even the excuse that the acquisition of the art is difficult. On the
contrary, it is one of the most easily acquired of accomplishments.
The one secret of it is confidence, though, like most other things,
it is best learned young. There is no reason why it should not—on
the contrary, on the ground both of health and of saving of life,
there is every reason why it should—be made a necessary part of the
education of young people of both sexes and of all classes. At Eton
and in some other schools, it is systematically taught; but it would
be far cheaper and more useful than many of the things for which
parents cheerfully pay as ‘extras’ in private establishments; whilst
in these days, when we are concerning ourselves so greatly about the
education of the masses, and paying such a price for the privilege,
swimming would certainly be a far more useful subject to form one of
the items of Board School education than many of the things for which
the long-suffering ratepayer is now compelled to put his hand in his
pocket. As a certain William Woodbridge remarked in a manual published
by him in 1864:
To swim with ease and confidence and grace,
Should in Great Britain have acknowledged place
Of recognition; and by law decreed,
Be taught as fully as we’re taught to read;
Forming a part in education’s rule
In every college and in every school.
This is the merest doggerel. In fact, the recommendation of the book
is not its literary merit, for it possesses none, but the fact that
it is what it professes to be—in itself a matter of congratulation
after the nonsense which, from time to time, it has been sought to
palm off upon the public by utilising the names of various prominent
swimmers who were far too ignorant to have written a line of the
compilations with which their names have been associated—and that the
instruction conveyed in it is thoroughly sound, practical, and to the
point. Woodbridge died in 1868; and the little manual has, I believe,
been long out of print, so that in saying this I may be acquitted of
the desire to give any one a gratuitous advertisement. I come back,
however, to my point: Why, provided there be water at hand, should not
every one be taught to swim during the period of his or her school
career; and how can parents reconcile it to their consciences to permit
their children to run a perfectly needless risk, by failing to have
them taught what they ought to learn as regularly and easily as they
learn to walk?
A TALE OF TWO KNAVERIES.
IN FOUR CHAPTERS.—CHAP. II.
Tom and Lucy Wedlake were two young people who had loved one another
well enough, and had had sufficient courage to marry on two hundred
pounds a year in the teeth of their respective families, both of which
were highly respectable, extremely proud, but very poor. Tom was a
Civil Service clerk, aged twenty-eight, whose salary had reached the
above annual sum; and it was insisted by all their relations that the
young people ought to wait until he should get his first class—which he
might hope to do about forty—and be in receipt of three hundred a year;
that being the smallest income upon which any lady and gentleman could
contrive to support existence together. The pair declined to accept
this view; so they got married; and Tom took his pretty gentle wife to
live in a little house on the north-east of the Regent’s Park, which he
had furnished with money lent him, free of interest, by a well-to-do
friend. For the rest, they were content to trust to youth, health, and
determination to keep from absolute destitution themselves and any
little folks who might hereafter come.
They did not, after all, find the struggle so terrible as it had been
described to them. They were not blessed—or burdened—with children
until they had been some time married, nor until circumstances
had put it into their power to maintain and educate them without
difficulty; and they had no expensive tastes. They were extremely fond
of one another, and lived in great happiness for one year. Then Uncle
Franklin took up his abode with them, and their happiness was for a
time considerably clouded. Mr Franklin was Lucy’s maternal uncle. In
his business—that of a wine-merchant—he had made money, which he had
increased by successful speculation. But in proportion as his purse
grew bulky, his manners deteriorated. The latter fact was forgiven in
consideration of the former; and by the time he retired, the master
of a moderate fortune, the family toleration of him had developed
into positive affection. Yet he was as we have seen him—rough, harsh,
coarse, selfish, and overbearing; faults which were easily overlooked
by the half-dozen sets of brothers and sisters, plentifully garnished
with nephews and nieces, who remembered only that Uncle Franklin was
old, rich, and a bachelor, and forgot the wine-merchant’s business,
and the continual snubs and insults which it had always been the old
gentleman’s pleasure to inflict upon his affectionate relatives. So
that, when he began to lament the loneliness of his age, and to hint
at his longings for the comforts and pleasures of family life, quite
a number of hospitable doors flew open to him on the instant. Uncle
Franklin entered all those doors, and left each of them before many
weeks were over, shaking the dust off his feet against the inhabitants.
