[Illustration:
CHAMBERS’S JOURNAL
OF
POPULAR
LITERATURE, SCIENCE, AND ART
Fifth Series
ESTABLISHED BY WILLIAM AND ROBERT CHAMBERS, 1832
CONDUCTED BY R. CHAMBERS (SECUNDUS)
NO. 142.—VOL. III. SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 18, 1886. PRICE 1½_d._]
MASSAGE.
A MODE OF MEDICAL TREATMENT.
Massage as a hygienic agent was practised from the earliest times, and
is probably as old as surgery itself, or, as it would be more exact to
say, as old as mankind. The word is derived from the Greek to knead,
and the Arabic to press softly. A Chinese manuscript, the date of which
is three thousand years before the Christian era, contains an account
of operations similar to those of the present day: friction, kneading,
manipulating, rolling—all the procedures now grouped together under
the name of massage. The translator of this curious record, a French
missionary at Pekin, finds it to include all the characteristics of an
ancient scientific mode of treatment; and it has been wittily remarked,
that however it may rejuvenate those who submit to its influence, the
wrinkles of time cannot be removed from its own ancient visage.
With the Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans, a form of massage was the
common accompaniment of the bath, and was used as a luxury, as a means
of hastening tedious convalescence, and to render the limbs supple
and enduring. Rubbing and anointing were sometimes done by medical
practitioners themselves, or by the priests, or sometimes by slaves.
Herodicus, one of the masters of Hippocrates in the fifth century B.C.,
first proposed gymnastics as a cure for disease. He was the superior
officer of the gymnasium at Athens; and by compelling his patients to
undergo various exercises and to have their bodies rubbed, is said to
have lengthened their lives, insomuch that Plato reproached him for
protracting that existence, in which, as years advanced, they could
have less and less enjoyment. He himself, by the practice of his own
remedies, attained the age of a hundred.
The earliest definite information regarding massage comes from
Hippocrates, who says: ‘The physician must be experienced in many
things, but assuredly also in rubbing; for things that have the same
name have not always the same effects, for rubbing can bind a joint
that is too loose, and loosen a joint that is too rigid.’ He also used
the word _anatripsis_, the process of rubbing _up_, and not _down_,
although not understanding the reason of it, as it was not till five
hundred years later that Galen pointed out that the arteries were
not filled with air, as their name would seem to imply. Asclepiades
was probably not far wrong when he founded his school at Rome on the
belief that diet, bathing, exercise, and friction should keep the body
without disease; and Cicero affirmed that he owed as much of his health
to his anointer as he did to his physician. Plutarch tells us that
Julius Cæsar had himself pinched all over daily, as a means of getting
rid of a general neuralgia. Celsus, at the beginning of the Christian
era, advised that rubbing should be applied to the whole body, ‘when
an invalid requires his system to be replenished;’ and Pliny availed
himself of a mode of treatment which was evidently much in fashion in
his day, and derived so much benefit from the remedy, that he obtained
for his physician, who was a Jew, the privileges of Roman citizenship.
It is related of the Emperor Hadrian that one day seeing a veteran
soldier rubbing himself against the marble at the public baths, he
asked him why he did so. The veteran answered: ‘I have no slave to
rub me.’ Whereupon, the emperor gave him two slaves and sufficient to
maintain them. It is quaintly added to this story, that the next day
several old men rubbed themselves against the wall in the emperor’s
presence, when, perceiving their object, he shrewdly directed them to
rub one another.
The works of Plato abound in references to the use of friction; and
numberless passages might be cited from celebrated writers describing
the hygienic exercises of the gymnasium, and the manner in which
children were led by degrees to execute the most difficult evolutions
without fear or risk of fracture. In describing the course pursued,
friction, pressure, malaxation, are all in turn noticed by different
authors, and strongly recommended. The Egyptians were probably the
first among civilised nations to put the system into practice, and
they were copied by the Greeks and Romans. Savary, in his _Lettres
sur l’Egypt_, describes part of the process: ‘After the bath and a
short interval of repose, whilst the limbs retain a soft moisture, an
attendant presses them gently, and when each limb has become supple and
flexible, the joints are cracked without effort; il masse et semble
paîtrir la chaire sans que l’on éprouve la plus legère douleur.’
In the fifteenth century, Henry II. of France decreed that a treatise
should be written upon the hygienic exercises of ancient Rome. Six
years later, Mercurialis took up the question from a medical point
of view; after which, Ambrose Paré, the most renowned surgeon of the
sixteenth century, dilated on the value of the works of Oribasius,
written in the time of the Emperor Julian; and he described three
kinds of friction and the effects of each, and was thought so skilful,
that although a devout Huguenot, he was spared at the massacre of St
Bartholomew.
To Peter Henrik Ling is given the credit of having instituted the
‘Swedish movement cure.’ He was even thought to have invented it; but
he simply founded his system on the _Kong Fau_ manuscript, which is
not only the Chinese system, but that of the Brahmins, the Egyptian
priests, and the Greek and Roman physicians. M. Dally has characterised
his theory and practice as nothing more than a daguerreotype copy of
the _Kong Fau_ of Tao-ssè, and called it a splendid Chinese vase with
its Chinese figures clothed in European colours. Estradère, moreover,
proves that in the _San-tsai-tow-hoei_, published at the end of the
sixteenth century, there is to be found a collection of engravings
representing anatomical figures and gymnastic exercises; amongst these
are figured frictions, pressures, percussions, vibrations—massage
itself, in fact. These movements the Pekin missionaries affirm to have
been in use from time immemorial, and were employed to dissipate the
rigidity of the muscles occasioned by fatigue, spasmodic contractions,
and rheumatic pains. The operators who practised this calling had
no fixed dwelling, but used to walk about the streets, advertising
their presence by the clanking of a chain or by some sort of musical
instrument.
