is known as ‘the Dead-man’s Tope.’ In it there is a solitary grave,
that of a young Scotchman. For many years the natives alleged that his
‘ghost’ was to be seen walking mournfully amongst the trees, for they
said he could not rest until his appointed years had been fulfilled.
He had been a corporal in a Scotch regiment stationed in Bangalore,
beloved by all his comrades, but unfortunately hated by the sergeant
of his company. At last, goaded by the unjust treatment he received
from this sergeant, he struck him down in a moment of passion. In those
days, discipline was stern; the young corporal was tried, and condemned
to be hanged in the presence of the whole garrison. The execution
took place; but so great was the feeling against the sergeant, that
he had to be sent away from the regiment down to Madras, protected
by a military escort. The general officer who told me this story was
a witness of this sad scene, and was the interpreter to the native
soldiers of the reason of the execution. That young corporal belonged
to Glasgow, and was connected with many respectable families in the
city.
Here is a happier tale. John Home, after many years’ service in the
Honourable Company’s artillery, retired on a pension, and settled at
Bangalore. He became editor of a small local paper, and so for a few
years was a prominent member of the community. He married, and had an
only son. This boy was but an infant when the father died, his death
being hastened by intemperate living. On Home’s private writing-desk
being opened, his relations found, to their amazement, a sheet of
paper with the handwriting of the deceased telling his real name—for
Home was a fictitious one he had assumed on his enlistment—and whence
he came, and where his relatives were to be found. These disclosures
were made, so the paper said, for the only reason that perhaps on some
future day they might benefit his boy; and were it not for this hope,
the secret would have gone down with him to the grave. Strange to say,
not many months elapsed when an advertisement appeared in an Edinburgh
paper signed by a legal firm, asking for information about this very
man, giving his real name. Of course the Edinburgh gentlemen were at
once communicated with; and after all the evidences were submitted,
and no doubt well scrutinised, the claim of the widow and her child
was acknowledged. The boy was brought home and educated; and I trust
still is, what he was a few years ago, the proprietor of a ‘snug little
estate.’ Such is some of the romance of the ‘rank and file’ of our army.
COLONEL REDGRAVE’S LEGACY.
IN FOUR CHAPTERS.—CHAPTER III.
The spinster sisters held a council of war on the day following the
events we have described. They were not disappointed at the failure of
the marriage proposals to Miss Fraser; for that young lady was by no
means the kind of guardian they would select for their brother as a
bulwark against the troubles and vexations of this mortal life. The way
was now more clear than ever for the success of their original plan.
Septimus had learned their ideas and wishes, and had gradually become
more amenable to reason. The beauty and talent of the handsome widow
had been fully descanted upon. Nor were her monetary qualifications
lost sight of by the practical Penelope. The question of suitability as
to age had been delicately but firmly touched upon by both the sisters.
‘Mrs Fraser is only ten years your junior, Septimus, and that is the
difference which should always exist between husband and wife. Indeed,
I see no objection to even a greater disproportion, but that is the
minimum necessary to conjugal happiness. I am certain that Mrs Fraser
has a _tendresse_ for you, and that any proposal from you would meet
with every encouragement.’
Septimus left the room considerably mollified, and immediately after
he had done so, Penelope turned to her sister, and said: ‘I trust,
Lavinia, you approve of all I have been saying to dear Septimus?’
‘Entirely, my dear sister; but’—— Lavinia paused.
‘You have always a “but,” Lavinia. Pray, speak out.’
‘Well, I have a suspicion that Mrs Fraser has a lurking sentiment for
Mr Lockwood.’
‘Good gracious, Lavinia! you certainly conceive the most extraordinary
notions.’
‘I do not say for a single moment that the sentiment is reciprocated,’
replied Lavinia.
‘Why, Frank Lockwood is young enough to be her son!’ indignantly
exclaimed Penelope.
‘Hardly, Penelope, unless Mrs Fraser was marriageable at the age of
six,’ Lavinia continued. ‘Then I cannot help thinking that Frank is in
love with Blanche.’
Penelope made a gesture of assent. ‘That is highly probable, and would
account for her rejection of Septimus.’
Finally, the sisters mutually agreed that it would be politic to
prepare Mrs Fraser for the possible proposal of their brother.
We trust the reader will not contemptuously label the spinster sisters
as ‘matchmakers;’ for surely matchmaking is a fitting task for the
angels, if it be true, as we are often told, that marriages are made in
heaven.
