane me grandmother.”

“Come, Rooney, be grateful for what you’ve got,” said Edgar. “Enough is as good as a feast.”

“Ah! Sur, it’ll be time to say that when we’ve finished the puppy,” replied the Irishman, as Chok-foo placed on the board a savoury roast which bore some resemblance to the animal named, though, having had its head and legs amputated, there could be no absolute certainty on the point. Whatever it was, the party attacked it with relish, and silence reigned until it was finished, after which conversation flowed again—somewhat languidly at first. When, however, pipes were got out by those who smoked, and chairs were placed in the verandah, and no sound was heard around save the yelling of Chinese children who were romping in the Chinese kennel that skirted the pagoda, and the champing of the jaws of Ram-stam and Chok-foo as they masticated inside—then came the feast of reason, not to mention the flow of soul.

“I wonder what our friends at Whitstable will say to this ventur’ of ours,” said Maxwell.

“Have you many friends there?” asked Edgar.

“Many?—of course I has. W’y, I suppose every English diver must have friends there.”

“Where is it?” asked Edgar.

“Why, sir, don’t you know Whitstable?” exclaimed Joe Baldwin, in surprise.

“You forget, Joe,” replied Edgar, with a smile, “that although I have learnt how to dive, and have read a good deal about the history of diving, I am only an amateur after all, and cannot be supposed to know everything connected with the profession. All I know about Whitstable is that it is a port somewhere in the south of England.”

“Right, sir,” said Joe, “but it’s more than that; it lies on the coast of Kent, and is famous for its oyster-beds and its divers. How it came to be a place of resort for diversIdon’t know, but so it is, an’ Ihaveheard say it was divin’ for oysters in days of old that gave the natives a taste for the work. Anyhow, they’ve got the taste very decided somehow, an’ after every spell o’ dirty weather they’re sure to have telegrams from all parts of the coast, and you’ll see Lloyds’ agents huntin’ up the divers in the public-houses an’ packin’ ’em off wi’ their gear right and left by rail to look after salvage.

“These men,” continued Joe, “are most of ’em handicraftmen as well as divers, because you know, sir, it would be of no use to send down a mere labourer to repair the bottom of a ship, no matter how good he was at divin’; so, you’ll find among ’em masons, and shipbuilders, and carpenters, and engineers—”

“Ah!” interrupted Edgar, “I was just wondering how they would manage if it were found necessary to have the engines of a sunk steamer taken to pieces and sent up.”

“Well, sir,” rejoined Joe, “they’ve got men there who can dive, and who know as much about marine engines as you do yourself. And these men make lots of tin, for a good diver can earn a pound a day, an’ be kept in pretty regular employment in deep water. In shallow water he can earn from ten to fifteen shillings a day. Besides this, they make special arrangements for runnin’ extra risks. Then the savin’ they sometimes effect is amazin’. Why, sir, although you do know somethin’ of the advantages of diving, you can never know fully what good they do in the world at large. Just take the case of theAgamemnonat Sebastopol—”

“Och!” interrupted Rooney, whose visage was perplexed by reason of his pipe refusing to draw well, “wasn’t (puff) that a good job intirely (puff! There; you’re all right at last!) He was a friend o’ mine that managed that job. Tarry, we called him—though that wasn’t his right name. This is how it was. The fleet was blazin’ away at the fortifications, an’ of coorse the fortifications—out o’ politeness if nothin’ else—was blazin’ away at the fleet, and smoke was curlin’ up like a chimbley on fire, an’ big balls was goin’ about like pais in a rattle, an’ small shot like hail was blowin’ horizontal, an’ men was bein’ shot an’ cut to pieces, an’ them as warn’t was cheerin’ as if there was any glory in wholesale murther—bah! I wouldn’t give a day at Donnybrook wid a shillelah for all the sieges of Sebastopool as ever I heard tell of. Well, suddintly, bang goes a round shot slap through the hull of theAgamemnon, below the water-line! Here was a pretty to do! The ordinary coorse in this case would have bin to haul out of action, go right away to Malta, an’ have the ship docked and repaired there. But what does they do? Why, they gets from under fire for a bit, and sends down my friend Tarry to look at the hole. He goes down, looks at it, then comes up an’ looks at the Commodore,—bowld as brass.

“‘I can repair it,’ says Tarry.

“‘Well, do,’ says the Commodore.

“So down he goes an’ does it, an’ very soon after that theAgamemnonwent into action again, and blazed away at the walls o’ the owld place harder than ever.”

“Thatwasa good case, an’ atrueone,” said Joe Baldwin, with an approving nod.

“And these divers, Mr Edgar,” continued Joe, “sometimes go on their own hook, like we have done this time, with more or less luck. There was one chum of mine who took it into his head to try his chances at the wreck of theRoyal Charter, long after all hope of further salvage had been abandoned, and in a short time he managed to recover between three and four hundred pounds sterling.”

“An immense amount of money, they do say, was recovered from theRoyal Charterby divers,” observed Maxwell.

“That is true, and it happens,” said Edgar, sadly, “that I know a few interesting facts regarding that vessel. I know of some people whose hearts were broken by the loss of relatives in that wreck. There were many such—God comfort them! But that is not what I meant to speak of. The facts I refer to are connected with the treasure lost in the vessel. Just before leaving London I had occasion to call on the gentleman who had the management of the recovered gold, and he told me several interesting things. First of all, the whole of the gold that could be identified was handed at once over to its owners; but this matter of identification was not easy, for much of the gold was found quite loose in the form of sovereigns and nuggets and dust. The dust was ordered to be sent up with the ‘dirt’ that surrounded it, and a process of gold-washing was instituted, after the regular diggings fashion, with a bowl and water. Tons of ‘dirt’ were sent up and washed in this way, and a large quantity of gold saved. The agent showed me the bowl that was used on this occasion. He also showed me sovereigns that had been kept as curious specimens. Some of them were partly destroyed, as if they had been caught between iron-plates and cut in half; others were more or less defaced and bent, and a few had been squeezed almost into an unrecognisable shape. In one place, he told me, the divers saw a pile of sovereigns through a rent in an iron-plate. The rent was too small to admit a man’s arm, and the plates could not be dislodged. The divers, therefore, made a pair of iron tongs, with which they picked out the sovereigns, and thus saved a large sum of money. One very curious case of identification occurred. A bag of sovereigns was found with no name on it. A claimant appeared, but he could tell of no mark to prove that he was the rightful owner. Of course it could not be given up, and it appeared as if the unfortunate man (who was indeed the owner) must relinquish his claim, when in a happy moment his wife remembered that she had put a brass ‘token’ into the bag with the gold. The bag was searched, the token was found, and the gold was immediately handed to them.”

“Molly, my dear,” said Rooney Machowl at this point, “you make a note o’ that; an’ if ever you have to do with bags o’ goold, just putt a brass token or two into ’em.”

“Ah! Shut up, Rooney,” said Mrs Machowl, in a voice so sweet that the contrast between it and her language caused Edgar and Joe to laugh.

“Well, then,” continued Edgar, “in many other curious ways gold was identified and delivered to its owners: thus, in one case, an incomplete seal, bearing part of the legs of a griffin, was found on a bag of two thousand sovereigns, and the owner, showing the seal with which he had stamped it, established his claim. Of course in all cases where bars of gold were found with the owners’ names stamped on them, the property was at once handed over; but after all was done that could be done by means of the most painstaking inquiry, an immense amount of gold necessarily remained unclaimed.”

“And I s’pose if it wasn’t for us divers,” said Maxwell, “the whole consarn would have remained a dead loss to mankind.”

“True for ye,” responded Rooney; “it’s not often ye come out wid such a blaze of wisdom as that, David! It must be the puppy as has stirred ye up, boy, or, mayhap, the baccy!”

“Take careyoudon’t stir me up, lad, else it may be worse for you,” growled Maxwell.

“Och! I’m safe,” returned the Irishman, carelessly; “I’d putt Molly betwain us, an’ sure ye’d have to come over her dead body before ye’d git at me.—It wasn’t you, was it, David,” continued Rooney, with sudden earnestness, “that got knocked over by a blast at the works in Ringwall harbour two or three years ago?”

“No, it warn’t me,” responded Maxwell; “it was long Tom Skinclip. He was too tall for a diver—he was. They say he stood six futt four in his socks; moreover he was as thin as a shadow from a bad gas-lamp. He was workin’ one day down in the ’arbour, layin’ stones at the foundations of the noo breakwater, when they set off a blast about a hundred yards off from where he was workin’, an’ so powerful was the blast that it knocked him clean on his back. He got such a fright that he signalled violently to haul up, an’ they did haul ’im up, expectin’ to find one of his glasses broke, or his toobes bu’sted. There was nothin’ wotsomedever the matter with ’im, but he wouldn’t go down again that day. ’Owsever, he got over it, an’ after that went down to work at a wreck somewhere in the eastern seas—not far from Ceylon, I’m told. When there ’e got another fright that well-nigh finished him, an’ from that day he gave up divin’ an’ tuck to gardening, for which he was much better suited.”

“What happened to him?” asked Edgar.

“I’m not rightly sure,” answered Maxwell, refilling his pipe, “but I’ve bin told he had to go down one day in shallow water among sea-weed. It was a beautiful sort o’ submarine garden, so to speak, an’ long Tom Skinclip was so fond o’ flowers an’ gardens nat’rally, that he forgot hisself, an’ went wanderin’ about what he called the ‘submarine groves’ till they thought he must have gone mad. They could see him quite plain, you see, from the boat, an’ they watched him while he wandered about. The sea-weed was up’ard of six feet high, tufted on the top with a sort o’ thing you might a’most fancy was flowers. The colours, too, was bright. Among the branches o’ this submarine forest, or grove, small lobsters, an’ shrimps, an’ other sorts o’ shell-fish, were doin’ dooty as birds—hoppin’ from one branch to another, an’ creepin’ about in all directions.

“After a time long Tom Skinclip he sat down on a rock an’ wiped the perspiration off his brow—at least he tried to do it, which set the men in the boat all off in roars of laughter, for, d’ee see, Skinclip was an absent sort of a feller, an’ used to do strange things. No doubt when he sat down on the rock he felt warm, an’ bein’ a narvish sort o’ chap, I make no question but he was a-sweatin’ pretty hard, so, without thinkin’, he up with his arm, quite nat’ral like, an’ drawed it across where his brow would have bin if the helmet hadn’t been on. It didn’t seem to strike him as absurd, however, for he putt both hands on ’is knees, an’ sat lookin’ straight before ’im.

“He hadn’t sat long in this way when they see’d a huge fish—about two futt long—comin’ slowly through the grove behind ’im. It was one o’ them creeters o’ the deep as seems to have had its head born five or six sizes too big for its tail—with eyes an’ mouth to match. It had also two great horns above its eyes, an’ a cravat or frill o’ bristles round its neck. Its round eyes and half-open mouth gave it the appearance o’ bein’ always more or less in a state of astonishment. P’r’aps it was—at the fact of its havin’ bin born at all! Anyhow, it swum’d slowly along till it cotched sight o’ Skinclip, when it went at him, an’ looked at the back of his helmet in great astonishment, an’ appeared to smell it, but evidently it could make nothin’ of it. Then it looked all down his back with an equal want of appreciation. Arter that it came round to the front, and looked straight in at Skinclip’s bull’s-eye! They do say it was a sight to see the start he gave!

