measures; and the principal alteration made in our time is that the
heaped measures so familiar to us in our youth were abolished in
1878. The standard unit of measure of capacity is the gallon, both
for liquids and solids. The quart is one-fourth of a gallon, and the
pint is one-eighth thereof. Two gallons are a peck; eight gallons are
a bushel; eight bushels being a quarter; and thirty-six bushels, a
chaldron. In using a measure of capacity, the same is not to be heaped,
but either is to be stricken, as in the case of grain, with a round
stick or roller, straight, and of the same diameter from end to end;
or if the article sold cannot, from its size or shape, be conveniently
stricken, the measure must be filled in all parts as nearly to the
level of the brim as the size and shape of the article will admit.
Many articles which used to be sold by measure are now sold by weight,
such as fruit, vegetables, &c.; and therefore these regulations as to
measuring are not quite so universally interesting as they would have
been fifty years ago; while weights have acquired a greater degree of
importance than they ever had in the olden times.
Every tradesman who values his reputation ought to have his scales
and weights verified frequently; and in any case of any part of his
weighing apparatus being out of order, the authorised inspector ought
to be visited without delay, or some other efficient test should be
applied. Nothing injures a tradesman more than a conviction for having
defective weights or inaccurate scales in his possession. Whatever
suspicions his customers may entertain as to their parcels being
underweight, the certainty of such a conviction will impress them
far more; and many who never previously thought of weighing their
purchases, will begin to do so in consequence of seeing the conviction
reported in the papers; and yet we are willing to believe that in many
cases the conviction has been brought about by carelessness, and has
not been a punishment for deliberate fraud.
_IGNORANCE OF LAW AND OF FACT._
There is a great difference between the consequences of ignorance of
law and ignorance of fact. Law is supposed to be universally known,
though few if any persons are acquainted with all the multifarious laws
which are in existence, many of them being practically obsolete, others
repealed by implication, though not expressly, and the effect of others
being rendered doubtful by means of inconsistent enactments, which from
time to time puzzle the judges, who have to interpret the law in case
of differences of opinion on the part of other persons. The latter
class of laws lead to the necessity for frequent amending statutes, and
some of these are still imperfect, and need further amendments. The
legal system in its more positive department is thus frequently but a
doubtful path on which to walk; and the common law has its difficulties
as well as the statutory law. And yet the nature of the case requires
that all Her Majesty’s subjects should be held bound by all the laws
which are applicable to their respective positions. The rights of an
unfortunate ignoramus who is kept out of his property by fraud or
force are lost, and his estates become irrecoverable if those rights
are not enforced within the time limited by law, although he may never
have heard of there being a stipulated time for the commencement of an
action.
Blackstone gives as an illustration the case of a person who, intending
to kill a burglar in his own house, by mistake kills one of his own
family. This being a mistake of fact, is not a criminal offence. But if
another man, mistaking the law, thinks that he has a right to kill a
person who is excommunicate or an outlaw, and acts upon that belief, he
would be liable to be convicted for wilful murder. It may be observed
that the right of a householder to kill a burglar in his dwelling-house
is not an unqualified right; for in that case, a private individual
would be empowered to inflict a greater punishment than would be
awarded by the law after conviction. In case a burglar should attempt
violence which appeared likely to lead to murder of any of the inmates
of the house, the law would hold the person attacked justifiable in
defending his own life, even though in doing so he were compelled to
take the life of the assailant; but the necessity ought to be clearly
proved, if the defence is to succeed.
In civil actions, when the facts on which the supposed cause of
action arose are in dispute, and if either party has been led
to make concessions to the other party by means of fraudulent
misrepresentations, the ignorance of the victim of the fraud will not
prevent him from taking proceedings to set aside the agreement so
fraudulently obtained, when he becomes acquainted with the facts. But
if the compromise were founded upon a misconception of the law, he
would be bound by it; for he ought to have known the law, or employed
some person who knew it to protect his interests in the matter. But
having neglected this obvious precaution, he must submit to the
consequences with what grace he can assume.
The system of enacting new laws is not altogether free from objection,
though it is not so easy to apply a remedy as to form an objection.