In every house which he honoured with a brief sojourn, he comported
himself more like a fiend than a human being. His selfishness, his
ill-temper, his insolence, his coarseness, his tyranny, his general
powers of exasperation, would have been unendurable by any save
possible legatees, whose meekness, however, instead of disarming the
old savage, seemed to incite him to yet greater cruelties. The end was
the same in every case. He would fasten some perfectly unreasonable
quarrel upon his hosts, and fling out of the house in a furious
passion; subsequently amusing himself by inditing from his next abode
injurious replies to the petitions for pardon and reconciliation which
pursued him.
One day a cab drove up to Tom Wedlake’s door, and Uncle Franklin,
alighting therefrom, walked into the parlour, plumped himself into the
most comfortable armchair, and announced his intention of remaining,
adding that his luggage would arrive shortly. Lucy, in consternation,
entertained him as well as she could, which did not appear to be very
well, until her husband came home and they were able to take counsel
together.
Tom was at first entirely opposed to the whole thing; and being himself
of a somewhat fiery temper, hinted at forcible expulsion as a means of
solving the difficulty. But Lucy begged him to do nothing hastily, and
suggested that the self-invited guest might at all events remain for a
few days, until they should be able to see for themselves whether he
were in reality so black as he had been painted. And whether it was
the excellence of the little dinner which Lucy dished up, or the bright
though homely comfort around him, or certain indications in Tom’s look
and manner, the dreadful uncle, having come in like a lion, seemed
disposed to remain in the character of a lamb. He actually tried, in
the course of the evening, to pay Lucy a compliment on her good looks,
which only missed fire because no one could possibly have understood it.
Before he went to bed, Uncle Franklin repeated his proposal, offering
very liberal terms; and he lamented his lonely old age and the evident
disposition of all his relatives to quarrel with him, in a way which
went to Lucy’s soft heart. Even Tom, than whom there was no better
fellow breathing, was taken in so far that he forgot much that he
had heard of the woes attending Uncle Franklin’s irruption into any
household. It so happened that he had never troubled Lucy’s own family
circle, who alone of all his relatives lived at some distance from
London. The young couple sat late that night, discussing the matter
from all sides, and at last determined to make the trial. Lucy was
influenced partly by pity, partly by the hope, which had in it little
indeed of the mercenary element, that her uncle might leave her some
small legacy, so that her darling husband might not, after all, have
an altogether undowered bride. Tom, on his side, thought only of the
wife he loved; the additional income would enable her to keep another
servant, would relieve her from hard and menial labour, and would even
afford her some few little feminine luxuries which had hitherto been
beyond her reach. So each, for the other’s sake, was willing to bow the
back for the burden.
For a time all went well. The old man seemed to have made a sudden and
vast amendment. True, he was generally irritable, always selfish, and
sometimes expressed himself in rather odd language. But these, after
all, were mere eccentricities, failings of old age, results of a life
apart from all refining influences. They were not insupportable by two
people who had youth, health, and good spirits to their aid. And it was
evident that Uncle Franklin had taken a fancy to his niece. He liked to
have her sitting near him at work; and she made an exemplary listener
while he fought over again the battles of business, or indulged in
tirades against the baseness and ingratitude of mankind in general
and his other relations in particular. To Tom he was civil, and even
friendly after his fashion; altogether, he was an endurable inmate; and
his entertainers began to believe that the tales which they had heard
must at least have been highly coloured.