At this moment the widow chanced to enter the drawing-room where
the sisters were sitting. Her features still showed traces of the
disappointment she had recently experienced.
‘We have not seen you all the morning, Mrs Fraser.’
‘I awoke with a slight headache, and sought the solitude of the Chine,
my sole companion a book,’ replied the widow.
‘I trust you are better?’ said Lavinia.
‘Yes, thanks. I never enjoy Tennyson so much as when surrounded by
murmuring foliage, and my ears filled with the sound of falling waters.’
‘How charming to have preserved your sentiment till _now_,’ said
Penelope in marked tones.
This remark may seem ill calculated to put the widow in a good-tempered
frame of mind. But Miss Redgrave had uttered it advisedly. The more
fully Mrs Fraser was impressed with her own increasing years and
fading charms, the more likely she was to listen to the suit of the
elderly-looking Septimus.
For a moment the widow coloured, as if in anger. ‘That is not exactly a
complimentary remark, my dear Miss Redgrave.—Now, don’t apologise, for
I am not in the least offended. How can I be, when I have a daughter,
not only marriageable, but actually engaged to be married!’
The sisters simultaneously left off their needlework, and gazing in
astonishment at the speaker, sat as mute as the twin sisters carved in
stone in the sandy Egyptian desert.
‘Yes; Mr Lockwood has asked my consent to his marriage with Blanche,
and I have graciously accorded the same. Heigh-ho! it will be a great
trial for me, when the hour of parting comes.’
‘I congratulate you most sincerely, my dear Mrs Fraser,’ exclaimed
Penelope. ‘We have known Frank from a child. He is everything that a
man should be, clever, accomplished, with good prospects, and of high
moral principles.’
The widow sighed. ‘I shall be very lonely. I have not an affectionate
sister as you have; and when a woman has once known the happiness
of married life, and the comfort and protection of an affectionate
husband, life is indeed a blank when she is left utterly alone.’
Like a second Wellington, Penelope saw her chances of a successful
attack. In love and war, the occasion is everything. She gently laid
her spare fingers on the plump hand of the widow, and softly whispered:
‘Why should you be utterly alone, dear friend?’
Mrs Fraser directed an inquiring glance in response at the speaker.
‘We know of one who would be only too happy to be your companion for
life,’ pursued Penelope. ‘Of a suitable age, amiable, and rich.’
The countenance of the widow was suffused with a soft blush as she
said: ‘Where shall I find this earthly treasure?’
‘In this house, Mrs Fraser. Our beloved brother, Septimus.’
Mrs Fraser had much ado to avoid making a wry face, as she mentally
contrasted the white-haired ‘brother’ with his vacuous expression of
countenance, and the black-haired Frank Lockwood, with his bright
intelligent glance and fascinating smile. But it was now quite as
probable that she would marry the Emperor of China as the solicitor of
the Redgrave family; so she softly murmured; ‘I had no suspicion of
anything of the kind.’
Rapidly the widow reviewed all the attendant circumstances of the case.
Von Moltke himself would have envied her comprehensive glance at the
pros and cons of an important conjuncture of events. Septimus was of
good family, of suitable age, possessed of ample means, and last, but
not least in the eyes of the widow, was not too clever; and therefore,
in all probability easily manageable, that indispensable desideratum in
a husband. We are not sure that Mrs Fraser was correct in her deduction
on this point, for foolish people are frequently obstinate, under the
false idea that they are thereby displaying firmness.
‘If I were to accept Mr Redgrave on the instant, in consequence of your
recommendation, my dear Penelope, neither he nor his sisters would
respect me. I have always found great pleasure in the society of your
brother, and have a great respect for his character. More, I am sure,
my dear Penelope, you would neither expect, nor wish me to say.’
Both the sisters cordially kissed the blushing widow, and expressed
themselves as quite satisfied with the avowal, Penelope adding: ‘I have
more than a presentiment that in a few weeks we shall be enabled to
give you the kiss of a sister.’
No more was said on the present occasion.
The widow retired to her chamber, and as she contemplated her
features in the glass, soliloquised: ‘No—at forty, one must not be
too particular; and there are twenty thousand excellent reasons why I
should change my name from Fraser to that of Redgrave.’