The laws are passed at irregular times, some coming into operation at
some fixed future time; while others are binding upon all from the very
day on which they receive the royal assent. It is true that when an
Act of Parliament creates a new offence, and a person ignorant of its
existence is convicted of the breach of such new enactment, a slight
penalty is inflicted as a warning to other persons rather than as a
punishment for the offender; but still the stigma remains of having
been convicted for an offence against the law, which is worse to some
sensitive men than a heavy fine would be to some other persons of
different temperament and less unblemished previous character. The
theory that all new laws should be thoroughly made known to all the
persons likely to be affected thereby is like many other well-sounding
theories, it possesses the inherent defect of being impracticable. This
inconvenience of involuntary ignorance of new enactments has been
greatly diminished of late years by the immense increase of newspapers
and the general diffusion of knowledge. The Elementary Education Acts
have so extended the facilities for the acquisition of the art of
reading, and the taste for reading is so cultivated by cheap periodical
literature, that there is much more chance now than formerly of all
classes knowing something of what is being done in the way of new
enactments for the guidance of the people, the parliamentary reports
forming an important part of the contents of every newspaper, and
newspapers have come to be classed among the necessaries of life, even
by those whose incomes are of the smallest. We should, however, be glad
if the legislature could devise some more efficient way of making known
to all persons the laws which they are bound to observe.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] It should be understood that this series of articles deals mainly
with English as apart from Scotch law.
[2] In Scotland, the Testament is not made use of in taking the oath.
The witness is only required to hold up his right hand, and repeat the
words of the oath after the administrator.
THE SIGNALMAN’S LOVE-STORY.
IN TWO CHAPTERS.—CHAP. I.
A song which was very popular when I was a boy, says, ‘Most folks fall
in love, no doubt, some time or other.’ It might with equal truth have
said that most folks fall in love two or three times over. I am sure it
was the case with me. It was also my fate to do what, I am told, is one
of the commonest things in the world—that is, to fall violently in love
with a person entirely out of my own circle; not below it, like the
king and the beggar-maid, but a great deal above me; with a girl, too,
who was as proud and haughty and stony as Juno or a sphinx.
In the time to which I refer, nearly fifty years ago now—I am
seventy-one next birthday—the railway system was in its infancy, but
yet was spreading fast, and I was one of the earliest servants. It was
in no exalted position that I served. My father was dead; my mother
rented a small cottage on the land of the nobleman in whose service
her husband had lived and died; and this nobleman recommended me to
a railway Company which had just constructed a branch through his
estates. I was at first a porter, but afterwards a signalman, and, as
a great favour, I was assigned a post on the branch just mentioned,
close to my own house. The signal was not far from the junction of the
branch with the main line; a very lonely spot for a long way in either
direction, although there was a thriving town some five miles down the
branch; and there was a siding close by where the trucks used in the
scanty local traffic were collected.
There were some cottages near my crossing—I ought to have said that
there was a level crossing not far from my box—in one of these I lived;
a sprinkling of farmhouses and several very good houses of a higher
class were within sight. In one of these latter, not by any means the
grandest, but handsome enough for all that, lived Squire Cleabyrn; and
it was with his only daughter, Miss Beatrice, that I chose to fall in
love. For that matter, I daresay a score of other young fellows as
poor as myself were as earnestly in love with her as I was, but they
probably had sufficient sense not to show their folly. I did show
mine. I could not help it; and when I recall all I felt and suffered
at the time, I feel I must retract my admission that others were as
much in love with her as myself, but had the sense to conceal it; such
a thing would have been impossible. They could not have concealed it;
they might have refrained from talking about it. I did not talk; but
had they seen the girl as often as I did, and looked into her face as
closely as I did, they could not have hidden their infatuation from
her. In return, she would have looked at them with the same haughty
indifference—which yet had a something of contemptuous wonder in it—as
I was treated with.
