[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. 136.—VOL. III. SATURDAY, AUGUST 7, 1886. PRICE 1½_d._]
WINDS OF HEAVEN.
BY RICHARD JEFFERIES.
The window rattled, the gate swung, a leaf rose, and the kitten chased
it, ‘whoo-oo’ the faintest sound in the keyhole. I looked up, and saw
the feathers on a sparrow’s breast ruffled for an instant. It was quiet
for some time: after a while it came again with heavier purpose. The
folded shutters shook; the latch of the kitchen door rattled as if
some one were lifting it and dropped it; indefinite noises came from
up-stairs: there was a hand in the house moving everything. Another
pause. The kitten was curled up on the window-ledge outside in the
sunshine, just as the sleek cats curled up in the warmth at Thebes of
old Egypt five or six thousand years ago; the sparrow was happy at the
rose-tree; a bee was happy on a broad dandelion disc. ‘Soo-hoo!’—a low
whistle came through the chink; a handful of rain was flung at the
window; a great shadow rushed up the valley and strode the house in an
instant as you would get over a stile. I put down my book and buttoned
my coat. Soo-hoo! the wind was here and the cloud—soo-hoo! drawing out
longer and more plaintive in the thin mouthpiece of the chink. The
cloud had no more rain in it, but it shut out the sun; and all that
afternoon and all that night the low plaint of the wind continued in
sorrowful hopelessness, and little sounds ran about the floors and
round the rooms.
Still soo-hoo all the next day and sunlessness, turning the mind,
through work and conversation, to pensive notes. At even, the edge of
the cloud lifted over the forest hill westwards, and a yellow glow, the
great beacon-fire of the sun, burned out, a conflagration at the verge
of the world. In the night, awaking gently as one who is whispered
to—listen! Ah! All the orchestra is at work—the keyhole, the chink, and
the chimney; whoo-hooing in the keyhole, whistling shrill whew-w-w!
in the chink, moaning long and deep in the chimney. Over in the field
the row of pines was sighing; the wind lingered and clung to the
close foliage, and each needle of the million, million leaflets drew
its tongue across the organ blast. A countless multitude of sighs made
one continued distant undertone to the wild roar of the gable close at
hand. Something seemed to be running with innumerable centipede feet
over the mouth of the chimney, for the long deep moan, as I listened,
resolved itself into a quick succession of touches, just as you might
play with your finger-tips tattooing on the hollow table. In the midst
of the clangour, the hearing settled down to the sighing of the pines,
which drew the mind towards it, and soothed the senses to sleep.
Towards dawn, awake again—another change: the battering-ram at work
now against the walls. Swinging back, the solid thickness of the wind
came forward—crush! as the iron-shod ram’s head hanging from its chains
rushed to the tower. Crush! It sucked back again as if there had been a
vacuum—a moment’s silence and crush! Blow after blow—the floor heaved;
the walls were ready to come together—alternate sucking back and heavy
billowy advance. Crush! crash! Blow after blow, heave and batter and
hoist, as if it would tear the house up by the roots. Forty miles that
battering-ram wind had travelled without so much as a bough to check it
till it struck the house on the hill. Thud! thud! as if it were iron,
and not air. I looked from the window, and the bright morning star was
shining—the sky was full of the wind and the star. As light came, the
thud, thud, sunk away, and nothing remained but the whoo-hoo-hoo of the
keyhole and the moan of the chimney. These did not leave us; for four
days and nights the whoo-hoo-hoo-whoo never ceased a moment. Whoo-hoo!
whoo! and this is the wind on the hill indoors.
Out of doors, sometimes in the morning, deep in the valley, over
the tree-tops of the forest, there stays a vapour, lit up within by
sunlight. A glory hovers over the oaks—a cloud of light hundreds
of feet thick, the air made visible by surcharge and heaviness of
sunbeams, pressed together till you can see them in themselves and not
reflected. The cloud slants down the sloping wood, till in a moment
it is gone, and the beams are now focused in the depth of the narrow
valley. The mirror has been tilted, and the glow has shifted; in a
moment more it has vanished into space, and the dream has gone from the
wood. In the arms of the wind, vast bundles of mist are borne against
the hill; they widen and slip, and lengthen, drawing out; the wind
works quickly with moist colours ready and a wide brush laying broadly.
Colour comes up in the wind; the thin mist disappears, drunk up in the
grass and trees, and the air is full of blue behind the vapour. Blue
sky at the far horizon—rich deep blue overhead—a dark-brown blue deep
yonder in the gorge among the trees. I feel a sense of blue colour as
I face the strong breeze; the vibration and blow of its force answer
to that hue, the sound of the swinging branches and the rush—rush in
the grass is azure in its note; it is wind-blue, not the night-blue,
or heaven-blue, a colour of air. To see the colour of the air, it
needs great space like this—a vastness of concavity and hollow—an
equal caldron of valley and plain under, to the dome of the sky over,
for no vessel of earth and sky is too large for the air-colour to
fill. Thirty, forty, and more miles of eye-sweep, and beyond that the
limitless expanse over the sea—the thought of the eye knows no butt,
shooting on with stellar penetration into the unknown. In a small space
there seems a vacuum, and nothing between you and the hedge opposite,
or even across the valley; in a great space the void is filled, and the
wind touches the sight like a thing tangible. The air becomes itself a
cloud, and is coloured—recognised as a thing suspended; something real
exists between you and the horizon. Now, full of sun and now of shade,
the air-cloud rests in the expanse.