But after a month of this, Tom and Lucy began to discover that very
little present advantage was likely to result to them from the
arrangement, which was also irksome in many ways. Uncle Franklin paid
well; but then his ideas on the subjects of eating and drinking and
minor luxuries were on an even more liberal scale. In fact, after his
requirements in this way were provided for, and the expense of the
necessary additional servant met, there was little or no margin of
profit remaining. And the demands upon Lucy’s time and energies were
considerable. Uncle Franklin liked attention, and was unsparing in
exacting it; he was, in truth, something of an invalid, which perhaps
partly accounted for his temper and other peculiarities; so that Tom
began to think seriously of hinting to his guest that it was hardly
convenient to entertain him longer; when one evening the old man, being
alone with his host and in an unusually equable frame of mind, made an
explicit declaration of his intentions. Having first anathematised all
his other relations in a general but very hearty manner, he vowed that
his niece and her husband were so far the only people with whom he had
been able to get on; that he found himself more comfortable with them
than he had ever been in his life; and that, with their permission, he
proposed to end his days in their company. Tom looked a little awkward;
but Mr Franklin, as if guessing at what was in his mind, went on to
say that on this condition he should make Lucy his sole legatee; there
being, as he considered, no one who had a better claim upon him, or to
whom he would willingly leave a fraction of his wealth. Of course Tom
could only express his grateful acknowledgments. He was too poor, his
prospects were too uncertain for him to be justified in standing in the
light of his wife and possible children; so Uncle Franklin was given to
understand that his proposal was accepted.
Lucy was full of delight when her husband told her what had passed; but
Tom himself was by no means disposed to be sanguine.
‘It’s all very well, little woman,’ said he; ‘and so far he has behaved
with tolerable decency. But I don’t think he’s exactly a person to
be trusted. You see, he is very comfortable here, thanks to you, and
he is undeniably selfish. Naturally, he would like to stay; and some
men will say or promise anything to get what they want at the moment.
Let him stay, by all means; we must not throw away such a chance. But
don’t allow yourself to build too much on his promises, my dear. I,
for my part, shall not be at all surprised if he gets tired of us, and
quarrels with us, as he has with the rest; nor even if we find, after
he has ended his days here and got all he can out of us, that his money
is left elsewhere.’
Lucy said little, but she could not bring herself to believe in the
existence of such duplicity, and in her heart she was convinced of her
uncle’s _bona fides_. She even felt a little shocked that her husband,
whom she so loved and admired, could entertain such narrow and unworthy
suspicions; and she resolved that, so far as it depended on her, the
old man should have no just cause to reconsider his testamentary
intentions.
But it is to be feared that this attack of amiability, coupled with the
repression of the past few weeks, had put a strain upon Uncle Franklin
which he was unable to bear. Perhaps he thought that his munificent
promise entitled him to relax a little; perhaps he considered that he
had now made his footing in the house absolutely safe. However that
may have been, within a very few days after this conversation, the
old Adam began to appear in him once more. In Tom’s presence, he was
still on his good behaviour, having an instinctive fear of him, as
one not likely to submit tamely to oppression. But Tom was absent all
day at his office; and when Uncle Franklin had no one to withstand
him but a woman, and a very timid and gentle one to boot, he began
to ‘let himself out.’ His powers of fault-finding were perfectly
microscopic; he passed his time in devising vexations and enjoying
them with the keenest relish. As for his language, it daily increased
in majesty and ornament. He spoke to the servants in such a manner
that one of them—the new one—threatened to give warning, and was with
difficulty persuaded to remain; and Lucy was obliged to keep them as
much as possible from contact with her guest. He would begin with a
grumble at some trifle, round which he would gradually crystallise
his grievances, and work himself up by their contemplation into a
condition of insane rage, in which he would amble about the room like
an angry baboon, knocking down chairs and scattering verbal brimstone
all around. On these occasions, his liking for Lucy seemed to disappear
altogether, and he would indulge in the most unpleasant criticisms on
her appearance, her intellect, and her housekeeping abilities. Neither
would he spare her husband, whom he was accustomed to sum up with
similarly uncomplimentary results, inviting Lucy to report his comments
to their object—a course which, he understood very well, nothing would
induce her to take.
She bore it all heroically. She knew what the consequence would be if
the slightest hint of the treatment to which she was subjected should
ever reach Tom’s ears; so she contented herself with uncomplaining
good-temper so long as that was possible, and tears—which added fuel to
her uncle’s wrath—when endurance was pushed beyond its limits. Of her
own profit she thought little; or rather, the loss of her expectations
would have seemed to her humble and contented nature but a small price
to pay for release from her sufferings. But for Tom’s sake—in the hope
of seeing him relieved of that anxiety for her future which she knew to
be always present to his mind—for the sake of those who might hereafter
cling around her knees—she was prepared to endure silently the worst
that Uncle Franklin could do to her.