Lepage, in his historical researches on Chinese medicine, relates
that massage was a particular practice borrowed from the Indians, and
that it was by such means that the Brahmins effected their miraculous
cures. The word shampooing is of Hindu origin; but it must be borne in
mind that these Old-world practices were only a faint foreshadowing
of the present scientific method. In his _Dictionnaire des Sciences
Médicales_, Piorry remarks that the simplest form of massage prevails
wherever the people have least outgrown their primitive state; and
travellers describe it as universally common in countries where nature
alone dictates the remedy for accident or disease. Captain Cook, in
his voyage to Tahiti, describes that on arriving they were hospitably
received, and that in the corner of a hut, carefully closed over with
reeds, a large piece of matting was spread on the ground for them, and
that their legs and arms were rubbed and the muscles softly pressed
until all signs of fatigue had disappeared. The _Gazette des Hôpitaux_,
in 1839, relates how massage is practised in the island of Tonga: ‘When
a person feels tired with walking or any other exercise, he lies down,
and his servants go through the various operations known under the
names of Toogi-toogi, mili, or fota. The first of these words expresses
the action of beating constantly and softly; the second, of rubbing
with the palm of the hand; the third, of pressing and tightening the
muscles between the thumb and fingers. When the fatigue is very great,
young children are set to tread under their feet the whole body of the
patient.’
The lomi-lomi of the Sandwich Islanders is much the same thing: the
process is spoken of as being that of neither kneading, squeezing, nor
rubbing, but now like one, and now like the other. Dr N. B. Emerson
relates that the Hawaiians are a famous race of swimmers, and to a
foreigner seem amphibious. When wrecked, they sometimes swim long
distances; and if one of their number becomes exhausted, they sustain
him in the water and lomi-lomi him. When perfectly refreshed, they
proceed upon their watery way.
Baudin, in his _Travels in New Holland_, relates that the individuals
who have the greatest influence amongst the savages are the
_mulgaradocks_, or medical charlatans. A mulgaradock is regarded
as possessing power over the elements either to avert wind and
rain, or to call down tempests on the heads of those who come under
their displeasure. In order to calm a storm, he stands in the open
air, spreads out his arms, shakes his mantle, made of skins, and
gesticulates violently for a considerable time. In order to effect a
cure, he proceeds much in the same way, but with rather less noise: he
practises a mode of rubbing, and sometimes hits the patient with green
rods which have first been heated at a fire, stopping at intervals to
let the pain pass away. The Africans follow the same fashion; and with
the Russians, flagellation and friction by means of a bundle of birch
twigs are resorted to. After the subject has been well parboiled in
a vapour bath, a pailful of cold water is then dashed over him, the
effect of which is described as electrifying. After this, he plunges
into the snow, and thus prepares himself to endure the rigour of the
climate with impunity. The Siberians and Laplanders also are said to
indulge in these luxuries.
To France belongs the credit of giving to modern medicine a scientific
system of massage; and yet, in spite of many able works, and various
discussions at the Academy of Sciences and other learned societies, it
remained a sort of secret practice, almost wholly under the domain of
empiricism; but with the waning interest of French physicians, the
Germans and Scandinavians took up the subject; and about ten years
ago, Dr Mezger of Amsterdam brought massage to be acknowledged as
a highly valuable method. He placed it upon the basis of practical
knowledge, thus taking it out of the hands of ignorant charlatans. He
did not write much about it, but simply employed the teaching of facts.
To physicians who wrote to him for an explanation of his treatment,
he only said, ‘Come and see.’ To Professor von Mosengeil is owing
the present accurate and scientific knowledge of the subject; by his
careful and painstaking observations he has brought massage into high
esteem, so that it is now acknowledged as a special branch of the art
of medicine.
There is, however, a pitfall to be avoided. Dr William Murrell, in
his recent practical work, _Massage as a Mode of Treatment_, gives a
very necessary warning to those who would use it ignorantly. He admits
that it is not free from the taint of quackery, and that the so-called
massage practised in some of our hospitals and under the auspices of
some nursing institutions is a painful exhibition of ignorance and
incompetence, being simply a degenerate form of rubbing or shampooing.
Having lately witnessed the progress of a number of cases under the
care of Professor Mosengeil in Germany, he remarks that the massage of
‘medical rubbers’ is not massage at all, as the term is understood on
the continent, and has little or nothing in common with it. It is quite
a mistake to think we can take John from the stables and Biddy from the
washtub, and in one easy lesson convert either into a safe, reliable,
or efficient manipulator. Dr Murrell has found it successful in various
kinds of paralysis; in writers’, painters’, and dancers’ cramp; and
in the cramp of telegraph office operators, who, just as they have
attained to the highest point of dexterity, find that every movement is
performed with effort and pain, until at last no movement is possible
at all.
The chief advocates of massage have been men of note; and although
it is only recently that it has gained an extensive scientific
consideration, it is gradually but surely obtaining a wider circulation
and a higher place as a worthy therapeutical agent.