It is summer, and the wind-birds top the furze; the bright stonechat,
velvet-black and red and white, sits on the highest spray of the gorse,
as if he were painted there. He is always in the wind on the hill, from
the hail of April to August’s dry glow. All the mile-long slope of the
hill under me is purple-clad with heath down to the tree-filled gorge
where the green boughs seem to join the purple. The cornfields and the
pastures of the plain—count them one by one till the hedges and squares
close together and cannot be separated. The surface of the earth melts
away as if the eyes insensibly shut and grew dreamy in gazing, as the
soft clouds melt and lose their outline at the horizon. But dwelling
there, the glance slowly finds and fills out something that interposes
its existence between us and the further space. Too shadowy for the
substance of a cloud, too delicate for outline against the sky, fainter
than haze, something of which the eye has consciousness, but cannot put
into a word to itself. Something is there. It is the air-cloud adhering
like a summer garment to the great downs by the sea. I cannot see the
substance of the hills nor their exact curve along the sky; all I can
see is the air that has thickened and taken to itself form about them.
The atmosphere has collected as the shadow collects in the distant
corner of a room—it is the shadow of the summer wind. At times it is
so soft, so little more than the air at hand, that I almost fancy I
can look through the solid boundary. There is no cloud so faint; the
great hills are but a thought at the horizon; I _think_ them there
rather than see them; if I were not thinking of them, I should scarce
know there was even a haze, with so dainty a hand does the atmosphere
throw its covering over the massy downs. Riding or passing quickly,
perhaps you would not observe them; but stay among the heathbells and
the sketch appears in the south. Up from the sea over the cornfields,
through the green boughs of the forest, along the slope, comes a breath
of wind, of honey-sweetened air, made more delicate by the fanning of a
thousand wings.
The labour of the wind: the cymbals of the aspen clashing, from the
lowest to the highest bough, each leaf twirling first forwards and
then backwards and swinging to and fro, a double motion. Each lifts
a little and falls back like a pendulum, twisting on itself; and as
it rises and sinks, strikes its fellow-leaf. Striking the side of the
dark pines, the wind changes their colour and turns them paler. The
oak leaves slide one over the other, hand above hand, laying shadow
upon shadow on the white road. In the vast net of the wide elm-tops,
the drifting shadow of the cloud which the wind brings is caught for
a moment. Pushing aside the stiff ranks of the wheat with both arms,
the air reaches the sun-parched earth. It walks among the mowing-grass
like a farmer feeling the crop with his hand one side, and opening it
with his walking-stick the other. It rolls the wavelets carelessly
as marbles to the shore; the red cattle redden the pool and stand in
their own colour. The green caterpillar swings as he spins his thread
and lengthens his cable to the tide of air, descending from the tree;
before he can slip it, the white throat takes him. With a thrust,
the wind hurls the swallow, or the still grander traverser of air,
the swift, fifty miles faster on his way; it ruffles back the black
velvet of the creepy mole peeping forth from his burrow. Apple-bloom
and crab-apple bloom have been blown long since athwart the furrows
over the orchard wall; May petals and June roses scattered; the pollen
and the seeds of the meadow-grasses thrown on the threshing-floor of
mother-earth in basketfuls. Thistle down and dandelion down, the brown
down of the goat’s-beard; by-and-by the keys of the sycamores twirling
aslant—the wind carries them all on its back, gossamer web and great
heron’s vanes—the same weight to the wind; the drops of the waterfall
blown aside sprinkle the bright green ferns. The voice of the cuckoo in
his season travels drowsily on the zephyr, and the note comes to the
most distant hill, and deep into the deepest wood.
The light and fire of summer are made beautiful by the air, without
whose breath the glorious summer were all spoiled. Thick are the
hawthorn leaves, many deep on the spray; and beneath them there is
a twisted and intertangled winding in and out of boughs, such as no
curious ironwork of ancient artist could equal; through the leaves and
metal-work of boughs the soft west wind wanders at its ease. Wild wasp
and tutored bee sing sideways on their course as the breeze fills
their vanes; with broad coloured sails boomed out, drifts the butterfly
alee. Beside a brown-coated stone in the shadowed stream, a brown
trout watches for the puffs that slay the Mayflies. Their ephemeral
wings were made for a more exquisite life; they endure but one sun;
they bear not the touch of the water; they die like a dream dropping
into the river. To the amethyst in the deep ditch the wind comes; no
petal so hidden under green it cannot find; to the blue hill-flower up
by the sky; it lifts the guilty head of the passionate poppy that has
sinned in the sun for love. Sweet is the rain the wind brings to the
wallflower browned in the heat, a-dry on the crumbling stone. Pleasant
the sunbeams to the marigold when the wind has carried the rain away
and his sun-disc glows on the bank. Acres of perfume come on the wind
from the black and white of the bean-field; the firs fill the air by
the copse with perfume. I know nothing to which the wind has not some
happy use. Is there a grain of dust so small the wind shall not find
it out? Ground in the mill-wheel of the centuries, the iron of the
distant mountain floats like gossamer, and is drunk up as dew by leaf
and living lung. A thousand miles of cloud go by from morn till night,
passing overhead without a sound; the immense packs, a mile square,
succeed to each other, side by side, laid parallel, book-shape, coming
up from the horizon and widening as they approach. From morn till
night the silent footfalls of the ponderous vapours travel overhead,
no sound, no creaking of the wheels and rattling of the chains; it is
calm at the earth, but the wind labours without an effort above, with
such ease, with such power. Gray smoke hangs on the hillside where the
couch-heaps are piled, a cumulus of smoke; the wind comes, and it draws
its length along like the genii from the earthen pot; there leaps up a
great red flame shaking its head; it shines in the bright sunlight; you
can see it across the valley.