This state of things, however, came to a sudden end in a manner to her
most unwelcome. Her husband came home one afternoon much earlier than
usual. He had thought of late that his wife looked rather pale and
worn, and had resolved to treat her to a little dinner at a restaurant,
and to take her afterwards to the theatre, in the hope that the outing
might give her a much-needed fillip. The consequence was that he met
her unexpectedly, as she came out of the dining-room. Could she have
had a few moments’ time, she would have utilised it in sponging her
eyes and generally smoothing down her ruffled plumage, for this was
one of the days on which she had given way under Uncle Franklin’s
inflictions; her face was all blurred with tears, and she was sobbing
so that she could not immediately stop. All that he had heard of the
old man rushed into Tom’s mind, and he suspected at once the state of
the case. He took her up-stairs, and then and there had it all out
of her, with that gentle and perfectly unbending firmness which she
could never resist. He said no more than to bid his little wife dry
her eyes and be comforted, kissed her, and went down-stairs, quite
deaf to her feeble efforts to excuse the offender. Uncle Franklin had
a bad half-hour of it that afternoon; he probably heard more solid
truth than he had been favoured with for many years. It was never
exactly known what Tom said to him; but before bedtime that night, it
was quite understood by all the household that their guest was under
orders to quit within a week. Uncle Franklin did not utter a word all
the evening, but sat in his armchair, blinking furtively at his host,
feeling guilty and detected, but yet unrepentant. Before he went to
bed, he announced his intention of keeping to his own room for the
remainder of his stay, and requested that a fire might be lit there in
the morning. Also, he wrote a letter, and sent a servant to post it.
This letter it was which occasioned Mr Blackford’s visit.
That worthy solicitor prepared the will, which was very short and
simple, with the care demanded by a document of such importance to
his own interests. He even took the precaution to fair-copy it for
signature himself, so as to pay strict regard to the desire of the
testator that no inkling of its purport should leak out prematurely;
and with it he next day repaired to Camden Town, taking with him, as
requested, two witnesses—his own clerk, and a writer in the employ of
his law-stationer.
Mr Franklin chuckled a great deal as he wrote his name. ‘You can take
it away and keep it yourself, Blackford,’ said he, after the witnesses
had done their part and retired; ‘I’ll warrant you to take good care of
it.—By the way, I don’t think the date’s inserted.’
The solicitor began to unbutton the greatcoat, in an inner pocket of
which he had buried the precious piece of paper.
‘Oh, bother that! Do it when you get back. It’s your concern—not mine.
I’ve had enough of you for one while; and I feel confoundedly queer. I
suppose this business has upset me, though I don’t know why it should.
It wouldn’t have done so, once on a time.—Good-day.’ And, nothing loth,
Mr Blackford took himself off with his treasure.
The prize was his; but only conditionally. This unreliable testator
might alter his mind at any moment and undo his freak. Mr Blackford,
with all his faults, was not murderously inclined; but it is to be
feared that if some burglar in the pursuit of his calling had found it
necessary to eliminate Mr Franklin that night, and had confided his
intentions beforehand to the solicitor, something would have happened
to prevent that gentleman from warning the police. He re-entered his
office with a sigh. Never had it appeared to him so gloomy as at this
moment, when, with the possibility of future wealth in his pocket,
he found himself still confronted with the necessity of solving that
difficult and importunate bread-and-cheese problem.
Uncle Franklin had rightly estimated his chances of remaining an inmate
of the Wedlake nest. On the morning after the execution of his will, he
came down to the dining-room at breakfast-time, and then and there ate
humble-pie with the best grace he could assume. He apologised formally
to Lucy, and promised never to repeat his behaviour. He pleaded to Tom
his failing health and increasing age, and drew a moving picture of
himself as an outcast upon the world, at the mercy of landladies; and
he did this with a certain rough pathos which produced its effect. Tom
was very short and stern in his replies, and would commit himself to
nothing definite, but promised to think the matter over during the day.
And when he returned at night, Lucy the soft-hearted met him with an
appeal, before which he gave way.