BY ORDER OF THE LEAGUE.
CHAPTER II.
Without the city walls, hidden by the umbrella pines, and back from
those secluded walks where young Rome takes its pleasure, stood the
Villa Salvarino, almost under the shade of the walls, and hard by the
gate of San Pancrazio. In the more prosperous days of the Eternal
City, it might have been, and indeed was, the residence of some great
Roman family; but aristocracies decline and families pass away; and
the haughty owners were by no means averse from making a few English
pounds by letting it to any traveller who had the inclination or
the means to spend a few months there. The present tenant at this
bright Easter-time, Sir Geoffrey Charteris, of Grosvenor Square,
London, W., and Haversham Park, in the county of Dorset, Baronet,
Deputy-lieutenant, and Justice of the Peace, was a man of long descent.
The pale azure fluid in his veins was not the blood of us poor mortals;
his life-giving stream had been transmitted through succeeding
generations from a long line of gallant warriors and gentle dames;
from fearless ancestors who followed their sovereign at the call to
arms, marched with Richard of the Lion-heart to the Holy Sepulchre,
and maybe crossed swords with the doughty Saladin himself. The title,
conferred upon a Charteris by the Black Prince in person after the
glorious field of Creçy, had known no tarnish as it passed down the
long line of great and good men, soldiers, statesmen, and divines, to
the present worthy representative of all these honours. Not that he had
greatly distinguished himself in any field, save as an Under-secretary
in a short-lived inglorious Ministry, where he had made a lasting name
as the most incompetent individual ever appointed to office, though he
dated every subsequent event and prefixed every after-dinner story by
an allusion to the time when he was in the Earl of Muddleton’s Ministry.
The reception rooms of the villa were crowded when our friends arrived.
It was a kind of informal after-dinner reception, attended by most of
the English visitors lingering after the Carnival, with some sprinkling
of the resident aristocracy; for Sir Geoffrey liked to gather people
round him, birth and genius being equally welcome. Sir Geoffrey
looked every inch an English gentleman, standing there among his
guests. He was apparently about fifty years of age, tall and straight,
thoroughbred from his stiff gray hair to the small shapely feet, as yet
untroubled by the family gout. His eyes were pale blue, and somewhat
weak; his face, clear-cut and refined, with an aquiline nose and a high
white forehead, but the whole marred by a mouth weak and nervous to the
last degree. A connoisseur of art, a dabbler in literature, and last,
but not least, a firm believer in spiritualism.
Enid Charteris, his only daughter and heiress, a girl about eighteen,
must be taken for granted. Imagine in all your dreams of fair women
what a golden-bronzed-haired girl should be, and you have Enid, with
all her charms of manner and person, with that perfect expression
without which the most classic features are cold. She smiled brightly
as the new-comers entered. It is not given to every one to be able to
disguise their likings and antipathies, and it did not need a practised
eye to see her cold greeting for Le Gautier, and the instantaneous
glance for Maxwell.
‘I really began to think you were going to fail me,’ she said; ‘and
this is the last of our receptions too. I shall always have pleasant
recollections of my visit to Rome.’
‘We have been dining with Maxwell, Miss Charteris,’ Visci explained.
‘Could we forget you, if we tried! And now, before you are so engaged
that you can have no word for poor me, I want to ask you a favour. We
are going to my country retreat on Friday, and my sister Genevieve is
dying to see you. Do persuade Sir Geoffrey to come.’
‘Here he is to answer for himself,’ she replied, as the baronet
sauntered up to the group.—‘Papa, you must promise to take me to see
Signor Visci’s country-house on Friday.—Do you hear?’
‘Anything you say is law, my dear,’ Sir Geoffrey answered with comic
resignation. ‘Anything you desire.—Le Gautier, I wish to speak to you,’
he whispered quietly; ‘come to me presently.—Salvarini, you here? I
thought you had forsworn gaieties of all descriptions. Glad to see you
are thinking better of your misanthropy.’
Le Gautier turned off with the baronet somewhat impatiently, leaving
the rest together. Salvarini, looking on somewhat thoughtfully, almost
fancied there was a look of relief in Enid’s face as the Frenchman
left; certainly, she was less constrained.
‘We shall look forward to Friday with great pleasure, then, Signor
Visci,’ she said. ‘I have heard you speak so much of the Villa Mattio,
that I am expecting to see a perfect paradise.’
‘With two Eves,’ Maxwell whispered in English. Visci was not a man to
misunderstand the meaning of true company, so, with a bow and a little
complimentary speech, he turned aside, taking Salvarini by the arm, and
plunged into the glittering crowd.
‘I do not understand the meaning there,’ Salvarini remarked as they
walked through the rooms. ‘If Maxwell means’——
‘Orange blossoms,’ Visci interrupted laconically; ‘and right, too.—Let
us get into the music-room. Le Fanu is going to play.’
Maxwell remained by Enid’s side, toying with her fan and discoursing in
their native language in a low voice. From the expression in his face
and the earnest ring in his voice, there was no doubting the power of
the attraction that chained him there.
‘When do you leave Rome, Miss Charteris?’ he asked, abruptly changing
the conversation. ‘This is your last reception, I know.’
‘We shall leave in the middle of next week for certain. I shall be very
sorry for some reasons, for I have been happy here.’
‘I shall probably return with you,’ Maxwell observed. ‘I have deferred
my departure too long already. It would be pleasant to leave together.’