A perfect summer day with a strong south wind: a cloudless blue sky
blown pale, a summer sun blown cool, deep draughts of refreshing air
to man and horse, clear definition of red-tile roof and conical oast,
perfect colour of soft ash-green trees. In the evening, fourteen black
swifts rushing together through the upper atmosphere with shrill cries,
sometimes aside and on the tip of one wing, with a whirl descending, a
black trail, to the tiled ridge they dwell in. Fine weather after this.
A swooning August day, with a hot east wind, from which there is
no escape, which gives no air to the chest—you breathe and are not
satisfied with the inspiration; it does not fill; there is no life in
the killed atmosphere. It is a vacuum of heat, and yet the strong hot
wind bends the trees, and the tall firs wrestle with it as they did
with Sinis, the Pine-bender, bowed down and rebounding, as if they
would whirl their cones away like a catapult. Masses of air are moving
by, and yet there is none to breathe. No escape in the shadow of hedge
or wood, or in the darkened room; darkness excludes the heat that
comes with light, but the heat of the oven-wind cannot be shut out.
Some monstrous dragon of the Chinese sky pants his fiery breath upon
us, and the brown grass stalks threaten to catch flame in the field.
The grain of wheat that was full of juice dries hard in the ears, and
water is no more good for thirst. There is not a cloud in the sky;
but at night there is heavy rain, and the flowers are beaten down.
There is a thunder-wind that blows at intervals when great clouds are
visibly gathering over the hayfield. It is almost a calm; but from time
to time a breath comes, and a low mournful cry sounds in the hollow
farmhouse—the windows and doors are open, and the men and women have
gone out to make hasty help in the hay ere the storm—a mournful cry in
the hollow house, as unhappy a note as if it were soaked February.
In April, six miles away in the valley, a vast cloud came down with
swan-shot of hail, black as blackest smoke, overwhelming house and
wood, all gone and mixed with the sky, and behind the mass there
followed a white cloud sunlit dragging along the ground, like a cumulus
fallen to the earth. At sunset, the sky cleared, and under the glowing
rim of the sun, a golden wind drove the host of vapour before it,
scattering it to the right and left. Large pieces caught and tore
themselves in the trees of the forest, and one curved fragment hurled
from the ridge, fell in the narrow coomb, lit up as it came down with
golden sunset rays, standing out bright against the shadowed wood.
Down it came slowly, as it were with outstretched arms, loth to fall,
carrying the coloured light of the sky to the very surface of the earth.
IN ALL SHADES.
BY GRANT ALLEN,
AUTHOR OF ‘BABYLON,’ ‘STRANGE STORIES,’ ETC. ETC.
CHAPTER XXXIX.
Half-way down to the blazing trash-houses, Mr Dupuy and his little band
of black allies, all armed only with the sticks they had hastily seized
from the stand in the piazza, came on a sudden face to face with the
wild and frantic mob of half-tipsy rioters. ‘Halt!’ Mr Dupuy called out
in a cool and unmoved tone of command to the reckless insurgents, as
they marched on in irregular order, brandishing their cutlasses wildly
in the flickering firelight. ‘You black-guards, what are you doing
here, and what do you mean by firing and burning my trash-houses?’
By the ruddy light of the lurid blaze behind him, Louis Delgado
recognised at once the familiar face of his dearest enemy. ‘Me fren’s,’
he shrieked, in a loud outburst of gratified vindictiveness, ‘dis is
him—dis is him—dis de buckra Dupuy we come to kill now! De Lard has
delibbered him into our hands witout so much as gib us de trouble ob go
an’ attack him.’
But before even Delgado could bring down with savage joy his uplifted
weapon on his hated enemy’s bare head, Mr Dupuy had stepped boldly
and energetically forward, and catching the wiry African by his
outstretched arm, had cried aloud in his coolest and most deliberate
accents: ‘Louis Delgado, put down your cutlass. As a magistrate for
this island, I arrest you for riot.’
His resolute boldness was not without its due effect. For just the
swing of a pendulum there was a profound silence, and that great
mob of strangely beraged and rum-maddened negroes held its breath
irresolutely, doubting in its own six hundred vacillating souls
which of the two things rather to do—whether to yield as usual to
the accustomed authority of that one bold and solitary white man,
the accredited mouthpiece of law and order, or else to rush forward
madly and hack him then and there into a thousand pieces with African
ferocity. So instinctive in the West Indian negro’s nature is the
hereditary respect for European blood, that even though they had come
there for the very purpose of massacring and mutilating the defenceless
buckra, they stood appalled, now the actual crisis had fairly arrived,
at the bare idea of venturing to dispute the question openly with the
one lone and unarmed white man.