“He jump up as smart a’most as if he’d bin in the open air, an’ they obsarved, when he turned round, that a huge lobster of some unbeknown species was holdin’ on to his trousers with all its claws like a limpet! The fish—or ripslang, as one of the men called it, who said he knowed it well—turned out to be a pugnaceous creetur, for no sooner did it see Skinclip’s great eyes lookin’ at it in horror, than it set up its frill of spikes, threw for’ard the long horns, an’ went slap at the bull’s-eye fit to drive it in. Skinclip he putt down his head, an’ the ripslang made five or six charges at the helmet without much effect. Then it changed its tactics, turned on its side, wriggled under the helmet, an’ looked in at Skinclip with one of its glarin’ eyes close to the glass. At the same time the lobster gave him a tree-mendious tug behind. This was more than Skinclip could stand. They see’d him jump round, seize the life-line, an’ give it four deadly pulls, but his comrades paid no attention to it. The lobster gave him another tug, an’ the ripslang prepared for another charge. It seemed to have got some extra spikes set up in its wrath, for its whole body was bristlin’ more or less by this time.

“Again Skinclip tugged like a maniac at the line. The ripslang charged; the lobster tugged; the poor feller stepped back hastily, got his heels entangled in sea-weed, and went down head first into the grove!

“The men got alarmed by this time, so they pulled him up as fast as they could, an’ got him inboard in a few minutes; but they do say,” added Maxwell, with emphasis, “that that ripslang leaped right out o’ the water arter him, an’ the lobster held on so that they had to chop its claws off with a hatchet to make it let go. They supped off it the game night, and long Tom Skinclip, who owned an over strong appetite, had a bad fit of indisgestion in consikence.”

Chapter Twenty Three.More about the Sea.Once more we beg our reader to accompany us to sea—out into the thick darkness, over the wild waves, far from the abodes of man.There, one night in December, a powerful steamer did battle with a tempest. The wind was against her, and, as a matter of course, also the sea. The first howled among her rigging with what might have been styled vicious violence. The seas hit her bows with a fury that caused her to stagger, and, bursting right over her bulwarks at times, swept the decks from stem to stern, but nothing could altogether stop her onward progress. The sleepless monster in the hold, with a heart of fervent heat, and scalding breath of intense energy, and muscles of iron mould, and an indomitable—yet to man submissive—will, wrought on night and day unweariedly, driving the floating palace straight and steadily on her course—homeward-bound.Down in the cabin, in one of the side berths lay a female form. Opposite to it, in a similar berth, lay another female form. Both forms were very limp. The faces attached to the forms were pale yellow, edged here and there with green.“My dear,” sighed one of the forms, “thisisdreadful!”After a long silence, as though much time were required for the inhalation of sufficient air for the purpose, the other form replied:—“Yes, Laura, dear, itisdreadful.”“’Ave a cup of tea, ladies?” said the stewardess, opening the door just then, and appearing at an acute angle with the doorway, holding a cup in each hand.Miss Pritty shuddered and covered her head with the bed-clothes. Aileen made the form of “no, thanks,” with her lips, and shut her eyes.“Do’ave a cup,” said the stewardess, persuasively.The cups appeared at that moment inclined to “’ave” a little game of hide-and-seek, which the stewardess nimbly prevented by suddenly forming an obtuse angle with the floor, and following that action up with a plunge to starboard, and a heel to port, that was suggestive—at least to a landsman—of an intention to baptise Miss Pritty with hot tea, and thereafter take a “header” through the cabin window into the boiling sea! She did neither, however, but, muttered something about “’ow she do roll, to be sure,” and, seeing that her mission was hopeless, left the cabin with a balked stagger and a sudden rush, which was appropriately followed up by the door shutting itself with a terrific bang, as though it should say, “You might have known as much, goose! Why did you open me?”“Laura, dear,” said Aileen, “did you hear what the captain said to some one just now in the cabin, when the door was open?”“N–no,” replied Miss Pritty, faintly.“I distinctly heard some one ask how fast we were going, but I could not make out his reply.”“Oh!” exclaimed the other, brightening for a brief moment; “yes, Ididhear him. He said we were going six knots. Now I donotunderstand what that means.”“Did you mean that?” asked Aileen, turning her eyes languidly on her friend, while a faint smile flickered on her mouth.“Mean what?” said Miss Pritty, in evident surprise.“No, I see you didn’t. Well, a knot means, I believe, a nautical mile.”“A notticle mile, Aileen; what is that?”“Anautical mile; dear me, how stupid you are, Laura!”“Oh! I understand. But, really, the noise of that screw makes it difficult to hear distinctly. And, after all, it is no wonder if Iamstupid, for what between eating nothing but pickles for six weeks, and this dreadful—there! Oh! It comes ag—”Poor Miss Pritty stopped abruptly, and made a desperate effort to think of home. Aileen, albeit full of sympathy, turned her face to the wall, and lay with closed eyes.After a time the latter looked slowly round.“Are you asleep, Laura?”Miss Pritty gave a sharp semi-hysterical laugh at the bare idea of such an impossible condition.“Well, I was going to say,” resumed Aileen, “that we cannot be very far from land now, and when we do get there—”“Happy day!” murmured Miss Pritty.“We intend,” continued Aileen, “to go straight home—I—I mean to our old home, sell everything at once, and go to live in a cottage—quite a tiny cottage—by the sea somewhere. Now, I want you to come and visit us the very day we get into our cottage. I know you would like it—would like being with me, wouldn’t you?”“Like it? I should delight in it of all things.”“I knew you would. Well, I was going to say that it would be such a kindness to dear papa too, for you know he will naturally be very low-spirited when we make the change—for it is a great change, Laura, greater perhaps than you, who have never been very rich, can imagine, and I doubt my capacity to be a good comforter to him though I have all the will.”Two little spots of red appeared for the first time for many weeks on Miss Pritty’s cheeks, as she said in a tone of enthusiasm:—“What!Younot a good comforter? I’ve a good mind to refuse your invitation, since you dare to insinuate that I could in any degree supplementyouin such a matter.”“Well, then, we won’t make any more insinuations,” returned Aileen, with a sad smile; “but you’ll come—that’s settled. You know, dear, that we had lost everything, but ever since our jewel-case was found by—by—”“By Edgar,” said Miss Pritty; “why don’t you go on?”“Yes, by Mr Berrington,” continued Aileen, “ever since that, papa has been very hopeful. I don’t know exactly what his mind runs on, but I can see that he is making heaps of plans in regard to the future, and oh! You can’t think how glad and how thankful I am for the change. The state of dull, heartbreaking, weary depression that he fell into just after getting the news of our failure was beginning to undermine his health. I could see that plainly, and felt quite wretched about him. But now he is comparatively cheerful, and so gentle too. Do you know, I have been thinking a good deal lately of the psalmist’s saying, ‘it is good for me that I have been afflicted;’ and, in the midst of it all, our Heavenly Father remembered mercy, for it was He who sent our jewel-box, as if to prevent the burden from being too heavy for papa.”Miss Pritty’s kind face beamed agreement with these sentiments.“Now,” continued Aileen, “these jewels are, it seems, worth a great deal of money—much more than I had any idea of—for there are among them a number of very fine diamond rings and brooches. In fact, papa told me that he believed the whole were worth between eight and nine thousand pounds. This, you know, is a sum which will at least raise us above want, (poor Miss Pritty, well didsheknow that!)—though of course it will not enable us to live very luxuriously. How fortunate it was that these pirates—”“Oh!” screamed Miss Pritty, suddenly, as she drew the clothes over her head.“What’s the matter?” exclaimed Aileen; “are you going to be—”“Oh! No, no, no,” said Miss Pritty, peeping out again; “how could you bring these dreadful creatures to my remembrance so abruptly? I had quite forgotten them for the time. Why, oh why did you banish from my mind that sweet idea of a charming cottage by the sea, and all its little unluxurious elegancies, and call up in its place the h–h–horrors of that village-nest—pig-sty—of the dreadful buccaneers? But it can’t be helped now,” added Miss Pritty, with a resigned shudder, “and we have the greatest reason to be thankful that their hope of a good ransom made them treat us as well as they did;—but go on, dear, you were saying that it was fortunate that these p–pirates—”“That they did not sell the jewels or take any of them out of the box, or send them into the other prow which was sunk in deep water, where the divers could not have gone down to recover them.”“Very true,” assented Miss Pritty.At this point the cabin door again burst open, and the amiable stewardess appeared, bearing two cups of fresh tea, which she watched with the eyes of a tigress and the smile of an angel, while her body kept assuming sudden, and one would have thought impossible, attitudes.“Now, ladies,dotry some tea. Really you must. I insist on it. Why, you’ll both die if you don’t.”Impressed with the force of this reasoning, both ladies made an effort, and got up on their respective elbows. They smiled incredulously at each other, and then, becoming suddenly grave, fell flat down on their backs, and remained so for some time without speaking.“Now, try again; do try, it will do you so much good—really.”Thus adjured they tried again and succeeded. Aileen took one sip of tea, spilt much of the rest in thrusting it hurriedly into the ready hands of the all but ubiquitous stewardess, and fell over with her face to the wall. Miss Pritty looked at her tea for a few seconds, earnestly. The stewardess, not being quite ubiquitous, failed to catch the cup as it was wildly held towards her. Miss Pritty therefore capsized the whole affair over her bed-clothes, and fell back with a deadly groan.The stewardess did not lose temper. She was used to such things. If Miss Pritty had capsized her intellect over the bed-clothes, the stewardess would only have smiled, and wiped it up with a napkin.“You’ll be better soon, Miss,” said the amiable woman, as she retired with the débris.The self-acting door shut her out with a bang of contemptuous mockery, and the poor ladies were once more left alone in their misery.

Once more we beg our reader to accompany us to sea—out into the thick darkness, over the wild waves, far from the abodes of man.

There, one night in December, a powerful steamer did battle with a tempest. The wind was against her, and, as a matter of course, also the sea. The first howled among her rigging with what might have been styled vicious violence. The seas hit her bows with a fury that caused her to stagger, and, bursting right over her bulwarks at times, swept the decks from stem to stern, but nothing could altogether stop her onward progress. The sleepless monster in the hold, with a heart of fervent heat, and scalding breath of intense energy, and muscles of iron mould, and an indomitable—yet to man submissive—will, wrought on night and day unweariedly, driving the floating palace straight and steadily on her course—homeward-bound.

Down in the cabin, in one of the side berths lay a female form. Opposite to it, in a similar berth, lay another female form. Both forms were very limp. The faces attached to the forms were pale yellow, edged here and there with green.

“My dear,” sighed one of the forms, “thisisdreadful!”

After a long silence, as though much time were required for the inhalation of sufficient air for the purpose, the other form replied:—

“Yes, Laura, dear, itisdreadful.”

“’Ave a cup of tea, ladies?” said the stewardess, opening the door just then, and appearing at an acute angle with the doorway, holding a cup in each hand.