It is needless to say that the sisters did not allow the grass to grow
under their feet with respect to the proposed alliance between the
families of Redgrave and Fraser. Much stress was laid by them in their
conversations with the widow as to the shyness of their brother, and
the necessity of some encouragement being extended to him. At length
Septimus screwed his courage to the sticking-place and resolved to
learn his fate. By a singular coincidence, he found the widow seated
on the identical bench occupied on a similar occasion by her youthful
daughter. An involuntary sigh escaped him as he mentally instituted a
comparison between the sylph-like figure of Blanche and the more portly
form of her mother. As he sat down by her side in response to her
invitation, he felt his courage oozing away. On the former occasion,
he had been bold as a lion; but in the presence of the keen-witted
woman of the world, he fully realised his mental inferiority. Some
commonplaces ensued, and then Mrs Fraser, laying down the newspaper
which she held in her hand, suddenly observed: ‘What is your opinion of
thought-reading, Mr Redgrave? Do you believe in it?’
‘I scarcely know whether I do or not,’ responded Septimus. ‘Do you?’
‘Implicitly,’ replied the widow. ‘Shall I give you a specimen of my
powers?’
‘I should be delighted. Can you read my thoughts?’ said Septimus.
‘I can. But you must promise two things: That you won’t be offended at
my guess; and that you candidly admit whether I am correct in my guess.’
‘I promise.’
‘Give me your hand.’
Septimus placed his trembling fingers in the strong grasp of the widow.
‘You are at this moment contemplating matrimony.’
‘That is correct,’ said Septimus.
‘The lady is a widow.’
‘Wonderful!’ cried Septimus. ‘Can you tell me her name?’
‘My powers do not extend so far,’ returned Mrs Fraser.
‘Your successful guess, my dear Mrs Fraser, has helped me out of a
great difficulty.’
‘How so?’
‘You have half-performed my task for me. Do you think a lady, handsome,
rich, and well-bred, and still comparatively young, would consent
to unite her fortunes with mine? I am some ten or a dozen years her
senior. I have been a bachelor all my life, and may have thus acquired
peculiar ways. But I would settle the whole of my cousin’s legacy upon
her, if she would take pity on my solitary state. Dear Fanny, can you
not guess, without thought-reading, the name of my enslaver?’
The widow looked down and managed to blush becomingly, and impart a
slight tremor to the hand which still held that of Septimus.
‘I will not affect to misunderstand you, Mr Redgrave; you are making my
unworthy self an offer of marriage.’
‘And you accept it?’
‘I do.’
Septimus sealed the contract by a chaste kiss on the cheek of the
widow, and felt a sensation of inexpressible relief that the Rubicon,
for good or evil, was passed.
‘I may now tell you, dear Septimus, that Blanche is also engaged.’
‘I know it.’
‘Impossible! I only knew it myself forty-eight hours ago!’
‘Do not ask me at present, dear Fanny. I learned the fact by an
accident.’
The widow presently retired to her chamber, under the plea of nervous
agitation, but in reality to inform her daughter of her engagement. But
it was reserved for Septimus to perform that pleasant duty. Scarcely
had Mrs Fraser retired, when Blanche appeared on the terrace. ‘Have you
seen mamma, Mr Redgrave?’
‘Mrs Fraser has this moment left me.—Blanche, I have a favour to ask of
you.’
‘Of me!’
‘That you will not breathe a syllable to your mamma that I proposed to
you three days ago; at least, not for the present.’
‘Certainly, Mr Redgrave.’
‘You will at once see the necessity for my request, when I tell you
that I have this day proposed to another lady and been accepted.’
Blanche indulged in a merry peal of laughter, which she found it
impossible to repress. ‘Pray, forgive me, Mr Redgrave. I congratulate
you that you have so speedily recovered from your late rejection.’
‘Yes, Blanche, as I could not be your husband, I have resolved on being
your father.’
Blanche remained petrified with astonishment for a few seconds, then
exclaiming: ‘I must go at once to dear mamma and congratulate her,’
prepared to enter the house.
But Septimus seized her hand and said: ‘Now, tell me the name of _your_
future partner. Though I shrewdly suspect, yet I think in my new
position as your father I am entitled to know for certain?’
‘Mr Frank Lockwood,’ replied the blushing girl, as she broke away and
ran into the house.
There was not a happier circle round a dinner-table in the island than
that assembled in Oswald Villa that evening. The engaged couples were
mutually satisfied with their matrimonial prospects, while the spinster
sisters saw the wish of their hearts gratified in the engagement of
their beloved brother with so suitable a person as Mrs Fraser. But at
that moment a cloud was forming on the horizon which was destined to
effect a great change in the fortunes of the betrothed couples.