‘He has been very humble and quiet all day,’ said she. ‘I think, my
boy—so savage about his little wife!—has quite broken the poor old
man’s spirit. I don’t think we ought to send him away. Of course, there
is the money; and it’s nonsense to pretend that we shouldn’t be glad if
he were to leave us a little. We can’t afford to despise it, Tom. I am
sure he likes me, though he is so cross; and I am not much afraid that
this affair will make any difference in the end. But besides all that,
he is so friendless and alone, rich as he is.—We will try to keep him,
won’t we, Tom dear?’
‘He must be on his good behaviour, then,’ said Tom, only half
mollified. ‘I’ll stand no more nonsense, let him be as rich as Crœsus.’
‘Leave him to me,’ said Lucy; ‘there will be no more trouble with him.
It was my own fault for giving way so much. I shall be wiser now, and
so will he.’
‘As you like, dear,’ said her husband. ‘I have no right to oppose you
in this matter, if you are willing to sacrifice yourself. I am very
much afraid you will be disappointed. Forgiveness of injuries is not
in your dear uncle’s nature, or I am much mistaken. He hates me like
poison now, of course; and he can’t benefit you without doing the same
by me, to some extent.’
‘I don’t know,’ returned Lucy thoughtfully. ‘I think you will find him
very different in future. He seems to me as if he had had a shock. No
one has ever stood up to him before, you know; and the treatment may
have a good effect.’
It did not occur to either of them to attach any importance to the
visits of Mr Blackford, of whose profession they were ignorant. Uncle
Franklin, though he had retired from trade, continued his speculative
investments; and the calls of gentlemen of unmistakable ‘business’
appearance were of such common occurrence, that they had almost ceased
to attract notice in the household, the master and mistress of which
were two of the least curious people in the world.
The old man certainly was altered, suddenly and strangely. His
ill-temper had disappeared; he even refrained from swearing when, on
one occasion, a mishap in the kitchen ruined his lunch. He became
remarkably silent; he gave up his morning walk, seldom read his paper,
and moped all day in his armchair, following Lucy about the room with
his eyes whenever she was present. She was rather anxious about him,
and did her best, by redoubled kindness and attention, to soothe what
she supposed to be his mortification under the sharp rebuke which
he had received. For a long time he scarcely noticed her efforts,
remaining sullen and unresponsive; but after a while she found that
he still liked her to be near him, and got restless and uneasy if
she were long absent. He seemed to have something on his mind, and
would gaze into the fire and mutter anxiously to himself for hours
together. For Tom he entertained a hearty and unconcealed aversion,
never speaking to him unless obliged to do so, and glaring at him with
no doubtful expression whenever his back was turned. Of this Tom was
almost oblivious, and entirely careless; for no ‘expectations,’ however
important to himself or to others, could have enabled him to dissemble
his real feelings towards any one whom he either loved or disliked.
DREAM-FANCIES.
Whence are ye that come to us
In the stilly night?
Wherefore do you torture thus,
Phantoms of delight?
Say, if ye are only fancies,
Why your presence so entrances—
So deceives our sight?
Where, oh, where’s your stronghold, tell,
In what fairy land?
O’er what meads of Asphodel
Sport your elfin band?
Tell me truly, flitting fancies,
Where you hold those fairy dances,
On what sunny strand?
When you, with your subtle spell,
Hold our senses fast,
Absent comrades with us dwell,
Present seems the Past:
Say, if ye are idle fancies,
Why, when overpast the trance is,
Its impressions last?
Wherefore bring before us still
Those from whom we sever?
Mean you, that you tyrants will
Grant oblivion never?
Say, if ye are dreams and fancies,
Why in dreams young Cupid’s lances
Strike as deep as ever?
Tell me who your power confers,
Say from whom ye borrow
All your magic—harbingers
Ushering joy or sorrow;
Why, if ye’re but fickle fancies,
These dream-faces, these dream-glances
Haunt us so to-morrow?
Mortal mind may never know,
Mortal wisdom cite
Whence ye come or whither go,
Spirits of the night:
Yet your mystery enhances,
And your witchery entrances
More than pen may write.
E. W. H.
* * * * *
Printed and Published by W. & R. CHAMBERS, 47 Paternoster Row, LONDON,
and 339 High Street, EDINBURGH.
* * * * *
_All Rights Reserved._