Not that my story has anything of the Lady of Lyons flavour about it; I
was no Claude to an English Pauline; but this girl, this Miss Beatrice,
was so amazingly beautiful that she was famed for full twenty miles
around. In addition, she was one of the best horsewomen in the county,
and this enabled me to see more of her than I should otherwise have
done. She used to ride out, sometimes with a servant only, sometimes
with a party, nearly every day; and nearly every day she came through
the gates at my crossing. I tried not to look at her, feeling and
knowing that there sparkled from my eager eyes more feeling than I
should have allowed to escape me—but in vain. I could not withhold my
gaze from that cold, dark face—she was not a blonde beauty; golden hair
was not the rage in those days—or from her large, deep, unfathomable
eyes, that looked through me and past me as though I had not been
there, or was at best no more than a part of the barrier I swung open
for her passage. Yet these eyes, as I even then knew but too well, read
me to the core, while they seemed to ignore me.
I am almost ashamed to own it now, and even at this distance of time
it makes my cheeks tingle to recall it, but I have wasted a whole
afternoon, when I had a ‘turn off,’ in hope of seeing Miss Cleabyrn.
Her father’s house stood on a knoll, with smooth open lawns sloping
down from it on all sides, so that from my signal-box I could see when
any one was walking in the front of the mansion, and when a party
assembled to ride out. Well, I have actually lingered, on some feeble
pretence, for four or five hours about the signal-box, in hope that she
might walk on the lawn, or that she might mount and ride through our
gates.
I well remember that it was on one of these afternoons that Miss
Beatrice rode through with a small party. Ah! I recall them easily
enough. There was one other lady, and three gentlemen. To open the gate
for them, for her, was the opportunity I had been longing, waiting
for, and wasting my few hours of holiday for; so I offered to do this
to assist my mate, who had relieved me, and who was glad enough to be
spared the labour; and I caught a full glance from the eyes of Miss
Beatrice. The look was one in which she seemed to exchange glances
with me. I knew it meant nothing, that it was all a delusion, and yet
it would be enough to haunt me for days. I knew that also. I had never
seen her look so beautiful before, and I felt my cheeks and brow turn
burning hot in the instant I met this glance.
They passed. I watched them to the last—I always did—and I saw her
turn her head towards the gentleman who rode by her side. The movement
brought her profile so plainly in view that I could see she was
smiling. As I watched her, the gentleman turned round and looked in
my direction. He was smiling also; it was something beyond a smile
with him, and I then reddened more with shame, than I had before done
with excitement, for I knew he was laughing at me. So Miss Cleabyrn
must have been laughing also; and at what? I was the subject of their
ridicule, and it served me right. Yes; I knew that at the moment, but
to know it did not make the bitter pang less painful.
I went back to my comrade at the signal-box. He, too, had noticed
the group, and said, as I entered the hut: ‘That was the party from
Elm Knoll, wasn’t it?—Ah! I thought so; and of course that was the
celebrated Miss Cleabyrn. You know who that was riding by her side, I
suppose?’
‘No,’ I said, answering as calmly as I could; I was almost afraid to
trust my voice.
‘That’s a young fellow, a captain from somewhere,’ continued my mate,
‘who is going to marry Miss Cleabyrn. He has got a lot of money. So has
she. Sam Powell, who drives the night-mail, knows him, and told me all
about it.’
As the speaker had no idea of the absurd state I was in, he took no
particular notice of me, but changed the subject, and went on with some
indifferent topic.
I was glad he did so, for although I had an utter contempt for myself
and for my folly in allowing the conduct or the future of Miss Cleabyrn
to excite me, yet I could not have conversed on such a theme as her
marriage; while the knowledge that the person to whom I had been
ridiculed—I felt sure of that—was her avowed lover, seemed to increase
the bitterness of the sting tenfold.
I had ample opportunity of seeing that the report which I had heard
was likely, at anyrate, to be founded in fact, as the stranger, the
‘captain from somewhere,’ remained a guest at Elm Knoll for fully a
fortnight, during which time not a day passed without my seeing both
him and Miss Cleabyrn, and sometimes more than once each day. So I came
to know him by sight as well as I did her. He was a frank, handsome,
young fellow; that I could see, and was obliged to own; and in his
speech he was pleasant. This was shown by his stopping on two or three
occasions, when riding alone, to ask me some questions, as I opened the
gate for him.