A SAMPLE OF MARSALA.
Time was, long ago, when certain of us thought that Spain was the place
where the then despised Marsala wine was made. Struggling to obtain
the favour and recognition of the public, and held as a kind of humble
cousin of sherry, cheaper to buy and meaner in all its conditions,
Marsala had no honour in England some thirty years or so ago. Those who
gave it gave it for need; and for the most part tried to pawn it off
as its more aristocratic relation, thinking that no one would suspect
the truth when that silver label, shaped like a vine-leaf with ‘Sherry’
cut out in Roman capitals in the centre, was hung round the neck of the
heavy cut-glass bottle. And as sherry was certainly a Spanish wine,
the false reasoning born of association of ideas made one think that
Marsala also was a Spanish wine.
The way to Marsala from Palermo is exceedingly interesting. The country
is beautiful with all the grand Sicilian beauty—broken foregrounds,
noble mountain forms, the dark-blue sea, of which the splendour is
enhanced by the gray green of the olives and the contrast of the golden
hue given by the lemon-trees hanging thick with fruit. All the waysides
along the railroad are rich in flowers, making the land look as if
enamelled. Rugged capes and fertile plains, small smooth exquisite bays
and inland mountains, orange-gardens and vineyards, fields of pale
lilac flax, woods of beech and ilex, and rivers running down in song
to the sea—there is not a feature of Southern scenery wanting on this
lovely way. And the sea, where the white sails of passing ships gleam
in the sunlight like the wings of birds, is as beautiful as the land,
where here a ruined temple crowns a height, and there a modern mansion
stands sheltered on the slopes. Among the beautiful things of the sea
is the uninhabited rocky island called ‘The Island of Women’ (_L’isola
delle femmine_). The legend is that in old times, when pirates
abounded, the ‘Barbari’ used to seize such hapless Sicilian women as
they found wandering by the shore, and lodge them on this island till
they had finished their fighting on shore; when they would return and
carry off their prey.
In time the beauty of the lovely road fades away, and the country
becomes utterly uninteresting. Still, even when there is no more
flowery charm and no more golden colour, there is always association,
and the way up to Segesta and Solinunto, with the ruined temple visible
on the crest of the mountain, brings before the mind the long train of
glorious images by which the ancient history of Sicily is thronged.
For we are skirting the base of Mount Eryx, now Monte Giuliano,
whence Acestes the king came down to meet Æneas when he landed on his
return from Carthage; and where Æneas—so they say—founded the town of
Acesta, which afterwards became Egesta, and is now Segesta. And all
the well-known story repeats itself. ‘Selinus rich in palms,’ and ‘the
shallow waters of Lilybæum’ which were ‘left behind;’ the race, and the
beauty of the contending youths; poor Dido’s sad story; the death and
burial of Anchises, the father whom Æneas saved from burning Troy by
carrying on his shoulders—it is all living and palpitating as in those
youthful days when imagination touched the pages with light, and made
the dead words breathe with love and sorrow and passion. It is worth
coming here, if only to realise Virgil and his matchless poem! But we
draw up at a station, and the present puts the past to flight—the real
blots out the ideal born of imagination and poetry.
Armed _carabinieri_ are at every station. This is not usual either
in Sicily or elsewhere in Italy, where soldiers keep order at the
stations, but are not so numerous nor so heavily armed as these. The
district about Trapani, however, in which we are, has not a good
name; and the government knows what it is about when it takes extra
measures of precaution for the safety of travellers. That it does take
these extra measures insures the safety of the wayfarers. At Marsala
itself, the whole train is taken possession of before it has well come
to a stand, and long before the passengers have got out. The crowd
swarms into all three classes indiscriminately; and there is much
rough pushing and hustling, but no actual brutality. Still, it is
sufficiently like the return of ’Arry from a Crystal Palace fête to be
unpleasant; though for all that, the Italian ’Arry is a good-natured
soul, with no malice in him. What he wants in malice, however, he makes
up in garlic. There has been an Easter-week procession here—it is
‘Holy Thursday’—and all the neighbourhood has sent its young men, each
township and village its quota, till they have come in their hundreds,
and have to be taken back again the best way they can.