But Louis Delgado, African born that he was, had no such lingering West
Indian prejudices. Disengaging his sinewy captive arm from Mr Dupuy’s
flabby grasp with a sudden jerk, he lifted his cutlass once more high
into the air, and held it, glittering, for the twinkling of an eye,
above the old man’s defenceless head. One moment, Uncle ’Zekiel saw it
gleam fearfully in the red glare of the burning trash-houses; the next,
it had fallen on Mr Dupuy’s shoulder, and the blood was spurting out
in crimson splashes over his white tie and open shirt-front, in which
he had risen but a few minutes before so unsuspectingly from his own
dinner-table.
The old planter reeled terribly before the violent force of that
staggering blow, but kept his face still turned bravely with
undiminished courage toward the exultant enemy. At the sight of the
gushing blood, however—the proud buckra blood, that shows so visibly
on the delicate white European skin—the negroes behind set up a loud
and horrid peal of unearthly laughter, and rushed forward, all their
hesitation flung away at once, closing round him in a thickly packed
body, each eager not to lose his own share in the delightful excitement
of hacking him to pieces. A dozen cutlasses gleamed aloft at once in
the bare black arms, and a dozen more blows were aimed at the wounded
man fiercely by as many hideous, grinning rioters.
Uncle ’Zekiel and the household negroes, oblivious and almost
unconscious of themselves, as domestic servants of their race always
are in the presence of danger for their master or his family, pressed
around the reeling white man in a serried ring, and with their sticks
and arms, a frail barrier, strove manfully to resist the fierce
onslaught of the yelling and leaping plantation negroes. In spite of
what Mr Dupuy had just been saying about the negroes being all alike
cowards, the petty handful of faithful blacks, forming a close and firm
semicircle in front of their wounded master, fought like wild beasts
at bay with hands and arms, and legs and teeth, and sticks and elbows,
opposing stoutly, by fair means and foul, the ever-pressing sea of
wild rioters. As they fought, they kept yielding slowly but cautiously
before the steady pressure; and Mr Dupuy, reeling and staggering he
knew not how, but with his face kept ever, like a fighting Dupuy,
turned dauntlessly toward the surging enemy, retreated slowly backward
step by step in the direction of his own piazza. Just as he reached the
bottom of the steps, Uncle ’Zekiel meanwhile shielding and protecting
him manfully with his portly person, a woman rushed forth from the mass
of the rioters, and with hideous shrieks of ‘Hallelujah, hallelujah!’
hacked him once more with her blunt cutlass upon the ribs and body.
Mr Dupuy, faint and feeble from loss of blood, but still cool and
collected as ever, groped his way ever backward up the steps, in a
blind, reeling, failing fashion, and stood at last at bay in the
doorway of the piazza, with his faithful bodyguard, wounded and
bleeding freely like himself, still closing resolutely around him.
‘This will do, ’Zekiel,’ he gasped out incoherently, as he reached the
top landing. ‘In the pass of the doorway. Stop them easily. Fire rouse
the military. Hold the house for half an hour—help from the governor.
Quick, quick! give me the pistol.’
Even as he spoke, a small white hand, delicate and bloodless, appearing
suddenly from the room behind him, placed his little revolver, cocked
and loaded, between the trembling fingers of his left hand, for the
right lay already hacked and useless, hanging idly by his side in limp
helplessness.
‘Nora, my dear,’ the old man sobbed out in a half-inarticulate gurgling
voice, ‘go back—go back this moment to the boudoir. Back garden; slip
away quietly—no place for you, Orange Grove, this evening. Slight
trouble with the plantation blacks. Quell the rioters.—Close up,
’Zekiel.—Close up, Dick, Thomas, Jo, Robert, Emilius, Mark Antony!’
And with a quivering hand, standing there alone in the narrow doorway,
while the mob below swarmed and pressed up the piazza steps in wild
confusion, the wounded planter fired the revolver, with no definite
aim, blank into the surging midst of the mob, and let his left hand
drop as he did so, white and fainting by his side, with his vain
endeavour.
The bullet had hit one of the negro women full in the thigh, and it
only served still further to madden and enrage the clamouring mob, now
frantically thirsty for the buckra blood.
‘Him wounded Hannah—him wounded Hannah!’ the negroes yelled in their
buzzing indignation; and at the word, they rushed forward once more
with mad gesticulations, those behind pushing those in front against
the weak yielding wall of Orange Grove servants, and all menacing
horribly with their blood-reddened cutlasses, as they shrieked aloud
frantically: ‘Kill him—kill him!’
The servants still held firm with undaunted courage, and rallied
bravely round their tottering master; but the onslaught was now far too
fierce for them, and one by one they were thrust back helpless by the
raging mob, who nevertheless abstained so far as possible from hurting
any one of them, aiming all their blows directly at the detested white
man himself alone. If by chance at any moment a cutlass came down
unintentionally upon the broad backs of the negro defenders, a cry
arose at once from the women in the rear of ‘Doan’t hit him—doan’t hit
him. Him me brudder. Colour for colour! Kill de buckra! Hallelujah!’