I was sure he made these occasions, and at first disliked him for it;
but I could not continue to bear ill-will against a man of such kindly
open manners, so I relented, and, ere he left the neighbourhood, used
to look forward with pleasure to seeing him. This was a sad falling-off
from my previous lofty mood, and so was my accepting a cigar from him
as he rode through. In fact, although I have no doubt ‘written myself
an ass,’ as our old friend Dogberry would have said, yet at the worst I
was not without some glimmering of sense, which saved me from making an
absolute example of myself.
Even during the short time in which the captain—I did not know his
name—was visiting at Elm Knoll, the heat and surge of my absurd passion
had perceptibly moderated, and just then several circumstances combined
to restore me to a right frame of mind.
After the captain’s departure, Miss Beatrice left home on a prolonged
visit, so that I did not see her; and at the same time I met Patty
Carr, who was, in her way, quite as pretty as Beatrice Cleabyrn,
although not nearly so haughty; and my heart being specially tender and
open to impression just then, I suppose, I speedily thought more of her
than of the young lady at Elm Knoll. Indeed we were married the next
year.
At the time I speak of, a good many things were in vogue, or at least
had not died out, which have quite vanished now, and among these was
duelling. Every now and then, a duel was fought; but the ridicule
which attended bloodless meetings, and the greater activity of the
police in cases where harm was done, were diminishing them greatly;
yet still, they did occasionally happen. A great stir was made by
a violent quarrel among some officers of a regiment quartered in
Lancashire, in which a challenge to fight a duel had been given and
refused. It was called in the papers of the day, ‘The Great Military
Scandal,’ and arose in the following manner. A certain Major Starley
had offered a gross insult to a young lady, on whom, it appeared, he
had been forcing his attentions for some time; and her only relative,
a half-brother, was in the same regiment with the major. The details
were not pleasant, and it was no wonder that Captain Laurenston
challenged the major; but the latter declined the challenge on some
professional grounds; and when the parties met, high words passed.
These commenced, it appeared, with the captain; but each became violent
in the dispute, until at last the captain thrashed his antagonist in
the presence of several officers. This was not a make-believe beating;
a ‘consider-yourself-horsewhipped’ affair, but a right-down ‘welting,’
the major being badly cut and bruised. This was serious enough, anyhow;
but what made it worse was that the officers were on duty at the time;
and by the strict letter of military law, the captain would certainly
be punished with death.
He had expected, it seems, that after so public and such a painful
humiliation, he would infallibly receive a challenge from the injured
officer; but it was not so. He was placed in arrest in the barracks,
and expected to be brought to a court-martial. He heard, however, from
some friendly source that it was intended to hand him over to the civil
power, when he would be charged with an assault with intent to kill.
In those days, almost anything was transportable, and as Major Starley
belonged to one of the most influential families in the kingdom, there
was no doubt that the captain would be sent to a convict settlement.
There was also no doubt that the prosecution would be conducted in the
most vindictive spirit and pushed to the bitterest end.
Terrified at such a prospect, the young officer escaped from the
barracks, by connivance of the guard, there was reason to suppose,
although this was never completely proved; at anyrate, he got clear
away, and disappeared. Immediate advantage was taken of this fatal
although very natural step, and a reward was at once offered for his
apprehension. If he could get out of the country, he would be safe,
as there were then no engagements for giving up criminals, so the
ports were watched, an easier thing to do when there was not such a
tremendous outflow of emigration as now.
Public sympathy was, naturally, strongly in favour of Captain
Laurenston, and against the major, who would be compelled, it was
generally said, to leave the service. But this would not save the
captain from being cashiered, nor from fourteen years’ transportation,
as he was certain to be made an example of, if only for the purpose of
showing that officers would be protected when they refused to accept a
challenge.
I had taken an interest in all these details, as my mates had
done, and, as with them, my sympathies were on the side of Captain
Laurenston, yet only as a stranger, for I had never, to my knowledge,
heard of him before. But after a while it began to be said that the
captain was the officer who had been so long a visitor at Elm Knoll,
and was the accepted suitor of Miss Cleabyrn. This gave me more
interest in the affair, and I sincerely hoped he might make good his
escape.