Near Marsala is one of the three promontories which give Sicily its
name of Trinacria—Cape Lilybeo, the very Lilybæum whose ‘shallows
blind,’ ‘dangerous through their hidden rocks,’ caused Æneas to land on
the ‘unlucky shore’ of Drepanum. Here in calm weather you can see the
remains of houses beneath the sea, as at Pozzuoli, near Naples. But the
point of the whole visit is the wine-stores of Ingham—the largest and
most important of all the Marsala wine-factories. These stores seem to
be interminable; and the perspective of arches, from each side of which
branch out these huge above-ground cellars, is a sight at once strange
and picturesque. The _balio_ or inclosure wherein the whole concern
stands—storehouses, workshops, dwelling-house, garden, fields, &c.—is
really like a fair-sized estate. To ‘walk in the grounds’ is quite
enough exercise for any moderate-minded pedestrian. The oldest two
stores date from 1812, and are the parents of all that have come after.
They are picturesque little places now, covered with glossy dark-green
ivy and flame-coloured bougainvillia; but, like the fathers and mothers
of prosperous families, they are set aside as comparatively useless in
the presence of their stalwart children.
In going through the stores, one is struck not only with the number,
but also with the enormous size of the wine-vats. Some are of huge
proportions, not quite equalling the famous Tun of Heidelberg perhaps,
but coming pretty close to it, and holding wine to the worth of an
astounding figure. The value of one store alone comes up to a moderate
fortune; and there are thirty in all. Once a boy went to sleep in one
of those weird receptacles, and was not found till the next morning.
The fumes had overpowered him, but he came out none the worse. Some
of the wine given us to taste is fifty years old, and is delicious in
proportion to its age and preciousness; and some of the finer sorts
of younger date are unsurpassed in any wine-store extant. Then there
is the huge vat of _vino cotto_ or _vino madre_; and there is the
distilling apparatus, which is very beautiful and dainty. The Custom
House is jealous and exact. It seals up all with a letter-lock, waxen
seals and silken threads; so that no tampering is possible with the
retorts or the receivers. The cool obscurity of the cellars, where
these immense vats are ranged like so many transformed giants, gives
one a sense of restfulness and shelter; while out of doors, the sun,
lying keen and bright on wall and pavement, casting shadows as sharply
defined as if purple paper had been cut with a pair of scissors and
thrown on the ground, has the sentiment of passionate vitality peculiar
to Sicily. Men in coloured shirts, with blue or red sashes round their
waists, add to the general picturesqueness of the scene; and the white
wings of the pigeons shining like silver against the blue sky, complete
a chord of colour to be seen only in the South—that fervid South where
to live is sufficient enjoyment, and where artificial wants as we
have them are neither known nor appreciated, being of the nature of
encumbrances and superfluities. For what else is wanted than the sun
and the sky, the fruits and the flowers, the charm and the glory of
nature? Nevertheless, the material luxury of the North and West is
invading the hitherto frugal and, in one way, ascetic South; and France
and England both, are being imitated even so far as Marsala, where once
the house was held as merely a place of refuge where tired Christians
might sleep at noon and at night, but in nowise as a place of enjoyment
worth the spending of thought or money to make beautiful.
From the vats full of their golden treasure to the casks in process of
making, the transition is natural. Here, again, light and colour give
a certain charm, making a novelty of that which is so well known at
home. For cask-making in Marsala is very much the same as cask-making
in England; and only the men, with very minor details in the method
of manipulation, are different. It is the same drying of the wood,
the same setting of the staves, the same hammering on of the hoops in
regular succession of blows, and we fancy the same kind of white oak,
of which the staves are made, shipped from America for England as well
as for Marsala. Hans Christian Andersen might have written a sprightly
sketch of the oak as it stood in its virgin forest, with grizzlies and
panthers, pretty woodchunks and sweet wild birds all about, till it was
cut down by the forester; packed into a raft and started down the Big
River by the lumberman; brought over to Europe by the huge steamship;
made into casks, and filled with the golden juice of grapes beneath
the glorious sky of Sicily—the wine to be drunk at the marriage of the
bride, the birth of the heir, the death of the master. The place where
they clean the barrels, some in the old-fashioned way of hand-rocking,
with chains inside; the sheds where they cut the hoops and make the
bolts—the drill and the circular saw going through iron and wood like
so much butter or cheese; those where they steam the barrels and those
where they mark them—these, too, come into the day’s work of visiting
and inspection; as well as the cooking-place and the dining-shed for
the three hundred men employed.