Miss Pritty shuddered and covered her head with the bed-clothes. Aileen made the form of “no, thanks,” with her lips, and shut her eyes.

“Do’ave a cup,” said the stewardess, persuasively.

The cups appeared at that moment inclined to “’ave” a little game of hide-and-seek, which the stewardess nimbly prevented by suddenly forming an obtuse angle with the floor, and following that action up with a plunge to starboard, and a heel to port, that was suggestive—at least to a landsman—of an intention to baptise Miss Pritty with hot tea, and thereafter take a “header” through the cabin window into the boiling sea! She did neither, however, but, muttered something about “’ow she do roll, to be sure,” and, seeing that her mission was hopeless, left the cabin with a balked stagger and a sudden rush, which was appropriately followed up by the door shutting itself with a terrific bang, as though it should say, “You might have known as much, goose! Why did you open me?”

“Laura, dear,” said Aileen, “did you hear what the captain said to some one just now in the cabin, when the door was open?”

“N–no,” replied Miss Pritty, faintly.

“I distinctly heard some one ask how fast we were going, but I could not make out his reply.”

“Oh!” exclaimed the other, brightening for a brief moment; “yes, Ididhear him. He said we were going six knots. Now I donotunderstand what that means.”

“Did you mean that?” asked Aileen, turning her eyes languidly on her friend, while a faint smile flickered on her mouth.

“Mean what?” said Miss Pritty, in evident surprise.

“No, I see you didn’t. Well, a knot means, I believe, a nautical mile.”

“A notticle mile, Aileen; what is that?”

“Anautical mile; dear me, how stupid you are, Laura!”

“Oh! I understand. But, really, the noise of that screw makes it difficult to hear distinctly. And, after all, it is no wonder if Iamstupid, for what between eating nothing but pickles for six weeks, and this dreadful—there! Oh! It comes ag—”

Poor Miss Pritty stopped abruptly, and made a desperate effort to think of home. Aileen, albeit full of sympathy, turned her face to the wall, and lay with closed eyes.

After a time the latter looked slowly round.

“Are you asleep, Laura?”

Miss Pritty gave a sharp semi-hysterical laugh at the bare idea of such an impossible condition.

“Well, I was going to say,” resumed Aileen, “that we cannot be very far from land now, and when we do get there—”

“Happy day!” murmured Miss Pritty.

“We intend,” continued Aileen, “to go straight home—I—I mean to our old home, sell everything at once, and go to live in a cottage—quite a tiny cottage—by the sea somewhere. Now, I want you to come and visit us the very day we get into our cottage. I know you would like it—would like being with me, wouldn’t you?”

“Like it? I should delight in it of all things.”

“I knew you would. Well, I was going to say that it would be such a kindness to dear papa too, for you know he will naturally be very low-spirited when we make the change—for it is a great change, Laura, greater perhaps than you, who have never been very rich, can imagine, and I doubt my capacity to be a good comforter to him though I have all the will.”

Two little spots of red appeared for the first time for many weeks on Miss Pritty’s cheeks, as she said in a tone of enthusiasm:—

“What!Younot a good comforter? I’ve a good mind to refuse your invitation, since you dare to insinuate that I could in any degree supplementyouin such a matter.”

“Well, then, we won’t make any more insinuations,” returned Aileen, with a sad smile; “but you’ll come—that’s settled. You know, dear, that we had lost everything, but ever since our jewel-case was found by—by—”

“By Edgar,” said Miss Pritty; “why don’t you go on?”

“Yes, by Mr Berrington,” continued Aileen, “ever since that, papa has been very hopeful. I don’t know exactly what his mind runs on, but I can see that he is making heaps of plans in regard to the future, and oh! You can’t think how glad and how thankful I am for the change. The state of dull, heartbreaking, weary depression that he fell into just after getting the news of our failure was beginning to undermine his health. I could see that plainly, and felt quite wretched about him. But now he is comparatively cheerful, and so gentle too. Do you know, I have been thinking a good deal lately of the psalmist’s saying, ‘it is good for me that I have been afflicted;’ and, in the midst of it all, our Heavenly Father remembered mercy, for it was He who sent our jewel-box, as if to prevent the burden from being too heavy for papa.”

Miss Pritty’s kind face beamed agreement with these sentiments.

“Now,” continued Aileen, “these jewels are, it seems, worth a great deal of money—much more than I had any idea of—for there are among them a number of very fine diamond rings and brooches. In fact, papa told me that he believed the whole were worth between eight and nine thousand pounds. This, you know, is a sum which will at least raise us above want, (poor Miss Pritty, well didsheknow that!)—though of course it will not enable us to live very luxuriously. How fortunate it was that these pirates—”

“Oh!” screamed Miss Pritty, suddenly, as she drew the clothes over her head.

“What’s the matter?” exclaimed Aileen; “are you going to be—”

“Oh! No, no, no,” said Miss Pritty, peeping out again; “how could you bring these dreadful creatures to my remembrance so abruptly? I had quite forgotten them for the time. Why, oh why did you banish from my mind that sweet idea of a charming cottage by the sea, and all its little unluxurious elegancies, and call up in its place the h–h–horrors of that village-nest—pig-sty—of the dreadful buccaneers? But it can’t be helped now,” added Miss Pritty, with a resigned shudder, “and we have the greatest reason to be thankful that their hope of a good ransom made them treat us as well as they did;—but go on, dear, you were saying that it was fortunate that these p–pirates—”

“That they did not sell the jewels or take any of them out of the box, or send them into the other prow which was sunk in deep water, where the divers could not have gone down to recover them.”

“Very true,” assented Miss Pritty.

At this point the cabin door again burst open, and the amiable stewardess appeared, bearing two cups of fresh tea, which she watched with the eyes of a tigress and the smile of an angel, while her body kept assuming sudden, and one would have thought impossible, attitudes.

“Now, ladies,dotry some tea. Really you must. I insist on it. Why, you’ll both die if you don’t.”

Impressed with the force of this reasoning, both ladies made an effort, and got up on their respective elbows. They smiled incredulously at each other, and then, becoming suddenly grave, fell flat down on their backs, and remained so for some time without speaking.

“Now, try again; do try, it will do you so much good—really.”

Thus adjured they tried again and succeeded. Aileen took one sip of tea, spilt much of the rest in thrusting it hurriedly into the ready hands of the all but ubiquitous stewardess, and fell over with her face to the wall. Miss Pritty looked at her tea for a few seconds, earnestly. The stewardess, not being quite ubiquitous, failed to catch the cup as it was wildly held towards her. Miss Pritty therefore capsized the whole affair over her bed-clothes, and fell back with a deadly groan.

The stewardess did not lose temper. She was used to such things. If Miss Pritty had capsized her intellect over the bed-clothes, the stewardess would only have smiled, and wiped it up with a napkin.

“You’ll be better soon, Miss,” said the amiable woman, as she retired with the débris.

The self-acting door shut her out with a bang of contemptuous mockery, and the poor ladies were once more left alone in their misery.