Miss Beatrice had returned to Elm Knoll; but she rarely left the house,
and still more rarely rode out, although it was the hunting season, so
that I hardly ever saw her.
I was on night-duty at the signals; and when I went there one evening
to relieve the day man, he told me that there were several London
detectives ‘hanging about the place’—he knew this from one of the
guards who had formerly been in the police, and so recognised them. I
naturally asked if the Company suspected anything wrong among their
people, and my mate said no, not at all. The detectives of course would
not say anything about their business; but the guard suspected that
they were after Captain Laurenston, who was likely to try to see Miss
Cleabyrn before leaving England. This appeared feasible enough; and I
was able heartily to echo the wish of my mate, to the effect that the
young fellow might give his pursuers the slip.
I have said that my signals and crossing were on a branch, of no great
traffic; so, when the last down passengers’ and first night goods’
trains had passed—they followed each other pretty closely—there was
nothing stirring for several hours. Traffic through the gates at the
level crossing after dark, there was little or none, so my berth was
dull and lonely enough. I did not much mind this, for I was fond of
reading, and on this night—a stormy one it was—I was reading a terrible
ghost story. I laugh at such things now, but I know right well that
they made me ‘creep’ then. I daresay every one knows the sensation, and
has felt it over ghost stories. I was in the midst of the most terrible
part, when I heard a slight noise, and lifting up my eyes, saw at my
little window, quite close to me, that which startled me more than any
ghostly appearance ever will. I thought it _was_ a ghost. The glare of
my lamp fell upon the panes, and I recognised the large deep eyes which
had so often thrilled me. I saw, and knew to a certainty that Beatrice
Cleabyrn was looking at me. She knew by my electric start that she was
recognised. The face vanished from my window, and as I sprang from my
seat, there was a tap at my door. I threw it open. The furious blast of
wind which entered almost blew out my lamp, and I felt the driving rain
even as I stood within the hut. It was Miss Cleabyrn, and she at once
stepped over my threshold. She had on a large cloak, the cape of which
was turned up so as to form a hood, and this was dripping with wet;
great drops of rain were on her face too. I pushed my stool, the only
seat in my hut, towards her, and strove to ask what had brought her to
such a spot on such a night; but I could get out no intelligible words.
She had closed the door after her, and in her very manner of doing so,
there was something which suggested fear and danger, so that I caught
my breath in sympathetic alarm.
‘You are Philip Waltress, are you not?’ she said.
I had never heard her speak before, and either I was still under the
influence of my old enchantment, or she really had the most melodious,
most thrilling voice in the world; assuredly I thought so. Of course I
replied in the affirmative.
‘We—I have heard you spoken of,’ she continued; ‘and always favourably.
I am sure you may be trusted; I am sure you will be faithful.’
‘If I can serve you in any manner, Miss Cleabyrn,’ I managed to say, ‘I
will be faithful to any promise I may give—faithful to death.’ This was
a rather strong speech, but I could not help it. As I made it, I felt
that she knew right well, without being led by any report or mention of
me—even if she had heard anything of the sort—why I might be trusted.
She smiled as I said this. I knew how fascinating was her smile, but
I had never seen it with such sadness in it; it was a thousand times
more enthralling than before. ‘I will confide in you,’ she went on. ‘I
will tell you why I am here in such a tempest; to do this, will be to
confide in you most fully.—I will not sit down’—this was called forth
by another offer of the only seat already mentioned—‘I will stand
here’—she was standing in an angle behind the door, much screened by my
desk and some books which were heaped upon it—‘then no chance or prying
passer-by can see me.’
‘None will pass here for some time, Miss Cleabyrn,’ I said; ‘on such a
night as this, on any night, indeed, the place is deserted; but take
the precaution, if it will give you a feeling of greater safety.’
She did so; and then proceeded, firmly and collectedly—I was enabled
afterwards to judge how much the effort cost her—to tell me what had
brought her to my station. ‘You have heard of Captain Laurenston?’ she
began.
I signified that I had done so.