‘After learning everything that Rome could teach you,’ Enid put in
archly. ‘Then the Eternal City has no more artistic knowledge to
impart?’
‘Yes; I have learned some lessons here,’ Maxwell replied with a tender
inflection, ‘besides artistic ones. I have been learning one lately
that I am never likely to forget. Am I presumptuous, Miss Enid?’
‘Really, Mr Maxwell, you are too mysterious. If I could understand
you’——
‘I think you do understand me; I fervently hope you do.’
For a moment, a little wild-rose bloom trembled and flushed on the
girl’s cheek, then she looked down, playing with her fan nervously.
No reason to say she did not understand now. Maxwell did not follow
up his advantage; some instinct warned him not; and adroitly changing
the conversation, he told her of his life in Rome, each passing moment
linking his chains the firmer. Gradually, as they sat talking, a group
of men gathered round, breaking in upon their tête-à-tête, laughing and
talking after the most approved drawing-room fashion.
In a distant corner, Sir Geoffrey had button-holed Le Gautier, and was
apparently deep in conversation on some all-absorbing subject. The
Frenchman was a good listener, with that rare faculty of hearing all
that was worthy of note and entirely ignoring the superfluous. He was
not a man to talk much of himself, and consequently heard a great deal
of family history; details and information that astute young man had
found valuable on occasions. He was interested now, Maxwell thought, as
he idly speculated upon his face.
‘Yes,’ Sir Geoffrey was saying, ‘I am firmly impressed with that
belief.’ He had got upon his favourite topic, and was talking with
great volubility. ‘There are certain gifted beings who can call spirits
from the vasty deep, and, what is more, the spirits will come. My dear
sir, they have been manifested to me.’
‘I should not wonder,’ Le Gautier replied, stifling a yawn in its
birth. ‘I think you are quite right. I am what people call a medium
myself, and have assisted at many a séance.’
‘Of course you believe the same as I. Let unbelievers scoff if they
will, I shall always believe the evidence of my eyes.’
‘Of course,’ Le Gautier returned politely, his thoughts wandering
feebly in the direction of nightmare, and looking round for some means
of escape. ‘I have seen ghosts myself, or thought I have.’
‘It is no imagination, Le Gautier,’ Sir Geoffrey continued, with all
the prosy earnestness of a man with a hobby. ‘The strangest coincidence
happened to me. My late brother, Sir Ughtred, who has been dead nearly
twenty years, manifested himself to me the other night. Surely that
implies some coming evil, or some duty I have neglected?’
‘Perhaps he charged you with some commission,’ Le Gautier observed, and
pricking up his ears for any scrap of useful information.
‘Not that I remember; indeed, I did not see him for years before he
died. He was an eccentric man, and an extreme politician—in fact, he
got into serious trouble with the authorities, and might even have been
arrested, had he not removed himself to New York.’
‘New York?’ queried Le Gautier, wondering vaguely where he had heard
of this Ughtred Charteris before. ‘Was he connected with any secret
society—any Socialist conspiracy?’
‘Do you know, I really fancy he was,’ Sir Geoffrey whispered
mysteriously. ‘There were certainly some curious things in his effects
which were sent to me. I can show you some now, if you would like to
see them.’
Le Gautier expressed his willingness; and the baronet led the way into
a small room at the back of the house, half library, half studio.
In one corner was an old ebony cabinet; and opening the front, he
displayed a multitude of curiosities such as a man will gather together
in the course of years. In one little drawer was a case of coins.
Le Gautier turned them over carelessly one by one, till, suddenly
starting, he eagerly lifted one and held it to the light. ‘Where did
you get this?’ he asked abruptly.
Sir Geoffrey took it in his hand. It was a gold coin, a little larger
than an ordinary sovereign, and bearing on the reverse side a curious
device. ‘That came with the rest of my brother’s curiosities.—But why
do you ask? You look as if the coin had burnt you.’
For a moment, Le Gautier had started back, his pale face aglow with
suppressed excitement; but as he noticed the baronet’s wondering
eyes upon him, he recovered himself by a violent effort. ‘It is
nothing’—with a smile. ‘It is only the coincidence which startled me
for a moment. If you will look here, you will see that I wear a similar
coin upon my watch-chain.’
Sir Geoffrey looked down, and, surely enough, on the end of Le
Gautier’s pendant was the fac-simile of the medal he held in his hand.
‘Bless me, what an extraordinary thing!’ the startled baronet
exclaimed. ‘So it is! Perhaps you do not mind telling me where you
procured yours?’
‘It was given to me,’ Le Gautier replied, with an enigmatic smile. ‘It
could not help you, if I told you.—Sir Geoffrey, may I ask you to lend
me this coin for a short while? I will tell you some time what I want
it for.’
‘Some other time, perhaps.’—Le Gautier threw the coin into its
place.—‘You see, I regard it as a valuable curiosity and relic, or
perhaps I might part with it. You will pardon me.—But I forgot all
about our spiritualistic discourse. As you are a medium, I will ask
you’——
‘At some future time, with all the pleasure in life,’ Le Gautier
interrupted hastily. ‘Meanwhile, it is getting late—past eleven now.’