And all this time, Nora Dupuy looked on from behind, holding her
bloodless hands clasped downward in mute agony, not so much afraid as
expectant, with Aunt Clemmy and the women-servants holding her and
comforting her with well-meant negro consolation, under the heavy
mahogany arch of the dining-room doorway.
At last, Delgado, standing now on the topmost step, and half within the
area of the piazza, aimed one terrible slashing cut at the old planter,
as he stood supporting himself feebly by a piece of the woodwork, and
hacked him down, a heavy mass, upon the ground before them with a wild
African cry of vengeance. The poor old man fell, insensible, in a
little pool of his own blood; and the Orange Grove negroes, giving way
finally before the irresistible press of their overwhelming opponents,
left him there alone, surrounded on every side by the frantic mob of
enraged insurgents.
Nora, clasping her hands tighter than ever, and immovable as a statue,
stood there still, without uttering a cry or speaking a word—as cold
and white and motionless as marble.
‘Hack him to pieces!’ ‘Him doan’t dead yet!’ ‘Him only faintin’!’ ‘Burn
him—burn him!’ A chorus of cries rose incoherently from the six hundred
lips of the victorious negroes. And as they shouted, they mangled
and mutilated the old man’s body with their blunt cutlasses in a way
perfectly hideous to look at; the women especially crowding round to do
their best at kicking and insulting their fallen enemy.
‘Tank de Lard—tank de Lard!’ Delgado, now drunk with blood, shouted out
fiercely to his frenzied followers. ‘We done killed de ole man. Now we
gwine to kill de missy!’
JEWEL AND GEM ROGUERIES.
That old saying which tells us there are ‘tricks in all trades,’
would appear from recent exposures and explanations to be almost
more applicable to jewellers than to other traders; and if only one
half of the misdemeanours with which they are charged be true, they
deserve to be placed in the front rank of trade tricksters. There are,
however, jewellers and jewellers, and although, happily, as a class
they are above suspicion, yet, as our courts of justice occasionally
reveal, there are also not a few black-sheep in the flock—men who do
not scruple to deal in ‘doublets’ and paste, and who pass off gems and
jewels as genuine, that they know to be either altogether false, or
to possess some hidden flaw sufficient greatly to lessen their value.
Every now and then we find in the newspapers a paragraph or longer
article concerning ‘mystery gold,’ ‘forged gems,’ or ‘false jewels.’
Recent examples of this kind of news have appeared to the effect that
an important discovery had been made regarding the crown of a foreign
potentate, as well as the diamond necklace of a lady of rank, many of
the gems in the latter article being made of paste; whilst the diadem
of the king is announced to be little better than a theatrical bauble,
most of the real stones having been extracted and their places filled
with imitation ones. Another announcement of the kind calls attention
to the fact of several imitation stones having been found in a jewelled
collar hitherto supposed to be of very great value, and which had been
sold by an illustrious person in ignorance of the fact.
‘What _is_ paste?’ asked a London magistrate, in the course of his
examination into a charge of selling imitation stones for real ones.
‘Paste, sir,’ replied the witness, ‘means a mixture of violin glass and
borax;’ from which, as we have been informed, the closest imitations
of diamonds and other precious stones can be made (see ‘Artificial
Jewels,’ _Chambers’s Journal_, Nov. 15, 1884). Visitors to Paris who
have feasted their eyes on the made-up gems so lavishly displayed in
the jewellers’ windows of the Rue de la Paix and the Palais-Royal,
feel surprised when they are told that four-fifths of the glittering
baubles are composed of paste, and are of little value as compared with
real gems. It used to be said that most of the jewelry shown in the
Palais-Royal was manufactured for use on the stage; but the actresses
of to-day, unless obliged to wear paste, will, when they can afford
it, adorn their persons with none but real gems. The names of several
artists might easily be given who are reputed to be passing rich in
diamonds and rubies, and who are possessed besides of pearls of great
price. Some actresses, indeed, seem to draw audiences nowadays as much
by the aid of their jewels as their talents. When a female star visits
the provinces, pains are frequently taken to proclaim the number and
value of her gems and jewels. Who, then, wears the paste diamonds
and other imitation gems which are manufactured? To this question,
an answer of rather a startling kind has more than once been given,
and one of the latest may here be noted. A gentleman who was deeply
involved in the pursuits of the turf requiring a considerable sum of
money to pay his debts of honour, stole his wife’s jewels in order to
pawn them. To his consternation, the pawnbroker refused to look at
them. ‘Why?’ was feverishly asked. ‘Because they are paste.’—‘Paste!
My wife’s jewels paste?’—‘Yes. I supplied her with them. The originals
are in my safe; I advanced thirteen hundred pounds upon them.’
Unfortunately, the gentleman’s wife was as great a gambler as her
husband, and she had been obliged to pawn her diamonds to meet her own
liabilities.
The ingenuity of persons who ‘get up’ precious stones and mock-pearls
for ‘the trade’ has been often commented upon and frequently censured.
A London lapidary who works in the groove indicated was called upon, a
few months ago, in a court of law to explain his mode of procedure. ‘I
make all my imitations out of real stones,’ was his reply to the judge.