Chapter Twenty Four.Taking the Tide at the Ebb.When things in this world reach their lowest ebb, it is generally understood or expected that the tide will turn, somehow, and rise. Not unfrequently the understanding and the expectation are disappointed. Still, there are sufficiently numerous instances of the fulfilment of both, to warrant the hope which is usually entertained by men and women whose tide has reached its lowest.Mr Hazlit was naturally of a sanguine temperament. He entertained, we had almost said, majestic views on many points. Esteeming himself “a beggar” on three hundred a year—the remains of the wreck of his vast fortune—he resolved to commence business again. Being a man of strict probity and punctuality in all business matters, and being much respected and sympathised with by his numerous business friends, he experienced little difficulty in doing so. Success attended his efforts; the tide began to rise.Seated in a miniature parlour, before a snug fire, in his cottage by the sea, with one of the prettiest girls in all England by his side, knitting him a pair of inimitable socks, the “beggar” opened his mouth slowly and spake.“Aileen,” said he, “I’ve been a fool!”Had Mr Hazlit said so to some of his cynical male friends they might have tacitly admitted the fact, and softened the admission with a smile. As it was, his auditor replied:—“No, papa, you havenot.”“Yes, my love, I have. But I do not intend to prove the point or dispute it. There is a tide in the affairs of men which, taken at the ebb, leads on to fortune.”Aileen suspended her knitting and looked at her sire with some surprise, for, being a very matter-of-fact unpoetical man, this misquotation almost alarmed her.“‘Taken at theflood,’ is it not, papa?”“It may be so in Shakespeare’s experience.Isay the ebb. When first I was reduced to beggary—”“You never werethat, papa. We have never yet had to beg.”“Of course, of course,” said Mr Hazlit, with a motion of his hand to forbid further interruption. “When I say ‘beggary,’ you know what I mean. I certainly donotmean that I carry a wallet and a staff, and wear ragged garments, and knock at backdoors. Well, when I was reduced to beggary, I had reached the lowest ebb. At that time I was led—mark me, I was led—to ‘take the tide.’ I took it, and have been rising with the flood to fortune ever since. And yet, strange to say, though I am now rich in a way I never before dreamed of, I have still an insane thirst for earthly gold. What was the passage, dear, that you quoted to me as being your text for the day?”“‘Owe no man anything,’” replied Aileen.“Yes, it is curious. I have never mentioned the subject to you, my child, but some months ago—when, as I have said, the tide was very low—I was led to consider that passage, and under the influence of it I went to my creditors and delivered up to them your box of jewels. You are aware, no doubt, that having passed through the insolvency court, and given up all that I possessed, I became legally free. This box was recovered from the deep, and restored to me after my effects had been given up to my creditors, so that I might have retained it. But I felt that this would have been unjust. I respect the law which, after a man has given up all he possesses, sets him free to begin life again with some degree of hope, but I cannot avoid coming to the conclusion that moral duties cannot be abrogated by human laws. I take advantage of the law to prevent inhuman creditors from grinding me to death, but I refuse to take advantage of the law so as to escape from the clear duty that I ought to pay these creditors—gradually and according to my ability—to the uttermost farthing. Having been led to act on this opinion, I gave up the box of jewels. To my surprise, my creditors refused to take them. They returned them to me as a gift. I accepted the gift as a trust. On the proceeds, as you see, we manage to live comfortably, and I am now conducting a fairly successful business in the old line—on a small scale.”Mr Hazlit smiled sadly as he uttered the last words.“And the debts, papa, which you told me once were so heavy, do you mean to pay them all?” asked Aileen, anxiously.“I do,” replied her father, earnestly; “by slow degrees it may be, but to the last farthing if I live. I shall try to owe no man anything.”A glad smile lit up Aileen’s face as she was on the point of throwing her arms round her father’s neck, when the door opened, and a small domestic—their only one besides the cook—put a letter into the hands of her young mistress.Aileen’s countenance assumed a troubled look a she handed it to her father.“It is for you, papa.”Mr Hazlit’s visage also assumed an expression of anxiety as he opened and read the letter. It ran thus:—“Deer Sur,—i thinks it unkomon ’ard that a man shood ’ave is beed sold under im wen anuther man oas im munny, speshally wen is wifes ill—praps a-dyin—the Law has washt yoo sur, but it do seam ’ard on me, if yoo cood spair ony a pownd or two id taik it kind.—Yoors to komand, John Timms.”“This is very much to the point,” said Mr Hazlit, with a faint smile, handing the letter to Aileen. “It is, as you see, from our old green-grocer, who must indeed be in great trouble when he, who used to be so particularly civil, could write in that strain to me. Now, Aileen, I want your opinion on a certain point. In consequence of your economical ways, my love, I find myself in a position to give fifty pounds this half-year towards the liquidation of my debts.”The merchant paused, smiled, and absolutely looked a little confused. The idea of commencing to liquidate many thousands of pounds by means of fifty was so inexpressibly ridiculous, that he half expected to hear his own respectful child laugh at him. But Aileen did not laugh. With her large earnest eyes she looked at him, and the unuttered language of her pursed, grave, little mouth was “Well, go on.”“The liquidation of my debts,” repeated Mr Hazlit, firmly. “The sum is indeed a small one—a paltry one—compared with the amount of these debts, but the passage which we have been considering appears to me to leave no option, save to begin at once, even on the smallest possible scale. Now, my love, duty requires that I should at once begin to liquidate. Observe, the law of the land requires nothing. It has set me free, but the law of God requires that I should pay, at once, as I am able. Conscience echoes the law, and says, ‘pay.’ What, therefore, am I to do?”Mr Hazlit propounded this question with such an abrupt gaze as well as tone of interrogation, that the little pursed mouth relaxed into a little smile as it said, “I suppose you must divide the sum proportionally among your creditors, or something of that sort.”“Just so,” said Mr Hazlit, nodding approval. “Now,” he continued, with much gravity, “if I were to make the necessary calculation—which, I may remark, would be a question in proportion running into what I may be allowed to style infinitesimal fractions—I would probably find out that the proportion payable to one would be a shilling, to another half a sovereign, to another a pound or so, while to many would accrue so small a fraction of a farthing that no suitable coin of this realm could be found wherewith to pay it. If I were to go with, say two shillings, and offer them to my good friend Granby as part payment of my debt to him, the probability is that he would laugh in my face and invite me to dinner in order that we might celebrate the event over a bottle of very old port. Don’t you think so?”Aileen laughed, and said that she did think so.“Well, then,” continued her father, “what, in these circumstances, says common sense?”Aileen’s mouth became grave again, and her eyes very earnest as she said quickly—“Pay off the green-grocer!”Mr Hazlit nodded approval. “You are right. Mr Timms’ account amounts to twenty pounds. To offer twenty pounds to Mr Granby—to whom I owe some eight thousand, more or less—would be a poor practical joke. To give it to Mr Timms will evidently be the saving of his business at a time when it appears to have reached a crisis. Put on your bonnet and shawl, dear, and we will go about this matter without delay.”Aileen was one of those girls who possessed the rare and delectable capacity to “throw on” her bonnet and shawl. One glance in the mirror sufficed to convince her that these articles, although thrown on, had fallen into their appropriate places neatly. It could scarcely have been otherwise. Her bonnet and shawl took kindly to her, like all other things in nature—animate and otherwise. She reappeared before her sedate father had quite finished drawing on his gloves.Mr John Timms dwelt in a back lane which wriggled out of a back street as if it were anxious to find something still further back into which to back itself. He had been in better circumstances and in a better part of the town when Mr Hazlit had employed him. At the time of the rich merchant’s failure, the house of Timms had been in a shaky condition. That failure was the removal of its last prop; it fell, and Timms retired, as we have seen, into the commercial background. Here, however, he did not find relief. Being a trustful man he was cheated until he became untrustful. His wife became ill owing to bad air and low diet. His six children became unavoidably neglected and riotous, and his business, started on the wreck of the old one, again came to the brink of failure. It was in these circumstances that he sat down, under the impulse of a fit of desperation, and penned the celebrated letter to his old customer.When Mr Hazlit and his daughter had, with great difficulty, discovered Mr Timms’ residence and approached the door, they were checked on the threshold by the sound of men apparently in a state of violent altercation within.“Git out wid ye, an’ look sharp, you spalpeen,” cried one of the voices.“Oh, pray don’t—don’t fight!” cried a weak female voice.“No, I won’t git out till I’m paid, or carry your bed away with me,” cried a man’s voice, fiercely.“You won’t, eh! Arrah then—hup!”The last sound, which is not describable, was immediately followed by the sudden appearance of a man, who flew down the passage as if from a projectile, and went headlong into the kennel. He was followed closely by Rooney Machowl, who dealt the man as he rose a sounding slap on the right cheek, which would certainly have tumbled him over again had it not been followed by an equally sounding slap on the left cheek, which “brought him up all standing.”Catching sight at that moment of Mr Hazlit and Aileen, Rooney stopped short and stood confused.“Murder!” shrieked the injured man.“Hooray! Here’s a lark!” screamed a small street-boy.“Go it! Plice! A skrimmage!” yelled another street-boy in an ecstasy of delight, which immediately drew to the spot the nucleus of a crowd.Mr Hazlit was a man of promptitude. He was also a large man, as we have elsewhere said, and by no means devoid of courage. Dropping his daughter’s arm he suddenly seized the ill-used and noisy man by the neck, and thrust him almost as violently back into the green-grocer’s house as Rooney had kicked him out of it. He then said, “Go in,” to the amazed Rooney, and dragging his no less astonished child in along with him, shut and locked the door.“Now,” said Mr Hazlit, sitting down on a broken chair in a very shabby little room, and wiping his heated brow, “what is the meaning of all this, Mr Timms?”“Well, sir,” answered Timms, with a deprecatory air, “I’m sorry, sir, it should ’ave ’appened just w’en you was a-goin’ to favour me with the unexpected honour of a wisit; but the truth is, sir, I couldn’t ’elp it. This ’ere sc— man is my landlord, sir, an’ ’ewouldn’twait another day for ’is rent, sir, though I told ’im he was pretty sure o’ ’avin it in a week or so, w’en I ’ad time to c’lect my outstandin’ little bills—”“More nor that, sur,” burst in the impatient and indignant Rooney, “he would ’ave gone into that there room, sur,—if I may miscall a dark closet by that name—an’ ’ave pulled the bed out from under Mrs Timms, who’s a-dyin’, sur, if I ’adn’t chanced to come in, sur, an’ kick the spalpeen into the street, as you see’d.”“For w’ich you’ll smart yet,” growled the landlord, who stood in a dishevelled heap like a bad boy in a corner.“How much rent does he owe you?” asked Mr Hazlit of the landlord.“That’s no business o’ yours,” replied the man, sulkily.“If I were to offer to pay it, perhaps you’d allow that itwasmy business.”“So I willw’enyou offers.”“Well, then, I offer now,” said Mr Hazlit, taking out his purse, and pouring a little stream of sovereigns into his hand. “Have you the receipt made out?”The landlord made no reply, but, with a look of wonder at his interrogator, drew a small piece of dirty paper from his pocket and held it out. Mr Hazlit examined it carefully from beginning to end.“Is this right, Mr Timms?” he asked.The green-grocer examined the paper, and said it was—that five pounds was the exact amount.“You can put the receipt in your pocket,” said Mr Hazlit, turning round and counting out five sovereigns on the table, which he pushed towards the landlord. “Now, take yourself off, as quietly as you can, else I’ll have you taken up and tried for entering a man’s premises forcibly, and endeavouring to obtain money by intimidation. Go!”This was a bold stroke on the part of the merchant, whose legal knowledge was not extensive, but it succeeded. The landlord pocketed the money and moved towards the door. Rooney Machowl followed him.“Rooney!” said Mr Hazlit, calling him back.“Mayn’t I show him out, sur?” said Rooney, earnestly.“By no means.”“Ah, sur, mayn’t I give him a farewell kick?”“Certainly not.”Mr Hazlit then expressed a desire to see Mrs Timms, and the green-grocer, thanking the merchant fervently for his timely aid, lighted a candle and led the way into the dark closet.Poor Mrs Timms, a delicate-looking woman, not yet forty, who had evidently been pretty once, lay on a miserable bed, apparently at the point of death.Aileen glided quickly to the bed, sat down on it, and took the woman’s hand, while she bent over her and whispered:—“Don’t be distressed. The rent is paid. He will disturb you no more. You shall be quiet now, and I will come to see you sometimes, if you’ll let me.”The woman gazed at the girl with surprise, then, as she felt the gentle warm pressure of her hand a sudden rush of faith seemed to fill her soul. She drew Aileen towards her, and looked earnestly into her face.“Come here, Timms,” said Mr Hazlit, abruptly, as he turned round and walked out of the closet, “I want to speak to you. I am no doctor, but depend upon it your wife willnotdie. There is a very small building—quite a hut I may say—near my house—ahem! Near my cottage close to the sea, which is at present to let. I advise you strongly to take that hut and start a green-grocery there. I’m not aware that there is one in the immediate neighbourhood, and there are many respectable families about whose custom you might doubtless count on; at all events, you would be sure of ours to begin with. The sea-air would do your wife a world of good, and the sea-beach would be an agreeable and extensive playground for your children.”The green-grocer stood almost aghast! The energy with which Mr Hazlit poured out his words, and, as it seemed to Timms, the free and easy magnificence of his ideas were overpowering.“W’y, sir, I ain’t got no money to do sitch a thing with,” he said at last, with a broad grin.“Yes, you have,” said Mr Hazlit, again pulling out his purse and emptying its golden contents on the table in a little heap, from which he counted fifteen sovereigns. “My debt to you amounts, I believe, to twenty pounds; five I have just paid to your landlord, here is the balance. You needn’t mind a receipt. Send me the discharged account at your leisure, and think over what I have suggested. Aileen, my dear, we will go now.”Aileen said good-night at once to the sick woman and followed her father as he went out, repeating—“Good-evening, Timms, think over my suggestion.”They walked slowly home without speaking. Soon they reached the cottage by the sea. As they stood under the trellis-work porch the merchant turned round and gazed at the sun, which was just dipping into the horizon, flooding sea and sky with golden glory.“Aileen,” he said in a low voice, “I have commenced life at last—life in earnest. I was a poor fool once. Through grace I am a rich man now.”

When things in this world reach their lowest ebb, it is generally understood or expected that the tide will turn, somehow, and rise. Not unfrequently the understanding and the expectation are disappointed. Still, there are sufficiently numerous instances of the fulfilment of both, to warrant the hope which is usually entertained by men and women whose tide has reached its lowest.

Mr Hazlit was naturally of a sanguine temperament. He entertained, we had almost said, majestic views on many points. Esteeming himself “a beggar” on three hundred a year—the remains of the wreck of his vast fortune—he resolved to commence business again. Being a man of strict probity and punctuality in all business matters, and being much respected and sympathised with by his numerous business friends, he experienced little difficulty in doing so. Success attended his efforts; the tide began to rise.

Seated in a miniature parlour, before a snug fire, in his cottage by the sea, with one of the prettiest girls in all England by his side, knitting him a pair of inimitable socks, the “beggar” opened his mouth slowly and spake.

“Aileen,” said he, “I’ve been a fool!”