As they walked back to the salon, the Frenchman was busy with his
thoughts. ‘What a lucky find!’ he muttered. ‘It is the missing
insignia, sure enough, and the ill-fated Ughtred Charteris is mine
host’s brother. I wonder what I can make out of this? There ought to be
something in it, with a feeble-minded man who believes in spiritualism,
if my hand has not lost its cunning. _Nous verrons._’
He showed nothing of his thoughts, however, as he parted from Enid with
a smile and neatly turned compliment. It was getting late now; the
streets were empty as the friends turned homeward, Salvarini bidding
the others good-night and turning off in the direction of his apartments.
‘You had better change your mind, and come with us on Friday, Hector,’
Visci urged Le Gautier. ‘The baronet and his daughter are to be of the
party. Throw work to the dogs for the day, and come.’
‘My dear Carlo, the thing is impossible. Do you think I should be
chained here this lovely weather, if stern necessity did not compel? If
possibly I can get over later in the day, I will not fail you.’
‘I am very sorry,’ Visci replied regretfully, ‘because this is the last
time, in all probability, our friends will meet together for some time.’
‘I am sorry too, Carlo, but I cannot help it. Good-night.’
Le Gautier watched his friend along the moonlit street, a smile upon
his face not pleasant to see. ‘Ah, yes,’ he murmured, ‘it is quite
impossible. Genevieve is a good little girl, but good little girls
are apt to cloy. It is getting dangerous. If Visci should find out,
it would be a case of twelve paces and hair-triggers; and I cannot
sacrifice myself yet—not even for Genevieve.’
ULSTER PROVINCIALISMS.
The people of Ulster may fairly claim a larger share of public
attention than has usually been accorded to them: they have rendered
their province prosperous in a country which is a stranger to
prosperity; they have established and maintained great industries
in a country of decayed trade and ruined commerce. In the colonies,
they have risen in a remarkable degree to positions of affluence and
authority; and in all the British dominions, Ulstermen are found in the
van of commercial and professional life.
The Ulsterman comes of a very mixed descent. Just as the Englishman was
originally a compound of Saxon, Norman, and Dane, so in the Ulsterman’s
veins flows the blood of Irish, Scotch, and English progenitors. The
relative proportion of each element varies much according to locality
and religion. On the shores of Antrim and Down, the population is
in many places almost as purely Scotch as in Ayrshire or Lanark. In
Belfast, Scotch blood predominates; but there was originally a large
English element. In Donegal and Fermanagh, the Celtic element is in
excess. Everywhere, the Protestant derives more from Scotch and English
sources; the Roman Catholic, from Irish.
From the earliest times, there has been a large emigration from
Scotland to the opposite Irish shore. During the reigns of Elizabeth
and James I. the chief settlements from England took place; and the
settlers from both countries gradually pushed back the original Irish
inhabitants to the mountains and into the interior. To this day, there
is a secluded district in County Antrim, known as the Glens of Antrim,
where the Irish language may still be heard, although it has long
departed from other portions of the same county. As we travel westward,
Irish more frequently meets the ear, and in many parts of Donegal it is
the prevailing tongue.
It is not surprising that in a province of such varied lineage,
provincialisms should be numerous and curious. To guard against
misconception, let it be understood that the educated Ulsterman speaks
like educated people elsewhere—namely, with perfect correctness and
scarcely appreciable accent. The peculiar words and phrases about to be
enumerated are heard almost exclusively among the poorer ranks, or, if
employed at all by the educated classes, it is only in jest and with
a recognition of their provincial character. The majority of them are
of Scotch origin; some are found in colloquial and provincial English;
while others are of Hibernian extraction.[1]
[1] We are indebted for much of the information contained in this
article to an excellent glossary compiled by Mr W. H. Patterson,
M.R.I.A., of Belfast.
As might have been expected, proverbs and proverbial expressions form
a large class of these provincialisms. ‘All to the one side, like
Clogher,’ is an allusion to a town in County Tyrone where all the
houses and shops are on one side of the thoroughfare, the opposite
side being a private demesne. ‘That bangs (surpasses) Banagher’ is
an allusion to the great fair held at that spot. When the Ulsterman
wishes to imply that a certain event is extremely improbable, he says
that it will happen at ‘Tibb’s Eve,’ adding the mysterious information
that this is ‘neither before nor after Christmas.’ This expression
is a curiously exact counterpart of the Latin phrase about the Greek
kalends. ‘As blunt as a beetle’ refers to a species of heavy wooden
mallet to which Shakspeare alludes. ‘As busy as a nailer,’ ‘As clean
as a new pin,’ ‘As crooked as a ram’s horn,’ are common Ulster
expressions, which do not call for any explanation. A more mysterious
expression is the curious phrase, ‘As grave as a mustard-pot’—used to
express preternatural solemnity. People of bilious complexion are often
described with more force than elegance as being ‘As yellow as a duck’s
foot.’
The Ulsterman has no special repute for gallantry, yet his simile for
anything exceptionally simple is, ‘As easy as kiss.’ His favourite
phrase when about to impart some very confidential information is,
‘Between you and me and the post.’ A person whose sanity is open to
question is often described as ‘Wanting a square of being round’—a
curiously inexact expression. A person who gapes with wide-mouthed
wonder is said to look ‘like a duck in thunder.’ Similarity of
political or religious opinion is expressed in Ulster by saying that
two people ‘Dig with the same foot.’ ‘A dead man’s plunge’ is a
peculiar Ulster expression; it is applied to the short, sudden, and
rather hollow sound made by a smooth flat pebble when it is tossed into
the air and falls into water upon its edge.