On being asked to be more explicit, he said: ‘Perhaps I possess some
pale stones which are of small value: these I split by the aid of my
tools; then introducing a deeper tone of colour, I join them together
again, having considerably increased their saleable value.’ In this
manner the colours of many stones are said to be intensified, such as
emeralds, sapphires, amethysts, and others. Diamonds are constantly
utilised by being split, each half of a gem perhaps doing duty on a
paste foundation on which it has been carefully mounted. A stone which
may be of the value of ten pounds having been split at little cost,
is carefully mounted, and becomes transformed into two gems, each
affirmed to be worth that sum. It requires a clever expert to detect
such frauds when they are cleverly executed, or to discover that the
‘fire’ imparted to certain stones that would otherwise be dull of
hue and greatly deficient in sparkle, is conferred by so simple an
expedient as a backing of tinfoil.
The invention of what are called ‘doublets’ in diamond-dealing can be
traced back for centuries. One mode of getting up false stones has been
described by Jerome Cardan, who has published in detail the method of
the inventor, one Zocolino. This person’s way of working was to procure
a thin flake of a very inferior and cheap example of the stone he
desired to ‘improve,’ choosing those which had little colour, and might
in consequence be procured at a nominal price. As a bottom for his
‘make-up’ he took a bit of crystal which he had shaped to his purpose;
covering this with a transparent glue with which he had mixed the
necessary colouring material, so as to be like the finest specimen of
the gem he intended to forge, he carefully fixed on the flake of stone,
and concealed the joining of the two so deftly by careful setting as to
make purchasers fancy that his gems were not only genuine, but really
finer than those of other jewellers. For a time Zocolino flourished,
and was enabled by means of his cunning workmanship to deceive the
cleverest lapidaries; but detection came at last, and put an end to his
fraudulent practices in gem-making.
It may be mentioned as a warning to travellers that the Singhalese at
Colombo are experts in such frauds, and frequently persuade persons
to purchase cleverly set up doublets, or pieces of rock-crystal cut
and polished. Doublets in many cases, especially when both parts are
really diamonds, are somewhat difficult to detect even by men who
have had great experience in the gem and jewel trades. Before leaving
the diamond, we may mention another kind of fraud connected with it.
Often, when these gems have been set in a cluster, it has been found
on examination that at least one of the stones is made of paste, or
is perhaps a doublet. A rather curious story went the round of the
press some years ago, when, on the death of a lady of title, it was
found that more than one-third of the family diamonds were composed of
false stones. These imitations had been so beautifully executed that
none but the cleverest dealers were able to detect them; while in the
case of some of the stones, it was not till their specific gravity had
been tested that a decision could be arrived at. It has been found on
examination, we believe, that necklaces of so-called real diamonds
have often contained twenty per cent. of doublets or other stones of
questionable quality. Respectable dealers in jewelry maintain that it
is the public who are to blame for the production of false jewels,
knowing well enough that genuine gems could not be given at the prices
offered for them. Retail jewellers are not seldom deceived themselves,
not being, perhaps, so well versed in the technical knowledge
incidental to their trade as they ought to be. Tradesmen of repute,
however, are exceedingly careful in their selection of stock, no gem
being offered for sale unless it is known to be genuine.
Many gems are really gems of a kind, although not the gems they are
pretended to be, but in all probability are composed of pieces of
quartz ‘got up’ for the market, quartz being selected as being able to
stand the test of the file, which glass cannot do. There are varieties
of topaz and other stones which are as hard as the diamond; and being
entirely colourless, they are often cut and polished and successfully
palmed off as diamonds. This colourless gem material is costly in
consequence of the use to which it can be turned. Recipes for the
production of imitation stones have been often given; the following
is the formula for a ruby: five hundred parts of strass, twenty of
glass of antimony, a half each of purple of Cassius and of gold.
Strass is a specially manufactured kind of glass which has been long
used in connection with the fabrication of gems; it usually contains
a much larger percentage of oxide of lead than the commoner sorts
of glass. Aventurine is another kind of gem glass, which is chiefly
manufactured in Venice, and brings a high price. The best thing is a
quartz of varying shades of colour, which is much prized. One of the
scarcer varieties is known as sunstone, and is much sought after, being
valuable for such purposes as have been referred to.
Attempts by chemists to produce diamonds have, commercially speaking,
usually resulted in failure. The most successful of the early
experiments tried in the way of diamond production was that worked out
by Gannal, a Frenchman, who in the year 1828 succeeded in producing a
substance that was affirmed by a practical jeweller of great repute
to be a diamond; but after much controversy, the opinion came to be
ultimately entertained that even Gannal had failed. Another famous
Frenchman, M. Desprets, made several endeavours in the same direction
with partial success; he produced matter at all events with which it
was found to be possible to cut and polish the harder gems. A Monsieur
de Chaud Courtois has also entered upon various experiments with a view
to the production of ‘real’ diamonds, but, so far as we know, without
having achieved success. Mr MacTier’s experiments at the St Rollox
chemical works in Glasgow have been so recently discussed as not to
require farther reference.
The so-called ‘Scottish Jewelry,’ made from cairngorms, cinnamon
stone, &c., is largely manufactured in Germany, where most of the
stones required are quite plentiful. It is common enough to impose
the cairngorm on ignorant purchasers as Brazilian or Mexican topaz.