Had Mr Hazlit said so to some of his cynical male friends they might have tacitly admitted the fact, and softened the admission with a smile. As it was, his auditor replied:—

“No, papa, you havenot.”

“Yes, my love, I have. But I do not intend to prove the point or dispute it. There is a tide in the affairs of men which, taken at the ebb, leads on to fortune.”

Aileen suspended her knitting and looked at her sire with some surprise, for, being a very matter-of-fact unpoetical man, this misquotation almost alarmed her.

“‘Taken at theflood,’ is it not, papa?”

“It may be so in Shakespeare’s experience.Isay the ebb. When first I was reduced to beggary—”

“You never werethat, papa. We have never yet had to beg.”

“Of course, of course,” said Mr Hazlit, with a motion of his hand to forbid further interruption. “When I say ‘beggary,’ you know what I mean. I certainly donotmean that I carry a wallet and a staff, and wear ragged garments, and knock at backdoors. Well, when I was reduced to beggary, I had reached the lowest ebb. At that time I was led—mark me, I was led—to ‘take the tide.’ I took it, and have been rising with the flood to fortune ever since. And yet, strange to say, though I am now rich in a way I never before dreamed of, I have still an insane thirst for earthly gold. What was the passage, dear, that you quoted to me as being your text for the day?”

“‘Owe no man anything,’” replied Aileen.

“Yes, it is curious. I have never mentioned the subject to you, my child, but some months ago—when, as I have said, the tide was very low—I was led to consider that passage, and under the influence of it I went to my creditors and delivered up to them your box of jewels. You are aware, no doubt, that having passed through the insolvency court, and given up all that I possessed, I became legally free. This box was recovered from the deep, and restored to me after my effects had been given up to my creditors, so that I might have retained it. But I felt that this would have been unjust. I respect the law which, after a man has given up all he possesses, sets him free to begin life again with some degree of hope, but I cannot avoid coming to the conclusion that moral duties cannot be abrogated by human laws. I take advantage of the law to prevent inhuman creditors from grinding me to death, but I refuse to take advantage of the law so as to escape from the clear duty that I ought to pay these creditors—gradually and according to my ability—to the uttermost farthing. Having been led to act on this opinion, I gave up the box of jewels. To my surprise, my creditors refused to take them. They returned them to me as a gift. I accepted the gift as a trust. On the proceeds, as you see, we manage to live comfortably, and I am now conducting a fairly successful business in the old line—on a small scale.”

Mr Hazlit smiled sadly as he uttered the last words.

“And the debts, papa, which you told me once were so heavy, do you mean to pay them all?” asked Aileen, anxiously.

“I do,” replied her father, earnestly; “by slow degrees it may be, but to the last farthing if I live. I shall try to owe no man anything.”

A glad smile lit up Aileen’s face as she was on the point of throwing her arms round her father’s neck, when the door opened, and a small domestic—their only one besides the cook—put a letter into the hands of her young mistress.

Aileen’s countenance assumed a troubled look a she handed it to her father.

“It is for you, papa.”

Mr Hazlit’s visage also assumed an expression of anxiety as he opened and read the letter. It ran thus:—

“Deer Sur,—i thinks it unkomon ’ard that a man shood ’ave is beed sold under im wen anuther man oas im munny, speshally wen is wifes ill—praps a-dyin—the Law has washt yoo sur, but it do seam ’ard on me, if yoo cood spair ony a pownd or two id taik it kind.—Yoors to komand, John Timms.”

“Deer Sur,—i thinks it unkomon ’ard that a man shood ’ave is beed sold under im wen anuther man oas im munny, speshally wen is wifes ill—praps a-dyin—the Law has washt yoo sur, but it do seam ’ard on me, if yoo cood spair ony a pownd or two id taik it kind.—Yoors to komand, John Timms.”

“This is very much to the point,” said Mr Hazlit, with a faint smile, handing the letter to Aileen. “It is, as you see, from our old green-grocer, who must indeed be in great trouble when he, who used to be so particularly civil, could write in that strain to me. Now, Aileen, I want your opinion on a certain point. In consequence of your economical ways, my love, I find myself in a position to give fifty pounds this half-year towards the liquidation of my debts.”

The merchant paused, smiled, and absolutely looked a little confused. The idea of commencing to liquidate many thousands of pounds by means of fifty was so inexpressibly ridiculous, that he half expected to hear his own respectful child laugh at him. But Aileen did not laugh. With her large earnest eyes she looked at him, and the unuttered language of her pursed, grave, little mouth was “Well, go on.”

“The liquidation of my debts,” repeated Mr Hazlit, firmly. “The sum is indeed a small one—a paltry one—compared with the amount of these debts, but the passage which we have been considering appears to me to leave no option, save to begin at once, even on the smallest possible scale. Now, my love, duty requires that I should at once begin to liquidate. Observe, the law of the land requires nothing. It has set me free, but the law of God requires that I should pay, at once, as I am able. Conscience echoes the law, and says, ‘pay.’ What, therefore, am I to do?”

Mr Hazlit propounded this question with such an abrupt gaze as well as tone of interrogation, that the little pursed mouth relaxed into a little smile as it said, “I suppose you must divide the sum proportionally among your creditors, or something of that sort.”

“Just so,” said Mr Hazlit, nodding approval. “Now,” he continued, with much gravity, “if I were to make the necessary calculation—which, I may remark, would be a question in proportion running into what I may be allowed to style infinitesimal fractions—I would probably find out that the proportion payable to one would be a shilling, to another half a sovereign, to another a pound or so, while to many would accrue so small a fraction of a farthing that no suitable coin of this realm could be found wherewith to pay it. If I were to go with, say two shillings, and offer them to my good friend Granby as part payment of my debt to him, the probability is that he would laugh in my face and invite me to dinner in order that we might celebrate the event over a bottle of very old port. Don’t you think so?”

Aileen laughed, and said that she did think so.

“Well, then,” continued her father, “what, in these circumstances, says common sense?”

Aileen’s mouth became grave again, and her eyes very earnest as she said quickly—

“Pay off the green-grocer!”

Mr Hazlit nodded approval. “You are right. Mr Timms’ account amounts to twenty pounds. To offer twenty pounds to Mr Granby—to whom I owe some eight thousand, more or less—would be a poor practical joke. To give it to Mr Timms will evidently be the saving of his business at a time when it appears to have reached a crisis. Put on your bonnet and shawl, dear, and we will go about this matter without delay.”

Aileen was one of those girls who possessed the rare and delectable capacity to “throw on” her bonnet and shawl. One glance in the mirror sufficed to convince her that these articles, although thrown on, had fallen into their appropriate places neatly. It could scarcely have been otherwise. Her bonnet and shawl took kindly to her, like all other things in nature—animate and otherwise. She reappeared before her sedate father had quite finished drawing on his gloves.

Mr John Timms dwelt in a back lane which wriggled out of a back street as if it were anxious to find something still further back into which to back itself. He had been in better circumstances and in a better part of the town when Mr Hazlit had employed him. At the time of the rich merchant’s failure, the house of Timms had been in a shaky condition. That failure was the removal of its last prop; it fell, and Timms retired, as we have seen, into the commercial background. Here, however, he did not find relief. Being a trustful man he was cheated until he became untrustful. His wife became ill owing to bad air and low diet. His six children became unavoidably neglected and riotous, and his business, started on the wreck of the old one, again came to the brink of failure. It was in these circumstances that he sat down, under the impulse of a fit of desperation, and penned the celebrated letter to his old customer.

When Mr Hazlit and his daughter had, with great difficulty, discovered Mr Timms’ residence and approached the door, they were checked on the threshold by the sound of men apparently in a state of violent altercation within.

“Git out wid ye, an’ look sharp, you spalpeen,” cried one of the voices.

“Oh, pray don’t—don’t fight!” cried a weak female voice.

“No, I won’t git out till I’m paid, or carry your bed away with me,” cried a man’s voice, fiercely.

“You won’t, eh! Arrah then—hup!”

The last sound, which is not describable, was immediately followed by the sudden appearance of a man, who flew down the passage as if from a projectile, and went headlong into the kennel. He was followed closely by Rooney Machowl, who dealt the man as he rose a sounding slap on the right cheek, which would certainly have tumbled him over again had it not been followed by an equally sounding slap on the left cheek, which “brought him up all standing.”

Catching sight at that moment of Mr Hazlit and Aileen, Rooney stopped short and stood confused.

“Murder!” shrieked the injured man.

“Hooray! Here’s a lark!” screamed a small street-boy.

“Go it! Plice! A skrimmage!” yelled another street-boy in an ecstasy of delight, which immediately drew to the spot the nucleus of a crowd.

Mr Hazlit was a man of promptitude. He was also a large man, as we have elsewhere said, and by no means devoid of courage. Dropping his daughter’s arm he suddenly seized the ill-used and noisy man by the neck, and thrust him almost as violently back into the green-grocer’s house as Rooney had kicked him out of it. He then said, “Go in,” to the amazed Rooney, and dragging his no less astonished child in along with him, shut and locked the door.

“Now,” said Mr Hazlit, sitting down on a broken chair in a very shabby little room, and wiping his heated brow, “what is the meaning of all this, Mr Timms?”

“Well, sir,” answered Timms, with a deprecatory air, “I’m sorry, sir, it should ’ave ’appened just w’en you was a-goin’ to favour me with the unexpected honour of a wisit; but the truth is, sir, I couldn’t ’elp it. This ’ere sc— man is my landlord, sir, an’ ’ewouldn’twait another day for ’is rent, sir, though I told ’im he was pretty sure o’ ’avin it in a week or so, w’en I ’ad time to c’lect my outstandin’ little bills—”

“More nor that, sur,” burst in the impatient and indignant Rooney, “he would ’ave gone into that there room, sur,—if I may miscall a dark closet by that name—an’ ’ave pulled the bed out from under Mrs Timms, who’s a-dyin’, sur, if I ’adn’t chanced to come in, sur, an’ kick the spalpeen into the street, as you see’d.”

“For w’ich you’ll smart yet,” growled the landlord, who stood in a dishevelled heap like a bad boy in a corner.

“How much rent does he owe you?” asked Mr Hazlit of the landlord.

“That’s no business o’ yours,” replied the man, sulkily.

“If I were to offer to pay it, perhaps you’d allow that itwasmy business.”

“So I willw’enyou offers.”

“Well, then, I offer now,” said Mr Hazlit, taking out his purse, and pouring a little stream of sovereigns into his hand. “Have you the receipt made out?”

The landlord made no reply, but, with a look of wonder at his interrogator, drew a small piece of dirty paper from his pocket and held it out. Mr Hazlit examined it carefully from beginning to end.

“Is this right, Mr Timms?” he asked.

The green-grocer examined the paper, and said it was—that five pounds was the exact amount.

“You can put the receipt in your pocket,” said Mr Hazlit, turning round and counting out five sovereigns on the table, which he pushed towards the landlord. “Now, take yourself off, as quietly as you can, else I’ll have you taken up and tried for entering a man’s premises forcibly, and endeavouring to obtain money by intimidation. Go!”

This was a bold stroke on the part of the merchant, whose legal knowledge was not extensive, but it succeeded. The landlord pocketed the money and moved towards the door. Rooney Machowl followed him.