A large class of provincialisms are made up of asseverative
expressions. The Ulsterman often prefaces his remarks by ‘Assay’ (I
say) or ‘A’m sayin’’ (I’m saying). ‘May I never stir’ introduces some
peculiarly solemn assertion. ‘A month of Sundays,’ and still more
strongly, ‘All my born days,’ are emphatic expressions for long periods
of time. ‘Dear help your wit’ expresses commiseration for the innocence
and simplicity of the person addressed.
Ulster adjurations are a curious medley, ‘Heth’ and ‘Feth’ being
frequently used. ‘By Jaiminie King’ is a curious expression often heard
in County Fermanagh. ‘Holy Farmer’ is another obscure form of oath.
‘Hokey oh’ is a phrase implying astonishment and alarm. ‘Hoker’ is used
by Chaucer to express frowardness, and ‘Hocer’ in Anglo-Saxon meant a
reproach. These words probably contain the clue to the origin of this
obscure Ulster provincialism.
Expressions conveying contempt or endearment are common. ‘Bad scran
to you’ is a phrase of angry contempt. ‘Skran’ in Icelandic means
‘refuse.’ Milton used the word ‘scrannel’ (‘scrannel pipes’) to express
poor or mean; and ‘scranny’ still survives in provincial English in
this sense. ‘Bad cess to you’ is another Ulsterism of similar meaning,
of which the origin is more doubtful; possibly ‘cess’ is a contraction
for success. ‘Give me none of your back-talk’ is said by a superior
to an inferior, meaning, ‘Don’t presume to argue the question with
me.’ A ‘Tory rogue’ is still commonly used in Ulster in the sense of a
scamp; but it is often applied to children in a playful sense. It is
an interesting relic of the original meaning of the word Tory—an Irish
outlaw or freebooter. A ‘tongue-thrashing’ is a vigorous phrase for a
severe rebuke. ‘Carnaptious’ means quarrelsome and fault-finding.
Some salutations are characteristic of the northern province. ‘How do
you get your health?’ often takes the place of the more vague, ‘How
do you do?’ ‘The top of the morning to you’ is a cheery way of saying
‘Good-morrow.’
As might have been expected, there is a long array of peculiar
botanical and zoological expressions characteristic of Ulster. Every
district has its local names for flowers, plants, birds, and animals,
and in these Ulster is peculiarly rich. Potatoes are known as ‘spuds;’
‘biller’ means water-cress; ‘daffydowndillies’ is a lengthened form of
daffodils; ‘mayflower’ is the marsh marigold or _Caltha palustris_. The
heads of the common plantain are called ‘cocks’ or ‘fighting-cocks,’
because children make a game of striking them off in mimic warfare. The
dock-plant is called the ‘dockan’ (Scotch), and its leaf is a popular
remedy for nettle-sting; the wood-sorrel is known as ‘cuckoo-sorrel.’
A still longer list of zoological terms might be made out. The
bottle-nosed whale is known as the ‘herring-hog;’ the pollack is called
‘lythe;’ the lobworm used by fishermen for bait is called the ‘lug;’
the stickleback has its name corrupted into ‘spricklybeg;’ the gadfly
is known as the ‘cleg’ (which is also its Scotch name); ‘yilly-yorlin’
(also Scotch) is the yellow-hammer; the ‘felt’ is the redwing; the
‘peeweet’ (Scotch again) means the lapwing; the ‘mosscheeper’ is the
titlark; the cormorant is known as the ‘scart.’
We now turn to some provincialisms which do not admit of a ready
classification. ‘Bis’ is often said for ‘is,’ and ‘bissent’ for ‘is
not.’ Here we have an instance of a very common phenomenon—an archaic
form surviving as a colloquialism or provincialism. A vast number of
our common vulgarisms which we are inclined to regard as breaches
of grammar are simply good grammar out of date; in this case, the
provincialism almost exactly preserves a very ancient form of the verb.
The Anglo-Saxon verb ‘to be’ present tense indicative mood was ‘beom,
bist, bith,’ whence no doubt come ‘bis’ and ‘bissent.’ ‘Braird,’ often
used in Ulster, as in Scotland, of the young springing grain, is the
Anglo-Saxon ‘brord,’ meaning the first blade. ‘Buffer’ in the sense of
‘boxer’ is from the old French word ‘buffe,’ meaning a blow.
‘Chew, sir,’ is a form of rebuke applied to a snarling dog. ‘Dwamish’
means faint and sick, from ‘dwam,’ a Scotch word signifying a swoon
or a sudden attack of illness. ‘Dunt’ means a blow, and is old
English and Scotch; Burns says, ‘I’ll tak dunts frae naebody.’ A
‘founder,’ according to our dictionaries, is a term in farriery to
indicate lameness caused by inflammation within the hoof of a horse.
In Ulster, the word is often used to express a chill or wetting
followed by illness. A man after being exposed to the vicissitudes
of weather becomes seriously ill without knowing what is the matter,
and he expresses his condition by saying that he has got ‘a regular
founder.’ ‘Head-beetler’ is used in the same vulgar sense as ‘Head-cook
and bottle-washer’ in some localities. The beetle was a machine
for producing figured fabrics by the pressure of a roller, and
‘head-beetler’ probably means the chief director of this class of work.
A ‘heeler’ is a cock which strikes out well with his heels. In Ulster,
the word is sometimes used for a bold forward woman.