Edinburgh lapidaries are able to prepare and mount the cairngorm and
pebbles of Scotland with taste and skill. Crystals of smoky quartz are
found in every part of the globe, and can be so skilfully dealt with
by lapidaries and experts as to be made deeper or lighter in colour
as may be demanded. Each manipulator is of course careful to preserve
his particular mode of procedure secret from his fellows; and some of
them are very clever in their various manipulations of Scottish stones,
which can be set with fine effect in brooches, snuff-mulls, dirks, and
powder-horns.
‘Mock-pearls’ are the subject of frequent discussion. The wonderful
lustre and exquisite polish of the real gem of the sea have been more
than once imitated with almost the power of nature. But there is a
something about this beautiful and mysterious production which in the
end tells against all attempts at fraud. The imitation when tested
with the real gem provides one source of detection, and the brittle
nature of the manufactured article is another. Another matter is that
the exquisitely drilled holes which are characteristic of the pearls
of the East are wanting in all imitations, the drilling in the latter
case being usually clumsy and blunt-edged. The scales of a small fish
known as the _bleak_ have been successfully used in the formation of
false pearls; but as it requires some eighteen thousand of these fish
to provide one pound-weight of the pearl-making material, it seems
superfluous to say that only a very limited number of gems can be made
from the scales of the bleak.
Here we pause, not having space left in which to discuss the
‘manufacture’ of cameos, or the production of that ‘mystery gold’ which
two years ago afforded so much material for newspaper discussion. At
the present time, when pictures and pottery, old furniture, articles
of virtu of all kinds, coins, and even birds’ eggs, are forged, it is
not a matter for surprise that spurious diamonds, mock-pearls, and
imitations of many of our more precious gems should be foisted on the
public by unscrupulous tradespeople. Nevertheless, so long as a lady
can purchase for a few pounds a necklace or other adornment which, if
genuine, would have cost hundreds or perhaps thousands of pounds, the
imitation gem trade will continue to flourish.
A FRIEND OF THE FAMILY.
BY CHARLES GIBBON.
CHAPTER I.—THE MAJOR’S PREDICAMENT.
Even his enemies admitted that Major Dawkins was one of the
kindliest-natured of men. If anybody was in a difficulty, he would take
infinite pains to help him or her out of it—provided the difficulty
was not financial. In that case he had all the will, but not the
means to assist otherwise than with good advice; and the fact was so
well known, that nobody ever thought of borrowing from him. Most of
his friends were in comfortable circumstances, and therefore above
the need of troubling him about pecuniary matters. But his happiness
in having wealthy friends was owing to his good luck; certainly not
to any careful selection on his part, for he was such a chatty,
pleasant little man, so frank and easy in his ways, that he picked up
acquaintances everywhere. In a train or on a steamer, he would be in
five minutes conversing with his immediate fellow-passengers; in half
an hour, they would be discussing subjects of personal interest; and
in an hour, they would be talking and laughing together as if they had
been intimate for years.
He had sympathy enough to comprehend all beings and all things. He
mourned with those who were mourning; he rejoiced with those who were
rejoicing. One day he would be at a funeral with visage as lugubrious
as his garb; and the day following he would be at a wedding, the
gayest of the gay, ready with pretty speeches for the bride, the
most flattering prophecies for the bridesmaids, and the heartiest
congratulations for the bridegroom on the fortune which had given him
what Solomon had declared to be the greatest blessing on earth—a good
wife.
The Major was perfectly sincere in his sympathetic sorrow and in his
sympathetic joy; consequently, he was a favourite with both sexes,
old and young, and was the confidant of all in many delicate affairs
which could have been intrusted only to one who had proved himself
able to keep a secret as well as to sympathise. His little foibles
were overlooked, or, at most, provoked a quiet smile at his innocent
faith in their invisibility. For instance, nobody ever displayed the
slightest consciousness that his well-trimmed black hair and moustache
were dyed, although the fact was patent to every one. On this subject
the Major was peculiarly sensitive; and for years he cherished the fond
delusion that even his man Hollis believed black to be the natural
colour of his hair. But accident betrayed the mystery, and from that
hour the master was held in bondage by the man.
Hollis had been in several good places at one time as valet, and
subsequently as butler. As a matter of principle, he considered himself
bound to test the quality of all the liquors in his master’s cellar
and sideboard; and he had carried this principle of self-sacrifice to
his employers’ interests to such a degree that he was at length glad
to accept the moderate salary which Major Dawkins could afford to pay
him for his services as general factotum. Of course, Hollis regarded
his new position as a downfall in the world, for here he had to combine
the duties of butler, valet, and footman, and there was no cellar at
all! But he had a considerate master, and during their frequent stay
at country-houses, Hollis’s appetites were amply satisfied, whilst he
discovered various ways of securing ‘tips’ which materially added to
his income. He might have been as contented as a man of his character
ever could be, if it had not been for one grievance.
His master had a nice little box covered with Russian leather and
supplied with a Bramah lock. The Major took this box everywhere with
him; he always opened it and locked it himself and kept the key in his
own pocket. It was not a jewel-case or a cash-box, for Hollis had seen
it open on several occasions, and noted that its chief contents were
a small green glass and a bottle of peculiar shape without any label.