“Rooney!” said Mr Hazlit, calling him back.

“Mayn’t I show him out, sur?” said Rooney, earnestly.

“By no means.”

“Ah, sur, mayn’t I give him a farewell kick?”

“Certainly not.”

Mr Hazlit then expressed a desire to see Mrs Timms, and the green-grocer, thanking the merchant fervently for his timely aid, lighted a candle and led the way into the dark closet.

Poor Mrs Timms, a delicate-looking woman, not yet forty, who had evidently been pretty once, lay on a miserable bed, apparently at the point of death.

Aileen glided quickly to the bed, sat down on it, and took the woman’s hand, while she bent over her and whispered:—

“Don’t be distressed. The rent is paid. He will disturb you no more. You shall be quiet now, and I will come to see you sometimes, if you’ll let me.”

The woman gazed at the girl with surprise, then, as she felt the gentle warm pressure of her hand a sudden rush of faith seemed to fill her soul. She drew Aileen towards her, and looked earnestly into her face.

“Come here, Timms,” said Mr Hazlit, abruptly, as he turned round and walked out of the closet, “I want to speak to you. I am no doctor, but depend upon it your wife willnotdie. There is a very small building—quite a hut I may say—near my house—ahem! Near my cottage close to the sea, which is at present to let. I advise you strongly to take that hut and start a green-grocery there. I’m not aware that there is one in the immediate neighbourhood, and there are many respectable families about whose custom you might doubtless count on; at all events, you would be sure of ours to begin with. The sea-air would do your wife a world of good, and the sea-beach would be an agreeable and extensive playground for your children.”

The green-grocer stood almost aghast! The energy with which Mr Hazlit poured out his words, and, as it seemed to Timms, the free and easy magnificence of his ideas were overpowering.

“W’y, sir, I ain’t got no money to do sitch a thing with,” he said at last, with a broad grin.

“Yes, you have,” said Mr Hazlit, again pulling out his purse and emptying its golden contents on the table in a little heap, from which he counted fifteen sovereigns. “My debt to you amounts, I believe, to twenty pounds; five I have just paid to your landlord, here is the balance. You needn’t mind a receipt. Send me the discharged account at your leisure, and think over what I have suggested. Aileen, my dear, we will go now.”

Aileen said good-night at once to the sick woman and followed her father as he went out, repeating—“Good-evening, Timms, think over my suggestion.”

They walked slowly home without speaking. Soon they reached the cottage by the sea. As they stood under the trellis-work porch the merchant turned round and gazed at the sun, which was just dipping into the horizon, flooding sea and sky with golden glory.

“Aileen,” he said in a low voice, “I have commenced life at last—life in earnest. I was a poor fool once. Through grace I am a rich man now.”

Chapter Twenty Five.Shows how our Hero formed Plans, how Miss Pritty formed Plots, and how the small Domestic amused herself.On a certain cold, raw, bleak, biting, bitter day in November, our hero found himself comfortably situated at the bottom of the sea.We say ‘comfortably’ advisedly and comparatively, for, as compared with the men whose duty it was to send air down to him, Edgar Berrington was in a state of decided comfort. Above water nought was to be seen but a bleak, rocky, forbidding coast, a grey sky with sleet driving across it, and an angry indigo sea covered with white wavelets. Nothing was to be felt but a stiff cutting breeze, icy particles in the air, and cold blood in the veins. Below water all was calm and placid; groves of sea-weed delighted the eye; patches of yellow sand invited to a siesta; the curiously-twisted and smashed-up remains of a wreck formed a subject of interesting contemplation, while a few wandering crabs, and an erratic lobster or two, gave life and variety to the scene, while the temperature, if not warm, was at all events considerably milder than that overhead. In short, strange though it may seem, Edgar was in rather an enviable position than otherwise, on that bleak November day.Some two years or so previous to the day to which we refer, Edgar, with his diving friends, had returned to England. Mr Hazlit had preceded them by a month. But Edgar did not seek him out. He had set a purpose before him, and meant to stick to it. He had made up his mind not to go near Aileen again until he had made for himself a position, and secured a steady income which would enable him to offer her a home at least equal to that in which she now dwelt.Mr Hazlit rather wondered that the young engineer never made his appearance at the cottage by the sea, but, coming to the conclusion that his passion had cooled, he consoled himself with the thought that, after all, he was nearly penniless, and that it was perhaps as well that he had sheered off.Aileen also wondered, butshedid not for a moment believe that his love had cooled, being well aware that that was an impossibility. Still she was perplexed, for although the terms on which they stood to each other did not allow of correspondence, she thought, sometimes, that hemighthave written to her father—if only to ask how they were after their adventures in the China seas.Miss Pritty—to whom Aileen confided her troubles—came nearer the mark than either of them. She conceived, and stoutly maintained, that Edgar had gone abroad to seek his fortune, and meant to return and marry Aileen when he had made it.Edgar, however, had not gone abroad. He had struck out a line of life for himself, and had prosecuted it during these two years with untiring energy. He had devoted himself to submarine engineering, and, having an independent spirit, he carved his way very much as a freelance. At first he devoted himself to studying the subject, and ere long there was not a method of raising a sunken vessel, of building a difficult breakwater, of repairing a complicated damage to a pier, or a well, or anything else subaqueous, with which he was not thoroughly acquainted, and in regard to which he had not suggested or carried out bold and novel plans and improvements, both in regard to the machinery employed and the modes of action pursued.After a time he became noted for his success in undertaking difficult works, and at last employed a staff of divers to do the work, while he chiefly superintended. Joe Baldwin became his right-hand man and constant attendant. Rooney and Maxwell, preferring steadier and less adventurous work, got permanent employment on the harbour improvements of their own seaport town.Thus engaged, Edgar and his man Joe visited nearly all the wild places round the stormy shores of Great Britain and Ireland. They raised many ships from the bottom of the sea that had been pronounced by other engineers to be hopelessly lost. They laid foundations of piers and breakwaters in places where old Ocean had strewn wrecks since the foundation of the world. They cleared passages by blasting and levelling rocks whose stern crests had bid defiance to winds and waves for ages, and they recovered cargoes that had been given up for years to Neptune’s custody. In short, wherever a difficult submarine operation had to be undertaken, Edgar Berrington and his man Joe, with, perhaps, a gang of divers under them, were pretty sure to be asked to undertake it.The risk, we need scarcely say, was often considerable; hence the remuneration was good, and both Edgar and his man speedily acquired a considerable sum of money.At the end of two years, the former came to the conclusion that he had a sufficient sum at his credit in the bank to warrant a visit to the cottage by the sea; and it was when this idea had grown into a fixed intention that he found himself, as we have mentioned, in rather comfortable circumstances at the bottom of the sea.The particular part of the bottom lay off the west coast of England. Joe and a gang of men were hard at work on a pier when Edgar went down. He carried a slate and piece of pencil with him. The bottom was not very deep down. There was sufficient light to enable him to find his man easily.Joe was busy laying a large stone in its bed. When he raised his burly form, after fixing the stone, Edgar stepped forward, and, touching him on the shoulder, held out the slate, whereon was written in a bold running hand:—“Joe, I’m going off to get engaged, and after that, as soon as possible, to be married.”Through the window of his helmet, Joe looked at his employer with an expression of pleased surprise. Then he took the slate, obliterated the information on it, and printed in an equally bold, but very sprawly hand:—“Indeed? I wish you joy, sir.”Thereupon Edgar took the slate and wrote:—“Thank you, Joe. Now, I leave you in charge. Keep a sharp eye on the men—especially on that lazy fellow who has a tendency to sleep and shirk duty. If the rock in the fair-way is got ready before my return, blast it at once, without waiting for me. You will find one of Siebe and Gorman’s voltaic batteries in my lodging, also a frictional electrical machine, which you can use if you prefer it. In the store there is a large supply of tin-cases for gunpowder and compressed gun-cotton charges. There also you will find one of Heinke and Davis’s magneto-electric exploders. I leave it entirely to your own judgment which apparatus to use. All sorts are admirable in their way; quite fresh, and in good working order. Have you anything to say to me before I go?”“All right, sir,” replied Joe, in his sprawly hand; “I’ll attend to orders. When do you start, and when do you expect to be back?”“I start immediately. The day of my return is uncertain, but I’ll write to you.”Rubbing this out, Joe wrote:—“You’ll p’r’aps see my old ’ooman, sir. If you do, just give her my respects, an’ say the last pair o’ divin’ drawers she knitted for me was fust-rate. Tightish, if anything, round the waist, but a bit o’ rope-yarn putt that all right—they’re warm an’ comfortable. Good-bye, I wish you joy again, sir.”“Good-bye,” replied Edgar.It was impossible that our hero could follow his inclination, and nod with his stiff-necked iron head-piece at parting. He therefore made the motion of kissing his hand to his trusty man, and giving the requisite signal, spread his arms like a pair of wings, and flew up to the realms of light!Joe grinned broadly, and made the motion of kissing his hand to the ponderous soles of his employer’s leaden boots as they passed him, then, turning to the granite masonry at his side, he bent down and resumed his work.Arrived at the region of atmospheric air, Edgar Berrington clambered on board the attending vessel, took off his amphibious clothing, and arrayed himself in the ordinary habiliments of a gentleman, after which he went ashore, gave some instructions to the keeper of his lodgings, ordered his horse, galloped to the nearest railway station, flashed a telegraphic message to Miss Pritty to expect to see him that evening, and soon found himself rushing at forty miles an hour, away from the scene of his recent labours.Receiving a telegraph envelope half-an-hour later, Miss Pritty turned pale, laid it on the table, sank on the sofa, shut her eyes, and attempted to reduce the violent beating of her heart, by pressing her left side tightly with both hands.“Itmustbe death!—or accident!” she murmured faintly to herself, for she happened to be alone at the time.Poor Miss Pritty had no near relations in the world except Edgar, and therefore there was little or no probability that any one would telegraph to her in connection with accident or death, nevertheless she entertained such an unconquerable horror of a telegram, that the mere sight of the well-known envelope, with its large-type title, gave her a little shock; the reception of one was almost too much for her.After suffering tortures for about as long a time as the telegram had taken to reach her, she at last summoned courage to open the envelope.The first words, “Edgar Berrington,” induced a little scream of alarm. The next, “to Miss Pritty,” quieted her a little. When, however, she learned that instead of being visited by news of death and disaster, she was merely to be visited by her nephew that same evening, all anxiety vanished from her speaking countenance, and was replaced by a mixture of surprise and amusement. Then she sat down on the sofa—from which, in her agitation, she had risen—and fell into a state of perplexity.“Now Idowish,” she said, aloud, “that Eddy had had the sense to tell me whether I am to let his friends the Hazlits know of his impending visit. Perhaps he telegraphed to me on purpose to give me time to call and prepare them for his arrival. On the other hand, perhaps he wishes to take them by surprise. It may be that he is not on good terms with Mr Hazlit, and intends to use me as a go-between. WhatshallI do?”As her conscience was not appealed to in the matter, it gave no reply to the question; having little or no common sense to speak of, she could scarcely expect much of an answer from that part of her being. At last she made up her mind, and, according to a habit induced by a life of solitude, expressed it to the fireplace.“Yes, that’s what I’ll do. I shall wait till near the time of the arrival of the last train, and then go straight off to Sea Cottage to spend the evening, leaving a message that if any one should call in my absence I am to be found there. This will give him an excuse, if he wants one, for calling, and if he does not want an excuse he can remain here till my return. I’ll have the fire made up, and tell my domestic to offer tea to any one who should chance to call.”Miss Pritty thought it best, on the whole, to give an ambiguous order about the tea to her small domestic, for she knew that lively creature to be a compound of inquisitiveness and impudence, and did not choose to tell her who it was that she expected to call. She was very emphatic, however, in impressing on the small domestic the importance of being very civil and attentive, and of offering tea, insomuch that the child protested with much fervour that she would besureto attend to orders.This resulted in quite an evening’s amusement to the small domestic.After Miss Pritty had gone out, the first person who chanced to call was the spouse of Mr Timms, the green-grocer, who had obviously recovered from her illness.“Is Miss Pritty at ’ome?” she asked.“No, ma’am, she ain’t, she’s hout,” answered the small domestic.“Ah! Well, it don’t much matter. I on’y called to leave this ’ere little present of cabbidges an’ cawliflowers—with Mr Timms’ kind compliments and mine. She’s been wery kind to us, ’as Miss Pritty, an’ we wishes to acknowledge it.”“Please, ma’am,” said the domestic with a broad smile, as she took the basket of vegetables, “would you like a cup of tea?”“What d’you mean, girl?” asked the green-grocer’s wife in surprise.“Please, ma’am, Miss Pritty told me to be sure to offer you a cup of tea.”“Did she, indeed? That’s was wery kind of her, wery kind, though ’ow she come for to know I was a-goin’ to call beats my comprehension. ’Owever, tell her I’m greatly obleeged to her, but ’avin ’ad tea just afore comin’ out, an’ bein’ chock-full as I can ’old, I’d rather not. Best thanks, all the same.”Mrs Timms went away deeply impressed with Miss Pritty’s thoughtful kindness, and the small domestic, shutting the door, indulged in a fit of that species of suppressed laughter which is usually indicated by a series of spurts through the top of the nose and the compressed lips.She was suddenly interrupted by a tap at the knocker.Allowing as many minutes to elapse as she thought would have sufficed for her ascent from the kitchen, she once more opened the door. It was only a beggar—a ragged disreputable man—and she was about to shut the door in his face, with that summary politeness so well understood by servant girls, when a thought struck her.“Oh, sir,” she said, “would you like a cup of tea?”The man evidently thought he was being made game of, for his face assumed such a threatening aspect that the small domestic incontinently shut the door with a sudden bang. The beggar amused himself by battering it with his stick for five minutes and then went away.The next visitor was a lady.“Is Miss Pritty at home, child?” she asked, regarding the domestic with a half-patronising, half-pitying air.“No, ma’am, she’s hout.”“Oh! That’s a pity,” said the lady, taking a book out of her pocket. “Will you tell her that I called for her subscription to the new hospital that is about to be built in the town? Your mistress does not know me personally, but she knows all about the hospital, and this book, which I shall call for to-morrow, will speak for itself. Be sure you give it to her, child.”“Yes, ma’am. And, please, ma’am, would you like a cup of tea?”The lady, who happened to possess a majestic pair of eyes, looked so astonished that the small domestic could scarcely contain herself.“Are you deranged, child?” asked the lady.“No, ma’am, if you please; but Miss Pritty told me to be sure to offer you a cup.”“To offermea cup, child!”“Yes, ma’am. At least to offer a cup to any one who should call.”It need scarcely be added that the lady declined the tea, and went away, observing to herself in an undertone, that “shemustbe deranged.”The small domestic again shut the door and spurted.It was in her estimation quite a rare, delicious, and novel species of fun. To one whose monotonous life was spent underground, with a prospect of bricks at two feet from her window, and in company with pots, pans, potato-peelings, and black-beetles, it was as good as a scene in a play.The next visitor was the butcher’s boy, who came round to take “orders” for the following day. This boy had a tendency to chaff.“Well, my lady, has your ladyship any orders?”“Nothink to-day,” answered the domestic, curtly.“What! Nothink at all? Goin’ to fast to-morrow, eh? Or to live on stooed hatmospheric hair with your own sauce for gravey—hey?”“No, we doesn’t want nothink,” repeated the domestic, stoutly. “Missus said so, an’ she bid me ask you if you’d like a cup of tea?”The butcher’s boy opened his mouth and eyes in amazement. To have his own weapons thus turned, as he thought, against him by one who was usually rather soft and somewhat shy of him, took him quite aback. He recovered, however, quickly, and made a rush at the girl, who, as before, attempted to shut the door with a bang, but the boy was too sharp for her. His foot prevented her succeeding, and there is no doubt that in another moment he would have forcibly entered the house, if he had not been seized from behind by the collar in the powerful grasp of Edgar Berrington, who sent him staggering into the street. The boy did not wait for more. With a wild-Indian war-whoop he turned and fled.Excited, and, to some extent, exasperated by this last visit, the small domestic received Edgar with a one-third timid, one-third gleeful, and one-third reckless spirit.“What did the boy mean?” asked Edgar, as he turned towards her.“Please, sir, ’e wouldn’t ’ave a cup of tea, sir,” she replied meekly, then, with a gleam of hope in her eyes—“Willyou’ave one, sir?”“You’re a curious creature,” answered Edgar, with a smile. “Is Miss Pritty at home?”“No, sir, she ain’t.”This answer appeared to surprise and annoy him.“Very odd,” he said, with a little frown. “Did she not expect me?”“No, sir, I think she didn’t. Leastways she didn’t say as she did, but she was very partikler in tellin’ me to be sure to hoffer you a cup of tea.”Edgar looked at the small domestic, and, as he looked, his mouth expanded.Hermouth followed suit, and they both burst into a fit of laughter. After a moment or two the former recovered.“This is all very pleasant, no doubt,” he said, “but it is uncommonly awkward. Did she say when she would be home?”“No, sir, she didn’t, but she bid me say if any one wanted her, that they’d find her at Sea Cottage.”“At Sea Cottage—who lives there?”“I don’t know, sir.”“Where is it?”“On the sea-shore, sir.”“Which way—thisway orthatway?” asked Edgar, pointing right and left.“Thatway,” answered the girl, pointing left.The impatient youth turned hastily to leave.“Please, sir—” said the domestic.“Well,” said Edgar, stopping.“You’re sure, sir—” she stopped.“Well?—go on.”“That you wouldn’t like to ’ave a cup of tea?”“Child,” said Edgar, as he turned finally away, “you’re mad—as mad as a March hare.”“Thank you, sir.”The small domestic shut the door and retired to the regions below, where, taking the pots and pans and black-beetles into her confidence, she shrieked with delight for full ten minutes, and hugged herself.