When a child begins to nod and look sleepy, he is told that ‘Johnny
Nod is coming up his back,’ which is understood as a signal for going
to bed. ‘Potatoes and point’ is a curious phrase in which the poverty
of the lower classes in Ireland finds unconscious expression. The idea
is, that the potatoes before being eaten are ‘pointed’ at a herring,
which is hung up to serve as an imaginary relish to the simple fare,
but too precious to be freely consumed. ‘Dab at the stool’ is another
expression referring to eating customs: salt is placed upon a stool,
and each individual, as the potatoes are taken out of the pot, takes
one and ‘dabs’ it at the stool, to get a portion of the salt. ‘Pouce’
and ‘poucey’ mean dust and dusty, but by a common perversion of
language, ‘poucey’ comes to mean a person in a flax-mill who is exposed
to the irritation of dusty particles, and becomes in consequence
short-winded and bronchitic. ‘Roughness,’ as in Scotland, means plenty.
‘Ruction’ signifies a row, a disturbance; possibly it is a contraction
of ructation, from the Latin verb _ructare_. ‘Skelly,’ to squint,
is from the Scotch, and is found in Scott. The Danish is ‘skele.’
‘Smittle,’ also used in Scotland, means infectious, and is connected
with the verb to smite. ‘Think long’ means to be homesick.
We thus see how much curious information and how many relics of the
past are found in the despised vulgarisms of a provincial patois. They
are the fossils of language, and speak to us of vanished peoples and of
ages long gone by.
IN ALL SHADES.
CHAPTER XLVI.
The days went slowly, slowly on, and Mr Dupuy and Harry Noel both
continued to recover steadily from their severe injuries. Marian
came over every day to help with the nursing, and took charge for
the most part, with Aunt Clemmy’s aid, of the young Englishman;
while Nora’s time was chiefly taken up in attending to her father’s
manifold necessities. Still at odd moments she did venture to help a
little in taking care of poor Harry, whose gratitude for all her small
attentions was absolutely unbounded, and very touching. True, she came
comparatively seldom into the sickroom (for such in fact it was, the
crushing blow on Harry’s head having been followed by violent symptoms
of internal injury to the brain, which made his case far more serious
in the end than Mr Dupuy’s); but whenever he woke up after a short
doze, in his intervals of pain, he always found a fresh passion-flower,
or a sweet white rosebud, or a graceful spray of clambering Martinique
clematis, carefully placed in a tiny vase with pure water on the little
table by the bedside; and he knew well whose dainty fingers had picked
the pretty blossoms and arranged them so deftly, with their delicate
background of lace-like wild West Indian maiden-hair, in the tiny
bouquets. More than once, too, when Aunt Clemmy wasn’t looking, he
took the white rosebuds out of the water for a single moment and gazed
at them tenderly with a wistful eye; and when, one afternoon, Marian
surprised him in the very act, as she came in with his regulation cup
of chicken-broth at the half-hour, she saw that the colour rushed
suddenly even into his brown and bloodless cheek, and his eyes fell
like a boy’s as he replaced the buds with a guilty look in the vase
beside him. But she said nothing about the matter at the time, only
reserving it for Nora’s private delectation in the little boudoir half
an hour later.
As Mr Dupuy got better, one firm resolve seemed to have imprinted
itself indelibly upon his unbending nature—the resolve to quit Trinidad
for ever at the very earliest moment, when convalescence and Macfarlane
would combine to allow him. He would even sell Orange Grove itself,
he said, and go over and live permanently for the rest of his days
in England. ‘That is to say, in England for the summer,’ he observed
casually to Nora; ‘for I don’t suppose any human being in his right
senses would ever dream of stopping in such a wretched climate through
a whole dreary English winter. In October, I shall always go to Nice,
or Pau, or Mentone, or some other of these new-fashioned continental
wintering-places that people go to nowadays in Europe; some chance, I
suppose, of seeing the sun once and again there, at anyrate. But one
thing I’ve quite decided upon: I won’t live any longer in Trinidad.
I’m not afraid; but I object on principle to vivisection, especially
conducted with a blunt instrument. At my time of life, a man naturally
dislikes being cut up alive by those horrible cutlasses. You and your
cousin Tom may stop here by yourselves and manage Pimento Valley, if
you choose; but I decline any longer to be used as the _corpus vile_
for a nigger experimentalist to exercise his skill upon. It doesn’t
suit my taste, and I refuse to submit to it. The fact is, Nora, my
dear, the island isn’t any longer a fit place for a gentleman to live
in. It was all very well in the old days, before we got a pack of
Exeter Hall demagogues, sent out here by the government of the day
on purpose to excite our own servants to rebellion and insurrection
against us. Nobody ever heard of the niggers rising or hacking one to
pieces bodily in those days. But ever since this man Hawthorn, whose
wife you’re so thick with—a thing that no lady would have dreamt of
countenancing in the days before these new-fangled doctrines came into
fashion—ever since this man Hawthorn was sent out here, preaching his
revolutionary cut-throat principles broadcast, the island hasn’t been
a fit place at all for a gentleman to live in; and I’ve made up my mind
to leave it at once and go over to England.’