The principle which regulated the life of Hollis was touched: he had
no doubt that the bottle contained some special liqueur—in colour it
somewhat resembled yellow Chartreuse, as far as he could make out—and
he felt much aggrieved that his master would allow him no opportunity
of testing its quality. That it must be something very special was
evident from the care with which it was guarded.
He watched and waited, and his opportunity came, as it comes to all who
wait. The Major was out later than usual one night, and next morning
he rose late, which caused him to be much hurried with his toilet, in
order to keep an important engagement.
‘Back about three,’ he said as he hastened away.
When the door closed behind him, Hollis, as was his custom, instantly
entered his master’s room.—Did his eyes deceive him? No; the key was
in the lock of the little Russian leather case, for once forgotten by
its keeper. The man’s eyes glistened with satisfaction, and his mouth
watered in anticipation of the treat in store for him, as he removed
the stopper and filled the dainty glass with the contents of the
bottle. It looked nice, but he did not quite relish its faint odour.
There was a suspicion of almonds and something else, which he could not
liken to anything he had smelt before. Doubtless it was some Indian
liqueur, good for the liver; people did drink strange stuffs as well
as eat strange stuffs in foreign parts. Hollis was not the person to
shrink from his duty; he had tasted almost everything in the way of
wines and liqueurs, and he was bound to discover the character of this
fluid. He raised the glass to his lips.
‘Good heavens! man, what are you doing?’ shouted the voice of the
Major, raised in extreme alarm. ‘That is deadly poison—it is hair-dye!’
The glass dropped from the servant’s trembling hand, and he stood
abashed.
The Major having discovered his oversight when only a little way from
his chambers, had hastily returned, and his latchkey admitted him.
Without heeding the broken glass, he angrily locked the case and put
the key in his pocket. He was chagrined that in his excitement he
had blurted out the carefully guarded secret of the black hair and
moustaches; whilst he was relieved by the thought that he had been in
time to save the man from the consequences of his folly. He was as much
confused as Hollis, and his confusion lasted longer, for the worthy
factotum was quick to perceive the advantage he had gained.
Instant dismissal was the penalty that the master first thought of; and
the next moment he felt that he dared not inflict it. The man would
talk, and in a few hours the scandal would fly up the back-stairs of
every house in town. Very likely there would be a smart paragraph in
the ‘Society’ journals making fun of him.
‘Dawkins dyes his hair!’ everybody would be saying. ‘Could you have
believed it?’
The poor little Major shuddered at the bare thought of the ridicule
which would ensue.
‘I’ll look over this, Hollis,’ he said, drawing up his stiff military
collar, in order to appear more dignified and to render his words more
impressive. ‘You ought to be thankful for that; but understand, if you
try anything like this again, or if any hint of this morning’s business
reaches my ears, you go. You understand?’
‘Yes, sir. Thank you.’
‘Very well. We start for Todhurst Grange to-morrow. Get my things ready
to-day.’
Hollis bowed and retired without attempting explanation or apology.
The Major was much perturbed as he drove along the crowded streets to
keep the appointment, for which he was now a quarter of an hour late.
That was disturbing enough to a man of his punctual habits; but it
was not the main cause of his present vexation. The main cause was
his sense that from this day forth he was, metaphorically, under his
servant’s thumb.
Observing Dawkins approach for the first time, you would have fancied
that he was a youth of about twenty-five, although he was several
years more than double that age. His slim figure, below the average
height, was always arrayed in the latest style affected by young men
about town. There were a few decorous modifications, certainly, but
they were so slight as to be scarcely observable. Then there was a
vivacity about his movements which only occasionally suggested a
degree of stiffening about the knee-joints, and thus an appearance of
juvenility was produced until he was subjected to close inspection. The
wrinkles on his brow and under the gray eyes, and the yellow complexion
resulting from the touch of liver which he had brought home with him
from India, set a stranger speculating whether he was a prematurely
aged boy or a very vain old man. But as soon as he began to speak,
all speculation on the subject ceased—he was so young in thought, so
interested in everything he saw and in every one he met.
The fact was that the Major had not yet realised the truth that he was
a grown man and had passed the equator of middle age. He had never
been married; he had never suffered under any absorbing attachment
to maid or widow; and although he had been twenty years in the army,
he had never been in action. A petty riot was the only approach to a
battle in which he had ever been privileged to take part. Whilst he
bore his disappointment cheerfully, as a general rule, there were times
when he lamented the ill luck which had attended him so far as war
was concerned. His soul had been always eager for the fray; but fate
had denied him any opportunity to distinguish himself on the field.
During his twenty years of service in India, there had been battles
enough fought and won; but he had no share in any of them. To satisfy
his ambition, he had twice exchanged into regiments which were under
orders for active service. In the first instance, the orders were
countermanded; and in the second—the war was over before his regiment
reached the front. So he was gazetted Major, and was ‘retired’ on
half-pay without having sustained a scratch in his country’s cause, and
without any experience of the proud pomp and circumstance of the big
war that makes ambition glorious. He lived in hope, however, that a
time would come when the offer of his sword might be acceptable to the
War Office. He was then a rabid Jingo, and a resolute advocate of armed
opposition to every step made by Russia in the direction of our Indian
empire. But he kept these sentiments very much to himself, and only
ventilated them when much provoked by some peace-at-any-price man.