On a certain cold, raw, bleak, biting, bitter day in November, our hero found himself comfortably situated at the bottom of the sea.

We say ‘comfortably’ advisedly and comparatively, for, as compared with the men whose duty it was to send air down to him, Edgar Berrington was in a state of decided comfort. Above water nought was to be seen but a bleak, rocky, forbidding coast, a grey sky with sleet driving across it, and an angry indigo sea covered with white wavelets. Nothing was to be felt but a stiff cutting breeze, icy particles in the air, and cold blood in the veins. Below water all was calm and placid; groves of sea-weed delighted the eye; patches of yellow sand invited to a siesta; the curiously-twisted and smashed-up remains of a wreck formed a subject of interesting contemplation, while a few wandering crabs, and an erratic lobster or two, gave life and variety to the scene, while the temperature, if not warm, was at all events considerably milder than that overhead. In short, strange though it may seem, Edgar was in rather an enviable position than otherwise, on that bleak November day.

Some two years or so previous to the day to which we refer, Edgar, with his diving friends, had returned to England. Mr Hazlit had preceded them by a month. But Edgar did not seek him out. He had set a purpose before him, and meant to stick to it. He had made up his mind not to go near Aileen again until he had made for himself a position, and secured a steady income which would enable him to offer her a home at least equal to that in which she now dwelt.

Mr Hazlit rather wondered that the young engineer never made his appearance at the cottage by the sea, but, coming to the conclusion that his passion had cooled, he consoled himself with the thought that, after all, he was nearly penniless, and that it was perhaps as well that he had sheered off.

Aileen also wondered, butshedid not for a moment believe that his love had cooled, being well aware that that was an impossibility. Still she was perplexed, for although the terms on which they stood to each other did not allow of correspondence, she thought, sometimes, that hemighthave written to her father—if only to ask how they were after their adventures in the China seas.

Miss Pritty—to whom Aileen confided her troubles—came nearer the mark than either of them. She conceived, and stoutly maintained, that Edgar had gone abroad to seek his fortune, and meant to return and marry Aileen when he had made it.

Edgar, however, had not gone abroad. He had struck out a line of life for himself, and had prosecuted it during these two years with untiring energy. He had devoted himself to submarine engineering, and, having an independent spirit, he carved his way very much as a freelance. At first he devoted himself to studying the subject, and ere long there was not a method of raising a sunken vessel, of building a difficult breakwater, of repairing a complicated damage to a pier, or a well, or anything else subaqueous, with which he was not thoroughly acquainted, and in regard to which he had not suggested or carried out bold and novel plans and improvements, both in regard to the machinery employed and the modes of action pursued.

After a time he became noted for his success in undertaking difficult works, and at last employed a staff of divers to do the work, while he chiefly superintended. Joe Baldwin became his right-hand man and constant attendant. Rooney and Maxwell, preferring steadier and less adventurous work, got permanent employment on the harbour improvements of their own seaport town.

Thus engaged, Edgar and his man Joe visited nearly all the wild places round the stormy shores of Great Britain and Ireland. They raised many ships from the bottom of the sea that had been pronounced by other engineers to be hopelessly lost. They laid foundations of piers and breakwaters in places where old Ocean had strewn wrecks since the foundation of the world. They cleared passages by blasting and levelling rocks whose stern crests had bid defiance to winds and waves for ages, and they recovered cargoes that had been given up for years to Neptune’s custody. In short, wherever a difficult submarine operation had to be undertaken, Edgar Berrington and his man Joe, with, perhaps, a gang of divers under them, were pretty sure to be asked to undertake it.

The risk, we need scarcely say, was often considerable; hence the remuneration was good, and both Edgar and his man speedily acquired a considerable sum of money.

At the end of two years, the former came to the conclusion that he had a sufficient sum at his credit in the bank to warrant a visit to the cottage by the sea; and it was when this idea had grown into a fixed intention that he found himself, as we have mentioned, in rather comfortable circumstances at the bottom of the sea.

The particular part of the bottom lay off the west coast of England. Joe and a gang of men were hard at work on a pier when Edgar went down. He carried a slate and piece of pencil with him. The bottom was not very deep down. There was sufficient light to enable him to find his man easily.

Joe was busy laying a large stone in its bed. When he raised his burly form, after fixing the stone, Edgar stepped forward, and, touching him on the shoulder, held out the slate, whereon was written in a bold running hand:—

“Joe, I’m going off to get engaged, and after that, as soon as possible, to be married.”