Meanwhile, events had arisen which rendered it certain that the
revolutionary demagogue himself, who had saved Mr Dupuy’s life and all
the other white lives in the entire island, would also have to go to
England at a short notice. Edward had intended, indeed, in pursuance of
his hasty promise to the excited negroes, to resign his judgeship, and
return home, in order to confer with the Colonial Office on the subject
of their grievances. But before he had time to settle his affairs and
make arrangements for his approaching departure, a brisk interchange
of messages had taken place between the Trinidad government and the
home authorities. Meetings had been held in London at which the whole
matter had been thoroughly ventilated; questions had been asked and
answered in parliament; and the English papers had called unanimously
for a thorough sifting of the relations between the planters and
the labourers throughout the whole of the West India Islands. In
particular, they had highly praised the courage and wisdom with which
young Mr Hawthorn had stepped into the breach at the critical moment,
and single-handed, averted a general massacre, by his timely influence
with the infuriated rioters. More than one paper had suggested that Mr
Hawthorn should be forthwith recalled, to give evidence on the subject
before a Select Committee; and as a direct result of that suggestion,
Edward shortly after received a message from the Colonial Secretary,
summoning him to London immediately, with all despatch, on business
connected with the recent rising of the negroes in Trinidad.
Mr Dupuy had already chosen the date on which he should sail; but
when he heard that ‘that man Hawthorn’ had actually taken a passage
by the same steamer, he almost changed his mind, for the first time
in his life, and half determined to remain in the island, now that it
was to be freed at last from the polluting presence and influence of
this terrible fire-eating brown revolutionist. Perhaps, he thought,
when once Hawthorn was gone, Trinidad might yet be a place fit for a
gentleman to live in. The Dupuys had inhabited Orange Grove, father
and son, for nine generations; and it would be a pity indeed if they
were to be driven away from the ancestral plantations by the meddlesome
interference of an upstart radical coloured lawyer.
In this dubitative frame of mind, then, Mr Dupuy, as soon as ever
Macfarlane would allow him to mount his horse again, rode slowly down
from Orange Grove to pay a long-meditated call at Government House upon
His Excellency the governor. In black frock-coat and shiny silk hat,
as is the rigorous etiquette upon such occasions, even under a blazing
tropical noontide, he went his way with a full heart, ready to pour
forth the vials of his wrath into the sympathetic ears of the Queen’s
representative against this wretched intriguer Hawthorn, by whose
Machiavellian machinations (Mr Dupuy was justly proud in his own mind
of that sonorous alliteration) the happy and contented peasantry of the
island of Trinidad had been spurred and flogged and slowly roused into
unwilling rebellion against their generous and paternal employers.
Judge of his amazement, therefore, when, after listening patiently
to his long and fierce tirade, Sir Adalbert rose from his chair
calmly, and said in a clear and distinct voice these incredible words:
‘Mr Dupuy, you unfortunately quite mistake the whole nature of the
situation. This abortive insurrection is not due to Mr Hawthorn or to
any other one person whatever. It has long been brewing; we have for
months feared and anticipated it; and it is the outcome of a widespread
and general discontent among the negroes themselves, sedulously
fostered, we are afraid’—here Mr Dupuy’s face began to brighten with
joyous anticipation—‘by the unwise and excessive severity of many
planters, both in their public capacity as magistrates, and in their
private capacity as employers of labour.’ (Here Mr Dupuy’s face first
fell blankly, and then pursed itself up suddenly in a perfectly comical
expression of profound dismay and intense astonishment.) ‘It is to
Mr Hawthorn alone,’ the governor went on, glancing severely at the
astounded planter, ‘that many unwise proprietors of estates in the
island of Trinidad owe their escape from the not wholly unprovoked
anger of the insurgent negroes; and so highly do the home authorities
value Mr Hawthorn’s courage and judgment in this emergency, that they
have just summoned him back to England, to aid them with his advice and
experience in settling a new _modus vivendi_ to be shortly introduced
between negroes and employers.’
Mr Dupuy never quite understood how he managed to reel out of the
governor’s drawing-room without fainting, from sheer astonishment and
horror; or how he managed to restrain his legs from lifting up his toes
automatically against the sacred person of the Queen’s representative.
But he did manage somehow to stagger down the steps in a dazed and
stupefied fashion, much as he had staggered along the path when he
felt Delgado hacking him about the body at the blazing cane-houses;
and he rode back home to Orange Grove, red in the face as an angry
turkey-cock, more convinced than ever in his own mind that Trinidad
was indeed no longer a fit place for any gentleman of breeding to live
in. And in spite of Edward’s having taken passage by the same ship, he
determined to clear out of the island, bag and baggage, at the earliest
possible opportunity.
As for Harry Noel, he, too, had engaged a berth quite undesignedly in
the self-same steamer. Even though he had rushed up to Orange Grove
in the first flush of the danger to protect Nora and her father, if
possible, from the frantic rioters, it had of course been a very
awkward position for him to find himself an unwilling and uninvited
guest in the house which he had last quitted under such extremely
unpleasant circumstances. Mr Dupuy, indeed, though he admitted, when
he heard the whole story, that Harry had no doubt behaved ‘like a very
decent young fellow,’ could not be prevailed upon to take any notice of
his unbidden presence, even by sending an occasional polite message of
inquiry about his slow recovery from the adjoining bedroom. So Harry
was naturally anxious to get away from Orange Grove as quickly as
possible, and he had made up his mind that before he went he would not
again ask Nora to reconsider her determination. His chivalrous nature
shrank from the very appearance of trading upon her gratitude for his
brave efforts to save her on the evening of the outbreak; if she would
not accept him for his own sake, she should not accept him for the sake
of the risk he had run to win her.