Through the window of his helmet, Joe looked at his employer with an expression of pleased surprise. Then he took the slate, obliterated the information on it, and printed in an equally bold, but very sprawly hand:—

“Indeed? I wish you joy, sir.”

Thereupon Edgar took the slate and wrote:—

“Thank you, Joe. Now, I leave you in charge. Keep a sharp eye on the men—especially on that lazy fellow who has a tendency to sleep and shirk duty. If the rock in the fair-way is got ready before my return, blast it at once, without waiting for me. You will find one of Siebe and Gorman’s voltaic batteries in my lodging, also a frictional electrical machine, which you can use if you prefer it. In the store there is a large supply of tin-cases for gunpowder and compressed gun-cotton charges. There also you will find one of Heinke and Davis’s magneto-electric exploders. I leave it entirely to your own judgment which apparatus to use. All sorts are admirable in their way; quite fresh, and in good working order. Have you anything to say to me before I go?”

“All right, sir,” replied Joe, in his sprawly hand; “I’ll attend to orders. When do you start, and when do you expect to be back?”

“I start immediately. The day of my return is uncertain, but I’ll write to you.”

Rubbing this out, Joe wrote:—

“You’ll p’r’aps see my old ’ooman, sir. If you do, just give her my respects, an’ say the last pair o’ divin’ drawers she knitted for me was fust-rate. Tightish, if anything, round the waist, but a bit o’ rope-yarn putt that all right—they’re warm an’ comfortable. Good-bye, I wish you joy again, sir.”

“Good-bye,” replied Edgar.

It was impossible that our hero could follow his inclination, and nod with his stiff-necked iron head-piece at parting. He therefore made the motion of kissing his hand to his trusty man, and giving the requisite signal, spread his arms like a pair of wings, and flew up to the realms of light!

Joe grinned broadly, and made the motion of kissing his hand to the ponderous soles of his employer’s leaden boots as they passed him, then, turning to the granite masonry at his side, he bent down and resumed his work.

Arrived at the region of atmospheric air, Edgar Berrington clambered on board the attending vessel, took off his amphibious clothing, and arrayed himself in the ordinary habiliments of a gentleman, after which he went ashore, gave some instructions to the keeper of his lodgings, ordered his horse, galloped to the nearest railway station, flashed a telegraphic message to Miss Pritty to expect to see him that evening, and soon found himself rushing at forty miles an hour, away from the scene of his recent labours.

Receiving a telegraph envelope half-an-hour later, Miss Pritty turned pale, laid it on the table, sank on the sofa, shut her eyes, and attempted to reduce the violent beating of her heart, by pressing her left side tightly with both hands.

“Itmustbe death!—or accident!” she murmured faintly to herself, for she happened to be alone at the time.

Poor Miss Pritty had no near relations in the world except Edgar, and therefore there was little or no probability that any one would telegraph to her in connection with accident or death, nevertheless she entertained such an unconquerable horror of a telegram, that the mere sight of the well-known envelope, with its large-type title, gave her a little shock; the reception of one was almost too much for her.

After suffering tortures for about as long a time as the telegram had taken to reach her, she at last summoned courage to open the envelope.

The first words, “Edgar Berrington,” induced a little scream of alarm. The next, “to Miss Pritty,” quieted her a little. When, however, she learned that instead of being visited by news of death and disaster, she was merely to be visited by her nephew that same evening, all anxiety vanished from her speaking countenance, and was replaced by a mixture of surprise and amusement. Then she sat down on the sofa—from which, in her agitation, she had risen—and fell into a state of perplexity.

“Now Idowish,” she said, aloud, “that Eddy had had the sense to tell me whether I am to let his friends the Hazlits know of his impending visit. Perhaps he telegraphed to me on purpose to give me time to call and prepare them for his arrival. On the other hand, perhaps he wishes to take them by surprise. It may be that he is not on good terms with Mr Hazlit, and intends to use me as a go-between. WhatshallI do?”

As her conscience was not appealed to in the matter, it gave no reply to the question; having little or no common sense to speak of, she could scarcely expect much of an answer from that part of her being. At last she made up her mind, and, according to a habit induced by a life of solitude, expressed it to the fireplace.

“Yes, that’s what I’ll do. I shall wait till near the time of the arrival of the last train, and then go straight off to Sea Cottage to spend the evening, leaving a message that if any one should call in my absence I am to be found there. This will give him an excuse, if he wants one, for calling, and if he does not want an excuse he can remain here till my return. I’ll have the fire made up, and tell my domestic to offer tea to any one who should chance to call.”

Miss Pritty thought it best, on the whole, to give an ambiguous order about the tea to her small domestic, for she knew that lively creature to be a compound of inquisitiveness and impudence, and did not choose to tell her who it was that she expected to call. She was very emphatic, however, in impressing on the small domestic the importance of being very civil and attentive, and of offering tea, insomuch that the child protested with much fervour that she would besureto attend to orders.

This resulted in quite an evening’s amusement to the small domestic.

After Miss Pritty had gone out, the first person who chanced to call was the spouse of Mr Timms, the green-grocer, who had obviously recovered from her illness.

“Is Miss Pritty at ’ome?” she asked.

“No, ma’am, she ain’t, she’s hout,” answered the small domestic.

“Ah! Well, it don’t much matter. I on’y called to leave this ’ere little present of cabbidges an’ cawliflowers—with Mr Timms’ kind compliments and mine. She’s been wery kind to us, ’as Miss Pritty, an’ we wishes to acknowledge it.”

“Please, ma’am,” said the domestic with a broad smile, as she took the basket of vegetables, “would you like a cup of tea?”

“What d’you mean, girl?” asked the green-grocer’s wife in surprise.

“Please, ma’am, Miss Pritty told me to be sure to offer you a cup of tea.”

“Did she, indeed? That’s was wery kind of her, wery kind, though ’ow she come for to know I was a-goin’ to call beats my comprehension. ’Owever, tell her I’m greatly obleeged to her, but ’avin ’ad tea just afore comin’ out, an’ bein’ chock-full as I can ’old, I’d rather not. Best thanks, all the same.”

Mrs Timms went away deeply impressed with Miss Pritty’s thoughtful kindness, and the small domestic, shutting the door, indulged in a fit of that species of suppressed laughter which is usually indicated by a series of spurts through the top of the nose and the compressed lips.

She was suddenly interrupted by a tap at the knocker.

Allowing as many minutes to elapse as she thought would have sufficed for her ascent from the kitchen, she once more opened the door. It was only a beggar—a ragged disreputable man—and she was about to shut the door in his face, with that summary politeness so well understood by servant girls, when a thought struck her.

“Oh, sir,” she said, “would you like a cup of tea?”

The man evidently thought he was being made game of, for his face assumed such a threatening aspect that the small domestic incontinently shut the door with a sudden bang. The beggar amused himself by battering it with his stick for five minutes and then went away.

The next visitor was a lady.

“Is Miss Pritty at home, child?” she asked, regarding the domestic with a half-patronising, half-pitying air.

“No, ma’am, she’s hout.”

“Oh! That’s a pity,” said the lady, taking a book out of her pocket. “Will you tell her that I called for her subscription to the new hospital that is about to be built in the town? Your mistress does not know me personally, but she knows all about the hospital, and this book, which I shall call for to-morrow, will speak for itself. Be sure you give it to her, child.”

“Yes, ma’am. And, please, ma’am, would you like a cup of tea?”

The lady, who happened to possess a majestic pair of eyes, looked so astonished that the small domestic could scarcely contain herself.

“Are you deranged, child?” asked the lady.

“No, ma’am, if you please; but Miss Pritty told me to be sure to offer you a cup.”

“To offermea cup, child!”

“Yes, ma’am. At least to offer a cup to any one who should call.”

It need scarcely be added that the lady declined the tea, and went away, observing to herself in an undertone, that “shemustbe deranged.”

The small domestic again shut the door and spurted.

It was in her estimation quite a rare, delicious, and novel species of fun. To one whose monotonous life was spent underground, with a prospect of bricks at two feet from her window, and in company with pots, pans, potato-peelings, and black-beetles, it was as good as a scene in a play.

The next visitor was the butcher’s boy, who came round to take “orders” for the following day. This boy had a tendency to chaff.

“Well, my lady, has your ladyship any orders?”

“Nothink to-day,” answered the domestic, curtly.

“What! Nothink at all? Goin’ to fast to-morrow, eh? Or to live on stooed hatmospheric hair with your own sauce for gravey—hey?”

“No, we doesn’t want nothink,” repeated the domestic, stoutly. “Missus said so, an’ she bid me ask you if you’d like a cup of tea?”

The butcher’s boy opened his mouth and eyes in amazement. To have his own weapons thus turned, as he thought, against him by one who was usually rather soft and somewhat shy of him, took him quite aback. He recovered, however, quickly, and made a rush at the girl, who, as before, attempted to shut the door with a bang, but the boy was too sharp for her. His foot prevented her succeeding, and there is no doubt that in another moment he would have forcibly entered the house, if he had not been seized from behind by the collar in the powerful grasp of Edgar Berrington, who sent him staggering into the street. The boy did not wait for more. With a wild-Indian war-whoop he turned and fled.

Excited, and, to some extent, exasperated by this last visit, the small domestic received Edgar with a one-third timid, one-third gleeful, and one-third reckless spirit.

“What did the boy mean?” asked Edgar, as he turned towards her.

“Please, sir, ’e wouldn’t ’ave a cup of tea, sir,” she replied meekly, then, with a gleam of hope in her eyes—“Willyou’ave one, sir?”

“You’re a curious creature,” answered Edgar, with a smile. “Is Miss Pritty at home?”

“No, sir, she ain’t.”

This answer appeared to surprise and annoy him.

“Very odd,” he said, with a little frown. “Did she not expect me?”

“No, sir, I think she didn’t. Leastways she didn’t say as she did, but she was very partikler in tellin’ me to be sure to hoffer you a cup of tea.”

Edgar looked at the small domestic, and, as he looked, his mouth expanded.Hermouth followed suit, and they both burst into a fit of laughter. After a moment or two the former recovered.

“This is all very pleasant, no doubt,” he said, “but it is uncommonly awkward. Did she say when she would be home?”

“No, sir, she didn’t, but she bid me say if any one wanted her, that they’d find her at Sea Cottage.”

“At Sea Cottage—who lives there?”

“I don’t know, sir.”

“Where is it?”

“On the sea-shore, sir.”

“Which way—thisway orthatway?” asked Edgar, pointing right and left.

“Thatway,” answered the girl, pointing left.

The impatient youth turned hastily to leave.

“Please, sir—” said the domestic.

“Well,” said Edgar, stopping.

“You’re sure, sir—” she stopped.

“Well?—go on.”

“That you wouldn’t like to ’ave a cup of tea?”

“Child,” said Edgar, as he turned finally away, “you’re mad—as mad as a March hare.”

“Thank you, sir.”

The small domestic shut the door and retired to the regions below, where, taking the pots and pans and black-beetles into her confidence, she shrieked with delight for full ten minutes, and hugged herself.

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